The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear – Extract

The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear And Other Stories of Chilling Modern Horror Fantasy is a collection of ten short stories written by me and is available to buy on Amazon here and here. Below is an extract from the titular story.

The Innocent Have Nothing to
Fear

On the way to Debenhams Lorraine saw
the billboard. The Innocent Have
Nothing To Fear it screamed all in bold black and white as the bus rounded the
corner into the terminal. Lorraine shivered and tried not to notice the
scrabbling sounds coming from her handbag as Manicure made herself comfortable.

You are entering a Zero Tolerance
Zone, public notices warned her as she walked
through the shopping centre. Shoplifters will be prosecuted to the full extent
of the law, another sign in a shop window proclaimed proudly. Underneath the
warning the image of a hand, palm front and fingers slightly spread in the
universal halt sign blazed a haunting red. In the depths of her handbag
Manicure curled into a tight fist.

Tammy
noticed that Lorraine had stopped dead in front of the sign.

‘You
alright love?’ She asked reaching out to give her friend a quick
shoulder squeeze and trying not to notice that Lorraine felt like granite under
her hand. ‘Not to worry, eh?’ She persevered. ‘It’s just criminals, yeah? It’s
like the sign says. We’re innocent so we got nothing to worry about.’

On
the way to Bianca’s Café for tea and cake both women tried to ignore the
handless beggar in the doorway of an abandoned shopfront.

Lorraine
had never cared much for politics or current events so it was a bit
odd when she started religiously watching the news and following several online
commentaries about Zero Tolerance, the new initiative to improve British Values
(deliberate capitalisation. These were the sort of values that demanded
respect, not like your common garden variety decency).

‘We
need to cut crime dead in the early stages,’ a spokeswoman said. ‘Crime
is an addiction. A sickness that takes the mind one small misdemeanour at a
time. It’s just a stone throw from shoplifting to rape.’

‘We’ve gone
back to the Dark Ages,’ an anti-Zeroer on Newsnight shouted to
be heard over the audience booing. ‘What the government is doing is a Human
Rights violation. They are the real criminals we need to root out and expose.’

‘Turn that off would yer?’ Mark
muttered. ‘I get enough of them bleeding heart
liberals at work. You know them protesters are using drones to drop red paint
on us now? Don’t know why the police don’t arrest ‘em. I’d sure like to see ‘em
in the chop room that’s for sure.’

Mark smirked but the smirk swiftly
died on his face when Lorraine swivelled
her head around to stare at him with dark ringed eyes. That was all she did.
Just bloody stared. 

 

 

Read more in….

The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear -Extract

The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear And Other Stories of Chilling Modern Horror Fantasy is a collection of ten short stories written by me and is available to buy on Amazon here and here. Below is an extract from one of the featured stories Thou Shalt Not Suffer.

Thou Shalt Not Suffer

‘I can’t do this anymore.’
There is a room in darkness; the only light the blazing flicker of a TV screen, HD colours reaching out from beyond the liquid crystal display. There is an armchair in the room drawn up close to the TV. There is a cat and a terrarium with a big warty toad crouched on a smooth stone, regal as a dragon. There is a woman. She strokes the cat, her eyes glued to the TV. She is smiling a rictus grin.
*
‘This was a mistake.’
She can smell the gas. Her wrists and ankles are strapped. There is a strap across her chest and banding her forehead. She cannot move. The ceiling is very white like an operating theatre. The walls are clear ceiling to floor Plexi-glass. The gas is coming from vents in the ceiling. There are other holes in the floor. She cannot see them because she is strapped to a stretcher in the middle of the room but she knows they are there. The flames will come from the vents in the floor.
Tears leak, steady as a tap, down her face. They tickle as they wriggle past her earlobes. She is numb with terror. Panic mounts. She thinks she could pull loose of her body and float like a helium balloon to the ceiling. She wishes that she would.

She cannot turn her head but movement flickers in her peripheral vision. Beyond the windows people are taking seats in the auditorium outside the tiny glass room. The prosecuting lawyers. The Pontiff’s representative. The witchhunters. Keith’s family.

How many people are out there? How many people are going to watch her burn?

Her sobs are muffled by the thick leather mask covering her lower face. The metal grill allows her to breathe and makes her look like Hannibal Lector. They put a sack over her head when they wheeled her in through the baying crowds outside but the witchhunters removed it when they installed her in the room. They want her to see the gas ripple in the air. They want her to see when the room explodes in flame.

You can read the rest of Thou Shalt Not Suffer in The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear