Haunt Anthology – Available Now

My short story One-Eyed Queens and Crocodile Teeth is featured in Haunt anthology from Dragon Soul Press available on Amazon. Below is an extract from One-Eyed Queens and Crocodile teeth.

One-Eyed Queens and Crocodile Teeth

They say that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. But you say bollocks to that, don’t you Cheryl? You’ve never had much time for kings. Nor men, for that matter. And seeing? Well, the blind don’t know how lucky they are.

Your problem’s always been the same. You’ve always seen too much. You see it all. The twisted bodies of the sprites that jump from tree branch to tree branch in a storm. The faces in the wind and the shadows at the periphery of the brightest day. You see the darkness and the darkness sees you.

But you managed. For years, you managed. You were nimble, you were tough; you saw it all and you asked no questions. Monkey sees, but Monkey don’t talk. You survived. You thrived. You were the one-eyed queen in the dark.

You cleaned house for the monsters, learning the lesson of every soul that’s ever been weak amid the strong and the mean; when you can’t fight and you can’t run, be useful. And you were. When wicked old Mr. Watkins guilt came for him, you were there, wiping the tiny finger trails off the windowpanes and ignoring the way the condensation ran like tears.

You spritzed and you squirted, you wiped it all away, but the fingers lingered, scraping invisible patterns over the pane as you turned your back.

When the shadows in the room sniffled and pawed at the smudgy walls, when the reek of ammonia and terror clogged your nose, you whipped out the polish until the room smelled like an orange grove in Andalucía. You scrubbed the walls until they shone like ivory. You swept trapped sobs from between the slats of the Venetian blinds and let them drift as dust to the carpet before you got the Dyson out.

When the cupboard doors rattled in the toy maker’s workshop, you kept your head down and never opened the doors. You never looked into the weeping eyes of all those little wind-up boys and girls with their too life-like faces. ‘Cuz you knew what you’d see.  But nothing gets the stink of evil out of the air, does it, Cheryl? Nor stops fear from leaking into the floorboards or terror from rising up the walls like black rot.

Though you surely tried, didn’t you?

If you would like to read more of my work you can find my horror-fantasy short story collection The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear on Amazon

Short Story – In Our Hour Of Need

‘Chris, there’s a man outside the house.’ Ruth turned to him, letting the curtain drop closed. She was illuminated by the streetlight right outside the house, limned in an infernal orange glow. Her angled cheekbones were pulled into sharp relief, mouth pulled into a moue of suspicion. The effect was cadaverous as she’d yet to regain the weight she’d lost while Joey was in the hospital.

            Chris rose from his side of the bed cautiously and took Ruth’s place at the window. He peeled back the thin fabric. Ruth was right. There was a man outside the house. He stood in the middle of the streetlight’s pool, hands resting on the Adebayo’s gate. Despite being spotlighted by the streetlight Chris could not make out the man’s features. He was draped in indistinct shadow like it was his personal camouflage.

Chris hurriedly turned away. ‘It’s nothing. Just someone waiting for a taxi or something,’ he told his wife.

Ruth had never been a fool. She sat on the bed arms crossed, a frown just visible in the dim light. ‘You should go down there. You know we’ve had weirdos hanging around the house since that thing with the papers.’

‘It’s two in the morning,’ Chris protested. ‘I’m not going down there in my jammies. It’s not like it’s a crime to stand on the street.’

‘What if he’s a paparazzi or something?’ Ruth insisted. ‘He could be trying to break in.’

Chris scoffed. ‘Make up your mind. Either he’s a pap or a burglar, he can’t be both.’

‘Go down there, Chris.’ Ruth’s tone brooked no argument. Chris still tried, opening his mouth to object further. ‘I mean it,’ Ruth cut him off before he could finish drawing breath. ‘I’m worried about Joey. We just got him back, and you know he’s been sleeping funny since getting out of the hospital.

Joey. The papers called him a miracle child. Waking up from a coma when the doctors said he was brain-dead. Walking and talking and acting like the normal, happy kid he’d been before the hit-and-run.

Chris’s shoulders slumped and his spine depressed. It always came down to Joey, didn’t it? He was the cause that kept Chris and Ruth together and the wedge that kept them apart. Joey had supplanted the love the couple had for each other, taking all the love for himself. He was their little miracle, the son granted to them after two courses of IVF, and some bastard in a stolen sports car had almost taken him away from them.

He’d hit his head on the car’s bonnet, the doctors said and then been tossed into the air, hitting his head again on the road when he landed. Massive head trauma. Bleeding on the brain. They’d cracked his skull open to staunch the bleeding and release the pressure –and god bless the NHS – they’d saved his body, but Chris’ beautiful boy had been a vegetable. Dead inside, his spirit already in heaven.

And then, in the eleventh hour, when the doctors were ready to pull the plug, Joey woke up. He looked right at Chris and smiled and said “Dad.”

No wonder the tabloids thought it was a miracle. It should be a miracle. A little whisper of God’s grace in this crappy world. That’s what pastor Evans called it during that first service they took Joey to after his discharge. But it wasn’t a miracle and Chris was the only one who knew that.

Joey’s survival was the result of a bargain and the man outside the house was here to collect on it.

Chris rubbed his mouth, feeling shaky. ‘Alright,’ he said heavily. ‘I’ll just go check on Joey.’ Say goodbye, he meant. Chris didn’t know what would happen. The man was early. He wasn’t supposed to collect for years yet. That was the deal, but Chris could hardly act surprised that a man like him would play dirty.

‘Chris?’ Ruth’s voice stopped him at the threshold of their bedroom.

‘Yeah?’

She had a funny look on her face, the bright glare of the streetlight they’d both become used to over the years, painted half her face in light and the rest in darkness. The wet gleam of her slightly protuberant eyes was very bright. ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘Just…remember that I love you, alright? I just need to do what’s best for Joey, yeah?’

‘Yeah, of course,’ Chris said confused because Ruth sounded upset. ‘That’s what I want too.’ If Ruth knew what he’d bargained for Joey’s health she’d never doubt that, he thought. But he couldn’t tell her. That had been part of the deal. Tell no one. Not that Chris had been all that eager to tell anyone anyway. They’d ever think he was nuts, the grief sending him over the edge, or they’d believe him and Chris didn’t want to think about what Pastor Evans would do if he knew.

Ruth’s smile was tremulous, the wet gleam of her eyes still off-putting. ‘Good,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m glad you understand.’

Chris didn’t understand but he went anyway because he was a man who paid his debts.

Joey waw sleeping soundly, proof that Ruth worried too much sometimes. His bedside table was cluttered with “Get Well” cards and X-Box vouchers or whatever those things were called. Chris picked his way across his son’s bedroom floor, avoiding the clutter so he could lean down and whisper his name.

‘Joey?’

Joey mumbled something in his sleep and turned over, ironically turning his back on his father. Chris swallowed a nervous chuckle and reached down to brush his hand over his son’s soft short-cropped hair.

‘Love you, Joey,’ he whispered turning and leaving the room as silently as a ghost.

The feeling of being a condemned man continued on his way to the front door; the stairs did not creak underfoot, the cat did not stir in the hallway as he passed. The latch turned smoothly first time as Chris opened the door.

The man –call me Steve, he’d said the first time they’d met in the hospital cafeteria – was waiting for him. ‘Mr Adebayo,’ he nodded deferentially and Chris still wasn’t sure if he should be surprised or not that a demon had manners.

He nodded jerkily back. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’re early. You said I had the rest of my life before—‘

‘Now, now, Mr. Adebayo,’ the demon raised his hand in a graceful negating gesture, wrist rolling smoothly within the cuff of his fancy woollen coat. Chris squinted but he still couldn’t make out the man’s features or even ascertain the colour of his skin. It was like the details wouldn’t stick in his mind, as if his brain refused to take in what his eyes saw, so he caught movement and heard the man’s voice but lost all the nuance and accent. ‘There’s no need to fret. I’m here to offer you the chance to revoke our deal, without penalty.’

