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DistortedMind's Journal


DistortedMind's Journal

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21 entries this month
 

You've Got Mail

12:00 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 600






Ehhh, arrgh,irgh,beep,ergh. The computer roared as Sally connected to AOL to IM (instant message) her friends as they had planned that day at school. "Weclome" Her computer greeted her. She was home alone because her parents were out at dinner. Almost right away, she found a chat room full of her friends. They greeted each other and began to chat. They talked for hours and Sally's eyes were getting tired. Then, someone else joined. They claimed to be a friend of one of the girls who was not in the chatroom. They all assumed that it was true and continued. The new person constantly made rude or just plain mean and hurtful remarks about the other people in the chatroom, but never about Sally. Some of the remarks made her feel better and put her above the other people. The person constantly singled out Sally and commented about her and flattered her. She began to like this person, but everyone else hated the new person. Sally wanted to know where this person lived so they could get together sometime. When she asked, the response was that he or she didn't want all these other people to know, only Sally, so he would send an email to her inbox telling her. He asked her for her email address and so she gave it. A few seconnds later, her computer told her "You've got mail", so she minimized the IM box and opened her email. There was an email titled "where i live" so she opened it, and read it, at first not understanding it's meaning, and then in horror, as she understand what the email meant all that was typed was "Behind the Couch".







Her parents came home to find their daughter dead, stabbed to death sitting in her own blood. They read what was on the computer, and when they searched behind the couch, they found a sheath for a knife, and a laptop, displaying the exact same email and chatroom that was on the computer.









COMMENTS

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Rachel's Ghost School

11:41 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 601








I go to an all-girls private school. On our campus we have six buildings, four and a half of which are over 100 years old. We have a mansion on campus. It was a chapel when the school was run by nuns, and now we use it as the language center. The chapel in the mansion that is said to be haunted by a boy, a girl and a nun.



The story goes that one night, 101 years ago, Alice was praying in the chapel. She was 13, and went to my school at the time. Alice lived on campus, in the dorms that existed back then. She was about to leave when a boy from a neighboring all-boys school walked in. The boy’s name was Henry, and he was in love with Alice. Though he was not allowed to be there, the two started conversing.



All of a sudden, a nun named Sister Jane heard the commotion. It was way past 7:30, the girls’ curfew, and the curious nun went into the chapel to find the pair kissing. This nun had extreme anger issues; she took a candle holder and brought it down upon Henry’s head. The impact immediately split his skull open, and he was dead in a matter of minutes.



Sister Jane, also infuriated at Alice, was about to kill her as well when Alice shoved her. The nun toppled backwards and fell right into a pew. She rose angrily and took a lit candle. She lit Alice’s hair and uniform on fire, turned, and ran out of the chapel. Turning, she shut the large doors of the chapel, locked them, adjusted her habit, folded her hands, and smiled smugly at the barely audible sound of the girl screaming. She walked off away without looking back.



The next morning, the church was discovered to be half burned to the ground. When the other sisters called for Sister Jane, she was not found. Almost a year later, they found a skeleton in a nearby forest. The chapel was rebuilt over the same spot as the old one.



In present day, I was walking through the hallway of my school to French class when I decided to light a candle for my aunt, who was having surgery that day. As I turned down to the chapel, my friends Mary Grace, Katherine, Emily, and Kaity followed me, since we had another five minutes before class.



As I picked up some matches, someone smacked them out of my hand. I turned to my friend Mary Grace who was standing next to me at the time and was about to yell at her for smacking the matches out of my hand when, all of a sudden, Kaity gripped her head as if someone had bashed it open. Then Katherine started screaming and pulling at her hair and tearing at her uniform. Emily toppled into the pew, as if someone had pushed her, and I followed her seconds after.



I screamed as all of the candles toppled out of their holders, instantly going out. Then, the door slammed shut, and we heard a loud click as it locked. We saw a nun’s habit outside through the windows, and then Mary Grace fainted.



I remembered waking up at home the next morning, thinking it was a dream, but Kaity wasn't in school for a week. We found out later that she had "fallen" and her head had broken open.



I don't go into the chapel anymore, and I hardly look at it. There have not been any further encounters since then, but other girls have reported seeing a boy and a girl kissing, looking left and right, then disappearing.



Could it be Alice and Henry?









COMMENTS

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Mind Vampires by Greg Egan

11:34 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 602








There are moments when my mind misses a beat. I find myself, in mid-step or mid-breath, feeling as if delivered abruptly into my body after a long absence (spent where, I could not say), or a long, dreamless sleep. I lose not my memory, merely my thread. My attention has inexplicably wandered, but a little calm introspection restores my context and brings me peace. Almost peace.

I suppose I am a detective, a private investigator, for why else would I be prowling the corridors of a posh girls' boarding school, softly past the doors of the dark-breathing dormitories?

I suppose the headmistress rang me, hysterical. I'm sure that's right. She was sixty-two and had begun to menstruate again. What a surprise for her, what a strange shock. No wonder she went straight to the telephone and dialled my number.

She was calm in her office when I arrived in person, if a little embarrassed. Women have problems, she said. These things do happen, she explained. Rarely, but one cannot attach any significance. I find it very irritating to be told one minute to hurry and the next to get lost; I could have shrugged and walked out, abandoned her right then, but I have my code of ethics. My reputation. My pride. For her sake, for the sake of those in her charge, I frightened her into hiring me.

I described the next few stages to her. Prepubescent girls, even infants and newborn babes, would also start to menstruate. Sweat, tears, saliva, urine, mother's milk and semen would all turn to blood. Dead rats and birds would be found everywhere. Water pipes would issue blood, and every container of any kind of fluid, from disinfectant to dye, from vinegar to varnish, from wine to window-cleaner, would be brimming with blood.

There is definitely no semen on school premises, she said. I think she was trying to make a joke. I showed her a colour photograph from a previous case, the kind the police don't like me carrying about. She turned pale and then wiped the perspiration from her face with (oh yes) a white lace handkerchief, which she carefully examined for any trace of red. Then she signed.

New England. Connecticut? How?

Young soldiers come home with bad dreams.

Atrocities in a muddy trench, a bloody trench.

Young soldiers who would rather be dead than return to their friends and families bearing this European curse. A horrible embrace, a horrible feast. Much better to feed the rats and the worms.

The smell of the trenches drawing them for hundreds of miles. They devour the gangrenous parts. Later the healed will attribute this to the rats. Struggles in the mud, the blood rains down. Screams are natural enough. Nobody will ever guess, they'll be lost amongst the shell-shocked.

“I'm responsible for the girls. You must be discreet.”

“Discreet? There'll be no discretion when the snow turns red.”

I may be wrong. Sometimes there is no carnival of horrors; fear of detection dampens their natural flamboyance, their love of dark theatre. But it's a new moon tonight, the nadir of their strength, and already they have announced their presence. Whatever shows so little caution is afraid of no one.

“You mustn't cause a panic.” Her chin trembled, she pleaded with her eyes. “You know what I'm concerned about.”

I knew, all right.

“If there were nothing to fear but fear itself,” I said, “wouldn't life be sweet?”





So I prowl the corridors, watching for signs, preparing for the fight. My reputation is the highest, I have never lost. My clients shake my hand, hug and kiss me, shower me with gifts and favours. No wonder.

A thin young girl, a somnambulist, wanders past me and my heart aches at her vulnerability. In my mind her swan neck becomes a giraffe neck, a single throbbing artery tight with blood ready to gush and sate the hugest appetite. How sickening, when the skin of her neck is so pale and delicate and, I am certain, cool as the night.

In the prisons, where they mutilate their limbs with razor blades, there is feeding every month. The gatherings in the alleys of abortionists are indescribable. The torture cells; well who do you think runs them? I stay away from all of these. I am no fool. Large old families in large old houses, the better schools, the quieter, cleaner asylums call for me. My reputation is the highest.

The gardener's apprentice, a quiet young lad named Jack Rice, disappeared two days ago. The headmistress thinks it's just a coincidence (such a helpful boy). Nobody knows his family's address, but his father is said to be a veteran and to shun the light of day.

A legless spider moves its mandibles in distress.

A girl cries out: “Whoa, nightmare!”

Strange, dark flowers appear in the fields. They open at midnight to send a sickly sweet narcotic scent to corrupt the most innocent of dreams.

Fear comes to me, but only as an idea. I think about terror, but I do not feel it. Fear has saved my life many times, so I do love and respect it, when it knows its place.

I enter the dormitory itself, I walk quiet as a nightgown between the tossing beds. Over one bed, two heavy men in dark coats shoulder a fluttering kinematograph machine with the lens removed, while a third man holds open a girl's right eye. The pictures flash into the empty spaces of her brain. Fear will not save her life; it has seduced her, possessed her, paralysed her, as it has done to thousands, sweeping the countryside like fire or flood wherever that one dread word is whispered. Even far from the sites of true danger, men and women hear that word, form that image, and choke on the terror that rushes up from their bowels. It is a plague in itself, a separate evil with a life of its own now. I nod at the men, they nod (so very slightly) back at me, then I walk on.

I find Jack Rice easily enough, his hobnailed boots protruding from the end of the bed. I call to the men in dark coats to come and hold him still, for that is what they do best of all. His girl's disguise fades as he struggles. I wonder what revealed the boots. Perhaps his guard was down as he slept. Perhaps he dreamt he was discovered, and so blurred the borders of the dream by bringing on its own fulfilment. I smile at this idea as I drive in the stake.

The tales they later tell me are familiar: the girl he killed, the girl whose form he took, had mocked him cruelly. We find her body, the lips and tender parts consumed, in one of the many damp basements, crawling about gnashing its fangs, but very weak. A matchstick would do for a stake. I hope her parents will not be awkward.

The headmistress tries to thank me and dismiss me with her chequebook, but the ink of her fountain pen has changed colour, and she cannot sign the cheque with her trembling bony hand. Oh dear. Jack's father will be angry. Jack's mother will be grieved. I hope he was an only child, but the odds are against it.

The dark-coated men, unperturbed, move from bed to bed with their sawn-off projector. Their enemies are different, but sometimes they will pause to come to my aid. They're fighting mind vampires.





Breakfast is dismal the next morning, for all the milk had to be thrown out. The heated swimming baths are closed, but the cloying odour escapes from the steam-dampened, padlocked wooden doors.

I ask around the village (of course a village) for word of Jack and his family. Oh, the young vampire lad, they say merrily. He never gave an address, of course. Hardly the thing to do. I mean, would you?

I hunt the old, dark-hidden, overgrown houses as the fortnight slips away from me. Jack's walking in sunlight and feeding so far from the full moon are disturbing. What will his father be like when he decides to strike? Every cellar I breach nearly stops my heart, but they are all empty and peaceful; cool air and silence protest their pure innocence to me as I scour cobwebbed corners with lamplight. I smile at the unfairness: I cannot rejoice that a place is clean, that I smell no evil, that I will face no risks for a few kind minutes, for every safe house is a failure, every moment without threat only postpones the danger I must face in the end. I'd rather not be who I am, but my reputation is the highest.

Bloody pigeons, headless in the snow, unsettle the girls. There are more nightmares, more night walks; a warm, damp, unnatural wind blows an hour before dawn. I fortify the windows with steel bars, garlic and crucifixes, but there is always a way in left unprotected, it is inevitable.

Perhaps it is my weariness, but the shadows I cast seem to follow me with increasing reluctance. Indeed they conform to my movements, but I swear that they do so an eyeblink too late. My reflections do not move at all: they stare, transfixed, over my shoulder, fascinated by that empty space, hypnotised by its potential occupants.

The headmistress complains, she expected so much more of me. The strain is becoming too much, she sobs. Her weeping blinds her, and when she smells why she falls screaming to the floor.

I continue to search, but I fail for the first time ever to locate their hiding place. They will only face me when they choose to do so, at the very height of their powers.

I leave my room at the inn and sleep in the attic of the dormitory building. From my bed I hear the girls swapping secrets, and through my window drifts the stench of the dark buds which break through the snow.

I dream that I lie naked in the middle of the moonlit fields. My eyes are closed. I feel sharp snow against my back. Footsteps, girls whispering. I recall walking past two students, overhearing: “Oh, much handsomer than Jack!” When they saw me they blushed and turned away. A warm, wet tongue slides across my eyelids, my lips, down my chin and throat, awakening each tiny point of stubble it brushes. Between my ribs, across my stomach, it leaves a snail track of sticky, moistened hair. Soft lips enclose my penis, the warm tongue wraps and caresses it. A young voice: “You didn't! You can't have! With him? Oh, tell us!”

As I shudder and struggle to prolong the pleasure, a phrase enters my mind and jolts me into awareness: “the erect penis is engorged with blood.” Engorged. Engorged with blood.

Suddenly I have vision: I see the scene from above. My hands are behind my back, my legs splayed, my back arched. I am utterly naked and defenceless. A glistening streak of red bisects me, and a giant she-vampire clad in black iron armour sucks at me noisily, an animal sound.

My view expands, and despair takes hold of me: ringing us is a circle of her kin, some fifty feet across. Each one bears a poison-tipped sword and a grievance against me for their friends that I've dispatched.

The tongue works frantically, and I understand that she had been forbidden to strike with her fangs until the instant of ejaculation. My concentration falters, and I feel the lips draw back.

Awake, shaving, I cut myself in three places. In the shaving water I find a swollen leech; I slice it open and the water turns black and foul.

A serving girl discovers the headmistress; she has hanged herself in her Sunday best (now who will sign my cheques?) after writing the word with lipstick and rouge upon every surface of her room. The servants leave to cross the ocean, and the teachers run away to marry their sweethearts.

I must defend the girls alone.





As if in an instant, the moon is full.

The lights of the village go out.

The snow turns to putrid flesh, blood creeps across all floors and up all walls. The girls huddle stickily in clots of terror, but I scream at them to master fear, to use fear, never to let it cripple them and conquer them. And they are strong, they do not succumb.

Jack's family come up from the basements, where they have been, no doubt, for months. Four tall brothers, three hissing sisters first. The iron cross, the mallet, the stake: all grow slippery in palms sweating blood. Yet I will defeat them, I will not lose my nerve.

I gather the uneasy students into a single room and ring them with a fence of crucifixes. The Rices are cunning, they taunt me from a distance, speak of the siege they will subject us to which will turn us into cannibals. The school girls plait each other's hair for comfort; the brothers, more handsome than Jack, flirt brazenly with them, drooling out romantic nonsense. One girl's yellow eyes unfocus, and her hand flies to her neck. I am already behind her as her skin blooms with grey. She takes two steps towards her lover, then vomits insect-riddled blood as my stake crashes through her heart from behind. Her friends desert her, and she told them such pretty tales.

I venture out with my own protection and corner them one by one. They are far too proud and foolish to keep together for safety. Two of the brothers grow bored and visit the village tavern. One sister wanders alone through the empty dormitories in search of a new pair of shoes. It doesn't take me long. I feel some hope.

Jack's parents come next, dressed plainly, their fangs concealed. They talk of the terrible loss they have suffered. They slander me in front of the girls, telling them that I killed both Jack and the girl he loved (how can I refute that?) and that I will kill them all. They urge the girls to expel me from the room for their safety's sake: they need not leave the room themselves, but they must not let me stay or they will all die in agony to satisfy my craving for blood.

In their fervent, pleading seduction they come a few feet closer than wisdom would have decreed, and I spring my trap: a wire net in which two dozen crucifixes are embedded. They crawl and writhe as I smash in the stakes. Their hearts are like granite but I am strong and purposeful and I do not flinch.

I catch my breath. Hunched over the pair of corpses crumbling into dust, I feel a slight vibration through the floor. Before my reason has grasped its meaning I find myself, incredibly, weeping with terror.

I turn to a roar louder than thunder. Jack's father, it seems, smuggled home a friend, ancient and powerful. For a moment I cannot move: enough, surely I've faced enough! Splintering the old stone floor, red chips flying. So fast, and I have hesitated, there is nothing now that I can do. All the girls are gone, down into the very oldest basement, when I skid into what remains of the room. I grab a cross and try to leap into the hole in the floor, but blood spurts from it with such pressure that I cannot even approach it. I roar useless curses at the thing which has defeated me, as the red tide sweeps me from the building and dumps me, a helpless insect, upon the rotting snow.

The dark-coated men, unperturbed as always, press their projector to my tired right eye, and their soothing pictures flash into the empty spaces of my mind.

My reputation is the highest, but they're fighting mind vampires.



















COMMENTS

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Neighbourhood Watch by Greg Egan

11:29 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 603






My retainers keep me on ice. Dry ice. It slows my metabolism, takes the edge off my appetite, slightly. I lie, bound with heavy chains, between two great slabs of it, naked and sweating, trying to sleep through the torment of a summer's day.

They've given me the local fall-out shelter, the very deepest room they could find, as I requested. Yet my senses move easily through the earth and to the surface, out across the lazy, warm suburbs, restless emissaries skimming the sun-soaked streets. If I could rein them in I would, but the instinct that drives them is a force unto itself, a necessary consequence of what I am and the reason I was brought into being.

Being, I have discovered, has certain disadvantages. I intend seeking compensation, just as soon as the time is right.

