Two o'clock, and all's well. So far. Only another couple of hours to go. Two hours, three hours, left to go.

Sarah is dead, and so she has broken her promise. Not a promise to stay alive. We both knew that would have been foolish. Just a promise to play the game.

I'm sitting crosslegged on the sofa, in the dark, in the smallest hours, waiting. The grandfather clock stands tall at my side, a shard of moonlight reflected on its face like a ghostly hand upon the dial, pointing to a lost hour. Inside the box of its body, a bronze weight moves sleepily back and forth. All else in the room is still, but the pendulum keeps on swinging, as if unable to decide where it should rest. I am tempted to stop it—my hand lifts towards its casing, then falls again, mimicking the motion of the weight—but I must know the time. I must know the time.

Outside, traffic moves on the main street, wet tyres hissing on a wet road, a sound that reminds me of the flourish of waves on a lonely shore. The wind moves around the houses. The stars move across the heavens. Inside, the pendulum is moving in its box. Even my mind refuses to be still. It's maddening. No, not maddening: infuriating. A careful distinction. I would halt the traffic if I could, and stem the wind, and numb the heavens, and stop the pendulum. Most of all, I would put my mind at rest. But there are only a few ways to do that. None of them are open to me. Not for two hours, or three.

Hide and seek. That was the beginning of it. The oldest game.

When we were young, and even later, when we were teenagers, we'd played the game in her father's house, on cold, grey days with cold, grey rain splattering on the windows. Everywhere was fair game as a hiding place. We crammed ourselves into cupboards, into wardrobes, into washing baskets, under beds, chairs, tables, in corners and cubby holes, up on to the ledges of the high windows. Sarah always won. She knew the house and its secrets better than I did. And besides, she always cheated. Instead of hiding, she'd find a place from where she could watch me, seeking. She'd slip off her shoes and follow me from room to room, staying behind me, unheard and out of sight. And when, at last, I had searched everywhere and given up, defeated, she would pretend to emerge from the very first place I had looked.

Being able to hide is a useful skill.

And then there was the pit. Why am I procrastinating? Why am I reluctant to speak of it? Perhaps it is that the pit itself is reluctant to be thought of, and shields itself from my memory. When it is gone, it hides, but it also watches me, follows me.

I could tell this story without mentioning the pit, and it would remain true, but that would be a niggardly kind of truth. Very well, then.

It first found me as a child. Sleepless, I had given myself over to imaginings: my mattress was a flat expanse of rock atop an alien plateau; the bedclothes, a range of hills, cave-riddled, with nameless things lying half-awake, half-aware, beneath; the floor of my room, a vast expanse of desert plain, flat and red and empty to the horizon of the far wall. I had not made room, in my creation, for the sound of weeping that filtered, forlornly distorted, through the wall by my bed. Perhaps that was my mistake. Perhaps that was why the pit found me. Perhaps the muffled sobs had drawn it somehow, into the space I had failed to imagine away.

At first I thought the moaning I heard was only an addendum to the sobs; but it seemed at once clearer and further away. It was not coming through the wall, unless by some swirl of echoes it was returning as if from the floor. I moved to the side of the bed, gripped the edge of the mattress with both hands, and peered over. At once the lament grew louder—as if whatever made it had sensed my presence—then immediately died again. Having left the shelter of the bedclothes, I realised the room had become very cold.

A pit had opened in the centre of the floor, roughly round, just large enough to accommodate my body if I kept my arms flat against my sides. At its edges, threads and strings of the cheap red carpet trembled, streaming into the hole. Below that, the sides of the pit were dark, perhaps of stone, perhaps of some other material. It seemed to lead straight downwards, as far as could be seen; its bottom, if it had one, was lost in blackness. It was sucking the air from the room. I could see the dirty net curtain at the window swaying, dancing, as night air was drawn in through the edge of the ill-fitting window. The moaning sound was a howl of wind, deep in the pit, countless miles down, gathering speed as it fell, tearing itself against the hard, rough walls. The pit was so deep, the howl so far away, that it reached the pit-mouth only as a moan.

I knew, of course I knew, that the pit could not be so deep. Only a little way beneath my room was another, and below that another, and so on all the way to the ground. It didn't matter. I didn't dare leave the bed. I might lose my footing, and slip into the pit. I might be sucked in by the wind. The pit itself might move to pursue me—after all, if it could appear from nowhere, why shouldn't it move?

Worst of all, I might find myself walking deliberately toward the pit, stepping willingly into its maw. I think I realised that, even then. I think I was tempted, even then.

With an effort of will I turned away, shuffling my body closer to the wall, putting as much of the bed as I could between myself and the pit, hiding as much of myself as possible beneath the bedclothes. After a time, the distant howl faded into silence. The room grew perceptibly warmer. The net curtain slackened and hung limp from its rail. I knew, without needing to look, that the pit was gone, and that no sign of it would remain on the floor.

It was only later, as I drifted into sleep, that I realised the sound of sobbing had also ceased.

"You've seen it too?"

Sarah had found me, again, and the game had come to its natural end. Instead of going off to hide, she had sat down on the floor beside me, and we had begun talking, aimlessly at first, until I mentioned the pit.

"A few times,” she said.

"When was the first time?"

"After my ... after my periods started.” She gave me a defiant look, as if unsure whether she should mention menarche to me, but determined to do so anyway. “But it felt like..."

"Like the pit had always been there. But now you could see it."

She nodded. “It knows when to come. When you're weak, maybe ill with a fever. When you're tired. When you're miserable. Times when it thinks you won't be able to resist it."

I frowned. “What happens if you don't? I mean, if you climb down inside?"

"I don't want to find out."

"I'd like to know, though."

"Why? What good would it do, to know?"

I hesitated. “If it comes for me one night, and I go ... I shouldn't, I know I shouldn't, but ... How bad would it be? Could I come back?"

Sarah lifted her shoulders. “Different people say different things. Some say you just vanish, and no one knows what happens to you. Some say it isn't like that, that it only takes the quick part of you. So you come back as a husk."

"Dead?"

"Sometimes dead, sometimes alive but changed, sort of hollow. I've met people who seemed like that."

"It comes most often when my dad calls. He talks to me, and I kind of know things I want to say, but when the time comes to say them, they never sound right in my head. Then I listen to him and Mum talking, about me mostly..."

"You can't hide from it, I know that. You can run, but it will always find you, though it can't open underneath you and swallow you. It can call you, and try to drag you down; it could open right at your side, right there on the floor; but it can't swallow you unless you choose to go."

I closed my eyes, then opened them again and whispered: “I wonder if there's any way of calling it. Of making it come."

"I don't know. I've never tried it. But someone told me a way to get rid of it, when does come.

"Does it work?"

She looked away. “Yes."

"Tell me!"

"But you mustn't let anyone find out."

"I promise.” I meant it. Promises come so easily to the young.

"All right. But if I find out you've told anyone, I'll come looking for you ... The pit will take your blood as a payment, to leave you alone, to forget about you. If it comes for you, make a cut and let some blood fall into it, and it will close."

I felt my mouth contort with disgust, and with a kind of fascinated horror. “Blood?"

"It has to be your own blood."

"No throwing slices of black pudding in, then.” We both laughed, a little harder than my weak joke deserved. Sarah grew serious again very quickly.

"You have to draw it yourself, right then and there. You can't even draw it ahead of time. It has to be fresh."

"A lot of blood?"

"It depends on the size of the pit. But a little goes a very long way."

"You've tried it?"

"It works. For a while..."

She rolled up her sleeve, and I saw the row of scars along her wrist.

The pit came again, and again, always at night or in the dark, until I grew accustomed to its presence—though never so well accustomed that I could sleep while it was there. It always appeared in the same place; it never moved; and though I was still afraid I might be drawn to it, I never left my bed: never weakening, or never finding the courage. One of the two.

I realised that it was not drawn to the sound of sobbing, but seemed to respond to things that had happened in the day. It came after I was beaten by two older boys, and my watch—my new digital watch, with the plastic strap and the pale button-light, to my young mind like something out of a science fiction movie—was stolen; but it did not come when I fell from the wall behind the block, and knocked my temple on the kerb, and sheared away the skin. It came when my parents fought, but not every time. It came when my mother told me about the divorce, how everything was final now.

That time, I sat and listened, at the kitchen table, with twilight streaming through the window, while my mother explained. I did not understand, or did not want to; a part of me understood it all perfectly, and another part understood none of it, and I preferred the part that didn't understand; it seemed easier, somehow.

Until then, I suppose, I had thought that things might get better, that we would go back to live with Dad. I had imagined his return, over and over. I could still imagine it, but I couldn't believe in it any more.

As my mother spoke I nodded in what seemed to be the right places. After a while she fell silent, and looked away. I didn't say anything at all. There didn't seem to be anything useful I could say. I left the room, and went to my own room, and lay on the bed. I didn't cry. I told myself I didn't see what there was to cry about. I lay on the bed and tried to think of nothing, and eventually I fell asleep.

Even as my mother had spoken, I could already sense it coming, perhaps hearing its howl in the distance, perhaps through some more nebulous sense.

That night the pit woke me. It was the first time it had done so. I started awake at the sound of its howl, nearer and louder now than it had been before. The net curtain was shuddering, undulating like a wave on a stormy sea. Peering over the edge of the bed, I saw the pit-mouth, nearer to my bed, and larger. My body would fit into it more easily now. I could fall to its bottom, if it had one, without once touching the sides. As I watched, a part of the pit's edge crumbled and fell away, spiralling down until it was lost from view, and a great sigh lifted through the pit's constant moan.

I would not need to climb out of bed, now, to fall into the pit. All I need do was lean forward, let go of the mattress, and gravity and the wind would do the rest. I pressed myself against the mattress and leaned as close as I dared. The wind tousled my hair; I was disturbed by how welcome its touch was.

My mother came to wake me in the morning, and found me sleeping sideways in the bed, my head half-way off the mattress, my fingers curled over the edge. My hair was tangled and knotted; she thought I must have had a restless night.

After that, I didn't see Sarah again for years. Sometimes I caught myself planning to tell her something, or ask her something, and there was always a sensation like falling when I remembered I could not speak to her, or even see her. When the divorce was finally done, I moved away with my mother to my grandparents’ house.

I thought the pit would come for me that day, but it didn't. The journey, by train, was a long one, and evening had closed over the sky before it was done. My mother read a magazine by the harsh, fly-specked light of the carriage. I sat in my seat, thinking of the pit, waiting for it to arrive. I glanced around, over the arm of the chair, in case the pit had opened in the aisle. I knew it did not matter that the train was in motion. The pit could still appear; and though there was a great gap between the train's carriage and the rails on the ground below, the pit would still be of dark stone, all the way down. But it did not appear. Twice a woman dragged a trolley past, loaded with white-bread sandwiches and crisps and chocolates and small cans of drink. If the pit had opened, she would have fallen into it. Other passengers also went past, to the train's toilets, or on mysterious errands of their own. I knew that the pit would not appear for everyone. It would be looking for me. If it could not open on the train, then it would appear when the journey was over, when I was lying in my new bed.

Very well. I would be ready for it. I closed my eyes, determined to rest while I could.

I slept, then, and knew nothing more until the next day, when the light of morning rubbed its fat, warm fingers on my eyes. The pit had not appeared; or if it had, I had been too exhausted to wake for it. I sat up, taking in a stranger's room and bed, meant for someone else, for an adult: a wardrobe too tall for me, a flowery quilt, a pomander on the highly-lacquered bedside cabinet. I felt refreshed, calm, comfortable, somewhat listless, much as I remembered being when convalescing from a fever. I had beaten the pit, perhaps, outrun it, hidden myself from it, despite what Sarah had said; or perhaps it was only hiding, and would return when I least expected it, when I had let down my guard.

Yet it did not return that night, nor the next, nor on any of the nights that followed. Summer had arrived. The school term had not, in fact, finished, but had little more than two weeks left to run, and so my mother decided to allow me a long break, to start school again in the Autumn. When it rained I explored my grandparents’ house, or read my books, and the books in the house, and the books I had brought back from Saturday trips to the library. When it was fine I explored the long garden, the flowerbeds near the house, the vegetable plots further away. The back gate opened on to an overgrown lane; from there, I could climb a fence to the disused railway line, and from there run on into the woods. When I knew every inch of the garden I explored the woods, and the long, narrow lanes. In the gloom under the trees I wondered if the pit could appear to me, even in daylight: it was dark enough, and no one else was about. But the pit did not come.

To my surprise, after a time I wanted to see the pit again. I had no friends here, and the pit, though it was my enemy, my adversary, was still in a way the nearest thing I had to a friend. I knew, now, why it did not come: despite my solitude, despite losing my father and despite being wrenched from my home, I was strangely content. The pit would only come in response to a certain frame of mind—only half-remembered now—when a darkness settled over my vision and a coldness over my skin, when the world itself seemed to grow hard corners and sharp edges, when my thoughts roiled in my head, keeping me awake or scraping at my dreams.

I knew I should not wish those sensations back, but I knew, too, why I missed them. Though it was harsher and more bitter, the world seemed more real at those times. The contentment I felt now, all contentment I would ever feel, was a thin accretion, a crust over the mouth of the pit like a film of ice over the black water of a lake. It was an illusion. I knew I should prefer the illusion to the reality, but something in me wanted it shattered.

On a warm afternoon at summer's end I borrowed a small shovel from my grandfather's shed and began to dig in an unused corner of the garden, wondering whether the pit would open up beneath my hands, the earth fall away into nothingness, the howling begin, sucking the air from the world. I turned over dry soil, sending woodlice scurrying away, then darker soil laden with worms, but there was no sign of the pit.

I gave up searching for the pit, and waiting for it, and hoping it would return. In time, I almost forgot that the pit had ever come for me, and when I did remember it, the memory did not seem real.

Of course, it came back. How could it be otherwise?

I thought I glimpsed it on Christmas Eve, in my grandparents’ house, when I crept down, as I had always done, for a last look at the tree before I slept, I thought I saw it again; I imagined a red and gold bauble with two implings astride, falling from the green branches and shattering against the pit's stony palate. Then the pit was gone, and I told myself it had been nothing more than a shadow on the ground.

Of course the glimpse had nothing to do with the fact that at Christmas, I remembered how much I missed my father. Nothing at all.

I wondered if I should tell anyone. I decided against it.

Again, years passed with no sign of the pit; but as I grew into my teens the glimpses came more frequently. On the body of a massive oak in the woods when, separated from my friends, I sought somewhere to rest my drunken head. Beneath the skin of a lake as I rowed, one dark afternoon, with a girlfriend, and had convinced myself that all was over between us. Each time I told myself I had not seen the pit, only a hollow in the tree (it had not stirred the leaves) or the shadow of a piece of driftwood in the lake (it had not stirred the water).

All the same, I began to take measures to keep the pit at bay. I tried to learn the things that might summon it, and to avoid them. I grew careful about what drugs I took, and in what doses; and equally careful about whom I loved.

Perhaps, I thought, the pit had never been real, had always been part of my imagining. Perhaps it had been a way of describing, to myself, something I lacked the words to describe. Although if that were so, why had Sarah seen it too? Another thought crept up, unwanted, behind the first: even if the pit were not real, not physically real, it might still be able to devour me.

When I moved to London, to a rented room on the city's edge, the pit began to appear more frequently. I saw it reflected in the great glass windows of shop-fronts, and turned, quickly, to see nothing, no gaping hole in the air behind my shoulder, only a passer-by disconcerted by my sudden movement. I wondered if the pit was, in some way, my reflection.

I learned a new set of triggers, things to avoid, more subtle than the joints and tabs and adolescent heartaches of a few years before. I began to avoid manholes, and workmen digging the road. I once fled, breathless and gape-eyed, from the underground, having discovered that the sound of those subterranean trains in their tunnels matched almost exactly the voice of the pit. Overeating could be another trigger, bringing glimpses of the pit-mouth into my dreams. Lack of sleep. Cigarette smoke, which made me sleep badly at night, prising away my sleep. And more abstract things: anything of a bright yellow colour; certain timbres of voice and cadences of speech; certain textures.

I thought myself content. I worked, and spent my hours of freedom as well as I could. I could not understand, then, why the glimpses seemed to be returning more and more often. At least, I reassured myself, they were only glimpses. As long as I kept to my prophylactic routine, avoiding anything that could summon the pit, I would be safe.

But it could open anywhere, at any time. That was the bitterest lesson.

Blown by the wind, the remains of a magazine crossed the night sky, illuminated now by a streetlamp, now by the blue neon sign of a bar. Its pages crackled, rustled, chuckled, snapped taut in a sudden gust. It crossed the road, and appeared to be about to sail on, past the soft glow of the hotel and into the shadow of the tower blocks beyond. Instead it turned, moving against the wind, and ducked into a filthy alleyway.

I watched it go. The alley's black mouth was stained about the lips with piss and beer, a necklace of broken glass at its throat. I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of my trench coat, and crossed the road to see where the magazine had gone.

I found it fluttering in the air above the wasteland of a building site. The alley was bounded by a pub and a seedy gymnasium; but the body of the gym was gone, pulled down, leaving only its dingy façade on the main road. A gap-toothed fence encircled what was left. As I watched, the tattered magazine lost its battle to stay aloft, and fell. I heard it fall; but I did not hear it hit the ground. My suspicions aroused, I put my head and hands to the fence, and peered through.

There it was, at the centre of the site, not glimpsed this time but in full view before me: the tunnel into the earth, down and down, sucking in the wind and whatever was carried upon it. At its edge, a shard of tile moved, scraping over the dirt, then tilted, teetered, fell in, and was sucked away. At the pit's edge, from where the shard had fallen, a few crumbs of the site floor were loosened, and fell. The pit had grown wider. It could comfortably have swallowed a car. Its howl was louder, too, its voice stronger.

I pulled away from the fence, breathing hard, my palms cold with sweat. I took a step back, then another. A darkness lay over my vision, a coldness over my skin, and now I realised that the pit was sucking light as well as heat from the world. For the first time, I felt its pull, physically, a stout wind shoving me toward the opening.

It wanted a trial of strength. Very well. I would show it how strong I was.

Composing myself, I touched my forelock and nodded to the pit, a mock greeting to an old enemy that still felt almost like a friend. With an effort I wrenched aside a part of the fence, and stepped through, climbing over rubble and rubbish, broken bricks and sections of piping and old newspapers and bottles and cans, until I neared the pit-mouth. There I stopped. Another step would bring me right to the edge.

What are you? I thought. What do you want?

The voice of the pit said: I want you.

Why have you come now? I did nothing to call you.

I come when I must.

You come when I am unhappy, or restless. You only come in darkness.

No. I come when I must. In any place. Whether you are miserable or joyful. In the night, or in the bright of the day. It is you who sees patterns in my coming. You try to impose order. You find reasons why I must have come. None of them are real. I come when I must. That is all.

I can keep you away, I thought. I can escape you. You will not find me. And I can banish you.

I had no knife with me. Instead I took my keys from my pocket, and selected a Yale, new and sharp and shiny. I drew its teeth across my wrist. It took three attempts before blood began seeping from the ragged tear that resulted. Leaning forward as far as I dared, I let some of my blood drip into its mouth.

At once, I felt a calm within me, a pressure released. My vision seemed less sharp, but at the same time somehow clearer. The effect on the pit, too, was immediate. Its howl was not as loud, the force of its breath not as great. I even believed it may have shrunk a little, regurgitating something of the building site's filthy floor back to its original place.

Then I turned on my heel and, walking against the wind, I left the pit, and the building site, and the alley, behind.

Despite my bravado I felt fear, now, as I had not felt since the pit first came. I went to my doctor, and for the first time explained about the pit, how I had seen it over the years, how it seemed to have grown in size and power. The doctor sent me to a cognitive therapist; the therapist sent me to a psychiatrist. Describing the pit to each of them, I watched their faces, to see if they held any trace of mockery or contempt. I could see none. Instead there was a look almost of recognition. They had seen the pit themselves, or they had met others who had seen it. They refused to tell me anything, though. They never even referred to the pit directly. They told me I had an episodic depressive disorder, with associated hallucinatory effects. They told me it could probably be treated, with drugs.

The psychiatrist gave me two sets of pills: one set that was supposed to keep the pit at bay, and another set to counteract the side-effects of the first. There was no guarantee they would work. They might even make things worse. If so, the psychiatrist would try a different drug.

I was reluctant to take the pills I had been given, but I did as I was told. They made me drowsy, disconnected. I slept deeply, without dreaming, but also without real rest. I felt as if time had stopped, or as if it flowed for the rest of the world, but not for me. I was not living, only existing, like a corporeal ghost.

I remembered how I had thought that the contentment I had once felt was an illusion, a treacherous layer of sediment over the endless gulf of the pit. The pills added an extra layer, that was all. A further accretion of the illusion. At our next meeting, I told the psychiatrist this, and the psychiatrist told me to continue with the pills for another month, and see whether there was any change. I listened as the psychiatrist spoke, not understanding, or not wanting to. I nodded in what seemed to be the right places. After a time the psychiatrist sent me away.

I returned home, and lay on my bed, and thought of nothing, and eventually fell asleep.

And so we come to it. The promise, and the pit.

A year ago, I found Sarah in London. A summer afternoon, and then a summer's evening, we spent together, slipping comfortably back into our old relationship, as if nothing at all had changed. Even her clothes were of a similar cut to the kind she had always worn, though she wore long, thin gloves, which I had not thought would attract her.

I remember the exact moment the promise was made. We were down beside the river, face to face across a little wooden table. We had raised our glasses to seal our vow. The ice in her glass chimed, like a bell, and we laughed at the aptness of the sound. Then we sat back in silence, watching the glow and the glitter of the city, the embers of lights on the far bank reflected on the water.

This was the promise:

"If one of us wants to die—"

"Wait. Wait a minute—"

"If one of us wants to die, they mustn't do it. Not right away. They have to wait. They have to find the other one first."

I shook my head. “I don't know."

She put her hand on mine. “It's a safety net. To stop us from falling. I'll be your safety net. You can be mine. We can turn up unexpectedly on each other's doorsteps, or we can call each other, any time. Any time. Even in the smallest hours. Whenever we need each other."

"And then? What do we do? What do I do when I find you?"

"Let me change your mind. Let me persuade you, give you every reason I can think of to stay alive. Let me threaten. Let me beg. Let me try and get you back on the poison, if you've stopped taking it. Let me try and get you off it, if you've started. Let me try. Let me in."

"And if that doesn't work?"

She took a breath. “Then I'll have to let you go. It's your life, not mine. Do with it as you will. But at least I'll have tried."

"How long do I have to give you?"

She thought about it, smiling a tiny smile. “Twelve days?"

"Three."

"Ten."

"A week."

Her smile disappeared. The game was no longer just a game, though I did not realise it then. “Ten days."

"All right. Ten days."

It was easy to talk about it, that night. We were safe at the time, and we both knew it. We were far from danger. We were far from the pit. It seemed an easy promise to make. We made it lightly, raising two glasses of lemonade. Maybe we should have sealed the oath in blood, or at least in some fermented spirit.

"Ten days,” I said again. “Sometimes that's long enough for the feeling to pass on its own. And then when you add the time we'd spend looking for each other, and travelling..."

She lifted her shoulders. “It's all part of the game."

"Hide and seek."

"Of course,” she said.

Of course. And of course she always won, and of course she always cheated.

At my next meeting with the psychiatrist, I was more confident, more comfortable. I told him—as I had not told him before—about the trick of the blood. How the pit could be placated, even banished, by an offering. He gave me a sad smile, and I knew at once that he had heard of the trick before, and did not believe in it.

"Why do you think it works?"

I shrugged. “I don't know."

"But I do. Think about this: why should it not be happy with an offering of some other blood—animal blood, perhaps? Even if it has to be your own life essence, why should the pit care whether it's fresh?"

I shook my head.

"The answer is simply that it's all a matter of neurochemistry. The pit itself is an illusion, a reification of your emotional state—which is, as we've discussed before, an electrochemical configuration in your brain. The blood offering alters that state."

I did not believe him, and told him so.

He bridled. “Believe what you like. I'm telling you the truth. What you do with it is up to you. Look: what happens when you're injured? Your body senses a threat. Even if the injury is self-inflicted, the body prepares itself for escape, or for self-defence, against further injury. The chemical associated with that response is adrenaline."

"Go on."

"Adrenaline floods the system. Any pre-existing state is either erased or significantly weakened—immediately. That includes a depressive episode. If it were any other way, your fight or flight response would be useless.

"That's why the blood has to be fresh, and it has to be yours. To fool your body into initiating the response you want, the adrenaline rush, you need to harm yourself at the time of the depressive episode. Doing it earlier is no good—in fact as your fight or flight response turns stale and sour, it could even trigger an episode. Using animal blood is no good, both because it's old and simply because the animal's nervous system is not your nervous system."

I thought of the scars on Sarah's hands, the scars I had first caught sight of years before. Then I thought of the gloves she had been wearing at our last meeting, and how long they were.

I had once asked her who had told her of the blood trick. It had been a distant relative of hers. He had sworn it worked. Later, however, he had disappeared. No one knew what become of him.

A year later, the pit came for Sarah. She wanted to die, but she didn't come and find me. She didn't give me the ten days she'd promised. She didn't call me. She didn't call anyone. She stayed alone in her flat, up in Edinburgh, for a couple of days. I know what she was doing: waiting. Simply that. Waiting on the edge of the pit, waiting to see if she would fall in. Sitting alone in the night, listening to the wind, and the muttering of the streets, waiting for her mood to swing back up, to swing back, to come to rest. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Then she slipped off her shoes, and hanged herself in the bedroom.

The neighbours didn't hear a thing. The police were curious, and nosed about a bit, but in the end they decided there were no suspicious circumstances. So that was all right, then.

Sarah died between two and four. The smallest hours. The hours when life is at its lowest ebb. Most suicides happen later, though, between six and eight. People find that strange, they think the dawn would help somehow. In fact it probably makes things worse. You wait for the dawn, imagining things will look better, or at least different, in the light. You allow yourself a measure of hope. Then the sun rises, but sometimes, through the dark filter, everything looks just the same. If you see the light at all, then it sears, burns, more painful than the darkness it has swept aside. You know your hope was illusory, and there's nothing left to keep you here.

I woke with a start, still on the sofa, my head swinging suddenly up, my neck throbbing with a dull ache. Five o'clock. There was a bellowing of the wind outside my window. A handful of rain hurled itself against the glass. A sudden white light crossed the sky and was gone, chased almost at once by a bark of thunder. A storm, I thought: a storm must have descended while I slept.

I felt awake, awake as I had not felt since I began my treatment, awake as—if I were honest—I had not felt for years. As if I had been plunged into icy water. But though the sun had risen, there was still a darkness over my vision and a coldness on my skin; and the world had turned hard and sharp, and my thoughts were turning in my head, over and over and over.

I climbed from the sofa and went to my window to watch the dawn storm. That was when I saw the pit, though I think I must have known it would be there.

The city was gone, vanished into the pit-mouth. The walls of the pit were far on the horizon. All that remained of the city was a pinnacle of stone rising from the centre of the pit. My building stood on that pinnacle, on the very edge.

Lightning struck again, arcing from a sky now grown as dark and rugged as a cavern roof, down into the pit, down into the dark; thunder followed it down, rolling past the window and fading as the pit swallowed it. Dust and vapour streamed into the great opening. Below me, on the corner of my building, a car rolled along to the edge of the broken road, clung to the edge for a moment with its rear wheels, then fell. A row of iron railings tore one by one from the ground, and struck orange sparks as, tumbling, they scratched at the sides of the pit.

I climb down to the ground, and seat myself at the edge of the pit, peering over its lip into the infinite dark below. I wait for the pit to speak, but it says nothing. Nothing more need be said. I know what it wants of me.

This time I have a knife with me. A kitchen knife with a serrated edge. I usually use it for crusty bread. My flesh would cut more easily. But there isn't enough blood in me to soothe the pit. Nothing less than my self will do it.

Laying the knife aside, I think of Sarah. I imagine her body still moving, after the life had gone out of it: swinging, oscillating. Too late to change her mind. I wonder how long it took her to come to rest.

I can hear no sound other than that of the pit. I realise I have been searching for Sarah, and that once again I have failed to find her. With a half-smile I turn, and look back over my shoulder. She is not there.

I realise, too, that I had stayed awake, disrupting the rhythms of my sleep, to send out a call, a summons; and the pit has answered, and come to me.

For a long time, I sit, not really thinking, but not really thinking of nothing. Thoughts come to me. Thoughts, and memories, streaming past me and down into the pit-mouth. I recall the first time we had spoken of the pit. Sarah had said: “Some say you just vanish, and no one knows what happened to you. Some say it isn't like that, that it only takes the quick part of you. So you come back as a husk."

Was that a husk, then, the body left hanging there after the quick part of her had gone? I believe that it was. And now I know what I must do.

Composing myself, I touch my forelock and nod to the pit. My old enemy. My old friend. My reflection. A mental state, a neurochemical sigil; but not mine alone.

I stand on the edge of the pit. Then I turn, and lower myself down. Why should I cast myself in? Why should I fall? I will go willingly, by my own choice. I will climb down step by step, stone by stone. If I fall, I fall. If not, then I must reach the base of it sooner or later. Nothing truly lasts forever. Nothing real.

Somewhere, at the base of the pit, I may find the quick part of Sarah. I will search everywhere; and if I do not find her, perhaps she will find me. And we can climb back up together.

Down, and down; and for the last time I glance up, and see the sky through the mouth of the pit, already high above me: a mote of light, searing, too bright to look at, so that it hurts my eyes to see it. I do not look up again.

Copyright © 2008 Alexander Glass

GLOOM & DOOM

Night Watch (aka: Nochnoy dozor) started a trilogy of occult horrors, based on novels by Sergei Lukyanenko (whose Twilight Watch was published in English by William Heinemann), and was heralded as the first Russian fantasy blockbuster. Timur Bekmambetov's wonderful sequel Day Watch (aka: Dnevnoy dozor) continues a fascinating tale of supernatural warfare hampered by Kafkaesque bureaucracy, and shows how the fragile truce between forces of light and darkness is broken by the fulfilment of a prophecy. ‘Gloom’ is the sideways reality of invisibility or detection where dust or bugs drain the very life from unwary visitors on both sides of the shadowy conflict. Repressed vampires, formidable witches, shape-changing characters, and world-weary immortals of wilfully undefined yet clearly prodigious abilities, struggle to exert a moral authority or commit sundry acts of mischief. The legendary ‘chalk of fate’ is a clever macguffin by which troubled hero Anton (Konstantin Khabensky) may quite literally write-right all wrongs, and thus save the world. Although these watchmen fail to deliver the same pure comic-book fun as Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola's more engaging BPRD agents, this cult foreign movie will do nicely, until Hellboy II: The Golden Army, arrives (due summer 2008).