Chris wished he’d remembered to put on his dressing gown. He shivered, the cold seeping up from the pavement through the soles of his slippers. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked warily. Scripture and popular folklore were clear on one thing. Demons didn’t offer get-out clauses.

‘I’ve been watching you,’ the demon Steve said. ‘You’re not happy Chris. Are you regretting our barter?’ he asked curiously. ‘Perhaps getting your son back isn’t all you hoped it would be? It hasn’t made things easier with Ruth, has it?’ he pushed, somehow sounding both solicitous in his concern and avaricious in the way each probing question jabbed at the weak spots in Chris’s psyche. ‘I feel that we built quite the rapport, you and I,’ Steve continued, his voice melodious, twinkling and dancing on the still, winter night air. ‘I really did enjoy our little chats in the café.’ Steve said earnestly.

‘You mean when you pretended to be a man with a dying daughter?’ Chris shot back. That’s how it had all begun. The chatty, sympathetic guy with the dying kid, who seemed to understand exactly what Chris was going through because he was going through it too.

‘Chris,’ Steve chided. ‘Be reasonable. I had to lie in the beginning. It’s been my experience that people don’t take it well when I tell them I’m a demon.’

Chris laughed despite himself. ‘Yeah, ‘cuz you’re a demon.’

‘There’s no need to be discriminatory.’ Steve sniffed. ‘Have I ever been anything less than upfront with you since revealing my true nature?’ he asked. ‘Did I not go through our contract point by point before you signed?’

Chris frowned. ‘Yeah, and I remember what the contract said. It was binding. That means no going back.’ He’d had to sign the contract with blood. He’d almost baulked then and there. But Steve had calmed him down, promising him that a single drop was all that was needed.

‘Come on now, Chris. Wouldn’t you open a vein for Joey if all he needed was a transfusion?’ he’d asked. ‘Signing in blood is, I admit, a rather archaic custom, but you know how it is, sometimes you just have to put up with old fashion precedent.’ 

Now Steve sounded pleased, ‘That’s what I like about you Chris, you’re a thorough and methodical man. I’ve bargained with some people who barely read the contract.’ He clucked his tongue, the little hissing noise he made incredibly sibilant. ‘Those people make my job so distasteful. It’s hardly worth harvesting the souls of people that negligent.’

Chris licked his lips. He was cold all the way through now. His skin broke out in gooseflesh but he didn’t tremble. He was rooted in place, like a rapidly hardening block of ice. Steve had always had that effect. He made Chris forget the world, his physical comfort, everything except the ebb and flow of Steve’s voice. Chris reckoned it was a demon thing. The Devil was supposed to have a silver tongue. It was probably part of demon training to learn the gift of the gab.

‘While it is true that you cannot attempt to renegotiate the terms of our contract, the contract itself does not prevent me from doing so.’ Steve smiled. ‘I really do like you, Chris. Most of the people I meet in this line of work are so dreadfully histrionic and hysterical; it’s quite trying on the nerves. You and Ruth have been so refreshingly restrained in comparison.’

A dart of surprise rocked Chris out of his stupor. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he demanded. ‘Have you been talking to my wife?’

Fear licked through him. What would he do if Ruth found out he’d made a deal with a demon to save their son? They’d both been raised in the Church. What he’d done was worse than a sin; he’d turned his back on God and the church and pledged his soul to the devil when he died. It was unforgivable and yet, he hoped that Ruth would understand why he’d done it. She’d said herself, she’d do anything to protect Joey. All Chris had done was to make sure she didn’t have to.

‘Oh no, no, Chris,’ Steve hurried to reassure him having no trouble reading his fears in his face. ‘Rest assured I haven’t spoken to your wife about our deal. That would be dreadfully unprofessional of me.’

Chris relaxed fractionally, but there was something about what Steve had said that rankled him. Something about the wording…

‘I’m offering to void our contract,’ Steve said. ‘Your soul will no longer be in hock to Hell. Unfortunately, Joey will die, but think about it Chris,’ Steve said quickly, persuasively, ‘he was going to die anyway, before my intervention. This would be restoring the natural balance. And think, you’d be able to see your boy in heaven when you die.’

‘You bastard,’ Chris rocked forward drunkenly, ‘You leave my boy alone.’ He tried to throw a punch but Steve was no longer there. He’d faded away like smoke on a rainy night, materialising a step or so out of reach, nearer to the curb than the fence.

‘I only want you to be happy Chris,’ Steve pleaded, and sickeningly he sounded sincere. ‘I am in earnest when I say that I truly do like you,’ Steve floated across the pavement until he was back to gripping the gate. Wood splintered, flakes tumbling to the ground as the demon’s nails bit deep. ‘I’ve made hundreds of barters just like ours and never have I felt so much as an inkling to void a contract, until you.’ Steve said wretchedly. ‘Is one child worth your life and your soul? You can have others, it is your wife who is all but barren.’

Rage flooded Chris’s system. During their brief association, Steve had been smooth and impartial and easy to talk to, like a good pastor or a really good dentist. The sort who realise they’re in a trade everyone hates and works hard to make you feel less afraid. Now he was seeing the demon’s real conniving nature.

‘You leave my wife and child out of this,’ Chris bellowed, throwing open the gate so he could confront the demon as he danced like mist to the curb. ‘Your deal with me,’ Chris snatched at Steve’s coat, only for his fingers to close on chill air. ‘I won’t let you hurt them!’

Chris swung and swung again. Steve bobbed in the air like some kind of marksman’s paper target, he floated as if strung on a pulley. His form was insubstantial, ghostly, a mirage of Chris’s own making, except for his voice which raised in pitch until it was a near dog-whistle wail of misery.

‘Oh Chris, please won’t you reconsider? I came to you once before, in your time of need and now I am here again. Let me help you now as I helped you then.’

‘You said you wouldn’t come for my soul ‘til I died,’ Chris spat out, breathless and furious. ‘You broke the rules. I’m not dead. I’m not even sick.’

‘Oh Chris,’ Steve sagged like a limp paper bag. ‘Oh, my poor, dear, honourable man. You were so careful to read the small print, you made such a solid deal, I really was very proud of you –but you see, you forgot to ask for an exclusivity clause.’

Chris startled, ‘What are you talking about?’

Steve sighed, his visage deflated, shoulders rounded, he looked like a very unhappy phantom, all greyscale misery in the pall of the streetlight. Chris sensed that his regard was not entirely on him, however. Instead, Steve seemed to be looking up at the window to the master bedroom. Chris spun around, panicked.

In the darkness, bathed in the streetlighting Chris could see only darkness staring back at him from the bedroom window, but he thought he saw the curtains twitch closed as if Ruth had slipped away from the window the instant he turned to look.

‘You leave my wife alone,’ Chris warned the demon, well aware that his threats were entirely impotent, but determined to try and defend his family all the same.

Steve sighed, a long tired exhale, wheezing like a dying man’s final breath. ‘My word to you, Chris. No harm will come to Ruth at my hand or will.’

Chris fidgeted, caught between fight and flight instincts. ‘And Joey?’ he demanded. ‘You won’t put him back in the coma?’

Steve shook his head. ‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘While it grieves me to leave the contract intact, I will not void it against your will. You people have free will, you see. I’ve given you a chance – very much against policy, I might add –but I can’t force you to save yourself.’

‘Save me,’ Chris sneered, ‘You’re going to take my soul.’

‘Yes, it does appear that I will.’ Steve seemed to concertina toward the gutter, folding in on himself until the illusion of a man gave way to nothing but a whisper of foul, chill air in the night. His sigh was another drawn-out death rattle. ‘You had best go inside Chris. Your wife is waiting.’

Chris hesitated thoroughly confused and alarmed. ‘That’s it?’ he asked. ‘No more tricks or surprises?’

‘No surprises from me, no.’

