Marjory felt some nagging concern about the appointment of the new minister. After all, their former minister had been with the parish for nearly forty years, and it was enough of a wrench to place their spiritual well-being in the hands of a stranger. But she felt substance to her worries when the throaty roar of a motorbike outside heralded his arrival. He strode up the central aisle, buckles clinking on his motorbike boots, surplice fluttering behind him.
Marjory reached for her hymnal in anticipation of the service, reassured by the musty smell of the pages in her leather-gloved hands. She had to admit that the congregation had grown somewhat over the last few weeks, even if the worshippers appeared young and unkempt. Marjory always believed that she would be committed to the earth in the church she had attended from childhood. Recently she had wondered if she would outlast the church as she entered her ninth decade, and the renewed vitality was a comfort.
She leafed through the tissue-thin pages until she found the first hymn. O God of Earth and Altar by G K Chesterton (1874-1936). At least the hymns had remained old-fashioned. The organ swelled and she stood to sing, her papery voice drowned out by the others. As she sung, the bass notes of the organ surged through the church and hummed in the wood of the pews. The new organist had somehow increased the volume of the old pipe-organ, and had a fondness for the dramatic and gothic. Last week, during the youth service, he had even played a song called After Forever, by a band called Sabbath.
Dust-motes danced like angels as they sung, and after the third hymn, it was time for the reading and the sermon. The readings followed little set pattern, and this week it was from Revelation 13:18. Unusually the minister himself would read, rather than one of the church officers.
‘Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast,’ boomed the minister, ‘for it is a human number…’ He was tall and thin, darkly long-haired with a handlebar moustache.
‘…and blood came out from the winepress, as far as one thousand six hundred stadia.’ He closed the book and leafed through the notes of his sermon.
‘Some say that young people are born to be wild…’ Marjory heard a murmuring amongst the congregation, towards the back, at this first line. The sermon seemed to be about youth lawlessness, a matter of some concern in the community.
‘Breaking the law is not acceptable…’ There were more suppressed whispers behind her.
The sermon was now coming to a close, reassuring words designed to restore confidence in the community. And there was a rumble of whispering as the minister reached his conclusion, ‘...sometimes it can seem as if we are living in a wicked world, with our old people living in fear of the dark.’
‘That concludes the sermon for today.’ The minister smiled. The organ roared once more for the final hymn. O Jesus I Have Promised by John Bode (1816-74). Another fine old traditional hymn, designed for the sombre notes of the organ.
This was followed by the Lord’s Prayer, which Marjory had indeed learned at her mother’s knee.
‘Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name….’
‘Bingo!’ A voice hissed from the back. Marjory couldn’t believe it.
The minister glared disapprovingly and began the prayer again.
‘Our Father, who art in Heaven…’
They stood as the minister raised his hands and intoned the Benediction. And then they all filed down the aisle towards the church door. A bucket-seated motorbike was tilted on its stand outside the gates, flames painted on the fuel-tank, outlining the words Heaven’s Angels.
‘Marjory, how delightful to see you,’ said the minister as he shook her hand outside. He was quite a pleasant chap after all, thought Marjory as she lingered, waiting on her friend Edie who had arrived late and was at the back of the church, among the last to file out.
Then she saw a young man with long hair, whispering intently to the minister. She could overhear what he was saying.
‘I got them all. Bingo!’ he said. ‘Last one was Iron Maiden, Hallowed Be Thy Name. Judas Priest, Breaking The Law. Iron Maiden, Fear of the Dark. Steppenwolf, Born To Be Wild. Black Sabbath, Wicked World.’
The minister frowned. ‘Yes, but the last one was the Lord’s Prayer. Those words are in it anyway.’ He reached inside his surplice and slipped something out of a pocket, handing it over to the young man. It was a half-bottle of whiskey with a black label. ‘Try not to shout out next time.’
Marjory’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe it. Then she saw her friend Edie, shaking hands with the minister, last in line. Edie hobbled across on her walking stick, smiling as she saw her friend through her thick bifocal glasses.
‘Marjory, how are you?’
‘Not too bad, all things considered,’ she replied. ‘But what about this minister. Isn’t it a disgrace?’
‘Oh, him and his motorbike.’ Edie smiled. ‘Well, let me tell you about something. On Friday night, those youths started up again, smashing their bottles and burning things just like every night. In my garden as well. I didn’t know what to do!’ She stopped for breath. ‘I was going to phone the police but they don’t even bother any more. Then I heard this noise. It was a motorbike, like that one.’ She pointed with a shaking hand.
Marjory watched as the minister mounted his motorbike and kick-started the engine.
‘In fact, it sounded just like that one,’ said Edie. ‘More than one of them. I don’t know what they did, but those lads haven’t been back. I had the first proper night’s sleep in goodness knows how long.’
From the nearby car park there was the roar of more motorcycle engines.
Maybe the new minister wasn’t so bad after all.
Monday 15 November 2010
Sunday 24 October 2010
Halloween Special: Legacy
Legacy
There are places where the forests once held sway, where hidden glades once lay deep in darkest woodland, where secret paths once criss-crossed the land, linking places of ritual and sacrifice. Now these paths are gone, obliterated by the Roman, furrowed by the Saxon, fortressed by the Norman and built over by generations since. But, in some places, the mystery lingers and the dead still tread upon the paths they have ever walked.
Once, in the Anglo Saxon chronicles, there was a farm by a wood, near the ancient Bernwood Forest. By the time of the Domesday Book, this village had become Oldtone, and the oaken hulls of medieval fleets had claimed the woodland. But the town of Wotton Underwood remained, on the fringes of the Chilterns, and had crept back into a semblance of forested isolation since the closure of the railways and the construction of the motorway which avoided the ancient byways of pilgrimage and commerce. Perhaps this is why towns like Wotton Underwood were sought after by those seeking solitude and retreat from celebrity. The tree-shaded croquet lawns and swimming pools of rock stars and actors nestle behind high walls, red brick and flintstone contrasting with the steel gates that slide smoothly open upon electronic command, watched over by television eyes.
In the gatehouse, on Sunday night, the Special Branch officer lounged in his chair. He kept one eye on the flickering CCTV display, and another eye on the television. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. Exploding dummies and worm-eyed robots. He knew it well. He sat, cleaning his spare pistol, the brush and rod sliding up and down the rifled barrel, picking into the recesses of the firing chamber. Satisfied with his efforts, he slid in the bolt and clicked the two halves of the weapon together. He worked the slide, which snapped forward as it should, checked the safety catch, pulled the trigger with a dry click and inserted an empty magazine. Then, something caught his eye.
Something flickered on the CCTV monitor, outside the gate. Then it was gone.
He spoke into his radio handset.
‘Base, this is outpost, over.’ The only response was the hiss of static. ‘Base, this is outpost, over.’ He picked up the phone, but the dialling tone was dead.
‘Fuck.’ He was in a dilemma, with a potential threat outside and his backup unresponsive. Priority had to be the safety of the Principal. He would need to check the external threat, before working out what was wrong with the communications.
So he heaved himself out of his chair and slid on an armoured vest and waterproof jacket, unlatching the door and stepping into the breezy October night. The tang of woodsmoke on the wind always reminded him of burnt urine, not that he had ever smelled it. There was something underneath it though, a scorched odour that was familiar. His mind groped for the label in vain, before he returned to reality.
‘Better check it out.’ He felt for the pistol in the shoulder holster and withdrew it, checking the safety catch as always. Then he remembered that his spare handgun was still on the desk in the gatehouse. ‘Fuck.’ It was a potential disciplinary offence to leave it unsecured, but he forced himself to relax. It was unloaded, locked in the gatehouse, and all his ammunition was in a belt-pouch in the small of his back, two spare magazines in total.
He sneaked towards the front gate, staying on the damp verge instead of crunching on the gravel. The gate was constructed of solid steel bars, hydraulically powered and proof against vehicles and explosive devices, certified by an army of risk assessors and security experts. But it could be climbed over easily enough, as could the wall. No intruder alarms had been triggered, at least to his knowledge given the communication glitch, but it was prudent to check. He peered through the railings, both hands clasping the pistol in a downwards grip.
There was something out there, a fleeting figure, in fact more than one. Then, the wind whipped up around his ankles and something invisible rushed at him, between the railings. And all went black.
***
‘Base to outpost, over!’ The officer sat in the mansion’s tapestry-lined hall, staring through the peephole of the blastproofed door. He clicked the transmit button on the radio once more. ‘Base to outpost, over.’ There was no response.
The Principal fidgeted behind him. ‘What do you think it is?’
The officer always found it strange hearing that voice, familiar over so many years from the television and radio news reports, but now stripped of its inflections and stage-mannerisms.
‘Not sure, Sir. But I’d better take a look. Outpost isn’t responding and the other two officers are off-site.’