There's gender body-swap farce (with perhaps the most hilarious faux-lesbian/hetero-romantic shower scene ever filmed?) featuring the comedy talents of Galina Tyunina as wry sorceress Olga. Zavulon and Geser (archetypal ‘big guns’ of this good against evil premise) both receive story-arc development of their previously established supporting characters, and all your day/night watch favourites, team-players and loners, reappear here, even if they are relegated to sideshow duties.

More take-no-prisoners antics by Alice (striking Zhanna Friske) provide thrilling CGI action, and while new visual effects sequences preserve the previous film's murky affect, eschewing the acute realism of Hollywood for a whimsically impressionistic style, the contrast with an urban grittiness (Russian street life and office politics) actually benefits the typically earnest drama. If the ‘strange boy’ plotline (and the curious happy ending!) marks this potential epic as formulaic populist tripe, it really doesn't matter. Startling or inspired cinematic moments worth seeing and savouring, and plenty of clever myth building, make this far superior in every way to Highlander: The Source, Brett Leonard's almost boring variation on the ‘battling immortals’ theme. After three passable to middling follow-up movies (and a brace of live-action/ animated, inexplicably admired, shows) to Russell Mulcahy's original centuries-spanning adventure, it's a shame that this futuristic sequel is so exasperatingly wretched compared to those previous sword-fighting fantasies.

While solar planets (and, we're told, many stars) break “the laws of celestial mechanics,” shifting from orbital paths into a fateful alignment, Duncan MacLeod (Adrian Paul, from Highlander TV series) unhappily joins surviving immortals hunting for the Source. Duncan's apparently psychic, estranged wife leads this quest but, stalked and outwitted by a mysterious Guardian, the warriors somewhat carelessly lose their heads, in turn, usually during another furiously edited montage of annoyingly jittery visuals (bad rock songs are optional!), shot with digital cameras on Lithuanian locations. Episodes of the cheaply produced 1990s’ television series proved unmemorable, or just plain dull, but this film's a low watermark for director Leonard (enjoyably daft Lawnmower Man, lurid sci-fi chiller Virtuosity, the underrated Man-Thing), who's capable of better entertainment.

"Didn't you ever watch Scooby Doo?” asks one of the girls in House Of The Dead (aka: Le jeu ne fait que commencer), when a friend ignores her safety-first warning. Produced and directed by the German-born Uwe Boll, and filmed in Canada, this mockingly irreverent zombie flick attempts to blend Raimi-style gore with sub-Matrix CGI, but it lacks the spite and polish of either. A group of co-eds, overly keen to attend the rave party on a remote island, disregard the hazards, insist on an unprepared boat trip and risk ending up as prey, and snacks, for hordes of the undead. Capable of athleticism to Olympic standards, these creatures are supposed to be more frightfully dangerous than the usual breed of ghoul, and even zombie-vomit is toxic to a skin-blistering degree. Overall, though, the movie is devoid of suspense, common sense, dramatic interest, or curiosity value. It's hampered at every turn by poor dialogue ("There must be some kind of scientific explanation for this"), and—from start to finish—lacks a modicum of authentic plot development. Thanks to star names and adequate budgets, the Resident Evil movies succeeded as adaptations of shoot ‘em up computer games, and their directors made fairly enjoyable actioners out of desperately mediocre genre material. This, however, is simply trash cinema of a lower order. Mike Hurst's pleasing, yet hardly innovative, TV-movie sequel House Of The Dead II: Dead Aim features two heroines—played by Emmanuelle Vaugier (Smallville, CSI: New York), and Victoria Pratt (Cleopatra 2525, Mutant X, Kraken) for the price of one. Both actresses share enough B-movie and TV experience to maintain viewers’ interest whenever the feeble production-line script lets them down. With an almost non-existent plot (zombies infest university campus, military exterminators clean house), and a director clearly more interested in cheap stunts or lame comedy than even basic characters, it's no surprise this low-budget fodder only works because of its appealing stars. Most of the time, these zombies are not especially threatening, the undead having reverted back to more traditional drooling and shambling about, instead of ferocious lightning-fast attacks. Some of the mutants do ‘evolve’ nasty incisors, however. Well, okay, the film's ability to provoke stray distracting thoughts about the horrors of dentistry may not be a sufficient or valid reason to wholeheartedly commend it to genre fans, but it does suggest another point of interest. Expect more zombie crossover films.

Here's one now ... Written and directed by Glasgow Phillips (a great name!), Undead Or Alive is a weird western/romance, in which lovelorn cowboy Luke (Chris Kattan) teams up with US army deserter Elmer (James Denton) to escape from jail. The crooked sheriff's posse pursues them, but all the bad guys succumb to zombification and turn into ‘geronimonsters'. Yes, Geronimo's niece, Sue (Navi Rawat, Numb3rs), explains that her late uncle put a curse on white men. And so, in the comedy-horror subplot to film's primary rom-com story of how Luke falls in love with New York-educated ‘squaw’ Sue, we see how a resultant blood plague overwhelms a small town. Apart from rapid-cuts for the stylised gore scenes, and plenty of scatological humour (including an inevitable zombie ‘dick’ joke), there's also a very amusing history-lesson exchange between Elmer and Sue, casually undermining the entire mythos of the wild-west frontier. With its surprisingly downbeat finale (only the family of zombies are blessed with a happy ending!), watching supposedly heroic cowboy partners riding off into a glorious sunset will never be the same again.

For the uninitiated, Dr Stephen Strange is Marvel comics’ master of the mystic arts, and superhero detective; a formerly amoral surgeon until his conscience returns when he's injured in an accident caused by supernatural forces. Animated movie Doctor Strange follows a redemptive-quest plot. Shocked after witnessing a magical battle on city streets, Strange meets veteran wizard the Ancient One, and becomes the kung fu mage's top student, and eventual successor, as secretive defender of the human world from incursions by quasi-Lovecraftian things of nocturnal dimensions. Character origins vary from 1963 to 2007, so while a mere dreamscape visitation was sufficiently weird for forty-five years ago, this 21st century feature plumps for repetitive demon-slaying heroics grounded in urban reality, leaving the astral-plane combat-exorcism sequences for a vividly colourful climax. In noted contrast to the seemingly endless parade of needless remakes and overly commercial sequels, Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist was the first picture to officially use the word ‘prequel’ in its title. This film was regrettably sidelined by the ‘studio’ (where Morgan Creek chiefs demanded a lightweight blockbuster action thriller, not a gloomily conflicted drama of hearts and minds that failed to meet expectations), so denied a proper release until long after their preferred version, Renny Harlin's wholly artificial Exorcist: The Beginning, had done its rounds, muddied the water, and left many with doubts that another filmmaker could have anything else worthwhile to contribute to the notorious Exorcist saga. But the capable Schrader (director of that impressive Cat People remake) was obviously prepared for the challenge.

Following a varied trilogy of films by William Friedkin (the original classic), John Boorman (cult SF styled Heretic), and the tremendously scary third outing created by original novelist William Peter Blatty, Schrader offers a powerful chiller of considerable emotional subtlety, showcasing a strong cast delivering performances that provide more consistent entertainment than the moral transparency of Harlin's empty spectacle. Compared to Harlin's film, Schrader's has a leisurely pace, but Dominion is all the better for that, as this allows for an appropriately expansive story, instead of merely hitting viewers with a flurry of visual effects’ set pieces. As Father Merrin, the sceptical priest away on sabbatical for an archaeological investigation in the desert of East Africa, Stellan Skarsgård (King Arthur, Ronin, Insomnia) fits the role perfectly, as a younger version of star Max von Sydow (from Friedkin's 1973 film). In Harlin's film, some characters were re-named or excised, a few key roles were re-cast (Clara Bellar as Dr Rachel Lesno; Gabriel Mann as young priest Father Francis), and the entire pitch and thrust of William Wisher's plotline re-structured, but Schrader's more thoughtful and absorbing story, about the importance of faith, is a superior take on this material. Dominion remains a rare opportunity for genre fans, and film students alike, to study vastly differing techniques and creative approaches, and consider the numerous problems caused for writers and directors when foolish moneymen call the shots.

An updated Rear Window primed for gadget-hungry thriller fans, Disturbia stars Shia LaBeouf (Transformers) as delinquent juvenile Kale, grounded and tagged as a potential hazard to society. Bored under house arrest, he naturally spies on neighbours for a private version of reality-TV, and promptly spots the local serial killer, still at large. David Morse (St Elsewhere, Green Mile, Hack, 16 Blocks) is perfectly cast as the sociopathic menace to quiet suburban family life, Sarah Roemer (Grudge 2 remake) graduates to leading lady status—though only to play the quirky new girl next door, but as the young hero's widowed mother Carrie-Anne Moss fails to make a solid impression here. D.J. Caruso's slickly produced chiller is recommendable as no-brainer fun. Just don't expect big surprises in characterisation, plot development, or dénouement. Much the same can be said of Joe Lynch's Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, which starts with a deliciously surreal axe murder, and tries for delusions of grandeur with its satire on decadent America but, overall, it's really no better than other recent imitators of sundry Texas Chainsaw clichés. West Virginian backwoods savages toy with their food (while collecting expensive vehicles and swag during their grossly cannibalistic lifestyle), and take obvious delight in the suffering of captured females. Henry Rollins is naturally cast as the ex-US Marine survivalist/TV-show host, striving manfully to save the day, throughout contestants’ shenanigans orchestrated by the garage-Kubrick director intent on top ratings for his ‘Apocalypse’ game.

Despite copious blood ‘n’ guts table manners replayed without irony, competent gore and special-makeup effects (but not that atrocious ‘mutant baby'), and due acknowledgment to Japan's Battle Royale for necessary subgenre inspiration, this monotonous sequel lacks anything more than the simplistic appeal of grungy violence for its own sake and offers insufficient amusement when few among the main cast, apart from wickedly tormented Nina (Erica Leerhsen, Marcus Nispel's TCM remake), manage to avoid being charmless, unsympathetic, or not long for this world. “Is that all you got?” (Taunts our undefeated hero.) No, the inevitable coda leaves this freaky franchise open to further viral exploitation, by mixing Hills Have Eyes with The Crazies. Adam Green's back-to-basics slasher Hatchet stars horror favourite Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees in four Friday 13th movies) as deformed Victor Crowley, legendary fiend of Louisiana swampland. This power tooled-up monster man represents yet another attempt by a fledging director to create an iconic slayer of hapless tourists. Heads or limbs get ripped off, blood spurts left and right, north and south, while bodies and minds are smashed. Soon, everyone's a goner except for the moody heroine Marybeth (Tamara Feldman). Cameos from Robert Englund (those Elm Street nightmares), and Tony Todd (Candyman, Minotaur) might appeal to completist fans of bloodthirsty mayhem, but this unfunny black comedy has less narrative coherence than a 1980s’ videogame, and the storytelling matches the standards found in bad TV episodes of Scooby Doo. All it really has going for it are the bouts of nonsensical gore. Though defenders of trashy horror might argue that Hatchet's faults are like the victimless crime of guilty pleasure, there's enough circumstantial evidence of premeditated schlock to get a first-offence conviction of screenwriting negligence against Mr Green for this.

Way back in 1972, writer-director and actor Vin Crease killed his executive producer, and the new horror movie they had just made together and were about to premiere, Slaughterhouse Of The Rising Sun was lost, mysteriously. Over thirty years later, after exhaustive quests, the original print was discovered in a Pakistani opium den. Now fully restored and unleashed on DVD, this cult film looks so good it could actually have been made in 2005 ... Indeed, rather more imaginative with its fan-orientated advertising campaign than any remake, prequel, or various mimickers, of that well-known classic about serial killers with chainsaws, this low-budget indie milks a similar vein to the teaser of John Carpenter's story Cigarette Burns, for the Masters Of Horror television series, and the built-in marketability of Japanese franchise Ring. Dare you watch a movie that claims to have prompted a real-life murder? Wittily, it anticipates Tarantino and Rodriguez's fervent hopes for a grindhouse revival, too. Jennifer (Cheryl Dent) is released from a mental hospital and soon off her meds. A desert rumble with rednecks, and nutty hippies—led by seemingly bipolar cripple Damon (Vin Crease, alias D.C. Mann) leads to our ditsy blonde starlet having peyote trip visions, followed by a campfire horror story, after which she keeps finding loonies and bloody corpses at every turn. Bleached out cinematography of nightmarish daydreams present a household massacre, a ghostly little girl, and one scary-eyed scar-faced stranger. At the hippies’ rundown squat, Jennifer seems perpetually on the verge of hysteria, but are her violent delusions actually repressed memories, or premonitions of Manson-family-style doom? There's fun with character names (Violence Onelove, Sabbath Jones, Guilty Karma, Cassandra Locust), a séance for one victim simply results in greater tragedy, but who's the real maniac? It's Visions Of Evil meets Last House On The Left. It's a flower children's Psycho road-movie, complete with battered Volkswagen van. Some DVD extras support the ‘lost masterpiece’ angle, if you wish to indulge this filmmaker's gimmick-laden fantasy that far.

Lucy Liu effortlessly flits between cult indie productions and Hollywood blockbusters, from action thrillers to weirdo comedies, opting for top billing or cameo roles. Rise: Blood Hunter sees this immensely talented actress cast as reporter Sadie Blake, vengeful victim of a vampire attack which turns her into an immortal assassin. Sebastian Gutierrez (maker of watchable TV horror flick, She Creature, with Carla Gugino as an Irish mermaid!) directs with studious assurance, making such a compelling drama out of this morbidly existential tale about sex and murder that Rise is easily the best vampire movie for several years. Breaking away from trendy CGI candy (Underworld, Blade, etc), and forsaking the dumb wallow in relentless sadism or sleaze that regularly defines ‘vampire’ movies—to the point of diffusing mainstream attention/interest, this nonetheless remarkably dark shock-fest assembles the arty fascinations of Larry Fessenden's Habit, and Abel Ferrara's powerful Addiction, with the astute meditations on retribution and moral questions about hard justice now re-examined in the latest transatlantic batch of rape/revenge pictures (Straightheads, Brave One).

Commendably, the various scenes of blood-drenched eroticism are much less blatantly exploitative than is usual for a female-bloodsucker movie. Don't mistake it for any sort of ‘feminist statement', but this certainly is a revitalising, broodingly intense, and very welcome addition to a subgenre of cinema that's long since fallen into disregard. Bollywood queen Aishwarya Rai (Miss World 1994), won best actress awards in her native India, and has rejected dozens of Hollywood offers, but she finally takes her first English language role in Doug Lefler's fantasy adventure The Last Legion. Here, ‘Ash’ plays the fighting heroine Mira, opposite Colin Firth (as Aurelius) and Ben Kingsley (as Merlin) in this pacy Euro production about the fall of Rome, a journey to Britannia, and the search for Excalibur. Some notable faces lending support include John Hannah (The Mummy), Alexander Siddig (Star Trek: DS9), and James Cosmo (Troy). Battles are handsomely staged, and the lengthy dialogue scenes maintain thespian standards that avoid camp. Sadly, since the voguish Gladiator, the gritty King Arthur, and Zhang Yimou's exotic wu xia cycle (Curse Of The Golden Flower, Hero, House Of Flying Daggers), this picture is perhaps a little old fashioned (in easily foreseen betrayal plots, and tissue-thin characterisations), or simply lacking in sufficient dramatic rewards or hyper-realistic ambitions to raise much enthusiasm in viewers.

"Only two, to rescue an emperor?” Happily, there's enough going on here—of measured interest, in theatrical foregrounds, if not sparsely detailed backgrounds, so its traditionally affected depictions of legend and destiny, and those few dedicated warriors making a last stand, is partly successful, at least. Luckily, too, the gorgeous Ms Rai has the necessary physicality and genuine screen presence to hold her own with established co-stars during both acting and action, so The Last Legion's really not bad for a De Laurentiis effort!

Copyright © 2008 Tony Lee

The north pier of Lichthafen buzzed with activity as workers scrambled to load ships before the evening tide. As the sun crept down, a light breeze swept over the city, carrying the stink of smoke and filth out to sea. Kellek hated working the docks at night. The morning breeze carried the smell of salt and the sea, invigorating him, making him feel as if he were free. Not trapped in a putrid city like the evening winds reminded.

He huffed as he and a Mercican sailor lifted a long crate onto the ship. His partner smiled broadly at their accomplishment. Kellek only turned and looked at the stack of twenty more of the back-breaking boxes. It was going to be a long night.

His blond hair fell over his eyes as he carried another of the crates backwards up the ramp. His fingers occupied with the load, he resorted to trying to blow it out of his eyes. But after each puff, the long hair fell back over his face. The sailor on the other end chuckled at Kellek's predicament.

He shook his head in frustration, but the faint sound of a sentry horn grabbed his attention. The signal was followed by another. One by one the tower guards of Lichthafen blasted their horns. Throughout the city, church bells encored the sirens.

A nearby Mercinan sailor turned to him. “Is the city under attack?” he asked in a stilted accent.

A grin crept across Kellek's lips as he shook his head. “Nein. A mist is blowing in."

The color drained from the dark-skinned sailor's face. He relayed the news in Mercinan to the crew. The sharp smell of fear grew on the creaking vessel.

Kellek's smile grew as he watched workers and sailors scramble off nearby ships and piers towards the city. The clatter of running feet along the boardwalk and yells of panic only added to the chaotic ringing of the city's alarms.

He lowered his end of the crate to the deck, despite the protests of his foreign partner. Without a word he headed down the gangplank. The other local boys followed, while the sailors looked at each other in panicked confusion.

"Hold!” yelled the ships captain. “There's still work to be done."

"Not with a mist forming,” yelled one of the dock workers.

"I'll double your pay if you get the ship loaded before the mist. We'll leave before it gets here."

A few of the men stopped, but most didn't hesitate, even at the promise of good pay.

"Money's no good to the dead, Captain,” Kellek yelled over his shoulder. “Besides, the fog might follow you out to sea. Where will you go then?"

Kellek didn't wait for a response. He hurried past the men foolish enough to stay. Even if Pascha hadn't come to him with the proposal, he wouldn't have continued working. The money wasn't worth the risk. And tomorrow he would be a rich man.

He conserved his energy as he jogged the cobblestone street into the city. The gate guards motioned him to hurry. They had already closed one of the massive doors, forcing the townspeople into a mob as they funneled through the opening. Soldiers poured buckets of water on a giant cloth wedged under the closed gate door as he fled past.

Around him men and women ran like panicked rats into the buildings. Above him window shutters banged shut. Doors slammed and bars thudded into place.

Kellek nearly tripped over a small girl. Tears ran down her cheeks as she cried for her mother. Quickly he scanned the streets. He didn't see anyone who looked like a mother in search of their child.

He cursed under his breath. He didn't have time for this, but he was reminded of his little sister Anna. She had been the same age when the mist took her.

He squatted next to the girl and ran a hand across her wet cheek. “What's your name?"

She looked up, her lips trembling. “Mommy!” she cried.

He sighed in frustration. Knowing it was against his better judgment, he picked her up. “Come on, let's get you some place safe. Okay?” She wrapped her arms around his neck as he briskly carried her down the avenue.

Most of the nearby homes and shops were already locked and barred. Several street vendors haphazardly packed their wares and carried them with them as they sought out safe havens. Other street-side stands stood abandoned, many still yielding fresh fruits, live poultry nervously squawking in cages, wood and metalwork, and an almost endless assortment of other goods left unattended. Only the truly foolish or immoral stopped to loot, but only briefly before they themselves ran for safety.

Kellek spotted a well dressed man closing his door. He recognized him as Herr Fritz Gecher, the jeweler. He and Hasteng had once entertained the thought of breaking in that shop several months earlier.

"Wait! Herr Gecher, wait!” Holding the child firmly he ran to the shop.

Fritz stood inside, mere inches from closing the door. His outward curling goatee surpassed his nose as they jutted though the door crack. He squinted a look of puzzlement as Kellek drew closer.

"Do I know you?” he asked. A massive brown dog tried to squeeze its head through the open door, slobbering and sniffing. Kellek knew the dog as Kaiser, the reason he and Hasteng never broke in.

"Nein, you don't. But this child has lost her mother. Please let her stay until the fog has passed. She has nowhere to go."

Fritz surveyed them momentarily as if not understanding Kellek's request, then nodded hurriedly. “Ja, of course. Please, come in.” He grabbed Kaiser's collar firmly and opened the door.

"Danke, Herr Gecher.” Kellek stepped inside and lowered the girl to the floor. Her pale blue eyes were swollen from crying as he kissed her on the cheek. “You'll be safe here.” He stood and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?” asked Fritz. “Why aren't you staying?"

"There are things I need to do. Take care of her.” Kellek ran out the door and back onto the emptying street.

"May the mist pass you safely,” he heard Fritz call out behind him before shutting his door.

Kellek chuckled to himself as he continued his jog to Hasteng's. Any other time he wouldn't have been welcome into Fritz's shop wearing the dingy, smelly clothes of a docksman. But on nights like this one, he was asked to come inside as a guest. Funny how evil can bring the rich and poor together as brothers. At least for one night, he thought.

After a few shortcuts through alleys and through Kammhar Park, Kellek made his way up the rickety stairs to Hasteng's tiny flat. Without knocking, he threw open the door and entered.

Hasteng stood on the other end of the cramped one-room apartment looking out the window onto the city. His black hair was tied back. The ponytail coiled itself inside the open hood of his grey cloak.

"Sorry it took so long,” panted Kellek. “I was at the docks when the horn sounded.” He noticed his cloak and rope were already laid out on the bed waiting for him.

"I was getting worried.” Hasteng picked up a leather satchel from the table and put it over his shoulder. “Hurry up, we haven't much time before it breeches the walls."

Kellek tied the dark scratchy cloak around his neck and threw the rope over his shoulder. His skin tingled with anticipation. He took a deep breath as he tied his hair back securely. Relax, he thought. This is no night to make a mistake from being anxious.

Hasteng seemed to read his mind. After fifteen years together, he probably could. He fetched a clay bottle from a nearby table. “Here, take a nip.” The echo of the cork pop seemed loud. Kellek hadn't noticed how quiet the city had grown.

"What is it?” he asked as he took a swig. The burning liquid took his breath.

"Rhomanic Vodka. I got it for after the job. Stout isn't it?"

Kellek nodded, coughing in agreement.

Hasteng grinned, holding up the bottle. “To the best thieves in Lichthafen.” He knocked back a long drink. He blew a hard breath. “The rest is for afterwards."

Carefully they climbed out the window onto the roof. The night seemed peaceful, but Kellek knew the truth. A bright waxing moon gleamed silvery light down on the city. There was no sign of life. He stood on his toes and could just see over the great walls. A sea of the dark mist completely surrounded the city. Waves of the fog crashed into the perimeter towers like slow moving breakers. Kellek looked down the empty street towards the East Gate. The sinister mist seeped through the door cracks like a dam about to give way.

Hasteng surveyed the scene quickly. “The guards are gone. We have the city to ourselves.” He shot a toothy grin. “Let's go!” Without hesitation he turned and ran, jumping off their roof onto the next. At the same time, Kellek watched the fog surge over the walls. It cascaded down them on all sides of the city. It would soon fill the streets. He took a quick breath and followed his companion.

He breathed steadily as they hopped from rooftop to rooftop. The wooden shingles creaked underfoot. His mind kept telling him that they would slip and make him crash into the streets below. But he knew better.

They had practiced this run two times before. Those nights were moonless and dark. They had to be careful not to be spotted by any townspeople, or the tower guards. But now the townspeople were all in their home, crammed into taverns or fortified in churches. The guards were locked securely inside their stone towers. No one could see them. And if they did, what could they do? Hasteng was right. The city was theirs.

They stopped on a flat-topped roof. The next building was too far to jump. Kellek could see the outline of Vathristern Cathedral silhouetted against the sky. Looking down he watched the dark mist pouring through the avenues and alleyways like floodwater. Already over half the city was filled with the waist-deep fog.

Somewhere nearby, a dog barked wildly. The mist had already covered that part of the city. He couldn't see it. The barking grew more frantic. Suddenly the dog let out a yelp of pain and went silent. Another victim of the fog.

"Help me with this,” said Hasteng. He picked up the end of a long wooden platform that lay against the low wall around the roof. He and Kellek had made the bridge a month ago and had left it here for this night.

Together they lifted it endwise and lowered across the chasm to the far rooftop. Its weight made it awkward to hold it by one end as they guided it over the river of mist below. After some grunting and a panic as they almost dropped it, they set the far end on the roof ledge across the street.

Kellek shook it firmly. “Feels secure.” He stepped onto the wall and began his way over the rift. The narrow bridge sagged and creaked under his weight. He scooted his feet quickly across, never taking his eyes off the end. He didn't breathe. The bridge felt as if it would give any second. His heart raced as he neared the ledge.

With a gasp, he set foot on the solid stone lip that jutted out from the building. Without hesitation Kellek climbed over the short wall and onto the roof top. He turned to see Hasteng begin to traverse the street behind him. Below, the fog had already risen to the tops of the doors. It moved in a slow current, its waves lapping up and feeling the bottoms of windowsills like tendrils.

Kellek had lived in Lichthafen all his life. The mist was just another part of the city. Just the same as the stink, taxes, corrupt guards, extortionists, thieves, and overpriced flats. Every fall and spring it loomed as a threat, sometimes visiting the city up to thrice a year. However, this was his first time to actually see it. He had only witnessed its aftermath. He'd heard the cries of men beating on his door begging sanctuary as it invaded the city. Those unfortunate enough to be locked outside were often never heard from again. Some were left alive, but driven mad, telling wild stories of monsters and demons dwelling within the living fog.

Now that he watched it move, saw the mesmerizing way it flowed and felt its way along the building, he believed the madmen's stories. The fog was alive.

Hasteng climbed onto the rooftop. “Come on. We're almost there,” he panted. They turned and continued their run. Vathristern was a straight shot now.

They hopped from roof to roof, keeping their breaths steady. The buildings closer to the Cathedral were further apart. Each jump became more and more treacherous. No longer the squat, flat-topped roofs of the merchant district, these were taller, steeper, and more slippery.

In an alleyway directly below him a man began to scream. It echoed up the walls, followed with the sounds of ripping cloth and flesh. It pushed them faster, giving them more determination to reach their goal. Three rooftops later, the screaming stopped. But in the distance the sounds of other unfortunates’ death throes echoed throughout the city.

While working the docks, he'd heard sailors tell of far away places outside Mordakland where the mist did not exist. Lands such as Rhomanny, Mercina, and Galestia. Lands he'd never thought to see. That was until he met Pascha, and heard his proposal.

Pascha was a thick, balding man who arrived in the city five months ago from Rhomanny. He opened a small furniture store off Dishik Plaza. The steady stream of nobles and rich merchants wishing to furnish their homes in the latest of foreign fashion had made him a very rich man.

Two months ago, he had found Hasteng who worked as a locksmith's assistant. Pascha had said he lost his keys and needed someone to pick the lock to his home. He insisted it be Hasteng.

Hasteng took little time in opening the two elaborate locks to Pascha's shop. Once they were inside Pascha produced the keys from his pocket and told him he had passed the test. When asked what he meant, the fat man laughed and said he was in need of the best two thieves in Lichthafen. He had a difficult job, and Kellek and Hasteng would be perfect.

"Do you want to be rich, or does scratching a living at the docks appeal to you?” he remembered the fat man asking in his thick Rhomanic accent.

Kellek laughed. “Nothing in this city appeals to me."

Pascha's eyes twinkled with a sinister edge. “Then let me show you your passage out.” He reached into a black velvet bag. His thick fingers emerged clutching a handful of blood-red gems. They slipped between his fingers and clacked musically back into the pouch. “Natralsian rubies. More wealth than a lifetime of petty thefts and pick-pocketing. Enough for both of you to live rich anywhere you wish. All you have to do is a single job for me."

The red gems sparkled even in the candlelight. “What do I have to do?” he asked, his eyes transfixed on the prize.

Kellek's foot slipped on a loose tile. His arms flailed as he tried to catch his balance. His gut knotted as he looked down. If the four story drop to the street below didn't kill him, the yawning black mist not ten feet under him would.

He cried out as he felt himself falling backwards. The weight of the rope over his shoulder pulled at him like an anchor. Taking a breath, he braced himself for the plunge.

He felt Hasteng's hand grasp his shoulder.

"Hold on! I got you.” Hasteng pulled him forwards, allowing him to regain his balance.

"You okay?"

"Ja, I'm fine,” Kellek panted. Fool, he thought. Keep focused. Stop dreaming of the money. Worry about the job.

Vathristern was now only a stone's throw in front of them. Its twisting spires loomed against the night sky. They climbed down the side of Barilad's Mercantile and carefully stepped onto the adjoining wall. The dark mist twisted and curled not a hand's breadth below their feet.

Quickly they raced along the stone path as if running along top of the sea of mist blanketing the city. Rooftops and trees jutted like islands above an ocean of evil fog. They moved past the monks’ quarters and courtyard within the wall. Finally they came to the end where it met the high, sheer face of Vathristern Cathedral.

Kellek rubbed his hands and cracked his knuckles as he looked up the imposing wall. This was as far as they had ever gotten in the practice runs. From here on, it was new.

He slipped his fingers between the rough stones. Slowly, yet hurriedly, he climbed. The crumbling mortar made finding handholds easy, but the beady grit made them slippery and unsure. With great care he pulled himself onwards. The balcony to the Archbishop's office rested near the top. Below him Hasteng stood on the wall waiting. His hands were too delicate to make this climb.

As hard as he tried to keep focus, his mind still wandered back to Pascha's shop.

"The Church has something I want. Something you're going to get for me."

"The Church?” he asked.

Pascha nodded. “Something in the Archbishop's quarters."

Kellek sighed deeply. Breaking into the palace and defiling the Kaiser's throne would be an easier task. At least the Royal Guards would show him more mercy than the Church Knights. His eyes returned to the rubies that still trickled like rain from fat man's fingers.

"We'll do it."

He was almost to the balcony. Only a few more feet until he could grab the railing. Digging his fingers deep between the stone bricks he pulled himself closer. His toes struggled to find a foothold. Once they felt secure, he reached up towards the rail.

His fingers brushed the carved stone. He couldn't grab anything. Hugging the wall as best he could, Kellek pushed up with his toes and other hand. Trying not to think of the sixty foot fall to the courtyard, he stretched every part of his body up towards the ledge. His muscles aching, and his balance frighteningly unstable, Kellek managed to grab hold of the stone rail.

He grunted with satisfaction as he pulled himself up and clamored onto the balcony ledge. There was no time to rest yet. Slipping the heavy coil off his shoulders, he tied one end securely to the railing and let the rope fall to where Hasteng waited below.

Hasteng grabbed the line and began his ascent. Placing one foot against the railing, Kellek braced himself as he heaved the rope hand over hand. His throbbing muscles burned as he pulled. Hasteng merely held on tight, and walked up the church wall. With gritted teeth, Kellek hoisted his friend onto the landing.

Hasteng patted him on the shoulder. “Good job. Now for my part.” He removed a slender metal blade from his bag and worked it between the double doors.

Taking the time to rest, Kellek leaned against the balcony and tried to catch his breath. Every sinew of his body screamed with pain and exhaustion.