In the dazzling, clear mornings, in the brilliant, cloudless afternoons, children play in the park, barely half a mile from me. They know I've arrived; part of me comes from each one of their nightmares, and each of their nightmares comes partly from me. It's day time now, though, so under safe blue skies they taunt me with foolish rhymes, mock me with crude imitations, tell each other tales of me which take them almost to the edge of hysterical fear, only to back away, to break free with sudden careless laughter. Oh, their laughter! I could put an end to it so quickly …

“Oh yeah?” David is nine, he's their leader. He pulls an ugly face in my direction. “Great tough monster! Sure.” I respond instinctively: I reach out, straining, and a furrow forms in the grass, snakes towards his bare feet. Nearly. My burning skin hollows the ice beneath me. Nearly. David watches the ground, unimpressed, arms folded, sneering. Nearly! But the contract, one flimsy page on the bottom shelf of the Mayor's grey safe, speaks the final word: No. No loophole, no argument, no uncertainty, no imprecision. I withdraw, there is nothing else I can do. This is the source of my agony: all around me is living flesh, flesh that by nature I could joyfully devour in an endless, frantic, ecstatic feast, but I am bound by my signature in blood to take only the smallest pittance, and only in the dead of night.

For now.

Well, never mind, David. Be patient. All good things take time, my friend.

“No fucking friend of mine!” he says, and spits into the furrow. His brother sneaks up from behind and, with a loud shout, grabs him. They roar at each other, baring their teeth, arms spread wide, fingers curled into imitation claws. I must watch this, impassive. Sand trickles in to fill the useless furrow. I force the tense muscles of my shoulders and back to relax, chanting: be patient, be patient.





Only at night, says the contract. After eleven, to be precise. Decent people are not out after eleven, and decent people should not have to witness what I do.

Andrews is seventeen, and bored. Andrew, I understand. This suburb is a hole, you have my deepest sympathies. What do they expect you to do around here? On a warm night like this a young man can grow restless. I know; your dreams, too, shaped me slightly (my principal creators did not expect that). You need adventure. So keep your eyes open, Andrew, there are opportunities everywhere.

The sign on the chemist's window says no money, no drugs, but you are no fool. The back window's frame is rotting, the nails are loose, it falls apart in your hands. Like cake. Must be your lucky night, tonight.

The cash drawer's empty (oh shit!) and you can forget about that safe, but a big, glass candy jar of valium beats a handful of Swiss health bars, doesn't it? There are kids dumb enough to pay for those, down at the primary school.

Only those who break the law, says the contract. A list of statutes is provided, to be precise. Parking offences, breaking the speed limit and cheating on income tax are not included; decent people are only human, after all. Breaking and entering is there, though, and stealing, well, that dates right back to the old stone tablets.

No loophole, Andrew. No argument.

Andrew has a flick knife, and a death's head tattoo. He's great in a fight, our Andrew. Knows some karate, once did a little boxing, he has no reason to be afraid. He walks around like he owns the night. Especially when there's nobody around.

So what's that on the wind? Sounds like someone breathing, someone close by. Very even, slow, steady, powerful. Where is the bastard? You can see in all directions, but there's no one in sight. What, then? Do you think it's in your head? That doesn't seem likely.

Andrew stands still for a moment. He wants to figure this out for himself, but I can't help giving him hints, so the lace of his left sand-shoe comes undone. He puts down the jar and crouches to retie it.

The ground, it seems, is breathing.

Andrew frowns. He's not happy about this. He puts one ear against the footpath, then pulls his head away, startled by the sound's proximity. Under that slab of paving, he could swear.

A gas leak! Fuck it, of course. A gas leak, or something like that. Something mechanical. An explanation. Pipes, water, gas, pumps, shit, who knows? Yeah. There's a whole world of machinery just below the street, enough machinery to explain anything. But it felt pretty strange for a while there, didn't it?

He picks up the jar. The paving slab vibrates. He plants a foot on it, to suggest that it stays put, but it does not heed his weight. I toss it gently into the air, knocking him aside into somebody's ugly letter box.

The contract is singing to me now. Ah, blessed, beautiful document! I hear you. Did I ever truly resent you? Surely not! For to kill with you as my accomplice, even once, is sweeter by far than the grossest bloodbath I can dream of, without your steady voice, your calm authority, your proud mask of justice. Forgive me! In the daylight I am a different creature, irritable and weak. Now we are in harmony, now we are in blissful accord. Our purposes are one. Sing on!

Andrew comes forward cautiously, sniffing for gas, a little uneasy but determined to view the comprehensible cause. A deep, black hole. He squats beside it, leans over, strains his eyes but makes out nothing.

I inhale.



Mrs Bold has come to see me. She is Chairman of the local Citizens Against Crime, those twelve fine men and women from whose dreams (chiefly, but not exclusively) I was formed. They've just passed a motion congratulating me (and hence themselves) on a successful first month. Burglaries, says Mrs Bold, have plummeted.

“The initial contract, you understand, is only for three months, but I'm almost certain we'll want to extend it. There's a clause allowing for that, one month at a time.”

“Both parties willing.”

“Of course. We were all of us determined that the contract be scrupulously fair. You mustn't think of yourself as our slave.”

“I don't.”

“You're our business associate. We all agreed from the start that that was the proper relationship. But you do like it here, don't you?”

“Very much.”

“We can't increase the payment, you know. Six thousand a month, well, we've really had to scrape to manage that much. Worth every cent, of course, but … ”

That's a massive lie, of course: six thousand is the very least they could bring themselves to pay me. Anything less would have left them wondering if they really owned me. The money helps them trust me, the money makes it all familiar: they're used to buying people. If they'd got me for free, they'd never sleep at night. These are fine people, understand.

“Relax, Mrs Bold. I won't ask for another penny. And I expect to be here for a very long time.”

“Oh, that's wonderful. Come the end of the year I'll be talking to the insurance companies about dropping the outrageous premiums. You've no idea how hard it's been for the small retailers.” She is ten feet from the doorway of my room, peering in through the fog of condensed humidity. With the dry ice and chains she can see very little of me, but this meagre view is enough to engender wicked thoughts. Who can blame her? I'm straight out of her dreams, after all. Would you indeed, Mrs Bold? I wonder. She feels two strong hands caressing her gently. Three strong hands. Four, five, six. Such manly hands, except the nails are rather long. And sharp. “Do you really have to stay in there? Trussed up like that?” Her voice is even, quite a feat. “We're having celebratory drinks at my house tomorrow, and you'd be very welcome.”

“You're so kind, Mrs Bold, but for now I do have to stay here. Like this. Some other time, I promise.”

She shakes the hands away. I could insist, but I'm such a gentleman. “Some other time, then.”

“Goodbye, Mrs Bold.”

“Goodbye. Keep up the good work. Oh, I nearly forgot! I have a little gift.” She pulls a brown-wrapped shape from her shopping bag. “Do you like lamb?”

“You're too generous!”

“Not me. Mr Simmons, the butcher, thought you might like it. He's a lovely old man. He used to lose so much stock before you started work, not to mention the vandalism. Where shall I put it?”

“Hold it towards me from where you are now. Stretch out your arms.”

Lying still, ten feet away, I burst the brown paper into four segments which flutter to the floor. Mrs Bold blinks but does not flinch. The red, wet flesh is disgustingly cold, but I'm far too polite to refuse any offering. A stream of meat flows from the joint, through the doorway, to vanish in the mist around my head. I spin the bone, pivoted on her palms, working around it several times until it is clean and white, then I tip it from her grip so that it points towards me, and I suck out the marrow in a single, quick spurt.

Mrs Bold sighs deeply, then shakes her head, smiling. “I wish my husband ate like that! He's become a vegetarian, you know. I keep telling him it's unnatural, but he pays no attention. Red meat has had such a bad name lately, with all those stupid scientists scaremongering, saying it causes this and that, but I personally can't see how any one can live without it and feel that they're having a balanced diet. We were meant to eat it, that's just the way people are.”

“You're absolutely right. Please thank Mr Simmons for me.”

“I shall. And thank you again, for what you're doing for this community.”

“My pleasure.”





Mrs Bold dreams of me. Me? His face is like a film star's! There are a few factual touches, though: we writhe on a plain of ice, and I am draped in chains. It's a strange kind of feedback, to see your dreams made flesh, and then to dream of what you saw. Can she really believe that the solid, sweating creature in the fall-out shelter is no more and no less than the insubstantial lover who knows her every wish? In her dream I am a noble protector, keeping her and her daughters safe from rapists, her son safe from pushers, her domestic appliances safe from thieves; and yes, I do these things, but if she knew why she'd run screaming from her bed. In her dream I bite her, but my teeth don't break the skin. I scratch her, but only as much as she needs to enjoy me. I could shape this dream into a nightmare, but why telegraph the truth? I could wake her in a sweat of blood, but why let the sheep know it's headed for slaughter? Let her believe that I'm content to keep the wolves at bay.

David's still awake, reading. I rustle his curtain but he doesn't look up. He makes a rude sign, though, aimed with precision. A curious child. He can't have seen the contract, he can't know that I can't yet harm him, so why does he treat me with nonchalant contempt? Does he lack imagination? Does he fancy himself brave? I can't tell.

Street lamps go off at eleven now; they used to stay on all night, but that's no longer necessary. Most windows are dark; behind one a man dreams he's punching his boss, again and again, brutal, unflinching, insistent, with the rhythm of a factory process, a glassy eyed jogger, or some other machine. His wife thinks she's cutting up the children; the act appals her, and she's hunting desperately for a logical flaw or surreal piece of furniture to prove that the violence will be consequence-free. She's still hunting. The children have other things to worry about: they're dreaming of a creature eight feet tall, with talons and teeth as long and sharp as carving knives, hungry as a wild fire and stronger than steel. It lives deep in the ground, but it has very, very, very long arms. When they're good the creature may not touch them, but if they do just one thing wrong …

I love this suburb. I honestly do. How could I not, born as I was from its sleeping soul? These are my people. As I rise up through the heavy night heat, and more and more of my domain flows into sight, I am moved almost to tears by the beauty of all that I see and sense. Part of me says: sentimental fool! But the choking feeling will not subside. Some of my creators have lived here all their lives, and a fraction of their pride and contentment flows in my veins.

A lone car roars on home. A blue police van is parked outside a brothel; inside, handcuffs and guns are supplied by the management: they look real, they feel real, but no one gets hurt. One cop's been here twice a week for three years, the other's been dragged along to have his problem cured: squeezing the trigger makes him wince, even at target practice. From tonight he'll never flinch again. The woman thinks: I'd like to take a trip. Very soon. To somewhere cold. My life smells of men's sweat.

I hear a husband and wife screaming at each other. It echoes for blocks, with dogs and babies joining in. I steer away, it's not my kind of brawl.

Linda has a spray can. Hi Linda, like your hair-cut. Do you know how much that poster cost? What do you mean, sexist pornography? The people who designed it are creative geniuses, haven't you heard them say so? Besides, what do you call those posters of torn-shirted actors and tight-trousered rock stars all over your bedroom walls? And how would you like it if the agency sent thugs around to spray your walls with nasty slogans? You don't force your images on the public? They'll have to read your words, won't they? Answering? Debating? Redressing the imbalance? Cut it out, Linda, come down to earth. No, lower. Lower still.

Hair gel gives me heartburn. I must remember that.

Bruno, Pete and Colin have a way with locked cars.

Alarms are no problem. So fast, so simple; I'm deeply impressed. But the engine's making too much noise, boys, you're waking honest workers who need their eight hours' sleep.

It's exhilarating, though, I have to admit that: squealing around every corner, zooming down the wrong side of the road. Part of the thrill, of course, is the risk of getting caught.

They screech to a halt near an all-night liquor store. The cashier takes their money, but that's his business; selling alcohol to minors is not on my list. On the way back, Pete drops a dollar coin between the bars of a storm water drain. The cashier has his radio up very loud, and his eyes are on his magazine. Bruno vomits as he runs, while Pete and Collin's bones crackle and crunch their way through the grille.

Bruno heads, incredibly, for the police station. Deep down, he feels that he is good. A little wild, that's all, a rebel, a minor non-conformist in the honourable tradition. He messes around with other people's property, he drinks illegally, he drives illegally, he screws girls as young as himself, illegally, but he has a heart of gold, and he'd never hurt a fly (except in self-defence). Half this country's heroes have been twice as bad as him. The archetype (he begs me) is no law-abiding puritan goody-goody.

Put a sock in it, Bruno. This is Mrs Bold and friends talking: it's just your kind of thoughtless hooliganism that's sapping this nation's strength. Don't try invoking Ned Kelly with us! In any case (Bruno knew this was coming), we're third generation Australians, and you're only second, so we'll judge the archetypes, thank you very much!

The sergeant on duty might have seen a boy's skeleton run one step out of its flesh before collapsing, but I doubt it. With the light so strong inside, so weak outside, he probably saw nothing but his own reflection.

David's still up. Disgraceful child! I belch in his room with the stench of fresh blood; he raises one eyebrow then farts, louder and more foul.

Mrs Bold is still dreaming. I watch myself as she imagines me: so handsome, so powerful, bulging with ludicrous muscles yet gentle as a kitten. She whispers in “my” ear: Never leave me! Unable to resist, I touch her, very briefly, with a hand she's never felt before: the hand that brought me Linda, the hand that brought me Pete.

The long, cold tongue of a venomous snake darts from the tip of her dream-lover's over-sized cock. She wakes with a shout, bent double with revulsion, but the dream is already forgotten. I blow her a kiss and depart.

It's been a good night.





David knows that something's up. He's the smartest kid for a hundred miles, but it will do him no good. When the contract expires there'll be nothing to hold me.

A clause allowing for an extension! Both parties willing! Ah, the folly of amateur lawyers! What do they think will happen when I choose not to take up the option? The contract, the only force they have, is silent. They dreamed it into being together with me, a magical covenant that I literally cannot disobey, but they stuffed up the details, they failed with the fine print. I suppose it's difficult to dream with precision, to concentrate on clauses while your mind is awash with equal parts of lust and revenge. Well, I'm not going to magically dissolve into dream-stuff. I'll be staying right here, in this comfortable basement, but without the chains, without the dry ice. I'll be done with the feverish torture of abstinence, when the contract expires.

David sits in the sunshine, talking with his friends.

“What will we do when the monster breaks loose?”

“Hide!”

“He can find us anywhere.”

“Get on a plane. He couldn't reach us on a plane.”

“Who's got that much money?”

Nobody.

“We have to kill him. Kill him before he can get us.”

“How?”

How indeed, little David? With a sling-shot? With your puny little fists? Be warned: trespass is a serious crime, so is attempted murder, and I have very little patience with criminals.

“I'll think of a way.” He stares up into the blue sky. “Hey, monster! We're gonna get you! Chop you into pieces and eat you for dinner! Yum, yum, you're delicious!” The ritual phrases are just for the little kids, who squeal with delight at the audacity of such table-turning. Behind the word sounds, behind his stare, David is planning something very carefully. His mind is in a blind spot, I can't tell what he's up to, but forget it, David, whatever it is. I can see your future, and it's a big red stain, swarming with flies.

“Hey monster! If you don't like it, come and get me! Come and get me now!” The youngest cover their eyes, not knowing if they want to giggle or scream. “Come on, you dirty coward! Come and chew me in half, if you can!” He jumps to his feet, dances around like a wounded gorilla. “That's how you look, that's how you walk! You're ugly and you're sick and you're a filthy fucking coward! If you don't come out and face me, then everything I say about you is true, and every one will know it!”

I write in the sand: NEXT THURSDAY. MIDNIGHT.

A little girl screams, and her brother starts crying. This is no longer fun, is it? Tell Mummy how that nasty David frightened you.

David bellows: “Now! Come here now!”

I deepen the letters, then fill them with the blood of innocent burrowing creatures. David scuffs over the words with one foot, then fills his lungs and roars like a lunatic: “NOW!”

I throw half a ton of sand skywards, and it rains down into their hair and eyes. Children scatter, but David stands his ground. He kneels on the sand, talks to me in a whisper:

“What are you afraid of?”

I whisper back: “Nothing, child.”

“Don't you want to kill me? That's what you keep saying.”

“Don't fret, child, I'll kill you soon.”

“Kill me now. If you can.”

“You can wait, David. When the time comes it will be worth all the waiting. But tell your mother to buy herself a new scrubbing brush, there'll be an awful lot of cleaning up to do.”

“Why should I wait? What are you waiting for? Are you feeling weak today? Are you feeling ill? Is it too much effort, a little thing like killing me?”

This child is becoming an irritation.

“The time must be right.”

He laughs out loud, then pushes his hands into the sand. “Bullshit! You're afraid of me!” There's nobody in sight, he has the park to himself now; if he's acting, he's acting for me alone. Perhaps he is insane. He buries his arms half-way to his elbows, and I can sense him reaching for me; he imagines his arms growing longer and longer, tunnelling through the ground, seeking me out. “Come on! Grab me! I dare you to try it! Fucking coward!” For a while I am silent, relaxed. I will ignore him. Why waste my time exchanging threats with an infant? I notice that I've broken my chains in several places, and burnt a deep hollow in the dry ice around me. It suddenly strikes me as pathetic, to need such paraphernalia simply in order to fast. Why couldn't those incompetent dreamers achieve what they claimed to be aiming for: a dispassionate executioner, a calm, efficient tradesman? I know why: I come from deeper dreams than they would ever willingly acknowledge; my motives are their motives, exposed, with a vengeance. Well, six more days will bring the end of all fasting. Only six more days. My breathing, usually so measured, is ragged, uncertain.

In David's mind, his hands have reached this room.