‘Can it wait until they get back? My wife shouldn’t be long, perhaps just another hour.’ The permanently-tanned brow furrowed in irritation.
The officer had thought the Principal might be informal, given his well-known sofa-manners, but he was usually dismissive, as if continually pre-occupied.
‘I’d better check it out, Sir, just in case. I’ll call this in to headquarters as well. You should stay close to the Bolthole, just as a precaution.’
The Bolthole was a steel-walled and lead-lined ‘panic room’ which was proofed against high explosive, poison gas and radioactivity, with an internal air supply for two weeks. But it was not the done thing to call it a ‘panic room’ so it was known as the Bolthole.
‘Okay then,’ sighed the Principal as he walked up the central staircase towards the Bolthole, opposite the bedroom on the first floor balcony. The inside was rather claustrophobic, so he sat on a red leather chaise-longue, gazing idly at the paintings and tapestries that lined the wood-panelled walls of the grand hall. His wife had taken down all the weapons, or rather had told someone else to. Might send the wrong message, she had said, and they’re still going on about that ridiculous war. Not that he cared. He had his own worries. He took out his Blackberry and switched it on, listening to the door click shut as the bodyguard stepped outside.
Five minutes, then ten minutes, and twenty minutes passed. The Principal sat on the couch, shifting his backside as pins and needles plagued him, flicking through the newswires through longstanding habit. Then his patience snapped. ‘For fuck’s sake, where is he?’ He stood up and stretched, walking towards the Bolthole. Then, he stopped, muttering to himself.
‘She’ll be back soon. What’ll she say if I’m cowering in here? What if something’s happened, and the media find out. What will they say?’
He descended the staircase, hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He was mostly frightened, but felt a slight thrill of excitement. I could be a hero, he thought. Grab the bodyguard’s gun, shoot a terrorist. The fantasy sent a shiver of pleasure down his spine. What would they say then, eh? They won’t be talking about wars and inquiries and whitewashes and deaths anymore! He smiled, a familiar grin spreading across his face. Might even be a new chapter for my memoirs, for the paperback version.
The Principal gently pulled the heavy door open, unused to the mechanism and more accustomed to doors being opened for him. He looked back over his shoulder before stepping outside. There was a flicker, in the mirror which hung on the wall by the staircase. Again. A spasm seized the side of his face. Maybe I’m going mad. He had taken most of the other mirrors down, anxious at the shapes which had flickered on the edge of his vision, but unable to confide in anyone. He wrenched his gaze away and stepped out into the cool night outside, closing the door behind him.
The bodyguards lay on the ground at the end of the driveway. He turned, to run back into the Bolthole. Fuck! He realised with a surge of terror that the door had locked behind him. Panic seized him, rooting him to the ground. Then an idea flashed in his mind. The gatehouse! He ran towards the gatehouse, feet crunching on the gravel. Then, halfway down the driveway, he saw them at the gate, felt the blast of icy air that preceded them.
Shimmering shapes of white and grey, hanging on the wind, black holes for mouths and eyes. Some crawled, some walked and some were incomplete, missing arms or legs or even both. Some were tall, some were small and some were babes in arms. The boy with the shell of a skull, hollowed by a cannon-shell. Limbless soldiers in scraps of uniform. Women, children, forever crawling away from the wreckage of car bombs. Ethereal wisps without any form to relate to, aviators once strewn amongst wreckage, soldiers atomised by high explosives. Bubbling skin, mist-tendrils still scorched by napalm and phosphorus. Suicides with broken heads, and the shapes of children yet unborn, never to be born, poisoned by depleted uranium. The ghostly evidence of mass destruction, still walking in the night after all these years, their numbers swelling even now.
The odours of war filled his nostrils, scorched flesh and decay, gunsmoke, kerosene, sweat and blood. He retched once, twice, emptying his stomach.
He sprinted for the gatehouse door and pulled at the handle, praying for it to open. And mercifully it did. He slammed the door shut behind him, and the lock clicked shut. Pain fluttered in his chest. He glanced around, saw the telephone and the pistol, and seized the phone receiver.
There was no dialling tone, just a hiss which grew in volume, a hundred thousand distant wails of agony. Getting closer and closer, like the faces pushing at the windows, white shapes contorted in pain and the agony of betrayal. He recognised them as the flashes which had fleetingly leered at him from mirrors and reflections, glimpsed from the corner of his eye over the last few years.
‘No…’ His cry of desperation grew in his chest. They would never leave him alone, never stop hounding him, even after the beasts of the media and the feral anti-war troublemakers had finished picking over the carcase of his legacy. And these were worst of all, the ghosts of his suppressed conscience made real.
He grabbed the pistol and the smell of gun oil reassured him. He pointed it at the writing shapes, pulling back the slide in the same way he had seen his bodyguards rehearse emergency drills, but his hand was shaking wildly.
‘Leave….me….ALONE!’
But he knew they never would. So he pointed the gun at his temple, squeezed his eyes shut at the same time he squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot echoed throughout the gatehouse and across the landscaped grounds outside.
***
Blue lights flashed across the flintstone walls of the mansion, but were lost in the depths of the woods. The Principal’s corpse had been zipped up in a body bag, like those of so many others under his watch and in the aftermath of his legacy.
No less a figure than the Deputy Chief Constable stood at the scene, and the only reason the Chief himself was not there was his absence on leave in the Caribbean. He stood, hands deep in the pockets of his fluorescent incident jacket, which covered the civilian clothes he had been wearing when called from home.
Helicopters roared in the distance, the noise getting steadily closer.
‘The top brass from the Home Office and the Met will be here any minute,’ said the Deputy, to the incident commander. ‘Do we have any idea what happened?’
‘Looks like he shot himself, Sir.’ The Chief Superintendent stroked his chin. ‘The two Special Branch officers say that there was some sort of disturbance outside, and they went to check. They don’t really remember anything else.’
‘What about CCTV?’
‘We’ve quickly checked the tapes. Most of them are fuzzy, and the tech guys will analyse them. Apparently there’s been electrical disturbances locally. But the gatehouse camera has clear footage.’
‘Does that show what happened?’
‘Pretty much. The officer call-signed ‘Outpost’ is cleaning his backup firearm, then he goes outside. Nothing much happens until the Principal enters the gatehouse in a state of panic, picks up the phone, then the pistol, before blowing his brains out.’
‘Looks like the Special Branch guys can say goodbye to their careers then. They shouldn’t have left the Principal and should not have left a loaded weapon lying around.’
The Chief Superintendent sighed. ‘Well, Sir, the officer claims he left it unloaded in accordance with the standard drills. You would think he had left a round in the chamber by mistake when he unloaded it, but the camera shows him firing off the action before loading the magazine.’
The helicopters touched down on the croquet lawn in a whirlwind of light and noise.
The Deputy Chief leaned closer to the Chief Superintendent to make himself heard over the noise. ‘Get ready for the media shit-storm tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But at least we’re in the clear.’
The rotors whirled, blowing up dust and gravel, slicing away the vague traces of mist which hung on the All Hallow’s Eve air. In the darkness of the woods, in the shadows, unseen figures slid away, except for one which lingered, wandering lost before eventually dissipating like the last wisps of smoke from a gun barrel or funeral pyre.
This story may seem to have a familiar protagonist and subject. I resigned from the Royal Air Force after the revelations of the Hutton Inquiry. If life ever chooses to imitate art.....Happy Halloween!
There are places where the forests once held sway, where hidden glades once lay deep in darkest woodland, where secret paths once criss-crossed the land, linking places of ritual and sacrifice. Now these paths are gone, obliterated by the Roman, furrowed by the Saxon, fortressed by the Norman and built over by generations since. But, in some places, the mystery lingers and the dead still tread upon the paths they have ever walked.
Once, in the Anglo Saxon chronicles, there was a farm by a wood, near the ancient Bernwood Forest. By the time of the Domesday Book, this village had become Oldtone, and the oaken hulls of medieval fleets had claimed the woodland. But the town of Wotton Underwood remained, on the fringes of the Chilterns, and had crept back into a semblance of forested isolation since the closure of the railways and the construction of the motorway which avoided the ancient byways of pilgrimage and commerce. Perhaps this is why towns like Wotton Underwood were sought after by those seeking solitude and retreat from celebrity. The tree-shaded croquet lawns and swimming pools of rock stars and actors nestle behind high walls, red brick and flintstone contrasting with the steel gates that slide smoothly open upon electronic command, watched over by television eyes.
In the gatehouse, on Sunday night, the Special Branch officer lounged in his chair. He kept one eye on the flickering CCTV display, and another eye on the television. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. Exploding dummies and worm-eyed robots. He knew it well. He sat, cleaning his spare pistol, the brush and rod sliding up and down the rifled barrel, picking into the recesses of the firing chamber. Satisfied with his efforts, he slid in the bolt and clicked the two halves of the weapon together. He worked the slide, which snapped forward as it should, checked the safety catch, pulled the trigger with a dry click and inserted an empty magazine. Then, something caught his eye.