The rest was short-lived as Hasteng slid the thin blade up the door crack. With a smile he pulled open the door and stepped inside. Kellek took one last gulp of air and followed.

The faint moonlight cast long shadows into the room. Dark shapes loomed around him as Kellek weaved between a massive desk and several chairs. Red embers faintly glowed inside a fireplace. Somewhere within the building he heard echoes of the praying.

Hasteng took a candle off the mantle. Holding its wick against one of the hot coals, he softly blew. A pale flame licked out of the ember, lighting the candle.

He tapped his ear and then pointed to the door.

Kellek stepped over to the elaborate oaken door. Gold leafing framed a carved triangle of Arieth. He held his breath as he put his ear to the small gap between the door and frame. He heard nothing but the distant sounds of prayers and his own heart thumping in his ears.

Hasteng had lit the two other candles on the candelabra and now studied an immense stone and wood case against the far wall. Tight-spaced iron bars protected the case's contents. The scarf of Saint Kistim, the ring of Saint Vilhelm, and the heart of Saint Evetta were only a few of the priceless artifacts inside.

"What do you want from the Archbishop?” he had asked the fat man.

Pascha smiled. “Inside his chambers is a case. A case whose locks are said to be unpickable. It holds several priceless holy artifacts as well as the sacred remains of over seventeen Saints."

"You wish for us to steal you a Saint?” asked Hasteng. “Name him, and he's yours."

The Rhomanian shook his head. “On the side of the case is a locked secret panel. Inside there is the treasure I want."

Kellek watched Hasteng traced his fingers along the side of the case near the floor. He stopped at the third carved face of an angel. With firm fingers he twisted the marble face. It moved. Slowly, he turned the relief around until it was upside-down.

Kellek flinched as the case clicked. The angel's head popped forward an inch. Hasteng pulled it like a handle, and a stone door revealed itself as it smoothly swung open.

Hasteng ran his hand along his bristled jaw as he looked inside. Kellek leaned over his partner's shoulder and saw the safe that now confronted them. Two jagged keyholes peered at them from its black iron face.

Kellek sighed. It was the most elaborate safe he'd heard of, let alone seen. “Can you do it?"

Hasteng nodded as he surveyed the locks. “Ja, just give me a little time."

"We don't have time. The mist is rising."

"Shh. I know.” Hasteng unrolled a leather pouch. Inside were dozens of bent wire picks and slender tools. “They're Quellish locks. Very complicated. Just be quiet and let me work."

Kellek stepped back against the far wall. Beside him he noticed a small window with a top-hinged door. The echoing sounds of prayers came from behind it. He looked over his shoulder to Hasteng. He was engrossed with the locks, and wouldn't see if Kellek took a peek.

He pushed the wooden flap open very slightly. From the small crack he looked down on the crowded chapel. Men and women filled the wooden pews. Archbishop Hristom led the congregation of priests and townspeople. The smells of dust, incense, and candle smoke barely masked another stink: fear.

He dared to open it a little more, despite the risks of being seen. From his new angle he could see the great double doors of the Cathedral. The cracks around and between the barred doors were crammed with wet cloth, sealing the entrance airtight. Several armored Church Knights stood beside the entrance, shifting uneasily as they protected the barricade. Everyone was consumed with thoughts of the horror that plagued the streets. No one could suspect that two thieves would dare a raid on a night of fear such as this.

Hasteng and Kellek had anticipated that. It took a week to formulate the plan to raid the Archbishop's office. The City Guards, random witnesses, and Church Knights were all factors that could not be avoided under normal circumstance. Only a distraction as great as the fog could keep prying eyes occupied elsewhere. The dangers of the mist could be eluded, if prepared for. They had waited weeks for it. Every night brought the promise of the mist. Every day was spent biding their time, hoping for it to come.

Kellek lowered the door shut and returned his attention to the office. Hasteng worked the picks in the lock. Carefully he turned them and the safe responded with a click.

One more to go.

"What is it?” he had asked the fat man.

Pascha gave a toothy shark's grin. “A chalice. A silver chalice encrusted with gems."

"That's all?"

Pascha nodded. “Fetch me that, and I will reward you handsomely."

Kellek didn't know what the chalice was, nor did he care. His eyes returned to the bag of rubies. The fat man would have his cup, and he and Hasteng would have their prize.

A second click pulled Kellek back to the present.

"Got it!” Hasteng hissed.

Kellek knelt beside him to hold the candles as he opened the iron door. Inside lay a bundle of cloth. Once white, the old fabric had darkened and yellowed.

Hasteng licked his lips as he lifted it out of the safe. Carefully he unwrapped the bundle to find a black, tarnished goblet. Six rubies lay evenly spaced around the lip. On its side was a symbol of a circle with six diamonds, like spikes, facing inward to a single gem in the center.

"We got it.” Hasteng wrapped it back inside the bundle and shoved it into his satchel. “Let's go."

Quickly the two thieves closed the safe and its secret covering. Kellek blew out the candles and returned them to the mantle. Hasteng stood at the door holding the latch up with his thin-bladed tool. As Kellek stepped out onto the balcony, Hasteng carefully closed the door behind them and locked the doors from the inside.

Kellek looked down from the ledge. A sea of the murky fog covered the city. He couldn't see the courtyard wall. The mist had swallowed it.

"Be careful,” he said to his friend, as Hasteng swung his leg over the rail. “The fog has risen; try not to miss the wall."

Hasteng nodded, clutched the rope, and dropped out of sight. Within only a few seconds Kellek heard his feet land on the wall below. He tied a string to the end of the rope that jutted from the knot holding it to the rail. After checking it was secure, he dropped the spool to his partner below.

He removed two thick, worn pieces of boot leather from his pouch. Sliding his fingers through the loops tied to the back, he secured them over his palms. Kellek crawled over the railing and took the rope in his leather-bound hands. With one last breath he kicked off the ledge and zipped down the line. The heat from the rope worked its way through the leather, warming his fingers. He squeezed harder to slow his descent as he neared where Hasteng stood, knee-deep in the fog.

The stone felt slick as he stepped onto the wall. The dark mist crept into his pants legs. It softly squeezed him and pulled at the little hairs as if examining him the way one would inspect a chicken at the market.

It felt unsettling. Kellek kicked his leg a little to shake it off of him, but the mist held fast.

"Get the rope and let's get to the roofs,” Hasteng hissed. He gave a hard tug on the string pulling out the rope knot above. Kellek began coiling the line even before it finished its fall from the balcony. It landed on the ground with a dull thud. Quickly he gathered it and the string and tied the coil into a tight bundle.

The two thieves hurried along the wall as best they could. Unable to see their own feet, they took small steps along the slippery stone in order not to fall off. The depth of the mist grew. By the time they had reached Barilad's, the fog was at their waists.

Kellek breathed a sigh of relief as he clutched the wall, waiting for Hasteng to finish his ascent to the roof and out of the mist. He threw the heavy bundle of rope out into the unseen street below. There was no more use for it now; it would only burden him.

When he reached up to grab the building's window sill, he noticed a black slimy moss clung to the sides of the structure wherever the mist touched it. He shifted his feet again against the slippery stones of the wall realizing that it was this same mold that had made it so treacherous.

He shook it out of his mind. The mist was growing deeper and if he didn't move it would consume him. Kellek dug his fingers into the window sill and pulled himself out of the fog. He reached up to the eaves when something grabbed his hand. Kellek jumped, almost losing his balance on the windowsill.

"Come on. I got you,” said Hasteng.

Kellek sighed as his partner helped pull him onto the wooden shingles of the roof. Until that moment he hadn't realized how truly afraid of the mist he was.

"You good?” asked Hasteng

"Ja, I'm good."

He grinned. “Then get up. We're almost done. Then we can drink the rest of the night away."

"And plan how we will spend our reward,” he said, crawling to his feet.

"Don't tell me you haven't spent it in your head already,” Hasteng chuckled. “Let's go.” He turned and ran.

Kellek followed him, climbing the steep rooftops towards home.

Around them, the mist grew. Many of the smaller buildings were now completely consumed within the impenetrable fog. It licked at the edges of many of the roofs the two thieves traversed. And everything the fog touched it corrupted with the slimy black mold.

They continued their run towards Hasteng's apartment. Even aside from having to make detours around the lower buildings that now lay buried under the mist, their journey felt inexplicably longer. Their energy had been spent on the run to the cathedral. Their muscles burned with exhaustion making each step feel wobbly and unsure.

Kellek stopped at a ledge. The mist covered the last foot of the sloping roof. The next building was a good jump away. He knew the unseen street lay three stories below, but the chasm between the houses might be a hundred for all he could tell.

He looked up and down the street for an easier point to jump.

"This is the best spot,” said Hasteng, as if reading his mind again. The dark-haired thief took a step back before the running leap to the adjacent roof. He landed on the edge, but the thin layer of slime caused his foot to slip. With outstretched arms he tried to regain balance, but it only delayed his fall backwards off the roof. Hasteng cried out for only a second as he plunged through the mist before the pavement of the street below cut him off.

"Hasteng!” Kellek cried out. “Are you okay?"

A soft groan answered him.

"Hold on, I'll come get you.” Kellek ran back to where he had come, remembering a flight of stars leading down from the roof of the previous building. Facing the mist might be madness, but he had to rescue the chalice, and more importantly his lifelong friend.

With little difficulty he found the steps leading down into the fog. The wooden stairs were slippery with scum forcing him to slow down. He felt the mist enter his clothes and explore his skin as he lowered himself deeper into the fog. Kellek took a breath before submerging his head beneath the misty waves.

It caressed him. Kellek felt the sinister vapor pull and squeeze gently over his body. It violated his nose and ears, he felt ill at the thought of it entering his body with every breath, bringing with it the smell of mildew and rot. Now more than ever, he knew the mist not only harbored monsters and demons, it was one itself. Kellek had no doubt the mist was aware of his presence, and welcomed it.

Unable to see more than a few feet, he followed the steps to the street below. Reaching his hand for the building, he used it to guide him back to the alley where his partner had fallen. The scum lightly coating the stucco walls oozed between his fingers. Faint lights from street lamps did little more than cast silhouettes within the dense fog.

Careful not to stumble over anything, he made his way to the alley. Deeper down the crevice a lantern burned overhead. In the dim light Kellek saw dark moss hanging like old men's beards from windowsills, signs, and everything else it could attach to. Kellek was about to call out for his companion when he saw something move deeper in the alley. He could make out Hasteng's crumpled form in the dim light. But he also saw another crouched over it. He wanted to run, but he couldn't abandon the two most important things in his life. Slowly he moved closer. Slurping sounds grew louder as he approached the man huddled over his friend.

He stopped, only a few feet from the stranger. Kellek strained to see him clearly. The man seemed emaciatingly thin. Too thin for him to be clothed. He crouched over Hasteng's body as a cat would. Something faintly moved behind the figure, but Kellek was unable to see well enough to identify it.

Quietly he lowered and crawled close to them. He smelled the awful stink of death as he was almost to Hasteng's outstretched arm. Kellek froze in horror as he looked upon the stranger. It wasn't human. Short spines covered its pale body. They quivered in waves down its back to where a pair of long thin tails flicked behind it. Two large slender eyes peered down on Hasteng from its noseless face. Blood dripped down its chin from where it chewed at a hole in Hasteng's stomach. It darted a long, barbed tongue into the wound and pulled out a loop of his entrails which it ate with needlelike teeth.

Kellek's first impulse was to scream. Luckily his petrified body was unable to do so. He looked down to see Hasteng's satchel lying beside him. A piece of the yellowed cloth peeked out from under the flap. It was too risky to reach for it.

Without taking his eyes off the fiend, Kellek felt the ground beside him. His hand found a fist-sized stone. Carefully he picked it up and tossed it down the alley. It clattered, bouncing off wooden walls and skittering along cobblestones.

The beast spun around. A piece of bloody intestine hung from its mouth. The creature hissed as it stood hunkered on its hind legs and walked towards where the sound had come.

Kellek leapt forward and opened the gore-soaked satchel as fast and quiet as he could. Keeping his gaze on the alleyway to be sure the beast didn't return and on the bundle of cloth he wrestled out of the bag, he avoided the dead stare coming from his old friend. Kneeling in blood, he gulped back bile as he ripped open the bag. Desperately he managed to extract the bundle and crawl away before he was seen.

He hurried out the alley onto the street. Turning to go back to the stairway he stopped. He couldn't see where it was. His pulse pounded faster as he crept in the direction he remembered it being. Suddenly, the hissing returned.

He moved faster, hoping the stairs were nearby, but as he did, Kellek realized the hissing came from that direction. His heart raced as he fled the other way down the abandoned streets. Somewhere in the fog ahead he heard the sounds of music and laughter. He tried to follow the noise, but became lost as it echoed off unseen buildings. His wet clothes smelled of mildew, and he felt the mold clinging to his skin and hair.

A faint light led him to a tavern door. The moss-covered sign was unreadable, but he knew it to be the dancing manta. The sounds of music and revelry came from inside.

"Please!” he cried, banging on the door. “Let me in."

The music continued without notice.

Kellek banged louder. “Help me!” He pounded his fist into the slimy door.

Still no one responded.

He kicked and punched at the heavy oak. “Let me in! Help me!"

The music stopped. The tavern went quiet.

"Open the door!” he sobbed. “For Arieth's sake, please let me in."

Silence came from inside. The only sounds were the echoes from Kellek's assault on the door. They came from all sides, mocking him.

"Go away!” growled a voice from inside.

"Please, please open the door,” he cried.

"You'll get no help here. Now leave."

Kellek opened his mouth to protest, but stopped. He knew better. No one would open their door. He wouldn't have. The slow realization that he was helpless crept into his mind. He had to find someplace safe. He needed to run before the commotion he had caused led any more beasts to him. He ran down the dark avenue, unaware of where he would go or find shelter. The muffled laughs and singing from the tavern that had forsaken him followed Kellek down the streets.

After four or five blocks Kellek slowed down. Stop panicking, he told himself. He had no idea where he was or where he was headed. After a few deep breaths he looked around to catch his bearings. The fog and moss made the buildings unrecognizable. He crept quietly beside a wall of storefronts, looking for any tell-tale signs of his whereabouts and more importantly a place to hide.

He pulled the bundle tightly under his arm. The hard center let him know the chalice was still safely inside. He darted into a niche between two shops. With luck he'd find a place to hide.

As he made his way further in the alley he noticed two green lights dimly glowing ahead. Kellek stopped and peered to see what it was. He heard a rattle like the sounds of rain on stone. He stepped back, unsure of what to do. The noise intensified. Thousands of tiny points of light appeared in front of him. They grew longer as they shook back and forth with the susurration. Their glow increased. Now, no longer appearing as individual points of light, they merged into almost green fire whose flames shuddered with the sounds.

It moved closer.

Kellek made another step back out of the alley. His eyes never left the growing phantasm. The scintillant green lights continued to spread out, forming the outline of some beast. The bright green orbs, which he now realized were eyes, grew larger as the creature continued its advance.

Kellek didn't stop. With his eyes locked on it, the glowing outline became more detailed as it crept closer. The long green lights spread downward to form legs. He realized that the lights came not from fur, but spines, whose lights began at the tips and worked their way down to an invisible body. The quills along its back and tail where the lights began were two to three feet long, much longer than the tiny hair-like points that grew along the creature's face. It looked like a great barbed wolf. Its shoulders stood as high as a Kellek's chest. The spines shuddered in waves down its body causing the rain-like rattle. It curled barbed lips away from invisible teeth as it growled. The mist between them vibrated with the deep, rolling snarl.

Kellek fled into the mist. Unable to see anything before him, he ran. He didn't care about running straight into a building or a tree; all he knew was the clack of claws on cobblestones close behind him.

A dark shape revealed itself before him. A discarded wagon rested in the middle of the street. With only moments to keep from colliding with it Kellek threw himself to the ground. His momentum carried him, sliding along the slick layer of moss covering the street he slipped under and past the obstacle.

He clamored to his feet and continued his escape as he heard a loud crash and the splintering of wood behind him. The beast gave a keening howl that shivered through Kellek's body. He knew it was only a matter of seconds before it caught him.

He turned down a new street and found himself on a bridge. The panting and clattering claws raced up from behind. Without time to escape, he grabbed the railing and hurled himself over the edge and into the unseen abyss of the fog.

He plunged into the frigid water of the canal. Kellek held the bundle tightly under his arm as he kicked himself back to the surface. Thrusting his head through a skin of slime coating the water, he gasped for air. He paddled downstream along the channel. He heard no sounds from the monster, only the soft splashes of the water around him.

Kellek had no idea where he was as he crawled onto the bank. The icy water made his body numb as he stumbled into the road. There was no time to rest. He clutched the goblet within its soaked covering and pushed himself on.

A giant marble fountain rested in the street before him. Kellek recognized the stone-carved knights and immediately knew where he was. This was Dishik Plaza. Pascha's shop was only a short ways away. With new found energy he ran towards the fat man's home.

The squat two-story building lay at the far end of the plaza. Kellek knew the heavy door in front would be locked and barred, but remembered the stairs behind the building leading up to Pascha's living quarters. He raced around to the alley and hurried up the moldy steps.

"Pascha!” He beat his fist against the door. “It's Kellek. Let me in."

He heard no reply from inside, but that didn't dissuade him.

"Open the door! I have it,” he cried. Kellek kicked and hammered his palm loudly against the wood. “Let me in Pascha. Please!"

The house remained silent.

"Pascha,” he screamed, as he shouldered the door. If the fat man didn't open it, then Kellek had no choice but to break it down. He drove his body into the wood, again and again. The bundle dropped onto the landing as Kellek increased his assault. His body burned with panic and determination. He no longer felt cold. He couldn't feel the crushing pain in his shoulder as he smashed it into the door.

The wood cracked as it began to give. Desperately Kellek screamed with every assault. Tears streamed down his face. A plank in the door cracked and popped loose as he struck it again.

Kellek pushed the board aside and squeezed his arm through the tight gap. Splinters dug into his arm as he reached in to find the latch. His fingers fumbling, barely able to reach; he thrust his arm in deeper. Kellek twisted the first lock. It clicked open.

He strained to reach the second bolt when a noise came from the bottom of the stairs.

Something growled.

Kellek turned his head to see the phosphorescent flow of the beast's spines. They danced like fire across its back as it took a step onto the stairs.

Kellek tore his arm out from the door. The wooden splinters dug into his flesh. He spun around to face it.

The beast's tail whipped forward from behind its back. A dozen lights, like green shooting stars, flew from the tail towards Kellek.

Something thudded into the door beside his head. Kellek looked to see one of the sinister quills imbedded in the wood like an arrow. Green fluid splattered from the hollow tube and ran in glowing streaks down the door. Something felt wrong. He gazed down to see three more of the spines protruding from his own body.

He pulled at one jutting six inches out of his left breast. Tiny barbs along the shaft held it fast. It wouldn't budge. Yet it didn't hurt. Kellek tore at his shirt to see the veins around where the spine stuck glowing green. He fell to his knees as he watched the poison work its way through his body. It paralyzed him. He collapsed like a rag doll on the landing as the beast crept up to him.

Kellek lay there, his body numb. Unable to move, unable to scream, he could only listen and watch as the beast began to eat him.

The early morning sun drew the citizens of Lichthafen out from hiding. With the exception of a few broken stands, and a smaller population of vermin, the city itself appeared as it did on any other morning. Gossip had already spread through the populace with an almost supernatural speed.

Viscount Morvlein's rapier was found broken on Lariak Street. A wagon on Thieves Row had been smashed to pieces. In the Mason District, an entire family was missing, their back door standing open. No bodies were discovered anywhere.

Pascha heard these rumors and more as he made his way back home. Tired and disheveled, he had spent the night at a customer's home, playing cards and drinking wine while the mist held him hostage.

As he made his way up the stairs to his house he saw his door had been battered. He hurried up the steps to find several holes driven into the wooden door and railing as if they had been stabbed with a stiletto. A curious bundle of wet cloth lay at his feet. The fabric was stained yellow with age. A large bloody splotch on it looked fresh.

Pascha opened the door to find his home unmolested. He breathed a sigh of relief and carefully picked up the bundle. It was heavy. Slowly he unwrapped it. He gasped as he found the black chalice inside.

His hands shook as he held it. Pascha licked his lips, inspecting the goblet.

"There's only one way to know for sure.” He wiped the bloody fabric across the black metal. The tarnish rubbed off effortlessly. The fat man chuckled to himself giddily as he cleaned the rest of the chalice with the blood. The white metal gleamed unlike anything he'd ever seen.

Pascha sat down at a table and filled the goblet with wine. He laughed out loud, thinking how this treasure had only cost him a door. The rubies were his. With a broad grin he toasted to the two best thieves in Lichthafen.

Copyright © 2008 Seth Skorkowsky

POETICAL ACCURACY

It will probably haunt me to my grave, but on a panel at the World Horror Convention 2007 in Toronto, I had a spat with Joe Lansdale. Don't get me wrong; I love Joe's writing (check out the superb movie Bubba Ho-Tep, based on his story) but when he claimed that novel-writing was an inherently superior art form to screenwriting, my hackles rose. As you might expect since he was belittling my profession of the last twenty-five odd years.

My counter-argument went like this: I work as hard at a screenplay as a story for publication, if not harder; so to me there is no qualitative difference at all in the process, and I certainly don't consider screen work to be an inferior undertaking—and if there are writers out there who do, fucking shame on them.

Joe's contention, as I recall, was pretty much that when he's writing a novel, he's in charge. Like the sculptor Anthony Gormley said: “That's what it means to be an artist—what I say goes.” Fair enough. Though I don't know where that puts Michelangelo and the Pope, and whether the Sistine Chapel qualifies as a work of art under that definition. Remembering of course that the image of the lone artist/poet suffering in his garrett is a relatively new creation of civilisation, minted as it was in the Romantic era.

Anyway, being pedantic, what the novelist says doesn't always go.

To my knowledge, several have had their work changed, edited, mangled, and (dare I suggest) improved by others along the line. A friend of mine was told to change his novel's title because it was deemed “not horror enough.” Even in highfaluting literary circles, the celebrated Brick Lane was a title chosen by the publisher, not by the author. And Raymond Carver, whose brilliant stories inspired the Robert Altman film Short Cuts, and who earned a reputation as “the American Chekhov,” had his prose stripped bare to that characteristically minimalist style by his legendary editor Gordon Lish.

What I'm saying is, there is no real purity of vision or indeed of craft to distinguish the one craft (or art) from the other. We are none of us immune from interference.

But it does piss me off when “The Novel” per se is acclaimed as the high water mark of achievement, without contest.

Ian McEwan, speaking pompously of the film Atonement said it could only of course be only a “monstrous” version of his book. This to me amounts to not only to elitism and the crassest snobbery, but a kind of literary totalitarianism. (The same insufferable sectarianism as when Jeanette Winterson declares her blatantly science-fiction novel to be “literary"—but that's another matter.)

To me, Christopher Hampton's screen adaptation of Atonement drastically improved upon McEwan's flawed novel. It excised tracts of repetitive verbiage, and constructed instead a series of events and moments where never a word or shot was gratuitous. Peel away the hype and forget for a minute you hate British films about posh country houses, and what you have is a masterpiece that says something about lies, writing, redemption and cinema itself.

Sorry, let me make my point more clearly. The script kicked hell out of the original. Far from being “monstrous” it was a sounder and more elegant work of art.

But I digress. What got under my skin most about what Joe Lansdale said was this: why are writers happy to put down the efforts of other writers, in whatever field, rather than extend a hand of comradeship and support?

Yes, the abiding image that comes to mind along with the word “Screenwriter” is of some subservient hack, of lesser talent and no integrity (or if he does have integrity, doesn't keep it for long, per Barton Fink). True, we are not in ultimate control of our work. In that respect Joe Lansdale hits the nail on the head. We sign away copyright as part of our contract, and that's the deal with the Devil, in black and white, signed in blood. And we're forced to be a cog in a machine oiled by the concept of rewriting, which I personally despise and refuse to have anything to do with. I think every rewrite job accepted diminishes us writers as a species and reinforces what they want us to believe—that we are inter-changeable, expendable, and ultimately worthless.

Maybe what I've just said is enough for novelists to look down their noses at us. I don't know.

But you can not say the screenplay is not an art form simply because the writing is not itself the final work. If that were so, the same would apply to a stage play. And if Shakespeare's work is not Art, whose the hell is? Andy McNab? Barbara Cartland? Alan Titchmarsh? Jordan?

If we screenwriters can't aspire to control, what do we have to keep us going, you may ask? Well—love. Our unconditional love of the medium.

To devotees like me (hybrid story-addict and Horror/SF movie-geek) the screen medium is intoxicating. More than intoxicating, entrancing—magical; the sheer alchemy of a dramatic story acted out in pictures and sound before our very eyes as if real; a bizarre and compelling doppelganger of life itself. And because it does resemble the substance of life, this is why—sorry Joe—I believe you can argue that the screenplay is a superior art form to the novel.

In a screenplay, events play out like they do in our world. We see and hear information—pictures and events imply, and we extrapolate, fill in the gaps, and make connections, just as we do in real life, without the benefit of a first-person or omnipotent narrator describing every thought and motivation.

To some writers this inhibition is too restrictive. But Tony Harrison was once asked if the necessity to rhyme was restrictive on his poems; and he said no, on the contrary, it opened up new and exciting possibilities he may not have thought of otherwise. That's the joy of the screenplay form, too, if you choose to embrace it.

"I spend a lot of time, maybe too much time ... relating to scripts as something of an object, making the prose in them solid, and sound, to make them beautiful...” says Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Dolores Claiborne) in a recent interview. “I like it when the prose is well-worked, not over-worked, but when the extra effort and energy has gone into it, even though no one's ever going to see it. I become incapable of moving on from a scene, unless it's completely switched-on, on point. Poetically accurate."

That's a writer. And, to be blunt, plenty of novelists I've read don't give their work that extra mile Gilroy demands of himself.

Here, because we're a largely unknown breed, off the cuff and without too much deliberation, are some screenwriters I've admired over the years. Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), Nigel Kneale (Quatermass), David Webb Peoples (Blade Runner, Twelve Monkeys), Guillermo Del Toro (The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth), Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under), Richard Matheson (Duel, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Last Man on Earth), Joseph Stefano (Psycho, Outer Limits), Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Kinsey), Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah), Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood). To me, their skill and imagination is the equal of many a novelist, in fact they leave most standing.

Do me a favour. Instead of mentally noting the name of the director of the next movie you like, note the writer. Look him or her up on the internet: seek out their other works (David Peoples also wrote Unforgiven, by the way), as you would a new and exciting novelist you come across. Open that door a little bit and see what you find.

And instead of us getting into a pissing contest between page and screen, let's applaud and enjoy and try and understand and value both forms. Who cares about the spacing? The columns? The tabs? Writers are writers. We have enough enemies without each other.

Copyright © 2008 Stephen Volk

They looked almost like giant human beings, though they were not that.

Saguaro. It is a Spanish word originally. It is pronounced ‘sahwarro'. It means ‘sentinel', and comes from the phrase ‘los saguaros del desierto', ‘the sentinels of the desert'.

The desert in this case being the Sonoran Desert outside Phoenix, which Rick had found himself trapped at the heart of out of his own pain and shame and vulnerable stupidity. There were about a dozen of the giant cacti, each of them some twenty feet tall, clustered around him in the fading light.

And had they gathered around him to harm him, or protect him? He just had time to groggily wonder that before the last scrap of the sun, on the distant, uneven horizon, finally winked out.

What had brought him to this place? Long story. Things that change your life for good are never usually short in the telling.

He'd been living in LA for the last three years, working sound-effects for one of the big studios. All computers these days, which was no problem to him. He was single. Still in his twenties, and therefore free and easy. Had been through a whole string of girlfriends since he had arrived in the big city, most of whom had turned out to be flakes. He inhabited an only vaguely messy apartment at the back of a private house just off Mulholland. Had owned a dog for about a year, until it had got run over. And himself? He drove one of those trendy little four-wheel drive Toyotas.

All pretty typical for a reasonably prosperous guy of his age then, which was no problem to him either. Except that, just a few weeks ago, he had ambled casually into his regular bar of a Friday night, sat down next to an extremely pretty redhead. Began chatting to her only half-way idly and...

His surroundings started coming into proper focus right around that point. Where the hell was he? What did he imagine he was doing?

He was quite alone, which seemed entirely appropriate. The desert, filled with scrub and big pale rocks, stretched away from him to the horizon in every direction he looked, and there was no sign of habitation, no roofs and no masts. A pair of pale grey doves sprang up from the undergrowth and flapped away when he faced back ahead, but there was no other life. It was too hot in the daytime for very much to be abroad, he now remembered.

The sun was at its four o'clock position right in front of him, and was still very large and bright. Thank God he'd had the presence of mind—though he didn't remember doing it—to switch on the air-conditioning.

Rick glanced at the fuel meter. The needle hung between a quarter full and empty. For heaven's sake! He'd loaded up the tank before he'd left the city, but had driven here the whole way without stopping.

And he'd lived here long enough to understand the kind of risks that faced him by this time. He had no food, no water. Had no gun. His cell-phone was on his night-stand back in Los Angeles. These were not the circumstances to go running out of gas.

"You're from Phoenix? Jesus, me? I'm from Glendale, just up the freeway from you!"

Her name was Lucy. She was here for ten days on vacation, didn't know the place at all and, yes, she'd be delighted if he would show her around.

It had taken far less than ten days for Rick to fall in love with her. His first time.

He squinted at the sun again and then decided that he should head north. Except the track? It only took him westwards. With luck though, it would curve around before he got much further down it. Turning round and heading back the way he'd come was not much of an option.

So he stuck with it for the next ten minutes, slamming and bouncing and grating, listening to the chassis protest as though it were in actual pain. And the whole while he tried to stop thinking about Lucy. Tried to concentrate simply on getting himself out of here.

And it almost worked. The track began curving to the right after a while, taking him back northwards. And the tightness in his chest? It eased off slightly. He was going to make it.

Till he reached the ledge.

When she'd finally gone home, she had promised to call, promised to email, even write. And she'd done none of those things. And, because he still had her address, the first available weekend Rick had packed a light bag, jumped into his car, and driven east to find her.

And ... he hadn't. He'd found somebody quite different opening her front door to him, albeit somebody with the same face and the same red hair. He'd understood the truth of the matter in that first awful moment, from her body language and the sheen across her eyes. He had simply been a fling. He'd been part of her vacation, nothing more than that. And his heart had started beating so terribly heavily that nothing they said to each other, for the next ten minutes, could be properly heard above it.

And now here he was. Out on his own. And trapped. Exactly why?

When he'd been much younger, still living in Glendale with his parents, when he'd found himself unhappy or otherwise heavy of spirit, he had always had an antidote. He'd borrowed the keys to his father's beaten-up old Silverado, driven out into the desert, sat alone there on the warm hood till the sun went down.

So he tried to do that this time. Almost by instinct. Without even being quite sure what he was doing. It was different in the Toyota, though.