Steve dragged himself up, fluttering to full height again like the hollow man pennant flags that flap about in the breeze outside Gary’s used car dealership, the one’s that always look like they’re battering against the wind as it drives them into a frenzy. Steve was not in a frenzy. He looked, instead, as if he was marshalling his strength to deal with something very unpleasant. 

It was on the tip of Chris’ tongue to ask, after all, if a demon looked that worried something bad must be about to happen, but then he stopped himself. How did he know what a demon thought was bad? Maybe Steve was upset he hadn’t tricked Chris into betraying his son to save his soul. Maybe that was the demon’s nefarious plan all along? Use his silver tongue to corrupt Chris into the ultimate act of cowardice and damn both him and Joey. Yes, that had to be it. Chris was just too quick for him, too savvy. He’d seen through the demon’s ploy.

Buoyed by this realisation and the satisfaction in knowing that while his soul would eventually go to Hell it would do so honourably, in payment for saving his son, Chris walked back up the path to his house with shoulders back and head held high.

He didn’t see the knife at all. Barely had time to register his wife’s presence, right on the other side of the front door. He rocked back in shock, badly winded, as Ruth drove a punch straight into his abdomen. His shock morphed into something both more profound and uncomprehending as he felt a sudden flush of icy cold rush through his body from head to stomach and looked down to see wetness spreading over his t-shirt.

‘Ruth?’

She came at him and this time he saw the flash of the knife, catch in the light reflected from the ever intrusive light from the street outside. He saw the blade arc down, Ruth’s gaunt face, stretched into a rictus of concentration, her eyes wild and wet. He fell to the hallway floor, a line of fire opening up across his neck and down the side of his face. He smelled coppery blood, felt his skin split, tasted salt on his lips. Dazed he grabbed for the knife, the blade slicing his palms as Ruth wrenched it away. How had she got so strong? Why was she doing this?

‘Ruth!’

The cold from outside had never left him, it seemed because soon he was shivery cold all over. Wet through with his blood. Ruth was an animal; she tore at him, punching holes through his flesh again and again and again until her arms tired and she sagged to the floor beside him, panting.

Chris felt very distant, floating like an untethered balloon. He could hear the thud-dub of his heartbeat in his ears. His body was all fire and brimstone but that he felt less intensely, insulated as he was by the core of chill that spread outward from within, perhaps even from his soul.

‘Why?’ he croaked, lips parched even through the blood spatter.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Ruth sobbed. ‘I had to, I had to save Joey.’

Alarm zinged through Chris, ‘But he’s safe,’ he whispered through numbing lips. ‘I saved him.’

Ruth hiccupped through her torrential tears. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, you are saving him, Chris. Joey is going to live a long life because of you.’ She wiped at her eyes, smearing Chris’ blood all over her face. ‘I’m sorry I have to kill you, but see, it had to be one of us. That was the deal.’ She looked wretched. ‘Joey needs his mum, don’t he?’

 ‘No,’ Chris tried to pull himself up, but his limbs were heavy and wouldn’t listen. ‘No, tell me you didn’t—‘

Behind Chris, the front door opened. Steve shoved his way in, pushing Chris’ body out of the way as he forced open the door. The entranceway was not that wide but somehow Steve contorted to fit into the space, hitching up his trouser legs so he could crouch down in front of Chris and gently stroke his face.

‘My poor Chris,’ he lamented. ‘You made a deal with Hell. Did you think we’d let you live to see three score and ten?’ Steve clucked his tongue, Chris saw the forked tip flicker over his lips. ‘Now we have your soul and your wife’s. A saint and sinner, two birds in the hand.’

The last thing Chris saw in this world was the knife bright shine of Steve’s teeth, smiling as darkness rose to claim him.

Interested in reading more of my weird and creepy stories? The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear a collection of ten horror-fantasy tales is available on Amazon

Short Story – Manchurian Sacrifice

The Manchurian Sacrifice

Outside the bedroom window the doppler-wail of sirens screamed pass and brakes screeched as unmarked police cars careened around the corner. Mathilde heard the heavy, air-cutting whop-whop of a police chopper’s rotor blades from somewhere above her fourth floor safe house and paused in the process of applying her foundation.

The lights were low in the flat, the heavy curtain pulled almost closed, allowing only a hint of the chaos outside to seep in with the muggy, mid-summer air. Ninety minutes ago, the ambassador was murdered at a diamond tiara and black tux affair in the political heart of the city. The perpetrator was still at large.

But not for long. Mathilde looked down at the array of make-up spread out before her in disgust. All of it was department brand only, in a myriad shades of bland with the occasional splash of humdrum thrown in for added spice. The make-up belonged to Melanie. So too did the off-the rack party dress hanging from its hanger on the back of the wardrobe. A hideous thing, it looked like someone had beheaded and plucked the top half of an ostrich, while leaving the bottom fully feathered before applying silver sequins to the torso. Mathilde would sooner slit her own throat than wear it.

She clenched her fists. That was the point though, wasn’t it? Mathilde wouldn’t be wearing it. Melanie would. Stupid, bubble-head Melanie stumbling home from a work’s party with her hair in last season’s style, her face spattered in department store beauty and her backside waggling in feathered delight. God damn Melanie Tumbridge, orthodontic nurse, depressed singleton; a woman who had never travelled further than a trip to Sharm El Sheikh. A woman who spoke only English, and only just. A woman who could barely raise a hand to a spider let alone swat a diplomat straight off the mortal coil.

Melanie was her antithesis. Her nemesis. She was everything Mathilde despised in this world. And yet they had never met. Nor would they ever meet. It was impossible. Like a couple of cursed Gemini twins, she and Melanie were two minds trapped in one body, doomed to exist as nothing more than distorted reflections of the other.

According to the Division, this was the best way to protect operatives and prevent exposure. How could anyone hope to catch a killer who could cease to exist? No polygraph could catch out Melanie. Facial recognition technology could not account for two women with one face who shared not a single facial expression in common. Mathilde left not fingerprints, no traces, but even if she had it wouldn’t matter. DNA might be all but infallible, but the human mind was not. It was easy to fool a mind to disbelieve the eyes when confronted by a pudding like Melanie Tumbridge. Melanie would never crack under interrogation; never slip up. Because she could not slip. As far as she knew she had a full life of blah-blah-blah, don’t-forget-to-floss to account for every hour of her day.

Slowly, Mathilde breathed out, unclenching her balled fists. She flexed her fingers, encouraging blood flow. It did no good to get upset. Reaching up to unclasp the elegant tear-drop diamond necklace from around her neck she pooled the platinum chain in her palm, stroking a fingertip over the cool stone.

This was her seventeenth successful liquidation for the Division. She’d gouged out her legend from Barcelona to Bila Tservka, Phnom Penh to Perth, and criss-crossed the globe back again. She was the best. The diamond of the Division.

And yet, they thought nothing of erasing her.

Restless, Mathilde stood. The bedroom of the safe house was made up to look lived-in and was used by any operative who needed a bolthole in the city. It looked like a room someone could live in and maybe even like it. But not Mathilde. She had no home. She’d lived out of a suitcase since she was eighteen. A creature of purest utility, the Division had taken her and whittled down her softer edges until all that remained was something flat and hard and sharp enough to cut.

Was that why they’d made Melanie so fluffy? Melanie who wore a purple feather boa to a friend’s party unironically. Melanie who had a tasselled counterpane on her bed in her alarmingly aquamarine bedroom with its flat-pack white painted dressing table and backlit mirror covered in failed selfies. Melanie with her love of sour cream and onion flavour crisps and freezer aisle lasagne. Melanie. Melanie. Melanie. Why was it that her life with all its clutter and needless distractions filled Mathilde’s head even before the switch?

Mathilde paced between the bed and the door, on the far side from the window. She beat her right fist into her left palm, the diamond chain still around her wrist. If only she could pulp Melanie’s memory so easily.