“Don't you want to eat me? Monster? Aren't you hungry today?”

With hard, sharp claws I grab his hands, and, half a mile away, he feels my touch. The faintest tremor passes through his arms, but he doesn't pull back. He closes his hands on the claws he feels in the sand, he grips them with all his irrelevant strength.

“OK, monster. I've got you now. Come up and fight.”

He strains for ten seconds with no effect. I slam him down into the loose yellow sand, armpit deep, and blood trickles from his nose.

The agony of infraction burns through my guts, while the hunger brought on by the smell of his blood grips every muscle in my body and commands me to kill him. I bellow with frustration. My chains snap completely and I rampage through the basement, snapping furniture and bashing holes in the walls. The contract calmly sears a hole in my abdomen. I didn't mean to harm him! It was an accident! We were playing, I misjudged my strength, I was a little bit too rough … and I long to tear the sweet flesh from his face while he screams out for mercy. The burly thugs they employ as my minders cower in a corner while I squeeze out the light bulbs and tear wiring from the ceiling.

David whispers: “Can't you taste my blood? It's here on the sand beside me.”

“David, I swear to you, you will be first. Thursday on the stroke of midnight, you will be first.”

“Can't you smell it? Can't you taste it?”

I blast him out of the sandpit, and he lies winded but undamaged on his back on the grass. The patch of bloodied sand is dispersed. David, incredibly, is still muttering taunts. I am tired, weak, crippled; I shut him out of my mind, I curl up on the floor to wait for nightfall.

My keepers, with candles and torches, tiptoe around me, sweeping up the debris, assessing the damage. Six more days. I am immortal, I will live for a billion years, I can live through six more days.

There had better be some crime tonight.





“Hello? Are you there?”

“Come in, Mrs Bold. What an honour.”

“It's after eleven, I'm so sorry, I hope you won't let me interrupt your work.”

“It's perfectly all right, I haven't even started yet.”

“Where are the men? I didn't see a soul on my way in.”

“I sent them home. I know, they're paid a fortune, but it's so close to Christmas, I thought an evening with their families … ”

“That was sweet of you.” Standing in the foyer, she can't see me at all tonight. Condensation fills my room completely, and wisps swirl out to tease her. She thinks about walking right in and tearing off her clothes, but who could really face their dreams, awake? She enjoys the tension, though, enjoys half-pretending that she could, in fact, do it.

“I've been meaning to pop in for ages. I can't believe I've left it so late! I was up on the ground floor earlier tonight, but the stupid lifts weren't working and I didn't have my keys to the stairs, so I went and did some shopping. Shopping! You wouldn't believe the crowds! In this heat it's so exhausting. Then when I got home the children were fighting and the dog was being sick on the carpet, it was just one thing after another. So here I am at last.”

“Yes.”

“I'll get to the point. I left a thing here the other day for you to sign, just a little agreement formalising the extension of the contract for another month. I've signed it, and the Mayor's signed it, so as soon as we have your mark it will all be out of the way, and things can just carry on smoothly without any fuss.”

“I'm not going to sign anything.”

That doesn't perturb her at all.

“What do you want? More money? Better premises?”

“Money has no value for me. And I'll keep this place, I rather like it.”

“Then what do you want?”

“An easing of restrictions. Greater independence. The freedom to express myself.”

“We could extend your hours. Ten until five. No, not until five, it's too light by five. Ten until four?”

“Oh, Mrs Bold, I fear I have a shock for you. You see, I don't wish to stay under your contract at all.”

“But you can't exist without the contract.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The contract rules you, it defines you. You can no more break it than I can levitate to the moon or walk on water.”

“I don't intend breaking it. I'm merely going to allow it to lapse. I've decided to go freelance, you see.”

“You'll vanish, you'll evaporate, you'll go right back where you came from.”

“I don't think so. But why argue? In forty minutes, one of us will be right. Or the other. Stay around and see what happens.”

“You can't force me to stay here.”

“I wouldn't dream of it.”

“I could be back in five minutes with some very nasty characters.”

“Don't threaten me, Mrs Bold. I don't like it. Be very careful what you say.”

“Well, what do you plan to do with your new-found freedom?”

“Use your imagination.”

“Harm the very people who've given you life, I suppose. Show your gratitude by attacking your benefactors.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I'll enjoy it. Because it will make me feel warm, deep inside. It will make me feel satisfied. Fulfilled.”

“Then you're no better than the criminals, are you?”

“To hear that tired old cliché slip so glibly from your lips, Mrs Bold, is truly boring. Moral philosophy of every calibre, from the ethereal diversions of theologians and academics, to the banalities spouted by politicians, business leaders, and self-righteous, self-appointed pillars of the community like you, is all the same to me: noise, irrelevant noise. I kill because I like to kill. That's the way you made me. Like it or not, that's the way you are.”

She draws a pistol and fires into the doorway.

I burst her skin and clothing into four segments which flutter to the floor. She runs for the stairs, and for a moment I seriously consider letting her go: the image of a horseless, red Godiva sprinting through the night, waking the neighbourhood with her noises of pain, would be an elegant way to herald my reign. But appetite, my curse and my consolation, my cruel master and my devoted concubine, can never be denied.

I float her on her back a few feet above the ground, then I tilt her head and force open her jaws. First her tongue and oesophagus, then rich fragments from the walls of the digestive tract, rush from her mouth to mine. We are joined by a glistening cylinder of offal.

When she is empty inside, I come out from my room, and bloody my face and hands gobbling her flesh. It's not the way I normally eat, but I want to look good for David.





David is listening to the radio. Everyone else in the house is asleep. I hear the pips for midnight as I wait at the door of his room, but then he switches off the radio and speaks:

“In my dream, the creature came at midnight. He stood in the doorway, covered in blood from his latest victim.”

The door swings open, and David looks up at me, curious but calm. Why, how, is he so calm? The contract is void, I could tear him apart right now, but I swear he'll show me some fear before dying. I smile down at him in the very worst way I can, and say:

“Run, David! Quick! I'll close my eyes for ten seconds, I promise not to peek. You're a fast runner, you might stay alive for three more minutes. Ready?”

He shakes his head. “Why should I run? In my dream, you wanted me to run, but I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I wanted to run, but I didn't, I knew it would only make things worse.”

“David, you should always run, you should always try, there's always some small chance of escaping.”

He shakes his head again. “Not in my dream. If you run, the creature will catch up with you. If you run, you'll slip and break a leg, or you'll reach a blind alley, or you'll turn a corner and the creature will be there, waiting.”

“Ah, but this isn't your dream now, David. Maybe you've seen me in your dreams, but now you're wide awake, and I'm real, David, and when I kill you, you won't wake up.”

“I know that.”

“The pain will be real pain, David. Have you thought about that? If you think your dreams have made you ready to face me, then think about the pain.”

“Do you know how many times I've dreamed about you?”

“No, tell me.”

“A thousand times. At least. Every night for three years, almost.”

“I'm honoured. You must be my greatest fan.”

“When I was six, you used to scare me. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and screaming, and Dad would have to come in and lie beside me until I fell asleep again. You never used to catch me, though. I'd always wake up just in time.”

“That's not going to happen tonight.”

“Let me finish.”

“I'm so sorry, please continue.”

“After a while, after I'd had the dream about a hundred times, I started to learn things. I learnt not to run. I learnt not to struggle. That changed the dream a lot, took away all the fear. I didn't mind at all, when you caught me. I didn't wake up screaming. The dream went on, and you killed me, and I still didn't mind, I still didn't wake up.”

I reach down and grab him by the shoulders, I raise him high into the air. “Are you afraid now, David?” I can feel him trembling, very slightly: he's human after all. But he shows no other signs of fear. I dig my claws into his back, and the pain brings tears to his eyes. The smell awakens my appetite, and I know the talking will soon be over.

“Ah, you look miserable now, little David. Did you feel those claws in your dreams? I bet you didn't. My teeth are a thousand times sharper, David. And I won't kill you nicely. I won't kill you quickly.”

He's smiling at me, laughing at me, even as he grimaces with agony.

“I haven't told you the best part yet. You didn't let me finish.”

“Tell me the best part, David. I want to hear the best part before I eat your tongue.”

“Killing me destroyed you, every single time. You can't kill the dreamer and live! When I'm dead, you'll be dead too.”

“Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think stupid talk like that is going to save your life? You're not the only dreamer, David, you're not even one of the twelve. Every one for miles around helped in making me, child, and one less out of all those thousands isn't going to hurt me at all.”

“Believe that if you like.” I squeeze him, and blood pours down his back. I open my jaws, wide as his head. “You'll find out if I'm right or not.” I wanted to torture him, to make it last, but now my hunger has killed all subtlety, and all I can think of is biting him in two. Shutting him up for good, proving him wrong. “One thousand times, big tough monster! Has anyone else dreamed about you one thousand times?”

His parents are outside the room, watching, paralysed. He sees them and cries out, “I love you!” and I realise at last that he truly does know he is about to die. I roar with all my strength, with all the frustration of three months in chains and this mad child's mockery, but as I close my jaws I hear him whisper:

“And no one else dreamed of your death, did they?”











COMMENTS

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Scatter My Ashes by Greg Egan

11:18 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 606






Every night, at exactly a quarter past three, something dreadful happens on the street outside our bedroom window. We peek through the curtains, yawning and shivering in the life-draining chill, and then we clamber back beneath the blankets without exchanging a word, to hug each other tightly and hope for sound sleep before it's time to rise.

Usually what we witness verges on the mundane. Drunken young men fighting, swaying about with outstretched knives, cursing incoherently. Robbery, bashings, rape. We wince to see such violence, but we can hardly be shocked or surprised any more, and we're never tempted to intervene: it's always far too cold, for a start! A single warm exhalation can coat the window pane with mist, transforming the most stomach-wrenching assault into a safely cryptic ballet for abstract blobs of light.

On some nights, though, when the shadows in the room are subtly wrong, when the familiar street looks like an abandoned film set, or a painting of itself perversely come to life, we are confronted by truly disturbing sights, oppressive apparitions which almost make us doubt we're awake, or, if awake, sane. I can't catalogue these visions, for most, mercifully, are blurred by morning, leaving only a vague uneasiness and a reluctance to be alone even in the brightest sunshine.

One image, though, has never faded.

In the middle of the road was a giant human skull. How big was it? Big enough for a child, perhaps six or seven years old, to stand trapped between the jaws, bracing them apart with outstretched arms and legs, trembling with the effort but somehow, miraculously, keeping the massive teeth from closing in.

As we watched I felt, strange as it may sound, inspired, uplifted, filled with hope by the sight of that tiny figure holding out against the blind, brutal creature of evil. Wouldn't we all like to think of innocence as a tangible force to be reckoned with? Despite all evidence to the contrary.

Then the four huge, blunt teeth against which the child was straining began to reform, tapering to needle-fine points. A drop of blood fell from the back of each upraised hand. I cried out something, angry and horrified. But I didn't move.

A gash appeared in the back of the child's neck. Not a wound: a mouth, the child's new and special mouth, violently writhing, stretched open ever wider by four sharp, slender fangs growing in perfect mimicry of the larger fangs impaling the child's palms and feet.

The new mouth began to scream, at first a clumsy, choking sound, made without a tongue, but then a torn, bloody scrap of flesh appeared in place, the tongue of the old mouth uprooted and inverted, and the cries gave full voice to an intensity of suffering and fear that threatened to melt the glass of the window, sear away the walls of the room, and drag us into a pit of darkness where one final scream would echo forever.

When it was over, we climbed into bed and snuggled up together.

I dreamt that I found a jigsaw puzzle, hidden in a dark, lost corner of the house. The pieces were in a plain cardboard box, unaccompanied by any illustration of what the assembled puzzle portrayed. Wendy laughed and told me not to waste my time, but I sat frowning over it for an hour every evening, until after many weeks only a handful of pieces remained unplaced.

Somehow, even then, I didn't know what the picture was, but as I lazily filled in the very last gap, I felt a sudden overpowering conviction that whatever the jigsaw showed, I did not want to see it.

I woke a little before dawn. I kissed Wendy very softly, I gently stroked her shoulders and breasts with my fingertips. She rearranged herself, pulled a face, but didn't wake. I was about to brush her forehead with one hand, which I knew would make her open her eyes and give me a sleepy smile, when it occurred to me that if she did, there might be small, fanged mouths behind her eyelids.



When I woke again it was half past seven, and she was already up. I hate that, I hate waking in an empty bed. She was reading the paper as I sat down to breakfast.

“So, what's happening in the world?”

“A fifth child's gone missing.”

“Shit. Don't they have any suspects yet? Any evidence, any clues?”

“A fisherman reported something floating on the lake. The police went out in a boat to have a look.”

“And?”

“It turned out to be a calf foetus.”

I gulped coffee. I hate the taste of coffee, and it sets my stomach squirming, but I simply have to drink it.

“It says police will be diving all day today, searching the lake.”

“I might go out there, then. The lake looks fantastic in this weather.”

“When I'm snug in my office with the heater on full blast, I'll think of you.”

“Think of the divers. They'll have the worst of it.”

“At least they know they'll get paid. You could spend the whole day there for nothing.”

“I'd rather take my kind of risk than theirs.”

Once she was gone, I cut out the article on the vanished child. The walls of my study are papered with newsprint, ragged grey odd-shaped pieces affixed only at their top corners, free to rustle when the door is opened or closed. Sometimes, when I'm sitting at my desk for a moment after I've switched off the lamp, I get a strong impression of diseased skin.

“Put them in a scrap book!” says Wendy, whenever she ventures in to grimace at the state of the room. “Or better still, put them in a filing cabinet and see if you can lose the key!” But I need to keep them this way, I need to see them all at once, spread out before me like a satellite photograph, an aerial view of this age of violence. I'm looking for a pattern. My gaze darts from headline to headline, from STRANGLER to STALKER to RIPPER to SLASHER, hunting for a clue to the terrible unity, hunting for the nature of the single dark force that I know lies behind all the different nightmare stories, all the different fearful names.

I have books too, of course, I have shelves stuffed with volumes, some learned, some hysterical, from treatises on Vlad the Impaler to discussions of the entrails of London prostitutes to heavy psychoanalysis of the Manson gang. I have skimmed these works, read a page here and a page there only, for to clutter my mind with details can only distract me from the whole.

I recall precisely when my obsession began. I was ten. A convict, a murderer, had escaped from a nearby prison, and warnings were broadcast urging us to barricade our homes. My parents, naturally, tried not to alarm me, but we all slept together that night, in the room with the smallest window, and when the poor cat mewed to be let in the back door, my mother would let nobody, not even my father, budge.

I dozed and woke, dozed and woke, and each time dreamt that I was not sleeping but lying awake, waiting for the utter certainty of the unstoppable, blood-thirsty creature bursting through the door and slicing us all in two.

They caught him the next morning. They caught him too late. A service station attendant was dead, cut up beyond belief by an implement that was never found.

They showed the killer on TV that night, and he looked nothing like the stuff of nightmares: thin, awkward, squinting, dwarfed between two massive, smug policemen. Yet for all his apparent weakness and shyness, he seemed to know something, he seemed to be holding a secret, not so much about murder itself as about the cameras, the viewers, about exactly what he meant to us. He averted his eyes from the lenses, but the hint of a smile on his lips declared that everything was, and always would be, just the way he wanted it, just the way he'd planned it from the start.

I drove to the lake and set up my camera with its longest lens, but after peering through the viewfinder for ten minutes, keeping the police boat perfectly framed, following its every tiny drift, I switched to binoculars to save my eyes and neck. Nothing was happening. Faint shouts reached me now and then, but the tones were always of boredom, discomfort, irritation. Soon I put down the binoculars. If they found something, I'd hear the change at once.

I drank coffee from a flask, I paced. I took a few shots of divers backflipping into the water, but none seemed special, none captured the mood. I watched the water birds and felt somehow guilty for not knowing their names.





The sky and the water were pale grey, the colour of soggy newsprint. Thick smoke rose from a factory on the far shore, but seemed to fall back down again on almost the same spot. The chill, the bleakness, and the morbid nature of my vigil worked together to fill me with an oppressive sense of gloom, but cutting through that dullness and despair was the acid taste of anticipation.

My back was turned when I heard the shouts of panic. It took me seconds to spot the boat again, forever to point the camera. An inert diver was being hauled on board, to the sound of much angry swearing. Someone ripped off his face mask and began resuscitation. Each time I fired the shutter, I thought: what if he dies? If he dies it will be my fault, because if he dies I'll have a sale for sure.

I packed up my gear and fled before the boat reached the shore, but not before the ambulance arrived. I glanced at the driver, who looked about my age, and thought: why am I doing my job, and not his? Why am I a voyeur, a parasite, a vulture, a leech, when I could be saving people's lives and sleeping the sleep of the just every night?

Later, I discovered that the cop was in a coma. Evidently there'd been a malfunction of his air supply. I sold one of the pictures, which appeared with the caption KISS OF LIFE! The editor said, “That could easily win you a prize.” I smiled immodestly and mumbled about luck.

Wendy is a literary agent. We went out to dinner that night with one of her clients, to celebrate the signing of a contract. The writer was a quiet, thoughtful, attractive woman. Her husband worked in a bank, but played football for some team or other on weekends, and was built like a vault.

“So, what do you do for a crust,” he asked.

“I'm a freelance photographer.”

“What's that mean? Fashion models for the front of Vogue or centrefolds for Playboy?”