He ought to have known better, except that he wasn't thinking straight. This car wasn't a proper off-roader at all. Nothing like the Silverado. It was a cute, well-equipped, wholly urban vehicle, its outer shell designed to cash in on a current fashion. It couldn't even begin to cope adequately with the long procession of huge ruts and even vaster pot-holes that laughingly gets called a ‘track’ out here in this desert. It took an hour of mindlessly being smashed around and listening to the suspension groaning till that finally sank in.

Rick eased down on the brake and stared ahead at the damn ledge. Thought half a dozen obscene words in quick succession.

For eighty or perhaps a hundred yards ahead of him, the track narrowed so much that he'd never have gotten dad's old Silverado down it. It was rutted and pot-holed to an extent that made the last hour or so's drive look like a cruise along a skating rink. And it gave way abruptly, on its left-hand side, to a steep slope of shingle that went down some twenty feet. There were tall cacti at the bottom of the slope, but Rick barely noticed them at this point. All of his attention was focused ahead.

Turn back, something inside him said rather more fiercely than before. But no, he was now heading the right way. This track, however treacherous, was his only real passage out of the desert.

He glanced at himself a moment in his rear-view mirror, as though to gather his resolve. Took in the sight of his own face. His eyes. Still so very childlike. Still so damp, despite his circumstances. All filled up with inner pain, betrayal, and abandonment.

He blinked and pursed his lips. Ignored all that and pressed on.

And only got a quarter of the way along this section, before one tyre slipped over the edge. And then another...

The light was already fading by the time that he came to again.

He was aware of a sticky, ripping noise as his forehead pulled free of the steering wheel. And there was something holding his right eye shut that it took him a while to recognise as dried blood too. Thank all the gods that, however upset he had been when he'd set out, he had still put his seat belt on. Thank the lord for reflex actions.

Christ alive, but his head hurt.

All the windows in the car were shattered and completely gone. Both the doors were burst wide open, and he doubted that he'd get them shut.

Rick—his legs like rubber—stumbled out.

Turned around in an unsteady circle, thinking, for a moment, there were the shadows of people all around him.

There were not. It was the shadows of the giant cacti, the saguaros, straight out of a Western movie. Far too tall to be people, and each with a couple too many limbs. He took in their presence more completely than he had before, then turned his attention to the car.

It was standing there on all four tyres, as though he had parked it there. Except that, apart from the damage he'd already taken note of, the roof was crumpled, half-way busted in. It became slowly obvious to his numbed mind the vehicle had rolled completely, at least once, on its way down the slope.

A large dark stain on the ground beneath the grille told him the radiator had burst open. Other, smaller stains were oil and braking fluid. So, his car was going nowhere.

Rick leant against its hot shell, feeling violently ill by now, and tried to take stock of his situation.

He was on his own, with no means of protection or communication. At the bottom of a slope he could not climb. In one of the most dangerous environments you could hope to find in the United States. Appropriate reaction? Whoopee?

His best hope was that somebody, some horse-rider or desert tour guide, might just happen by.

Except the light was already vanishing quickly. Anyone who knew the score out here would have already turned around and be half-way home.

He looked again at the saguaros.

The closest of them? It could only be some twenty feet away, so very large that it looked closer.

And the dozen or so other massive plants? They were clustered around him more tightly than he'd ever seen saguaros grouped before. Almost like a huge and heavily-spiked fence.

To protect him from the hostile desert? he now wondered. Or to hem him in and overwhelm him?

Just what kind of stupid thought was that? His head was still swimming from the impact it had taken. Just how badly, he enquired next, had his brain been rattled around?

They did so look like the overly-large silhouettes of people, though. He supposed he should be grateful for their company.

He was still gazing at them when the last of the light disappeared. The temperature began to drop abruptly.

As though taking its signal, a chirring noise began from somewhere, a chitinous squeaking. Then a humming, caused by insects too. Rick understood. The desert only truly came alive at night.

He rubbed at the goosebumps forming on his upper arms—he was only wearing a T-shirt, and had no jacket—and thought about what that meant. There were all manner of things coming awake now that could cause him varying degrees of harm.

Tarantulas for a start. Scorpions.

Moving up the size scale, he knew for a fact that this whole area was seething with rattlesnakes.

Then there were coyotes, a pack of which could be genuinely dangerous to a lone human being.

Moving up the size scale further? God, he didn't even wish to contemplate that.

The moon—a full one, and so pale that it was smoky-looking—started coming up. It was directly behind the saguaros, so that they all cast a faint shadow now. The optical effect of which was that they seemed to move a little closer to him. No, they couldn't do that, he told himself. Just plants.

He thought of getting back into the car. Except that what good would that do? The windows were all gone. And when Rick attempted to push the passenger door shut, it wouldn't budge more than a couple of inches. The same with his door. The hinges must have jammed when the roof had been compacted.

So he ended up climbing onto the hood and squatting cross-legged there, the same way he'd done when he had been a troubled teenager. So are you happy now, Lucy? Making me revert like this?

It was slightly warmer up here, at least. The motor was only half-way through the process of losing its heat.

His head was rather clearer, though it still hurt pretty badly. Rick peered at the cacti, almost envying them now.

They didn't notice the encroaching cold. It was precisely the same thing to them as midday heat. Their skin was too solid for extremes of temperature to make any difference.

They barely needed anything. Water. Nutrition. Were entirely self-sufficient. And their arsenal of huge spikes meant they had no natural enemies.

The only thing that could really damage a saguaro? Lightning. Which meant, if you were at all religious, they were only vulnerable to God.

He was nothing like them. There seemed no end to the list of things that could hurt him. The heat. The cold. Collisions. Falls. Scorpions. Coyotes. And Lucys. The list seemed to march away towards the far horizon.

Rick found himself remembering the look in his own eyes, the pain trapped in them, when he'd glanced at his reflection for that last time before going down the slope. Goddamn.

He'd be all right, he told himself now. If he stayed up here then he'd be fine. Somebody would find him come the morning. Or he'd even head back on foot, once there was sufficient light to see by.

There was a sudden noise, somewhere off in the distance, and his head came sharply up. He recognised it. It had only been the briefest sound, but terribly distinctive. Like a rock breaking open and releasing gas at the same time. A combined crack and hiss.

It was hard to tell out here which direction it had come from or how far away it was.

But he knew, fully well, what had just made it.

Perhaps he should rethink getting back into the car.

The doors still wouldn't shut, however much he pushed at them. And Jesus, the amount of noise he had to be making! But if he simply wedged himself in the Toyota's compact interior, then wouldn't its unnatural odours, metal and plastic and spilled oil, put off a predator?

He already knew what the answer to that was. It depended how hungry said predator was. If not too much, then probably. But if it was genuinely famished, then a large wild beast might just conceivably claw its way through razor wire and sewage to get to a source of protein. Which was what he represented to it.

The combined cracking and hissing noise? Had been made by a mountain lion.

In other regions of the States, pumas were like ghosts. They were there, but almost never made their presence felt. But that was not so round these parts.

Around these parts, mountain lions took dogs from back yards on a regular basis. Took kids occasionally. And, a couple of times a year, would maul or kill a full-grown human being.

Rick gave up on the doors and looked back round at the sentinel cacti. Mightn't they protect him? They were grouped closely enough that any creature would think twice before approaching their long spikes, surely? The moon had risen higher above them now, and they appeared completely black.

Their arms were raised ... as though in prayer? No, not quite that. They reminded him more of the people he watched sometimes practising tai chi in the park near where he lived. Focusing internally. Refining their inner strength. Was that what the plants were doing? Making themselves stronger just by being, existing? Standing there?

He wished he could learn the trick. He felt so incredibly fragile at this moment. So helpless and very weak.

He was still trying to think what to do next when a low, almost mechanical humming brought his head around a second time.

Except it wasn't really a humming. Heavy, steady breathing, rather. And it wasn't caused by a machine.

A pair of huge green eyes, suspended just above his own waist height, were staring at him unblinkingly from the shadow of the cacti. He couldn't really make out the body behind them, just the vague impression of a shape. But thought that he could see, in the moonlight, a chink of white for a moment. A gleam. A fang.

Rick ... held himself completely still. On the outside at least. His inside was in frantic turmoil, the stomach churning, the heart pounding like a drum, the blood thrumming in his veins and every nerve vibrating like a fine stiff wire. Could the puma, with its fine senses, detect any of that?

It had walked right in through the saguaros. They hadn't protected him at all. And what should he do now?

Stay entirely still, the way he was. There was nothing else.

In spite of which, he seemed to be moving very gently by this time. Was he backing away, now, without even realising it? He had to stop!

He couldn't pull his gaze from those green staring eyes, but he remained aware of all the taller shadows clustered nearby. Sentinels indeed. They were immobile and uncaring. He could be torn to pieces now, screaming his head off, and it wouldn't affect them in the slightest.

The same thought came to him a second time ... why couldn't he be like them, for a few minutes at least?

He still appeared to be shifting slowly backwards. And the puma? It had started to edge almost casually towards him.

Rick drew himself up very straight. Yes, be like them. It was his only hope.

I have spikes, he thought, aware of how insane that was. I have spikes and dense solid skin, and nothing can harm me.

If he kept on thinking that, then might the lion pick up on it somehow and leave him alone?

I am like the saguaros, the sentinels, and only God can touch me.

It just wasn't working. The lion was still moving in, gathering speed by this time.

He actually did lurch at that point, taking several backward steps. Felt an acid flare of pain rise through his leg. He had backed right into one of the huge cacti. There was now one of its long spikes impaled in the flesh of his right thigh. And under normal circumstances, he'd have jumped away immediately. That would only take him closer to the puma, though.

And besides, We are joined now, was the strange thought running through his head.

And then ... he did the craziest thing of all.

He just knew he should stop moving altogether. That was a given absolute. And yet...

Between one moment and the next one, he had raised his arms above his head, into the same position exactly as the cacti which had such a painful hold of him.

We are joined. One and the same. We gather strength simply by being, and cannot be injured.

The pain in his leg grew even worse. Was there some kind of poison leaking into him?

Something very bright exploded suddenly, inside the far depths of his own head.

...a thousand sunrises across the desert ... and a thousand sunsets ... the hot wind rushing sometimes ... other times, the air completely still ... the scuttling of innumerable legs, some furry, some hard-shelled ... buzzards whirling overhead...

He was knowing what the saguaro knew. He understood that without even having to think about it.

...a thousand moonlit nights ... the hot breath of the mountain lion and its gentle padding ... the snarl of the coyote pack ... the sun rises for the one thousand and first time, right inside his head ... and burns something away ... and casts its light on something new ... which he never has seen before...

Rick came back to the present, blinking several times.

The mountain lion ... had stopped completely.

Almost within arm's reach now, it stared at him closely as though trying to reappraise him. And then, for the first time since it had appeared, its huge eyes slid shut a moment.

When they opened, all the hunger was gone from its gaze.

It had turned away and vanished silently in the very next instant.

Rick—the old Rick—would have let out a pent-up breath at least.

But the new Rick didn't even do that, since he was breathing quite evenly by this time, in spite of the fact that he was still impaled. All the tension had melted from his body. He was perfectly relaxed.

Wasn't bothered by the pain, the lion. Nor afraid it might come back. Nothing seemed to trouble him now. Scorpions? Rattlesnakes? Lucys? He just smiled.

Was it some force from the desert that had by now filled him up, the same force that made the saguaros so invulnerable? Or had it simply, as he'd first suspected, been there inside him the entire time?

He realised that he didn't really care. It made no difference to him what the answer was.

Grinning fiercely by now, he stepped off the spike. Ought to have felt a warm trickle of blood run down his leg, and yet there seemed to be nothing like that. He walked back to the car and brushed one hand across its hood.

Felt a hot sparking sensation at the centre of his palm a moment. The engine turned over, then started thrumming steadily, despite the fact its radiator was now empty. What of it? He needed nothing.

When he crossed to the passenger door and shoved at it, it slammed shut easily this time. His own door swung shut just as effortlessly when he clambered back into the driving seat. The lights came on. He didn't even use the switch. He needed nothing.

Just before he put the car in drive, Rick looked at himself again in the mirror, his narrow reflection in the cool, pale moonlight. His eyes were no longer the same. There was no pain in them any more. No hurt and no betrayal.

There was nothing but an inner, wholly self-sufficient smile. He was like the saguaros now. He needed nothing and could not be harmed.

He put the Toyota in drive and swung the steering wheel around. And went easily back up the slope. And went easily along the track. And quickly reached the blacktopped road which took him to the freeway. Which would lead him all the way back to that endless procession of massive ruts and pot-holes that laughingly gets called ‘civilisation'.

For which he was now far better equipped than any human ever had been.

Copyright © 2008 Tony Richards

When Brains Fall Out

New readers start here: In the last two columns I set out my stall for creativity, originality and ideas. Which brings us, it seems, to The Incredible Shrinking Brain.

It's evident all over the place right now, starting with I Am Legend, which had the best first half of any popular film I've seen in ages, and the worst remainder. The reason? A triumph of style over ingenuity. Post-apocalyptic New York's return to nature, all buzzing insects and grass thrusting through cracked concrete, was rendered in impeccable detail. But then the CGI zombies arrived and everything went to cheaply-rendered hell. In The Omega Man, the second film version of Richard Matheson's story, you may recall that the war between scientist Robert Neville and the infected is one of conflicting ideologies; Neville's technological determinism is the cause of the world's end. The infected now shun technology and have turned back to faith in order to save the planet. Once the relationship between Neville and his infected opposite number, the intellectually conservative Matthius, has been established, we know the conflict cannot be resolved without Neville's death because he is the last representative of the old guard, the true Omega Man who must be superseded by religious zealots as the clock of civilisation is reset. So the virus may be halted—it can't eradicate the new ideology—and to that extent Neville is as extinct as a dinosaur. This is the idea that drives the story and gives it so much power. So in the new version, it is of course the first thing to go.

Now the infected aren't real people, but have been replaced by superhuman computer animations. They can't even speak, so there's no real conflict at all, except the bog-standard Zombies vs Survivors tropes we've all seen a million times before. When Charlton Heston sat in a cinema and mouthed dialogue from Woodstock, he was making a point about free will. Will Smith gets to duplicate the scene by mouthing dialogue from ... Shrek. Is this how far down the brain-stem we've dropped in popular entertainment, that a simple idea can't be communicated to a mass audience anymore for fear of alienating them?

More pernicious is the creepy use of the escape to Eden that I Am Legend offers. Instead of a white Neville having sex with an independent black woman, we have a black man chastely hanging out with a God-fearing and safely mixed-race Brazilian girl. Instead of heading off to live in a flawed, argumentative commune built around new alternative families, something that will replace the traditional failing model of family life, we have the survivors arriving in a heavily guarded fortress town that looks like an isolationist Mormon Disneyland sponsored by the National Rifle Association.

SF is required to reflect the era of its creation, which is why I Am Legend rankles. The Invasion, the fourth version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, also disturbs, with its suggestion that it might not be so bad to be a pod-person after all; at least you do what you're told.

From Guts To Garters

The dumbing down continues over here too, even as far as St Trinian's. In the beginning, artist Ronald Searle sketched cartoons of badly behaved schoolgirls to amuse himself and his family during wartime. His cartoons were collected into books, then became novels and finally films. Searle enlisted a surprisingly highbrow group of people to help him, including the author D.B. Wyndham-Lewis, the composer Sir Malcolm Arnold, Johnny Dankworth, the Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, Bertolt Brecht, Flanders & Swann, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder.

In the original 1950s film series, cynicism at the inefficiency of bureaucratic England seeped through the stories like damp. The men from the Ministry of Education sang ‘The Red Flag’ on election night, praying that Labour would win and abolish private schools because they were too ineffectual to act, and had to be reminded by a passing charlady that, as civil servants, they were not expected to have political affiliations. Shiftless workmen repairing a hole in the ministry floor became long-term fixtures accepted by everyone. Seduced civil servants seduced by the promise of sex and sloth hid in the school greenhouse for months on end rather than return to work. Councillors took their lift-man along on a money-wasting European fact-finding mission. Ultimately, the school—financed on stolen money and immoral earnings—was seen as a far more decent institution than the inert, corrupt and powerless state, because at least it was honest about the way it earned its money.

Not in the new version. Now it's about tough-girl attitude, posing, pouting and pissing about to pop. How hard would it have been to insert just a few lines of sharp dialogue, something to show there was a sentient brain at work behind the scenes, to prove that the girls were truly the embodiment of modern market forces, as they were in the originals? Instead, excepting the subversive presence of Rupert Everett, nobody has a clue about what they're meant to be doing.

Does all of this really matter? Who cares if The Golden Compass has had its heretical (not blasphemous, mark you, this is about the corrupting influence of the church, not religion itself) balls neutered so long as it makes for a good story?

Well, ‘good stories’ don't linger in the brain long enough to leave their mark. If Lord Of The Flies was just about some cool kids behaving badly on an island, it would not still be in print so many years later. And a good story can be combined with something deeper. Life On Mars showed us that.

The Potency Of Cheap Music

I have no cut-off point when it comes to finding gems in trash. You're as likely to find food for thought in an old episode of The League Of Gentlemen as you are in Shakespeare. When the BBC elected to keep their historical productions on tape and wipe episodes of say, Hancock, they revealed a fundamental error of judgment; that a classic must automatically tell us more about ourselves than a cheap sitcom. In the sixties, an execrable documentary film series called Look At Life used to clutter up our cinemas. You had to sit through this piece of tat before reaching the main picture nearly every week. Now, watching a number of them collected on a single DVD, the experience is revelatory. Here are more than just the lurid fashions of the past—here is our entire race-memory dissected on film. Opinionated, self-deluding, naïve, wholly charming. The BBC would have erased them in favour of Olivier declaiming Richard III.

It's often the same with pulp novels and low budget movies. Remove the silly CGI end-shots from The Last Winter and you have a story with real staying power. I have faith in the future, though, and one of the best things to happen in the last couple of years is that Hollywood is running out of ideas. By the time you get films made from old Chipmunks’ singles and kids’ games it's clear the well has run dry—which leaves the way open for genuine experimentation. It happened before, when Easy Rider opened opposite Hello Dolly, and it may just be happening again thanks to Tim Burton leading the way with Sweeney Todd. How he convinced Warners to back this is a mystery. The film is wonderful, but by all that's holy it should never have worked as well as it does. The recent Saturday night audience with whom I shared the experience of watching the film nearly collectively puked when the characters started singing. Ten minutes further in, they were entranced, and the haunting music showed that it was a natural method of heightening emotional response to tense situations.

All ideas are built on interpretations and permutations of existing concepts. It is virtually impossible to produce something that is wholly original, with no reference to anything else that has gone before. Perhaps we need to increase our efforts at hybridisation, and create more mutant ideas in our books, films, music and art. It would certainly give our brains something to work with again. After all, Rocky Horror was a science fiction musical, wasn't it?

Copyright © 2008 Christopher Fowler

The Guns had stopped. The absence of the ever present roar woke Arthur Watts from a sleep disturbed by dreams and nightmares. He opened his eyes and rubbed away the crust of sleep. The early morning sun felt warm after the chill of the night and an easterly wind pushed fleecy, cotton wool clouds through the immense blue vault of the summer sky. Under different circumstances, Arthur thought as he accepted a tot of rum from Malcolm Hubbard, it would have been a perfect day to spend with his wife Lillian.

It had been an uncomfortable, miserable night and, like all the men around him, Arthur had spent it waiting and praying. He had listened to the enemy's shells as they left their guns and shrieked like demons towards the trench. Each shell, he knew in his heart, aimed for his particular bit of safety and, like a ravening beast, craved his blood. Arthur had held his breath as the wait for the crash and crump of the exploding shell stretched out into an eternity that burned, before the relief and breath of the blast: the menace and terror lessened for a fleeting, ephemeral moment, as he knew he was still alive.

Eventually, despite the noise and danger, Arthur had fallen asleep, his body propped up against Malcolm Hubbard's broad shoulder. The platoons of men were wedged so tightly into the blown-down trenches they were just like sardines in a tin. No one had room to move left or right. Not an inch of space was spared or wasted. Arthur had slept and spent the night seated upon a dented and rusty petrol can with Malcolm on his left and his sergeant on his right, each supporting the other.

Arthur passed the battered mess-tin of rum on to Sergeant Boyd and glanced at his watch. The muddy, cracked dial showed him it was a minute or two before 6:25am. Apart from the singing of an occasional far off shell, the morning was quiet; beautiful in a way he had seldom seen since leaving England. All around him Arthur could hear the men stirring, and for the first time in an age he felt the fires of hell recede. A sense of release swept through him, like a weight had lifted from his chest, and he found he could breathe again without the feeling that his clothes were too tight.

"Top o’ the mornin’ lads,” Sergeant Boyd said, passing the rum on down the line to a young captain named Floyd. “We'll be up and at ‘em any time now, so—” The rest of his words were lost in the sudden swell of noise.

They'd been told that the final bombardment would be intense, but the giant cacophonous roar was so far beyond anything Arthur had ever experienced, or even imagined, it humbled his soul.

Shell after shell flew overhead. The smaller shells from the French .75 and the English 18-pounders streaked across the sky so close to the lip of the trench Arthur felt the wind of their passing upon his skin. Chalk and flint from the parapets filled the air like hail as the ground shook. Higher up, the larger shells shrieked through the blue, full of violence and fury, to fall upon the enemy lines in a continuous, unrelenting barrage of death, destruction, agony and fire.

Arthur clutched the walls of the trench. He felt dizzy and sick from the noise. At his side, Sergeant Boyd stood and looked out over the bags, his face savage as he took in the effect of the shells on the Boche line.

"Give ‘em bloody hell, boys!” he shouted. “Give ‘em hell!"

Malcolm Hubbard nudged Arthur hard in the ribs and pointedly nodded at Boyd. Arthur understood. The sergeant was being reckless: foolhardy rather than brave. Arthur nodded back at Malcolm and reached up and tugged Boyd down before some sniper or fragment of shell took his head off and sent him west before his time.

The sergeant swore but stayed down. Arthur guessed Boyd knew the time for bravery would come soon enough and so was content to wait with the rest of them for the signal. Arthur knew exactly how the man felt, for no matter how intense the fear, it was the waiting that was the hard part. Once the shells started falling and death was loosed upon the field, all one wanted was for it to be over with, to be free, free from the noise, free from the confinement and imprisonment of the trench, free to face whatever fate had in store for him. Hunkered down in the bottom of these shallow cuts in the French countryside, with the shells closing in, was too much like being buried alive, like being interred in a coffin before your time.

Arthur's platoon was scheduled to be part of the third wave going over. He glanced at his watch again. There was still over forty minutes to wait before the whistles called them to duty. Forty minutes of hell and its inexorable pandemonic torture. Arthur felt his already numbed and shell-shocked mind begin to dissociate. He found himself falling back into his dream. The nightmare vision of his wife drifting over the bloody fields of mud, the ground under her feet crusted and scabbed with sulphurous, yellow eruptions, like a rancid fat upon the meat of the Somme; Lilly's slender body dressed in flowing, tattered, gore spattered white rags, her face grim and begrimed, her gaze flat and lifeless, all hope extinguished.

The boom of a shell hitting the line snapped Arthur back to reality. Fear ripped through him as a wave of earth crashed down over the parapet and the trench filled with the evil acidic stench of German explosive. Dirt and dust, rock and stone, and twisted fragments of shell, all rained down around Arthur. His heart lurched and banged against the cage of his ribs with a beat almost too fast and painful to bear. He fully expected to see Lillian floating toward him, her semi-naked body gliding through the cloud of falling shrapnel, arms open to welcome him into hell.

Arthur sagged back against the wall. From down the line he could hear the anguished cries of the dying and wounded, men calling for stretcher-bearers, and, over this, the commands of the officers to fix swords. At his side, Malcolm was shaking uncontrollably, his face pale as death as he attached the bayonet to his rifle. Just beyond the lip of the trench Arthur could see a column of black smoke climbing into the sky, turning the blue to black. He glanced at his watch for a third time. It was 7:10am.

"How long we got?” It was Malcolm, still white as a sheet, but resolute now.

"Twenty minutes,” Arthur answered. The noise made talking difficult. Over the last few minutes the bombardment had grown more intense. The roar of the shell-bursts had quickened into a drumming that shook the earth.

Malcolm turned away, his eyes going to the smoke above the lines. “Too close that one,” he mused.

Arthur said nothing. No words were needed. He removed the good luck photograph of his wife from his breast pocket and looked down at the already faded image.

Twenty minutes. It seemed like no time at all.

With longing heavy in his heart, Arthur gazed at the brittle reminder of happier times. It was the only thing he had to prove there was still life and love in the world. It had kept him sane through all the madness. And right now, he really needed it to fix Lillian's face in his mind's eye. If this was to be the end, Arthur wanted to remember Lilly's sweet smile and sparkle, not the filth and corruption that haunted his dreams.

It didn't seem fair. Their life together had only just begun and yet, in less than twenty minutes, it could be all over. He might never see Lilly again. Arthur kissed the creased paper talisman and placed it back over his heart. He didn't want Lilly to witness his despair. She deserved more than that.

By God, they both deserved more! The sudden flush of anger at the sheer injustice of God's judgement made Arthur spit. He'd be damned if he would let anyone take him from Lilly.

A deafening blast tipped the world on end and threw down the parapets. It wiped all the blasphemous thoughts from Arthur's mind as the ground heaved and rolled under his feet. Massive explosions ripped open the French countryside. The blasts tore open the enemy wire and spewed out a dome of blackness that rose like a huge poisonous toadstool to stain the summer sky. Arthur stumbled and fell to his knees. Dust and debris filled the air and choked him. Down the line he could hear the whistles and cries, and the wailing of the pipes like demons calling for blood. Men were scrambling over the bags, climbing the battered walls of the trench to assemble on the field above. Arthur climbed to his feet, his legs unsteady, his rifle clutched in bloodless hands, and clambered over the top to join them.

The ground of No Man's Land was a pitted hell of shell holes and craters: livid red wounds gouged in the flesh of the earth. Everywhere Arthur looked there was carnage. Bodies littered the ground, torn and lifeless, bleeding and dying. Ahead, through the smoke, Arthur watched in horror as the entire second wave fell. The men cut down by the Boche Maxim guns before they had taken a dozen steps. The world had been reduced to chaos and death, fear and loathing. To Arthur it seemed like his nightmares had seeped into reality, bled through the divide, until the waking world resembled nothing more than the hell of his dreamscape.

The line moved forward. The men in formation, pace steady. Arthur swung his rifle up and chambered a round. There was no escape. It was all real, indisputable and true. This time there would be no awakening from the nightmare. It was time to go. Arthur pushed aside his fear and stepped off the boards. Mud sucked at his boots. Smoke stung his eyes. From all around, he could hear the continuous sputter and hiss of machine gun bullets as they streamed passed. The line was disintegrating rapidly, the men disappearing into the smoke as they pulled ahead or fell dying and dead. The rifleman directly in front of Arthur fell, his face gone. Brain and blood splashed Arthur's tunic: the wool over his heart suddenly stained black. He began to run. What had started out at a march had, within moments, become a mad dash. From somewhere nearby he heard an officer shouting for them to keep together, to hold the line. Hold the line.

When Arthur reached the German wire he was alone. The line had broken. The X-shaped metal stakes and posts rose up before him, stark and hideous. The wire, rusted black, was a tangled web about four feet high and some thirty or forty feet across. In places it had been twisted and frayed, contorted into unholy configurations by the trench mortar bombs as they had opened pathways through the entanglement. Men lay scattered in the mud at his feet, their bodies choking the gap through which Arthur ran. From all sides he heard shouts and screams and the terrible groaning of the wounded. All words and sense were lost amidst the cacophony of the battle. There was nothing but smoke, the raw crump of explosion, the piercing whistle of the shell, and the bone-jarring rattle of the Boche machine guns spitting death.

As he burst free of the wire, Arthur caught a glimpse of movement. He twisted and raised his riffle, but the smoke refused him a clear shot. His nerves screamed. His finger tightened on the trigger. He had to shoot. Shoot now. Now before it was too late. It was kill or be killed. He didn't want to die.

The smoke cleared. There!

Arthur felt his knees go weak. A captain from D company led Malcolm Hubbard, and a couple of others from C company, out of the smoke and over the top of the German parapet. Relief and horror flooded Arthur's system. His hands shook as he lowered the Lee Enfield to his side. He had been so close, little more than a hair's breadth, from killing his best mate, from shooting the men of his own platoon.

At the lip of the parapet, Malcolm turned and raised a hand in greeting, a smile on his face as he caught sight of Arthur below him. The happiness Arthur saw in Malcolm's face made him want to weep, his eyes and heart suddenly full with joy at finding his friend alive and well. With one smile, Arthur was no longer lost and alone and hell's grip was lessened. Maybe there was hope after all?

The bullet hit Malcolm in the neck. It snapped his head backwards and lifted him up onto his toes. Bright crimson blood burst from Malcolm's throat as he collapsed to his knees, his eyes puzzled and his smile gone forever. The front of his tunic was awash with spilt life; a red gush bubbled and frothed from the gapping wound and sprayed out from between Malcolm's fingers as he tried in vain to stem the bleeding. Arthur stood frozen in time, unable to move or help, as his friend died before his eyes. When the sound of the shot finally caught up to the moment, it was all over.

Stillborn, hope died. It bled out of Arthur like the blood from Malcolm's throat and hell reclaimed its hold. There was to be no escape. A scream rang out. It tore loose from Arthur, involuntary and terrible, and rent his heart. All his loss and pain, all his grief and terror was contained in that ululating cry. Arthur charged. Hate filled him. It fuelled him, drove him forward until the ache in his heart distorted and transmuted into a bloody rage.

The German parapet was piled high with corpses and Arthur stumbled and tripped on them as he climbed the reinforced fortifications. At the top, he leapt over the trench without pause. It was no use to him. It offered neither shelter nor fulfilment: the Boche artillery would have the range and Fritz had already abandoned it. As he touched down on the opposite side, his boots slipped in the mud and his legs went from under him. Arthur slammed down hard, the breath knocked out of him by the impact. Winded, he thrashed and struggled to stand. His mouth was full of the metallic taste of blood. He must have bitten his tongue. On either side of Arthur, as he strove to regain his footing, holes opened in the ground, the mud and turf blown four or five feet into the air by machine gun fire. Stones and shrapnel rang on his helmet and stung his flesh.

His bloodlust forgotten, Arthur ran for the cover of a nearby shell hole. As he reached the lip of the crater a hand-grenade bounced at his feet. The grey tin cylinder attached to a foot long wooden handle flipped into the air and exploded. The detonation threw Arthur over and down the wall of the crump hole. It tossed him like a rag doll, somersaulting head over heels, amidst a cascade of mud, rubble and dirt.