Something flickered on the CCTV monitor, outside the gate. Then it was gone.
He spoke into his radio handset.
‘Base, this is outpost, over.’ The only response was the hiss of static. ‘Base, this is outpost, over.’ He picked up the phone, but the dialling tone was dead.
‘Fuck.’ He was in a dilemma, with a potential threat outside and his backup unresponsive. Priority had to be the safety of the Principal. He would need to check the external threat, before working out what was wrong with the communications.
So he heaved himself out of his chair and slid on an armoured vest and waterproof jacket, unlatching the door and stepping into the breezy October night. The tang of woodsmoke on the wind always reminded him of burnt urine, not that he had ever smelled it. There was something underneath it though, a scorched odour that was familiar. His mind groped for the label in vain, before he returned to reality.
‘Better check it out.’ He felt for the pistol in the shoulder holster and withdrew it, checking the safety catch as always. Then he remembered that his spare handgun was still on the desk in the gatehouse. ‘Fuck.’ It was a potential disciplinary offence to leave it unsecured, but he forced himself to relax. It was unloaded, locked in the gatehouse, and all his ammunition was in a belt-pouch in the small of his back, two spare magazines in total.
He sneaked towards the front gate, staying on the damp verge instead of crunching on the gravel. The gate was constructed of solid steel bars, hydraulically powered and proof against vehicles and explosive devices, certified by an army of risk assessors and security experts. But it could be climbed over easily enough, as could the wall. No intruder alarms had been triggered, at least to his knowledge given the communication glitch, but it was prudent to check. He peered through the railings, both hands clasping the pistol in a downwards grip.
There was something out there, a fleeting figure, in fact more than one. Then, the wind whipped up around his ankles and something invisible rushed at him, between the railings. And all went black.
***
‘Base to outpost, over!’ The officer sat in the mansion’s tapestry-lined hall, staring through the peephole of the blastproofed door. He clicked the transmit button on the radio once more. ‘Base to outpost, over.’ There was no response.
The Principal fidgeted behind him. ‘What do you think it is?’
The officer always found it strange hearing that voice, familiar over so many years from the television and radio news reports, but now stripped of its inflections and stage-mannerisms.
‘Not sure, Sir. But I’d better take a look. Outpost isn’t responding and the other two officers are off-site.’
‘Can it wait until they get back? My wife shouldn’t be long, perhaps just another hour.’ The permanently-tanned brow furrowed in irritation.
The officer had thought the Principal might be informal, given his well-known sofa-manners, but he was usually dismissive, as if continually pre-occupied.
‘I’d better check it out, Sir, just in case. I’ll call this in to headquarters as well. You should stay close to the Bolthole, just as a precaution.’
The Bolthole was a steel-walled and lead-lined ‘panic room’ which was proofed against high explosive, poison gas and radioactivity, with an internal air supply for two weeks. But it was not the done thing to call it a ‘panic room’ so it was known as the Bolthole.
‘Okay then,’ sighed the Principal as he walked up the central staircase towards the Bolthole, opposite the bedroom on the first floor balcony. The inside was rather claustrophobic, so he sat on a red leather chaise-longue, gazing idly at the paintings and tapestries that lined the wood-panelled walls of the grand hall. His wife had taken down all the weapons, or rather had told someone else to. Might send the wrong message, she had said, and they’re still going on about that ridiculous war. Not that he cared. He had his own worries. He took out his Blackberry and switched it on, listening to the door click shut as the bodyguard stepped outside.
Five minutes, then ten minutes, and twenty minutes passed. The Principal sat on the couch, shifting his backside as pins and needles plagued him, flicking through the newswires through longstanding habit. Then his patience snapped. ‘For fuck’s sake, where is he?’ He stood up and stretched, walking towards the Bolthole. Then, he stopped, muttering to himself.
‘She’ll be back soon. What’ll she say if I’m cowering in here? What if something’s happened, and the media find out. What will they say?’
He descended the staircase, hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He was mostly frightened, but felt a slight thrill of excitement. I could be a hero, he thought. Grab the bodyguard’s gun, shoot a terrorist. The fantasy sent a shiver of pleasure down his spine. What would they say then, eh? They won’t be talking about wars and inquiries and whitewashes and deaths anymore! He smiled, a familiar grin spreading across his face. Might even be a new chapter for my memoirs, for the paperback version.
The Principal gently pulled the heavy door open, unused to the mechanism and more accustomed to doors being opened for him. He looked back over his shoulder before stepping outside. There was a flicker, in the mirror which hung on the wall by the staircase. Again. A spasm seized the side of his face. Maybe I’m going mad. He had taken most of the other mirrors down, anxious at the shapes which had flickered on the edge of his vision, but unable to confide in anyone. He wrenched his gaze away and stepped out into the cool night outside, closing the door behind him.
The bodyguards lay on the ground at the end of the driveway. He turned, to run back into the Bolthole. Fuck! He realised with a surge of terror that the door had locked behind him. Panic seized him, rooting him to the ground. Then an idea flashed in his mind. The gatehouse! He ran towards the gatehouse, feet crunching on the gravel. Then, halfway down the driveway, he saw them at the gate, felt the blast of icy air that preceded them.
Shimmering shapes of white and grey, hanging on the wind, black holes for mouths and eyes. Some crawled, some walked and some were incomplete, missing arms or legs or even both. Some were tall, some were small and some were babes in arms. The boy with the shell of a skull, hollowed by a cannon-shell. Limbless soldiers in scraps of uniform. Women, children, forever crawling away from the wreckage of car bombs. Ethereal wisps without any form to relate to, aviators once strewn amongst wreckage, soldiers atomised by high explosives. Bubbling skin, mist-tendrils still scorched by napalm and phosphorus. Suicides with broken heads, and the shapes of children yet unborn, never to be born, poisoned by depleted uranium. The ghostly evidence of mass destruction, still walking in the night after all these years, their numbers swelling even now.
The odours of war filled his nostrils, scorched flesh and decay, gunsmoke, kerosene, sweat and blood. He retched once, twice, emptying his stomach.
He sprinted for the gatehouse door and pulled at the handle, praying for it to open. And mercifully it did. He slammed the door shut behind him, and the lock clicked shut. Pain fluttered in his chest. He glanced around, saw the telephone and the pistol, and seized the phone receiver.
There was no dialling tone, just a hiss which grew in volume, a hundred thousand distant wails of agony. Getting closer and closer, like the faces pushing at the windows, white shapes contorted in pain and the agony of betrayal. He recognised them as the flashes which had fleetingly leered at him from mirrors and reflections, glimpsed from the corner of his eye over the last few years.
‘No…’ His cry of desperation grew in his chest. They would never leave him alone, never stop hounding him, even after the beasts of the media and the feral anti-war troublemakers had finished picking over the carcase of his legacy. And these were worst of all, the ghosts of his suppressed conscience made real.
He grabbed the pistol and the smell of gun oil reassured him. He pointed it at the writing shapes, pulling back the slide in the same way he had seen his bodyguards rehearse emergency drills, but his hand was shaking wildly.
‘Leave….me….ALONE!’
But he knew they never would. So he pointed the gun at his temple, squeezed his eyes shut at the same time he squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot echoed throughout the gatehouse and across the landscaped grounds outside.
***
Blue lights flashed across the flintstone walls of the mansion, but were lost in the depths of the woods. The Principal’s corpse had been zipped up in a body bag, like those of so many others under his watch and in the aftermath of his legacy.
No less a figure than the Deputy Chief Constable stood at the scene, and the only reason the Chief himself was not there was his absence on leave in the Caribbean. He stood, hands deep in the pockets of his fluorescent incident jacket, which covered the civilian clothes he had been wearing when called from home.
Helicopters roared in the distance, the noise getting steadily closer.
‘The top brass from the Home Office and the Met will be here any minute,’ said the Deputy, to the incident commander. ‘Do we have any idea what happened?’
‘Looks like he shot himself, Sir.’ The Chief Superintendent stroked his chin. ‘The two Special Branch officers say that there was some sort of disturbance outside, and they went to check. They don’t really remember anything else.’
‘What about CCTV?’
‘We’ve quickly checked the tapes. Most of them are fuzzy, and the tech guys will analyse them. Apparently there’s been electrical disturbances locally. But the gatehouse camera has clear footage.’
‘Does that show what happened?’
‘Pretty much. The officer call-signed ‘Outpost’ is cleaning his backup firearm, then he goes outside. Nothing much happens until the Principal enters the gatehouse in a state of panic, picks up the phone, then the pistol, before blowing his brains out.’