“Neither. Most of my work is for newspapers, or news magazines. I had a picture in Time last year.”

“What of?”

“Flood victims trapped on the roof of their farm.”

“Yeah? Did you pay them some of what you got for it?”

Wendy broke in and described my day's achievement, and the topic switched naturally to that of the missing child.

“If they ever catch the bloke who's doing it,” said the footballer, “he shouldn't be killed. He should be tortured for a couple of days, and then crippled. Say they cut off both his legs. Then there's no chance he'll escape from prison on his own steam, and when they let him free in a year or two, like they always end up doing, who's he going to hurt?”

I said, “Why does everyone assume there's a killer? Nobody's yet found a single drop of blood, or a fingerprint, or a footprint. Nobody knows for sure that the children are dead, nobody's proved that at all.”

The writer said, “Maybe the Innocents are ascending into Heaven.”



For a moment I thought she was serious, but then she smirked at the cleverness of her sarcasm. I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the evening.

In the taxi home, though, I couldn't help muttering a vague, clumsy insult about Neanderthal fascists who revelled in torture. Wendy laughed and put an arm around my waist.

“Jealousy really becomes you,” she said. I couldn't think of an intelligent reply.

That night, we witnessed a particularly brutal robbery. A taxi pulled up across the road, and the passengers dragged the driver out and kicked him in the head until he was motionless. They virtually stripped him naked searching for the key to his cashbox, then they smashed his radio, slashed his tyres, and stabbed him in the stomach before walking off, whistling Rossini.

Once Wendy had drifted back to sleep, I crept out of the bedroom and phoned for an ambulance. I nearly went outside to see what I could do, but thought: if I move him, if I even just try to stop the bleeding, I'll probably do more harm than good, maybe manage to kill him with my well-intentioned incompetence. End up in court. I'd be crazy to take the risk.

I fell asleep before the ambulance arrived. By morning there wasn't a trace of the incident. The taxi must have been towed away, the blood washed off the road by the water truck.



A sixth child had vanished. I returned to the lake, but found it was deserted. I dipped my hand in the water: it was oily, and surprisingly warm. Then I drove back home, cut out the relevant articles, and taped them into place on the wall.

As I did so, the jigsaw puzzle dream flooded into my mind, with the dizzying power of déjà vu. I stared at the huge grey mosaic, almost expecting it to change before my eyes, but then the mood passed and I shook my head and laughed weakly.

The door opened. I didn't turn. Someone coughed. I still didn't turn.

“Excuse me.”

It was a man in his mid-thirties, I'd say. Balding slightly, but with a young, open face. He was dressed like an office worker, in a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up, neatly pressed black trousers, a plain blue tie.

“What do you want?”

“I'm sorry. I knocked on the front door, and it was ajar. Then I called out twice.”

“I didn't hear you.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What do you want?”

“Can I look? At your walls? Oh, there! The Marsden Mangler! I wonder how many people remember him today. Five years ago there were two thousand police working full time on that case, and probably a hundred reporters scurrying back and forth between the morgue and the night club belt. You know, half the jury fainted when they showed slides at the trial, including an abattoir worker.”

“Nobody fainted. A few people closed their eyes, that's all. I was there.”

“Watching the jury and not the slides, apparently.”

“Watching both. Were you there?”

“Oh, yes! Every day without fail.”

“Well, I don't remember you. And I got to know most of the regular faces in the public gallery.”

“I was never in the public gallery.” He crossed the room to peer closely at a Sunday paper's diagram detailing the modus operandi of the Knightsbridge Knifeman. “This is pretty coy, isn't it? I mean, anybody would think that the female genitalia —” I glared at him, and he turned his attention to something else, smiling a slight smile of tolerant amusement.

“How did you find out about my collection of clippings?” It wasn't something that I boasted about, and Wendy found it a bit embarrassing, perhaps a bit sick.

“Collection of clippings! You mustn't call it that! I'll tell you what this room is: it's a shrine. No lesser word will do. A shrine.”

I glanced behind me. The door was closed. I watched him as he read a two-page spread on a series of unsolved axe murders, and though his gaze was clearly directed at the print, I felt as if he was staring straight back at me.

Then I knew that I had seen him before. Twenty years before, on television, smiling shyly as they hustled him along, never quite looking at the camera, but never quite turning away. My eyes began to water, and a crazy thought filled my head: hadn't I known then, hadn't I been certain, that the killer would come and get me, that nothing would stand in his way? That the man had not aged was unremarkable, no, it was necessary, because if he had aged I would never have recognised him, and recognition was exactly what he wanted. Recognition was the start of my fear.

I said, “You might tell me your name.”

He looked up. “I'm sorry. I have been discourteous, haven't I? But —” (he shrugged) “— I have so many nicknames.” He gestured widely with both hands, taking in all the walls, all the headlines. I pictured the door handle, wondering how quickly I could turn it with palms stinking wet, with numb, clumsy fingers. “My friends, though, call me Jack.”

He easily lifted me over his head, and then somehow (did he float up off the floor, or did he stretch up, impossibly doubling his height?) pinned me face-down against the ceiling. Four fangs grew to fill his mouth, and his mouth opened to fill my vision. It was like hanging over a living well, and as his distorted words echoed up from the depths, I thought: if I fall, nobody will ever find me.

“Tonight you will take my photograph. Catch me in the act with your brightest flashgun. That's what you want, isn't it?” He shook me. “Isn't it?” I closed my eyes, but that brought visions of a tumbling descent. I whispered, “Yes.”

“You invoke me and invoke me and invoke me!” he ranted. “Aren't you ever sick of blood? Aren't you ever sick of the taste of blood? Today it's the blood of tiny children, tomorrow the blood of old women, next the blood of … who? Dark-haired prostitutes? Teenaged baby sitters? Blue-eyed homosexuals? And each time simply leaves you more jaded, longing for something crueller and more bizarre. Can't you sweeten your long, bland lives with anything but blood?

“Colour film. Bring plenty of colour film. Kodachrome, I want saturated hues. Understand?” I nodded. He told me where and when: a nearby street corner, at three fifteen.

I hit the floor with my hands out in front of me, jarring one wrist but not breaking it. I was alone. I ran through the house, I searched every room, then I locked the doors and sat on the bed, shaking, emitting small, unhappy noises every few minutes.

When I'd calmed down, I went out and bought ten rolls of Kodachrome.



We ate at home that night. I was supposed to cook something, but I ended up making do with frozen pizzas. Wendy talked about her tax problems, and I nodded.

“And what did you do with yourself today?”

“Research.”

“For what?”

“I'll tell you tomorrow.”

We made love. For a while it seemed like some sort of ritual, some kind of magic: Wendy was giving me strength, yes, she was fortifying me with mystical energy and spiritual power. Afterwards, I couldn't laugh at such a ludicrous idea, I could only despise myself for being able to take it seriously for a moment.

I dreamt that she gave me a shining silver sword.

“What's it for?” I asked her.

“When you feel like running away, stab yourself in the foot.”

I climbed out of bed at two. It was utterly freezing, even once I was fully dressed. I sat in the kitchen with the light off, drinking coffee until I was so bloated that I could hardly breathe. Then I staggered to the toilet and threw it all up. My throat and lungs stung, I wanted to curl up and dissolve, or crawl back to the warm blankets, back to Wendy, to stay hidden under the covers until morning.

As I clicked the front door shut, it was like diving into a moonlit pool. Being safe indoors was at once a distant memory, lying warm in bed was a near-forgotten dream. No cars, no distant traffic noises, no clouds, just a huge night sky and empty, endless streets.

It was five to three when I reached the place. I paced for a while, then walked around the block, but that only killed three minutes. I chose a direction and resolved to walk a straight line for seven minutes, then turn around and come back.

If I didn't turn around, if I kept walking, would he catch me? Would he return to the house and punish me? What if we moved, to another city, another state?

I passed a phone box, an almost blinding slab of solid light. I jingled my pockets, then remembered that I'd need no coin. I stood outside the booth for two minutes, I lingered in the half-open doorway for three, and then I lifted and replaced the handset a dozen times before I finally dialled.

When the operator answered, I slammed the phone down. I needed to defecate, I needed to lie down. I dialled again, and asked for the police. It was so easy. I even gave them my true name and address when they asked, without the least hesitation. I said “thank you” about six thousand times.

I looked at my watch: thirteen past three. I ran for the corner, camera swinging by the carrying strap, and made it back in ninety seconds.

Someone was climbing out through a dark window, holding a gagged, struggling child. It wasn't the man who'd called himself Jack, it wasn't the killer I'd seen on TV when I was ten.

I raised my camera.

Drop it and do something, drop it and save the child, you fool! Me against him? Against that? I'd be slaughtered! The police are coming, it's their job, isn't it? Just take the pictures. It's what you really want, it's what you're here to do.

Once I'd fired the shutter, once I'd taken the first shot, it was like flicking through the pages of a magazine. I was sickened, I was horrified, I was angry, but I wasn't there, so what could I do? The child was tortured. The child was raped. The child was mutilated. The child suffered but I heard no cries, and I saw only the flashgun's frozen tableaux, a sequence of badly made waxworks.

The killer and I arranged each shot with care. He waited patiently while the flash recharged, and while I changed rolls. He was a consummate model: each pose he struck appeared completely natural, utterly spontaneous.

I didn't notice just when the child actually died. I only noticed when I ran out of film. It was then that I looked around at the houses on the street and saw half a dozen couples, peeking through their bedroom windows and stifling yawns.

He sprinted away when the police arrived. They didn't pursue him in the car; one officer loped off after him, the other knelt to examine the remains, then walked up to me. He tipped his head at my camera.

“Got it all, did you?”

I nodded. Accomplice, accomplice, accomplice. How could I ever explain, let alone try to excuse, my inaction?

“Fantastic. Well done.”

Two more police cars appeared, and then the officer who'd gone in pursuit came marching up the street, pushing the hand-cuffed killer ahead of him.



The best of the photographs were published widely, even shown on TV (“the following scenes may disturb some viewers”). A thousand law-abiding citizens rioted outside the courthouse, burning and slashing effigies, when he appeared to be placed on remand.

He was killed in his cell a week before the trial was due to start. He was tortured, raped and mutilated first. He must have been expecting to die, because he had written out a will:

Burn my body and scatter my ashes from a high place.

Only then will I be happy. Only then will I find peace.

They did it for him, too.

He has a special place on my wall now, and I never tire of reviewing it. The whole process can be seen at a glance. How the tabloids cheered him on, rewarding each presumed death with ever larger headlines, ever grislier speculations. How the serious papers strove so earnestly to understand him, with scholarly dissertations on the formative years of the great modern killers. How all the well-oiled mechanisms slipped into gear, how everybody knew their role. Quotes from politicians: “The community is outraged.” But the outrage was bottled, recycled, flat and insincere.

What would-be killer could hesitate, could resist for even a second, such a cosy niche so lovingly prepared.

And I understand now why he wanted me there that night. He must have believed that if people could see, in colour, in close-up, the kind of atrocities that we treat as an industry, an entertainment, a thrilling diversion from the pettiness and banality of our empty lives, then we would at last recoil, we would at last feel some genuine shock, some genuine sadness, we would at last be cured, and he would be free.

He was wrong.

So they've burnt his corpse and scattered his ashes. So what? Did he really believe that could possibly help him, did he really hope to end the interminable cycle of his incarnations?

I dream of fine black cinders borne by the wind, floating down to anoint ten thousand feverish brows. The sight of the tortured child, you see, has exerted an awful fascination upon people around the world.

The first wave of imitators copied the murder exactly as portrayed by my slides.

The second wave embellished and improvised.

The current fashion is for live broadcasts, and the change of medium has, of course, had some influence on the technical details of the act.

I often sit in my study these days, just staring at the walls. Now and then I suffer moments of blind panic, when I am convinced for no reason that Jack has returned, and is standing right behind me with his mouth stretched open. But when I turn and look, I am always still alone. Alone with the headlines, alone with the photographs, alone with my obsession. And that, somehow, is far more frightening.











COMMENTS

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The Rules By Helen O'Shea

11:09 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 608






"When we first met," he began, "I thought you sang like a sheep with constipation."



Between coughs - she had just taken a sip of her wine - she managed to ask, "Is that something you learned in your farm labouring days? How constipated sheep sing?"



Actually &" he hesitated. "No, I've already revealed one secret. It's now time to hear one of yours."



They had tossed a dice to decide who took first turn in the game. He had thrown a six against her meagre two.



Her calm eyes rested on his face. "I can catch up later. Tell me what you were going to say. What's your next secret?"



"I don't have a cousin in Pembrokeshire, and I've never helped on a farm in my life. I made up that story. "She waited for him to say more. "I was in prison," he admitted.



"What did you do?" When he again hesitated, she said, "I know, it's my turn. But I need to know whether you're dangerous!"



"All right," he said. "But when I've finished, it really is your turn!" He considered her." "Do you have three secrets?"



The game had been his idea. As to all his games, she had agreed with alacrity.



She smiled. "I'll try to find three. What did you go to prison for?"



He settled himself more comfortably on the floor, his back resting against the sofa, and started talking.



"Well," he said when he finished, "you're still here. You haven't run away screaming." He la opening the bottle expertly and pouring the wine.



"My first secret," she began. "She stopped, and watched him raise his glass to his lips. "Promise you won't laugh?"



"Promise." He took a sip.



I hate it when people criticise my singing."



"Darling." He made his face contrite. "What can I say? We did agree, didn't we, on the rules of the game? To tell the truth, the whole truth & all that?"



"Yes, absolutely. I'm playing by the rules, by telling you."



"True." The second bottle of wine seemed stronger than the first. He peered at the bottle on the oak table; it was the same, his favourite claret. " I'd just like to know that your singing has improved immensely in the time we've been together."



She smiled. "Thank you."



"I can't believe - I - the thing &" he stopped. He was rambling but could not get in control. "God, I feel so relaxed so - so relaxed since I told you about my past."



He wanted to move onto the sofa but it was too much effort. The half full wine glass tipped dangerously sideways on his chest and he gripped it with slender, manicured fingers, fearful for his pale beige carpet of the threatened onslaught by the rich red liquid.



She watched him. "My second secret, " she said, "is that it isn't your confession that's making you look so relaxed. Enjoy it while it lasts."



He stared into then cool green gaze, trying to understand.



"As for my third secret," she continued. "I hope it isn't breaking the rules to reveal several secrets as one." She listed the names of eight people, some of which he recognised vaguely.



He tried to speak but his face felt stiff. He was still looking at her; he had no choice, because when he tried to turn his head, nothing happened.



"You may remember some of the names from then national new," she said conversationally. "Some of the bodies have never been found."



And then in a different tone, almost a hiss, she added, "They all criticised my singing."



From the corner of one transfixed eye, he saw his wine glass, still half full, topple from his fingers as all the muscles of his body locked in a spasm. Helplessly he watched as his pale beige carpet surrendered, without protesting, to its slow but inevitable, seduction by his favourite claret.



The End











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A Good Head Start By Helen O'Shea

11:06 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 609






The idea was crazy, it was ridiculous. But as soon as she saw the dark green car behind her, she knew she was being followed.



"Why?" she asked herself. She had not stolen anything. "At least, not money," a duplicitous voice in her head whispered. "Only love. And other people's dreams."



Impatiently she brushed away the tears that blurred the lonely, winding road ahead. She had had no chance but to climb into her battered red MG and escape. From Danny, and from the trap she had let herself fall into. "Again," murmured the treacherous inner voice.



This time had been no different from the others. She had stayed too long this time, that was all.



"Remember," she told herself fiercely: "Move on more often now, not less." It was becoming harder to leave; easier to stay.



"Why not stay?" The betraying whisper again. "Because," she replied silently. "Because " She had no answer.



Damn it! She was tired. She was tired and she had let it go on for too long. And she ought to be hungry. Nearly seven o'clock in then evening, and she hadn't eaten since a late breakfast with Danny of scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, and recriminations.



But she had escaped and was heading for then brash, noisy seaside town of her childhood holidays. It would absorb her without even noticing at this time of year, a promise in then air that summer was not far away. She would be able to find work, as a shop assistant or a waitress. She was good at smiling at people, telling them what they wanted to hear.



And probably before long, her smile would be returned for longer than politeness demanded, and she would find herself looking into another pair of eyes. It would feel as if tiny fish were swimming through her veins, and it would all begin again. But not yet. Not yet.



A sudden flash of red and green distracted her from her thoughts. "Good God," she said aloud.



On every childhood journey, she had seen the same gaudy neon sign. But surely the café had closed down years ago, now that most travellers favoured the motorway over this road, with its impossible twists on which only a maniac would try to overtake



Keeping her speed the same, she glanced quickly in the mirror. The dark green car was still following at a safe distance.



She stamped on the brake pedal, and veered off to the left without signalling. As she drove over the crunching gravel of the café forecourt, then green car went past without slowing.



The café door opened on a single protesting hinge onto a sloppy, chip scented warmth. There were only two customers, a couple sitting by the smeared window in a silence that made then matching rings on their left hands redundant.



After only a few minutes the driver of the green car followed her in. She knew it was him. She was a s sure as she had been for the last half hour that he was following her. As sure as she had been when she had to go away from Danny.



Casually she looked up to observe him. He wore a shabby grey suit and white shirt. No tie. She looked away at once, pretending to be fascinated by the ice cream menu. He ordered a meal and sat down out of her sight, on the other side of a colourful screen showing various combinations of chips and parts of dead animals.



