What others are saying about

Urbane and Other Horror Tales

"Beautifully horrific - the writing is absolutely superb, and every story is satisfying"

-- Horror Madness & Mayhem

"A must read, genuinely horrific, well-written book"

-- Necrocarnival

Urbane and Other Horror Tales

by Frazer Lee

Kindle Edition

Copyright 2010 by Frazer Lee

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to frazerlee.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

Contents

Urbane

Pendragon Rising

Ill Met By Moonlight

Conspiracy Of Silence

The Minus Touch

Tinsel

Hair Of The Dog

Half/Life (bonus flash fiction, eBook edition only)

About the Author

Urbane

Jennifer examined the bone-saw through tired, aching eyes.

Drifting off momentarily, she stared at the sticky red residue clinging to the sharp teeth of the circular blade. Tiny fragments of bone and grue glistened in the overhead lights. Drip-drip, went the tap. Plink-plink, went the surgical steel table as the water droplets parachuted down onto its smooth surface. They made little clearings in the river of blood there, then mingled with the trails of red and swam steadily downstream toward the plughole’s abyss.

“Wanna get pizza? Or are you gonna cosy up with John Doe over there all night?”

Jennifer snapped out of her trance.

Her colleague, Bill had already scrubbed up and was ready to go. And he was asking her out again. Jennifer was never quite comfortable being asked out over the dead bodies in the morgue, especially by Bill. He had funny, creepy eyes. Or maybe he just looked at her funny. Either way, he wasn’t going to get a look in.

“No thanks Bill,” she heard herself say, “I’d better clean up and get going. I’m meeting a friend tonight.”

Bill made a joke about her having a life, leered at her in that disconcerting way of his and (praise the lord) left.

Jennifer set about bagging up the body of her John Doe and washed down the table, ready for tomorrow’s cadavers. She didn’t dislike doing autopsies; it was kind of therapeutic to her. No, it was just that there were so damn many this month.

The New York night was freezing cold and loud as hell. Just the way she liked it. She breathed in the sulphur of the air hungrily. Heading home, Jennifer stopped off at the store to grab a snack and some body spray. She hadn’t had a date in ages and she was feeling good about tonight’s. Hospital orderlies weren’t usually her type, but this young British guy definitely had something about him. He was charming, witty, and urbane. Yes, he was handsome and just a little bit mischievous around the eyes. Not like yucky Bill, oh no. He had a cool name too – it had made her laugh when he introduced himself as Geez. “Like geyser?” she had said. And he had laughed too. This was all very encouraging; the sex would be great. Yes, he’d do.

Grinning to herself now, Jennifer stepped into the cab. As it trundled along to the club, she sniffed her wrists. The body spray was a little acrid, but musky enough to disguise the stench of latex gloves and chemicals from her busy day. She settled back and enjoyed the ride. Despite her tiredness, Jennifer was feeling good about herself. She felt like having a drink and dancing.

Hot white searchlights pierced the night sky above the club. Massive fiery letters spelled out “EVILUTION” above the entrance. A crowd of revelers lined up impatiently outside the doors.

Jennifer paid the cab driver and took in the scene for a moment. So it was a rock club. This was going to be one hell of a party.

She clutched her invite and, ignoring the queue, held it out to a huge, monolithic doorman. He looked like he had been forged from granite and wrapped in layers of beef. His hands were bigger than Jennifer’s TV set. Suddenly, he smiled. She had an invite – she must be somebody important. And as he ushered her inside, seeming to shrink by a few feet as he did so, Jennifer really felt like somebody important. The collective gaze of the revelers, all lined up in the cold, seemed to be one of searing envy. And she had to admit; Jennifer liked it.

Inside, the music was deafening. As Jennifer entered the hot maw of the club, her mouth opened in wonder at the sheer size of the place. Massive sculptures of intertwining bodies snaked upwards from floor to ceiling, framed by giant red velvet drapes. A balcony, like a pulpit in this cathedral of sweat and noise, overlooked the huge dance floor. Behind it, colored light fizzed and swirled through a vast stained glass window.

Geez was waiting for her at the bar. He looked great. His hair slightly ragged, and his suit like something from an experimental Japanese movie. This was certainly a change from hospital orderly garb, and Jennifer liked it. He ordered her a large vodka tonic - her favourite drink.

When she insisted on paying, he laughed and said she could get the next round.

So British.

After a couple of stiff drinks, they hit the dance floor. The music was heavy, rumbling and sexy. Jennifer got into it immediately. She felt good, and Geez was keeping up with her. As their bodies brushed together, she could feel the electric effect he was having on her. She felt more intoxicated as they danced. The music slowed and she allowed Geez to place his hands on her as they danced. He stroked her face and caressed the small of her back. Then, he licked his finger and placed it inside his pocket.

Drawing his finger out, Jennifer saw the little dab of white powder on its tip. She giggled tipsily. “Well, why not?” she thought. It had been a long time since she had done anything so naughty. Since her med school days in fact, and they were a distant memory.

Jennifer sucked on Geez’s finger hungrily. The drug cascaded down her throat like popping candy. Geez threw back his head and laughed merrily. Then they kissed. The lights whirled and the music seemed to bleed warmly into Jennifer’s ears, the very floor beneath her feet grew soft.

As the song finished, Geez whispered desperately into Jennifer’s ear. She wanted him too; it was true. He led her away through the crowd. There was a place they could go, where no one would disturb them.

Throwing back her head to steal another look at the beautiful stained glass, Jennifer saw a figure standing on the pulpit balcony above her. He seemed to be smiling at her through his cigar smoke. Rather dapper, he was. Immaculately dressed and older than anyone in the club, Jennifer had a clarifying thought.

He must be the owner of the club, she thought. And cheekily, she’d like to thank him personally after she was done with Geez.

Kissing and laughing as they went, the lovers crashed through a fire escape door and down a stairwell into the gloom beneath the club. The light was scant, coming as it did from emergency lights in the stairwell. A slight exhilarating chill gave Jennifer goose bumps. Groping under Geez’s shirt, she felt his nipples stiffen too. As he pushed her gently against a wall, Jennifer’s eyes searched the darkness for clues.

“Where are we?” she asked, breathlessly. Her voice echoed as she spoke. Wherever they were, it was a large room of some kind.

“Underground car park,” mumbled Geez as he kissed her neck, “It’s disused, no-one ever comes down here anymore. Well, no-one but us perverts…”

She laughed. As his fingers penetrated her clothing, Jennifer gave into her hunger completely. The drabness and detritus of the working day were falling away utterly, the darkness of the subterranean car park replaced by a brilliant white light as she closed her eyes.

She could feel the drug Geez had so kindly administered really kicking in now. Piercing dots of sharp crystal joined the whiteness in her mind’s eye. Geez parted her legs and spread her arms out by her side so that she formed an X against the wall. She drifted almost out of her body and into a reverie – a place where every nerve ending was numb with love and desire.

Whatever Geez was doing to her, she never wanted it to stop.

Suddenly a light exploded in her face, blinding her. Someone had thrown a light switch. Dozens of strip lights had buzzed into life. Her eyes were open, but her vision was blurred and distorted. Distant shapes teased her with their oblique forms. She squinted, and saw what looked like Geez standing in front of her. He was not alone. Others stood around him in a little group. She could not move her arms and legs.

The onlookers stood politely and waited as Jennifer’s vision returned to her. She became all too quickly aware of a strong smell pervading the damp cold air of the car park.

Blood. Her own blood.

Looking down with panic, Jennifer’s vision snapped into focus revealing the source of this sanguine smell.

Geez had certainly had his way with her.

Jennifer’s belly was wide open. Careful incisions had been made to reveal the pulsating organs beneath the folds of her flesh. These folds had been stretched out and pinned back onto the wall, so her abdomen looked like an obscene fleshy umbrella.

Her intestines were clinging on for dear life – any sudden movement and they would surely spill onto the cement floor. She swallowed. Her wrists had been nail-gunned to the wall. Strangely, the musk of the body spray was still pleasing to Jennifer. The drugs were obviously still doing their job.

Looking beyond Geez’s little group, she could see the shapes in the distance more clearly. Stretched between each concrete pillar of the underground car park was a human body, pinned out as she was, forming Xs as far as the eye could see. Some were quite fresh and others were horribly decomposed, their flesh livid and yellowing under the fluorescent lights. More John and Jane Does than she had ever operated on at the hospital.

Jennifer tried to scream as the group approached her, but no sound would come. The distant rumble of the nightclub music dared her to make a noise.

At the head of the group was the striking man Jennifer had seen watching her from the balcony. He took one last puff of his cigar before nonchalantly tossing it away. Behind him, Geez and a few other striking urbanites smiled at her sickly. To them, she was a work of art.

Eviscerated.

“Who are you?” croaked Jennifer, pathetically.

“We are the Urbane,” came the old man’s reply as he entered her, “And we must feed.”

Then the wanton rushing of the others. Teeth and claws snapping and twitching as they devoured her slick, wet organs.

Drip-drip went her blood. Plink-plink as it joined the dark crimson pool beneath her feet.

Pendragon Rising

I. Descent

Arthur stumbled wearily from the feasting hall. On the field, the battle had been won. Yet his head still reeled from the cacophony of an internal torment.

Crashing through the heavy oak door leading to the servant's staircase, sparks leaping from his mighty sword's blade as he dragged it behind him, Arthur headed for the only place in the castle where he might find solitude.

He tumbled into the cellar and the bitter stench hit him hard. Dim candlelight revealed a graveyard of twisted and punctured armor. Broken weapons jutted out from between ruined breastplates and crushed gauntlets reached out at him pathetically like the hands of the dying. The armory dump felt like a moment on the battlefield had been frozen in time with the bodies of the dead and wounded shedding their metal skins and leaving behind only their pain, their torture. But strongest of all was the smell. The sickly sweet aroma of blood, sweat, excrement and rain on scarred armor hung thick and heavy in the air and Arthur inhaled its rancidity with each labored breath.

His head swam as a rush of dizzy nausea flooded his brain. Sinking to the floor, he came to rest on a funereal pyre of corrupted chain mail and corroded weaponry. There he spiraled down into sleep, driven by his despair, embracing his misery.

Outside, the warm breeze turned to an icy chill as a cloaked figure snaked her way through the trees and over the drawbridge. The sentry guards did not stir from their wine-sodden slumbers as she slid past them, silent as a ghost.

A sly smile curled her lips as her nostrils located Arthur's scent. It was delicious, a heady mixture of torment and decay. She knew exactly where to find him. Her lithe body glided down the spiral staircase and into the armory. The fetid odor of blood on metal assaulted her senses and her arousal heightened as she surveyed the exotic scrap-yard surrounding her. Slipping her cloak, she crawled naked across the iron, mail and steel toward Arthur's sleeping form. He was like a broken puppet beneath her as she mounted him ravenously, her ashen skin slicked with blood and her head thrown back like a carrion bird's cawing for its prey. As she took his seed from him, her long canines pierced the warm flesh of his neck like shards of ice. Triumphant, she spat her own blood down into his throat with a guttural hiss before whispering, "The circle is complete, my brother. You will die. You will change, and the future I have dreamed is now real." Disappearing into the folds of her cloak, she took her leave of him.