It wasn’t supposed to work this way. Melanie was supposed to be the airhead armour that kept Mathilde safe. Melanie was meant to be the cipher. The pretender to the air they both breathed, and the life Mathilde owned. So why was it growing harder to escape her fluffy clutches every time Mathilde emerged from the Deep Sleep? 

‘It could be that increased duration increases the risk of false memory saturation,’ Jose had suggested the one and only time Mathilde had mentioned it after the job in Taipei. She’d had to go under as Melanie for nine months that time. Her revival had felt like a bad birth; she’d emerged into the light blinking Melanie out of her eyes, the memory of the bubble-head’s terrified pleading still ringing in her ears.

‘Why are you doing this to me? Let me go. I don’t want to die.’

Stupid Melanie. She couldn’t die. She wasn’t real. And yet…she felt real.

‘Naturally,’ Jose replied. ‘Deep Covers are meant to provide a fully immersive experience, or what’s the point?’ The technician had tossed the spent hypodermic into the medical waste bin.

Mathilde had watched him do it, thinking that everything she was had been condensed into that syringe. What did it say about Mathilde that she was the toxic agent that needed to be inserted to be brought back? Exactly who was the cover and who was the real person; the woman who died after every successful mission or the woman who lived in-between? 

Mathilde glanced at the digital radio on the bedside table –an old-fashioned thing without a connection to Wi-Fi. She was running out of time. She was expected at the rendezvous point in forty minutes. From there she’d be taken to one of the Deep Sites dotted around the city. Jose or another almost identical lab drone would sit her down, swab her arm and prepare to put her under. Another job done. Another small death as a reward.

What if she ran? Like a bullet from a gun, the thought tore a path through her mind. What if she ran and never stopped running? What if this time she didn’t consent to lie down and die to protect the Division? What if this time she lived and used what they’d taught her to spring from one hotel room to another, to dance across borders, to hew too close to enemy lines? She was the Division’s diamond, but to their enemies she was more precious than that.

Ridiculous. The Division was everywhere. It had its fingers in everything. Mathilde knew how it was. She’d seen behind the curtain. There was no escaping. And why would she want to? What life was out there for her, if not this one? A life like Melanie’s, full of banal pleasures and friendships with people who had no idea she was an empty vessel? Mathilde might have no one, but she had herself and her skills; her peephole into the world behind the curtain. Why would she give that up and risk death?

To live, a little voice whispered in her head. It wasn’t Melanie. The Happy Tooth Fairy wasn’t astute enough to realise Mathilde existed. The treacherous voice belonged to Mathilde, which only made it worse. Like a diamond, she was in danger of fracturing. Her fatal flaw exposed.

She twirled around the room, Melanie’s stupid dress fluttering around her backside. The tote bag with the needle mocked her from the dresser. The bag was Melanie’s. It had a pattern of cherries on it. Mathilde scraped the blunt nails of her hand over her palm, nipping her bottom lip hard enough to bleed. The weak, salt tang of blood was sour on her tongue.

Mathilde had her orders. Inject the contents of the syringe, head to the rendezvous; go to the Deep Site. Die so Melanie could live. Wait until the next time the Division needed its diamond agent.

Rinse and repeat.

Mathilde reached down to brush her fingers through the poofy feathers of Melanie’s dress. The other woman’s thoughts were seeping into her brain. Gemma would be at the party; she could ask her about Layla and Collette’s new baby and coo and ooh over pictures of tiny, wrinkled walnut people to her heart’s content.

She might call Iain; try and patch things up. Explain her odd disappearing acts. Maybe she and her friends would talk about the tailbacks and roadblocks caused by the assassination? Or maybe Melanie wouldn’t care about trivial matters of international espionage. Because Melanie had a life. A life that didn’t start and end with murder.

Mathilde frowned, swiftly reaching up to brush wetness from her face. Tears? Mathilde hadn’t cried for real since completing basic training. What was this? Had the Melanie-rot spread so far, so fast? She shivered, breathing through the hitch in her throat. There must be a glitch in the programming. She’d tell Jose and— The burner phone on the bed rang exactly twice. Mathilde flinched. It was time. She had to go. She was already late.

She swept up the tote bag, dug out the needle, prepped it with practiced, sure hands –and set about performing her second murder of the night. The drug hitting her blood stream was cool, soothing, washing away all regret and leaving only clarity.

It was almost a relief. Death was easy, after all. Mathilde understood it. It was all she understood. She’d leave the living to her enemy. Melanie was better at it. And then, after yet another bloody birth, she might finally have the strength to fix her broken whole.

Interested in reading more of my weird and creepy stories? The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear a collection of ten horror-fantasy tales is available on Amazon

The Rabbit Hole Volume 5: Just…Plain…Weird

My short story Sweet Summer Swimming is featured in the writers co-op latest anthology, The Rabbit Hole Vol. 5, now available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble in ebook and print. Below is an extract from Sweet Summer Swimming, a tale of murderous jellyfish on the hunt!

There is no purpose, no will. No mind. The jellies float. They beach. They burn and they flounder. They feed and they sink back into the surf. They wait to be called home again. Some have fallen, some have multiplied. It matters not. They are jellyfish. There is no will. No mind. No wonder why.

There is only the tide, the spasm of sensation. The hook and the cry and the flail and the catch. There is the pulse and the propulsion, the sudden arrest, the split and the shatter. The sink and the swim.

They are come, they are go, they know not which. They are the jellies and they are here and they are gone. Time is immaterial when there is only the float.

The tide comes in and the jellies rise to meet it.

Interested in reading more of my weird and creepy stories? The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear a collection of ten horror-fantasy tales is available on Amazon

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. 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

Short Story – In Mandragora We Trust

In Mandragora We Trust

You know what your problem is? My sister Stella asked me the other day. You’re a loser, she says. You never try. All you do is complain. And like that was rich coming from her. All she does is complain about me.

Anyway, she’s still banging on. She’s like, look at this place, and waving her hands around like some manic orchestra conductor. And she has this really shrill voice that gets all nasally when she’s angry –and she’s angry a lot, my sister. Mushrooms, Livvy, she shrills. You got mushrooms growing in your bathroom. You’re a slob. A disgrace. I’m sick of cleaning up after you, she tells me, like I’m this huge terrible burden she’s been lumbered with.

            Well, no one’s making you, I shout back, don’t I? ‘Cuz I don’t have to take that, do I? No, I don’t. It’s my life, I yell ‘cuz she’s always judging me and I’m sick of it. I’ll screw up if I want to, I tell her. You can’t tell me what to do!

I’m crying at this point, which is just typical. I hate that I’m a crier, ‘cuz it makes Stella go all superior, acting like I’m just crying for attention or ‘cuz I’m a whiny baby. I mean, it’s not my fault. It’s like I got all the most pathetic traits at birth and none of the good ones. Not like Stella.

Sometimes I really hate Stella. My got-it-all-together sister. Goody-goody two-shoes, perfect first-born, straight-A Stella with her perfect hair and perfect teeth and perfect barbie-doll corporate drone wife. She don’t understand how hard it is to be me.

Anyway, what was I saying? Right, about the other day. Stella gives me this look, alright? Like I’m something nasty stuck to her shoe –not that anything nasty would dare stick to Stella’s shoes. Grow up Liv, she says, looking all serious and haughty. You’re thirty-two, not a teenager. Do something with your life.

I tell her to go to hell. She leaves. And then I’m alone, right? Stuck in my crappy flat with the mouldy floors and mushrooms growing up alongside the bath. I mean, you don’t have to worry, I cleaned up before you arrived so it’s not that bad now. But anyway. Mum and Dad pay the rent on this place ‘cuz I’m still looking for work. It’s not like I’m lazy, mind. People just have it in for me.

They can’t deal with my realness, see. I got self-respect, I’m not picking up after other people who can’t use a stupid bin. I don’t care what it says in my job contract. I know I was born for great things; it’s just that no one will give me a chance. I haven’t found my niche yet, you see. That thing that I’m super good at that no one else can do. Circumstances are against me. The whole world wants too much from me while I’m still trying to find myself. No one can see that I’m special. Different. Sensitive and stuff.