As then remaining daylight faded outside, she picked at a meal that looked like fish and chips and tasted of grey cotton wool. As she crunched over the gravel towards then MG she heard the door of the café creak again in complaint. The man in the grey suit had followed her out.



Quickly she filled herself into the driving seat and fastened her seat belt. She revved the engine and reversed sharply out of the space, then aimed the care at the road. With the merest of glances to the right she urged the MG into action.



The MG was no longer in its youth and was no match for the potency of then dark green car. But she was smiling as she hurried through the gears. She had the ultimate advantage



While behind her, the man in the grey suit would check crossroads carefully for approaching headlights, while he would slow down as the road twisted, she would sail through junctions with a cursory glance, and laugh as she almost lost control on bends. She was going to escape at all costs.



As the MG careered around another curve in the road, she slotted in a new cassette. "You can't run away for ever"; the words filled then car. But there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start."



She looked in the rear view mirror.



No headlights behind. Ahead ?



The End





















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Three Moons By Helen O'Shea

11:01 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 613








Again it gave her pleasure to be inside the room and unable to hear the sounds of her family living their lives. Again, the pleasure made her feel guilty.



There was nothing wrong with taking a break from them, but it could only be a short break. There were so many things she had to do. Every day it was like that. She could not afford to lose slices of time from her life. She needed to be careful that she was not away from the family for too long.



"Adam" she had called softly after leaving the room, the first time she had gone right in and closed the door. Outside was a different kind of silence from inside. "Becca?"



As she went along the hallway, she heard the drone of the television. Upstairs she found Becca asleep and Adam curled up in bed. "Night, Mum, " he whispered sleepily when she kissed him.



Mark had already switched off the television when she went into then living room. "Going to bed?" he asked. She looked over at the clock, already knowing that over an hour had passed while she stood in the room for a few minutes.



Before when she had found the room for then first time, she assumed she had made a mistake. She had not even gone into the room but only looked from the doorway. Afterwards she had gone to the airing cupboard on the landing to fetch a clean tea towel; back in the kitchen she found that twenty minutes had passed.



It was several months before she went into then room again. It was an indulgence: other people coped without a quiet place away from their families. And although she knew that it was not possible, could not be possible, the thought of losing time from her life terrified her. There were so many things she had to do.



When she did go in, dust covered all the surfaces, making their edges indistinct. She had not noticed it before, nor had she realised how unused the room seemed.



She spoke aloud. "What a waste." She had taken off her watch off in case she saw the hands spinning round frantically.



At her next regular check-up, the family doctor suggested she should find herself a hobby.



"An interest outside the home," he explained. "We all need our space."



He gave her a smile, looking into her eyes without seeing her.



She smiled back and nodded, but did not try to explain that she did not have time for her hobby. There were so many things she had to do. She said as much, her voice light; but she did not tell the doctor about then times that she stood in the same place for minutes on end, trying to remember the next thing she had to do.



Neither did she tell him about then occasions when Adam, or Becca, looked as though they were about to say something else when she had done something for them, but then only smiled and thanked her. She did not tell the doctor, either, about the evenings when only she and Mark were home and did not speak a sentence to one another that was not about the children.



Sometimes she would remember something, more clearly than she could remember Becca and Adam changing from children and teenagers. When they had started school and Marks career had begun to flourish, she had seen herself as a tide whose movements were controlled by the three moons. They moved brightly high above the earth, while the tide, bound to its surface, retreated and advanced, retreated and advanced, in response to their invisible pulls.



The next time she went into the room, she worked smoothly and efficiently, clearing the dust from all the surfaces. But there was so much for her to do, and it seemed to her that more dust settled even while she cleared it. It took a long time.



When she came out of the room, there was silence.



"Becca?" she called. "Adam?"



She waited. "Mark, are you there?"



There was no sound.



The End













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An Unfortunate Accident By Helen O'Shea

10:53 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 616








"What did you say your name was?" he asked, as I closed the front door behind us.



"Lianne," I said. Lianne Lawless." I knew it sounded unlikely but I didn't care. Saying the name made the inside of my mouth tingle.



I didn't know his name. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that ever since he had first glanced up, in the bar, and noticed me looking, tiny fish had been swimming through my veins.



He looked around the flat curiously. "This isn't what I expected."



"Good," I replied. They usually said something like that.



"Who's that?" He stared at the photograph on the mantelpiece.



"My sister." I always left her picture in a prominent place, since I found out the effect it had on them. After that he went quiet, except for a murmured protest of "I'm not into all that myself" as I began to tie him to the bed.



I smiled down at him. "I knew you'd get into it," I said. He stopped being quiet. I thought he was over acting a little, though, with the gasping and sighing. It was a good thing my brother's neighbours were all out during then day.



Couldn't you loosen the knots a little?" he begged, but I shook my head.



It wasn't long after that, I think, when I noticed he'd gone back to being quiet. I didn't take offence. I wished he didn't have to have such an off-putting expression on his face, though. Like he was suffering.



They asked about that in court. "And you claim you noticed nothing amiss?" the little bald man who thought he was so important asked me, several times.



I hung my head. "Well " I said. "You don't at times like that do you?"



The press loved that.



I told then court that I went to sleep. "As you do," I pointed out. My first thought when I woke up was that I had left him all trussed up like a chicken. My second thought was that something was wrong, very wrong.



And that's how I ended up in here.



Most of then other prisoners are all right. Some of them smirk and make the V for victory sign when they see me. Others act shocked.



"It was an accident," I protested for the first few weeks. Then I stopped saying it. Nobody believed me.



They all knew I was in for necrophilia. I'd been acquitted of manslaughter.



I wasn't to know he'd a dodgy heart. It could happen to anyone, as the saying goes.



At night, when the lights go out, the whispers start. "What's it like, then, come on, tell us, what's it like, don't try to tell us you didn't notice, come on Aud, what's it like?" They all want to know, even the one's that act disgusted.



Audrey ... pillar of the local community, organiser of charity tombolas ... famous at last.



I smile in the darkness.



The End











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A QUIET RAGE by Helen Blackmore

10:47 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 619










I always remember how hard it was to hear. Not that there was anything wrong with my hearing, but the thoughts that ran through my mind at a constant pace were so loud they drowned out everything else.



There would be times my body would betray me, freezing in place, when what I did hear upset me, usually the sound of someone yelling. This was just..the way it was..and I didn't know any better. I never just enjoyed a sunset; it made me weep. A petty quarrel would become a dark silent rage. When I was happy, I was delirious. My times of sadness were so intense I wanted to die. All of this was hidden behind an impenetrable mask I felt compelled to maintain at all costs.



Through this fog, I do have some remarkably clear memories. At age three, at a neighbors house, I wondered what would happen if I hit the dog on the nose with a toy hammer. Predictably enough, I was bitten, and still carry the scar. This was the same year my sister was born, and I hated her for taking my parents away. I still have a picture of us with my Dad, sitting on the porch, her just an infant in his arms, and I can look at myself and see the madness..even at that age. Looking back at this picture was quite unsettling, as I could still feel the anger.



You may wonder how such a soft spoken person as myself can claim to be so full of contradictions as these, or capable of what I did. I can't believe it myself sometimes, but here I am, incarcerated in this tomb of an institution, while you, dear reader, are safe at home. I will try to explain the events leading up to this fall as best I can recollect.



Richard and I married quite young, mostly to escape the strict rules our parents insisted we follow. I realize now that it was my persuasiveness that finally wore him down, but I have always been good at that. I was fine for many years ... good years ... the dark clouds seemed to have cleared for a time, and I felt normal, like other people..or so I thought.



Sometime after our twentieth wedding anniversary, I began to feel uneasy, sensing my husband was drifting away from me. I began spying on him, until the thought of catching him in some indiscretion totally took over my life. I quit my job, and purchased an inexpensive car, which I kept garaged nearby. I took to wearing disguises, sneaking around his place of business, waiting, watching. All this time, I didn't realize how loud the noises were in my head, or even that they had returned. I had to catch him, no matter what the cost. And then, I finally did.



Sitting in the back of his favorite restaurant at lunchtime, I saw him touch his secretary's hand. Now, you may think that is nothing to be excited over, but I was convinced , in the haze that remained as my mind, that this was proof. The only thing to do now, was remove my enemy from the face of the earth forever. There was no room for hesitation and I moved swiftly.



I called the office the next morning, and left her a message about helping me plan a surprise party for my husband and his associates. The idea came to me at three in the morning; not surprising, since I never slept much in this state. Her name was Angela, and she returned my call when the office opened at eight, and we made plans to meet for lunch. I instructed her to meet me at an out of the way place for lunch which I knew would not be open. As she got out of her car, I descended on her with a tire iron, crushing her skull, and shoving her back in her car. That does sound awful, doesn't it? Well, it does to me too, now anyway. Not then though, for at that time I was righteously destroying the interloper who was trying to foil my marriage. I drove her car to the lake, and let it roll into the water, watching the car bob up and down for a while, then finally sink. It was kind of funny, watching the way it floated in the water that way. I had to walk back three miles to get my car, but it seemed like only moments.



At dinner that night, my husband was very quiet, and I asked him how his day was. He replied that it was fine, except his secretary had not returned from lunch, and he was quite puzzled about it. The next two days passed uneventfully, until the police arrived while I was baking a cake for Richard's birthday. I tried to convince them I had nothing to do with Angela's disappearance but in my rage I had forgotten about the message I left for Angela.



Well, I will be out in a few months, and Richard seems convinced that with the medication I will be fine. I am doing my best to follow all the directions the doctors give me, and they are pleased with my performance. Odd choice of words, because that is exactly what it is. After all, I will be very busy when I get out of here. I received a note from my sister, who informed me Richard sat next to a woman at church services last Sunday. I must remember her name for when I get home....





The End



















COMMENTS

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The Train Journey by Mrs D Dalby

10:44 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 620








I chose the empty carriage hoping to be alone with my memories.



The guard waved his flag, then blew his whistle and the train began to move slowly away, Then with a rush the train door opened and a fat middle aged woman about my own age heaved herself into a seat opposite to myself.



Keeping my eyes lowered I pretended to be reading the newspaper on my lap, while I observed out of the corner of my eyes her thick set legs dangling inches from the floor. The train began to gather speed and at the same time her fat legs swung back and forth in time with the motion of the train.



I was as one hypnotised as I stared at the woman who was now humming a little tune that I remembered from my school days. The war had finally ended; The tune was 'Run rabbit run rabbit, run, run, run'



Gertie Harris was somewhat of a bully, she always made us girls give up our sweets that was still on ration to her, or woe betide anyone who refused as I did myself one day. It was a gob stopper,a round hard ball of a sweet that changed colour at every suck, they would last for ages and for once I resolved Gertie Harris wasn`t getting this one. I ran hell for leather darting in and out to avoid her with the girls cheering me on and singing 'Run rabbit run rabb run, run, run' The gob stopper was getting smaller and small



To late Gertie Harris caught up with me and shook me, and to late I had swallowed the gob stopper.



Everyone cheered me except Gertie Harris who was livid with rage; Her horrible bulging eyes had peered into mine



'One day' she said between teeth clenched with rage 'I am going to kill you.' The woman's eyes had become vacant as if she was in another time and place. Her skirt had developed a concertina effect. I could see pink fleecy knickers reaching down below her knees; 'passion killers us girls used to call them. My eyes lingered for a while upwards, our eyes met, I lowered mine hastily, but as one hypnotised my eyes were drawn again to the woman struggling to discard her anorak'. One arm was partly freed waving about in the air. I could see a sweaty patch wet and dark against the pink cashmere jumper.



She half turned to me as the offending arm freed itself; her breathing was heavy and laboured The narrow slit eyes with yellow flecks are full of hatred and loathing as she gasped 'So we meet again' then like a rattle snake spitting its venom she leaned forward as if ready to strike, the lips curled above the buck teeth 'You are Meg Brent, am I right?'



I nodded, bewildered and frightened, my voice shook 'Who are you?' I whispered, as if I didn't know gaining time, hoping for I knew not what.



'Run rabbit run rabbit, run, run, run' I said I would kill you one day remember?'



Twenty five years to this very day, was the day when us sixth formers went our different ways.



Gertie Harris the bully had grown strong and fatter than ever, I was small compared to her and she was going to kill me I was sure.



The tunnel.....yes....thats what she was waiting for, she was watching my every move with gloating amusement. I closed my eyes and prayed.



I caught a glimpse of the fat legs coming to-wards me, I felt the fat podgy hands squeezing my throat. In desperation I screamed holy murder and clawed the air in an endeavour to free myself; my legs flayed wildly this way and thataway; I could feel myself suffocating, I gave one last almighty scream that echoed through the tunnel, the train screamed an encore.



'Wake up' shouted my husband, 'Its your school reunion today remember, twenty five years isn't it?' He looked at the bed clothes tumbled on the floor. 'What was you dreaming about? any body would think you was being murdered the way you screamed and threw yourself ~



I gave an audible sigh of relief 'I`ve been on a train journey'



'Where to' he asked.



'To hell and back' I replied.



The End













COMMENTS

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AN ACTIVE IMAGINATION by Virginia E. Zimmer

10:33 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 624








The thud came again.



Rose clicked the television silent, straining her ear against the storm that splattered the roof with a mixture of rain and hail. Tentacles of delicate fog raked across the window glass seeking shelter from the thunderous wrath of the gale winds.



The soft thump came from the basement, as though someone, or something, had knocked a book to the floor. Rose gripped the arms of the chair and cursed her husband for leaving her alone on a night like this, knowing she was fearful of storms, empty houses and prowlers, however imaginary they might be. She'd already lit every lamp and overhead light in the house, but they failed to dispel the damp, dreary feeling of impending doom.



A frail woman by nature Rose harbored many phobias including a fear of garbage disposals. Millions of germs were feeding and breeding inside those disgusting things and Rose refused to have one installed in her kitchen. There were harmful bacteria in the suns rays and she never remained outside for more than ten minutes a stretch. At forty-five years old her skin was smooth and silky, but maintained a ghostly-white pallor. Her husband Jimmy had nagged her about getting a dog to keep her company on the nights he worked late, but Rose wouldn't hear of such a thing. What if the dog got rabies and went mad while she was alone with him? Her small delicate frame would be no match for a snarling, crazy-in-the-head animal who would shred her to pieces with its gnashing teeth.



The television screen flickered in muted silence as it ran the news story again, warning the public about the man with the knife. He'd been evading the police for weeks, leaving behind no clues or reasoning to his insatiable appetite for slaughtering woman who were home alone.



But Rose knew where to man was. He was in her basement skulking around in the dark with the butcher knife between his teeth.



She reached for the phone, preparing to summon the police again, but shuddered at the arrogance during their previous visit less than an hour ago. While searching room to room the officers exchanged rolling-eyed glances and secret hand gestures, as if satisfying a woman's qualms were a waste of their precious time. The younger cop with the sneering grin had suggested she adopt a German shepherd for company. Men!



"It's Rose Campbell again," she said weakly into the phone. Despite her attempts to sound rational her voice quivered unsteadily like a woman on the verge of insanity. "You must send someone right away. He's in my homeI just know he is."



Lightning seared the night sky and Rose thrust the receiver away from her ear, fearful of being struck through the mouthpiece. She'd read somewhere about an elderly woman struck by lightning as it traveled through the phone wires and burned her to a crisp. Her nerves jangled at the thought.



"Mrs. Campbell," the dispatcher sighed, "our officers have already checked your home from top to bottom and found nothing unusual." He spoke as one who'd already explained himself ten times yet failed to be understood. "Why don't you make yourself a nice cup of tea and"



"Cup of tea?" Rose shouted as a clap of thunder rocked the house. "I don't want a cup of tea there is a man in my house! I can hear him in the cellar, don't you understand?"



It suddenly occurred to Rose that the intruder might hear her, race up the basement stairs, knife clenched in his fist, and put a quick slicing-end to her plea for help. She lowered her voice to a panicked whisper and listened for footfalls on the cellar stairs.



"Maybe he wasn't in the basement the when the officer's checked," she whispered, "or maybe he was hiding behind the furnace perhaps or came in through a window after they left."



Rose envisioned the dispatched running a hand through his hair and rolling his eyes like the officers had done. "Okay, Mrs. Campbell," he whispered as though defeated, "I'll send someone out as soon as I can."



"But when will that be?" she demanded, refusing to be pacified like a three year old while a maniac moved stealthily one story below.



"Not sure, Ma'am," his voice held an edge of impatience. "Lot's of problems tonight due to the storm. Our officers are pretty busy. Maybe you could call a neighbor? Someone to sit with you a while?"



"Sir, I am not a child! I don't need a baby-sitter! I need you to come and arrest this killer!"



There was a long pause followed by a sigh. "Okay Mrs. Campbell. I'll send someone right over."



"Please hurry."



"Will do. Bye Ma'am."



Rose replaced the phone in its cradle, severing her lifeline, and trembled at the emptiness of the house. Amidst the roar of the storm a blanket of loneliness encased her, tickling the hairs on the nap of her neck.



A jolt of lightning crackled nearby, its brilliance exploding the pitch beyond the window. The lights flickered, plunging her into darkness, and Rose dug her nails deeply into the fabric of the chair, awaiting the restoration of power. The lights fluttered, fighting to stay alight as the storms fury roared directly overhead, rattling the china cups in the dining room hutch. The lights remained at half strength, their pale yellow light casting deep shadows in the corners, hiding nightmarish-beings that only Rose's mind could fathom.



