The Night My Heart Exploded

It’s not a metaphor. Or a simile, or a fucking allegory, or whatever the word is. My heart. Exploded. And it wasn't because a pretty girl walked into the library where I work and told me that she needed my help. She caused it; she made it happen with malice of bloody forethought. At least she didn’t kill me. I suppose that’s something to be thankful for.

I’d been left alone to lock up for the night. I was in the middle of returning the children’s section to something approaching acceptable when she walked in. That’s always the easiest part of the lock-up. I mean, yes, you have to deal with whatever disgusting things they’ve left behind, from slobbery pacifiers to slobbery teddy bears, but the beauty of tidying the children’s section is that it’s never going to be tidy for more than five minutes after you open. And the manager never comes in for at least an hour after that, so basically it’s a non-job.

Anyway, back to that night. I was hurling the SpongeBob cushions into the corner when this girl walked in. Was she attractive? Yes. Would I have behaved more cautiously had she not been? I don’t know. It’s a moot point. She wasn’t and I didn’t. Is that right? Anyway, this girl stood there, dressed quite smart in a dark blue suit, dark hair done in a ponytail, with these big, bulky headphones around her neck. She asked me if I could help her with something.

“We’re closed,” I told her.  If I’d been thinking, I would have wondered how she’d got past the locked front door. But thinking while working isn’t something I do very often. Since starting work there, I’d made a real effort to save my mental activity until I could share it with the people who I felt earned it and so far this girl had done nothing to prove she was worth anything more than a standard response. Apart from having a face like she did, I suppose.

“It’s very important,” she told me, like that would change everything. There was a tone in her voice, though. It wasn’t a tone like, “Oh god, I’ve been attacked!” It was more like “This is serious, listen to me.”

I thought about the possibility that she might be telling the truth. She did look worried; she looked like she wanted to be moving rather than standing by the door talking to me. So I walked over to her. I’m not a heartless person; I wouldn’t abandon someone who was in serious trouble. Oh, shit. Sorry about that. Pun not intended, but if I do it again, you can assume it is. Heartless.

“What’s going on?” I asked her. She turned to look at the front door. I don’t know if you’ve been there and seen the doors to the library, but they’re these two big, bulky wooden bastards. Substantial. And they were closed. She must have been satisfied because she turned back to me.

“Listen to this,” she said, and reached into her jacket pocket. Now, I’m wondering what’s going on. Maybe she’s going to pull a phone or MP3 player out; maybe she’s got a recording of something, I thought. You know the scene in Garden State, with Natalie Portman and The Shins? Maybe a small part of me thought that was happening. But no, it’s a matchbox. Cook’s Matches. She pops on her headphones and hands the box to me. “Open it,” she says. I know what you’re thinking. Why would you open it? But then, why wouldn’t you?

I open it. There’s something inside, I can’t tell what it is. It takes up most of the matchbox; it looks almost like a grey, moist fortune cookie from a Chinese restaurant, the way it’s curled up in there.  And then it uncurls. I almost drop it but before I can it starts vibrating and this noise comes out and it fills my head and everything just goes pink.

As I fell to the floor I felt like I was going in slow-motion. Which meant I could watch the arcing explosion coming out of my chest. It actually looked kind of beautiful. I saw some white bits that I assumed were shards of my ribs, or maybe just globs of fat that have been sticking around. Lots of blood, obviously. I could see it spattering the young adult section. And there were these vivid red chunks just flying out that I knew, that I understood were pieces of my heart which had just exploded.

So I’m on the floor. I’m lying there. My head’s tilted to the side; I’m looking at a misshapen hunk of my flesh that’s dripping off the book trolley. And I feel the girl take my hand.

“Get up,” she said.

It seemed ridiculous. How could I possibly get up? But she started pulling, so I thought that maybe it wasn’t so stupid. I tried, and it took some doing, but I just about got to my feet.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, in the kind of tone which I felt was justified.

“I don’t have time to explain,” she said. “There are some people coming. I need you to go outside and talk to them.”

I looked down at the hole in my chest, which was still bleeding a lot, by the way. I looked at the way my ribs have been blasted outwards. I felt like I was examining a crime scene. “I’m not sure I can go anywhere,” I told her. But to be honest, I felt OK. Had it not been for the evidence all over the floor, I wouldn’t have known anything had happened. She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the front door. I kicked a chunk of something on the way and saw it skid under one of the history shelves. It would be a bastard to retrieve that. I don’t know who had to do that, some forensics guy I suppose.

She turned the lock in the front door and opened it a crack. “Go outside and tell them that it worked,” she said. When I asked what, she shook the matchbox. “This. Tell them the matchbox worked.”