It’s like all them suffering artists from the past, yeah? Did anyone tell Van Gogh, Oi mate, you can’t go ‘round cutting off your ears like that, you got to sign on. No, they didn’t. They just let him get on painting his sunflowers and self-mutilating ‘cuz they recognised he was special, didn’t they? Old Van Gogh even had a brother who took care of him, not like me and Stella.

But you know, Van Gogh had to deal with idiots who didn’t understand him too. He was painting his Starry Night and people were like whose that ginger weirdo with the one ear? We should lock him up.

That’s life though, ain’t it?

Special, sensitive, tortured people suffer. They get no appreciation until they die and then everyone is like, wow, look at them Sunflowers, that’s genius. Let’s write sad, hippy songs about how no one appreciates artists ‘til they’re dead. It’s like, a cosmic rule or something.

And like I know I’m one of them tortured artist people. I got to be right? ‘Cuz I’m living in a crappy housing estate full of winos and druggies. And that weird pale guy on the top floor with the widow’s peak who’s probably a serial killer ‘cuz he only goes out at night.

But like, I’ve been working on a novel right? About a girl who fights against the whole stupid world that only sees her loser outer shell. ‘Cuz the world’s shallow and judgy and wouldn’t know greatness if it slapped ‘em silly with a giant sturgeon, would it? No, it wouldn’t.

It’s gonna be a best-seller, my book. I mean, I’ve only written, like, four thousand words in four years, but you can’t rush the creative process. Genius takes time to sprout.

Anyway, I started a Kickstarter to drum up funds but people were all like, well what’s the outline? What’s the plot about? When’s it gonna be done? What’s the genre? And I’m like, don’t distract me with all these questions. My book’s not like other books. It don’t need things like plot or character or whatever. I’ve got tortured genius, don’t I?

So yeah, I read about Mandragora online, that’s how I found about your offer. I was doing one of those “what sort of vegetable are you” quizzes. I’m an aubergine, by the way. Did you know the aubergine is part of the Nightshade family? Yeah, like related to Deadly Nightshade? I thought that was pretty cool. Anyway, I saw your ad saying you were looking for people who wanted to cultivate a new version of themselves, and I was like, that’s me, that is. I’m all about cultivating myself.

By the way, just got to say, your hair is awesome. It’s all bright green and springy like moss. What brand of dye is that? ‘Cuz my friend Oona –well, Beth actually, but she’s been Oona since she went Goth at, like twenty-three–Anyway, she tried to dye her hair green and it came out like a cat wee’d on some straw or something.

But your hair’s nothing like that. It’s awesome. I mean that green lipstick is awesome too. What’s the shade?

It’s natural?

Is that some kind of genetic condition? Err, you don’t have to answer that if it’s personal or anything. Forget I asked.

Mandragora did that? Um, is that supposed to happen, ‘cuz the ad didn’t mention any side-effects.

No way! That’s what you used to look like? Seriously? This picture isn’t photoshopped or nothing? Oh my god. That’s amazing. You look completely different. Way thinner and your skin is, like, flawless now.

I will definitely take green hair and weird lips if it means I get to look like you. Err, you know what I mean right? I’m not trying to hit on to you or anything.

Wow, your eyes are so shiny. It’s like they suck in all the light, but they’re so dark and mysterious too. Is that a mandragora thing as well? ‘Cuz in your picture your eyes are blue.

Yeah, I’ve got a credit card. I mean I’m kinda paying off the overdraft, but like, you have an instalment plan, right? You don’t? Oh wow. Err, I’m really sorry but I’m not sure I can pay…free trial? Are you serious? Wow, that’s wonderful.

I’m really glad you think I’m a good candidate for cultivation. It makes me feel better about your company that you care so much about your clients. Y’know, you got to be careful about these internet ads, ‘cuz a lot of them are scams. Not that I’m implying anything about Mandragora, but like, it’s too good to be true, isn’t it?

A glass of water, uh, okay. That’s like your third glass since you got here. Are you sure I can’t get you a coffee? Just water. Okay. I guess hydration is good for the skin and that, right?

I got to ask, your fingers? They’re kind of green. I mean not just the nails, which are like, lethal long, but your skin is like, cauliflower pale, you know? So white it’s sort of greenish? Sorry. That was super rude. I shouldn’t have said anything.

Oh, that’s mandragora as well?

Is there a pamphlet or something that explains all the side-effects? ‘Cuz I don’t know, I might be allergic to going green. I’m allergic to gluten, you know? And strawberries. And cheap silver jewellery. I had silver earrings once and my ear got infected and it was like –Boom –puss and blood everywhere.

Mandragora uses my blood? That’s, um, are you sure this is legal?

Oh, I see. I guess that makes sense. So I just plant this seed thingy in this sack and what, bleed on the soil? ‘Cuz I got to tell you that sack looks like a body bag. Oh, I have to lie in the sack. And what? Put dirt all over me? Isn’t that a bit weird?

Yes, I have heard of mudbaths, but isn’t the mud usually wet and like, don’t you have to sit in a spa bath and put cucumber on your eyeballs?

Okay, no cucumber. No other vegetation. No contaminants. Got it. You know, you were a bit intense then. You might want to chill a bit, ‘cuz it was a bit off-putting. Just saying, for future customers.

Oh, I know, I know. Sales is awful. There was this one time I was working at a call centre, right? Worst forty-five minutes of my life. I walked out. Had too. Those places are like a living death. Soul-destroying, you know?

Well, I guess when you put it that way, sleeping in a sack of dirt with a giant seed thingy on my chest isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever done. And like dirt is good for you, right? Therapeutic and all that?

A pint? I have to pour a pint of blood into the dirt? That’s like, a lot, isn’t it? I mean won’t I get anaemic or something?

Well, yeah I guess that’s alright if it’s the same as giving blood. I mean, you are trained to draw blood, aren’t you? ‘Cuz, I don’t want you missing the vein so I end up haemorrhaging under my skin or something.

Wow, you just carry around needles and blood bags? You must be real confident you’ll make a sale.

The questionnaire? I mean, I remember filling it out and it was super long, like those personality profile quizzes. Wait, so you only do home visits of people pre-approved for cultivation? The questionnaire is that good at weeding out bad clients? Huh, I think this is the first time I’ve ever been pre-approved for anything.

You know what, go ahead. Stick that needle in me. I’ve got a good feeling about this.

Talk to the seed?

What like Prince Charles talks to plants? That actually works? And like, what is this cultivation process anyway? What sort of changes should I see after doing this? How often do I repeat the treatment?

I have to say, I don’t think I want to do the whole bleeding into a bag thing all that often.

Look, I get that the “Whole New You” thing is, like, Mandragoras catchphrase or whatever– but what does it mean, like really? When will I start losing weight? Will my hair change colour gradually or all at once? These are kind of important details and you haven’t told me anything.

Overnight? Seriously? I’ll be like you in less than twenty-four hours?

Is there like a money-back guarantee if it doesn’t work? ‘Cuz I’ve done fad diets and bought like, fat buster products before and they never work as advertised.

Eww, I have to sleep naked in the bloody dirt? Isn’t that like really unhygienic?

Okay, I mean I guess. If the seed needs to be against my heart, but like, there’s still my skin and my ribcage and lungs and stuff in-between? So I don’t see why a nighty is really going to matter that much—

Well, yeah. Of course, I want to blossom as a life-form. Although, just saying, that is a weird way of putting it.

Okay, I mean, this is like a free trial and you’ve already taken my blood, so what the hell? I’ll do it. I should tell you though, I’m still a bit sceptical about all this. I’m not like those gullible people who will jump on any fad or quick-fix. I’m discerning. That’s always been my problem.

Wow, would you look at that? This seed-thingy is super creepy. It looks like it’s got a face. A scary, screamy face.