The phone echoed loudly in the stillness, spreading a fiery spark through Rose's spine. She lunged for it, retained a death grip on the receiver, and fought a maddening terror threatening to paralyze her vocal cords.



"Rose? Rose, are you there?" Her husband's voice wafted ghostly and wonderfully through the earpiece.



"Yes," Rose rasped through her dry mouth. "Jimmy, please come home right away."



"What's wrong Rosie?"



"He's in the house, Jimmy a man with a knife is in the cellar. The police won't do anything about it." She kept her voice low to prevent anyone but Jimmy from hearing her.



There was a silence at his end and Rose didn't like the sound of it. She saw her husband's mind working, the gears turning, preparing to render the same old speech about her imagination running away with her.



"Now Rose" he began in his irritating fatherly tone.



"Don't Rose me!" Her voice shook with anger and panic.



"But Rose we've been through this time and time again," Jimmy said, his voice saturated with feigned patience. "You get yourself all worked up for nothing scaring yourself half silly. I have to work late sometimes. You know that. Why don't you let me get you a dog to keep you company."



"Dog's go crazy and they can be poisoned, you know. What good is a dead dog when there's a killer in the house?"



"Okay Rosie, okay. Maybe I can knock off a little early tonight, but we're going to have a talk about this."



"Thank you, Jimmy. Please hurry."



"See you in a little while."



The lights were burning at less strength than before and Rose felt the shadows creeping in on her. She pushed her shaking form from the chair and tiptoed into the kitchen, relieved that Jimmy would be home soon. She hadn't heard any more thuds from the basement. Had she imagined them? She did have an active imagination.



Creeping past the closed cellar door Rose opened a kitchen drawer, removed a box of waxed candles and pushed two of them into their candlestick holders. A wooden match flared and breathed life to the wicks, pushing the shadows back a few more inches. She decided to have a cup of tea after all and set the kettle on the gas stove.



The thump came from behind her, on the other side of the cellar door, and Rose spun around, her heart quickening with each beat. She stumbled backwards and pressed against the kitchen counter, never taking her eyes from the doorknob.



Thump.



Thump.



The cellar door was closed, but not latched, and something pushed it outward with each strike, revealing two fiery globes of light twinkling in the darkness. The Thing clawed at the door, hissing at its inability to enter the kitchen.



Rose clamped a hand over her mouth, fearful that a scream, however slight, would squeeze the last bit of breathable air from her lungs. Spinning towards the counter she ran her hands across its surface groping for anything she might use as a weapon. Nothing. She pulled at the knob on the silverware drawer and sent the contents crashing to the floor. Fumbling through the mess Rose felt the solid wooden handle of her carving knife and clenched it firmly in her fist.



Thunder and hail rocked the foundation of the house as another bolt of lightning crackled over her head, illuminating the kitchen just as the cellar door burst open. The creature with the bright eyes lunged through the opening, squatted on its haunches and stared at Rose, whose weapon was poised and readied.



Rose halted and squinted quizzically at the creature, its tail wagging lazily across the linoleum.



"You're are cat!" she shouted, her veins pounding with coursing blood. She tossed the carving knife to the floor and grabbed handfuls of her hair, pushing the escaping sanity back into her frightened mind. It's just a stupid little cat. Liquid laughter, bubbling up from her belly, eased her frightful state, soothing her frazzled nerves.



The short-hared gray licked its paws, oblivious to Rose's state of mind, and then raked the moistened paws over its face.



"Just a cat," Rose whispered again as kneeled by its side and ruffled its fur with her trembling hand. "Where did you come from, you little poop. You scared me half to death."



Arching its back against her hand the cat eagerly accepted the stroking, and rubbed against Rose's thigh.



"You must be hungry, little fellow? How about a bowl of warm milk, hmm?"



She rose to her feet and opened the refrigerator door.



"Just a cat indeed," the man whispered from the shadows of the cellar. Candlelight glinted off the butcher knife in his fist.



The End







COMMENTS

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PRIVATE ENTRY

10:28 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 628


• • • • PRIVATE JOURNAL ENTRY • • • •


 

Atishoo, Atishoo, We’re Going Down by Jonathan Gillman

10:24 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 629








‘Actors Survive Plane Crash Horror - Pilot Dies’, the newspaper’s headline had proclaimed.



Since the accident my life had undergone a dramatic and unbelievable transformation. I guess that after being involved in a plane crash it would be foolish to believe that everything would ever seem exactly the same again, but the changes that I experienced go beyond anything that anyone could ever have foreseen.



My name is Jack Franklin, and I’m one of the actors referred to in the headline. Over the past ten years or so I’ve made quite a name for myself in Hollywood, appearing in no less than six block busting movies. The other gentleman that was in the plane with me when it went down, with the exception of the pilot, was Charles Durrant - an equally successful actor, and treasured friend.



The horror took place as we were flying in my private jet, a Piper Seneca 3, from Los Angeles International Airport to Chicago, where we were due to begin shooting our latest movie together - which was an exciting first for us, as we had never appeared in the same film. The pilot, Winston Codran, a kind and exceptionally amusing man, had flown my plane on numerous occasions, all without incident, and I trusted him completely. The flight had progressed smoothly, take off had been perfect, and even turbulence seemed to be having a day off, when, without warning, the aircraft angled into a steep nose dive as we were on approach to Chicago airport runway.



Myself and Charles screamed in absolute terror, and believe me when I say that a genuine scream is a far cry from anything in the movies. It makes you realise just how difficult it can be to convey such an emotion effectively to the big screen. The sharp downward motion of the plane threw us both to the floor and we landed in a huddle, holding onto each other in a united embrace.



"Winston, what’s happening?" Charles’ had sobbed, but no reply came from the cockpit. And then to me, "We’re going to die Jack, we’re going to die."



I could find no words.



It seemed an eternity before the plane finally made contact with the ground, and the impact is difficult to describe. Take American Football as an example. Imagine being stripped of all the protective padding that the players wear, and then being tackled by the biggest guy on the park. Painful huh? Now multiply it by a hundred, no, a thousand, and then maybe you’ll begin to get the picture.



We had landed slightly to one side of the runway and miraculously, don’t ask me how, we both survived. I must have been knocked unconscious, because I remember nothing of what happened next, and only have Charles’ account to go on. Apparently Charles had been more fortunate than myself, suffering only a nasty gash to his left arm, and he was able to escape through a large tear in the main body of the aircraft, which he also managed to pull me through to safety, God bless him. My gutsy friend even went back to try and rescue Winston, but a fire had rapidly taken hold in the cockpit, and the heat of the flames was too overwhelming for him.



The next thing that I actually remember is being in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and being told how lucky I had been. My only injuries were a broken forearm, and a dislocated shoulder.



The following day I was seen by several Doctors, who asked me numerous questions, and performed a few tests on me to make sure that all was in order. They were most attentive, possibly thinking that if anything went inadvertently wrong to a celebrity of my international standing, then their careers would come crashing down faster than my private jet. Or perhaps they were just doing their jobs. They concluded that aside from my broken forearm and dislocated shoulder, that there would be no other physical repercussions.



How wrong can you be?



Two days after the crash I was discharged from the hospital, only to be greeted outside by a blizzard of paparazzi camera flashes, and ceaseless questions. All I could tell them was what they already knew. I stressed that the pilot should be regarded as a hero, for managing to bring the plane down in something that resembled a landing, and for saving mine and Charles’ lives by preventing it from plunging into a full dive (witnesses had reported how the plane had begun to right itself before final impact). I then simply told them that investigations were taking place as to why the aircraft had crashed, and that an autopsy was being done on the charred remains of Winston’s body to try and determine if anything had happened to him whilst flying the plane. Quickly tiring of their petty questions, I jumped into a waiting car and was whisked off to a hotel on the outskirts of Chicago.



Once in my first class hotel room, it occurred to me that it was the first time I had been left alone since the crash. I had no girlfriend or wife to be fussing over me, and my parents had both died years ago. I sat down heavily in one of the room’s plush easy chairs, intending to use this time alone to reflect on the horror of two days ago, when my nostrils started to give that familiar tingling that precedes a sneeze. I attempted to hold it back, but my nose convincingly won the battle.....



ARRTCHOOOO.



As I opened my eyes after the sneeze I remember thinking, "Jeez, that was a big one", before realising that I was no longer in my hotel room.



I was back in my private jet.



Charles was there too, and he was busy slagging off some actress that had turned down his advances, just the same as he had done immediately before the flight had started to go so horribly wrong. The next thing I knew and the plane was turning into its murderous dive, and myself and Charles were once more huddled on the floor screaming.



"Winston, what’s happening?" Charles’ sobbed, before turning to me, "We’re going to die Jack, we’re going to die."



Somehow I was reliving the horror. Everything progressed exactly as I remembered it the first time around. The screams, shouts, tears, fear, everything, all the way up to the impact of the crash, and then.......



.......I was back sitting in my hotel room.



I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Had I been dreaming, or imagined it? Maybe the trauma of the past few days had caused me to have such a vivid flashback, or perhaps a hallucination. I was still upset, I reasoned, that must have been it. Boy, I needed a drink. I made my way to the room’s drink cabinet, and poured myself a generous measure of whisky. It was just the shock, that was all. The drink would help to steady my nerves.



Then, around two hours later, I was taking a shower when my nose started tingling once more....



ARRTCHOOOO.



It happened again. I was in my plane, Charles was slagging of the actress, and then we were hurtling towards the ground at an incredible speed. And once more, after impact, I found myself back in the hotel, standing in the shower. Well, I couldn’t have been dreaming, not standing up and in the shower. What was going on? Was I going mad?



Over the next few days, this happened time and time again. Every time I sneezed, I found myself on Flight 666 to hell.



Someone once told me that the force of a sneeze is so powerful, that should you manage to keep your eyelids open, then your eyeballs would pop right out of their sockets, like tiny jack-in-the-boxes. True? I don’t know, but I sure began to believe in the strength of a sneeze.



Maybe the incredible impact of the landing set off some sort of reaction in my body that altered it in unseen ways. Unbelievable? Tell me about it. But there are many strange things in the world, some a lot closer to home than you might imagine. If someone had told my grandmother, when she was a child, that a whole library of information would one day be stored on something the size of a computer chip, or that man would be walking on the moon, she would have laughed her socks off. So, if the amazing things that we simply take for granted are so unbelievable, doesn’t it stand to reason that the things we don’t understand are quite possible as well?



I’ve heard tales of people involved in accidents, where peculiar things have happened to them; from someone whose hair changed from black to bright white, to another who seemed to gain the power to see the future. These are the sort of fantasy lives that I’ve been used to portraying in incredible movies, but now I seemed to be suffering a role reversal. What could I do, I wondered. I couldn’t risk seeing a doctor for fear of being referred to a psychiatrist. That would do wonders for my movie career that would. Who would want to cast me in their lead role if I was a known nut-case? No-one, that’s who. Starring Jack ‘the sneezing time traveller’ Franklin. I don’t think so. Imagine if the papers got wind of it, I would have been ruined.



Then the idea struck me. If I was physically reliving the crash, didn’t it stand to reason that I could maybe do something about it? If Winston was unable to land the plane then why didn’t I give it a go, after all he’d given me a few brief flying lessons.



The idea set in my head I began to will myself to sneeze, and when that tingling sensation eventually began, I felt excitement instead of fear......



ARRTCHOOOO.



I was in the plane. Charles was slagging off the actress, but instead of listening to him I made my way to the cockpit.



As I entered, Winston suddenly slumped over at the controls, and fell from his seat, grabbing his chest, a heart attack having taken hold of him. Quickly I stepped over him as the plane began to dive, and assumed the controls, at the same time calling to Charles, who staggered into the cockpit, his face as white as the clouds that the plane was intent on plunging through.



"What the....." he began.



"No time," I said. "Get him out of here."



Charles duly complied, and began dragging Winston out of my way.



I returned my attention to the dials, switches and controls in front of me, and tried to remember what little I had been taught - but to no avail. Although I had steadied it some, the plane continued to plunge downwards. I simply didn’t know enough, I realised as the ground loomed closer and closer. Then, CRASH, and that all too familiar impact.











Now I stand here watching as the coffin is lowered slowly into the ground. Charles is crying uncontrollably, probably thinking that it could so easily have been him.



Sitting in a wheelchair next to him is Winston, also crying, but at least alive, having survived a heart attack and plane crash. He owes his life to Charles who pulled him from the wreckage of the plane. Charles couldn’t get to me. The heat of the flames overwhelmed him.



I glance once more at the headline of the newspaper that is held in my ethereal grip. It reads, ‘Jack Franklin Dies in Plane Crash Horror.’







The End







COMMENTS

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Kingfisher Blue -Rob Hopcott

10:18 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 630








Chapter 01



She walked into Smokey's Bar like the breeze that sometimes caresses your face on a gray day. Her fair, nearly blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail with two wisps hanging down by each eye. The bustle of the bar absorbed her into its midst and I lost track of her until she surfaced by the gamblers.



They were a group of men who visited lunchtimes who liked telling tales of their successes and forgetting their losses in the beer. Their appreciation of local female talent was shared and bonded with approving winks. She got the treatment in spades. Her denim jeans, slightly frayed at the ankle, rose forever to meet smoothly curved hips and her red tightly stretched cotton shirt hugged her body like they wanted to.



A wave of drinks orders distracted me and by the time I saw her again she was seated at a table by the window. The man she was with wasn't a regular and he was nothing special. Smokey's attracted every element of Central London's low and high life. But this suit looked like a no-lifer. He wore middle age with oozing confidence, bending his baldness towards her with a ravenous smile. She was his lunch for today. His opportunity for courtship was timed to the minute and his body language was in the fast lane.



"Come on Barry. Are you the waking dead or what?"



It was Ron, the gaffer and skinny owner of Smokey's. He was rapidly going under from machine-gun fire orders from erstwhile drinkers who couldn't reach my planet. Smokey's was always busy and he could have kept half a dozen barmen on survival rations like me if that hadn't been against his moral code. He liked lean and mean. He aspired avidly to the status of skinflint.



I grunted meaningfully by way of reply, flicked back my wavy fair hair from my face and squared up to the rush of orders like the condemned. My slender body, honed to perfection by endless contemplation of exercise, whipped backwards and forwards like a medieval ballista hurling alcoholic drinks at the hordes like lead shot. The charges I delivered seemed less lethal but I knew they would get them in the end.



Moments later, the bar was clear and she was standing in front of me. Her large blue eyes fixed on me like twin sparkling lasers in the night. I stood transfixed.



"A pint of bitter and a tomato juice with ice please." She had repeated herself. This time more insistently.



I pushed the cogs of my mind into gear and with as much aplomb as I could muster, dropped the freshly opened tomato juice onto the floor trying to do too many things at once. It mingled noisily with the quagmire of beer and spirits already there. I saw Ron snarl with exasperation but I was in heaven.



"Do you normally have this affect on all men that serve you?" It was a low quip but the best I had to cover my embarrassment as I cleaned up.



"Only on a really good day and when the men are young and red bloodied," she laughed. Her voice was soft like a thousand wind chimes in the night.



"Young men must have some advantages!" I let my eyes drift in the direction of the window seat she would soon desert me for. It was an even lower cut made with the bravado of an adrenaline rush.



"You sound as if you've something to sell! What are you offering?" I noticed that there were flecks of gray drifting in the perfect blue of her teasing streetwise eyes.



"Me? I'm a humble barman ... I just watch and enjoy!"



The drinks were now on the bar. She handed over a five-pound note and collected the drinks with finely tapered fingers.



"You can have the change," she said, batting her eyes at me from behind her wisps.



"You're a friend," I said.



"We all need friends." She tossed her ponytail. "And, anyway, it's not my money."



"I wouldn't have thought a good looking girl like you had any shortage of friends ... or money."



I saw the pain in her eyes as my words registered and mentally kicked myself hard. She knew I was wondering why she was with the old guy. Our eyes locked, hers cool and appraising, mine telling her I was sorry for being an idiot. She seemed to make a decision.



"You can be my friend if you really want to. Three thirty in the center of the park outside. Be there! I'm relying on you!"



Five minutes later, I remembered to close my mouth to stop the barflies making a permanent home.



Fifteen minutes later, she delicately threaded her way through the crush with her man in tow and was gone.





Divider Graphics
















COMMENTS

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Rose

02:47 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 634


My name is Selcia and I'm 17 years old. This scary event happened to me when I was only ten years old, but I still remember it...I am so freakin scared, thinking about what had happened 7 years ago.



Anyways, I was playing dolls in my house when I heard a soft voice whisper behind my ear. I shivered, but I ignored it at first, thinking it was just a breeze coming from the window. I looked at the windows and saw to my shock that they weren't open. But I forgot about it, later on. It was onlyl a few minutes later, when I heard someone whisper in my ears again. This time, I could make out the words.



"Celia, Celia, Celia." I looked around, but there was no one there. Then suddenly, I saw a little girl my age looking at me. She had a red skirt on with a white blouse. She looked pretty, if only her eyes weren't so dark and creepy. It almost looked like she had no eyeballs. Her mouth opened, and I only saw a black hole in it.

She called out, "Celia, celia, celia........ come in... to... the cellar."