He couldn't move under the weight of the fallen earth. Dirt choked him. His mouth and nose were plugged with mud. In a blind panic he pushed up through the spilled soil and broke the surface like a swimmer, gasping for breath, spitting and clawing the fowl muck from his airways and eyes. His uniform was in tatters, his helmet gone, his rifle lost, and blood ran from a thousand cuts down his back and soaked his breeches. He could feel the strength drain from him as he crawled free and shook off the grave dirt. The shell hole spun around him like a vortex sucking him down into the void. The light faded, darkness crowded in and Arthur fell into unconsciousness.

When the dark of oblivion released Arthur and he finally opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the burning white magnesium brightness of a starshell. It drifted down through the evening sky, high overhead, and lit the depths of the crater with a stark, dusty illumination that made the shadows flicker and dance macabrely.

Arthur sat up. His legs were numb from cold. The stagnant water that covered the floor of the shell hole was freezing and had leeched all feeling from his muscles. Mud squirmed between his fingers as he pushed himself backwards out of the water onto higher ground. His back and shoulders stung from the shrapnel wounds as he slithered and struggled up the crater's sloping wall. The back of his uniform hung in shreds and the fowl slime of the pit covered every inch of him: slick and stinking.

As soon as his boots were clear of the water, Arthur collapsed. He lay back and attempted to catch his breath. The cold, combined with shock and his injuries, had sapped his energy. He felt drained. Above him, beyond the starry radiance of the drifting flare, the sky was black. It seemed true night had fallen whilst he had been unconscious and something about the darkness seemed oppressive to Arthur.

He lifted his head and looked around him. The stark light from the starshell had dimmed from its previous brilliant white. Now it was no longer directly overhead the shadows in the pit had thickened, although the illumination was still bright enough for Arthur to realise he was not alone.

Directly opposite lay two men, both dead. The corpses charred and twisted beyond all recognition, far too badly damaged to tell if they'd been friend or foe. Various other body parts littered the base of the crater, in and out of the water, tossed like spoilt fruit into a midden.

To Arthur's left was the body of a young corporal from his own regiment. The boy barely looked old enough to shave. And with his youth brought to an abrupt end by gunfire he never would be. Right next to the British lad was a German boy. This time a bayonet wound to the stomach had been the cause of death. In war they would have been enemies, two boys from different lands, with different beliefs and backgrounds. But in death, or so it seemed to Arthur at least, there was no difference between them.

Over to his right, huddled in the shadows at the edge of the pool, a body seemed to move. Arthur pulled himself into a sitting position. The light from the flare had all but gone now and he had to peer through the increased gloom to be sure he'd seen what he thought. There were two dim shapes over there. One was definitely a goner, but the other—

Arthur scrambled around the crump hole as fast as he could, skirting the gruesome detritus and slipping and sliding in the mud. His injuries and fatigue ignored in his urgency. Someone was alive.

It was Captain Floyd.

"Sir?” Arthur reached out and gently touched the captain's shoulder. The officer looked in a bad way. Blood had soaked through his trousers and begun to pool beneath him where the jagged tip of the man's femur had poked through both the flesh and cloth of his left leg. There was matted blood in the captain's hair, and a nasty dent above his right ear.

"Sir?” Arthur repeated.

The man groaned and cracked open pain dazed eyes.

"Captain Floyd? It's Corporal Watts, sir."

"Watts, have you seen them?"

Arthur slumped down beside the man and closed his eyes as relief flooded through him and almost undid him. The captain was proof not everyone was dead. Proof, in Arthur's mind, that beyond the battlefield, away from the Somme, life continued.

"Have you seen them?” The captain grabbed at the tattered wool of Arthur's sleeve, his grasp urgent and insistent. “Have you seen them?” he repeated. “Tell me."

"Sir?” Arthur asked, confused.

"Them,” the captain barked. “The women."

"Women, sir?” Arthur felt like a parrot, but he didn't know what else to say. The captain's fingers were steel claws. His eyes burned with an intensity that scared Arthur. Was the man mad? He had seen men lose their way and become unhinged before. For some the proximity to such ever-present death was too much. Had the captain lost his wits, or was it the result of the dent above the captain's ear? Had the blow scrambled his brains? Was it the pain of his injuries talking?

"Yes! God damn you! Women! Devils!"

"No sir. I've not seen any women, or devils, save the Hun."

"You're sure? Absolutely sure?"

Arthur nodded. “Yes sir, I am. There are no women about up there, just corpses and wire and more crump holes."

The tension drained from the captain's body and he fell back into the mud, his fingers slipping free from Arthur's arm: the surge of strength brought about by his desperation to seek answers gone. “Thank God,” the captain said. “I thought for sure they would be coming for me."

"Don't worry sir,” Arthur said, humouring the officer, “you're safe now. We'll be back behind the lines in no time.” Arthur inched away from the captain. “I just need to make sure the way's clear.” The man may not be the full ticket but Arthur knew he would still have to get him home. You didn't leave a man behind, even if he was barking.

At the lip of the crater, Arthur peered out into the night. In darkness it was near impossible to gauge a safe route through No Man's Land, if such a thing even existed, as all reference points and detail was obscured. Arthur thought their best bet would be to go at dawn. Then at least there would be enough light to see by. If things looked bad at first light, then Arthur would use the daylight hours to map their path and they would just have to lay low another day. He only hoped Captain Floyd would be up to the task, whichever way it went.

Arthur scanned the field, his eyes straining for any recognisable feature or trace of danger. From off to his left, he thought he saw something flicker and flit between the raised X of the wire and the nearest shell hole. He frowned and stared into the pitch-black shadows filling the depression, but the hint of movement was neither repeated nor clarified.

Nerves, Arthur thought. He shook his head, to clear his vision, and checked the immediate area once more. It didn't hurt to be careful. If all he had to worry about was his eyes playing tricks on him, fine, he would be a happy man. If it was anything else, Arthur wanted to know now, not find out later when a bayonet slipped between his ribs and stopped his heart.

He twisted around in the dirt and searched the area to his right. In the distance, just at the edge of Arthur's vision, he once more thought he saw movement. A blur of dirty white drifted between the shadowed pits and Arthur felt his skin crawl as the memory of his dream resurfaced. His heart pounded and a cold sweat broke out over his skin. He flung himself down and pushed his face into the soil. He didn't want to see that image again, not ever. His hand crept up to his breast pocket. His fingers closed on the material and felt the comforting shape of the photograph stored there. The talisman calmed the pace of his breathing and slowed the beat of his heart. Arthur raised his head and looked across the gap between craters.

At the rim of the far crater knelt a shape that caused Arthur to doubt his own sanity.

Back in the shelter of the pit, Arthur crawled to the captain's side and pulled his canteen free from his webbing. He offered the captain a drink, helping the man take a sip, before he took a swallow himself. The water tasted brackish and metallic, but Arthur felt a measure of strength return. He had thought the captain cracked, but...

"Sir,” Arthur began, not sure how to approach the subject. “Those women ... the ones you mentioned before?"

"You've seen them, haven't you?"

"I don't know, sir. I don't know what I saw up there. It was—"

"Dressed in rags, all bloody and torn; stained red from all the death. Its skin blackened and filthy; its hair wild and tangled; its eyes mad and glaring, filled with a hunger, an insatiable lust, that burns brighter than the sun,” the captain interrupted, voice monotone and chilling.

Arthur didn't know how to respond. If he hadn't seen the crouched figure it would simply have confirmed his original thought on the state of the man's mind, but now the captain's words, coupled with his dream, scared him like the war never had. He felt seconds stretch into minutes as he struggled to reconcile his previous notion of reality with what the captain had said and what he had seen. After all the horrors of the war, all the death and the bodies and the blood, after all the pain, desperation and anguish, why did this frighten him so? Why did the very thought of it turn his bowels to liquid? Was it all imagination, delusion? Could he trust his senses?

Finally, Arthur found his voice. “What are they?"

He had to know. He had to know what his dream meant.

The thought of Lillian corrupted was worse than any hell he could envision and he would do anything in his power to prevent this harm befalling her.

"Have you heard the rumours of angels appearing and helping the wounded, turning aside enemy bullets, carrying men in from No Man's Land or leading them past hidden dangers?” the captain asked.

Arthur nodded. “Yes. All the men know those stories."

"And that is all they are, Watts. Stories. Lies. Falsehoods. Fairytales. Those women are devils, demons, not angels. They don't help the wounded, beyond ending their pain with death, and then the only place they carry them is down into Hell.

"You see, Watts, when I was a boy I loved to read about the Greeks and Romans. I would read about their heroes and gods, their legends and mythologies, they were great stories, Watts, though now, unlike the men's tale of angels, I know they were not just stories. I have seen them, Watts. I have seen the truth of them. I know them. I remember them from my books. They are the Keres."

"Keres?” Arthur asked. He had no idea what the captain was on about. “What the heck is a Keres, sir? Where're they from? What do they want?"

The captain shook his head, his face filled with anguish. “The Keres are death, Watts. They are daughters of the goddess Nyx. Demons of the night. They come out at dusk and float between the lines, hundreds of them, fighting amongst themselves like vultures over the dead and dying, feasting on blood, but only after they have torn free a man's soul and condemned it to an eternity of damnation.” The captain paused, licked his lips and swallowed. “It is the Keres that haunt our battlefields, Watts. They always have."

The captain lapsed into a deep silence, lost in thought, which allowed Arthur the time to think about what the man had said. Arthur wasn't sure he understood half of what the captain had gone on about. All he did know is what he had seen up there and, even if just the half he had understood was true, then he didn't want to be here when those bloody women came to find them.

"I'm going up top to see what's going on,” Arthur said. Not that he ever wanted to see those things again, but he knew if he sat around waiting for them to make their move he would go barmy. He needed movement, distraction, and they needed a plan. Waiting for the morning was no longer an option and neither was hoping for the best. That felt too much like giving in.

Arthur pulled himself up the bank to the crater's edge. He inched his head above the lip and glanced left and right, before ducking back down and flattening himself against the ground. His heart lurched again and pounded nineteen-to-the-dozen, the beat so loud it sounded like the thumping boom of the morning guns in his ears.

One of those things was almost on top of them.

They had to move out now. If they didn't they would be trapped in this hole until the bloody creatures swept down upon them and ripped them to shreds. And neither he nor the captain was in any shape to fight the damn things off when they came.

Easing his head up once more, Arthur peeked out at the advancing Ker. It had turned away, occupied by something on the ground, and now had its back to Arthur. He could guess what had caught its attention and was thankful the night shrouded the sight from him. The faint slurping and slobbering noises, the low growls that floated through the stillness of the evening, were enough.

He looked beyond the Ker. From what he could see other women had begun to mass and move out over the wasteland. They scrabbled in the pits and pools, crawled over the corpses littering the ground, and floated through the wire like it was nothing more than mist. He was sure at any moment one of them would hear the hammering double beat of his racing pulse, or smell the waves of terror washing through him, and swoop at him like a hawk.

Arthur eased back down the bank. His mind reeled from the change the world had undergone. The war had always been madness and chaos and a hell on earth, but he had never believed it literally. These creatures were impossible. How could they exist? Where had they come from? And how had he seen them in his dreams?

"Captain Floyd. If we're to go, sir, we have to go now.” Arthur knelt at the officer's side as he spoke, although he found it difficult to tear his eyes away from the opening above and look at the man.

The captain nodded and, as if reading Arthur's thoughts, asked, “How many of them are up there?"

"Too many."

"What are our chances do you think?"

"I don't know, sir, but they have to be better than sitting waiting for them to find us. I'm hoping if we're on the move we can avoid them as much as possible."

"I will not be much use to you if we have to run for it,” the captain said, illuminating his meaning with a nod at his mangled leg. “Might be best if you left me here. I still have my pistol if things go bad. I'll not let those witches have me."

"It won't come to that, sir,” Arthur pledged, his right hand upon his breast, resting over his heart and the photograph of Lillian. “I won't let it."

The captain's leg offered no support. It was too damaged. Fresh blood soaked the wool of the captain's trousers and the effort of standing, even held up by Arthur, made bullets of sweat pop out on the man's brow. Arthur had felt the man tremble and stiffen in his arms as he helped him up, although the captain made no sound of protest until he was erect, then he said, “I think we were both a little over confident, Watts. That was a tad harder than expected. I think you had better go on without me."

"No sir,” Arthur said. “We go together."

The captain smiled. “You are a good man, Watts."

The two of them shuffled to the edge of the crater wall, but the gradient soon defeated them and, in the end, Arthur had to drag the captain up the slope by his underarms.

At the top, Arthur gripped the man's wrists and the lifted the captain like a sack of coal onto his back and then set off across No Man's Land.

The creatures were everywhere. It seemed there were as many Keres as corpses amidst the mud and blood. The flicker of movement was all around. Whenever they caught him off guard and came too close, Arthur would detour rapidly away, his body bent double, or hunker down and pray, the captain pulled close. At those times he could only hope the bloody witches had enough to keep them busy.

No shells or gunfire sounded, which was a blessing of sorts, though Arthur soon began to long for those familiar noises of war: anything to blot out the noise of the Keres. For all around them the night was filled with the screams of the dying and the prayers of the wounded. Voices cried out at them from the darkness, begging for help, boys and men calling for their mothers and wives, and, over all this, the slobbering, rending, wet animal sounds of the feeding Keres.

Arthur wanted to block up his ears and cover his eyes. The sights and sounds were unbearable. He felt as if, for first time, the blinkers through which he had viewed the war had been ripped free. He didn't understand how he could have been so deluded, so oblivious. How could he have been so numb, so deaf, dumb and blind to the truth? He had known, or at least recognised, the horror and terror of the war, but the futility, the immorality of it, had escaped him.

When Arthur joined up, he had believed the war just, that he had a moral duty to King and Country and that God was on their side. Now, Arthur questioned everything.

How could God allow this?

From somewhere up front Arthur heard the bark of a Maxim gun and instinct threw him to the ground. The impact caused the captain to scream in pain, albeit the man bit the cry off the instant it left him.

No bullets slammed home. Arthur lifted his head and looked for the telltale flare of the muzzle flash. The machine gun still fired, but Arthur didn't think it was at them. Now that he thought about it, he realised they were still behind the enemy line. It would be very unlikely the Hun were shooting in this direction. More likely the bullets were aimed at some unlucky Tommy out ahead of them.

"Sorry about that, sir,” Arthur whispered. He knew the dive would have jarred the captain's leg something terrible, but there was no helping it. The sound had hit him and he had reacted without thought. The captain gripped Arthur's hands and said, “Always better ... better safe than sorry, Watts."

The German defences were only a couple of hundred yards away. If they could cross the short gap and avoid the Hun, make it over the fortifications and past the wire, they would be on the way home.

That was, so long as the Keres didn't find them first.

Arthur glanced around. The field still crawled with the creatures. Everywhere he looked he saw the shrouded women. They were like the lice in the bedding or the rats in the trenches, only more deadly. All around, they fought and fed, hunting the wounded in packs and squabbling over their finds. No quarter was given to either side, German or English, all were fair game. Arthur was thankful the darkness hid the atrocities from sight, as the sound alone would haunt him for the rest of his life. To see the women feeding, tearing wet flesh from broken bone, would be too terrible to endure without going mad. “Time to go, sir.” Arthur gripped the captain's wrists and, without waiting for an answer, stood up and lifted the captain onto his back.

Crossing the Boche line and climbing down the fortified embankment proved to be no real problem. The area of earthworks Arthur chose was empty of the enemy and they were able to cross and climb down without incident.

Navigating the wire proved more difficult. The tangled black mass of rusted, razor-sharp barbs, tripwires, calthrops and spikes, although somewhat flattened by the morning bombardment, was still a deadly jungle, made even more lethal by the darkness and by the fact, in places, the shellfire had simply lifted the wire up and dropped it down in a worse tangle than before. The whole mess forced Arthur to backtrack and retrace his steps through the maze more often than not and by the time he and the captain had escaped the wire they were both cut and bleeding from a dozen fresh wounds.

At times Arthur feared they would never find the path out of the wire. Each turn seemed to lead them onto yet another dead-end. After a half hour the tension burned like acid, as with every step Arthur expected to join the hundreds of machine-gunned corpses that hung like rotten fruit upon the black metal vines. Left and right, front and back, bodies were twisted and tangled in the strands, men pinned in grotesque postures and ripped apart by gunfire. Some men looked as though they were praying, propped up, dead on their knees, the wire preventing their fall if not their prayers.

In the end, it took almost fifty minutes to reach the edge of the wire and Arthur had to crawl through the last section towing the captain by the arms, slithering through the mud and blood like snakes.

Exhausted, Arthur collapsed in slime of a shallow crump hole. The captain, slumped in the mud at his side, looked half dead. The man's face was pallid and gaunt beneath the dirt and grime. Slack.

Oh, no. Not now. Not after all this.

Arthur forced himself to scoot around and grasp the man's shoulder. “Captain Floyd, sir?” he said, shaking the man, his voice thick with emotion. “Don't you dare give up on me now. Not now we're almost home."

With a groan, the captain came to. He blinked open his eyes and looked at Arthur. “Don't fret,” the captain croaked, “you'll not be rid of me that easy, Watts."

Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, his eyes filling with tears. “Just as well,” he said, smiling down at the captain. “I'll be buggered if I'm buying my own drinks from now on."

The captain grinned. “I can cope with that,” he said.

Arthur rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. Overhead, the night had lost its stranglehold; the darkness had thinned and faded from pitch to charcoal. Arthur realised the dawn would soon be upon them. He checked his watch, but found it gone.

Time to go, he thought. They needed to be off the field before everyone woke up and started shooting. If they waited too long the dawn would find them exposed. They had been lucky so far. They had avoided the Keres and the Boche gunners. No point chancing more to Lady Luck than they had to.

The last parcel of undulating, blasted and pitted France awaited. Once they made it across they were home free. Arthur sat up, his head just above the lip, and looked around. The approaching dawn meant Arthur could see far more than before.

It also meant the Boche could as well and, from what he could make out through the lessening darkness, so would the Keres. For just as behind the enemy lines, the Keres owned this area of No Man's Land too.

The women's burial garments marked them all too clearly as they went about their horrid business, and muffled screams and cries punctuated their visits upon the wounded. Arthur felt terror wrap around his heart. Before, the horror had been cloaked and covered by the night, now the full evil of their acts was being unveiled and Arthur did not want to see.

Lifting the captain once more onto his back, Arthur crouched and set off. Each step felt like his last. His arms and legs were leaden with fatigue. Mud clung to his boots and turned his feet to blocks, the additional weight making it near impossible to lift them clear of the chopped and churned surface.

Twice he fell. The first time was accidental. Arthur tripped, his boot snagged on the outstretched arm of a young soldier, and dropped to his knees. He swore and slithered about three feet in the mud before he regained his footing and carried on. The captain grunted and groaned in Arthur's ear at the drop, but didn't cry out. Arthur squeezed the captain's wrist in apology, too done in to speak or do more.

The second time Arthur was forced to dive for cover over the edge of a crater. He had just changed tack to bypass a pile of twisted and broken earth-covered bodies, when a figure rose up in front of him. Arthur reacted to the Ker even before he knew what he had seen. The blooded robe and wild matted hair had scarcely registered when he launched them over the crater's rim.

The landing was not as bad as it could have been. The crump hole was only about four feet deep, shallow and, for the most part, dry—only about two inches of filthy, stinking water had pooled in the base. Arthur slid down the slope and spluttered and gagged as his mouth flooded with the stagnant slurry. The captain rolled free and lay on his back at the water's edge, gasping and twitching like a landed fish. The pain in his leg, Arthur knew, would be raging. He would have to be blessed not to lose it.

Arthur swept his gaze up the slope. The Ker had been no more than six or seven feet away when it appeared. The only saving grace was that it had been facing away from them when Arthur had made his move. If the thing had turned at the last minute, alerted by some noise or sense of movement, and seen them go over the edge, or if it managed to sniff them out, then they were done for.

Water dripped from Arthur as he shuffled across to the captain. Every muscle in his body felt shredded. All he wanted to do was curl up and sleep, right there in the mud if need be. No more running. No more hiding. No more fear. No more war. Just to sleep for one hour would be bliss.

Not going to happen, he told himself as he knelt by the captain's head.

"How bad is it?” he asked the captain, voice a whisper.

"Hurts like the dickens. What happened?"

"One of those witches sprang up on me."

"They see us?"

Arthur shook his head. “Don't think so. Best check though."

It took all Arthur's resolve and courage to crawl up the slope and look out. The coast was clear. The Ker had drifted away.

In the distance, a razor cut of vermilion sliced the horizon: a tinge of red that radiated out and upwards through the sky like blood in water. True dawn couldn't be too far away.

Arthur slid back down to the captain. The tone of his skin had paled and Arthur guessed shock and blood loss would be taking a toll. He only hoped he had the strength left to finish what he'd started. Only one way to find out.

"Just another step. It's not far now. Just another step,” became Arthur's mantra as they closed in on the line.

The wire was just ahead.

"Just another step. Just an—"

He was on the ground, the words knocked out of him, lost to the impact before he even heard the shot. He was turned around. His arm tangled in the wire. His breath locked up tight. The patch of dirt to his left spat skyward. The captain, sprawled to his right, jumped and flopped.

The flat crack of the sniper fire rolled over him. It echoed and rang in Arthur's head and pain flooded through him hot on its heels. Blood burst from his chest and flowed down his tunic. Arthur coughed and tasted it on his lips.

The night had almost gone. The sky was turning above him. Soon he would hear the stirring of the men as they woke.

So close. We were so damn close.

From about twenty-five yards away a Ker began to approach. Arthur saw the movement and felt fear flush through him. Then terror took hold and shook him. He didn't want to die.

"No,” he whispered. “Go away."

The Ker drifted closer. Arthur could make out the shredded, blood stained robes, the wild tangle of hair that writhed like snakes around the dead and blackened flesh of its face, and, most horrid of all, the lifeless shark's eyes, black and merciless and filled with an unearthly cold that froze Arthur's spirit.

"Leave me alone,” Arthur sobbed. He didn't deserve this. He deserved to live and grow old. He wanted to see his Lillian again, wanted to hold her in his arms and kiss her. He wanted children with her, to see them grow up and have children of their own. For God's sake, this wasn't right. He had tried to be a good man. “No, God damn it!” He wouldn't let those bitches have him. He would not go to hell. That would not be his fate. He wouldn't allow it. If it was his time and he had to die, then he wanted to spend eternity with his Lillian.

Arthur tore his arm free.

The captain had escaped. He was gone from the horror. Arthur clawed for the pistol holstered at the man's hip. He unsnapped the clasp and pulled the Webley free. He could feel his strength draining away, but he would fight until the end.

He had to believe there was more to life. It couldn't end like this. He had lived with courage and honesty and faith and, if he had to, he would die the same way. He would not give into cowardice and despair and end up cowering like some whipped cur. He would not dishonour Lillian with his last acts upon this earth. He would be true to who he was and who he had been.

The dread that had gripped him lessened. Arthur lifted up the pistol and watched as the Ker came closer. It seemed to float above the ground. He could see the hunger and lust in its face. He aimed the pistol and pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out. The Ker continued towards him unharmed. Arthur fired again. The bullets should have hit. They should have struck the woman dead centre.

Lowering the Webley to his lap, Arthur resigned himself to fact he was done for. This was not surrender, but realising it was over meant he would at least be able to meet his fate with equanimity.

All life was choice and he chose to accept his life for what it was. He had made a difference, maybe only in small ways, but a difference all the same. His life had been full and rich. Lillian had filled it with love and hope and laughter. They had had good times and bad, but the good far outweighed the bad, and those were what he chose to remember. If he were to only have the time he had already lived, then he would be content. He would not give in to fear.

If life was choice, then he could choose the way he faced his death.

He would see Lillian again.

The Ker was mere feet away now and as Arthur looked up he realised the captain had been wrong. He had been wrong. The rumours were true. They were not stories made up by the men and they were not lies.

The woman had changed. The dirt, blood and grime had faded from view; the tattered shroud had become a gown of white, pure and unstained, the darkness replaced by light and the wildness tamed. Her eyes, so hateful before, were now full of warmth and love and succour; the talons outstretched to rend, were manicured, slender and delicate; and the face of horror, of fanged terror, was now the face of his love.

He was going home.

Copyright © 2008 Ian R. Faulkner

OUTBREAK: A SARAH LANGAN FEATURETTE

Sarah Langan's 2006 debut novel The Keeper was nominated for a Stoker Award and had the likes of Peter Straub and Jack Ketchum applauding the rise of a new star in the horror firmament. Set in the rundown Maine town of Bedford, it told the story of Susan Marley, a young woman whose death is the catalyst for a chain of supernatural events that culminate in the most spectacular and comprehensive trashing of a town since Stephen King last kicked the crap out of Castle Rock.

Follow-up novel Virus (Headline paperback, 436pp, 6.99 pounds), published in the States with the title The Missing, takes the story a few miles up the road to Bedford's affluent neighbour Corpus Christi, though even here there are signs that the economic complacency of the past is no longer justified. On a school trip to the environs of Bedford, a ghost town in the wake of The Keeper's climax and where rumours persist of unknown toxins in the air and ground, a young boy goes missing. An embryonic psychopath, James Walker is a wilful child whose only intention is to get his teacher in trouble, but alone in the woods he digs up some long buried bones and feels compelled to gnaw on them, becoming infected with an ancient virus, one that had lain dormant for centuries until sulphur from a fire at Bedford's paper mill reactivated it. During the night James returns to Corpus Christi and infects others with his bite.

While, unlike The Keeper, Langan's second novel presents the reader with a material threat, one derived from science and toxicology, there is more than a suggestion of the supernatural about the form this virus takes. The victims take on some of the characteristics of classic horror archetypes—they are transformed into sleeker, more efficient predator forms reminiscent of werewolves, eat flesh like zombies and can only come out at night like vampires—and there is the hint, with references to previous outbreaks bringing down the Mayan and other civilisations, that this virus is the truth at back of all the tales of night monsters. The virus also appears to have intelligence of a kind, creating a gestalt among its victims, a hive mind of sorts so that they can act in concert.

With the infection of schoolteacher Lois Larkin the threat escalates. She is an ideal host for the virus’ controlling intelligence, able to formulate the plans and strategies that will ensure this time it does not simply glut itself on human flesh and then subside for lack of lebensraum. Larkin offers a vision of virus victims ruling the States and keeping the human population as cattle. And so the battle is on in deadly earnest, as Corpus Christi tears itself apart and the authorities fight to contain the menace within its borders.

So far, so good, and as a chronicler of small town America in peril, like King before her, Langan seldom puts a foot wrong. She brings her setting to vivid life, so that there is the sense for the reader of many stories interweaving, a vast cast of characters shuffling about in the ruins of the American dream, and pretending that everything is going to be all right, even as it falls down around their ears. Her novel has all the pace, excitement, bravura excesses and gore (though never gratuitous) of the better zombie movies, and as pure adventure in a horror mode it works superbly well, giving us the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and a growing feeling of hopelessness as options are exhausted and loved ones die.

But of course there is more to it than that. The use of a virus as the central conceit here ties the story in to one of the great bogeymen of our modern world, provides a touchstone for the imagination in all the health scares and warnings that flood out of our television sets on an almost daily basis. Yes, it is highly unlikely that a virus like this would ever occur, but in the stringent measures taken against its spread—the medical facilities that are so easily overwhelmed, the shoot to kill border guards, the men in hazmat suits, the collapsing infrastructure—we recognise all our worst fears of what the future may hold. This adds an extra frisson and makes it doubly hard to sanitise what Langan has to tell us, to put the book aside at the end of the day and go to sleep with the conviction that it was just a story, an entertainment, and not something that could ever actually happen.

Langan has many strengths as a writer: assured plotting, an elegant prose style, the ability to depict events on a grand scale, an eye for telling details and, for want of a better term, an appetite for destruction, a willingness to tear down what she has so painstakingly constructed. However it is the characterisation, the flair with which she creates compelling and contradictory individuals with whom we can identify, that makes her work stand out.

James Walker is a case in point. His importance to the plot is minimal. He is there simply to get the virus out of the ground and into the body politic, and a lesser writer would have left him as only a cipher, a plot convenience, but Langan invests time in giving the boy a back story. She tells us about his history of abusing pet rabbits, the ambivalent feelings he has, his isolation within the family unit, and by doing this she pulls off the difficult task of creating a child psychopath, chilling and disturbing for the reader, and thoroughly credible. Similarly with teacher Lois Larkin, Langan adds depth to the story by revealing her accident strewn past, the financial and romantic failures that have stripped this young woman with so much to live for of hope, showing how an ordinary, good person can be driven so far off course that she is willing to embrace an entity inimical to human life, to become the very means through which its goals are achieved. Larkin throws in her lot with the virus not because she is an evil person, but because she is weak and needs the validation its power can provide, the attendant sense of importance and inclusion.

Central to the narrative are the Wintrobs, husband Fenstad, wife Meg and their daughter Madeline. Psychiatrist Fenstad is daunted by his job and angry at his wife's past infidelity. Librarian Meg feels that her husband is a cold fish and wishes he would be more demonstrative. Teenager Maddie is an idealist, aware of social and environmental issues, wanting to make a difference, and believing that her parents are intolerant of her Hispanic boyfriend. It's the textbook dysfunctional family given a face and a name, and while outside events act as a catalyst for the inevitable meltdown you get the sense that what happens, with people who so obviously care about each other and yet seem hell bent on their own destruction, was always on the cards, albeit not quite so dramatically. Langan is adept at portraying the swings and roundabouts of emotion within the family unit, the ways we use guilt and sex against each other, how people can get haunted by their pasts, and she is cannily ambivalent about how much of this, if any, is down to the virus and what is hardwired into the characters’ identities.

The Wintrobs are the solid bedrock on which the rest is built, all the horrors and hallucinations of Corpus Christi's unravelling. They are the still beating heart of an achingly good novel, one that demands to be read and provides proof that Langan is more than capable of living up to, and perhaps even surpassing, the expectations raised by The Keeper.

Sarah Langan featurette continued overleaf

SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

While they can be read independently there is a degree of overlap between THE KEEPER and *Virus*, with events in the former setting in motion the plot of the latter, and also a strong contrast between the two towns, rundown Bedford and the more affluent Corpus Christi, so they can almost be read as a diptych. I'm wondering if this was your intention all along, or if it was something that just developed as you worked on the second book?

The synchronicity between the two novels happened naturally. I wrote the first book in the throes of my early twenties, bursting with angst and idealism. Hopefully, I've held onto at least a little of that passion, because it's important. Anyway, The Keeper comes from the perspective of the kids who inherited a flawed world. They're enraged, and hurt, and striving for something better. Virus is, in a way, The Keeper's opposite. It comes from the perspective of the grown-ups who've become complicit members of the bourgeois. They strive for paid bills, mowed lawns, college funds, and a tonic for their ennui in the form of affairs, or drugs, or work. It's like that wonderful line from Lawrence of Arabia: “Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. The old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.” I can see both sides, though I think if you've read both books, you know with whom I sympathize. Or, more aptly put, would like to be.

The Keeper and Virus, to me, aren't sequels, but the same story, told two different ways.

The Keeper clearly has a supernatural rationale behind what takes place, whereas in Virus the explanation for what is taking place is scientific in nature. What made you decide to adopt this more ‘realistic’ approach?