Do I really have to put this on my chest, seriously?

Alright, so do you have a number or email I can reach you on if this doesn’t work?

Well, aren’t you confident? Maybe your other clients had no complaints but as I said, I’m not like other people. I want a number for your complaints department, or you can take your creepy screaming seed back and leave.

Thank you. Yes, I will do as instructed. I’ll lay out the dirt and pour in the blood soon as you leave. What no, I’m not going to go to sleep immediately. It’s four in the afternoon.

Germination happens when the blood is still warm?

Fine, alright. I’ll do it. But seriously, you need to work on your sales pitch because you are kind of pushy with your weird void-stare and monotone delivery.

Yeah, whatever you say. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my blooming too. What? You’ll be back for the harvest? What harvest? Holy crap. Why is the seed screaming?

Wait, come back—

If you’d like to read more of my creepy and weird stories check out The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear available to buy from Amazon

(All images except title image curtesy of Pixabay free images)

Short Story – It Happened on a Tuesday

It Happened On A Tuesday

On Tuesday 4^th, Clive Screed woke up with a headache. Suze was still sleeping so he slipped out of bed and ambled to the bathroom to go through his usual motions before heading to work.

Clive had worked at Cordon and Bloom Accountancy for twenty years; he liked to joke that he was a lifer. He ran several blue-chip accounts and would’ve made the upper echelons of management if he’d possessed an iota of ambition. Instead, Clive possessed a much rarer gift, loyalty, and satisfaction in his work. He was a mainstay of the office; a touchstone for the company and an easy-going mentor for the junior staff. People liked Clive and Clive liked people.

This Tuesday was different. Clive had taken an aspirin before starting his commute to work but it hadn’t worked. The hysteria-tinged prattle of the radio announcer aggravated his headache as he joined the wind of traffic on the ring-round circling the town. Clive’s favourite station had given over most of its air-time not to the golden oldies Clive liked best, but to some drivel about a new strain of virus spreading around the country; Clive paid very little attention. It seemed to him that everyone now-a-days was a hypochondriac. He was forced to change station and this break to his contented routine further aggravated the drilling pain in his head.

He, therefore, entered the office at ten minutes past nine in an uncharacteristically bad mood, ignoring the usual round of half-heartedly cheery greetings from staff members pleased to see him but less pleased to be at work on a Tuesday morning. Clive tried to summon his usual joie-de-vivre while he checked his emails but an odd lethargy dragged at his mind, deflating his spirits. At ten-fifteen he almost cursed when the printer jammed and he caught himself glowering at Julie over the cubicle partition when she coughed too loudly. He was quite surprised and ashamed of himself. 

At a quarter past two, Clive was startled awake at his desk. This was shocking for two reasons, firstly, in twenty years Clive had worked at Cordon and Bloom he had never, ever dozed off at his desk and secondly, Julie was screaming.

Clive lumbered to his feet, limbs heavy and uncoordinated. He looked for Julie. Her cubicle next to his was a state. There was blood all over her monitor. Her keyboard dangled over the desk edge, hanging by its cable. Her swivel chair was out in the aisle. Clive tutted under his breath. He detested mess.

This was unfortunate as it appeared that the office had become a shambles while he was snoozing. There were papers everywhere. Cubicle partitions had been ripped from between desks and flung around hither and thither. Someone had planted their bloody handprints all over the off-white walls and Tim-the-intern appeared to be lying in the middle of reception in a pool of his own blood. Clive blinked in surprise, this just wasn’t the sort of behaviour one expected from Cordon and Bloom.

At least Julie had stopped screaming, which was a relief to Clive and some comfort to his aching head. He stumbled upon her body next to junior partner Aaron Carruther’s cubicle, she too appeared to have taken to lying on the floor in a very dishevelled state. Belatedly, he realised she was dead and took a moment to be shocked by that.

Aaron crouched over Julie, blood and drool spilling from his mouth. He yowled at Clive like an angry cat when he saw him, foamy spittle flying from his lips.

Clive reeled back in alarm. He hadn’t thought Aaron the type to go around eating co-workers.

Aaron lunged for Clive’s ankles and Clive fell back into Ranjit’s desk. He grabbed hold of the back of Ranjit’s swivel chair and slammed it into Aaron’s body as the younger man lurched at him. Aaron was not a fit man. He fell backwards, arse-over-tea-kettle as the saying goes. Clive dragged himself up and hurried toward the main doors.

It would be inaccurate to say that forty-three-year-old Clive ran from the office because forty-three-year-old Clive hadn’t done any running since his five-a-side footie team had disbanded when Jerry North went and immigrated to Australia (the lucky bastard). He gave it a good try though.

Rambling down the communal corridor in the office complex Cordon and Bloom shared with a photography studio and a dentist, he lurched drunkenly off walls and into the copier, before pausing briefly and cocking an ear to the screams issuing through the door to Doctor Chakraborty’s surgery. The door was locked and when banging his fist on the frosted glass pane failed to hail anyone Clive reluctantly moved on.

Clive did not meet anyone on the lower floors of the complex. There was evidence that someone had had a bit of a spill; Clive’s sensible black leather shoes sloshed deep into the blood-soaked shag outside Rogers Consultancy on the ground floor. Confused and vaguely concerned at the number of bloody accidents going on in the building, Clive fumbled his way out of the buildings glass doors.

The comfort of the quietude the abandoned office block afforded Clive was lost the instant he stumbled outside. There was a lot of noise and fuss, someone was yelling over a loudspeaker and some fool had put up cordons and police barricades all around the pedestrian plaza. That was just not on, in Clive’s opinion. The plaza was hazardous enough, what with fountain jets set into the ground and the European market setting up shop in the middle of the thoroughfare. The last thing anyone needed was for some jobsworth to turn the plaza into a literal obstacle course of cordons and sandbags and police tape.

Clive had reached the limit of his patience, which was his only excuse for roughly knocking over the cordon and lurching into the plaza. A low, guttural growl escaped him when he saw the broken glass, shattered market stalls and detritus of German sausages, French baguettes and peculiar knick-knacks strewn over the ground. Not to mention the corpses. Really what was all that about? Clive wondered. Since when was it acceptable to leave corpses all over the place? What did he pay his taxes for if the council couldn’t even keep litter and corpses off the streets? It was disgraceful.

Clive was not the only person left to fumble their way toward the distant barricade, a good number of rather unsightly looking ne’er-do-wells were shambling about, bouncing off litter bins and falling over benches. Some of them appeared to be picking at the corpses or fighting one another in a slow and disorganized manner. Clive wondered if these louts were responsible for all the mess.

He avoided the lot of them, ambling along the line of cordons toward the hub of noise and activity on the other side. The voice over the loudspeaker continued to blear out, but the voice was too distorted for Clive to understand. He fixed on the people – normal, unbloodied people—he could see on the other side of the thicket of sandbags, armed police and parked police cars forming a barricade in the middle of the plaza. What was going on here? Clive asked himself. It looked like a scene from one of those disaster movies Suze liked to watch.

Clive was sliding along the outer wall of the abandoned Japanese restaurant, edging closer to the nearest group of officers when one of them yelled and raised his gun. Clive rocked to a halt. A nice, urban lower-middle-class Englishman, Clive had never seen a real rifle before, let alone heard one fired. He fell over in shock, quite winded and unsettled by the whole affair. What the buggery was going on? Why was the police shooting at him? 

Had the whole world gone mad while he was napping?

Clive dragged himself away, frightened and scared. He took refuge in the narrow alley between the bank and the bakery where the winos liked to congregate. They weren’t there now. No one was. Clive slumped against the wall and sobbed. His v-neck jumper was all stained and bloody. His left leg shook uncontrollably, his foot bouncing over the concrete. Out in the plaza, the rat-tat-tat of gunfire and the bellowing of the voice over the loudspeaker merged into an incomprehensible cacophony that made Clive’s head hurt abominably. Above the buildings a helicopter whoop-whooped by.