‘Looks like the Special Branch guys can say goodbye to their careers then. They shouldn’t have left the Principal and should not have left a loaded weapon lying around.’
The Chief Superintendent sighed. ‘Well, Sir, the officer claims he left it unloaded in accordance with the standard drills. You would think he had left a round in the chamber by mistake when he unloaded it, but the camera shows him firing off the action before loading the magazine.’
The helicopters touched down on the croquet lawn in a whirlwind of light and noise.
The Deputy Chief leaned closer to the Chief Superintendent to make himself heard over the noise. ‘Get ready for the media shit-storm tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But at least we’re in the clear.’
The rotors whirled, blowing up dust and gravel, slicing away the vague traces of mist which hung on the All Hallow’s Eve air. In the darkness of the woods, in the shadows, unseen figures slid away, except for one which lingered, wandering lost before eventually dissipating like the last wisps of smoke from a gun barrel or funeral pyre.
This story may seem to have a familiar protagonist and subject. I resigned from the Royal Air Force after the revelations of the Hutton Inquiry. If life ever chooses to imitate art.....Happy Halloween!
Update....Halloween story along soon
I haven't posted any stories up here for a while. This is mainly because I've been looking to submit them to various outlets. But at least one freebie will be along shortly, a Halloween special...
Good news....my story 'Preacher Man' accepted by Morpheus Tales for their 'Urban Horror' special. This was a cut-down version in the end, 3,000 words compared with the original that was nearing 4,000 words.
Good news....my story 'Preacher Man' accepted by Morpheus Tales for their 'Urban Horror' special. This was a cut-down version in the end, 3,000 words compared with the original that was nearing 4,000 words.
Wednesday 25 August 2010
Dark Tales vol XV coming soon....
http://darktales.co.uk/volume-xv.php
Featuring my story 'Mira', extracts of which were broadcast on Leith FM.
Thursday 19 August 2010
Hell Screen
Shinichi sat at the computer, scratching his nose. He was looking for music files to download from the internet. Then, the email icon flashed in the bottom corner of the screen. He clicked on his inbox, and the message appeared.From: Ryo
FW:
There was no message, just two file attachments.
video.mpg
program.exe
Shinichi downloaded the video file and clicked it. The screen turned an abrupt black, and then an image appeared. It was his friend Ryo, hunched over the keyboard, filmed through a web-camera. He looked frightened.
Sweat, or tears, trickled down Ryo’s cheeks. He glanced briefly over his shoulder and then turned his wide-eyed gaze to face Shinichi. Behind him, the room darkened, obscuring the rock music and anime posters, and shadows slowly took shape in the blackness.
The shapes edged forwards, towards the hunched figure of Ryo. They had the vague forms of people, dressed in ethereal layers of everyday clothes. Schoolchildren, businessmen, housewives. But they had no faces, just blank ovals.
Ryo typed as the faceless figures crept closer, his neck muscles taut in an effort not to look backwards.
Shinichi watched in horror as the ghostly shapes crowded around Ryo as he typed. The video bar showed only seconds left of the footage. Then, Ryo clicked his mouse button and the image vanished. Blackness filled the screen once more.
Shinichi sat back in his chair. Phew! He wiped his sweat-beaded brow. That was scary!
Then, a window popped up on his computer screen. The program.exe file had started automatically. The red link of the webcam flickered on and Shinichi sat up in shock as he saw his own face appear in the screen.
He cast a panicked glance back over his shoulder but there was nothing there. This must be a joke of some kind, he thought.
He looked back at the screen. A message flashed up: DO NOT LOOK BEHIND YOU. DO NOT LOOK BEHIND YOU. DO NOT LOOK BEHIND YOU.
The computer fan whirred in agony as strange impulses surged through the microprocessers and silicon chips. The room suddenly felt icy-cold, although scorching air was being blasted out of the computer, with the burnt-ozone smell of lightning storms.
Shinichi shivered in frigid terror. The room was darkening around him and he could sense the faceless figures creeping close behind him, getting closer and closer….
Another message flashed on the screen. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE AND YOUR SOUL WILL BE DEVOURED IN HELL UNLESS YOU FORWARD THIS EMAIL IMMEDIATELY TO ONE OTHER PERSON.
Ice-cold air tickled the back of his neck as silent tears trickled down his cheeks.
The message flashed a second time. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE AND YOUR SOUL WILL BE DEVOURED IN HELL UNLESS YOU FORWARD THIS EMAIL IMMEDIATELY TO ONE OTHER PERSON.
Shinichi clicked on his email account and desperately searched for names. His girlfriend Naoko. No way, he thought. Then he had an idea. Her sister Teiko, she’s a complete bitch. He found Teiko’s email address in a circular sent by Naoko earlier that day. With quivering fingers, he clicked ‘Forward’ and then typed in her email address, before clicking ‘Send’.
The red eye of the webcam flickered off. And, in the next instant, all returned to normality.
***
A mile or so away, in the Isogo neighbourhood of Yokohama, Naoko sat in front of the computer. Her sister shouted from the bathroom, over the noise of the shower. ‘Don’t switch my email off if you’re using my computer, I want to check it before I go out.’
An email popped into the in-box. It was from Shinichi, addressed to Teiko. What’s he doing, thought Naoko. He hates Teiko.
Curious, she opened the email. There was a video file and a program file. She clicked on the video and the computer screen went blank.
***
Naoko darted downstairs, clutching her bag. She was furious.
‘How dare he send a scary video to my sister,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘I’ll dump him for this.’ She wouldn’t of course, but she was angry. Teiko was hard to get along with, but didn’t deserve that.
She strode past the noodle bar and stopped at the pedestrian crossing. The green ‘walk’ light came on and the loudspeaker played ‘Sakura’ as the traffic waited at the red lights. A black van sat with its engine idling close to the opposite side. It looked like one of the loudspeaker vans used by the uyoko dantai nationalists. She stepped out onto the road. On the other side, a group of people waited to cross.
The black van surged forward and knocked Naoko to the ground. She smashed her head on the concrete with a wet smack and a spray of blood. She lay on her back, unable to move. The people who had been waiting on the other side of the road had gathered around her. She looked up at them with failing vision. They have no faces, she thought as they reached downwards towards her.
(c) I Paton 2010
Thursday 5 August 2010
Sunday 25 July 2010
Quicksand
It was a muggy July day, somewhere between fog and rain, even at the beach. James felt he was swimming through a haze of water droplets, and all he could see was the moist sand stretching out towards the sea, somewhere under the blanket of mist.
The sand squelched as he walked, seawater tricking into his sandals. He enjoyed walking along the beach, even in this sauna-like weather. It was lucky that he knew his way about, with the quicksand and –
Something darted, on the edge of his vision. A small shape. A dog? No, too big and too slow. A child? Out on the quicksand?
Then, the screaming started. ‘Help, help!’ A ragged hysterical voice that cut into his spine and made his stomach lurch. He walked carefully towards the sea, in the direction of the voice.
It seemed to come from all around, the mist closing in on all sides. His foot sunk into the sand. Need to be careful. His leg plunged in to his knee. Fuck! Sweat beaded his forehead, mingling with the droplets of mist.
He couldn’t hear the screaming anymore, but he carried on anyway. After a couple of knee deep steps, he slid in down to mid-thigh.
‘Help!’ The fog muffled his voice. No use shouting, no one will hear me. No idiots are out in this weather anyway.
He turned around gradually, heart pounding in his chest, expecting the next movement to suck him in to his waist, fighting to retain his balance. If I fall in, I’m a dead man.
But he managed it. After wading around in a circle, he was facing the way he had come.
He could see a rock ahead and pulled his leg out of the quicksand, with a loud sucking noise. After a few staggering steps, the watery mush was up to his knees again.
James was nearly at the rock when he stumbled. At first he lay there in the knee-deep, quicksand, in shock, as his chest and elbows slowly sunk beneath the sand.
Then he felt it again. Hands, around his ankle. Small hands, childlike hands.
The hands pulled viciously, and dragged him towards the sea. He managed to scream once, arms flailing in panic, before the quicksand engulfed him and filled his lungs. The watery sand closed over his head, the mist closed in above, and all was quiet.
Does what it says on the tin! I hate those sorts of days by the seaside, when it is muggy and foggy and constant drizzle. Also saw some kids ankle-deep in quicksand a few months ago, and pulled them to dry land on a boogie board!
The sand squelched as he walked, seawater tricking into his sandals. He enjoyed walking along the beach, even in this sauna-like weather. It was lucky that he knew his way about, with the quicksand and –
Something darted, on the edge of his vision. A small shape. A dog? No, too big and too slow. A child? Out on the quicksand?