I don't think the decision was conscious. It just suited the form. The Keeper is, in a way, an allegory about capitalism, and its effects on people not born under lucky stars. The supernatural stuff is the embodiment of those horrors. They live in the shadow of a paper mill that has closed, and they can still smell the sulphur in the air and water and grass.

When I wrote Virus, I was studying toxicology and thermodynamics as they relate to global warming, and it seemed to me that some very scary, non-supernatural stuff was on the horizon of human existence. You don't need ghosts when reality is scarier.

In more general terms, how do you feel about the use of the supernatural in fiction?

Supernatural fiction gets negative press because, when it's bad, it's not just boring or unskilled, like in other genres; it's gross and inappropriate. But the corollary is also true: when supernatural fiction works, it's stunning, and beautiful, and hopefully terrifying. It's all in the execution, and a writer should and must write what compels them. Anything else dies on the page, or worse, is dishonest.

Could you tell us a bit about why toxicology interests you and how studying it helped with the research for Virus?

Maddie's fears about global warming and consumption mirror my own, and I learned about those things in graduate school. The virus in the book is an invention, but I wouldn't have devised it without some background in toxicology, along with Jared Diamond's excellent non-fiction book Collapse. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the field of toxicology right now, and it's pretty topical.

I suspect that *Virus* will strike home with many UK readers, in that it seems we're constantly hearing news stories about foot and mouth, avian flu, blue tongue, hospital super bugs etc. At times it seems like it's not so much a question of if or when the next pandemic will arrive, but which one it will be. I'm wondering if the situation is similar in the US media, and if so how such a backdrop affects the writing of a book like *Virus*?

Sure, everybody's paranoid about the next pandemic, and they're probably right to be. We're global now, and something like the 1916 influenza virus would be a lot harder to contain. Worse, there's not much we can do about it. But such risks are the risks of being alive, and I think most of us have come to terms with them, otherwise we'd be washing our hands ten times a day and boiling the pesticides from our vegetables before eating them. What I was expressing, I think, and what Stephen King was expressing in his disaster novel The Stand, was frustration with an impotent regime. I'm less worried about an epidemic, than how my government would handle it. Scarcity of food, health care, transportation, communication, and, worst of all, an erosion of human kindness. Katrina was a shameful disaster. So is Iraq.

What strikes me about your fiction is that it seems informed by a mainstream sensibility, and typified by very strong characterisation. What are the advantages of writing in the horror genre for you? What can you say or do that wouldn't be possible in the mainstream or some other genre?

There's more drama in thrillers and supernatural fiction, and I like that. I can bring my characters to a crisis, and use that crisis to unearth subterranean emotions. The Wintrobs, for example, would never have talked about whether they loved each other if the virus hadn't become hot. Liz in The Keeper would never have forgiven herself if she hadn't met her sister's ghost. Then again, there are drawbacks. Supernatural fiction is taken less seriously, and gets less attention than work that is considered literary. But that's a small complaint. I love ghosts.

Both books, especially in the end sections, are very visual and fast paced, and reading them I couldn't help thinking what marvellous films they would make. Would you say that cinema is a big influence on your work, and if so which films have inspired you the most?

It's funny, people always say that my books read like movies, but I'm not a very visual person, and I never envision scenes so much as imagine characters. That said, I love all kinds of movies. To name a few: The Deer Hunter, The Changeling, The Departed, The Jerk, Igby Goes Down, City of Lost Children, Night of the Living Dead, Barfly, Brazil, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, everything Hitchcock, The Elephant Man, A Streetcar Named Desire, and on and on. The classic horror movies, but not slashers, or anything in which women wearing bikinis are impaled with sharp objects ... unless it's funny.

Can you tell us a bit about your future projects?

I'm working on my third novel, Audrey's Door, about a woman living in New York who gets cold feet, and leaves her fiancée. She moves into a haunted apartment building, where her OCD gets the better of her, and in her sleep, she begins to build a door. I've also got about five short stories coming out over the next year, which are listed on my website.

Thanks for the interview! It's been a delight!

SOME FACTS ABOUT SARAH LANGAN

Sarah Langan was born on 20 October 1974. She grew up on Long Island, went to college in Maine, where her two novels are set, and is currently resident in Brooklyn, New York x She has a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University, where one of her instructors was Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham x Since 2005 she has been studying environmental health and toxicology at New York University x Sarah claims, “I'm allergic to animals, but still love them, particularly rabbits.” A fair number of rabbits are slaughtered in Virus x One of the people mentioned in the Acknowledgements at the front of The Keeper is Tim Carroll. The Corpus Christi police chief in Virus is called Tim Carroll x To promote The Missing (US title of Virus) Sarah's publishers held a contest, inviting readers to submit a 30 second trailer for the book. The results can be viewed at www.sarahlangan.com x ‘Fenstad's End', a short story whose main character inspired Virus, is slated to appear in a future issue of Cemetery Dance, who will also be publishing The Lost as a signed, limited edition chapbook.

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

While its place in popular culture is assured, courtesy of films, video games and Michael Jackson's Thriller, until recently the zombie has lagged behind some of the other great horror archetypes in the literary stakes. Yes, there have been fine novels such as Somtow's Darker Angels and Dickinson's Walking Dead, but nothing to compare with the body of literature that has accrued around, for example, the vampire, and most of the significant developments in the zombie subgenre have come courtesy of film. In the main I think this is due to the zombie's status as a ‘blue collar’ monster, terrifying en masse, but with no memorable individuals for the reader to love or loathe in the way that we do such iconic figures as Dracula and Lestat, though there's evidence that may be changing post Romero's introduction of Big Daddy in Land of the Dead.

And yet, regardless of all the foregoing, it seems that here at Case Notes we are in the middle of a glut of zombie novels. Go figure.

US author Brian Keene is in the forefront of the zombie invasion. His 2004 novel The Rising was a thrill a minute tale told of a post-apocalyptic world in which the dead are reanimated by ancient spirits and where humanity has its back to the wall. Dead Sea (Leisure paperback, 337pp, $7.99), Keene's latest, is set in the same milieu, but for all practical purposes can be read as a standalone novel, with the demonic element of no concern.

Forced by fire and zombies to flee his safe house in East Baltimore, Lamar Reed falls in with two children, the precocious Malik and Tasha, and heavily armed former biker Mitch. They find sanctuary aboard the Coast Guard cutter Spratling and take to the high seas with a crew of other desperate people, and for a time all looks rosy, but their security is an illusion. The zombie threat gets a foothold aboard the ship, from which point on it's a tale of diminishing returns, as the ever dwindling band of survivors fight to reach the safety of an offshore oil drilling platform.

Like the other books by Keene that I've read, Dead Sea is a fusion of the action and horror genres (Rambo meets Romero). The action side of things is accounted for by the numerous fire fights and set pieces that punctuate the narrative, and as far as that goes it's an exciting and gripping story, with plenty of bang for our buck. The characters are well drawn and handled convincingly, with Lamar an agreeable protagonist, one with feet of clay but all the more engaging for that, trying hard to live up to the role of hero that's fallen into his lap courtesy of a Joseph Campbell quoting academic, and feeling inadequate even as everyone else thinks otherwise. And we get all the tensions and hostilities that inevitably arise in any small group forced into each other's company, with Keene never missing the opportunity for another turn of the screw.

As for the horror side of things, that's down to the zombies, of course, plus the obligatory lashings of gore and images that stick in the mind, such as a field of the crucified living dead, writhing on their crosses. More significant still is the sense of hopelessness that permeates the text, as every lifeline that's thrown to the characters is cruelly snatched away, and an unrelenting feeling of despair grows with each page. Ultimately, as the world collapses around him and possibilities dwindle, it's through growing into the role of father and protector to the children that Lamar achieves a kind of personal redemption. The subtext, if there is one, seems to be that, in a time when the world is going to hell in a hand basket, you find happiness and hope wherever you can. It's a hard message to hear, but Keene is a gifted storyteller, one who will hold your attention every step of the way on this journey into some heart of darkness, and regardless of how bleak, Dead Sea is never less than entertaining.

Cherie Priest's Not Flesh Nor Feathers (Tor paperback, 400pp, $14.95) is the third Eden Moore novel. Eden, for those not in the know, is a young lady with psychic powers (she can heal quickly and talk to spirits), and a resident of Chattanooga.

When street people start to disappear the authorities don't take the matter seriously. A friend of Eden's tries to involve her, but she doesn't place much credence in his story of things coming out of the river, though it does tie in with her aunt's misgivings about Eden's plan to move into a riverside apartment. Another friend, TV news reporter Nick, enlists her aid when the resident ghost at the Read House hotel turns nasty, performing poltergeist attacks on Eden and others. Of course the two plot strands connect, and when the river rises to flood the city an army of zombies take to the streets, led by the restless spirit of a dead girl, with death and destruction following in their wake. It's up to Eden to contend with tragedies both natural and supernatural, and put things back together as best she can.

Not Flesh Nor Feathers is a book with associations. Inevitably, as it concerns the flooding of a southern city, New Orleans will spring to mind, though Priest is at pains to point out in her afterword that the book was planned and sold before Katrina was anything more than a name, and while the writing took place afterwards it was not her intention to address that very real disaster in her fiction. Nonetheless, those events will inform any reading, and add a frisson of recognition as the waters rise and the authorities are shown as hopelessly unprepared, all their defences useless against the advancing tide, while human beings find themselves trapped and give in to panic. Other than that, with zombies in lieu of spectral pirates and a flood standing in for maritime precipitation, there are elements of the plot that could easily step into an identity line next to Carpenter's The Fog. Similar themes of retribution for past injustice inform the book. Of course, Carpenter didn't invent or have a monopoly on those concerns, and Priest more than makes them her own, adding racial intolerance to the mix. These twin associations, real and fictional, give Priest's novel a solid grounding, one that will resonate for most readers.

Eden is an engaging character, every bit as likable here as in her initial outing, feisty and tolerant, but with an edge to her. Instead of being simply a pretext for super heroics and plot leaps, her abilities are portrayed convincingly in that they not only serve her well in the survival stakes but come with attendant self-doubt and pain. And she also has a memorable supporting cast, from street person Christ Adams to possible romantic interest Nick, through her overly protective aunt and uncle and estranged brother Malachi, who has more than his own share of past sins to atone for (and he does). Priest puts them through their paces with a skill that enables suspension of disbelief as the ever more fantastic elements of the plot unfold, with scenes of outright horror interlaced with quieter, more chilling interludes. Few readers will easily forget either the fury of the poltergeist attack on Eden or the chilling scene in the prologue where two young women hide in the loft of a flooded building and listen to dead hands knock against the boards beneath them, but these and other set pieces are simply the appetisers for Eden's final frantic struggle against rising floodwaters and rampaging zombies.

David Wellington published his first novel, Monster Island, online and, near as I can figure, became the rage of the blogosphere, subsequently garnering a publishing contract (in the UK something similar happened with the case of Belle Du Jour—we get high class call girls, and in America they get zombies; so which country is backward, do you think?).

The central character in Monster Planet (Thunder's Mouth Press paperback, 320pp, $13.95), the third and final volume of the series, is Sarah, the daughter of Island's protagonist Dekalb, who has survived in Africa, where isolated pockets of humanity continue to hold out against the zombie menace, but this idyll is coming to an end. When her mentor Ayaan is taken by minions of a powerful necromancer, the Tsarevich, Sarah comes up with an audacious plan to rescue her, but this involves travelling to America, where the Tsarevich has plans of his own, including a search for the magical Source. The trek brings her into contact with many characters from the previous volumes, including her father and his nemesis Gary, and the ancient druid Mael Mag Och, who plots the end of all life. Sarah must make hard choices, deciding not only the fate of the world but that of her father and her best friend Ayaan, who has become a lich and thrown in her lot with the Tsarevich.

Wellington has been praised, deservedly, for his originality and his trilogy, with its near future setting, the characters’ easy familiarity with advanced weaponry and military technology, their use of viruses and cryogenics, all give the books a thoroughly modern feel. And yet by the third volume science has given way to what, for all intents and purposes, feels like magic, with an older prototype of the zombie peeping out from behind corners in the narrative, so reading it I cannot help thinking of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories superimposed on the world of the twenty first century.

The cover proudly proclaims ‘A Zombie Novel', but Wellington seems loath to use the Z word. Instead we get ghouls and liches. We get necromancers at war with each other, and ferocious battles between the living dead and super strong mummies. We get dead people bred for intelligence and special abilities, so that at times the Tsarevich seems like Professor X surrounded by his own team of mutants. The streets of New York, the battlefield for Island, are now overrun with strange, luxuriant growths, plants that will feast on human flesh, while Gary, the enemy of yesteryear is reborn as a many legged monster. And at the end of it all is the Source, a Gaian like eruption of energy that can be used to kill or cure.

It's intoxicating stuff, and the end result is an adventure novel, one with numerous twists and turns of fortune, characters we believe in and care about even as we shudder at the circumstances that shaped them, a wealth of invention and incidental colour. Never less than readable, this is a series that transcends the zombie subgenre to offer a new merging of fantasy and horror in the modern world. In a nutshell, Wellington has brought back the magic and, kicking against the traces, made his zombies sexy.

The Devil's Plague (Abaddon paperback, 256pp, 6.99 pounds) by Mark Beynon is the third volume in the publisher's Tomes of the Dead. The premise behind this series is to take a historic period and introduce zombies into the mix, for which there's a fine precedent in Somtow's American Civil War novel Darker Angels. I enjoyed the first two Tomes very much, and there are the reviews to prove it, but this volume was disappointing.

It's set against the background of the English Civil War, which Cromwell was losing until he made a pact with the Devil and turned the tide with the aid of an army of invincible horse borne warriors known as the Kryfangan. But of course there are consequences to such tampering with the natural order, and the dead return to life to battle the Kryfangan. The story is told mainly from the viewpoint of theatre troupe manager Sir William Davenant, who finds Charles Stuart hiding in a tree after the Battle of Worcester and agrees to help him escape to Portsmouth. Along the way the pair and their travelling companions get into and out of various scrapes, with a final flurry in London when Kryfangan and zombies engage in all out war. There follows a hiatus of fifteen years, with the capital city abandoned to the combatants, before Charles Stuart returns in the historically significant year of 1666 to predictably cleanse the capital with fire.

This is all rather ramshackle, with Davenant's predisposition to get caught and then escape soon growing tiresome, so that you don't think of the story so much as plotted as a series of fires and frying pans thrown together to get the characters where they need to be. The Kryfangan are a horrendously contrived plot convenience, made no more realistic by attempts to identify other occurrences in history, and in a hopelessly naff epilogue that even a Hollywood hack might have blanched at we get Churchill meeting a Mr Cipher. Red herrings are planted as well, with a witch introduced and then abandoned, the suggestion that Charles Stuart is boarding the wrong ship which comes to nothing, and so on.

The writing doesn't quite catch fire either, even if London does. The action scenes don't come alive in the way that they did in previous volumes, and they seem doled out sparingly, with everything saved up for the big finale, regarding which, given the ferocity of both zombies and Kryfangan, I have to wonder how the conflict got dragged out for fifteen years, as a war of attrition seemed like the last thing on the cards. There are too many intrusive flashbacks used to move the plot along and some of the most obvious foreshadowing I've seen; Davenant, who's spent fifteen years in exile on the Isle of Wight, wonders what happened to his old mate Charles Stuart, and then wonders who was in the boat that crept ashore last night, only to find standing on his doorstep the next day...

The only parts of the book that worked for me, were the characterisation of Davenant and his troupe of actors, the picture of the life of a travelling thespian in puritanical times, where staying ahead of the authorities is the name of the game. And, as if to prove that this was the book's real narrative thrust, the main story ends anticlimactically with Davenant and his merry band getting to put on a long delayed performance for their rightful king. Check out the previous volumes first, if you want to know what the Tomes are capable of.

Terror Island (Hadesgate paperback, 271pp, 11.99 pounds) by Rakie Keig also started life on an internet blog and comes with a cover blurb by David Wellington, but as with Monster Planet there's an old school feel to it. Old school in the sense that it brings to mind the classic Universal films in which Dracula met Frankenstein and Wolfman, with the same sense of gleeful fun and anything goes invention, but also a similar cavalier attitude to narrative cohesion and failures to address credibility.

Anna Martin and her student friend Mike are invited to visit a remote island off the coast of Norway, where her research scientist father is based, but on arrival they discover that he has gone missing. More revelations follow, as research station head Dr Ehren tells them the island's secret. Its soil has special qualities and for centuries it has acted as a safe haven for creatures considered supernatural by the human world. There is a village populated by werewolves, a vampire stronghold and three hundred zombies are contained in an enclosure on the far side of the island. Humans are here to experiment on the other life forms, with cooperation of a degree from the first two categories. And, of course, it's only a matter of time before things go pear shaped, with the zombies breaking out of their containment and attacking the humans, while vampires and werewolves join in to forward their own agendas.

My reservations are mostly to do with credibility. Even allowing for the existence of such a magical island, Ehren's willingness to permit Anna and Mike access to what must be one of the world's most closely guarded secrets doesn't stand up to close examination. Similarly, Anna has dreams of a strange girl who guides her actions, but this ‘psychic’ gift is never properly explained and doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose except to act as deus ex machina in the novel's end game. And there are other unanswered questions, such as the reason behind the murder in the first chapter and the fate of Anna's father. Whether these are simply plot holes or riddles to be solved in a future volume is never made clear, and certainly I can see a lot of potential as regards the latter option.

Reservations aside, what remains is an exciting adventure story with some attention grabbing action scenes as humans, zombies, vampires and werewolves duke it out, with the desperate fight inside the humans’ compound in particular offering some edge of the seat stuff. Keig's prose is somewhat raw compared to the other writers reviewed here, but she sets a breakneck pace as the story progresses, allowing the reader as little opportunity to catch his breath as she gives her characters, and continually pulling new surprises from up her sleeve. Nor does she stint on gore, with the zombies and others showing a lack of restraint and table manners that would challenge the ingenuity of a Tom Savini. Characterisation is handled with competence, so that each member of the cast has his or her own defining traits, and are easily recognisable. Yes, it is unsophisticated fare, obviously a first novel and pitched as entertainment rather than aspiring to any status as art, but Terror Island is never dull and taken on its own terms will provide a few hours of horror fun for most readers.

Deadbeat: Dogs of Waugh (Humdrumming paperback, 166pp, 7.99 pounds) by Guy Adams is the second novella in an ongoing series, and bucks the zombie stereotype by presenting zombies with personalities. I missed the first book and so am not too sure about the backdrop to this series. It seems to be set in a Britain where there is a zombie community existing just below the radar, known to the authorities but not of any real concern, and for all practical purposes the zombies seem to be just like everybody else, except dead. Adams’ protagonists, bar owner Tom and gadfly friend Max, are like nothing so much as the living dead equivalent of Wooster and Wooster, drinking, chasing girls and acting like fools. Toto, we are not in Pittsburgh, and that's for sure.

Dogs of Waugh also has the most original plot conceit, cleverly turning around anthropologist Wade Davis’ theory that the zombie state can be drug induced. Here it's the dead who are infected with a drug that induces all the symptoms of life, and thus become ripe for enslavement by the book's evil mastermind, an agreeably nasty bit of work called Waugh, who unleashes a zombie army and some ferocious other dimensional dogs on our heroes when they throw a spanner into his works. Fortunately Max and Tom have some rather unlikely but powerful allies of their own.

As a first step, a small caveat emptor: while it is a very nice product there is a lot of white space in this book. The novella accounts for 127pp of the total, but thanks to chapter divisions 55 of those pages are either blank or contain nothing except the name of the viewpoint character. The pages that do contain text have up to 48 lines, but all the same there's no getting away from the fact that you don't get as much story for your money as you might expect.

Having said that, what we do get is a thoroughly satisfying and ingenious concoction, with Adams’ audacious riff on the zombie legend sure to put a smile on most readers’ faces. There's a whole cast of larger than life characters, with the evil Waugh in particular a memorable creation, a believable and thoroughly ruthless megalomaniac, but one who has a soft spot for his henchmen, so much so that he goes off the rails when the head honcho is killed. There are some great set pieces, such as Max getting chased by the infernal dogs and Tom's standoff with a night club full of zombies, and Adams integrates these well with the prevailing mood of comedy, so that the two effectively reinforce and play off of each other, while Max's deprecating tone of voice is a constant delight. In another ingenious twist, Adams supplies some DVD style extra features, with a writer's commentary on how the book was written, a short story concerning one of the minor characters, a trailer for the next in the series and a recipe for the Deadbeat Martini. It's a neat touch and the perfect cap to a book that seems to revel in doing things differently, while not taking itself entirely seriously. And it also has the funniest one line chapter since Myra Breckinridge woke up in a hospital bed and demanded “'Where are my breasts? Where are my breasts?’”

World War Z (Duckworth paperback, 342pp, 8.99 pounds) by Max Brooks, the son of actor and director Mel Brooks, is the most realistic of these novels, both by reason of the rationale given for zombies (a virus, Solanum, causes the condition) and the unusual method used to tell the story.

Subtitled An Oral History of the Zombie War, Brooks’ work is set in the aftermath of that great struggle and pitched in the form of a series of interviews and extracts in which the people who survived tell their stories. We get the first incidents of the zombie plague in China and then its spread to the rest of the world. We learn of the ineffectiveness of contemporary models of warfare against the zombie menace and the drastic measures that are forced on the various nation states, with a pull back to defensible areas. We then learn of mankind's great fight back and the aftermath of the war, with the various efforts at reconstruction. There are individual incidents, such as the disappearance of the entire nation of North Korea, the evacuation of Japan and Cuba's ascendancy in the new world order. Various soldiers talk about their difficult tasks during the war, such as those charged with tackling zombies underwater or in the catacombs beneath Paris, the methods that served them well and the sacrifices that were made. Points are made about the remorseless nature of the zombie enemy and how he is the first to be truly committed to total warfare.

Brooks plays it deadpan and as a result World War Z is an eminently engaging read. He captures perfectly the voices of a vast range of different characters, people from all walks of life, adding to each those touches of detail that enhance the verisimilitude of the whole. His gradual build up and revelation of the zombie threat is assured, and he makes realistic the danger of ‘shuffling’ zombies, something which to many of us might seem somewhat overstated. He gives us an alternative vision of the world at war, with the human spirit seen at its best and worst, plunged into the depths of despair by defeat and soaring on the wings of victory. The net result is a truly gripping story, one that holds the attention all the way and, thanks to its thoroughly modern format, cannot help bringing to mind such news reports as the recent avian flu outbreak or the foot and mouth crisis of a few years’ back, which in turn adds another frisson to the reading experience. For Brooks, zombies are just another illness waiting to happen and, even if we don't actually believe that the dead can return to life and eat the living, the picture of a contagion out of control and demanding draconian measures is an unsettling one.

There's a companion volume, The Zombie Survival Guide, which we hope to review on our website at ttapress.com

ZOMBIE CINEMA: Some milestones in zombie celluloid

White Zombie (1932): the first zombie film, starring Bela Lugosi as sinister white Voodoo master ‘Murder’ Legendre x I Walked with a Zombie (1943): producer Val Lewton's second film, based loosely on the plot of Jane Eyre x Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959): aliens use the living dead against mankind in director Edward D. Wood Jnr's ‘masterpiece', often cited as the worst film ever made x Night of the Living Dead (1968): George A. Romero's black and white classic that reinvented the zombie subgenre and became one of the most influential horror films of all time x Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979): infamous ‘video nasty’ that rescued the career of director Lucio Fulci x Return of the Living Dead (1985): Dan O'Bannon ‘splatstick’ in which zombies eat brains and run for the first time x Re-Animator (1985): Stuart Gordon feature based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft x Braindead (1992): gross out zombie comedy from New Zealander Peter Jackson, who went on to direct The Lord of the Rings and King Kong x Resident Evil (2002): first in a trilogy starring Milla Jovovich and based on a hugely successful video game x 28 Days Later (2002): Danny Boyle's excursion into the horror genre, and technically not a zombie film, but for all practical purposes it might as well be x Shaun of the Dead (2004): zombie themed romantic comedy (a ‘rom zom com') starring Simon Pegg

THE ZOMBIE WALK: LIFE IMITATES ART

Inspired by the films of George Romero, the zombie walk involves a number of people dressing as zombies and adopting a zombie shuffle, and then invading an urban centre. Among other things, these events have been used to promote horror film festivals and as a form of social protest. The first such walk was held in Sacramento, California in the summer of 2001. On October 29th in 2006 a zombie walk in aid of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank took place at the Monroeville Mall, the set for Dawn of the Dead, and was attended by 894 people. In 2007 more than 1100 people dressed as zombies invaded the same Mall. When he shot his film, Romero had made do with between two and three hundred extras.

SCIENCE AND ZOMBIES

Canadian ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis investigated the case of the zombie Clairvius Narcisse while resident in Haiti and concluded that there was a pharmacological explanation for the zombie phenomenon. The zombie state was achieved by the use of two drugs, tetrodotoxin which can induce a deathlike state and datura which reduces the individual's will power to a zombielike compliance. Davis’ theories have never been conclusively proven or gained widespread acceptance, though he popularised them in a bestselling book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, which was made into a film by Wes Craven in 1988. Davis is alleged to have said, “When I wrote my first book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, it was made into one of the worst Hollywood movies in history. I tried to escape the hysteria and the media by going to Borneo."

ZOMBIES AND SCIENCE FICTION

While zombies are predominantly the concern of the horror genre, the potential of reanimated corpses has appealed to SF writers. Some examples include William Tenn's ‘Down Among the Dead Men’ in which zombies provide much needed cannon fodder for the war effort and ‘Override', George R.R. Martin's tale of a corpse handler whose charges are turned against him. Dead musicians feature in ‘The Song the Zombie Sang’ by Harlan Ellison & Robert Silverberg and also in ‘A Little Night Music’ by Lucius Shepard, whose debut novel Green Eyes offered a viral explanation for zombie phenomena. Perhaps the most sophisticated treatment of the theme can be found in ‘The River Styx Flows Upstream’ by Dan Simmons, in which medical science discovers a way to reanimate corpses, only for them to become an emotional and economic burden on their families, with echoes of senility and Alzheimer's. The most famous SF story with a zombie reference, Robert Heinlein's ‘-All You Zombies-’ is not about the living dead but a time travel tale.

MISTER B. GONE BY CLIVE BARKER

(Voyager hardback, 248pp, 15 pounds)

The title is suggestive, in that having read the book you wonder if the Mister B. who has gone is in fact Barker himself. According to the publishers this book is ‘the long awaited return of the great master of horror', but that's debatable. If you come to this expecting a return to the gory glory days of The Books of Blood, The Hellbound Heart or even Coldheart Canyon, then you are going to be disappointed.

The plot is the old chestnut about a genie trapped in a bottle and cajoling, threatening, bribing somebody to break him out, only here reinvented as a demon trapped in a book, this book actually, the one that you're reading, and if that constitutes a plot spoiler then so does telling you that tomorrow the sun is going to rise. The demon, a Jakabok Botch, or Mister B. for short, tells his story to the reader, all the while beseeching him to burn the book, and what a story it is. Snatched out of Hell at an early age. Wandering the earth with the older demon Quitoon. Committing the requisite atrocities. Ending up in Mainz, just as Gutenberg invents the printing press. Learning the great secret that Heaven and Hell share in common. Getting imprisoned as a result. Cut.

The rot sets in from the outset. For any horror aficionado the thought of Clive Barker writing about Hell should be a cause for glee, but in the event what we get from the awesome imagination that spawned the Cenobites, the Iad Ouroboros and the Abarat, is something as mundane as a Ken Loach film; the father who spends a hard day at the sulphur pits, gets drunk and comes home to beat the wife and kids. It's a caricature of the dysfunctional family, and giving the head of the family a forked tail doesn't make it any more interesting or real. Once we get ‘upstairs’ all the book seems to be doing is marking time until the big revelation about the accord between Heaven and Hell, which again is not exactly great shakes, rather something most readers will guess before it is revealed and probably be able to reference previous examples of, while the demon's ‘burn the book’ refrain soon gets tiresome and is a gift horse for reviewers more churlish than me.

I think my biggest problem with the book is that it is cartoon horror. Yes, Mister B. tortures people, gets horrifically burned, bathes in the blood of slaughtered babies, and so on and so forth, but none of it counts for anything much. It's as inconsequential as the cat running full tilt into the wall, getting smashed flat, sliding to the ground and lying there in a puddle, only to get up five seconds later ready to do it all over again. There's nothing here that actually hurts, that makes the reader feel for the characters and care about what they're going through. Even the names are cartoon comedy. Can you read Quitoon without thinking ‘spittoon’ or hear Jakabok Botch without being reminded of the immensely irritating Jar Jar Binks?

Okay, let's pause a moment and put some salve on those burns. Mister B. Gone is competently written and an easy, undemanding read. As a piece of horror whimsy it works fine and anyone unfamiliar with Barker's oeuvre is probably going to have a good time. It's only those of us with expectations who are going to feel short changed and wonder if the man once hailed as ‘the future of horror’ has forgotten how to write the stuff in any way that matters.

Now burn this review. Seriously. Burn it. Go on.

BLACK MAGIC WOMAN BY JUSTIN GUSTAiNIS

(Solaris paperback, 432pp, 10.99 pounds)

This is billed as ‘A Quincey Morris Supernatural Investigation’ and shame on you if you don't instantly surmise that the character is somehow related to one of the three musketeers who helped Van Helsing end the career of Dracula.

Quincey shares his ancestor's penchant for vampire slaying, as witness the scene setting prologue in which he ingeniously wipes out a nest of the varmints in a Texas town. Moving quickly on, we get to the main story in which Quincey goes to help a man whose family home appears to be under magic attack, calling in the aid of white witch Libby Chastain. At first they think they are dealing with a poltergeist, but in the event it appears they have stumbled onto the latest episode in a black magic vendetta stretching back to the Salem witchcraft trials, and have to dig deep into their resources, magical and human, to track down the culprit. In another plot strand that neatly dovetails with this, the FBI call in Van Dreenan, a South African policeman with experience of ritual slayings, to help them track down a killer leaving a trail of mutilated children's bodies in his or her wake.

Gustainis does rather like to have too much of a good thing. Quincey Morris is the tip of a name dropping iceberg, with Amityville, The X-Files and The Exorcist all getting a look in, so that eventually you end up trying to find a connection for every single name (is detective Barry Love derived from Barker's Harry D'Amour, and could Libby Chastain be descended from Paul Sheldon's Misery?) and it becomes a distraction. Similarly, he lays it on thick with the supernatural menaces—vampires, werewolf, zombies, demons, succubus/incubus—introducing a new threat with almost every other chapter, so that you're left wondering what's been kept in reserve for any future investigation (the smart money is on Great Cthulhu)?