Searing pains in Arthur's stomach awoke him with a start. Every inch of his intestine was aflame and as he tried to move, a violent muscle spasm caused him to vomit horribly onto the armor lying next to him. Bile and blood slid across the dented surface and, for a moment, he saw his own terrible reflection staring back at him.

His pallid face looked centuries old, his skin an outward image of the rotting misery that dwelt so deep within him. He vainly tried to measure the hours he had been lying there, vague memories of the woman who had loved him amidst the filth coming back to him in nauseous waves.

Tears of blood streamed from his eyes as he remembered what had passed before he fled to the cellar. His own wife with another in the forest. His bedchamber empty, as silent and mocking as an open grave. Arthur cried in outrage as hot pain invaded his every nerve ending causing him to double up and shudder spasmodically. The very marrow in his bones felt like molten lava, his flesh as cracked and dry as scorched earth. He was dying. His last breath left his body like an unanswered question.

II. Rising

He rose again three nights later. Shocked mourners fled from his wake screaming their fear into every corner of the castle. Horrified knights rushed to their master and stood agape, not knowing whether to kneel before him or strike him down, so unholy was his form. Arthur strode unto his minions greatly transformed. All his enemies, even death, had fallen before him and he felt a burning need within to do battle once more, to make a mockery of the hundreds who would collapse around him, driven by the knowledge that no blade could harm him ever again. Maidens wept in ecstatic terror as he drained their nubile bodies of life's blood in great draughts atop his throne that night.

Many fled the castle in horror, becoming prey to those who stayed to join the invincible ranks of Arthur's new undead army, their thick blood replacing wine in the knight's chalices. Peasants, whores and the dispossessed flocked to Camelot in droves to lose themselves in dark days and depraved nights, offering themselves as sustenance to the castle's collectively unquenchable thirst. A squalid stench billowed forth from the moat, which had itself turned red and stagnant with the blood and carcasses of the dead.

Those outside Camelot, taking refuge in convents and monasteries, declared holy war on any creature leaving the castle in defiance of those who had once been their protectors and who were now their hunters. Any attempt to overcome Arthur's legions proved futile however, and so Sister Guenivere begged an audience with her reborn King despite the frantic dissuasion of God's servants.

Concealing Excalibur beneath her holy robes, Guenivere entered Camelot's gaping maw, weeping at the depravity that had so indelibly stained the kingdom she had once loved and cherished. She stepped into the Great Hall where shadows had devoured the once brilliant light. Dim red pools were cast at her feet by flickering torches, which crackled hungrily as she passed beneath them. The air was insufferably hot and a stifling haze swelled up and penetrated her clothing like a sick breath. As she entered the chamber that housed the Round Table, a droplet of salt sweat splashed heavily onto her forehead. Casting her eyes upward, Guenivere saw that oily perspiration coated every inch of the stonework.

The chamber breathed lustily, drawing her deeper inside. A huge fire licked and spat mockingly as she gasped in horror at the clutter of bones and human remains surrounding it. Around the Table sat the architects of this private Hell.

The Knights were strangers to her now. Once noble champions had been replaced by gluttonous beasts clad in stained furs and neglected armor. Blood trickled into their beards as they fed like leeches from the ulcerated veins of servile minions.

At the head of this nightmare sat Arthur. His dead eyes betraying outward calm with a hateful glare, which strangled the air from her. Struggling to keep from swooning, she knelt before him and begged that they might speak in private. He smiled painfully and silently ushered her into a chamber used for his lonely feasting.

The door had barely creaked shut behind them when Arthur was at her throat. He surely meant to tear the life from her, to give her an eternity of darkness as punishment for her night of sin. Guenivere had only a second to react and cried out as she clutched Excalibur desperately. Arthur hissed in anguish as she thrust aloft the crucifix hilt of the Holy sword with all her might, forcing him to his knees.

She remained until the sun rose, nervously willing away the insidious scratching of Arthur's servants at the door. Hoping to cleanse her husband's tainted spirit she whispered softly to him through the night.

His tortured moans eventually turned to weary whimpers and she held him tenderly until, finally, her strength began to wane.

She left Arthur sleeping in that terrible bloodied feeding chamber with Excalibur clutched tightly in his gnarled hands and fled the castle into daylight. Once outside, her resolve crumbled. She sobbed out loud in revulsion, her heart polluted by so many dark hours spent in the filthy core of the mausoleum she had once called home.

III. Quest

A bloody moon hung low over Camelot that night as Arthur called a meeting of the Undead Knights at the Round Table. A few, led by Sir Gawain, resisted until they realized they would be awoken by the cruel kiss of the morning sun should they not attend. With all the Knights assembled, Arthur spoke convincingly that in their present state they could not survive. The castle's need for blood far surpassed the supply, with human prey being given safe haven in the fortress of the errant Knight, Meliagant, and among the houses of the Holy.

Camelot's brood was in great danger due to its inability to face daylight. Arthur told of his visions of the Grail, an artifact that had the power to purify and instill the blood of any that drank from it. The Grail would restore them and they would once again know the lives they had lost when the New Dark Age had prevailed. He urged them to quest for this most Magickal of relics. He would not be absolved until one of them returned bearing the healing chalice.

The Dark Knights quested beyond the oceans. Many strove to resist their bloody thirst, but to no avail. Their hunger prevailed and they became as hunted animals. Fear and repulsion dwelled in the places they encountered. Many perished at the hands of angry villagers wielding sharpened stakes and blazing torches. The seasons came and went until all but two, Perceval and Bedevere, were dust.

As the hamlets and townships became fewer, Perceval knew he was nearing his goal. He could feel oppression all around him in the increasingly desolate landscape, a resonance of power and energy that placed a fearful chill in his dead heart. His every instinct told him to turn and flee, yet he struggled on until finally he saw it.

Ruined battlements jutted into the ashen sky like obscene claws. Black liquid oozed from gaps in the walls. The Grail Castle was leprous and forbidding, its drawbridge as repulsive and intriguing as an open wound. Perceval looked aloft, yet no stars winked encouragement, only huge black clouds hung in the thin air above him. He felt sick to his stomach as he realized his fate was sealed. With much trepidation, Perceval drew his sword and stepped over the creaking drawbridge into the Castle.

A putrid blast of musty air greeted him, causing his knees to buckle and his throat to gag. He felt as if a thousand vile whispers had entered every fiber of his body, seeking residence in the chambers of his heart. He shuddered and spat dust as he fought on through the insane twists of labyrinthine tunnels. Kicking open a decaying door, he fell breathlessly into a vast hall.

A creeping terror began to take hold of him, as he became aware of hideous voices in the darkness.

Something slithered on the ceiling above him and a terrible ringing invaded his ears. Clutching his head, he staggered through the dim light that illuminated fragments of lunatic architecture and bizarre sculpture. His ears and eyes began to bleed, as the ringing became an insufferable howl. Crawling over a living carpet of maggots, Perceval grabbed at a plinth before him. Heaving his shuddering body erect, a faint metallic gleam penetrated the red haze of his vision.

Snatching the Grail and enveloping it with shuddering arms, he ran in panic as wailing madness erupted around him. Something scuttled with maniac speed from the shadows, its yellow teeth snapping violently at his heels. Spite bellowed from every stone as if the Castle meant to devour him whole. On he fled, flailing wildly with his sword at dark shapes which threw themselves angrily into his path. The slimy drawbridge looked like the tongue of some great beast as Perceval crossed it. Hugging the Grail desperately, he fell to the ground, the asylum scream of madness still penetrating his skull.

IV. Ascension

Arthur became ever more distant during the long years which dragged by drearily. The first weeks of the Grail Quest saw him anxiously awaiting triumphant news from his Knights. Greeted by cold silence at the approach of each coming dawn he slipped yet further into melancholy isolation.

He barely fed and sat in his chamber in the depths of a profound state of weariness.

Dusk had brought a slow mist to Camelot. Watchmen reported a faint figure on horseback approaching the castle. The tired King was carried outside expecting to welcome one of his own, yet the shape on the horse was that of a sleeping man. His grey form was bent over his quiet steed like the branch of a dead birch tree. As he came to a halt at the foot of the drawbridge the figure extended his long, impossibly thin arms. An eerily musical whisper escaped his white lips and beckoned Arthur across. Defenseless, the King was lulled forth over the moat towards the wraithlike stranger. Crouched atop his mount, he slowly rose to his full height, towering over Arthur. A host of lacerations on the horse's back wept from the repeated feeding of the poor beast's rider. Deliberately sweeping silvery hair from his narrow face he stared at the King with shiny black almond eyes and moaned queasily through the grinning slit of his mouth.

"Greetings Father," he preened, "Know you not your child Mordred?"

Arthur, stupefied, could not answer. This abomination was no offspring of his. He had no son.

"Ah, but you do, my sweet Dadda," chuckled Mordred with a sick smile. Craning down with his face a splinter away from the King's he whined, "My mother, your sister, told me I'm the Future. What say you to that?"

Arthur recoiled in abhorrence from Mordred's freezing breath.

A vile cackle echoed after him through the mist as he staggered backwards. Dazed, he struggled to regain control of his clouded senses, every instinct urging him to crush this perversion where it stood. Barely managing to choke down his horror he ordered Mordred to speak with him in the Great Hall. Lunatic laughter came as a reply and he forced his eyes shut at its shrill ridicule. When he opened them, Mordred had gone.

A low hum stirred Arthur and his soldiers from the spell. They could just make out a huge dark shape in the distance. The obsidian mass crawled closer, continuously shifting and distorting from sprawling chaos to solid formation. Its surface appeared as shiny, hard and impenetrable as a beetle's back, the mesmerizing movement becoming more frenetic as it drew nearer. The watchers were filled with sickening dread as the hum grew louder, all eyes straining to see what approached.

A thick fog of silence enveloped them suddenly. Then, all at once, the mists broke with a gleeful roar as hundreds of Mordred's creatures descended upon them. Some crawled, some rode, others flew, yet all were filled with the same wicked spite that consumed their Master. With guttural shrieks they tore mercilessly into their prey, their greasy black bodies flecked with blood and strips of flesh. Arthur's men fought frantically to keep the horrors away but most had fallen as the first wave of darkness crashed over them. Bodies exploded at the poisonous touch of the hateful creatures. As the mist turned red with the bloodletting Arthur saw the face of its insane orchestrator. Mordred's gaze met his, the sanguinary smirk igniting Arthur's rage.

Suddenly, the King charged, dismounting him with Excalibur's first stroke. Fear and rage invaded Mordred's cool demeanor and he raised his sword, meaning to split his father's head in two. His vision shattered as the cold sting of Arthur's blade violated his heart. Black blood spurted from his back as Excalibur severed his spine. A lilting sigh drifted from his mouth as Mordred slid, broken, to the ground.

Arthur turned, attempting to focus on the battle that raged around him. The carnage escalated as Maleagant's Holy Army joined the fray. His followers fought with religious zeal against Arthur's Undead Knights and Mordred's twisted creatures, staking them with lances and burning them with purifying flames.