Then, the screaming started. ‘Help, help!’ A ragged hysterical voice that cut into his spine and made his stomach lurch. He walked carefully towards the sea, in the direction of the voice.
It seemed to come from all around, the mist closing in on all sides. His foot sunk into the sand. Need to be careful. His leg plunged in to his knee. Fuck! Sweat beaded his forehead, mingling with the droplets of mist.
He couldn’t hear the screaming anymore, but he carried on anyway. After a couple of knee deep steps, he slid in down to mid-thigh.
‘Help!’ The fog muffled his voice. No use shouting, no one will hear me. No idiots are out in this weather anyway.
He turned around gradually, heart pounding in his chest, expecting the next movement to suck him in to his waist, fighting to retain his balance. If I fall in, I’m a dead man.
But he managed it. After wading around in a circle, he was facing the way he had come.
He could see a rock ahead and pulled his leg out of the quicksand, with a loud sucking noise. After a few staggering steps, the watery mush was up to his knees again.
James was nearly at the rock when he stumbled. At first he lay there in the knee-deep, quicksand, in shock, as his chest and elbows slowly sunk beneath the sand.
Then he felt it again. Hands, around his ankle. Small hands, childlike hands.
The hands pulled viciously, and dragged him towards the sea. He managed to scream once, arms flailing in panic, before the quicksand engulfed him and filled his lungs. The watery sand closed over his head, the mist closed in above, and all was quiet.
Does what it says on the tin! I hate those sorts of days by the seaside, when it is muggy and foggy and constant drizzle. Also saw some kids ankle-deep in quicksand a few months ago, and pulled them to dry land on a boogie board!
Susie
Sarah sipped her cup of chamomile tea, feet up on the sofa. ER was on, and the children were being quiet, a blessed moment of respite. Not that the girls were bad, but they were boisterous in the way that a two year old and a four year old could be when they delighted in each other’s company and mischief.
Things were difficult enough anyway since the separation and, like her ex-husband, she had just moved into a small flat. The area was nice enough, a flat in a Victorian villa as opposed to her ex’s new build apartment, but just not the same as the four bedroom house and garden they had relinquished. She had the children most of the time, as well as working part time, but she still enjoyed Friday afternoons with them, after picking them up from their father. It broke her heart sometimes when they parted each Friday lunchtime, but the continual arguments and bitterness had been too much to bear.
Sarah padded through to the bedroom to see what they were doing.
‘Playing with Susie.’ The oldest girl Hannah smiled and her eyes shone with amusement.
‘Susie our fwend,’ beamed the younger Amy.
‘Well, as long as you’re having fun,’ laughed Sarah. ‘Does your friend Susie want a cup of tea?’
‘Don’t be silly, Mummy,’ said Hannah. ‘She’s not alive.’
Well, that’s me told, thought Sarah as she slinked back to the living room.
Bath night was always fun. They would splash in bubbles, usually making a mess of the bathroom. Afterwards, Susie would wrap them in fluffy dressing gowns and leave them to choose story books, while she went into the kitchen to prepare supper, usually half a doughnut each with a glass of milk.
She was cutting the doughnut with a bread knife when she heard the conspiring whispers.
‘Susie says to do it like this…at the same time.’
Then, a loud thump and throaty gurgling from the bedroom. Sarah ran through, catching one of the milk glasses with her elbow. It shattered on the floor, splashing milk everywhere.
The girls dangled from the dressing gown cords, wrapped around their necks and tied to the bunk bed. Their eyes bulged desperately from red-blue faces, hands clawing at the constricting nooses and feet scrabbling desperately at the ground.
Sobbing in horror, Sarah slashed the cords and the girls collapsed to the ground. She pulled frantically at their necks and loosened the nooses.
‘Why did you do that! Why, oh why, oh why!’ She screamed as she hugged the girls close. Thankfully they were screaming as well, floods of tears, which meant they were unhurt.
They huddled together for some time until all three had calmed down.
Sarah sat the girls together and looked sternly at them.
‘Now girls,’ she asked, ‘why did you do that? That was a really really bad thing.’
‘Susie told us to do it,’ said Hannah.
‘Susie say do,’ said Amy, not wanting to be left out.
‘Don’t be silly, girls,’ said Sarah. ‘There’s no Susie here.’
‘Yes there is, Mummy,’ said Hannah. ‘Her name’s Susie Side. She said she did it years ago, and if we did it then we could play with her forever.’
Fear gripped Sarah’s spine. ‘What – ‘
The bedroom door slammed shut. The light bulb flared briefly and died. A cold wind rattled through the curtains.
Sarah grabbed the children and ran out of the bedroom, out of the flat, downstairs and out onto the wet pavement in her bare feet. She opened the car door and bundled them into their car seats.
‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ asked Hannah.
‘Where we go, Mama?’ asked Amy.
‘We’re going to see Daddy,’ said Susan, as she buckled the seatbelt. I’m not setting foot in that flat again.
She turned the ignition key and selected the reverse gear, glancing into the rear view mirror –
A swollen-purple face filled the mirror, eyes staring wildly, rictus grin gasping for air. A thrashing hand clawed at her hair.
She screamed.
This is just horrible! No redeeming features at all.
Things were difficult enough anyway since the separation and, like her ex-husband, she had just moved into a small flat. The area was nice enough, a flat in a Victorian villa as opposed to her ex’s new build apartment, but just not the same as the four bedroom house and garden they had relinquished. She had the children most of the time, as well as working part time, but she still enjoyed Friday afternoons with them, after picking them up from their father. It broke her heart sometimes when they parted each Friday lunchtime, but the continual arguments and bitterness had been too much to bear.
Sarah padded through to the bedroom to see what they were doing.
‘Playing with Susie.’ The oldest girl Hannah smiled and her eyes shone with amusement.
‘Susie our fwend,’ beamed the younger Amy.
‘Well, as long as you’re having fun,’ laughed Sarah. ‘Does your friend Susie want a cup of tea?’
‘Don’t be silly, Mummy,’ said Hannah. ‘She’s not alive.’
Well, that’s me told, thought Sarah as she slinked back to the living room.
Bath night was always fun. They would splash in bubbles, usually making a mess of the bathroom. Afterwards, Susie would wrap them in fluffy dressing gowns and leave them to choose story books, while she went into the kitchen to prepare supper, usually half a doughnut each with a glass of milk.
She was cutting the doughnut with a bread knife when she heard the conspiring whispers.
‘Susie says to do it like this…at the same time.’
Then, a loud thump and throaty gurgling from the bedroom. Sarah ran through, catching one of the milk glasses with her elbow. It shattered on the floor, splashing milk everywhere.
The girls dangled from the dressing gown cords, wrapped around their necks and tied to the bunk bed. Their eyes bulged desperately from red-blue faces, hands clawing at the constricting nooses and feet scrabbling desperately at the ground.
Sobbing in horror, Sarah slashed the cords and the girls collapsed to the ground. She pulled frantically at their necks and loosened the nooses.
‘Why did you do that! Why, oh why, oh why!’ She screamed as she hugged the girls close. Thankfully they were screaming as well, floods of tears, which meant they were unhurt.
They huddled together for some time until all three had calmed down.
Sarah sat the girls together and looked sternly at them.
‘Now girls,’ she asked, ‘why did you do that? That was a really really bad thing.’
‘Susie told us to do it,’ said Hannah.
‘Susie say do,’ said Amy, not wanting to be left out.
‘Don’t be silly, girls,’ said Sarah. ‘There’s no Susie here.’
‘Yes there is, Mummy,’ said Hannah. ‘Her name’s Susie Side. She said she did it years ago, and if we did it then we could play with her forever.’
Fear gripped Sarah’s spine. ‘What – ‘
The bedroom door slammed shut. The light bulb flared briefly and died. A cold wind rattled through the curtains.
Sarah grabbed the children and ran out of the bedroom, out of the flat, downstairs and out onto the wet pavement in her bare feet. She opened the car door and bundled them into their car seats.
‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ asked Hannah.
‘Where we go, Mama?’ asked Amy.
‘We’re going to see Daddy,’ said Susan, as she buckled the seatbelt. I’m not setting foot in that flat again.
She turned the ignition key and selected the reverse gear, glancing into the rear view mirror –
A swollen-purple face filled the mirror, eyes staring wildly, rictus grin gasping for air. A thrashing hand clawed at her hair.
She screamed.
This is just horrible! No redeeming features at all.
Mutant
A birth, of sorts.
The mother splits into siblings, deep within the moist stronghold of raw red caverns which no daylight has penetrated.
A series of slow convulsions shatter their sanctuary. Propelled upwards, borne into alien daylight just as the birthing cycle begins again. Both siblings split, disappearing into what should be two perfect copies of each parent, grandparent and earlier generations beyond numbering.