But these are quibbles. Nobody should be in any doubt that Black Magic Woman is a fast paced and highly entertaining work of fiction, one that comes at the reader like a dust devil with ambitions to be a tornado and doesn't let up on the action for a second. Gustainis is in complete command of his material and he enthrals the reader as completely as any master magician. Nor is it simply a question of this book being a light hearted romp, a route it could so easily have taken. There are scenes involving the killing of children, including Dreenan's back story, that are harrowing and definitely not for the squeamish, and kudos to Gustainis for telling them so instead of glossing things over for the sake of a PG rating.

It has memorable protagonists too in the form of the affable and eminently likeable Morris and his alluring helpmate, bisexual white witch Libby Chastain, and it's gratifying for once to have heroes who are middle-aged rather than young bloods, though I've no doubt they'll roll back the years when the film or TV series this book is crying out for is made. In a similar way Dreenan and his FBI companion, Fenton, are an engaging double act, with the one being indoctrinated into the outré world by the other, two men who are at first opposed but learn to respect each other and work together. Equally impressive are the bad guys, the monstrous Christine Abernathy, the evil Cecelia Mbwato and their henchman Snake.

Gustainis’ characters have almost nothing to do with the likes of Carnacki and John Silence, instead coming out of the same stable as John Constantine and Supernatural, with an emphasis on action above all else. He brings to the table a gusto and raw energy that is irresistible, repackaging the genre of the supernatural sleuth for the rock video generation. He won't change your life or reinvent the tropes of horror fiction, but chances are you're going to really enjoy what he does.

DEMON EYES BY L.H. MAYNARD & M.P.N. SIMS

(Leisure paperback, 338pp, $7.99)

Emma Porter gets the chance to become personal assistant to Alex, the dynamic and charismatic head of the Keltner organisation, but her promotion is tainted with sadness as Emma's lover Helen has just been killed in a tragic accident at her riding stables. Still, Emma throws herself into her new job, attending a weekend retreat her boss has organised at an isolated country house for his wealthy friends and business associates and it's here that she gets the first inkling not everything is kosher, as the guests engage in sexual shenanigans with various members of staff and sinister undercurrents become apparent. Meanwhile Helen's brother Tony has been looking into her death and finds a connection with Erik Keltner, Alex's unsavoury younger brother. As he looks closer at the Keltners the more wary Tony becomes, suspecting that they might be involved in the white slave trade, but the Keltner's secret and the plan they have for Emma is far worse.

This is old style horror, a tale that builds gradually to a crescendo, with dashes of sex and perversion added to the mix for flavour. Beautifully constructed, with Maynard and Sims neatly slotting each piece into place, it delivers its chills and surprises in a quite deliberate way, so that the reader is primed to accept each shock to the system by what has gone before, instead of having to cope with a gore overload from the outset. The back story of a demonic race co-existing with and preying on humans, so cunningly revealed, convinces totally, even allowing for the fact that it does sound slightly like vampires by any other name. The way in which these ‘outsiders’ practice their dark arts is disturbing, with more than a hint of Society in some of the scenes, and the story is further enriched by rivalry between the various demon factions, each resentful and scheming to bring down Keltner patriarch Louis, even his own family, with Emma pivotal to the plot.

Emma is an appealing heroine, both vulnerable and yet capable when pushed, with a climactic worm turning scene at the end. Tony and the parties who come to his aid, including a powerful magician with an agenda of his own concerning Emma and the Keltners, are equally well drawn, bringing to mind Wheatley's Richelieu and cronies as they prepare to go into battle. The Keltners and their demonic allies are also strongly characterised, evil with a very human face rather than some ancient stereotype, each one of them given individual characteristics, in some cases even an empathy with those who should simply be their victims. In many ways Erik, the least powerful, is the most gripping, in that he is the one with something to prove and this is seen in acts of malice and casual brutality beneath his more assured brothers and sisters.

The only bum note is struck by the inconclusive ending, but I took that as a sign a sequel may well be in the works, and if so it's very welcome. This is the best of the long works I have seen by this talented duo, a finely crafted novel that hints at their roots in traditional horror while being thoroughly modern, and which can only enhance their growing reputation.

NO-MAN AND OTHER TALES BY TONY RICHARDS

(Pendragon paperback, 335pp, 9.99 pounds)

The latest title from Welsh publisher Pendragon consists of four novellas, two of them previously unpublished, from a writer who has appeared regularly in our predecessor, The Third Alternative, as well as a host of other genre magazines, and with a common theme of be careful what you wish for because your wishes may be granted.

Title story ‘No-Man’ starts with a young boy discovering an alien presence inside an old air-raid shelter at the back of his school. The eponymous No-Man is friendly and able to grant wishes. He makes everybody like Tom, and over the years helps him with his studies and then his career. There is a price, in that Tom can't help wondering how much of his success is down to his own efforts, but all the same he can't stop himself pushing for more. It's only with the really powerful emotions that No-Man has trouble fine tuning things; he can make a woman love Tom, but the cost is she no longer actually likes him, the weaker emotion overwhelmed by the stronger. It's a double-edged sword that results in severe complications. There's an intriguing idea at work here, showing that however strange we may seem to aliens and vice versa, we're still pretty odd to each other as well, and that there are consequences when we try to force other people to feel about us in a particular way. Richards is excellent at identifying all the possibilities of this fraught scenario and mining them in such a credible way that we can immediately empathise with Tom and his philosophy of “Where's the harm?” and believe that we might act similarly even while knowing that what he is doing is wrong. I have one tiny complaint to do with the actual writing. In this story, and to a lesser degree in those that follow, there's a tendency to split lines so that what might more naturally run as a sentence becomes question and answer (e.g. “Tom? Was by nature a quiet and thoughtful type ... “). I'm not sure if this is a misjudged stylistic effect or simply a series of typos thrown up in the printing process, but I am certain that I found it irritating.

Second story ‘Postcards From Teri’ is a ghost story in which a man is haunted by the predatory spirit of his old lover, the postcards she mailed him from abroad acting as touchstones for dreams that seem compellingly real. It is the finest in the collection, and I reviewed it at length when it was originally published as a standalone novella by Tartarus. Rather than repeat myself I will post the original review to the website at ttapress.com.

Reading the other previously published story, ‘Under the Ice', there will probably come a moment when you realise that it is yet another variation on that old favourite The Monkey's Paw. David moves to Helsinki to be with the beautiful Krista, when his twin brother, her then lover, accidentally falls overboard from a ferry. The tragedy always haunts him though, and so when a magical artifact falls into his hands he wishes for Bobby to come back, which he does, only as a violent zombie whose behaviour casts doubt on Krista's role in their shared past. Similarities to Paw aside, and those magical elements and the happy ever after ending they empower are the only weak part of the narrative, this is a gripping story, one that builds well, with each step along the way following on surely from the previous one, once you accept the given of supernatural interference. Richards deftly portrays the central ménage a trois, and is equally competent at capturing the feel of Helsinki on the page, with subtle touches of atmosphere and nuances that make it all credible.

Last story and the longest, ‘A Black Glass Slipper’ is a Cinderella fable for modern times in which Owen is beguiled by Eva, an obscenely expensive call girl, and decides to rescue her from the Russian gangster who ‘owns’ her. His attempt to involve the law fails, as does his plan to offer money, while Eva herself tells him that she is not interested, though of course Owen refuses to accept this, believing she wants to love him but is afraid. In desperation he seeks outside help of a satanic provenance, but fate has another cruel twist in store. I have mixed feelings about all this. It's eminently readable and engaging, being at one and the same time the most promising story and also the one that disappoints the greatest. As a tale of obsession and self-delusion it works very well, with believable action and convincing emotions, as Owen is drawn in against his own wishes, unable to help himself, and the coldness of Eva comes over well, the indifference she has had to adopt simply to survive. It is an unsettling picture of the way in which humans can become brutalised, but then Richards introduces the satanic element and turns the story on its head. The two plot strands don't really gel, with the supernatural stuff seeming not so much to arise naturally out of the story but as a clumsy deus ex machina introduced simply to provide the desired resolution. The subtext for me is that sometimes the horror of real life is enough; you don't need the devil and all his tricks.

ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY BY JENNIFER RARDIN

(Orbit paperback, 290pp, 6.99 pounds)

Jaz Parks is a CIA operative and the assistant to their top assassin Vayl, who just happens to be a several hundred year old vampire out of Romania. A former vampire slayer, who lost her team and is riddled with guilt as a result, Jaz's job is to watch Vayl's back, sniff out other vampires for him and generally make his life easy. The two are sent to investigate a plastic surgeon suspected of raising funds for a terrorist group connected to The Raptor, a vampire who is the arch nemesis of democracy (think Osama, with fangs). Things are much worse than expected though, with the bad guys plotting to unleash a demon from another dimension and a plague that will wipe out mankind. There are other complications too, not the least of which are Vayl's former wife showing up and a traitor in the ranks of the CIA, while we also get some unsettling revelations about Jaz's past.

This is horror lite, or paranormal romance, or whatever you want to call it; Bond meets Dracula according to the back cover blurb. I'd have gone more for True Lies post the Jamie Lee character's conversion to secret agent, though Vayl is nowhere near as scary as the Governor of California. Jaz is an easy to like character, good at what she does and caring towards her family, agonising over mistakes she feels she may have made and wisecracking with the best of them (her penchant for wrecking cars is a running joke). She and Vayl have a good rapport, with the hint of a chemistry that promises interesting times ahead, while his enigmatic master act is intriguing without being so far out there as to repel.

After a slow start the book picks up speed and delivers the goods, with an exciting story packed with larger than life characters, technical wizardry and supernatural grace notes. The plot has more than its fair share of ups and downs for Jaz and Vayl (well, actually a lot more downs), with some knockdown fights along the way to a suitably enthralling and momentous final battle between the forces of dark and light, one in which it could easily go either way. Last but not least, what we learn of Jaz's past sets up some intriguing puzzles to be resolved in future volumes.

It's not compulsive reading, or even horror really, but I had a good time with this and expect I will with more from Rardin.

FIREFLY RAIN BY RICHARD DANSKY

(Wizards of the Coast hardback, 384pp, $25.95)

His business failed, Jacob Logan returns to the small town of Maryfield in North Carolina and takes up residence in the family homestead. It's a bittersweet return for him, bringing back memories of how he deserted his parents and betrayed their dreams to pursue his own. But things are not right. The fireflies, which Jacob's mother said were angels sent to guide dead souls to heaven, will not come onto Logan land, and handyman Carl Powell keeps dropping dark hints about the house and his family. Matters escalate as Jacob sees signs that the house is haunted, while his car is stolen by a strange figure. It seems that certain prominent citizens have a vested interest in seeing Jacob remain in Maryfield, and will resort to anything to make that happen, be it violence or hand picking a bride for him. Restless spirits are on the wing and Jacob must get to the bottom of it all, or see people he cares about get hurt.

There's good and bad to this book, if I'm allowed such an obvious statement. Dansky provides plenty of solid effects, with the sense of a haunting put over well, objects moved and doors shut, strange sounds at night and sudden changes in temperature, the whole nine yards of spectral manifestation in fact. The mysterious actions of Jacob's car, which is stolen by a party unknown much to the indifference or bafflement of the police, but keeps turning up at the most inopportune moments to tease and torment him, along with Jacob's visions and savage, inexplicable attacks by his neighbour's dog all add to the building tension. It culminates in a final push to force him to take the necessary action to resolve matters or die in the attempt, which brings on a tour de force resolution to the book, a standoff against the forces not so much of darkness as those of desperation and the human longing for peace. All of this is to the good, but outweighed by the problems I had with the story.

I didn't find Jacob particularly likable or care what happened to him (or the rest of his family either for that matter). He came over as a self-absorbed jerk, which made it impossible to sympathise over his troubles; curiosity was the best I could manage. The only engaging characters were librarian Adrienne, the honey trap element of the story, and feisty, go getter Jenna, Jacob's city friend who comes to help him out and ends up with her life in peril. There are too many red herrings, such as Jacob's various altercations with police officer Hanratty and his suspicions as to her past, while the idea at back of it all, the explanation for all that happens here, is simply risible. There are so many hints of much bigger things going on in the text, but the book just doesn't deliver on them, as if the author had written himself into a corner and then couldn't see a more rational way out of his character's dilemma. Ultimately Firefly Rain is like one of those Hollywood blockbusters where all the money went on sfx, with only pennies over for script and casting.

Copyright © 2008 Peter Tennant

At least it was downhill. There was that.

Although one sixty degree nightmare of a slope and five hundred steps hardly made a walk in the park. Particularly if you had overslept by half an hour—and on a day where even being on time might be too late. After eight-twenty, there wouldn't be another train until nine, and this would stop at every station along the way, taking twice as long as the express that he still believed he could make.

He'd made it to the second series of stone steps in record time; ahead of an intruding hedge of nettles, he could see the distant Auchinfoil Road below, and beyond it the town grid and the Clyde. It was early enough yet that the sun hadn't quite made it above the hills of Dumbarton across the river, though upon the rocky peninsula between, the windows of its castle caught what light there was in glares that outmatched the steady drift of the Clyde. This was the longest stretch in his journey: more than two hundred wide and low-lying steps—the kind where one step was too little and two too much. The kind that was more likely to bust open your face before lending you any speed.

Normally he wouldn't have chosen this route. It might have been a hell of a lot quicker than the tortuous hairpin roads that graduated down from the housing estates at the top of the hill to the town centre below, but it was the stamping ground of junkies and drunks. And it played havoc with his bad knees.

He looked at his watch. Eight-fifteen and he was still, to all intents and purposes, in Devol—at best more than ten minutes from the bridge that led to the station. He should have waited for the bloody bus.

Despite the cool early morning air and the stiff breeze that came off the clouds, his head still pounded. Four Nurofen and a pint of Irn Bru hadn't come close to touching the hangover that he had woken up to. He didn't want to dwell on its misery because he didn't want to think about its foundation. The night before.

Stacey had likely only agreed to meet him in Connelly's because he'd plagued her night and day for more than two weeks. She'd looked good though, as if she'd made an effort for him—and that combined with three swift Aftershocks before she had arrived had made him feel irresistible.

The feeling hadn't lasted long. He got no further than his opening gambit: the sincerest of apologies that would make way for certain reconciliation and a possible promise on the night-bus home, when she handed him a whisky and told him that she had a new bloke, a bloke called Frankie who came from Slaemuir and worked in an abattoir or something as rank. A bloke who had apparently been waiting in the next booth along for just such an introduction.

Close to the bend that would take him onto the last set of steps before Dubbs Road, he nearly ran straight into a back garden gate that was hanging open onto the steep alley; only a hasty turn that twisted at his knees averted disaster, though he paid for the save with a nasty tumble down at least half a dozen steps. He came to rest too close to a congealed puddle of pink puke, and when his hands sought to push backward from it (his stomach threatening to put pay completely to his efforts), one landed on something plastic that rasped against the concrete.

"Fuck!"

The syringe was empty save for a small red deposit at its head, and he had come nowhere near to touching the needle itself, but he recoiled backward in disgust, scrambling to his feet and slapping the palms of his hands against his trousers while he cursed again.

When he got moving once more, he now welcomed the diversion of Connelly's. His hangover had reasserted in shaky legs and breath, and vibes so bad that he almost turned back for home. He didn't look at his watch for fear it would decide him to defeat; instead he cannoned down the steps without looking anywhere but dead ahead, concentrating on the memory of the night before so that there was no room to consider what he might be stampeding over.

Now that had been a cosy tête-à-tête alright, the three of them ensconced in a booth so tight that their knees were all touching. Frankie—a bloke who looked like he had gone a few rounds with Joe Calzaghe on a good day—Stacey, her boobs hanging out of her top, an ugly rash spreading up her neck, and him, sat like a bloody spanner opposite them both, caught between wanting to break both of their heads and making a run for the door.

A red flash on his left distracted his concentration, and upon a half-demolished brick wall, the philosophy of the Devol Ned Cru was surmised: bucky lane for the devol! fuck the oronsay mob. hink again boys—devol ya bass. And further down: gibby casuals sheep it fuckers! All very entertaining if you didn't really need to make a train that was likely getting ready to pull into the station, while you were still at least two hundred bloody steps above the town centre, trampling over used syringes and God knew what else.

When he looked again towards the Clyde, he saw that the sun hadn't yet risen above the Dumbarton hills, and when his gaze was drawn once more towards the glinting windows of the castle, a random memory that Merlin was supposed to have holed up there while in exile came into his head. His primary school teacher had once told him that the name Devol came from the Gaelic Diabhoul—the name of the evil one. And even at six years old, he'd known who that was well enough. Considering the amount of junkies and soap dodgers around the place (and that was just in the scheme, not in the boarded-up factories and dodgy back alleys like this one), they were likely right.

He remembered Stacey's face when he had told her what he thought of her. He might have been better advised to have kept an eye on Frankie all the while he had been calling her a dirty hing-out and the like, but hangover-hindsight was a bitch. And his thumping head was testament to more than just whisky and shots.

His breathing was wheezy now, and not just because of the altitude. His desire to catch the eight-twenty had become something of a dream-like panic: a need to get to that exam or interview; a need to outrun a chasing bogeyman that no longer had anything to do with Strathclyde Council likely giving him the boot for being late once too many times. When he looked down again, the Clyde still seemed as far away as it had ever been. Surely he had to be close to the road now? Even once across Dubbs, there remained another steeper set of steps before the gable of the Star Hotel heralded the beginning of the town centre.

Some nettles brushed against his leg and his pace faltered; he caught a glimpse of grey-blue sky before he righted himself, though the dizziness endured too long and his head developed an evil pulse that almost floored him again.

He remembered following old Frankie into Nicolson Street and then accepting an invite up a nearby close. Frankie looked beaten-up enough, but he reckoned that he had at least ten years on him. Stacey's new bloke was old. And slaughtering pigs likely didn't bring home much more bacon than suspending the housing benefit of dole bludgers. The unintentional pun started a laugh at the back of his throat; one that stifled his lungs and brought back his terrible druth.

When an obstacle flashed into his careering path, his curse was lost to the desert in his throat, but this time he managed to swerve around it without too painful an incident; one knee almost buckled as he tried to right himself on the way down, but a slapped palm against the nearest wall righted himself again. He might have been okay were it not for another unexpected change in direction: he found himself veering suddenly to the left, his right side bouncing off the wall like a pinball, headed for the back fence of a house on the other side of the path before he was able to stop himself.

His breath was hoarse and rasping in the sudden quiet. His thighs burned and his knees screamed. Bereft of the repetitive rhythm and steady tattoo of his run, he leaned hard against the fence and spat twice (the second producing nothing at all), his head still beating with its nasty pulse.

When the dizziness passed enough for him to feel able to turn around again, he did so without much enthusiasm. For a moment he considered running again, but niggling curiosity sent him back towards the opposite wall. Something on the ground caught his eye, and while that tattoo inside his head might have tried to make him look away, he found himself doing just the opposite: crouching even closer to the nearest step.

A syringe. A syringe that was empty save for a dark spot of blood at the head of its shaft.

Even half blind with self pity and drink, he would have been able to pan Frankie's head in—hell, he likely could have done a lot more than that if he had thought hard enough of Stacey's cleavage and the nasty looks it had gotten from his pig-slaughtering rival—had Frankie not arranged for a posse to meet them. That they were as old and bent out of shape as Frankie hardly mattered when they numbered more than half a dozen. When he had tried to escape the close, they had blocked his exit with grins and tattooed heads, and though he had tried to make the best representation of himself that he could, the beating had been perhaps the worst he'd ever had.

He looked up from the syringe at the grey river below. The castle upon the Clyde Rock still reflected the light. Merlin had stayed there, he thought. In 870 the Vikings had set it alight and carried away any left alive to Ireland. And once upon a time, Merlin had stayed there. He turned to the west, where the black and red hull of the Comet paddle steamer was marooned in a car park close to the Municipal Hall. He imagined that he could see the gaudy fairy lights strung between lampposts along the riverside. He looked to the hills behind Dumbarton, where the rising sun still no more than hinted at their summit.

When he started running—properly running, not the half-arsed limping jog he'd kept up since leaving the house—the backhouses either side of him passed in a blur. It felt to him as if he might be making headway; certainly the burning soles of his feet and hammering of his heart had to attest to some progress. When a familiar flash of red caught his eye to the left, he ran only faster, his breath now coming in cruel wheezes that made him feel as if his lungs might explode. The gate caught him fast in his belly, doubling him over at the waist and sending him sprawling to the ground. Winded, his sobs were dry and heaving, and he abandoned them through necessity rather than choice. This time he didn't even glance towards the wall on the either side. Instead he looked to his watch. Eight-fifteen.

When he touched trembling fingers to the back of his head, he felt a crusty matt of hair and hesitated before pushing past it to the skin beneath. What he touched was too soft to be his skin or skull, and in its wake that awful pulse intensified, sending a shock throughout his body that was enough to wring another sob from his gravelly throat.

He turned backward with another cry, his knees protesting as he clambered back up the steps in the direction from which he had come, his hands pushing him up from the ground every time he fell. Time passed unnoticed as he climbed, until he realised that the way had become suddenly easier. His knees and thighs still burned, but now the effort seemed curiously inverted. He stumbled down and forward into the gate, and when he fell he hardly cared that this time the syringe drew blood from his palm.

Still he ran. Down past the hedge of nettles and the red-scrawled notice for Bucky Lane; towards the sun that would not rise and the castle whose windows caught what light there was; towards the grey Clyde and the red and black painted boat stranded in a car park amid slackened strings of fairy lights. Towards the rigid roads and streets of the town centre and the distant hills of Dumbarton. And the fast train to Glasgow that was due at eight-twenty.

Copyright © 2008 Carole Johnstone

Rando passed his wrist over the credit eye on the Fantasy Jumper kiosk. The darkened window flashed to life, revealing a full-length, three-dimensional image of a young woman with pale, perfect skin lightly dusted with freckles.

"This is the one I wanted to show you,” Rando said to his blind date, Maya, who had an artificial eye that drooped slightly, but was otherwise very cute in a chipmunk sort of way.

"Make her blonde,” Rando said, while Maya peered over his shoulder. The woman's hair changed from brown to golden blonde.

"Old-fashioned romance dress.” It hurt to talk, because Rando had accidentally bitten the inside of his cheek while eating oysters at the underwater restaurant.

The young woman's simple white shift morphed into a flowing mintcream gown with a diving bust line, like on the covers of the books Rando's elderly mother read.

"Big pointy dunce hat,” Rando said, laughing, and the young woman was suddenly wearing an oversized red cone, with dunce printed top to bottom in plain black letters.

"Finished,” Rando said to the kiosk, simultaneously puffing his cheek to keep the wound from rubbing against his molar.

The window glided up, and the woman stepped out.

"This time, maybe I'll reach the fountain,” she said. She turned and leapt off the roof.

Maya gasped.

They leaned over the short wall and watched her plummet, her dress billowing, arms spread wide.

"Isn't that something?” Rando said.

The woman seemed to fall for a long time; Rando stared, rapt.

Finally, she hit the ground. Her head bounced violently, then she lay motionless. The dunce hat, which had come loose during the fall, clunked to the ground a few feet away from her. A wide swatch of blood blossomed on the pavement around her head. People on a pedestrium that wound past the fountain pointed, their words indecipherable. Then they seemed to recognize that the woman was not a real woman, and went back to their conversations.

Rando looked at Maya. “Isn't that something?"

Maya smiled and nodded. She glanced at her watch.

"Watch this, watch this,” Rando said, pointing down at the broken body. The pavement under the body slowly slid open until the body dropped out of sight, then it returned to its original flat grey.

"Let's try it again,” Rando said, sweeping the credit eye a second time. “Can you do that movie star, Ellie what's-her-name?"

"I only have copyright permission to simulate three celebrities: Cotton McQue, Gym Hinderer, and Lena Zavaroni,” the woman behind the glass said listlessly.

"Those all suck,” Rando said. “What about a little kid?"

"Age?"

"Five."

The woman became a five year old girl, cute as a button, but with the same haunted grey eyes.

"Finished!” Rando said.

The little girl stepped out. “This time, maybe I'll reach the fountain,” she said. Her tiny legs scrambled and churned until she finally cleared the low wall. She jumped, tumbling head over feet once, twice, before slamming to the pavement.

He glanced at Maya again. She looked a little distracted, like she wasn't having a very good time. She was so cute. Rando imagined what it would be like to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner holding Maya's hand.

"Hey, I have an idea,” he said. He held up a picture of his mother for the kiosk to scan. “This is going to be hilarious."

When he'd finished watching his mother fall, he turned to find that Maya was nowhere in sight. “Maya?” he called, but got no answer. He headed off to look for her.

Violet and Cloe wandered the roof, holding hands. Violet was an egret of a woman, tall and skinny. Her head bobbed when she walked—one bob for each step. Cloe had a ruddy red face, and a habit of waggling her finger when she talked, as if trying to write what she said in the air.

They took turns looking out at the park through a telescopic viewfinder that could focus on one square of a waffle cone held by a child in line to see the Concrete Mermaid, if you wanted it to. The view was spectacular—the fair stretched nearly to the horizon, a cacophony of brilliant shapes and colors, snaked by long lines of wide-eyed patrons.

They walked on, pausing to watch an oily, shark-faced man create a haggard looking white-haired woman, who said something about the fountain, then startled them both by leaping off the roof. They continued.

An old woman with thick ankles ringed by plump purple veins sat at the memory kiosk. On the viewscreen a young girl (Violet assumed it was the old woman in her youth) swatted yellow jackets off a younger boy (her brother?) who was covered with them. He was screaming, his skin already mottled by lumps with angry red centers. One of the wasps landed on the girl's cheek and stung her; she cried in pain, but kept swatting at the bees that swarmed the boy.

"What a gruesome memory to record,” Cloe said.

"Maybe she wants to show her family what a brave girl she was.” Violet let go of Cloe's hand to wipe her palm on her hip, then reached to retrieve it, but Cloe had folded her arms across her chest.

In front of the puppy machine, a little boy tugged his mother's arm. The boy's hair was short, except on top, where a shock of blond hair sprouted like a neglected lawn. “But they only live for three days,” he pleaded. His mother relented, flashing her wrist over the eye. A white puppy with multicolored spots dropped down a translucent tube, squealing and yapping, into the big round receptacle. The boy scooped it up, laughing with delight. The puppy licked his nose.

At the Dream kiosk they watched what they had dreamed the night before. Violet dreamed that Chinese people were painting graffiti all over her body. Cloe dreamed that she was pinned by a tangle of electrical cords connected to life support systems. She had to unplug them to free herself.

"Look at this one,” Violet said, scampering ahead, “Lie Detector Spectacles."

She scanned the credit eye; the specs popped out on a stalk, oversized, with black frames. Violet pressed her face to them, eyeing Cloe through a haze of smudges.

"How old are you?” Violet asked.

"Fourteen,” Cloe said.

A burst of indecipherable readouts lit up in Violet's peripheral vision, then the word lie in bright red. Violet clapped, delighted.

"Do you watch too much television?"

"Yes."

truth.

"Who do you think is better looking, me or you?” Violet said.

Cloe smirked, shook her head.

"Come now! Who's better looking?"

"You,” she finally answered.

lie.

"Now we're getting somewhere. I always thought you had a bit of a narcissistic streak."

"It's my turn,” Cloe said, stepping out of the spectacles’ gaze and tugging Violet by her sweater. “Do you hate my mother?"

"Of course not!” Violet said.

Cloe pulled her face away from the spectacles, looked at Violet, nodded her head. “Yes. You do."

"No, I don't,” Violet protested.

"Have you ever looked at my personal memory videos when I was out of the house?"

"N-no."

Violet and Cloe took turns hurling questions, progressing from tickling, to pricking, to ripping flesh from the bone. Do you find my breasts too small? What really happened after I passed out the night we snorted Godflash with Jenna?

Then a question burst from Violet unbidden, as if leaping out of a black hole. “Do you love me?"

"What?” Cloe said.

"You heard me."

Cloe shifted from one foot to the other, looked toward the horizon, where the wonders of the park continued to shimmer and spin. “No,” she said.

truth, said the spectacles.

Violet sank to the floor. A rushing filled her ears, as if they were flooding with water. She stared at Cloe, waiting for Cloe to take it back, or qualify it, or denounce the kiosk a liar.

"I'm sorry,” Cloe said. “I should have told you sooner, but I couldn't figure out how."

Violet stared. She was having one of those disembodied moments, when every word, every movement, feels like an echo instead of something happening new.

"I should go.” Cloe turned, then paused. Violet's heart leapt.

Cloe reached behind her neck with both hands, unclasped the vow necklace Violet had given her, and put it in Violet's lap when Violet didn't hold out a hand to take it.

Abbet was fat, and he walked like a duck. His splayed footsteps were silent on the hard polished floor. No one paid him much attention as he approached the Fantasy Jumper kiosk, a glistening rectangle trimmed in silver and chrome. He swept his wrist across the kiosk's credit eye, and the young woman appeared.

"No alterations. Default model."

Always the same expression when she emerged—serene on the surface, but undertones of restless longing.

Immediately, she turned toward the low wall. “This time, maybe I'll reach the fountain."

"Wait, not yet,” Abbet said.

The woman gazed out for a moment, focused not on the wonders spread out before her, but on the empty air between her and those wonders, the middle distance. Reluctantly she turned back.

"It breaks my heart that you're created only to die scant moments later. Such a waste."

The woman opened her mouth to tell him that she didn't understand what he meant, that she had been created for falling and dying, for ecstasy and agony, but realized that saying it would only draw him into conversation, only delay her. The joy of the fall, and the horror of the pavement, beckoned.

"Thank you,” she said instead.

"I fell asleep at my work station yesterday,” Abbet said. “When I woke up I discovered I'd inadvertently laid my head on my keyboard, primarily on the ‘k’ key.” Bits of foam formed on his lips as he spoke. “My screen was filled with k's. It took me hours to delete them all."

The woman glanced over her shoulder. Rays of sunshine painted the dust and dandelion blooms swirling in the space she longed to fill. She could be out there with them now, she could pass through those bands of light, create a draft that sucked dust and dandelion blooms after her.

"I've kept the tags from all my clothing since I was a boy, so I can track the changes in my body. I keep the tags in a brown chest.” He watched her face carefully, searching for a reaction.

"I have to go now,” she said, leaning on her right foot, the one she would step with first. “Please let me go."

"Please, talk to me a while,” he said.

"Why don't you talk to one of the women from the sex kiosk?"

"They only want to have sex. They don't want to talk. No one wants to talk.” He kicked at a bottle top lying prongs-up on the ground, but missed. “Are you the same each time?” he asked. “Or are you a new one each time?"

"I don't know."

"Why do you want to reach the fountain so badly?"

"I don't know. I imagine I was made that way. But it doesn't matter. It would be so wonderful, to hit the water, to feel it all around me, pouring into my throat and my ears."

"Your wishes are so simple,” Abbet said. “Mine are so complicated. I'm not even sure what all of them are."

She didn't say anything, just looked at him with desperate eyes.

He nodded glumly. “Okay, go, if that's what you want."

"This time I'm going to reach the fountain."

"You'll never reach it, you know. It's much too far..."