It seemed as though death were circling Arthur like a flock of vultures. He sank into the stained earth, defeated, screaming his denial at the menstrual sky.

Perceval ran to his King desperately with Bedevere following close behind. They reached him a moment too late. Arthur's body arched as he pushed himself onto Excalibur's blade. Perceval tearfully held the Grail to the dying King's lips, urging him to drink, to die a man and not the vampiric shadow he had become. Yet Arthur refused him with a benign smile, telling Bedevere to pluck the sword from his ruined flesh.

"Throw Excalibur into the moat," he implored in a cracked whisper, "Cleanse Camelot and heal the Land. Drink of the Grail and restore honour unto my name and to all those who fell into this madness."

The battle, however, had excited Bedevere's thirst. Wielding the mighty sword, the irresistible vision of a future where he ruled the night in Arthur's place began to fester in his demented mind. The Grail could harm as well as heal and he swung at Perceval, seeking to take it from him to complete his power and seal his right to ascension. He saw the chalice's crimson gleam for only a moment as Perceval parried his blow and took Bedevere's head from his shoulders with a single righteous stroke.

Perceval placed the Grail, by which he had long since been healed, next to his peaceful King and placed Excalibur in his scabbard. He mounted and galloped through the calming battle until he reached the scarred monument that was Camelot. Steeling himself with his last vestige of hope, Perceval hurled the sword into the gloomy moat. As it pierced the bloody film of the water a tear betrayed the well of sadness which consumed him. The first weary rays of the sun unveiled his reflection on the moat's still surface. Elated, he saw that the waters were once again clear.

Returning to the battlefield at a slow trot, Perceval started - aghast at the sight of hundreds of pale visages approaching him. Relief soon replaced his shock, as he realized the faces were those of Maleagant's soldiers. They were caked in the ashes of the Undead whose bodies had been burned by the sunrise and scattered by the cleansing breeze of morning.

A blizzard of dust blew across the earth. Arthur and the Grail had vanished.

Ill Met By Moonlight

I begin with caution this disturbing tale, as it is not my intention to cause distress and tension in the male reader towards the opposite, fairer, sex. Unfortunately a greater effect may result within the psyche of the female reader as my tale can only serve to illustrate that the idea of the monstrous feminine is much, much closer than one expects.

It began with the moon. I remember it distinctly. I remember thinking it looked like a perfect slice of lemon floating in a glass of cold gin and tonic. This half moon transfixed me on that chilly night, much more than the entertainers who danced and cart-wheeled their way through the cobblestones of Covent Garden. I stood rooted to the spot, gazing up at that moon, thinking if only earthbound sights had such power and beauty. Chasing memories of loves both lost and never attained from my cobwebbed memory I instead focused on the moon. Truly the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Until her voice. A voice like diamonds, from over my shoulder.

“She’s looking back at you, you know.”

Frozen, I was, and not from the cold. This voice was a sister to the moon that so held me. Undoubtedly American in accent, with the ponderous articulation of the West Coast and a tingling quality from some hidden tone or pitch that only certain night creatures could, probably, hear.

Turning slowly around, God and His angels put a face to that voice for me, and in an instant I was utterly powerless. I remember every detail of her. Every curl, curve, shape and scent. The visual information of her being penetrated and wrapped itself around my brain. Within my entire field of vision was her face, like a projection on a silver screen. When I blinked, I could see the afterimage of that half moon. I was hypnotized. Her eyes were sharp green and blue. She had long black eyelashes, and a noble poise to her bone structure. The gentle slope of her nose and cheekbones accentuated her lips, which seemed to me as shiny red velvet as they parted cleverly in a smile to reveal teeth of pure white. She licked her lips with a quick movement of her tongue and took a step toward me, curtseying.

“I am Christine Nimbo. From Washington. I’m sorry, but I too have a fondness for the moon and such. I hope you don’t mind my breaking your concentration like this, mister…”

“Shaw. William Shaw. And I feel compelled to thank you for breaking my concentration. I believe it can be dangerous to look on such beauty for prolonged periods without the aid of a stiff drink.”

My forwardness shocked me. But as anyone who has fallen in love in the blink of an eye will know, the human character is infinitely adaptable in any given emotional situation. That did not however prevent her reply from shocking me even more. Glancing around the piazza, this delectable Christine turned a mischievous eye back to me and said, “Where can we get a good stiff drink then,

Mister William Shaw? As I too have been gazing at that blessed moon for too damn long.”

Within two hours, over several glasses of very good port, I had learned all about Christine Nimbo from Washington. Her father had been ringmaster off a well-known traveling circus until falling in love with a local girl in Seattle who came to see the show every single night. Christine’s father decided to marry right away and tears were shed when his comrades learned he would not be accompanying them to their next port of call. The wedding reception was a spectacle with clowns, horses, elephants and trapeze artists all celebrating their master’s wedding in true carnival fashion. A feast was held in the Big Top.

Life became quiet when the circus left town, and Christine’s father took the post of teacher of Mathematics and English at the local schoolhouse. His wife soon became pregnant with Christine and they added an extra room to their small house in preparation for the arrival of their firstborn.

Their existence was idyllic for a while, that is, until the young father’s wanderlust returned to him. The magnetic pull of the traveling circus teased his very blood and in his heart of hearts, he dearly wished to be back amongst his brethren, learning new dialects and landmarks. The map of his mind had formed boundaries when he arrived in Seattle. His agony was great as he watched his beloved wife and daughter grow colder towards him as he spent less time at home and more at the alehouse, or walking alone in the woods.

Soon after Christine’s first birthday, the ringmaster fled his happy home in search of that which called to him.

His wife, aided by the light of the full moon, searched for him in desperation amidst the trees and over the tracks and plains until the sun came up. She returned defeated, her clothes tattered and torn, the next morning and weeks passed before the locals could get a word out of her. Christine’s mother had many admirers, but she never took another lover and stubbornly raised her daughter alone in near poverty. Fortune struck when Christine’s mother was offered a post in the local schoolhouse as her knowledge of history and her good memory made her a suitable understudy for the ailing history teacher Mr. Vetch. Christine was therefore very well provided for and began to display the same keen, inquisitive mind as her mother and some of her father’s curiosity.

It was with reluctance and pride therefore, that Christine’s mother allowed her to travel to Europe to study and work in the multitude of fantastic cities she encountered. This decision was scandalous in the community at that time, yet to mother and daughter there was no question that Christine was capable of looking after herself. It was one year prior to her arrival in London that Christine was happily studying Spanish and making a handsome living selling flowers and coral to tourists in the bays of the Basque country. Christine received a telegram from the principal of the schoolhouse in Seattle telling her that her mother had died in a fire. The schoolhouse had burned down. Nothing remained of it, or her mother. Christine attended the memorial service and left Seattle quickly, as she found it hostile and changed.

Her old school friends had become closeted and they sickened her with their aprons and backyards and cries of “Settle down!” No, Christine still had the ache of the traveler in her belly and set off once again for Europe, this time arriving in Paris. She took time to lick her wounds and enjoyed all that marvelous city had to offer, spending hours in galleries and reading in the cafes of the Rue Saint Germain.

Having studied hard for a year, and having accumulated considerable savings from her job as a florist in the Temple, Christine rewarded herself by moving on to London. She had never before experienced London’s galleries, cathedrals and bustling street markets. Christine found this city to be a joy that sang to her heart. She took lodgings in Hampstead and became a godsend to her landlady Mrs. Harris, whose advancing years made it difficult for her to keep the house in order. Christine became as a daughter to her, helping out whenever she could, and scolding her for not taking a moment’s rest, even when out of breath. This was to be Mrs. Harris’ undoing, as one day she had a heart attack whilst bringing coal up from the cellar. Christine returned from an outing to find her cold and lifeless on the stairs. The funeral was a slight affair, as Mrs. Harris knew very few people and kept herself to herself. Her tenant had, however, become so dear to her in those final months that Mrs. Harris left the house and all her monetary wealth to Christine in a will written not two weeks before her demise. She considered selling the house, donating the money to several charities, before moving on to another continent altogether. Yet deep inside, Christine had reached a state of grace and serenity.

All her life, it seemed, she had been plagued by abandonment and death but had remained resilient and brave throughout. She could not help feeling that her benefactor had left her exactly what she needed at this stage of her life. Calmly, and without any fuss, she set about decorating the house in her own style, with dried flowers and gifts from the sea, Indian fabrics and church candles. Then she established a small florist’s shop in the commercial row of Hampstead Village nearby.

“It’s quite a story, no?” she said, drinking the last of her port and licking her sparkling lips as she set the empty glass down on the table.

“Good God yes,” I replied earnestly, the sweet song of her voice still gently murmuring inside my head, “I feel I haven’t lived listening to your story.”

“Oh you’ve lived alright Mr. Shaw. Just not to the fullness of your potential, no?”

And with that, we kissed. And something changed forever in my heart.

I was working at that time as a clerk in a tailor’s just off Regent Street. The owner, a fat Jewish gentleman called Mr. Caplan, used to work me like a dog. I was often given to wondering how business could be as bad as he always complained it to be when the pile of paperwork persisted to grow on the corner of my desk. Towards Christmas, the seasonal orders almost tripled and I found myself working increasingly long hours for, I might add, the same wages.

I began to despair, as no sooner had I cleared the workload, an even bigger pile would appear as if by magic first thing the next morning. Gradually I saw less and less of my beloved Christine. My lunch hour shrank to about five minutes and once, I had so much work to do that I forgot Christine was waiting on the doorstep below my office in the belief that we were to go to the pictures together. Somehow remembering as I finished for the evening, I grabbed my hat and coat and rushed downstairs. Thankfully, Christine had been put in a cab by the concierge of the neighboring Hotel Royale and sent home. The concierge was a giant of a man, rather like an iceberg in an overcoat, and he picked me up by my lapels and gave me a severe ticking off for my outrageous treatment of such a delicate flower as Christine. I rushed to her home, and although I could see smoke from the chimney and lights in her rooms, she would not acknowledge me.

Unable to sleep, I arose from my bed and walked the great distance from my room in Bermondsey to Caplan’s of Regent Street as the sun came up. I was in no fit state for work and my employer seemed to sense the trouble in my brain and the storm in my mood. By late afternoon, he had given me a modest Christmas bonus and told me to take the remainder of the week off. This only gave me an extra day’s holiday of course, Mr. Caplan being no fool, but his generosity almost caused me to fall off my chair in shock and served to lighten my mood considerably. And as my mood lightened, an idea formulated within me. For the first time in ages I felt as though my head and heart were working in tandem once more as when I had first met my beloved.

She let me into her house that evening. After a superb meal of spice and delicacy had been devoured by my very unworthy self, I sank to my knees and offered her the ring I had purchased on my way from the office. Her face was bathed in the firelight and I swear she never looked lovelier than at that moment. Her eyes communicated such a profound mixture of joy and sorrow that I could not doubt earnest reply of, “Yes, I will marry you Mr. Shaw.”

Everything was as new again and we sat by the fire and talked animatedly over several glasses of our favourite port wine. Gradually, Christine moved our conversation from us, to me, to my job, to work in general. Transfixed as I was by her voice, I must admit that I became increasingly uncomfortable.