Clive wasn’t sure how long he sat in the alley, surrounded by blood and the stench of stale urine. Time cycled by in a blur of muted sensation. The sound of helicopter rota blades slicing and dicing the air; the staccato bursts of gunfire; the distant roar of jeeps and truck motors; the occasional scream and the sharp, bright tinkle of shattering glass  — all of it overlaid by the blearing of loudspeakers.

It grew dark and it occurred to him that he needed to find Suze.

The plaza was a different place when he dragged himself out of the alley. There were a lot more rough-looking types shambling about, growing more aggressive now the sun had set. The barricade at the end of the plaza had been abandoned and all the storefronts sported broken windows and gutted displays. It was like the office all over again, all the order and civility of the town had fallen to ruin while Clive’s back was turned.

Charlemagne Boulevard was deserted; tire marks scoured the asphalt and concrete blocks had been placed over two traffic lanes, preventing cars from coming into the town centre. Clive saw the swirling flash of blue and white police lights further along the boulevard and approached the police car cautiously. The police had fired on him, a law-abiding citizen, but as a law-abiding citizen, it was still encoded in Clive to seek a policeman’s aid.

He was disappointed to find the car abandoned, the blood on the driver’s seat already dried. He moved off, feet slow and dragging. He was so blasted tired that was the problem. He couldn’t think right. Everything was topsy-turvy and his head would not stop aching. It was all wrong. Everything. All wrong.

He needed to get home to Suze; that was it. That was the answer. She’d be worried about him. He was probably late home. He hoped she had dinner on. He was hungry. Filled with a raw, empty hunger that opened in the pit of his stomach like a fissure and threatened to hollow him out. That’s how he felt, he realised. Hollow, like a gutted building. He was nothing but a façade of a man with all his vital bits missing.

Clive stumbled to a stop. He would be the first to admit he was not what one would call a deep thinker by nature. It wasn’t his way to question too much the why and the wherefore of anything. Life was for living, he always said, everything else will sort itself out in time. It was a bit odd for him to be getting all poetic, but he supposed he’d earned the right to get a bit maudlin, what with the day he’d had.

He mopped his brow with a limp hand, disgusted by the drool clinging to his lax chin. He must be coming down with something, he reasoned. He was all out-of-sorts. He had to stop outside the offy on Milden Avenue to collect himself. He picked up a packet of tissues but found Agnieszka indisposed and unable to take his money. He left the correct change on the counter and hoped her son would be along soon to pick up her body. It looked like some rotten soul had already taken a couple of bites out of her.

Clive picked up the pace as he passed by the primary school on Teft Street; he didn’t want to look.

The streets were so quiet. Clive had the ants up the spine feeling of eyes watching him from behind broken windows or shadowed garden corners, but he saw no one. The distant scream of sirens in other parts of the town came to him over the still air the only hint that anyone survived. 

Someone had driven a white van into the side of Mrs. Marchants’ house at the top of the street. Another car smouldered further down the way and Clive would be worried about the engine blowing, what with the flames he could see dancing under the bonnet and the audible crackle and pop of melting glass and tires were he not so hungry. It was all he could think about. That and Suze.

Suze and her Sunday roasts, her fat dripping potatoes and the way she melted the cheese on top of the shepherd’s pie just the way he liked, creating a little patina of golden-orange cheesy goodness on top. He started to salivate. He did love his Suze, what with her big hips and ample bosom. She wasn’t fast-moving his Suze, a bit clumsy all told. He hoped no one had gotten to her. He was so very, very hungry.

He slipped around the back of the house, entering through the passage that ran between his house and the neighbours and led to the back garden gate. The kitchen door was less secure than the front. He was so hungry he didn’t want to have to fuss around breaking in through the front window. What would the neighbours think?

He found Suze in the upstairs bathroom, cowering in the bathtub behind the shower curtain. She was in a right state. Screaming and crying hysterically when she saw him. He reached for her and she threw the shampoo bottle at his head.

Well, that was a fine to-do, wasn’t it? A man braves life and limb to get home to his wife and this is his welcome? A spark of anger lit inside him, causing his hunger to surge.

Suze wept and begged as he dragged her out of the bath. Her screaming and sobbing drove a spike of agony into his brain, jagged and rough. He couldn’t bear it. The incessant drilling in his head and the raw wound in his stomach combined in a crescendo of pain.

Pain that only stopped when he took his first bite.

If you’d like to read more weird and creepy tales of suburban terror, check out The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear, a collection of ten horror/urban fantasy stories available on Amazon

Haunt Anthology – Available Now

My short story One-Eyed Queens and Crocodile Teeth is featured in Haunt anthology from Dragon Soul Press available on Amazon. Below is an extract from One-Eyed Queens and Crocodile teeth.

One-Eyed Queens and Crocodile Teeth

They say that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. But you say bollocks to that, don’t you Cheryl? You’ve never had much time for kings. Nor men, for that matter. And seeing? Well, the blind don’t know how lucky they are.

Your problem’s always been the same. You’ve always seen too much. You see it all. The twisted bodies of the sprites that jump from tree branch to tree branch in a storm. The faces in the wind and the shadows at the periphery of the brightest day. You see the darkness and the darkness sees you.

But you managed. For years, you managed. You were nimble, you were tough; you saw it all and you asked no questions. Monkey sees, but Monkey don’t talk. You survived. You thrived. You were the one-eyed queen in the dark.

You cleaned house for the monsters, learning the lesson of every soul that’s ever been weak amid the strong and the mean; when you can’t fight and you can’t run, be useful. And you were. When wicked old Mr. Watkins guilt came for him, you were there, wiping the tiny finger trails off the windowpanes and ignoring the way the condensation ran like tears.

You spritzed and you squirted, you wiped it all away, but the fingers lingered, scraping invisible patterns over the pane as you turned your back.

When the shadows in the room sniffled and pawed at the smudgy walls, when the reek of ammonia and terror clogged your nose, you whipped out the polish until the room smelled like an orange grove in Andalucía. You scrubbed the walls until they shone like ivory. You swept trapped sobs from between the slats of the Venetian blinds and let them drift as dust to the carpet before you got the Dyson out.

When the cupboard doors rattled in the toy maker’s workshop, you kept your head down and never opened the doors. You never looked into the weeping eyes of all those little wind-up boys and girls with their too life-like faces. ‘Cuz you knew what you’d see.  But nothing gets the stink of evil out of the air, does it, Cheryl? Nor stops fear from leaking into the floorboards or terror from rising up the walls like black rot.

Though you surely tried, didn’t you?

If you would like to read more of my work you can find my horror-fantasy short story collection The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear on Amazon

The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear – Available on Amazon

The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear and Other Stories of Chilling Modern Horror Fantasy is a collection of ten short stories mixing the urban fantasy and horror genres. It is available to buy on Amazon here

In a dystopian Britain, Lorraine has a severed hand problem. A trip to the woods turns to tragedy for Bethany and a deal with a love-struck demon goes awry for Chris. This is just a taste of the ten short stories of urban fantasy and horror gathered here. Spotlighting a strange and twisted suburban world, where a P.A’s unrequited love for the new girl in the office attracts a nightclub genie, vampires contract with the local cleaning service for discreet stain removal and everything and nothing is as it seems. Each self-contained story provides humour with a bite and chills with a smile focusing on the lives of normal people in an abnormal world where no one is entirely innocent and everyone has something to fear.

Short Story: Love, Here and After

Love: Here, Now and After

Rain sluices through the guttering as she passes under the overhanging eaves of the tight packed buildings. Raindrops drip off her nose and cluster on her eyelashes. The cobbled streets glitter like scales under lamplight, and her heels echo loudly down the alley. Two years, since last she walked these streets.

It was sunny the day she left, steamer pass clenched in her fist like a winning lottery ticket. On that day, love had been the cost of a ticket out. Its power infinite, stretching like the freedom the ocean promised.