Her artificial heart pounding in anticipation and terror, craving the fall but dreading the pain, she planted the arch of her foot against the edge of the low wall and catapulted herself into the air, arms spread wide, gaze fixed past the wide grey expanse of pavement to the shallow ripple and spray of blue-white water beyond. She flew horizontally first, feeling the thrill of weightlessness, the anticipation, the potential represented by the space between her body and the ground. Then she fell, gaining speed. Her long, chestnut hair snapped in the wind; her cheeks puffed as air rushed into her half-open mouth.

Too soon, all at once, it was over. She lay staring at a red and white popsicle wrapper lying by her nose for one last, agonizing heartbeat, then she died.

Still clutching Cloe's vow necklace in her sweaty palm, Violet watched the earnest fat man talk to the Fantasy Jumper, then watched the Fantasy Jumper leap. Part of Violet wanted to follow the Jumper, to be free of her sadness. And, maybe even more importantly, to saddle Cloe with a lifetime of guilt and remorse. But there was bound to be a safety field around the roof to stop anyone but the Fantasy Jumper from jumping.

The fat man waddled away without even watching the Fantasy Jumper hit the ground. Violet went to the edge to look at the Fantasy Jumper's body. It was already gone.

A jolt went through her—Cloe was walking on the pedestrium below. She must have stopped in the bathroom. Violet hoped she'd stopped to cry.

Violet turned away, absently caressed the brass piping of the Fantasy Jumper's kiosk. She looked at her reflection in the window, at her too-small breasts and her beak nose.

A wonderful idea occurred to her.

She swept her bony wrist over the credit eye, and the window came to life. “Just like me. Exactly like me,” she ordered, and in an instant, it was as if she were looking at her reflection again.

"Come,” Violet said.

The window raised, and the Fantasy Jumper stepped out. “This time, I'll reach the fountain,” she said.

"Wait!” Violet said, holding out an arm to block the Fantasy Jumper from the wall. Cloe was still fifty meters from the fountain. Violet had to time it just right.

She fastened Cloe's vow necklace around the Fantasy Jumper's neck, instructed the Jumper to wait for her signal, then hurried to the telescopic viewer and focused it on Cloe. She wanted to see Cloe's face.

"Get ready,” Violet said as Cloe approached. “Now!"

Violet felt a slight breeze as the Fantasy Jumper passed. Silently she counted to three, figuring it would take that long for the Fantasy Jumper to land.

Cloe's hands flew to her open mouth. Her eyes widened with recognition. Then, for an instant, Cloe smiled. It was a fleeting half smile, quickly masked by faux shock, but Violet saw it. She was sure of it.

Even at the World's Fair it's possible to trick someone, to convince them that the Fantasy Jumper is someone they know, someone they once loved. But only for an instant. Only for that first primordial moment before the higher faculties caught up, and reminded them of where they were.

Cloe looked up, realizing what Violet had done. Was she disappointed that it was only a trick? Probably.

Violet screamed in rage. She shoved the telescopic viewer into a spin and stormed back to the Fantasy Jumper kiosk. She made another Violet Jumper, and sent it over the wall.

Then she made another, and another. They vaulted over the wall, slammed to the concrete below, one after another.

"This is how much pain I feel!” she screamed at Cloe as she swept her wrist over the eye yet again. “These are my wounds!” she howled, her wrist a blur.

Like a movie caught in a loop, the Fantasy Jumpers leapt one after another, spattering blood and chips of artificial bone, screaming in agony, writhing as they died. The ground became littered with them as they piled up faster than the ground could absorb them. One Jumper landed atop another, her spine snapping with an audible crack. Still more followed. A pile formed. A Jumper dragged herself out of the pile, her leg shattered, her torn scalp exposing a ragged quilt of stringy fibers, but her arms and back intact.

Cloe screamed when she saw the Violet-shaped Jumper dragging itself toward her, gasping in pain, tears pouring down its cheeks. She backed up to the edge of the fountain, then scurried around it.

Slowly, awkwardly, the Jumper dragged itself, its eyes fixed on the sparkling fountain. The tattering of the water spilling down upon itself drowned out all other sound.

Finally, she reached the edge, clawed her way over the marble lip, and plunged into the cool water. A billion stars exploded in her mind.

On the roof, the latest Violet Jumper paused, stared down at the fountain in disbelief. “I did it,” she said.

"Jump!” Violet cried. “Why don't you jump?"

The Jumper shook her head. “There's no need."

Violet followed the Jumper's gaze, saw her skinny self floating face-down in the fountain. She laughed bitterly. “At least someone got what they wanted."

Violet headed for the stairs, oblivious to the open-mouthed stares of the onlookers gathered on the roof.

While climbing the stairs back to the roof, Rando passed a tall, gangly woman who looked as if she'd been crying. Their fingers brushed, and he wondered if she had allowed them to touch on purpose. He turned and watched her gallop down the stairs, then he continued upward. He was hoping Maya had returned to the roof to wait for him.

The roof was silent, and nearly empty. The Fantasy Jumper looked out over the park, unmoving. The undertones of restless longing were gone from her face. She looked as if she might stand there forever.

"Would you care for a cup of tea?” Abbet asked her.

"I don't drink tea,” the Fantasy Jumper said.

"Perhaps a conversation?"

"I don't know."

He took her hand, led her toward the stairs. They passed a short man who stood scanning the roof with his cheeks puffed.

"Every so often I like to empty out all my drawers and put everything in a pile,” Abbet said as they left the roof.

Copyright © 2008 Will McIntosh

Fear and Loathing ... just about everywhere

Shit, as they say, happens and yet, somehow, we get on with our lives. Yesterday, January 17th, British Airways flight 38 from Beijing crash-landed short of the southern runway at Heathrow. Earlier that morning, police in Taupo, New Zealand, discovered 26 year old British woman Karen Aim dying in a pool of blood. On Wednesday, US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff expressed his fear of the “real risk that Europe will become a platform for terrorists.” What, apart from the fact that they all made headlines, do these events have in common? In the first, it seems that what so easily could have been a disaster with a loss of over one hundred and thirty lives, was averted by the cool nerve of the pilot. The situation may change over the course of the next few days, but presently Captain Peter Burkill is being feted as a hero. Meanwhile, questions are already being asked about how this near tragedy—involving one of the world's safest aircraft, flown by one of the safest airlines, into an airport with a safety record among the best in the world—could possibly have happened. All perfectly reasonable questions that need to be asked, but in between praising the courage of Burkill and speculating as to what went wrong, a subtext lurks, prompting a sense of unease, feeding a mass anxiety. If it could happen here, on this craft, to this airline, then how safe is safe? Should I change my travel plans? Can I get where I want to go by other means than air?

I don't like flying, never have. This fear—let's call it what it is—has never stopped me from flying, though it has come close. In August 2001, along with my wife and kids, I flew out of Boston on an American Airlines flight bound for Denver. Four weeks later I watched the twin towers fall on TV at home in Swansea, promising myself I'd never fly again. When I next boarded an airplane, what I felt was no more terrible than it always was. A sense of dread that slowly mounts as the plane taxis out to the runaway, then escalates swiftly as we hurtle along and up into the sky. I'm all right then, most of the time, unless we encounter turbulence, in which case a hard knot of quiet terror twists round my guts. I try to keep reading, or watching the in-flight movie, but the truth is the only thing I can focus on is the seat-belt light over my head—waiting for it to turn off. As soon as it does I'm okay, at least until we begin our approach to our destination. Then it's the same process all over again until we touch down. Intellectually, I know this response is completely irrational but it's also instinctual, something over which I have no control. That is the nature of fear. What puzzles me is how quickly it comes and goes.

What shocks people about the murder of Karen Aim is not simply its brutality or that it could happen to an attractive young woman travelling away on the other side of the world. What disturbs us is that it happened in New Zealand, a country that—whatever the reality—we associate with mountains and beautiful scenery, with Lord of the Rings, with opportunity, and friendly, good-natured people. This is where people go to escape the mundane realities of normal life, not to get murdered. Factor in the simple, but nonetheless real, fears that parents experience when their children, suddenly grown-up, suddenly independent and struck with wanderlust, venture off to foreign lands, and it's not difficult to see why this particular killing makes so many of us feel disquiet. Last summer my elder daughter, twenty-one, spent five weeks backpacking in Kenya. Despite the blandishments of reason—she's smart, she knows how to avoid trouble, she won't put herself in danger—and despite the reassurances of occasional emails and text messages, I was always aware of a sense of unease lurking in the back of my brain. Not until she arrived home, weary but excited and bursting with the desire to talk about her experiences, did I feel that burden of worry fall away. Maybe it gets easier with time, as they get older, but I suspect that for most of us, trace elements of dread will always lurk in the quiet corners of our minds when we think about our daughters and sons, out there in the big bad dangerous world.

Which, as Michael Chertoff assures us, is what our continent has become. My liberal gut instinct screams that Chertoff is talking out his arse but then, being a left-leaning liberal, I would say that. After all, the biggest threat to American citizens on their home soil would appear to be other Americans, other heavily armed Americans, some of them schoolkids, with grievances that it seems can only be sated with blood. But maybe it's too easy to dismiss his comments as the paranoid ravings of a man whose job it is, after all, to see every Johnny Foreigner as a potential threat. Chertoff thinks that Americans may have become complacent about the threat of terrorism given their success in preventing further attacks at home since 9/11. Perhaps so, but compared to the Yanks, we've got complacency down pat. Despite the looming threat of ID cards, the increasing ‘monitoring’ of our personal lives and the creeping erosion of civil liberties, we still perceive ourselves as somehow more ‘enlightened', more tolerant and less frightened than Americans.

How many of us will still be thinking this way if and when we're asked by the police to produce our ID cards in order to prove we are who we say we are? What if you don't have one? What if it's been lost or stolen or if, like me, you have no intention of applying for one? A similar discussion is happening right now in the US, where Chertoff wants to introduce something called Real ID cards—as opposed to what, fake IDs of the sort kids acquire in order to get a beer? Whether any of this, or the online registering Chertoff hopes to introduce for Europeans wishing to travel to America—in lieu of getting rid of the visa waiver scheme—helps prevent terrorist attacks in the future, I remain sceptical. Technologies are only as foolproof as the fools who control them.

What connects these stories is that they reveal something about our relationship with fear. Fear has become something we've adapted to, something we've learned to accommodate. I suspect that this is the way it always has been—part of our evolutionary make-up. Certainly this accord with fear, for most of us can be seen in our willingness to board planes after air disasters, or in the way parents manage to get on with their lives while still carrying their quiet fears about the wellbeing of their loved ones. Chertoff's comments reveal a deep-rooted anxiety about our accommodation with fear. No doubt he, Bush and Gordon Brown would claim to want to make all of us more vigilant. But what kind of world would it be whose most powerful message to its people is “be afraid, be very afraid"?

Copyright © 2008 Mike O'Driscoll

I found one in the unfinished pond foundation that had swallowed wet cement and was rock solid, and another in the road outside the front of our new house, flattened by traffic and splayed milky white like a surgeon's glove. They were migrating, I told myself, prising the crusted body from the ground with my modelling knife. It peeled free gradually, and I suppose this might actually have been a somewhat delicate operation, but fortunately my hands were still up to the task and there was nobody nearby watching. I dropped it, intact save for one light tear, inside a brown A4 envelope, and closed my briefcase on it. Without saying any goodbyes, I drove my unwashed van slowly to Kenyons.

When I arrived someone had already taken my parking space, so I left the van over with Collins, who told me to shave, and walked back to the warehouse via the café, where I remember I bought my usual tea and a stale scone with butter and jam. The jam I returned in the hope of a small refund, but this was refused. I recall straightening my tie before heading out again, and laughing loudly when a sudden wind sent it lashing back against my face. By the time I reached the reception desk at Kenyons, my hair was a mess and the comb-over must have looked obvious.

"Haven't seen you here for a while,” said Janice, with or without a smirk. “Are you after Donald?"

"I'm expected for two o'clock,” I stated as professionally as I could, having been careful to delay my arrival until the last possible minute. In the event I was kept waiting for a further thirty-five, and the cup of tea they offered to make me failed to arrive in all that time. Eventually Donald's assistant, a new girl already smelling of his cigarette brand and whose make-up was applied too thickly around the eyes and mouth, arrived to show me up to his office, not that I needed a guide. Her face and body were a remarkable shape; quite ideal, really, until I noticed that her delicate fingers were covered in ink. We exchanged pleasantries; she was truly nice enough, but her false vivacity soon palled. I could feel the sad weight of my adult years closing in with each strained smile.

"Mr McCarthy would like a cup of tea and several peppermints,” said Janice from behind. I turned and glared, but she was already re-examining the catalogue on her desk.

"I'll have some peppermints brought up in a while,” said Donald's assistant. I never actually learned her name, and I realise now it was probably rude of me not to have asked.

"Please don't,” I said out of the far corner of my mouth. I couldn't tell. Perhaps Janice had noticed scone in my teeth.

"How do you like your tea?” the assistant asked as we passed through the modelling department. A table of unfamiliar sculptors sat copying one of my early designs.

"Milk and one sugar, please,” I replied. We ascended stairs in the far corner of the room, closed off from the workshop by a swinging metallic door that clanked shut loudly behind me.

"If you'd like to wait here,” she said at the top, indicating an empty seat by the window. We had arrived in the long dark corridor approaching Donald's office, although this was the first occasion I ever recalled a visitor's chair being placed this far away from his door. “I'll let Mr Kenyon know you've arrived."

She walked the length of the corridor quite slowly; posing with responsibility, I guessed, like I had probably done myself on previous occasions. She might actually have proved a perfect model; certainly a damsel for the Knights and Fairy Tale playsets; perhaps even a one-off sports doll. Except for the ink on her hands, of course, which ruined everything. Despite what they all say, I wasn't lusting after her, even though the look I received from one of the young painters emerging from a nearby office swiftly condemned me.

I turned away then, noting that the early afternoon sky outside was now a duller shade of grey. All I could hear through the grimy window was the distant crash of factory machinery, and a radio blaring out faintly from across the concrete parkway, as it had done every day of every year I'd worked at the plant. I felt inside my jacket pockets and found a small toy lion resting above the unused paper napkins I somehow seemed to collect. It was one I had sculpted; I could feel that from its shape, my trademark signature concealed subtly within the weaving contours of its mane. I wondered if it had been put there as a surprise present for me by one of my children. I hoped so, and clutched it tightly in my hands until the door at the far end of the corridor opened again, and Donald's assistant beckoned me forward.

Now, when I walked down that corridor toward her something strange occurred. Without my quite knowing when, she froze. Her smile, stretched solid, ceased quivering in that slyly seductive manner, and her eyelids, parted for what seemed to me to be an inordinately long period of time, directed her gaze past my own as if vision were fixed permanently at the far end of the corridor where I'd been sitting. Nearing her body, I found that the colour of her eyes matched her face identically; her hair, too, looked somehow unusual, and was stained a similar waxy green. Too much make-up in the wrong dingy light, I will admit, yet she looked queerly still and pale, as if coated in paint or wet plastic. Realising she was not about to move, I slid past her rigid body, which continued staring past me toward the far window, and lodged myself in the outer half of Donald's office, gripping my briefcase. His voice arrived before he did, riding out on a dirty cloud of cigarette smoke through the parted doorway to his inner sanctum.

"Ed."

"Donald,” I replied.

"Come in, then."

I pushed open the door that I had last seen slammed in my face, and shuffled in. I say shuffled because that is what it was. All my endless courageous talk had failed me in an instant, and, unaware until too late, I held my briefcase up in front of my chest for protection.

"Tea?"

Before I could reply that I had been offered it twice already, Donald stubbed out his cigarette angrily and shouted.

"Andrea, get him tea."

There was no reply from the outer room. Kenyon passed roughly round the side of the desk, upsetting an impressive military diorama which he let fall to the floor before bellowing again through the open door.

"Andrea. Tea. Milk, no sugar. That's it, isn't it?” he said, peering back over his shoulder.

"Yes, thank you,” I replied, counting four fat rolls of neck flesh before the twisted half-face turned back to the door. Something else was said, which I didn't catch, and Donald returned, clumsily, via the far side of the desk this time, expelling air from his mouth as he pushed past, knocking a small landscape askew on the wall behind his head. He collapsed into his seat, slapping one hand on the desk loudly as he did so. Behind me I heard what sounded like a gentle snap through the open doorway, followed by the light click of departing feet retreating down the corridor beyond.

"This will soon be bigger,” he said, waving a large lazy arm at the room. “Much, much bigger."

Stupidly, I asked him how the takeover deal was faring, and he replied that it was more profitable than could have been expected. I think we both realised how ill-judged my attempt at congeniality was. I felt ashamed, and my air of self-reproach evidently amused him. Grinning, he paused for me to advance the conversation.

"Well,” I said, falling short in the hope that he might continue. His eyes gleamed mischievously as his mouth opened to speak, then closed shut prematurely. Out of politeness I opened mine to continue, and he again opened his, which caused mine to close, followed by his, and I sensed then that this could be the start of a rather prolonged game.

"Hmm,” I murmured in quick defeat.

"So, why are we here?” he asked, his hand on the table beginning to twitch.

"To ... to resolve this amicably,” I replied.

"Good,” he said. The next word came out half-burped. “Well?"

"Well,” I said. “What ... what is..."

"What is?” he repeated, his round chin rising slightly.

"The position,” I replied.

"The position,” he confirmed.

"That's right. What is the position?"

Donald's left hand, concealed somewhere beneath the desk, made a vague scratching sound, suggesting it may have been resting in his pants. His right continued to twitch before me, spread out like a fattened chop, clammy and yellowed through nicotine with ink-stains upon each finger.

"I want what's mine,” he said.

The hand drew back slowly toward a large pile of paper stacked upon the right hand side of the desk, near where the diorama had fallen. The fingers left grubby black trails in their wake as the palm collapsed loudly upon the top sheet, sending several smoke-stained pages fluttering to the floor. Beneath lay the object of Kenyon's search. He slid the creased, greasy document across the desk toward me with a greedy lick of his lips.

"That details in depth what you can and cannot do. It's all verified, signed on your behalf, and nothing in it's changed since you read it here in front of me last week. Perhaps this time you'll keep it."

"I gave this business...” I said, stumbling. “I gave this business the best years of my life."

"Once,” said Donald.

"It's a small company of my own.” I was gabbling now. “It isn't competition. I'm not asking for any of my designs back—just the freedom to make new models for myself."

"Denied,” Donald declared, lighting another cigarette. “Ever since the day you signed your initials flagrantly and blatantly on the base of your last prototype.” He coughed lightly on inhaled smoke, and continued. “That was a cardinal sin, Ed. I don't allow artistic expression here. Breaks the machine. Bad for you, bad for me. Terrible for business, which, like I've always said, moves forward like a rhino. With us or against us, you know that."

"Why are you suing me?” I asked. “You know I can't afford a fight."

Donald gave an ugly laugh. “That's why!"

About now the faint clicking sounds returned, growing steadily louder until the door behind me eventually nudged itself open.

"Tea's up,” announced Kenyon. Behind me a shiny and rigid forearm poked itself awkwardly through the small opening, its top half disappearing into shadow beyond the angled door. The extended hand grasped a brimming cup firmly between thumb and fingers. When I reached out myself and took hold, the stiff limb seemed to stick slightly to the saucer before withdrawing.

"Thank you,” I said to Kenyon, taking a sip. I nearly gagged, but swallowed the liquid down to keep face. The tea was stone cold, and upon close inspection a greenish-white film floated on its surface.

"Nice?” he asked.

"Lovely,” I replied.

"A signature's as good as a challenge, Ed. You're the house style. My reputation for excellence within the toy industry. To me personally, you've spent an entire lifetime carving nonstop piles of worthless plastic crap, but to my pocket you're the brand, and the main reason I've managed to fleece these Chinese boys for a song. So I've clipped your wings, Ed. No choice. You're developing the old airs and graces.” He paused for breath, which came at a price. Now I had him.

"Really?” I snapped.

"Really,” he replied, and belched.

"You think I'm all airs and graces?"

"I do."

"Right,” I said, and waved his blown smoke away, pointedly. Kenyon ignored the gesture.

"From now on you're a fading name on the accounts book. Pot kettle on the breath, by the way,” he added, drawing deeply on his cigarette. “No sense looking uptight, McCarthy. They're just toys, after all."

"Just toys?” I repeated, aghast.

"Real cheap crap, as well. Bags of soldiers for the local co-op.” Those words shook me.

"I sculpted you a one-off diorama of the Hougoumont defence."

"And a very profitable birthday present it turned out to be. Happy returns to you too, by the way. Fiftieth, is it?"

"Forty three. And it was last week."

"That's right."

"I've taken on a mortgage,” I admitted, as Donald blew more smoke across the desk.

"Poor you."

"I can't afford it now. I can't work."

"You can work,” he said. “Just find other things to do with those fingers. Write to co-op. Hands that do dishes also stack shelves."

I took a good long look at Kenyon, nodded sagely to myself a couple of times, paused for further effect, then began.

"You've grown monstrous, Donald,” I said, as dramatically as possible. “It's my job to see such things. Sculpting with the mind's eye."

Agitated at my well-timed rebuke, he slammed both hands down upon the desk in what, for him, was mild rage.

"Let me tell you something,” he bellowed. “You carve clay figures. You fill your head with heroic strangers who wouldn't look at you so much as spit. Have you once been capable of a single heroic act yourself?"

I pondered that question deeply.

"When you first came here all those years back you were a mouse. People laughed openly at you. Timid little toymaker, with you too dumb and meek to notice. Silverflies, they called you, because you were always dropping molten lead on your trousers making moulds."

"Hence my request for a reinforced apron."

"We used to joke that was the hottest you ever got down there. Till by some hideous miracle you became a dad, which sickened the girls here. Today you flounce in like Errol Flynn, in a cheap suit, with bad breath and some half-arsed attempt at a posh accent, dreaming of big business. You're a laugh, man. You're a joke. Take it from me, you're finished."

And then he did something ridiculous. He poked his tongue out at me. Stuck it right out like a child would. And yet his looked nothing like a child's. Donald's tongue was black and thick, and covered in dark bubbles. I laughed ironically, feeling a little sick as he prepared to counter with harsher words. I looked down at my feet, ready to receive a stern dressing down. This, I should point out, wasn't a sarcastic act. I was by this stage somewhat confused and emotional.

"You've got airs and graces, boy—well, well above your station. You're a small man, with a timid wife and a pokey house, with small kids who'll go on to live even smaller lives. They might think something of you now, given you can bring home the odd stolen toy here and there, but do you honestly think in a few years they'll be proud of what you do here? A grown man who sculpts toy soldiers and bloody farm yard animals?"

He laughed and coughed at the same time, and from where my head was bowed low I glimpsed something wet and black splash across the desk.

"Get out, go home and be a real man. Or try, at least. For the sake of those three ugly undernourished brats you accidentally spawned.

Those last words startled me, more so because the voice uttering them had gargled obscenely, as if the throat was full of liquid. When I finally looked up at Kenyon, his face was a pallid milky white, and far fatter in shape than before. Beneath the vaguely transparent skin I observed a number of wiry black vessels spreading outward in small clusters, channelling themselves chaotically across the vast flatness of Donald's changing head. Ranging downward toward his swollen, corpulent body, these tiny dark trails throbbed visibly with each rapid beat of his heart. Kenyon squatted motionless on the chair, his legs tucked in tight beneath his belly. A pile of discarded clothes lay crumpled below in a messy heap. His eyes were black and still. Eventually he burped. I reeled from the smell as his lolling black tongue popped out and licked wetly at the desk.

"Are you ill, McCarthy?” he croaked. “You look odd."

"I'm fine,” I said, although I believe the irony was lost on him.

"Tea not agreeing with you?” he said as what hair remained on his head fell away in clumps, exposing a hard, yellow pate with two tiny bumps at the rear of his skull. These began to excrete a clear, syrupy liquid.

"The tea, sir, was cold,” I snapped. “And late."

"Now, now, McCarthy,” belched Kenyon, shifting himself around in the seat so that I could observe more clearly his throbbing throat. “If you grow difficult I shall have you thrown out again, and this time I'll do more than just dust you up a bit. I'll sit on you."

I looked at the thick green stain soaking the seat beneath him, and it was at this point, I think, that I grew angry.

"If today were two hundred years ago, Mr Kenyon,” I began, feigning ignorance of the enormous tongue dabbing heavily at the signed document laid out in front of me, “I would have declared a duel."

"Pistols at dawn?” his voice sputtered, sending a thick stream of brown spittle across the underlined pages. This utterance ended in what I presumed was laughter, although sounds in my head were becoming hard to differentiate. “Two centuries too late,” Kenyon continued, “although I would have gladly accepted.” His skin, yellowy white now save for those endless black veins running beneath, glistened with small specks of moisture.

"You're becoming stressed,” I said. Kenyon gave no reply, and for a moment I thought he was dead, he had grown so still. The illusion soon vanished.

"I'm brewing up a big one,” he said, straining.

A loud rumbling noise sounded from the region of his stomach. Something trapped inside sloshed violently to and fro as Donald shuffled his knobbly rear on the seat and flexed stubby limbs. His throat bobbed uncontrollably.

"Not quite right down there,” he explained as I swallowed the rest of my cold tea. Something jelly-like hitherto concealed at the bottom of the cup slipped unannounced between my lips. I grimaced and drank it down as Kenyon spewed violently, showering the desk with the contents of his guts.

"Good boy,” I said.

"Thank you,” he replied, chewing on a half-digested item of food his stomach had not fully expelled. Small and pink, it hung limply over the peppered rim of his mouth, and I recognised immediately the red plastic wristwatch strapped at one end. Within seconds the arm had been sucked back down Kenyon's gullet, and the tongue emerging in its place immediately licked clean all remaining trace of my daughter.

"I had high hopes of sorting something out today,” I said, sweeping aside the swilling waste on the desk before placing my briefcase down upon it. Kenyon grinned.

"Everything was sorted years ago. To my satisfaction, if not yours."

"I thought maybe we'd level and shake. I even brought you a farewell gift for old time's sake.

"This is farewell,” he said. “Why hold back on the gift? Or are you feeling petty?"

"Not at all,” I replied, opening my briefcase. “I had intended to sculpt you Major John Howard charging the Orne River Bridge."

"Up the Ox and Bucks!” shouted Kenyon.

"But before I knew it I'd added my initials on the base and cast the entire scene into the hungry flames of my pointlessly renovated fireplace."

"Sound business thinking. If a trifle emotional."

"Which leaves me with just my modelling knife,” I said, drawing it out from its worn tin case. “Perhaps you'd care to have it? You can frame it here in honour of our achievements together."

"Ed, you can keep it."

"Thank you,” I said, gasping in mock gratitude. “Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Thank you,” said Kenyon.

"This place has got to me, Donald. You're right,” I said. “It needs change. A bit of redecorating. Some restructuring. Everything's out of shape, like your good self."

"Easy, Ed."

"Things want restoring. Incidentally,” I added in the manner of an afterthought, “this will hurt."

I lunged over the desk as fast as possible and slit his fat throat. Black liquid spattered my hand before a huge rush of it spilled out over his paunch. Donald thrashed about helplessly.

"You fat little inkpot,” I said, walking calmly around the desk. I lifted the fallen diorama gingerly from the floor and replaced it in its original position. I readjusted a couple of the figures as Kenyon attempted to speak, but I think I must have cut something important.

"We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here,” I sang, then flicked my blade into his right eye. The insides ran out down his white cheek, staining it black. He farted twice with fear as I swung deftly behind his gnarled back and did the same to his left.

"Watch,” I said, and carved my initials roughly into his forehead with my knife. Kenyon pounded his arms uselessly against mine, until at last the blade grated against something hard, and they dropped. The two bumps at the back of his skull were oozing liquid now, clear and thick like modelling glue. Casually, I severed both tips and stuffed pens from his desk down each hole. Picking up a large paperweight, I hammered them both deep into his brain. Donald farted again.

I moved to his front, then, twisting his chair round so that I had a clear, uninterrupted view of his stomach.

"Careful, careful,” I said, drawing a line across it with the last of his pens, pausing to slap his face each time his body began to convulse. I added a couple of scientific symbols for artistic effect, then, holding my breath, sliced neatly along the marked line with my modelling knife as Donald's small legs kicked out miserably. After the worst had rushed out onto the floor, soaking my trousers, I reached in and took out the remains of my daughter. Sellotaping her back together on the desk, I rang reception.

"I want some blotting paper sent up,” I said. “Donald's contracts have run. Several thousand sheets should do it."

I slammed the phone back down, feeling thrilled to have ‘hung up’ on someone. Gathering what I could of my daughter into my arms, I caught my sudden vomit in Donald's wastepaper basket and tipped it over his head. Bits of him whistled as trapped air fought to escape through his nostrils.

"Pleasure doing business,” I said, and left his office. The outer room was completely blocked with towering piles of old paper; someone had obviously been doing their best to trap me here. With strength I never knew existed, I smashed the thick columns aside with my elbows, watching proudly as they collapsed in an untidy mess to the floor. Below, the brown tiles were covered in clustered heaps of dead flies that crunched dryly underfoot, which I tried to ignore as I climbed over years of accumulated muck and broke through at last into the long corridor. The window at the far end still showed a greyish half-light outside, but it appeared welcoming to me now as I rounded the corner approaching the stairway.

My escape route, however, was blocked by Donald's plastic assistant. Her hard, green body beckoned me toward it coyly. She was naked, and her puckered lips drew together with an unpleasant splitting sound that echoed the harsh clicks of her stiffly gyrating limbs.

"Mummy!” cried a muffled voice from between my arms, and at that I charged Donald's assistant head on, pummelling the body violently with my shoulder. She flew down the stairway backwards and smashed against the ground into several pieces.

"Your foundations are weak, dear,” I said, stumbling past her remains. One of her plastic eyes winked up at me.

In the workshop the young sculptors stared as I passed them, gasping in horror at my stained trousers. I reached out and tipped the ageing prototype they were copying onto the floor. As expected, everyone began to swear and shout, so I stuck up two Agincourt fingers, an insult they failed to fully comprehend, and laughed with sarcastic joy at the pointless disruption I had caused them.

Passing through reception, I noticed Janice had nipped off to the toilet. On her desk sat a late lunch, awaiting her return. I removed the brown A4 envelope from my briefcase, lifted up the top half of her sandwich and tucked the flattened toad inside. Then I stole her salt and vinegar crisps. I ate them on the journey home, trying to rid myself of a foul taste rising up from my stomach. I parked the van outside my house over an hour later, having ridden the Thanet Way roundabout forty three times at increasing speeds. Locking up the vehicle for the last time, I spied two more dead toads in the road. Through the gate a live one was struggling up our unfinished pathway, plopping and slapping its arse over my nice clean tiles. We were completely surrounded. I would perhaps see my family only briefly before the police arrived, so I worked quickly to save them that particular embarrassment. I never once let the toads move in on them. But then, I never used to be like this.

Copyright © 2008 Matthew Holness