“The problem with all you Londoners is that al you do is work, no?” she said, “I mean you are truly obsessed with it. Work, work, work. I like to earn an honest wage, but life has so much more to offer. I’ve watched you losing your soul to a desk full of paper Bill, and I don’t like it, not one bit.” She always called me Bill when she’d been drinking. Especially port wine. “I don’t want my husband to be soulless to his wife, to his children,” she said, “And so, I want you to leave your job and never go back to that horrible place.”

“And if I don’t? If I refuse?” I knew the answer. Utterly in her spell. Utterly in thrall of her. Utterly powerless once again.

“Then I won’t… Can’t marry you my love because gradually, I’ll lose you anyway if I let you go on.”

“But how will we live?”

“In paradise my darling. You’ll move in here and help me with the florist’s. We’ll be a good team, no? It’s settled then.”

We filled our glasses and drank a toast to our happiness. I felt we were drinking to my death as a man. I even told her. She told me this was the typical male ego. I’m inclined to agree, even now. But in retrospect, I believe even so ugly a beast as the ego must surface on occasion, if only to preserve some kind of balance.

No matter. I did as she said and sent a resignation letter to Mr. Caplan. His honorable reply consisted of my final wage and a glowing reference, should I require one in the future. Christine kissed the frown from my head as I read it and said we should place it in a frame.

We decided upon a rural wedding and took leave of London to get married in my parent’s village in Somerset. To my delight, my parents took instantly to Christine and we rejoiced in an open-air ceremony in the shade of huge trees one midsummer morning. The Second World War loomed, preventing us from returning to London, and we took my parents’ out-house as a honeymoon cottage. As the war raged on, Christine and I stayed safe in our bed and our love amidst the trees of my youth.

My wife was never happier.

She craved the fresh air and the windows in our humble home were rarely closed. Sometimes I awoke in the middle of the night to find her gone; a warm indentation in the mattress where she had lain. I would creep to the open window overlooking the vast weeping willow and birches of the garden and watch her spinning and dancing there. All the while she had her head thrown back and she embraced the stars and the moon as their light seemed to rain down on her, my beautiful wife, dancing barefoot in the garden.

One such night, it was raining heavily and the roof had sprung a leak above our bed. I moved the bed to one side with Christine’s help and placed a bucket beneath the leak to catch the water. The drip-drop of the rain was to me as the tick of a clock and I was soon sleeping deeply. No such luck for my poor wife, who could not bear the sound, which conspired with the brilliant light of the full moon flashing and flickering through the rain clouds. A terrible migraine took possession of her skull and she ran out into the river night without even closing the door. I awoke soon afterwards and instinctively crossed to the window, narrowly missing the bucket, half full with chilly rainwater. I peered out into the garden as I latched the window for fear it would blow open and strike me. I saw nothing save the rain pounding the grass. And a panic seized me.

Pulling on my greatcoat and boots, I ran out into the storm crying out my wife’s name. The ferocity of the wind robbed me of my words. From the garden I could see her footprints heading in the direction of the lane.

The full moon had a cousin that night, in the sheets of lightning which further illuminated the empty space where my wife should have been, distressing me further. I stumbled down the lane and into a thicket of trees before coming to a halt in a small clearing next a felled tree into which I had carved my name as a small boy.

I could hear breathing in the trees beyond. Crouching, as this seemed to improve my hearing, I concentrated on the sound and slowly moved towards it in this self-same posture with a quickening heart.

Eyes were watching me. Eyes like coals, hot and glowing, impervious to the cold and the rain. A low steady growl replaced the breathing and I stood erect, beginning already to retreat from this hider in the woods.

The beast erupted from the trees and tore at my greatcoat with huge white fangs, tearing a piece of my lapel away. Suddenly, the beast halted its attack and sat back on its haunches chewing the torn cloth slowly. I could see through my fear and the drizzle of my vision that it was a large wolf. Its eyes seemed very old to me somehow, like fossils encased in ice. Slowly, it chewed and sniffed before returning to its hiding place in the trees. I fought the paralysis that had taken me and somehow managed to turn and flee the terrible scene of my near-death. I ran and ran until I collapsed on my bed, fully clothed and soaking, numbed by the terrors of the wild and the disappearance of my wife. I battled with sleep, but passed out in shivers and whimpers as the rain pounded deafeningly on the windowpanes.

Several weeks passed and there was no sign of Christine. My parents were distraught and my mother grew sick with worry. We contacted the local authorities but their searches proved futile. Christine had gone. Ripped from my life like a flower from its bed.

The rains returned and my melancholy became to me as permanent as a siamese twin. The howling in my head upon her vanishing had leveled into a numb buzzing sound like angry bees. I had not slept for days and food was unpalatable to me. I missed Christine with every fiber of my being. I was stricken without her. The sound of the raindrops in the bucket next to the bed on this cool, wet night served only at first to remind me of the events of that terrible night. Eventually however, to my inmost delight, the sound of the water dripping soothed me to sleep.

Soft, warm breaths on my face awoke me. I slowly sat up and the breaths moved away from me, as if knowing their work was done. Astonishment.

As I opened my eyes, I saw my beautiful Christine, kneeling naked at the bedside. She had leaves in her hair, mud and moss caked her soft white skin. Her eyes sparkled with the wisdom and joy of a traveler who has finally returned home. My breath stopped in my throat as I reached out to hold her. Then I saw her hands. Covered in blood they were. Blood both dried and fresh. Tiny catgut strands of gore hung from her wrists like bracelets. And in her left hand, she held a piece of cloth. In Heaven’s name, it was the lapel from my greatcoat, taken away by that massive wolf in the woods.

Her eyes sparkled as if asking the question, “It’s strange, no?” and I dropped my gaze to avoid those eyes, suddenly so terrifying to me.

I wished I hadn’t looked down. For there, in the bucket of water next to the bed, I saw my wife’s reflection, perhaps for the very first time. In the still rainwater collected there, I saw the hot coal eyes and wolf face of my wife. Looking back to her, I could see she was placid now, but I knew in the quickness of my terror that this beast was within her and would come out again. Ashamed of what happened next, I am. But I have no regrets, even now.

My wife climbed onto my trembling body gracefully and whispered into my ear that everything was better now, that she had returned and would never leave my side again. Her words burned my brain and her hot tears singed my flesh and we made love ferociously, over and over, like new lovers in their first heat. Me, a trembling mess of a man, and her at once beautiful and beastly, smelling of blood and meat and earth and dead wood.

Christine’s return was greeted with rapture by my parents and her absence was explained away by myself as a case of amnesia brought on by exposure. Certainly, my wife played the invalid, suffering visits from the family doctor and receiving silly gifts from my mother with the patience of a saint. But I could see her alertness behind those long lashes and heavy-lidded eyes. Something older and wiser than us dwelled in there. Reluctantly, my parents allowed us to return to London, my wife and I, back to the chaos, wreckage and strange peace left behind after the Blitz.

And so I became prisoner to the beast woman whom I loved, in the idyllic surroundings of our Hampstead home.

I knew that I could never leave, for fear that Christine would find me in her altered state one night as I ran and ran by the light of that bloody full moon.

Every moon cycle marked a little death for me. Although the periods in between my wife’s transformation were filled with love and desire, I grew older and weaker as she remained young and strong.

I have been in this house for forty years now. Tonight is full moon and I have dutifully left the windows open for ease of exit for the beast. I am elderly, cold and stupid. Today I found the reference letter from my old employer in a box in the cupboard. It says I am, “Loyal and trustworthy.”

I dearly hope my wife, the wolf, remembers that when she returns. So greatly have I outlived my usefulness, I fear she may tear out my throat and take what meat remains on my old bones when she comes home through that window.

Funny no? I can no longer see any beauty, any beauty at all, when I look up at the moon.

Conspiracy Of Silence

David Jones had lived in Acacia Drive for his entire adult life. Not much of a life, truth be told. Thirty-eight years as a non-entity. He was simply “Dave” to his co-workers, having no real friends to speak of. Dave was the kind of man you met at dinner parties by the buffet, only to quickly forget him as soon as you went in search of a cheap wine refill. He’d looked pretty much the same all his life. Stocky, dumpy, with a square face and permanent five o’clock shadow adding further non-description to an uninspired chin. Short back and sides with a neatly shaved neckline was the order of the day once a month at the barbershop just ten minutes walk from the office.

Work was the highlight of Dave’s day. He didn’t love his job, oh no. He didn’t hate it either. It was just that when he was working, the unimaginative Mr. Jones didn’t have to think about anything other than the relentless In-tray, Out-tray repetition of his daily tasks. Truly, it helped pass the time, being at work. He was the perfect civil servant. Always punctual, never rebellious, always there. Dave had only taken one day off sick in twenty years; a one-off weakness that troubled him whenever he thought about it (so he no longer thought about it).

Dave always sat alone in the canteen, eating his staple diet of meat and potatoes; no veg. No-one bothered him save for the occasional polite “Hello” or a request to borrow the salt cellar. No one hated Dave, or particularly liked him. He was like the matte white woodchip wallpaper lining the office. He was just there.

And that’s exactly the way David Jones liked it.

Acacia Drive was made for people like Dave. A quiet, leafy suburban street lined with blossom trees and vast Victorian houses set back from the wide road. Net curtains and giant pot-plants added further anonymity to each residence. The road was perfectly tarmaced and unusually wide adding to the absolute quiet. That was what stood out most about the street - that fact that it was so quiet. Save for the occasional passing of a car, or the soft staccato rhythm of a cyclist’s wheels, Acacia Drive was an oasis of peace. All sounds seemed to be swallowed up by the neatly trimmed hedges and sturdy brickwork. Even the birds were quiet, as if singing under their breath.

Dave’s day always ran like clockwork. A masterpiece of routine. His alarm clock would ring out at seven AM. He would switch it off and sit up, on the side of the bed facing his large sash window. He’d then rise, and pull back the curtains giving him a view of the street outside. Emotionless and yawning, he’d wipe the sleep from his eyes and look at the blossom tree over the road. Then he’d make his way to the bathroom and run a bath. Dave had never had a shower unit installed at the house. Showers just didn’t make sense to him. With the bath running, Dave would make himself a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge. He would then turn of the taps and devour his breakfast in exactly ten minutes. By this time the bath water would be the perfect temperature.

Exactly fifteen minutes later, Dave would be on his way to the station, bathed, shaved and with a full belly.

He wore the same outfit each day. Pressed grey suit, starched white shirt, grey tie. The ironing board was Dave’s closest companion. He had never had a girlfriend.