She remembers how it had percolated in her bloodstream, rippling her skin like the memory of roughened hands and short grated nails forcing the ticket into her own. ‘Go now,’ her Jim had said, ‘so you can choose to come back.’

Watching Jim stride off, back into the smoke-stack city that had swallowed their childhood, she’d felt her stomach swoop low to her knees. She’d been dizzy like she was after hours spent running the streets for Uncle Jack. Her guts screaming like another night going hungry, and it was a type of hunger she’d felt then. The hunger of the desolate. The hunger of a girl cut loose.

This must be love, she’d thought, because surely only the greatest love could cut so cruelly.

Standing by the ship deck rail as a big white moon looked down on the glass black ocean, she’d reconsidered. Love was an anchor, she’d decided. It held you firm when your soul wanted to soar, but it made sure you knew how to find land again. Because she knew her Jim. She knew his liar’s tongue and honest silences. When he’d said Go, he’d really been saying, There’ll always be a home here for you when you’re done with the world.

She wasn’t done with the world yet, but she was home all the same.

The sights, the sounds, the tastes of the world had filled her up, plumping her hollows, smoothing over the pieces of her Uncle Jack had worn away and adding colour to a spirit she’d thought could only ever stay as pitch drab as old coal, blackened by the choices she’d never had.  She wondered at herself, at the madness of returning at all. But it was like over-eating, she thought. She’d glutted herself on adventure and she’d come home to digest.

Stories burned the tip of her tongue as she hurried passed the boarded up store front of Tag’s bookies, wondering what had happened to put the old crook out of business.  Her pace quickened to the point of danger as she skedaddled over slick cobbles, longing tightening her throat. Excitement bright as stage footlights seared her insides.

This is love, she told herself. It must be. Only love could feel so dire.

She longed to tell tales of sled races through snowstorms in grand northern cities and how the cold was so fierce it stabbed the throat and stole the breath. She longed to whisper of warm surf and bone white beaches while huddling together in the attic chill, her Jim’s shoulder pressed to hers warmer than sunlit sand. She wanted to pluck the taste of spice from the tip of her memory and offer it up on a platter of words. She wanted to paint a picture of a ballroom rendered by the spinning shimmer of a rainbow chandelier.

 She’d been a thousand different people, met two thousand more, and she’d learned to fly, free to choose her own who and where, and why. But she’d always known she’d return to the dingy, dark house on Etward Street with its broken ground floor windows, weed choked garden, and a single light always burning in the attic.

Because she’s got a lot of stories but there’s only one person she wants to tell them too, and that too must be love, she thinks, because why else would she come back here, to this place that had made of her girlhood a prison?

The light in the attic burns still and the house is exactly as she remembers it, like something out of a picture book. Dark and narrow, drain pipe peeling off the wall, gutters choking on the rain. The fence barely strong enough to take her weight as she hauls herself over and lands in the weeds. The key under the broke-nose gnome, the ruddy paint long since washed off his fat cheeks.

She lets herself further into the world of her memories and shudders. Plates in the sink, beer bottles on the pokey table, stale smoke in the air. It’s like she’d never left, except that Uncle Jack’s chair is gone from the little parlour, and the window’s been replaced. There’s a new runner on the stairs as she creeps up and up, passed the hall where her bedroom door remains closed. Up to the attic, where the light shines down.

            He’s waiting for her. New suit, smart buttons, shoes shined. Hair slick. Eyes like she remembers, at once sorrowful and shrewd, spidery hands clasped to his knees. New scar through his lip. Expensive watch. She remembers Tag’s derelict store and thinks, did he take out the competition?

There’s no hello. No welcome. No surprise to see her back. Just the weight of expectation in those eyes.

Is this love dragging on her guts and leaving her breathless, or is it merely disappointment, she wonders. She feels the weight of the anchor pulling her down into the depths. She takes a fortifying breath, fearing it might be her last.

‘Uncle Jack?’ she asks.

‘Gone. Doing a long stretch. I found a man that could see it done,’ he says like it’s no big thing. Like the monster who ruled their world was nothing. Just a nuisance to be rid of same as her.

‘You couldn’t’ve done that before I left?’ she asks – no –she demands. All thoughts of sharing champagne tales and glittering reminiscences with this man forgotten.

He looks at her with his sorrowing eyes, eyes that can never hide the impatient mind behind them and says, ‘What difference would it have made? You was always going to leave.’

‘I should shoot you,’ she tells him very calmly. ‘You’re lucky my gun’s packed in my bag.’ She thinks about hurling the whole carpet bag at his head instead. Decides leveraging her dignity against his callousness is a better strategy. He’s no more likely to fall to her best throw than he ever did to Uncle’s Jack’s fists. Hard as hammers as they always were.

 He has the audacity to smile. ‘You don’t know how to shoot.’

‘Met a man, didn’t I?’ she says smiling cruelly as he loses his. ‘Had a silver revolver, he did. Taught me how to shoot. Taught me a lot of things.’

He nods, ponderous and slow, like he thinks he’s wise. ‘You’ve done a lot, haven’t you, Tee,’ he says, scratching his cheek and looking across the small room.

Pinned to the flocked wallpaper is a yellowed poster with her smiling face on it. Her heels click over the old floorboards as she approaches, trailing her polished nails over cuttings of newspaper reviews, old advertisements and flyers revealing a meticulous record of her every tour and revue.

Was this love? An attic full of pictures snipped from magazines. A timeline pinned to a wall sketched out toward an inevitable reunion. Was she seeing the ghost of hope or just a mirage under the baleful glare of the bare bulb?

‘I’ve done enough,’ she says quietly, the lump of lead softening inside her. ‘Had fun. Learned to be myself and a lot of other people besides.’ It’s strange to see her exploits laid out like this. She feels almost robbed. Her mystery revealed before she was ready.

‘And now you’re back,’ he says, a curl of satisfaction in his voice.

 ‘Just a visit,’ she says, sharp and quick.

 ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘You belong to the world now, don’t you, Tee?’

  ‘I belong to myself.’

  He nods. ‘Good.’

He doesn’t stand, doesn’t move, so she does. Sinking down beside him. She remembers this. Sitting shoulder to shoulder just like this, cowering from the world downstairs, his arm around her skinny shoulders. Just the two of them, Jack Skimper’s unwanted niece and his obstinate apprentice.

Things’ll get better, Tee, Jim’d say through a fat lip.

Yeah? How’s that? She’d ask disbelieving.

Well, the sod’s got to die someday, he’d laugh.

Back then they’d had something, even though she never believed a word he said. The warmth of body heat, the promise of suffering understood, the whisper of a shared and nourished hope. One that found life in a ticket taking her miles and worlds away. Love had lived in the silence back then. It had breathed in the promise of another day, another place, another them. A moment in time when they weren’t shaped by their desperation and made brittle by experience they didn’t want. Love had waited for them in the future.

What lived between them now? Obligation? Guilt? Nostalgia? Him trapped in his attic, her returning like a tourist to judge? Was love an anchor, a guiding light or the weight of a poisoned promise, she wondered. What was there for them here, when she had found freedom in the world and he had done whatever it was that got him that gold watch?

He stirs, like the ancient king under the mountain. ‘Missed you.’ A mutter, there and gone before she can feel its impact. He nudges her shoulder, ‘Tell me about the king’s fete, why don’t you?’

The air warms between them, like island sunshine. He takes her hand and his nails are still rough. Her breath catches. Hope stirs. Words burn her tongue. She tastes the memory of spice and thinks, here it is. Love.

It’s not much. A paltry ghost of sensation, just the brush of a thumb against her wrist. Just a moment plucked from time. Lost in a minute, remembered for hours. Not anything to live or die for. But it’s enough, she thinks. It’s enough that it is, here, now, and after.

If you’d like to read more of my short stories The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear is a collection of Urban Fantasy/Horror short stories available on Amazon

(All images Pixabay free to use)