But this time is different. Perhaps a photon of light, or the violent wave action of ultra violet. The reconstituted genome is imperfectly paired, the double helix spirals linked in one location by adenine and thymine instead of cytosine and guanine. Consequently, one cell’s membrane has a different structure of proteins and phospholipids to its ancestors. It is stickier. Such a change, beyond microscopic, will change the world. In time, it will be discovered, but not until it has claimed the lives of ninety per cent of the human population.
The consequences are yet to unfold as the mutant splits into two deviant copies, blind to the sparkling dust motes that dance in the swirling air. Caught by a vortex, the twins are sucked into a gaping maw, embraced by fleshy darkness. They are grains of sand on an alveolar beach amongst their half-siblings, but they alone stick as the tide recedes and their fellows are expelled on a rainbow spray.
They stick to the surface of the lungs. They multiply, two, four, eight, sixteen times and more, spreading into the new frontier of the bloodstream. Nutrients abound in their new home, which they absorb, convert and subvert like living creatures everywhere, chemical reactions leaving by-products in their scythe-like wake.
One of these by-products is a three-protein toxin which acts as an enzyme, a cellular catalyst, interfering with the complex mechanisms which regulate water uptake into the host human cells and form the very basis of their function. It also kills the macrophages which are the footsoldiers of the immune system. Rapid cell death follows as the invaders sweep through arteries, veins and capillaries, splitting and splitting all the time.
The man coughs, spraying microscopic droplets throughout the train compartment. He has a low-grade chest infection anyway, the common cold virus allowing bacterial proliferation, making it even easier for the new invader to set up camp. Soon, at work, he shivers and sweats, chest convulsing in a rasping series of coughs. He returns home and retires to bed, sipping a hot lemon and paracetamol drink. Within twenty four hours, he is dead, surrounded by mask-wearing medical staff and other patients close to death, as the sweat chills on his wracked and wasted body. The masks offer little protection against the tiny microbes, whose malign ancestor was borne into daylight just over a day previously. Within another couple of days, fetid winds will gently lift their distant cousins from the bloody foam congealing around corpse-mouths, blown around the litter-strewn and silent streets, emperors making their triumphal procession amongst the newly-conquered kingdom of the dead.
This short story came to mind on the train last week, when someone sneezed. I thought about a pandemic from the microbe's point of view. The science is loosely based on the mutation of a bacterium leading to an effect similar to that of anthrax, which is extremely toxic but not very infectious.
The mother splits into siblings, deep within the moist stronghold of raw red caverns which no daylight has penetrated.
A series of slow convulsions shatter their sanctuary. Propelled upwards, borne into alien daylight just as the birthing cycle begins again. Both siblings split, disappearing into what should be two perfect copies of each parent, grandparent and earlier generations beyond numbering.
But this time is different. Perhaps a photon of light, or the violent wave action of ultra violet. The reconstituted genome is imperfectly paired, the double helix spirals linked in one location by adenine and thymine instead of cytosine and guanine. Consequently, one cell’s membrane has a different structure of proteins and phospholipids to its ancestors. It is stickier. Such a change, beyond microscopic, will change the world. In time, it will be discovered, but not until it has claimed the lives of ninety per cent of the human population.
The consequences are yet to unfold as the mutant splits into two deviant copies, blind to the sparkling dust motes that dance in the swirling air. Caught by a vortex, the twins are sucked into a gaping maw, embraced by fleshy darkness. They are grains of sand on an alveolar beach amongst their half-siblings, but they alone stick as the tide recedes and their fellows are expelled on a rainbow spray.
They stick to the surface of the lungs. They multiply, two, four, eight, sixteen times and more, spreading into the new frontier of the bloodstream. Nutrients abound in their new home, which they absorb, convert and subvert like living creatures everywhere, chemical reactions leaving by-products in their scythe-like wake.
One of these by-products is a three-protein toxin which acts as an enzyme, a cellular catalyst, interfering with the complex mechanisms which regulate water uptake into the host human cells and form the very basis of their function. It also kills the macrophages which are the footsoldiers of the immune system. Rapid cell death follows as the invaders sweep through arteries, veins and capillaries, splitting and splitting all the time.
The man coughs, spraying microscopic droplets throughout the train compartment. He has a low-grade chest infection anyway, the common cold virus allowing bacterial proliferation, making it even easier for the new invader to set up camp. Soon, at work, he shivers and sweats, chest convulsing in a rasping series of coughs. He returns home and retires to bed, sipping a hot lemon and paracetamol drink. Within twenty four hours, he is dead, surrounded by mask-wearing medical staff and other patients close to death, as the sweat chills on his wracked and wasted body. The masks offer little protection against the tiny microbes, whose malign ancestor was borne into daylight just over a day previously. Within another couple of days, fetid winds will gently lift their distant cousins from the bloody foam congealing around corpse-mouths, blown around the litter-strewn and silent streets, emperors making their triumphal procession amongst the newly-conquered kingdom of the dead.
This short story came to mind on the train last week, when someone sneezed. I thought about a pandemic from the microbe's point of view. The science is loosely based on the mutation of a bacterium leading to an effect similar to that of anthrax, which is extremely toxic but not very infectious.
Tuesday 25 May 2010
Metamorphosis
When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
Samsa was not sure of the phylum, class, genus or species but he was certain that he was an insect. He lay back and looked up at his six legs, which were slowly writhing and pointing towards the ceiling. He noticed, as he always did every morning, the peeling paintwork in the corner and he thought, as he always did every morning, that he must have it repainted. Samsa looked back at his six legs. He was still an insect. Six legs, segmented abdomen, mandibles and antennae symmetrically paired at the edge of his vision. He tried to feel his face with one hand, to touch skin and bone and break the spell, but all he felt was the mandible brushing chitin at the edge of his vision.
Reluctant to explore his condition any further, he lay back in his bed, Samsa the insect. Was he an insect, did he just look like an insect to himself, did he look like an insect to others? He cast his mind back to the fevered dream of the night before. Perhaps that had brought on the change. Perhaps the dream and his insecthood were symptoms of wider change. Change was on the march, in his life, in his society, in his street and in his place of work. People that were once spoken to were now not to be spoken to, a consequence of their genealogy, their grandparents, their ancestors, their religion. Certain ideas were no longer to be spoken, best to stay quiet, keep one’s head down, move in the same direction as the rest of the insects, beetlelike, scurrying, bypassing obstacles like a seamless shimmering sea of black, following only the common purpose Little of this was spoken, much was instinct. In his dream he had been changing, stifled and wrapped in a cocoon, a chrysalis, unable to move, parts liquefying and resolidifying, thoughts liquefying and resolidifying, until the new shape was ready to emerge, leaving behind only a discarded husk.
Samsa sensed movement beside him in the bed. His wife, Sofia, was beginning to stir. He could see that his insect writhing had thrown the blankets clear of the bed. He felt panic begin to stir, and he watched his legs writhe furiously, his antennae twitching. He was a bug on his back, nothing he could do. Sofia murmered as she turned towards him, her arm slowly seeking his warmth. What would she feel? Would she feel chitin, hard unfamiliar ridges? When she opened her eyes in shock, would she see Gregor the insect, lying there, changed beyond all imagining? Or was he only an insect in his own eyes, unfamiliar to his new shape? His wife’s arm moved closer as she continued to turn, yawning. Any moment and they would touch.
Samsa could see Sofia looking closely at him, vague concern on her oval face, brown eyes narrowed and brow furrowed.
‘Are you an insect, Gregor?’ she asked.
Samsa froze.
Frowning in annoyance, Sofia said again, ‘Are you upset, Gregor?’
Samsa’s insect mouthparts must have uttered something, for she lay back and stretched before sitting up with purpose, legs swung over the bed’s edge, standing up and padding barefoot into the kitchen of their small flat. Sofia was clearly no insect; that was a feminine form beneath the nightgown. Samsa managed to somehow roll onto his side and off the bed, landing on all six legs. He was becoming more comfortable in his changed self. Scurrying through to the kitchen, he declined breakfast, before crawling quickly to the bathroom and bedroom in succession to create the appearance of starting the day as a human.
Samsa worked as a junior assistant architect in the Ministry of Public Works in a small provincial town which was the municipal headquarters for the surrounding province. His salary paid for the apartment and little else; Sofia brought in a little more money from work in a pastry shop although she had trained in bookkeeping. Professional examinations would have to be paid for and undertaken before he could progress to a higher grade and salary, although the bitter irony often struck Samsa: he could not progress to earn more money because he did not have enough money to pay for the progression. However, this was not on the mind of Samsa the insect at that moment. He was more concerned with his insect state and possible solutions that would allow its reversal. Leaving the main door of his apartment block, Samsa scurried along the pavement towards his place of work, some ten minutes to human legs. The insect attracted no outright stares of astonishment and he was becoming accustomed to the notion that his status was only evident to his own self. Six legs rustled in perpetual motion, paired like the oars of a galley, and Samsa was propelled along the pavement with his mouthparts inches from the stone paving, multifaceted eyes gazing forwards. He could feel the vibrations of a distant disturbance, a rumble, through his bristling antennae, and paused. Something was coming towards him, along the road. Something large.