He simply didn’t have time to deal with the perplexities of the opposite sex. He was always polite to the women he worked with, but his emotionless eyes gave not a glimmer of excitement when one of his more attractive colleagues walked by. Any advances from females fell on deaf ears, if there had indeed been any such advances. Dave’s mother had been the only woman worthy of his attention. So practical, rigid and a staunch observer of routine. She had passed away in her sleep a couple of years ago. Dave found her in bed the next morning. He dusted and cleaned her room before calling the doctor. He knew that’s how she would’ve wanted it. The cremation was a swift affair. Afterwards, Dave stepped outside into the chill air and made his way up the path leading from the Crematorium to the main road. Upon reaching the gate, he turned and watched a thick black plume of smoke billowing out of the chimney. As the smoke stained the heavy clouds hanging overhead, Dave thought of his mother scrubbing soot from the windowsills at the front of their house every Sunday. He turned and walked away. He would have to clean the windowsills from now on.

And so, Dave had taken to the solitary life. He cooked the same meals his mother had, and on the same days she had cooked them. He kept the door to her bedroom shut, save for its weekly clean along with the rest of the house. He watched the blossom in the trees come and go, and tutted at the heaps of dead leaves lining the street untidily during autumn.

He went to work and returned home like an automaton.

David had no smiles for the children of Acacia Drive especially when they laughed and shouted, “Cheer up mister! Might never happen,” to him as he made his way home.

Sleep commenced at approximately ten thirty five PM, about five minutes after Dave put his head on the pillow. Sleep was sacred to him. “Always eight hours but never more than nine,” his mother had instructed him on the subject. In the quiet vacuum of Acacia Drive, David Jones was always guaranteed his quota of silent slumber.

That was, until one Thursday in late summer.

The day had, unsurprisingly, started off ordinarily enough. Dave had awoken at seven, switched off the alarm and looked through his window at the tree on the opposite side of the road, heavy with blossom. Feeling slightly irritated by the way in which the petals tended to loosen themselves and drift into his front yard, Dave had closed the curtains and distracted himself with his bath and breakfast routine. Another humdrum day at work later, and Dave was once again the fine-tuned robot of reliability he always was. Except on this particular day, Dave’s workload had pretty much doubled. This was due to the fact that a colleague in his division had taken sick. Much to Dave’s chagrin, he overheard some gossip about the absentee having been involved in some kind of office outing to the pub the night before. David’s mother would’ve had a thing or two to say about that.

David himself picked up the extra workload without a word and struggled through it, even skipping lunch, in order to finish at five thirty as he always did. The result was that Dave almost nodded off during his train journey home. In fact, he would have missed his stop if it hadn’t been for the sharp braking technique of the train driver that afternoon.

Yawning behind his hand, Dave walked up the path from the station and onto Acacia Drive. Raucous children pierced the silence, running by yelling and giggling as they chased a football. He gave them a wide berth and marched on homewards. Perhaps he would have fish fingers for his dinner. Something simple. Something that wouldn’t take too long. So he could get an early night. As Dave opened his gate and made his way to the front door he noticed, with some dismay, that the bright pink blossom from the tree over the road had well and truly invaded his front yard. Stacks of the petals had formed little drifts on the windowsills and against the brickwork. But he was simply too tired to deal with them now. He would have to get up extra early in the morning to clean them off.

David had eaten, washed up, and was in his pajamas by eight thirty. He sat on the side of his bed scowling at the blossom tree in the dwindling summer twilight and set his alarm clock for six thirty. There - he’d have an extra half an hour to remove the unsightly petals from the sills and from the yard. Removing the blossom tree from his sight by closing the curtains, Dave settled down to sleep at exactly eight thirty six PM, assisted into slumber by the ghostly birdsong of Acacia Drive.

At first, there was only a dull thudding in Dave’s mattress. But the thudding traveled. It got closer and louder, snaking its way through the mattress and up into his pillow. The thudding became noise. Loud, repetitive and aggressive. Dave became aware of the noise.

His brain began to burn at the intrusion. The white heat of cacophony spread inside his skull and he was suddenly and rudely awoken.

Confusion. Dave’s mind whirled as he realized it was still dark. Why was he awake when it was still dark? It was late summer. It was always light when he awoke during late summer. Panic. Could he have overslept? He never overslept. Mother wouldn’t allow it. But Mother wasn’t here anymore. She would be turning in her grave if he had been so careless. Blinking through the dead weight of his eyelids, David quickly swung around into a seated position on the side of the bed and located his alarm clock. Relief. It was just after midnight, so he hadn’t overslept at all. But his relief soon gave way to a numb, dry feeling. Indeed, if David Jones was a being capable of emotion, one might suspect he was actually angry. As the dry feeling spread, the sleep-addled civil servant struggled to locate its source. He traced it from the evaporated bile in his belly, up through his soundless throat and into his parched mouth. His mouth. That was it. He had never experienced such dryness in his mouth before. He tried to smack his lips together in order to conjure up some saliva, but to no avail. His tongue scraped against the backs of his teeth like sandpaper on glass.

Then, the noise. In his confusion, the noise had been pushed from his mind. But now, as he gathered his wits and found his bearings, the loud thudding returned to him. Boom, boom. Thud, thud. What devilry was this? At gone midnight? Waking him from his slumber? The sound was making his window rattle. The sound was coming from outside.

Standing up slowly, and with the faintest tremble, David slowly crept over to the curtains. The noise became louder and more defined as he made his approach. It was music. Not what David himself would refer to as music of course, but rather the ugly repetition of bass-heavy hip-hop. His mother would be spinning, not turning, in her grave if she could hear this, thought Dave. And at this time of night as well. He seized the curtain in one slightly shaking hand and pulled it back just enough to sneak a glance outside.

There, beneath the infernal blossom tree, was a huge black car. The engine was running, and the headlamps burned a tunnel of light down Acacia Drive. An ultra-violet light unit illuminated the car from beneath, making it look like an alien spaceship had invaded this quiet suburban street as part of some vile plan to deprive David Jones of his rest. He glimpsed the blue and red lights of the car stereo system as they danced drunkenly across the dashboard within the vehicle. Pushing the curtain further across, Dave could make out two figures inside the car.

The driver was a stocky male. The passenger seat was occupied by a diminutive female who threw back her head and laughed, exhaling cigarette smoke. David could not bear smoking.

Closing the curtain, Dave sat back down on his bed wondering what to do next. Surely there had to be laws against this sort of thing? An intrusion such as this warranted a breach of the peace. And Dave didn’t pay his council tax in order for unruly outsiders to invade his peace and quiet.

Suddenly, the engine stopped. The glow from the headlamps was snuffed out and replaced by the burnt orange glow of the street lamp above the blossom tree. The music was no more. Gone in mid-thud, and replaced by the delicious yawning void of night.

Dave breathed heavy and slow through his nostrils. That was that then. Perhaps a taxi was simply dropping someone off. Although Dave had never noticed the small woman in the street before. Then again, he rarely noticed anyone at all. Especially women. He lay back in his bed, yawned and closed his eyes.

THUD THUD THUD. BOOM BOOM BOOM. The music started up from where it had left off; increasing in volume until it was twice as loud as it had been before. Dave sat up automatically, clutching his duvet in something approaching genuine annoyance. This could not be possible. This could not happen here.

This simply could not happen to David Jones of Acacia Drive.

He found himself standing at the curtain again almost as soon as the vile music invaded his ears. Boldly, he opened the curtains fully and peered out into the night. As he did so, Dave noticed several curtains in the houses opposite twitching shut. Others had been disturbed too, it appeared. He focused his attention on the car. Aided by the streetlight and the pernicious glow of the car stereo, Dave could see the occupants of the car more clearly than before. A large, muscular black man had his arm around the small, rather pale lady. They were laughing and sharing a cigarette. Disgusting. Dave looked on in horror as the man tossed the cigarette out of the open driver’s window.

The glowing cigarette end bounced across the pavement away from the car in a shower of yellow sparks. He averted his gaze as the man returned his attention to the woman. They embraced and kissed lustily, as the woman stroked the man’s back with her hands. Quiet fury seeped into David’s face as the couple shifted closer in their seats, jackets falling away, and the man’s hands crept stealthily across the woman’s thighs. As she arched her back in wanton approval, the woman used her free hand to turn the music up even more. Another curtain twitched. A trapped nerve began to throb and jiggle in Dave’s left eyelid. He couldn’t sleep through this late night floorshow. Something had to be done about it.

The air was somewhat chilly for an August night, thought Dave as he stepped outside. Pausing on his front doorstep in his pajamas and dressing gown, he cast a disapproving glance at the blossom petals on the windowsills. The deep orange glow of the street lamps made the pink petals look like clots of blood - a deathly rusted shade of brown.

David’s attention returned to the monotonous barrage of hip-hop emanating from across the road. They simply had to turn it off. Mother wouldn’t have liked it. He would ask them politely to turn the music off and go elsewhere. There was nothing else for it.

As he approached the car, David noticed with disgust that the woman’s skirt had risen up around her waist. Her legs were clamped firmly around the driver’s left leg. They did not hear him approach, blissful in the ignorance of their desire, and in the relentless pounding of the music.

Making his way round to the other side of the car, Dave tapped on the metal frame of the driver’s door. The cold metal hurt his knuckles, but still the noisemakers did not hear him. He tapped again, louder this time. Still nothing.

A peculiar feeling welled up inside David Jones. A feeling similar to one he experienced upon realizing that he would have to miss work due to that one virulent illness which had robbed him of a day at work a year ago. His mouth was so dry. David reached out slowly and before he knew what he was doing, pressed the car horn. The blast that emanated from the horn was loud enough to drown out even the music, and as he looked around quickly Dave saw more curtains twitching along Acacia Drive. He snatched his hand away from the horn and saw that he had at last got the attention of the amorous troublemakers. They looked quite shocked as David leaned his head closer to car and said, “Turn the music off. Mother is trying to sleep.” Triumphantly, he stepped back to watch the driver turn the music off.

But the driver did nothing of the sort. His facial expression turned to one of pure vitriol and he flung the car door open, knocking Dave over onto the pavement. Dave scrambled backwards, grazing his hands on the paving stones, as the driver disentangled himself from the woman’s legs and began to step out of the car. Dave panicked and half-stood, half-stumbled across the road towards his front door. Fumbling for his door keys, he threw a desperate glance over his shoulder to see the driver moving around the front of the car. Pushing himself to reach the door, Dave crashed through the front gate and onto the porch.

Without looking back, he managed to ram the key into the lock and leaped inside the hallway. Turning to slam the door, he saw with terror that the driver was just few feet away.

Swearing and cursing added to the night’s concert, as Dave succeeded in slamming the door in the driver’s face. Trembling, for real now, Dave struggled to double lock the door and affix the safety chain. He retreated slowly up the stairs, as the driver thumped the door and roared threats of violence at the civil servant who had interrupted his lovemaking. A few lights came on in nearby houses, and more curtains twitched open and shut.

Eventually, the driver moved off after shouting one last threat through Dave’s letterbox. David shook his head and walked up the remainder of the stairs to his bedroom. What would his mother say if she heard language like that?

As he neared the bedroom, he became painfully aware of the stinging sensation in his hands. Shards of grit and God knows what else had embedded themselves in his grazed hands. He made a detour to the bathroom and scrubbed his hands with hot water and coal tar soap. The clinical scent of the soap soothed him. It always did. It made everything clean and tidy. Just the way he liked it. Just the way mother liked it.