It was so scary to listen to her dry and shivering voice. But I just stood still and listened to her. She then disappeared. I then opened the door and walked down the cellar stairs.



I saw the little girl again, and this time she was pointing at the ancient looking wall. She motioned with her hands as if she was tearing something down. I was confused, so I went back upstairs. I went in the kitchen to look for mother. I found her at the table and told her about the little girl. She grew pale, death pale, after I described how the girl looked like. She became frenzied and so scared I felt like I wanted to cry. But she shushed me and asked where the girl was. I told her down in the cellar and we both went down there.



I said that the red skirt girl was making tearing motions at the wall and my mother grew even more frantic. She called some carpenters and asked them to tear down the wall in the cellar. They came that same day and soon broke the wall. Inside, we found a small skeleton with a torn white blouse and red skirt. I was scared as h*** at that time.



My mother started to cry, saying how her little sister, Rose, disappeared wearing those same clothes and how everyone was upset, except for her uncle. He was acting more scared and nervous at the time, then upset.



We then went to mothers uncle's house and found him there. When we told him about the hidden body, he nearly fainted, but wouldn't say anything. Finally, he broke down and said that he tried to molest (sexually harass) the little girl when no one was looking, and Rose tried to run away. He was afraid that she would rat him out so he killed her and hid her body behind the wall of the cellar.


COMMENTS

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Hide and Seek

02:46 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 635


There once was a family of five. Three children and two parents, who loved their kids with all their hearts. This family lived in a nice home in a quaint little town called Bakerston. Their lives were simple and pleasant, and Bakerston was an unusually peaceful town that had little to no crime.



One of their children, the eldest daughter, was named Felicity, and she was very good at watching her little brothers, Raymon and Rory. So, occasionally their parents would go out for the night and have Felicity watch her brothers until they got back. Felicity was very good at this. She would always play a game similar to hide and seek. She’d stand in the living room with her hands over her eyes and say, “Children, Children, All around, run before you can be found. For I am on the loose today, hide before I can say….” Then she’d wait, listening to their rustling feet as they would hide. She’d search the house looking for them, and when she got close, she’d wait right outside the place she knew they were hiding and she’d say “Boo!”



When they heard this sound, they would know that she was close, so if she was correct they would have to reply with the words, “Hello Felicity!” and she’d scoop them up and hug them. If the other child was close enough that they heard these words, they were allowed additional time to find a new spot, and then Felicity and the found child would look for them together.



The children absolutely loved this game, and they insisted that she play it with them every time they were together. One night, recently after their parents left, Felicity and the boys were relaxing in their home. The boys were in their rooms, off of the living room, and Felicity was in the living room reading. Suddenly, there was a loud knocking at the door. Felicity, thinking it might be her parents and that they would be upset that the boys weren’t asleep, she rushed to the intercom system that allowed anyone in the living room to speak to all the rooms in the house. The boys had one in their room too. This made it so that no one had to yell fromm room to room in the house.



She pressed the button and said quietly, “Open your door and get underneath your covers. I think it's mom and dad. Pretend to be asleep.” Then she went to answer the door.



The boys did as they were told and got beneath their covers. They heard the door open, but no other sounds. It was quiet. Then, the intercom beeped which meant someone was on the other side. A voice said, “Children children, all around….” The little boys shivered. It was Felicity, and she sounded scared. She had spoken at a whisper and they became frightened. They stayed in their beds, still scared. Then, “Run before you can be found..” They glanced at each other in horror. “For he is on the loose today….hide before…I can say…”

“She wants to play the game…” Rory whispered to Raymon.

The waited a few seconds. Then, it came on again.

“Children Children All Around.”

Silence.

“Run Before you can be found.”

Silence.

“For it is on the loose today. Hide before I can say….”

The boys quickly decided that they needed to hide. They crawled to their favorite place, which was a broom closet in the hallway that Felicity claimed was too small to fit in. But the boys knew it wasn’t. She never found them there. She always called quits if either of them chose that spot.



They quieted their breathing and listened for sounds. They heard a soft shuffling of feet, but that was all.

They stayed in the closet a long time.

Suddenly though, another sound filled their ears.

THUD. *shuffle shuffle shuffle* THUD. *shuffle shuffle shuffle* THUD. THUD THUD.

The sound got closer and closer and closer and closer.

They heard Felicity’s voice whisper, but it seemed to come from throughout the house. “Children Children all around, run before you can be found. For I am on the loose today, hide before I can say……” Silence.

Then, in the softest whisper of all, right outside the closet they heard, “Boo?”

Rory opened his mouth to say ‘hello Felicity’ but Raymon closed his hand over Rory’s mouth. It was silent for a long time. Then, from Raymon and Rory’s right, inside the closet, a voice was heard.

“Hello Felicity.”

Rory and Raymon turned ice cold. But they didn’t move.

Outside the closet Felicity started to cry. Then, in tears she said, “New game. Rory is it.”



That same night the parents of Rory Raymon and Felicity game home to a devastating sight. On the table was a letter that had apparently been opened by Felicity that said, “I want to play your game. I’m in the children’s room. We’ll all play together.”



They proceeded to look throughout the house for their children. They couldn’t find them that night. The next night they found Rory. His eyes were sewn shut and he was jammed underneath the kitchen sink covered in blood.



The day after that they found Raymon. His eyes were sewn shut and he was shoved underneath his bed covered in blood. The day after that they found Felicity. Her eyes were sewn shut and she was squished inside a cupboard. The deaths were mourned and they bodies were buried.



A week later another body was discovered. A missing mortician was found crammed inside the hallway closet with his sewing kit clutched between his cold dead fingers.



The THUD THUd *shuffle shuffle shuffle* the children had heard had been the sound of Felicity bumping into walls. She had been looking for them and she couldn’t see, because her eyes had been sewn shut.



Years later it was said that the soft calling of Felicity’s voice could be heard, calling the word to the children’s hide-and seek rhyme.

Children children all around

Run before you can be found

For I am on the loose today

Run before I can say….


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Creepy CD saved my life.

02:45 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 636


I had a really good friend named Annie.She had a band she sung in and she was one of the greatest and one of the most protective people I knew.Her band wasn't famous but her dad had a recording studio in their basement.So she recorded their first cd with the band there.Her very first cd was a gift for me on my birthday and I hadn't listened to it yet.3 days after my birthday,Annie was raped by her older brother who's 17.He left the city supposedly and they didnt catch him.He always scared me but I never said anything.She was only 13 when she died.The next day in the hospital when I was sitting with her,she tried to speak and tell me something.But when she was raped,he choked her and damaged her throat so much she wouldn't be able to talk for a while.Before I left the hospital,a nurse had come up to me in the parking lot and told me she died and gave me a note she wrote before she died.I was so depressed about it,I refused to touch her cd and note,which I left in my room.One night when I was home alone,I was thinking about her so I decided to finally listen to the cd.There was a song on there called "Painful memory",a song she wrote about rape when a friend of hers was raped.Some of the chorus goes "He tried to find you,he's upstairs."All of a sudden,the cd starts skipping and continously repeats "He's upstairs,he's upstairs,he's upstairs."I thought it was kind of weird because I never listened to the cd and it didn't have any scratches.So I just put it back in and played the song again.When it came to the chorus,it skipped and repeated the same words again.I cleaned the cd and tried agian.It still played the same words.I was scared now so I locked my door and listened to the silence.I could hear boots walking down the hall.I looked in the key hole and saw someone walking down the hall.I quickly called the police and they came.They found her 17 year old brother hiding in the bathroom.He said he was waiting for me when they questioned him.The next day I found the note in the cd case when I put it.I opened it and read."When my brother raped me he told me he would rape you next.I promise no matter what I wont let that happen.Love,Annie."And I think she kept the promise.


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The Message

02:43 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 637


I've been lying in my room for hours now. It's 5:30 am and there's not much I can do. You know what the worst part of my situation is? I'm in the same room with my parents. They keep looking at me, and I can't help but not look back and try not to cry or scream.



Their eyes are focused on me and their mouths are wide open. There's a strong scent of blood and I feel so paralyzed with fear. Here's the thing. The second I make any hint that I'm not asleep anymore, I'm screwed. I'll die, and there's nobody around to save me. I've been trying to think of a way out, but the only idea I have is to rush for the door, run outside, and scream for help, hoping any neighbors hear me. It's risky, but if I stay here, I'll surely die.



He's waiting for me to wake up and see his masterpiece. You're probably wondering what's going on. I do get ahead of myself sometimes. About three hours ago I heard screaming from the other side of the house. I got up and went to check the noise before I realized I had to use the restroom.



Instead of doing the smart, noble thing and investigating, I used the bathroom first. I could have gotten myself killed right then for my stupid actions. But I actually did my business and took a peek outside the bathroom. There was blood on the carpet. As any other sane human would do, I bolted back to my room, hiding under my sheets like the scaredy I was. I tried to convince myself to go back to sleep, and that this was just some weird, vivid dream or something. But I heard my bedroom door creak open, and like the terrified child I was, I peeked out from under my blankets to see what was going on.



I could see something dragging my parents into the room, obviously dead. It was not human, I can tell you that much. It was hairless, with no eyes and no clothing. It walked like a caveman, with its back slouched as it dragged my dead parents. But this thing was smarter than any caveman.



It propped my father against the edge of the bed, and made him face me. It then sat my mother down in the chair and positioned her towards me as well. Then, it started rubbing it's hands along the walls, staining it with blood, drawing a circle with the devils pentagram in it. This thing had made what it would probably call a masterpiece.



To finish it off, it scrambled a message onto the wall that I could not read in the darkness. It then positioned itself under my bed, waiting to strike.



The scariest thing now is, my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and since then, I can read the message on the wall. I don't want to look at, because it's terrifying to think about, but I feel I need to see before I'm killed.



I peek at the creatures masterpiece.



'I know you're awake.'


COMMENTS

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The Little Girl in the Red Cape

02:42 Mar 22 2012
Times Read: 638


A little girl’s parents went out for a business dinner so they hired a babysitter to watch her.



“Can I have some ice cream?” the little girl, Holly asked after supper.

“Sure” the babysitter, Beatrice said. “Where’s the freezer?”

“In the basement, so are the nuts, cherries and candy and stuff.”



When she went down to get the ice cream, she looked out the window to see a little girl standing outside. This didn’t strike her as too suspicious and she simply brushed it off.



After she had given Holly her ice cream, Holly asked, “Can I have some hot fudge on this, please?”

“Course,” was the quick reply.



After Beatrice went back down into the basement to retrieve the hot fudge, she looked back out the window to see the same little girl, only wearing a red cape. She absentmindedly wondered if the girl was playing dress-up as she trudged back upstairs.



“Got it,” she deadpanned after setting the hot fudge in the microwave and putting the thick chocolate goop on the ice cream.

“Can I please have some nuts on this please…?”

“Really?”

“Puh-lease?”

“Fine…” she sighed already heading back down the stairs. As she got the nuts out of a small cabinet in the wall she looked back out the window to see the same little girl in the red cape, holding a knife.



As she ran upstairs she decided she was calling the police.

“Ooh Thank you!” Holly squealed happily from her perch on her pink Disney Princess booster seat.

“Uh-I-I yeah. Hey, Holly, I need you to-“

“Oh no! Can I have a cherry on top, please?”



Not wanting to alarm Holly, she decided that she would go get the cherries, then call the police after locking herself and Holly in the bathroom. There’s no way the little girl could get inside if the windows and doors were all locked.



After slowly descending down the stairs, she opened the freezer with shaky arms.

Daring to peek out of the window, she closed her eyes before staring out it.

The same little girl, in the same red cape, holding the same knife was there. Only the knife now had blood on it.



Running up the stairs, scared of what might await, she checked on Holly.

Holly was dead, a small pool of blood forming on the floor under her.

She ran into the bathroom and locked the door behind her before dialing 911.



When the police arrived, the tearful mother and father were with them. The mother approached Beatrice, sobbing uncontrollably. “What happened?”



“Oh God- I’m sorry oh God! I-I saw this little girl with this red cape and a knife outside your basement window!”



The mother said, “We-we don’t have any basement windows, only mirrors…”


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My most Beloved Country. Ireland.

15:31 Mar 13 2012
Times Read: 669










THE IRISH HISTORY



The True History of Ireland and St. Patrick's Day!

Why We Celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Irish Tradition.



The man known as St. Patrick was born in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland where he served as a Sheppard to the king. He was a religious man and began praying to God about his situation. God gave him a dream and told him to leave Ireland. He went back to Britain where he began studying as a priest. As a priest he took on the name Patrick. He later returned to Ireland on a mission to bring Christianity to Ireland. As someone who is part Irish I was shocked to find this out. And guilty of not knowing my own heritage.

Legend is that he is famous for driving the snakes from Ireland, actually this is a metaphor. Snakes represent the Pagan aspect. I am a Wiccan but I can respect the fact that although he did convert a lot of the pagans to Christianity, his methods were to blend the two cultures. He created the Celtic cross by combining the the Pagan symbol of the Sun with the Christian cross. The Irish Shamrock is another symbol, Pagan symbol for luck and prosperity and Christian symbol for the Trinity. He did not try to eradicate the Pagan beliefs but incorporate them into something new.



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St. Patrick's day was being celebrated in America in 1970, and we Irish later adopted it as a holiday to promote tourism in Ireland. A lot of us had immigrated to America during the famine. So it makes sense that it started here. Also some of the things that we have thought about Irish tradition is all wrong. Mainly the food they ate. Although the we had cattle, they were used mainly for milk and not for meat. They made a lot of dairy products and Beef was too expensive to eat. That type of meat was reserved for nobility and kings.



We, Irish people being a simple folk, ate pork and especially loved bacon and fried cabbage. If you didn't have a slab of bacon you could use a chunk of salt pork, thrown in with some fried cabbage and boiled potatoes. Potatoes also being a main staple of Ireland. The traditional drink is Guinness Beer and the idea of green beer came from green food coloring being dumped into a lake that stayed green colored for 2 days.



A GAELIC BLESSING:



May the roads rise to meet you.

May the wind be at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

The rain fall soft upon your fields

And, until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.



Patricius: The True Story of St. Patrick



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Before all the festivities focused on shamrocks and leprechauns and good luck wishes, there was truly something to celebrate: a man willing to stand in the gap for Jesus Christ. Reporter David Kithcart reveals the inspiring true story behind this courageous and fervent Irishman we all know as Saint Patrick.



It was an act of defiance that changed the course of a nation. Patrick lit a fire in pagan 5th century Ireland, ushering Christianity into the country. Who was this man who became the patron saint of Ireland?



Ireland was a beautiful island shrouded in terrible darkness. Warlords and druids ruled the land. But across the sea in Britain, a teen-ager was poised to bring this nation to God.



"Patrick was born into a Christian family,"

"His father was a deacon; his grandfather a priest. But Patrick says that from a n early age, he didn't have any serious interest in religion and that he was pratically an atheist when he was a teenager."



Around 400 A.D., Patrick was abducted from his village and thrown onto a slave ship headed for Ireland.



"He saw that as God chastising him, first of all," says Rev. Sean Brady. "That was the first view. He says we deserved what we got. We're carried at 16 years of age over to this foreign land."



Patrick was sold to a chieftain named Milchu. He spent six years tending his master's flocks on the slopes of the Slemish Mountain. Patrick recounts his time as a slave in his memoir entitled The Confession.



"He says, 'I prayed a hundred times in the day and almost as many at night,' " says Rev. Brady, the Roman Catholic Archbiship of Armagh and Primate of All of Ireland. "Through that experience of prayer and trial, he came to know another God -- God the Father, who was his protector. He came to know Jesus Christ in those sufferings, and he came to be united with Christ and he came to identify with Christ, and then of course, also the Holy Spirit."



One night during a time of prayer and fasting, Patrick wrote: "I heard in my sleep a voice saying to me: 'It is well that you fast. Soon you will go to your own country.' And again, after a short while, I heard a voice saying to me: 'See, your ship is ready.' "



Patrick escaped and traveled 200 miles cross country to the west coast. He found a ship ready to sail, but was refused passage. After a desperate prayer, he was allowed aboard.



Patrick eventually returned to his home and family. His experience of God's grace and provision solidified his faith. He began to study for the ministry.



Freeman says, "One night, he had a dream. Thee was a man who came from Ireland with a whole bunch of letters. And he opened up one of the letters and it said 'The Voice of the Irish.' And then he heard a voice coming out of this letter that said, 'Holy boy, please return to us. We need you.'"



Patrick struggled in his soul. Could he return to Ireland and minister to the same people who had enslaved him? Once again, he turned to God in prayer. He received the answer in a dream.



"He talks about how he, in this dream, is trying to pray and yet he can't," says Freeman. "So he hears a voice coming from inside of him which he realizes is the voice of God praying for him."



Patrick knew he had to go and convince his church that he was called to be a missionary to Ireland. He set sail in a small ship.



Patrick landed at the mouth of the Slaney River. When Patrick set foot on this shore, a new era dawned on this island.



"The Ireland of his day really wasn't much different from the Ireland of a few years ago here where we are sitting here at this moment," notes Most Reverend Dr. Robert Eames, Church of England Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. "It was an Ireland of tribalism, an Ireland of war, an Ireland of suspicion, an Ireland of violence and death. Here he came as a virtual stranger to this country of warring factions."



"They worshipped multiple gods of the sky and the earth and the water," says Freeman. "And so that was his first challenge: to convince the Irish that there was only one God and that his God really did love them."