The Iron Guard were marching. This knowledge briefly pushed Samsa’s insectness from his mind. The Iron Guard were a uniformed organisation dedicated to progress, order, purity and the occasional casual brutality, all with the unofficial sanction of government and police. Their members were drawn from all walks of life but primarily from those who did not meet the unremarkable requirements of the Army and those who were cunning and ambitious enough to seek a safer route to uniform, rank and status. The Iron Guard marched with banners, flags and band, and it was customary to stop walking, talking, or any activity and to observe their progress solemnly. Samsa stopped his progress and scurried, beetlelike, to the pavement edge with his neighbours.
Samsa was acutely conscious of his insecthood. Would he be picked out, crushed beneath bootheels, or would he be safe in the crowd. A child leaned against him, elbow on his carapace, oblivious to the touch of ebony chitin. Someone jostled against him, standing on the end of one of his six legs, uttering a muffled apology. The Guard marched onwards and Samsa could feel their rhythm through the paving slabs. The band passed him, playing with more enthusiasm than accomplishment. The Guard standard-bearers then passed, mostly minor politicians and businessmen, flagpoles held close to bulging stomachs, helmet straps cutting in to double chins. Samsa felt more urgent vibrations to his left and squinted towards the noise with his shining black multifaceted eye. Some of the less disciplined Guards had spotted an enemy or an undesirable, and were beating their victim with fervent enthusiasm. A wave of relief flooded Samsa: it was someone else beneath the fists and boots, someone else who was the spectacle observed from the corner of the eye. Like his neighbours he scuttled away in his beetlelike way, conspicuously minding his own affairs.
A week had passed since Samsa’s metamorphosis. He was still aware of his insectness, but had overcome the difficulties of integrating his changed self with his environment. He could sleep, walk, converse, eat and drink and conduct his duties at work. Work, of course was the greatest concern. Those who did not fit were under increasing scrutiny, and there were some empty desks: here one day, gone the next without comment. He was unclear exactly how he accomplished his own integration against such a backdrop of scrutiny, but he did so to the general satisfaction of his wife, his colleagues and friends, and neighbours. He did not attract attention, he kept his insect head down and minded his own affairs, wary that at any moment he would be identified as an insect and crushed. This was not to say he was comfortable with insecthood, but he had reached an accommodation with his condition. That was just as well, as it was Sofia’s birthday and this event was customarily marked with a dinner in a fine Hungarian restaurant.
They prepared for their evening meal, as the sky darkened beyond the apartment curtains. Sofia was radiant, in a close-fitting dark dress, wearing the new necklace Samsa had bought for her. He had fitted the necklace himself, closing the clasp neatly with his forelegs. Samsa’s carapace shone, he had preened himself with his forelegs and cleaned his mouthparts. They left the flat, walking into the crisp night air, Sofia’s hand resting on Samsa’s glossy chitinous back as he scurried and she walked along the pavement. The restaurant was in an upmarket district, some fifteen minutes walk, but the journey passed quickly. The couple were greeted by the maitre’d on arrival, their reservations were checked and they were shown to their table.
The meal was delicious, Samsa managed to even enjoy his goulash. Sofia was shining in the candlelight, and the violinist (paid by Samsa) played at their table in her honour. However, the ambience of the evening was disturbed by raised voices from a nearby table, increasing in volume as wine flowed in greater quantities. Samsa thought he recognised one of the marchers from the previous week, a minor official. His companion bore enough of a resemblance to be a brother or cousin, and was of a similar age. They were making increasingly vulgar and noisy comments about a couple at a nearby table. Samsa recognised the gentleman, a professor at the university, respected member of the community despite his religion and ancestry. At first Samsa ignored the commotion, turning away, Sofia turning away, the rest of the customers turning away, exposed insects seeking darkness. However, as the insults flowed with the wine, Samsa became increasingly uncomfortable at the professor’s predicament, and increasingly angry. There he was, a beetle, pinned to a board, legs writhing, unable to move under the bright light. His wife was squirming next to him, also pinned to the board, writhing and unable to move. Samsa could see them clearly, squirming pinned insects, and he felt their pain and fear. He could take no more. He stood up, on human legs, and shouted at the insulters: Mind your manners.
The restaurant and its occupants changed. A metamorphosis.
Samsa was human again, two legs, two arms, soft flesh. It had been an eternity since he felt his own mouth of flesh move, and words pass his lips. He looked around at the restaurant and his all-too-human jaw dropped.
He was surrounded by insects.
They were feeding on corruption, rotten fruit, decaying flesh, their many forms writhing and slithering around each other. White larval forms, carapaces of chitin, squirming in a slimy putrescent mix of fruit, flesh, and rot. The corruption surrounded them, it was their world, it sustained them. Only Samsa was different.
That is, only Samsa, the professor and the professor's wife were different.
Everyone else was an insect. Even Sofia, who slurped with her proboscis at the suppurating puddle in front of her, she was an iridescent moth. It all became clear to Samsa: they had changed, not he.
He had tried to change, and he had failed. He was not like them.
The insects continued to feast, but were staring intently at the human trio. Samsa suspected that, in the restaurant, they were not eating but drawing sustenance from the atmosphere, the shared climate of hate. Sofia’s feathery foreleg reached out, and touched him and the spell was broken.
They were all human again.
Samsa stood up hurriedly, clasping his wife’s arm of flesh. They left quickly, scurrying back to their apartment, Samsa with his head down. He was no longer an insect but it did not matter. He would be crushed. He did not know where, he did not know when, but it was inevitable. He would be crushed.
That, perhaps, was the price of regaining his humanity.
(c) I Paton 2008 with acknowledgments (Kafka)
This is an old story...I wrote it back in 2008, shortly after starting a creative writing course. This was run at Madras College by a Fife-based poet and writer called John Brewster.
The exercise was to write a paragraph following the opening line of a story. Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, was one of the stories. I found I could not stop at one paragraph and wrote nearly 2,000 words. I hadn't read the original story at that time, only The Trial.
Samsa was not sure of the phylum, class, genus or species but he was certain that he was an insect. He lay back and looked up at his six legs, which were slowly writhing and pointing towards the ceiling. He noticed, as he always did every morning, the peeling paintwork in the corner and he thought, as he always did every morning, that he must have it repainted. Samsa looked back at his six legs. He was still an insect. Six legs, segmented abdomen, mandibles and antennae symmetrically paired at the edge of his vision. He tried to feel his face with one hand, to touch skin and bone and break the spell, but all he felt was the mandible brushing chitin at the edge of his vision.
Reluctant to explore his condition any further, he lay back in his bed, Samsa the insect. Was he an insect, did he just look like an insect to himself, did he look like an insect to others? He cast his mind back to the fevered dream of the night before. Perhaps that had brought on the change. Perhaps the dream and his insecthood were symptoms of wider change. Change was on the march, in his life, in his society, in his street and in his place of work. People that were once spoken to were now not to be spoken to, a consequence of their genealogy, their grandparents, their ancestors, their religion. Certain ideas were no longer to be spoken, best to stay quiet, keep one’s head down, move in the same direction as the rest of the insects, beetlelike, scurrying, bypassing obstacles like a seamless shimmering sea of black, following only the common purpose Little of this was spoken, much was instinct. In his dream he had been changing, stifled and wrapped in a cocoon, a chrysalis, unable to move, parts liquefying and resolidifying, thoughts liquefying and resolidifying, until the new shape was ready to emerge, leaving behind only a discarded husk.
Samsa sensed movement beside him in the bed. His wife, Sofia, was beginning to stir. He could see that his insect writhing had thrown the blankets clear of the bed. He felt panic begin to stir, and he watched his legs writhe furiously, his antennae twitching. He was a bug on his back, nothing he could do. Sofia murmered as she turned towards him, her arm slowly seeking his warmth. What would she feel? Would she feel chitin, hard unfamiliar ridges? When she opened her eyes in shock, would she see Gregor the insect, lying there, changed beyond all imagining? Or was he only an insect in his own eyes, unfamiliar to his new shape? His wife’s arm moved closer as she continued to turn, yawning. Any moment and they would touch.
Samsa could see Sofia looking closely at him, vague concern on her oval face, brown eyes narrowed and brow furrowed.
‘Are you an insect, Gregor?’ she asked.
Samsa froze.
Frowning in annoyance, Sofia said again, ‘Are you upset, Gregor?’