The deafening music still throbbed from within the metallic love seat of the automobile as Dave returned to his bedroom. He walked over to the window and looked on in dismay at the noisy couple, who had now moved into the back seat minus most of their clothing. This sight was just too much for him to bear.

The quiet of his street, of his very life, had become sullied by these loutish lovers and would never be the same. Numbed by the shame of his defeat and by his ever-rising anger, David threw a defiant glare at the lovers. As he did so, it was as if the woman had sensed his gaze. Looking over her lover’s powerful shoulder, she stared straight at David. Stinging bile surged into his throat as she licked her lips hungrily and winked at him mockingly. He stumbled backwards, thinking he was about to vomit. Doubled up, all he could think of was how cross mother had been with him when he been sick on the carpet as a boy. He found his resolve immediately. And, as he had taught himself to do so as a child after the vomiting incident, he choked back his bile.

Mother would have been proud of him. Mother would have said everything was going to be all right.

He’d done well not to throw up on her nice clean carpet after the nasty man had knocked him over. After the nasty woman had made fun of him.

David Jones fell back onto his bed and, writhing into his sheets fitfully, promptly fell asleep. The ticking clock struck one AM in time with the beat of the music. The music that still rattled his windowpane.

It was his own loud snore that awoke Dave this time. His legs felt like jelly. His head was soft and full of sleep. He felt weightless somehow, as if filled with the breath of his own slumber.

He looked at the clock. Impossibly, it read two AM. David had never been awake this late. It was forbidden. And dangerous. He might sleep through his alarm, might be late for work for the first time ever. Then he’d be just like the rest of them. Like the noisy pair outside.

Slack. Careless. That just wouldn’t do. How dare they disturb him. How dare they make so much racket at night. Nighttime was sacred on Acacia Drive. Nothing happened at night. Surely they knew that.

He arose and walked to the window once more. Pulling back the curtain, he could see the woman atop the driver, thrusting against him and convulsing like a stuck pig in time with the moronic music. Hideous. They were fully naked in their rancid car, on his street. On his street.

He looked from side to side, pressing his forehead against the cool glass to get a better view of the other houses.

Dim lights shone from behind parted curtains. Dozens of grey faces peered at the erotic scene being played out in the car from half-lit rooms.

Then he saw the figure. A man. He thought it must be a man from the walk. A man was walking up the street towards the car. The figure wore a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat. Dave saw the faintest trace of condensation escape from the man’s mouth, partly concealed by the brim of the hat.

As the figure made his way up the street, the curtains of Acacia Drive twitched as if in acknowledgment of his passing. Dave’s forehead moved slowly, his eyes trained on the approaching man. The lovers rocked back and forth, unaware that the man in the long black coat would no doubt be able to see every detail of what they were up to.

The woman arched her back and the driver kicked out a leg, knocking his foot against the dashboard.

To Dave’s despair the music suddenly grew louder. The idiot driver must have knocked the volume control with his toe.

By now, the man in the hat and coat had reached the car. Dave hadn’t noticed him standing there in front of the bonnet in the midst of the increased noise. And as the man crept around to the passenger side of the car, Dave noticed something else. The man was carrying something. A large pole-like something with a weight at the bottom.

Dave narrowed his eyes and peered through the cobwebs of his tiredness.

It was an axe.

The man was at the passenger door now. Dave pressed his face to the glass as he saw the man gently open the car door.

Everything happened so quickly.

The man grabbed the woman by the hair and dragged her from the car. She flailed naked on the tarmac of the road, so shocked that she couldn’t scream. The man in the hat swung the axe down into her skull with a crack that rang out over the music. The driver pressed his body back into the seat, waving a hand pathetically in front of him as if to protect himself. He was so vulnerable in his is nakedness. So shocked at the huge pool of blood creeping across the tarmac.

The axeman grabbed the driver’s ankle and dragged him whimpering from the car.

Despite being much smaller than the driver, he seemed to possess Herculean strength beneath the folds of his coat. When the driver tried to wriggle free of his grasp, the axeman swung the axe sickeningly into his kneecap, splaying open the skin and splintering the bone. With another blow the driver’s leg was severed at the knee joint, blood gushing over the carcass of his dead lover and splashing up the side of the car. The man in the coat stood motionless and looked down at his quarry, bloodied axe by his side.

Pleading for his life and writhing in agony the driver dragged himself back across the tarmac, grazing the flesh on his buttocks, lower back and hands as he did so. The axeman moved slowly towards him and tucked one foot under the petrified driver’s chin. Suddenly he kicked out, throwing the driver’s head against the hard surface of the road with a queasy thud. Then, he raised the axe high in the air and brought it down on the driver’s neck. The metal of the axe burst through flesh and bone, completely severing the driver’s head. The sharp sound of the blade hitting the tarmac caused all the curtains on Acacia Drive to twitch in a perversely silent Mexican wave.

Turning his back on David’s watchful gaze and moving over to the car, the axeman appeared to be chuckling to himself. He leaned inside and looked at the glowing dashboard. Slowly and precisely, he switched off the car stereo. The neon glow winked out. The relentless thudding of the music was stopped dead in its tracks like the lovers who had, moments ago, been coupling to its beat.

The figure stepped back from the car. He surveyed the scene, scraping some flesh from his shoe. Then he looked at the twitching curtains of Acacia Drive, behind them the witnesses to his keeper of the peace grand guignol. He removed his hat so the curtain twitchers could get a proper look at his face. So that they’d know not to make any noise. So that they’d be good.

The figure turned and looked straight into David’s eyes, smiling. David looked back at him with the same satisfied grin. The man with the axe had the same nondescript features.

David was staring at his own face.

As peace and quiet returned to the street at two fifteen AM, all the curtains twitched closed in Acacia Drive and were still.

Dave awoke, somewhat groggily, at six thirty. His mouth was so dry. Nothing a nice cup of tea wouldn’t sort out. Oh, and some porridge to soothe the acidic gurgle in his belly. Must buy some more coal tar soap, he thought to himself as he poured his hot bath.

Dressed and full of breakfast, Dave stepped outside carrying a broom and a dustpan. The blossom petals had dried slightly during the night, many of their pink petals turning a dirty brown colour. Dave glanced at the police lights flashing across the road as he began sweeping the porch.

The police asked him if he’d heard anything the night before. There’d been a terrible incident just over the road from his house. They were doing door-to-door inquiries but nobody had seen or heard anything at all. Could he help? Had he perhaps heard a disturbance in the wee hours?

Oh no, he said. Heard nothing at all, he said. You see; silence was golden in Acacia Drive.

Just like his poor dear mother used to say.

The Minus Touch

“Have you seen my Mistress?”

Jake frowned at the piss-stinking old man. What did he just say? The old man doubled up and grabbed Jake’s hand, hard as he leaned in closer.

“Have you seen her eyes?”

The old guy’s stench penetrated Jake’s nostrils like a leprous tongue. Urinals and shit and gum disease. Retching, Jake wrestled his hand free and stumbled on down the street. When he’d put some distance between himself and the tramp, he looked back at the street corner. The old man had disappeared, probably to curl up and die in some alleyway. Good riddance, thought Jake, and ploughed on towards the bar.

Strains of a song, like slowly shattering glass, boomed from within. “There’s too much blood in my alcohol…” They were playing his tune. Jake stepped inside and stomped up to the bar. Double whiskey, to rid himself of the vagrant’s stench, and a beer chaser because… Just because. He coughed, bad breath coming back to him. Better make it a triple whiskey.

About an hour later, and Jake was feeling nicely inebriated. He’d been thinking about his week. The office had been pretty uneventful, apart from that one particularly pointless meeting where he’d nearly spoken out and gotten himself fired. He was surely on his way out anyway. The boss had seen him slugging back a glass of alka seltzer at his desk that morning. Monday was the new Friday. But now it really was Friday, and he was slugging back cool golden bourbon. He suddenly thought about calling his girlfriend, asking her what she was up to. Probably out with the girls. He drained his glass, ordered another. Maybe later.

His head was swimming when he tumbled out of the bar and onto the street. The air was cold, crisp. He smiled against it from within his cosy whiskey cocoon.

“Taxi?”

Jake looked around for a moment. The word sounded familiar.

“You want taxicab?”

He located the source of the word. A heavy-set Jamaican guy was leaning out the window of an old metallic brown car, gesturing with his thumb at the back seat. He didn’t need a second invitation. Jake’s smile widened and he tumbled into the back of the car. The big guy revved the engine, and spoke to Jake’s reflection in the mirror.

“Nightcap or homeward bound?”

Nightcap? Jake never could say no. But no, he’d probably had enough by now and he’d spent more than…

“Or you want to see ladies?”

Ooh. Now, there was a thought. Ladies.

“Whadkindofladiiiess?” he slurred.

The big guy pulled the car out onto the tarmac, chuckling.

“Pretty ladies, pretty girls,” he replied, his deep exotic baritone emphasizing just how pretty these women must be, “These kind of girls you can touch, no problem, no questions asked, know what I mean?”

“Driveonssirrr…” said Jake, settling back into the musty old leather upholstery as Barry White suddenly exploded out of the car stereo. He sang along, as the city lights zipped past him, becoming a liquid-sepia blur.

Jake was falling to his death when he woke up, his plummeting dream stopped short by the strong arms of his driver. The big guy must have opened the door then caught him before he’d rolled headfirst into the gutter. Damn. Now he’d have to tip.

“Wake up man. We’re here,” said the Jamaican, pulling him to his feet.

“Where’s here?”

A loud intermittent buzzing sound brought Jake back to his senses. It sounded annoyingly like his alarm clock. He looked up at the sound. A tacky neon sign flickered and buzzed at him urgently like a call to action. ‘BAR’. He looked around at the deserted street. He had no idea where in the city he was. The drive had sobered him up a little. Peering at the black doorway, Jake asked the Jamaican how much he owed him.

“Time for that nightcap,” he said as he settled up.

“And some pretty girls,” the big guy replied, all gold teeth.

“Heh, yeah.” Jake put another note in the driver’s hand. “Wait for me here will you? I’ll never get another car this time of night.”

“No problem.”

Jake inhaled deeply through his nostrils as he entered the bar. It smelled, quite simply, of pussy. The unmistakable, luxuriously soft scent of females. A huge doorman with fingers like fat cigars offered to take his jacket. Jake refused. The doorman grunted and led him over to a velveteen booth, then left him alone. A candle and a menu rested on a glass table in front of him. Jake sat down and looked around. Other men in other booths, whispering in the dark with girls who giggled appreciatively.

And such girls. Not one of them a day over twenty, and all dressed in shimmering little dresses. God, he was thirsty.

“Thirsty?”

A young woman had sat down by his side, her frame so slight he hadn’t even noticed. Her perfume washed over him. She was the sweetest thing he’d smelled all night. She was the sweetest thing he’d smelled, ever. Her tiny doll’s hand passed him the menu. He took it, and began reading down the list of single malts and bourbons. The prices were astronomical. Glancing at her body, his eyes lingered on her pert breasts pushing through the flimsy low-cut dress. A necklace glimmered against her impossibly white skin.

“I’ll have a glass of…”

“Ah, we don’t serve drinks by the glass here sir. Bottles only.”