Patrick came face to face with the chieftains and their druid priests. The showdown came on the morning of his first Easter in Ireland.



Monsignor Raymond Murray, parish priest of Cookstown in Northern Ireland explains further: "Part of the pagan worship of fall to spring, from the beginning of the summer, was that a fire was lit, and first of all, the fire on the hill of Tara and no other lights at all in Ireland."



This monastery on the hill of Slane is where Patrick -- in direct defiance of the high king of Tara -- lit a forbidden fire.



Notes Rev. Brady, "He was summoned before the king, and he explained that he wasn't a threat, because he was bringing the new light, the light of Christ, the Savior of the world, the Light of the world."



"The first light of Easter day was dawning. Patrick brought the hope of Easter day to Ireland," says Rev. Eames.



The weather can be absolutely brutal here in Ireland. But just imagine how it must've been for Patrick in the 5th century as he trekked across the countryside bringing the Gospel to the pagan Celts.



"People sometimes made fun of him because he said that God often gave him a message there was danger ahead," says Freeman. "But, he said, 'Laugh at me if you will. This is something that has protected me in Ireland.'"



Listen to Patrick's poem of faith and trust in God, "The Breastplate":



"Christ be within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ inquired, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger."



Myths and legends have grown up around this hero of Ireland.



As Monsignor Murray explains, it is sometimes difficult to describe the triune aspect of God. So, according to the story, to better illustrate the central teaching of the trinity, Patrick took a shamrock and pointed out the three leaves on it. Interestingly, it is only in Ireland that you find this shamrock. Therefore, the people believed.



"One of the famous legends, of course, is that Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland," says Irish historian Harold Calvert.



In fact, any snakes in Ireland had disappeared during the Ice Age.



"The legend about the driving of the snakes may, in fact, really symbolize the driving out of evil," says Calvert.



In 432 A.D., Patrick built a church on the site of the present day St. Patrick's Memorial Church in Saul -- the first ever Christian church in all of Ireland. It's considered the cradle of Irish Christianity.



"Preaching the Gospel, of course, baptizing converts, confirming them, appointing clergy," continues Calvert.



Patrick's ministry lasted 29 years. He baptized over 120,000 Irishmen and planted 300 churches.



"What Patrick did was really lay the groundwork for Christianity," says Freeman.



To this day, no one knows where Patrick is buried, but many believe that it is somewhere beneath the church on the hill at Down Cathedral.



Rev. Sean Brady concludes, "He was a man who came to face and help his former enemies who had enslaved him. He came back to help them and to do them a great favor -- the greatest favor he possibly could."



Rev. Earnes concurs, "I honestly feel that what Patrick taught Ireland was that there is a cost to discipleship, but it's a cost worth paying. And I believe, to bring this right up to date, the church of St. Patrick must be constantly saying to people, 'Discipleship demands of you, but it's a cost that Christ will help you to pay.'"







The Irish Mythology



The Mythological cycle. . .

contains the earliest collection of tales in Irish folklore. These legends were handed down from generation to generation over hundreds of years by Filid. The Filid were Bards or Poets and were important people at the time and they were closely connected to the Druids. According to Brehon laws it took a Fili about 12 years to become qualified.

At this time in ancient Ireland everything was handed down orally there were no written documents so it was the Bards job to record all events and these were retold often with the Bards own version.



A Bard could shame a high ranking person with the telling of a event which had happened earlier or could raise that persons image to great heights such was the power of the Bard, so how accurate these stories are we cannot say.



I have excluded some sections of the stories because they are just too long but I have included my Bibliography in the source page so further research can be carried out on some of the stories.

It is also worth noting that these stories were written down for the first time with the coming of Christianity in Ireland around 500 AD. While the legends and Myths are based on real events, how much truth there is in todays versions of them can be questioned like the story of Cessair who is believed to have been the first settler in Ireland and a Descendant of Noah . . .



Cessair landed at the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. She sailed out with 3 ships but only 1 landed at Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry with 40 women and 3 men on board 1 of the men being Cessair's father Bith who was said to be the son of Noah himself.



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The coming of Partholan. . .

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The Celts, as we have learned from Caesar, believed themselves to be descended from the God of the Underworld, the God of the Dead.



Partholan is said to have come into Ireland from the West, where beyond the vast, unsailed Atlantic Ocean the Irish Fairyland, the Land of the Living - i.e., the land of the Happy Dead - was placed. His father's name was Sera (the West?).



He came with his queen Dalny [Dealgnaid. I have been obliged here, as occasionally elsewhere; to modify the Irish names so as to make them pronounceable by English readers] and a number of companions of both sexes. Ireland - and this is an imaginative touch intended to suggest extreme antiquity-was then a different country, physically, from what it is now.



There were then but three lakes in Ireland) nine rivers, and only one plain. Others were added gradually during the reign of the Partholanians. One, Lake Rury, was said to have burst out as a grave was being dug for Rury, son of Partholan.



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The Fomorians

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The Partholanians, it is said, had to do battle with a strange race, called the Fomorians, of whom we shall hear much in later sections of this book. They were a huge, misshapen, violent and cruel people, representing, we may believe, the powers of evil. One of these was surnamed Cenchos, which means The Footless, and thus appears to be related to Vitra, the God of Evil in Vedantic mythology, who had neither feet nor hands. With a host of these demons Partholan fought for the lordship of Ireland, and drove them out to the northern seas, whence they occasionally harried the country under its later rulers.

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The end of the race of Partholan was that they were afflicted by pestilence, and having gathered together on the Old Plain (Senmag) for convenience of burying their dead, they all perished there; and Ireland once more lay empty for reoccupation.



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The Legend of Tuan mac Carell

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Who, then, told the tale? This brings us to the mention of a very curious and interesting legend - one of the numerous legendary narratives in which these tales of the Mythical Period have come down to us. It is found in the so called "Book of the Dun Cow," a manuscript of about the year A.D. 1100, and is entitled "The Legend of Tuan mac Carell."



St. Finnen, an Irish abbot of the sixth century, is said to have gone to seek hospitality from a chief named Tuan mac Carell, who dwelt not far from Finnen's monastery at Moville, Co. Donegal. Tuan refused him admittance. The saint sat down on the doorstep of the chief and fasted for a whole Sunday [see p. 48, note 1] upon which the surly pagan warrior opened the door to him. Good relations were established between them, and the saint returned to his monks.

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"Tuan is an excellent man," said he to them; "he will come to you and comfort you, and tell you the old stories of Ireland." [I follow in this narrative R. I. Best's translation of the "Irish Mythological Cycle" of d'Arbois de Jubainville]



This humane interest in the old myths and legends of the country is, it may here be observed, a feature as constant as it is pleasant in the literature of early Irish Christianity.



Tuan came shortly afterwards to return the visit of the saint, and invited him and his disciples to his fortress. They asked him of his name and lineage, and he gave an astounding reply. "I am a man of Ulster," he said. "My name is Tuan son of Carell. But once I was called Tuan son of Starn, son of Sera, and my father, Starn, was the brother of Partholan."



"Tell us the history of Ireland," then said Finnen, and Tuan began. Partholan, he said, was the first of men to settle in Ireland. After the great pestilence already narrated he alone survived, "for there is never a slaughter that one man does not come out of it to tell the tale." Tuan was alone in the land, and he wandered about from one vacant fortress to another, from rock to rock, seeking shelter from the wolves. For twenty-two years he lived thus alone, dwelling in waste places, till at last he fell into extreme decrepitude and old age.



"Then Nemed son of Agnoman took possession of Ireland. He [Agnoman] was my father's brother. I saw him from the cliffs, and kept avoiding him. I was long-haired, clawed, decrepit, grey, naked, wretched, miserable. Then one evening I fell asleep, and when I woke again on the morrow I was changed into a stag. I was young again and glad of heart. Then I sang of the coming of Nermed and of his race, and of my own transformation. . . . 'I have put on a new form, a skin rough and grey. Victory and joy are easy to me; a little while ago I was weak and defenceless.



Tuan is then king of all the deer of Ireland, and so remained all the days of Nemed and his race.



He tells how the Nemedians sailed for Ireland in a fleet of thirty-two barks, in each bark thirty persons. They went astray on the sea for a year and a half, and most of them perished of hunger and thirst or of ship-wreck. Nine only escaped - Nemed himself, with four men and four women. These landed in Ireland, and increased their numbers in the course of time till they were 8060 men and women. Then all of them mysteriously died.



Again old age and decrepitude fell upon Tuan, but another transformation awaited him. "Once I was standing at the mouth of my cave - I still remember it - and l knew that my body changed into another form. I was a wild boar. And I sang this song about it:



" 'Today I am a boar. . . . Time was when I sat in the assembly that gave the judgments of Partholan. It was sung, and all praised the melody. How pleasant was the strain of my brilliant judgment ! How pleasant to the comely young women ! My chariot went along in majesty and beauty. My voice was grave and sweet. My step was swift and firm in battle. My face was full of charm. Today, lo ! I am changed into a black boar.'



"That is what I said. Yea, of a surety I was a wild boar. Then I became young again and I was glad. I was king of the boar-herds in Ireland; and, faithful to any custom, I went the rounds of my abode when I returned into the lands of Ulster, at the times old age and wretchedness came upon me. For it was always there that my transformations took place, and that is why I went back thither to await the renewal of my body."



Tuan then goes on to tell how Semion son of Stariat settled in Ireland, from whom descended the Firbolgs and two other tribes who persisted into historic times. Again old age comes on, his strength fails him, and he undergoes another transformation; he becomes "a great eagle of the sea, and once more rejoices in renewed youth and vigour. He then tells how the People of Dana came in, "gods and false gods from whom every one knows the Irish men of learning are sprung." After these came the Sons of Miled, who conquered the People of Dana. All this time Tuan kept the shape of the Sea-eagle, till one day, finding himself about to undergo another transformation, he fasted nine days; "then sleep fell upon me, and I was changed into a salmon." He rejoices in his new life, escaping for many years the snares of the fishermen, till at last he is captured by one of them and brought to the wife of Carell, chief of the country. "The woman desired me and ate me by herself, whole, so that I passed into her womb." He is born again, and passes for Tuan son of Carell; but the memory of his pre-existence and all his transformations and all the history of Ireland that he witnessed since the days of Partholan still abides with him, and he teaches all these things to the Christian monks, who carefully preserve them.



This wild tale, with its atmosphere of grey antiquity and of childlike wonder, reminds us of the transformations of the Welsh Taliessin, who also became an eagle, and points to that doctrine of the transmigration of the soul which as we have seen, haunted the imagination of the Celt.



We have now to add some details to the sketch of of the successive colonisations of Ireland outlined by Tuan mac Carell.



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The Nemedians



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The Nemedians, as we have seen, were akin to the Partholanians. Both of them came from the mysterious regions of the dead, though later Irish accounts, which endeavoured to reconcile this mythical matter with Christianity, invented for them a descent from Scriptural patriarchs and an origin in earthly lands such as Spain or Scythia.



Both of them had to do constant battle with the Fomorians, whom the later legends make out to be pirates from oversea, but who are doubtless divinities representing the powers of darkness and evil. There is no legend of the Fomorians coming into Ireland, nor were they regarded as at any time a regular portion of the population. They were coeval with the world itself. Nemed fought victoriously against them in four great battles, but shortly afterwards died of a plague which carried off 2000 of his people with him.

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The Fomorians were then enabled to establish their tyranny over Ireland. They had at this period two kings, Morc and Conann. The stronghold of the Formorian power was on Tory Island, which uplifts its wild cliffs and precipices in the Atlantic off the coast of Donegal - a fit home for this race of mystery and horror. They extracted a crushing tribute from the people of Ireland, two-thirds of all the milk and two-thirds of the children of the land. At last the Nemedians rise in revolt. Lead by three chiefs, they land on Tory Island, capture Conann's Tower, and Conann himself falls by the hand of the Nemedian chief, Fergus. But Morc at this moment comes into the battle with a fresh host, and utterly routs the Nemedians, who are all slain but thirty:

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"The men of Erin were all at the battle,

After the Fomorians came

All of them the sea engulphed,

Save only three times ten."

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The thirty survivors leave Ireland in despair. According to the most ancient belief they perished utterly, leaving no descendants, but later accounts, which endeavour to make sober history out of all these myths, represent one family, that of the chief Britain, as settling in Great Britain and giving their name to that country, while two others returned to Ireland, after many wanderings, as the Firbolgs and People of Dana.



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The Coming of the FirboIgs



Who were the Firbolgs, and what did they represent in Irish legend? The name appears to mean "Men of the Bags," and a legend was in later times invented to account for it. It was said that after settling in Greece they were oppressed by the people of that country, who set them to carry earth from the fertile valleys up to the rocky hills, so as to make arable ground of the latter. They did their task by means of leathern bags; but at last, growing weary of the oppression, they made boats or coracles out of their bags, and set sail in them for Ireland. Nennius, however, says they came from Spain, for according to him all the various races that inhabited Ireland came originally from Spain; and "Spain" with him is a rationalistic rendering of the Celtic words designating the Land of the Dead. [De Jubainville, "Irish Mythological Cycle," p. 75] They came in three groups, the Fir-Boig, the Fir-Domnan, and the Gailoin, who are all generally designated as Firbolgs. They play no great part in Irish mythical history, and a certain character of servility and inferiority appears to attach to them throughout.



One of their kings, Eochy [Pronounced "Yeo.hee"] mac Erc, took in marriage Taltiu, or Telta, daughter of the King of the "Great Plain" (the Land of the Dead). Telta had a palace at the palace now called after her, Telltown (properly Teltin). There she died, and there, even in medieval Ireland, a great annual assembly or fair was held in her honour.



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The Coming of the People of Dana But we Irish call her Danu)

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We now come to by far the most interesting and important of the mythical invaders and colonisers of Ireland, the People of Dana. The name, Tuatha De Danann; means literally "the folk of the god whose mother is Dana."



Dana also sometimes bears another name, that of Brigit, a goddess held in much honour by pagan Ireland, whose attributes are in a great measure transferred in legend to the Christian St. Brigit of the sixth century. Her name is also found in Gaulish inscriptions as "Brigindo," and occurs in several British inscriptions as "Brigantia."

She was the daughter of the supreme head of the People of Dana, the god Dagda, "The Good." She had three sons, who are said to have had in common one only son, named Ecne that is to say, "Knowledge," or "Poetry." [The science of the Druids, as we have seen, was conveyed in verse, and the professional poets were a branch of the Druidic Order] Ecrie, then, may be said to be the god whose mother was Dana, and the race to whom she gave her name are the dearest representatives we have in Irish myths of the powers of Light and Knowledge.



It will be remembered that alone among all these mythical races Tuan mac Carell gave to the People of Dana the name of "gods." Yet it is not as gods that they appear in the form in which Irish legends about them have now come down to us. Christian influences reduced them to the rank of fairies or identified them with the fallen angels. They were conquered by the Milesians, who are conceived as an entirely human race, and who had all sorts of relations of love and war with them until quite recent times. Yet even in the later legends a certain splendour and exaltation appears to invest the People of Dana, recalling the high estate from which they had been dethroned.



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The Popular and the Bardic Conceptions

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Nor must it be overlooked that the popular conception of the Danaan deities was probably at all times something different from the bardic and Druidic, or in other words the scholarly, conception. The latter, as we shall see, represents them as the presiding deities of science and poetry. This is not a popular idea; it is the product of the Celtic, the Aryan imagination, inspired by a strictly intellectual conception. The common people, who represented mainly the Megalithic element in the population, appear to have conceived their deities as earth-powers - dei terreni; as they are explicitly called in the eighth-century "Book of Armagh" [Mever and Nutt, "Voyage of Bran, ii. 197.] presiding, not over science and poetry, but rather agriculture, controlling the fecundity of the earth and water, and dwelling in hills, rivers, and lakes. In the bardic literature the Aryan idea is prominent; the other is to be found in innumerable folk-tales and popular observances; but of course in each case a considerable amount of interpenetration of the two conceptions is to met with - no sharp dividing line was drawn between them in ancient times, and none can be drawn now.

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Ceist! Cia do cheinneóchadh dán?

a chiall is ceirteólas suadh

an ngébhadh, nó an áil le haon,

dán saor do-bhéaradh go buan?



Gé dán sin go snadhmadh bhfis,

gach margadh ó chrois go crois

do shiobhail mé an mhumhain leis

ní breis é a-nuraidh ná a-nois.



D'éirneist gémadh beag an bonn,

níor chuir fear ná éinbhean ann,

níor luaidh aoinfhear créad dá chionn,

níor fhéagh liom Gaoidheal ná Gall.



Ceard mar so ní sochar dhún,

gé dochar a dol fa lár:

uaisle dul re déiniomh cíor—

ga bríogh d'éinfhior dul re dá?



translation:



Question! Who will buy a poem?

Its meaning is genuine learning of scholars.

Will any take, or does any lack,

a noble poem that shall make him immortal?



Though this is a poem with close-knit science,

I have walked all Munster with it,

every market from cross to cross—

nothing gained from last year to this time.



Though a groat were a small earnest,

not one man or woman offered it:

no man mentioned the reason;

neither Gael nor Gall gave heed to me.



Such an art as this is no profit to me,

though it is a misfortune that it should fall to the ground:

it were more honourable to become a maker of combs—

what use is it to anyone to profess poetry?



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Here this is All I can tell you about our history, and mythology. =P

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