Samsa’s insect mouthparts must have uttered something, for she lay back and stretched before sitting up with purpose, legs swung over the bed’s edge, standing up and padding barefoot into the kitchen of their small flat. Sofia was clearly no insect; that was a feminine form beneath the nightgown. Samsa managed to somehow roll onto his side and off the bed, landing on all six legs. He was becoming more comfortable in his changed self. Scurrying through to the kitchen, he declined breakfast, before crawling quickly to the bathroom and bedroom in succession to create the appearance of starting the day as a human.
Samsa worked as a junior assistant architect in the Ministry of Public Works in a small provincial town which was the municipal headquarters for the surrounding province. His salary paid for the apartment and little else; Sofia brought in a little more money from work in a pastry shop although she had trained in bookkeeping. Professional examinations would have to be paid for and undertaken before he could progress to a higher grade and salary, although the bitter irony often struck Samsa: he could not progress to earn more money because he did not have enough money to pay for the progression. However, this was not on the mind of Samsa the insect at that moment. He was more concerned with his insect state and possible solutions that would allow its reversal. Leaving the main door of his apartment block, Samsa scurried along the pavement towards his place of work, some ten minutes to human legs. The insect attracted no outright stares of astonishment and he was becoming accustomed to the notion that his status was only evident to his own self. Six legs rustled in perpetual motion, paired like the oars of a galley, and Samsa was propelled along the pavement with his mouthparts inches from the stone paving, multifaceted eyes gazing forwards. He could feel the vibrations of a distant disturbance, a rumble, through his bristling antennae, and paused. Something was coming towards him, along the road. Something large.
The Iron Guard were marching. This knowledge briefly pushed Samsa’s insectness from his mind. The Iron Guard were a uniformed organisation dedicated to progress, order, purity and the occasional casual brutality, all with the unofficial sanction of government and police. Their members were drawn from all walks of life but primarily from those who did not meet the unremarkable requirements of the Army and those who were cunning and ambitious enough to seek a safer route to uniform, rank and status. The Iron Guard marched with banners, flags and band, and it was customary to stop walking, talking, or any activity and to observe their progress solemnly. Samsa stopped his progress and scurried, beetlelike, to the pavement edge with his neighbours.
Samsa was acutely conscious of his insecthood. Would he be picked out, crushed beneath bootheels, or would he be safe in the crowd. A child leaned against him, elbow on his carapace, oblivious to the touch of ebony chitin. Someone jostled against him, standing on the end of one of his six legs, uttering a muffled apology. The Guard marched onwards and Samsa could feel their rhythm through the paving slabs. The band passed him, playing with more enthusiasm than accomplishment. The Guard standard-bearers then passed, mostly minor politicians and businessmen, flagpoles held close to bulging stomachs, helmet straps cutting in to double chins. Samsa felt more urgent vibrations to his left and squinted towards the noise with his shining black multifaceted eye. Some of the less disciplined Guards had spotted an enemy or an undesirable, and were beating their victim with fervent enthusiasm. A wave of relief flooded Samsa: it was someone else beneath the fists and boots, someone else who was the spectacle observed from the corner of the eye. Like his neighbours he scuttled away in his beetlelike way, conspicuously minding his own affairs.
A week had passed since Samsa’s metamorphosis. He was still aware of his insectness, but had overcome the difficulties of integrating his changed self with his environment. He could sleep, walk, converse, eat and drink and conduct his duties at work. Work, of course was the greatest concern. Those who did not fit were under increasing scrutiny, and there were some empty desks: here one day, gone the next without comment. He was unclear exactly how he accomplished his own integration against such a backdrop of scrutiny, but he did so to the general satisfaction of his wife, his colleagues and friends, and neighbours. He did not attract attention, he kept his insect head down and minded his own affairs, wary that at any moment he would be identified as an insect and crushed. This was not to say he was comfortable with insecthood, but he had reached an accommodation with his condition. That was just as well, as it was Sofia’s birthday and this event was customarily marked with a dinner in a fine Hungarian restaurant.
They prepared for their evening meal, as the sky darkened beyond the apartment curtains. Sofia was radiant, in a close-fitting dark dress, wearing the new necklace Samsa had bought for her. He had fitted the necklace himself, closing the clasp neatly with his forelegs. Samsa’s carapace shone, he had preened himself with his forelegs and cleaned his mouthparts. They left the flat, walking into the crisp night air, Sofia’s hand resting on Samsa’s glossy chitinous back as he scurried and she walked along the pavement. The restaurant was in an upmarket district, some fifteen minutes walk, but the journey passed quickly. The couple were greeted by the maitre’d on arrival, their reservations were checked and they were shown to their table.
The meal was delicious, Samsa managed to even enjoy his goulash. Sofia was shining in the candlelight, and the violinist (paid by Samsa) played at their table in her honour. However, the ambience of the evening was disturbed by raised voices from a nearby table, increasing in volume as wine flowed in greater quantities. Samsa thought he recognised one of the marchers from the previous week, a minor official. His companion bore enough of a resemblance to be a brother or cousin, and was of a similar age. They were making increasingly vulgar and noisy comments about a couple at a nearby table. Samsa recognised the gentleman, a professor at the university, respected member of the community despite his religion and ancestry. At first Samsa ignored the commotion, turning away, Sofia turning away, the rest of the customers turning away, exposed insects seeking darkness. However, as the insults flowed with the wine, Samsa became increasingly uncomfortable at the professor’s predicament, and increasingly angry. There he was, a beetle, pinned to a board, legs writhing, unable to move under the bright light. His wife was squirming next to him, also pinned to the board, writhing and unable to move. Samsa could see them clearly, squirming pinned insects, and he felt their pain and fear. He could take no more. He stood up, on human legs, and shouted at the insulters: Mind your manners.
The restaurant and its occupants changed. A metamorphosis.
Samsa was human again, two legs, two arms, soft flesh. It had been an eternity since he felt his own mouth of flesh move, and words pass his lips. He looked around at the restaurant and his all-too-human jaw dropped.
He was surrounded by insects.
They were feeding on corruption, rotten fruit, decaying flesh, their many forms writhing and slithering around each other. White larval forms, carapaces of chitin, squirming in a slimy putrescent mix of fruit, flesh, and rot. The corruption surrounded them, it was their world, it sustained them. Only Samsa was different.
That is, only Samsa, the professor and the professor's wife were different.
Everyone else was an insect. Even Sofia, who slurped with her proboscis at the suppurating puddle in front of her, she was an iridescent moth. It all became clear to Samsa: they had changed, not he.
He had tried to change, and he had failed. He was not like them.
The insects continued to feast, but were staring intently at the human trio. Samsa suspected that, in the restaurant, they were not eating but drawing sustenance from the atmosphere, the shared climate of hate. Sofia’s feathery foreleg reached out, and touched him and the spell was broken.
They were all human again.
Samsa stood up hurriedly, clasping his wife’s arm of flesh. They left quickly, scurrying back to their apartment, Samsa with his head down. He was no longer an insect but it did not matter. He would be crushed. He did not know where, he did not know when, but it was inevitable. He would be crushed.
That, perhaps, was the price of regaining his humanity.
(c) I Paton 2008 with acknowledgments (Kafka)
This is an old story...I wrote it back in 2008, shortly after starting a creative writing course. This was run at Madras College by a Fife-based poet and writer called John Brewster.
The exercise was to write a paragraph following the opening line of a story. Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, was one of the stories. I found I could not stop at one paragraph and wrote nearly 2,000 words. I hadn't read the original story at that time, only The Trial.
Monday 17 May 2010
In Progress - May 2010
Recently finished
By The Sword....done, submitted to a crime writing competition. Hopefully Banzai Billy will be unleashed....
Preacher Man...done, submitted to Dark Horizons for consideration.
His Master's Voice...finished, submitted to Music For Another World anthology.
In Progress
Wanderer
Circus of the Damned
Trees (working title)
The Outsider
Four Letter Words
Hoochie Coochie Man
An un-named Japanese ghost story
By The Sword....done, submitted to a crime writing competition. Hopefully Banzai Billy will be unleashed....
Preacher Man...done, submitted to Dark Horizons for consideration.
His Master's Voice...finished, submitted to Music For Another World anthology.
In Progress
Wanderer
Circus of the Damned
Trees (working title)
The Outsider
Four Letter Words
Hoochie Coochie Man
An un-named Japanese ghost story
Welcome
Welcome to this writing blog. It's a continuation of my old WordPress blog, which became a bit unwieldy. I'll post stories, news and whatever else I can think of regarding my work, dark fiction and horror, and writing in general.
Like everything, this is a work in progress and will take a little time to get right.
Tomorrow it's off to the Glasgow Writers' Group...and maybe a pint!
Like everything, this is a work in progress and will take a little time to get right.
Tomorrow it's off to the Glasgow Writers' Group...and maybe a pint!
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