She giggled. Her voice was joy itself. A faint Eastern European accent, folded into the elegant velvet of good English language tuition.

“You sound posh.”

“You like that, sir?”

“Oh yes. Yes I do.”

He looked at her face. Green eyes, like a cat’s, framed by fair hair that tumbled playfully onto her shoulders. Soft skin - unblemished save for a tiny pimple that a subtle layer of make-up was keeping at bay. Her mouth was small and pink. It looked like an itch he needed to scratch.

“Alright then, we’ll share a bottle of Jack.”

She gestured at the giant doorman and seconds later a curvy waitress came over to the table. Jake checked her out as she poured him a drink. She was plainer than his current guest, and a little too chunky for him. He preferred petite chicks. Taking a sip, he asked for a second glass. The waitress looked a question at doll-hands.

“Oh, I don’t drink whiskey, only champagne.”

Jake snorted with laughter. What a frigging scam.

“Let me guess. You don’t serve that by the glass either?”

They didn’t, and it was not long until he and the girl were halfway down their respective bottles, making small talk and laughing overenthusiastically at each other’s jokes. She said her name was Francesca. The word sounded incredibly sexy in her accent and he asked her to repeat it several times, each time eliciting playful giggles. Then she moved closer to him. As she did so, he caught a tantalizing glimpse of her inner thigh, the side swell of her breast.

“Would you like to go somewhere quieter?”

He picked up his glass and drained the last drops of whiskey. Holding his gaze, she poured him another. Then she ran her tiny index finger around the inside of his glass and pressed it to his lips. His mouth opened in a silent, “Oh,” and he sucked on her fingertip hungrily. Her taste, and that of the whiskey, combined then separated until he could taste only her.

“We can take the drinks with us.”

Her expression had changed, become more serious somehow, and urgent. The girlish giggling had stopped and she was leading him away. Away to somewhere at the back of the room, beyond the booths and the giant doorman.

They tumbled into a dark room, onto a low leather armchair, kissing as she poured whiskey and champagne into his hands and his hair, then his crotch. Jake shivered as he felt her mouth around him, encasing him in rubber. She mounted him, light as a feather. Her clothing fell away and he sucked the alcohol from her flesh as she pushed against him aggressively. His hands were dripping with champagne and sex. As his body climaxed, she took his index finger in her mouth and bit down hard. He grappled for the back of her neck with his free hand and pulled her into him, shuddering with pleasure as he spiraled down.

Down. Rain pounded on his forehead, hard. Jake opened his eyes disbelievingly. Cold sharp raindrops hit his eyeballs, backlit by a streetlight, miles above him. He rolled over and clutched his stomach, vomiting into the gutter that yawned inches from his mouth. Steam rose from the contents of his stomach as they slithered through the grille. Where the hell was he?

He tried to stand, but his head was spinning so much he could only crawl over to a boarded-up doorway. He’d shelter here for a while, then try again. Then he felt the doorway creak open slightly behind him, and crawled inside through the rotting beams.

He was in a derelict building that looked like it had once been a shop and smelled like a sewer. Pulling himself up onto some crushed cardboard boxes and moldy drapes, he felt a sharp pain in his index finger. He held it up to take a look. An angry welt throbbed there where Francesca had bitten him. Bitch. It’d be agony to use the computer on Monday. The frigging Jamaican hadn’t waited for him either. Panicking suddenly, he reached into his jacket pocket with his good hand. Gone. Phone, wallet, small change. Bitch, she’d pay for this.

Then he caught it again. Her scent – soft and moist and intoxicating. She was all over him. He sniffed and licked and bit at his own skin as every nerve in his body remembered her. Tearing open his clothes, he orgasmed painfully, peaking and starting over and over again. His seed coated his hand, soothing the bloody weal on his index finger. For days he lay like this, feasting on his own fluids and excrement, remembering her touch until he was utterly spent.

The ghost sound of her voice pulled him outside, onto cold streets. He looked for the bar everywhere, listening out for the alarm buzz of the neon sign. But he couldn’t find her anywhere. He tumbled into crowds of despair.

Faces blurred at him through his bleeding eyes, recoiling from his stench. Ice formed on his ragged clothes over the dark wet surfaces of his excretions. He tumbled around a corner and slammed into a young man. His vague features looked friendly, open.

“Have you seen my Mistress?” asked Jake, desperately.

The young man frowned at him, his face all shadows.

Jake doubled up in pain and grabbed the young man’s hand, hard. The welt on his finger now black, as if frostbitten. He leaned in closer.

“Have you seen her eyes?”

Tinsel

Tom’s breath fogged up his window then disappeared like a ghost. He tried again, but no luck – the frost clinging to the outside of the windowpane refused to melt. He wished his parents would just go to bed. He’d been kneeling here on his bed, leaning on the windowsill for what seemed like an eternity. Then - footsteps on the stairs. Action stations.

It was Mum, here to tuck Tom into bed. He lay rigidly still, breathing heavily with his arms by his side. He felt his mother’s shadow falling over him as she leaned in to kiss him softly on the head. Then she grabbed him and tickled him. He let out a loud giggle. How on earth did she do that every time? Anyone else would’ve fallen for it and believed he was asleep, but not Mum with her amazing radar skills.

They shared a laugh about it and she kissed him again and turned off the light. He listened intently as Mum closed the door and went back downstairs to the living room. ‘Must be wrapping my presents right now,’ he thought, his ears conjuring sounds of foil paper and sticky tape.

This was the most crucial part of Christmas Eve for Tom – waiting for Mum, Dad and Big Sis to come to bed. Then he had to leave it for just long enough to make sure they were asleep, without nodding off himself and missing his chance. Still listening intently, he remembered how he’d bungled the job two years ago, when he was just eight. He was older now, and wiser – an expert in nocturnal maneuvers. One day he’d be a secret agent…

Tom awoke with a jolt and shivered. His bedclothes had made a bid for freedom, leaving just his pajamas to protect him. He grabbed his alarm clock, the luminous face teasing him with the time. Four o’clock am. Oh, flipping brilliant, he’d nodded off and been asleep for hours. But there was still time. He’d better move fast and silent, like that amazing ninja he’d seen on the telly.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and ever so carefully stood up. Without a sound, he crept over to the door and removed his dressing gown from the door handle. Tom loved his dressing gown – it was fleecy and so cosy, especially good for a nippy night like this. Careful now, this was where it could all go horribly wrong. One false move and he’d wake the whole household. He reached out for the door handle, his arm rehearsing the exact distance he could open the door before it creaked. Slowly, slowly, he pulled the door open, slipped sideways through the gap, grabbed the outside handle and closed the door behind him with the tiniest click.

Heart beating, Tom stood on the dark landing for a few seconds, catching his breath. That was intense, his best ninja move ever. Satisfied he hadn’t woken his folks, he padded gently across the landing towards the stairs. The soft, soundless carpet beneath his feet, he allowed his mind to wander a little. He began thinking of the prize that awaited him at the end of his mission, remembering how wonderful his presents had looked under the tree last year. They’d gleamed in their shiny wrapping paper like treasure, begging him to squeeze them. He’d picked up the biggest first, giving it a gentle rock to hear and feel what was inside. It didn’t take a genius to realize it was the games console he’d wanted. The box had matched the dimensions of the one in the shop exactly – he should know, he’d examined the display case at the supermarket enough times while Mum spent an age at the deli counter. Tom felt a rush of panic. Had he dropped enough hints about the music player? Maybe she hadn’t noticed during her massive quest for breaded products and two-for-one deals on the way to the checkout. Maybe he hadn’t been clear enough about the colour of the headphones – oh no, what a disaster. His pace quickened as he reached the foot of the stairs.

An animal hiss erupted in his ears as he stepped into the hallway. Tom searched the gloom for the source of the din, dropping to his knees to peer under the sideboard. Wild eyes suddenly glared at him from the shadows there, along with more violent hissing. It was Fudge, the family cat. Whispering as loud as he dared, Tom told Fudge to be quiet. The animal shrank back beneath the sideboard with a final exasperated meow. The cat had almost been his undoing, but failure was not an option. He had to go and squeeze and prod at all the parcels bearing his name.

Downstairs was even chillier than his bedroom, cold seeping into the hallway through hidden nooks and crannies. Tom pulled his dressing gown tighter and snuck into the living room. It was pitch black inside, owing to Mum’s annoying habit of switching everything off and unplugging it every night, “to be on the safe side.” This often drove Dad to distraction; especially if he’d set the tellybox to record late night sports shows. An acrid metallic smell filled the room. What had they been wrapping in here? ‘Only one way to find out,’ thought Tom as he edged his way around the perimeter of the room, feeling along the cabinet, then the wall. Finally, he felt the Christmas tree as he brushed against it. Baubles clinked icily as he located the power cord and followed it, crawling across the floor to the power socket in the corner. He felt the cold metal pins in his hand and turning the plug right side up, inserted it into the wall. Something wet dripped on his hand just as he pressed the switch. Something heavy and slick slid across his head.

Tom scrabbled backwards in shock. Looking up, he saw the fairy lights twinkling. But they were red, not clear, as they had been earlier today and all last week since they’d decorated the tree. He stared, mouth agape, as he realized the lights weren’t red after all. Rather, it was what hung around them that gave them their crimson glow.

The Christmas tree was slicked with blood and covered in strands of flesh and hair. Mum’s hair, and his sister’s. He could pick out his Dad’s tattoo on a piece of bloodied skin that dangled above a bauble like a handkerchief. Drooping branches struggled beneath the weight of the innards scattered across them like red tinsel. Ruined organs steamed like butcher’s offal at the hot kiss of the lights. Eyeballs hung there like baubles. He could recognize some of the pieces – he’d seen them in the big pop-up anatomy book at school - a section of intestine here, a tangle of veins there.

Tom scrambled to his feet. Nausea hit him and he vomited stomach bile onto the living room rug. Turning fearfully around, he saw his family lying lifeless on the sofa like grotesque dolls. Their bodies had been torn apart. Flesh ravaged and ribcages exposed like the hulls of broken ships.

The room span, and Tom sank to his knees, a dry scream dying in his throat.

Then, he saw them.

Cold eyes, watching him from the dark black of the fireplace.

Watching him touching his presents.

Hair of the Dog

The city awoke. Grey clouds split open and let the first fiery licks of sunrise through. The glow found the windows of tall buildings, reflecting the city in all its frenetic, garish glory. Orange light glinted off the windscreens of the first cabs of the day as they hurtled past doorways where homeless people clung to the last threads of sleep. The cabs joined the termite lines of traffic crossing bridges, beneath which the dispossessed sat drinking the first drop of the morning - or the last one of the evening. Wage slaves formed their own complex patterns; marching like armies of ants into the buffeting winds, ready to take on another day as best they could. On the outskirts of the city, the suburbs were awake too. Children were hurried into the backs of family cars by anxious parents intent on getting their offspring to classes on time. Dogs were being walked through banks of autumn leaves in chilly parks, while cats stayed at home and chose warm places to spend the best part of the day. In one of the suburban streets, one building in particular showed no sign of activity. It was a ground floor flat, a Victorian conversion that stood in the dominating shadow of a nearby church. The flat was not dissimilar to the neighboring properties, except for the curtains still being closed. But the light always finds a way of getting in, and sure enough it found a chink in those curtains.

Simone opened her eyes, and then regretted ever doing so. The shaft of sunlight coming through the gap in the curtains almost blinded her. She clenched her eyes tightly shut and draped her arm over her face to block out the unwelcome intrusion. Something boomed inside her head, then she realized the booming was her head. Swallowing dryly, she winced at the vile acid taste in her mouth and rolled over, facing away from the light that had so cruelly woken her. The effort of merely turning over was enough to make her dizzy and she spiraled back into a fitful slumber.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. The sound was deafening, piercing Simone’s brain like a hot needle. She pulled the duvet over her head to try and block out the noise. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. It was not going to stop, and the duvet wasn’t helping. She pulled the clammy duvet cover from her face and rolled over. The sunlight had gone, thankfully subdued by dark clouds, but its light had been replaced by the angry glow of Simone’s digital alarm clock. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. The clock was bleeping and flashing at her like a red-eyed devil, seemingly unconcerned by her physical plight. She had to destroy it. Summoning what little strength she had left in her, Simone fumbled for the snooze button and overshot the mark, knocking the clock to the floor. BEEP. The dreadful noise stopped and she breathed a sigh of relief. But the smell of her own breath nauseated her. BOOM. The pounding in her head returned and she put her hand to her brow, wishing she could pop open her skull and massage the pain from her brain and eyes.

Ouch. How on earth did I get home last night? Come to think of it, where the hell was I last night? Clever me. Sometimes I get drunk. Just drunk. But sometimes I drink for my county, and well... sometimes for entire countries. Something tells me I was trying for the vodka Olympics last night. Jesus, my head hurts.

Simone’s lips felt dry and parched as she made a futile attempt to wet them with an even drier tongue.

Water. Need water.

She peered over the side of the bed through squinty eyes and saw a glass lying on the floor next to the upturned alarm clock. Bingo. Reaching down and picking up the glass with a shaky hand, Simone took a swig, thirstily. The liquid burned the back of her throat and she spat it out all over the bed.

Disgusting! Last night’s vodka? That must have been some party.

Glancing around the room in hope of finding some real water, she noticed an ashtray on the shelf across the room. She could just make out a cigarette stub in the ashtray through her bleary vision.

Oh God, no. Gave up smoking months ago. No wonder my throat is so damn sore. Tastes like a monkey took a dump in the back of my throat while I was sleeping...

She coughed and retched and rubbed her throat with trembling fingers. This was truly the worst hangover she’d ever experienced. She got up and staggered towards the door in search of water, the life-giving water. Then, a rapidly flashing light surprised her from atop a pile of clothes on the floor, accompanied by a shrill tone almost as annoying as the beeping of the alarm clock. Her mobile phone. The thing was becoming vicious, blinking and whining at her like a neglected pet as she tried to remain focused on the door and fought the urge to collapse on the floor. Holding a hand over her eyes like a vampire trying to block out the sun, she approached the phone gingerly. With a great deal of effort, she reached out her shaky hand to pick it up. She missed. She tried again, missing her target by a couple of inches. She gritted her teeth reached out her hand once more, grabbing her wrist with her other hand to steady it.

Contact.

Her thumb found the key from pure muscle memory and she waited to be connected to her voicemail. The message had been left shortly after one in the AM. The voice on the phone was slurred, drunk sounding, and there was lots of background noise - someone had called her from a bar.

“Simone, where the hell are you? Didn’t even pay for your round, you total bitch... Probably boning that complete stranger you seduced, you tart. Well we’re not having any damned luck...”

It was Lindy. As Simone listened to her friend’s voice trailing off, she remembered being at Lindy’s party the night before. The memory felt as distant as her primary school days. She remembered the first couple of bars, the shots and drinking games, but then it all became a bit of a blur – a lot of a blur. BOOM. The image actually hurt Simone’s brain as it flashed before her eyes.

She was kissing someone. Last night, drunk as a skunk. They laughed and tumbled against a wall. She felt the wall’s cool hardness at her back. They kissed again, passionately. Her lover was against the wall now. Her fingers were entwined in someone’s hair.

Blinking the visceral images away, she coughed again. Dry throat. The mobile phone message had mutated into discomfiting static. She terminated the call, tossed the phone back onto its cradle of discarded clothes and lurched toward the door. Her toes made contact with something solid and heavy, sending her sprawling forward. She fell onto the dressing table next to the door and startled at a sudden cacophony of music. She’d managed to fall onto her digital radio, switching it on. The music was hard, loud, and fierce. It hurt her head so much she thought she might vomit. She grabbed at the radio and tried to remember where the off switch was. CLICK. The music stopped, such a blessed relief.

I really need to find some water. I might die if I don’t.

Remembering there might be some water in the kitchen, she stepped through the door with Herculean effort.

Simone lurched over to the sink with all the grace of a B-movie zombie. She turned on the tap and marveled at it for a moment as though she had never seen such a miracle as running water before. Grabbing a glass from the drainer, she filled it to the brim with cool, clear water. Leaving the tap on she gulped down the entire glassful, then refilled it, ready to down some more.

BOOM. There was a flash of pain behind her eye and a piercing pain above her ribcage. She clutched at her chest, trying to contain a barrage of dry coughs. She turned off the tap, trying to distract her throat, but only coughed more and more. Retching violently, she coughed something up into the sink.

Simone recoiled at the sight of so much hair and blood. How could that much hair come out of my throat? she thought perversely. Yet there it was, the blood making a shocking frame of red around it; startling against the white enamel surface of the sink. Gross. She turned the tap on again and watched the blood become a crimson snake as it spiraled round and round. The clump of hair tried to follow, but became ensnared on the plughole.

Simone reached into the sink and slowly pulled the hair out of the plughole. Some strands were tangled around the spokes of the plughole and she had to pull hard. The stretching and snapping of the hair made her feel acutely nauseous. Pursing her lips, she raised the hair to eye-level and studied it, at once horrified and puzzled. She recognized the colour from her flash memory of the night before.

I was kissing a girl.

Her brain burned with the sudden sensation of movement, of a struggle. She could feel the girl’s hair wrapped around her fingers, soft and lustrous, not cold and slicked with blood and tap water as it was now. A shrill scream echoed in her memory.

Blinking away the images, Simone dropped the hair back into the sink and staggered out of the kitchen, feeling sick and confused. She’d kissed girls before of course, especially when drunk, but had never before yacked up their hair the next morning.

What the hell did I do last night?

Tumbling back into her room, her eyes alighted on the ashtray once again.

And why the hell was I smoking? Quit that months ago, or so I thought…

The incriminating cigarette stub was still there. Was that red lipstick on the tip? Simone approached the ashtray guiltily and reached for the evidence. She pulled it out of the ashtray and held it up to the shaft of light coming through the curtains.

Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmyg…

It was not a cigarette stub. It was a girl’s finger. What she had mistaken for lipstick was in fact slicks of gore where the finger had been severed at the bone. Simone gasped in horror and dropped the finger. It bounced sickly onto the rug. Trembling now, she grabbed her mobile phone from the pile of crumpled clothes. Her thumb skittered over the keys and her teeth chattered with dread as she accessed the phone’s photo gallery. Sure enough, there was a blurred phone-camera image of the girl she was kissing, smiling with a drink in her hand. Simone couldn’t remember her name.

Her hair looked lovely.

Simone rushed into the hallway and opened the front door. The girl was lying dead on the doorstep, her hair all bloody and slicked with gore. She had been mutilated, what was left of her innards unspooled around her like a frayed blanket. Simone knelt down slowly, trembling with shock. She ran her fingers through the girl’s bloody hair, tracing routes she’d enjoyed before.

Before I ate her.

Simone began to sob. Then she saw them, down the steps and along the path, watching her from the street outside her flat. A small group of shocked onlookers were looking right at her. Looking at her like she was a monster. Perhaps she was.

The distant wail of police sirens became louder. The sound pierced her ears and warped inside her brain.

Like wolves, howling.

BONUS FLASH FICTION - ebook edition only

Half/Life

I don’t want to go out, I’m afraid of what’s out there. Last week a young guy was stabbed clean through with a samurai sword. Just a block away, with a sword, I’m not kidding. What is this world coming to?

But my stomach insists. Fridge is empty and I’ve no credit until next month. All I have left is the little I’ve been holding back for an emergency, and my empty belly is sounding the klaxon loud and clear.

I pull back the blinds. The sun still blazes down on the deserted streets but now its rays nurture only blooms of violence. Never used to be this way. When I first came here the vibe was warm, welcoming. Neighbours waved to each other from their front lawns, dogs yapping and children laughing. Now everyone looks over their shoulders, quietly moving subdued children along, afraid. And who can blame them, when death is at every doorstep?

A sharp rapping jolts me from my thoughts. I duck away from the blinds, sure that the debt collector has seen me. He knows I’m here, knows I’m overdue. Oh Christ, there are two of them. I can hear them now, bickering about who gets to kick the door in.

No time. I crouch, even though they’ve seen me, and head for the back door. I hear the splintering of doorframe as I duck out onto the fire escape. Heat on my back, raised voices in my ears, as I hurtle down the metal steps and into the yard. I scramble over the wall. Terror makes my movements instinctive, fluidly feral. The men follow, but I know the layout better. Hurtling across derelict waste ground, I crash through a wild green tangle of nettle and knotweed and reach a steep bank. Glancing back, I hear the muffled barks of my pursuers on the fried air. No way out but forward go. I start scrambling down the slope to the sidings, and lose my footing.

I hit sharp gravel, hot dirt. An engine roars in the distance. Looking up, I see the shapes of the men atop the bank. I stand and face the tracks. A ruptured fox lies there, a ruined form dissected on the rail. The tracks begin to sing their dread warning. Not quick, not crafty enough. The debt collectors have begun their descent. I run.

We make eye contact, the fox and I, moments before the train hits me. His black scrying mirror eyes reflect nothing, devouring all the light as the world around me ends.

Game over. I shut down, trembling. I will have to start the whole damn thing over again. Better still, move to Newtown. They don’t have weapons there yet. It even rains sometimes.

A sharp rapping jolts me from my thoughts. Don’t want to answer; I’m afraid of what’s out there. It knows I'm overdue. I remain at my desk, heart thudding. My fear the only living thing in this half-life.

###

About the author

Frazer Lee is the writer/director of award-winning horror movies 'On Edge' and 'Red Lines', both starring Doug Bradley (best known as Pinhead from Hellraiser). His screenplay commissions/options and script doctor engagements include works for Vanquish Alliance Entertainment, Movie Mogul Films, Cylinder Production A/S, Marloo Media and 386 Films. Also a published author, Frazer's horror fiction is published by Bloody Books, Calvin House and others. Connect with Frazer via his official website: www.frazerlee.com

Table of Contents

Urbane

Pendragon Rising

Ill Met By Moonlight

Conspiracy Of Silence

The Minus Touch

Tinsel

Hair Of The Dog

Half/Life

About the Author