Before I had time to register a complaint I was shoved outside. It was blowing a gale and I could feel little dangly bits around the edges of my wound flapping. It was…grim. But my eyes were drawn to the three large bald men in suits standing by a large black van a few feet away from me, who were all carrying shiny handguns. I assumed that these were the people I needed to talk to.

“Hello,” I said. “She says it works.”

The man in the middle took a step towards me. “Where’s the proof?” he asked. I gestured to my chest.

“I think I’m supposed to be the proof,” I told him. “The thing in the matchbox did this to me.” He moved closer and bent down to examine my wound. He used his pistol to move my shirt aside and get a better look. I thought it best to leave him to it, but looking at the blood dripping onto his weapon I couldn’t help but wonder how sanitary it was.

“Fair enough,” he said. “Is she inside?” I nodded, and he took a step back, taking his handgun out of me. “Laura? Is he telling the truth, then?”

“He is,” I heard her shout from behind me. She was poking her head out from behind the door. “I told you it would work, I just needed more time.” The man nodded.

“We may have been too hasty. What do you say to the idea of coming back?”

I turned and saw Laura take a cautious step towards us. “I say you spent the last hour trying to kill me.”

The man held his hands up. “We thought that you didn’t know what you were doing. We thought you were wasting our time, but clearly we were wrong. I apologise. I was too hasty and it won’t happen again. Besides, we need you to figure out why he’s still alive.”

Laura grinned. “I’ll expect a pay rise.” The man grinned back and nodded.

I’d been standing there, listening to this back and forth and wondering if I should say anything. I had hoped that I would be left out of it, but clearly, that wasn’t the case. As I was about to ask how they planned to find out why I was still alive, the man’s two friends picked me up and bundled me into the van.

No one said a word and I thought it best to keep my mouth shut. We drove for about twenty minutes, then a bag was put over my head and I was carried inside a building. I had no idea whether I was above ground or below but when the bag was removed I was in a cell. Not the worst cell imaginable, thankfully. It was clean, I had it to myself, there was a toilet. All things considered, it could have been much worse. My main worry was what to do about the hole in my chest. I did briefly consider filling it with wadded toilet paper but I’m sure you can deduce why I didn’t. Mushiness. Sorry, anyway, I didn’t think I needed to worry about infection. I just sat there and waited. I was sure someone would come and explain things to me eventually

.

Which brings me up to now. Two men I didn’t recognise opened the door and brought me here to talk to you ladies and gentlemen. Can I ask, have you figured it out yet? Why I’m not dead? Does it have something to do with the thing in the matchbox? Oh, how’s Laura?

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Hello.

Hope you enjoyed this one. It was fun to do something a bit different. Initially it was going to be another story with Elsie the ghost from She Wore Stripes, but this happened instead. I'd written a couple of quite grim things so it was nice to have a bit of fun with this.

She Wore Stripes

She hadn’t been dead long. That’s important. And she hadn’t made a mess of herself. A bit of blood around the nose, easy enough to wipe off. Some hot water and a wad of toilet paper would take care of that. And she was dressed all in stripes, looking a bit like Beetlejuice’s teenage sister, especially now that she’d snuffed it. I’d been wearing a dress a bit like that when I went. I got hit by a lorry, though, so those white stripes turned red very quickly. Ha.

For any ghost attempting possession of a corpse, it’s important that the body hasn’t been dead for very long. It’s important because being in a corpse as it goes through rigor mortis is about as much fun as dying. And once you’ve done either once you don’t really want to do it again. You’ve only got about three hours before it becomes noticeable. I can tell you that it’s difficult to explain to the dead person’s friend why your arm isn’t bending any more. Best to know your limits. And if you do hang around for rigor mortis, the livor mortis has already begun. Blood pooling in places. Not good. So yeah, unless you want to tell a barman why you can’t move as you feel yourself becoming a soggy sausage skin full of…keep an eye on the time.

My name’s Elsie and if you’re wondering if I just hang around waiting to people to die so I can walk around in their bodies, you’re not far off the truth. I mean, yes, you can possess the living but that takes weeks, sometimes months, of preparation and frankly it’s very rarely worth the hassle. The dead don’t fight you; the only thing working against you is the clock.

I come to The Worker’s Hearth quite often. It’s open late and you quite often find people stopping off for a last drink at three in the morning on their stumble home. Every now and then one of them dies and I walk them home instead. But I’d come along early tonight and I was glad I did. This girl, the one in stripes, had popped in with her friends for a round of cheap shots on the way into town and had gone, alone, to the loos for a pee and a snort. After thirty years as a ghost you start notice when people’s bodies are struggling to cope and this girl had all the warning signs. So I floated off after her.

Sure enough, as soon as she’d got it up her nose the bleeding started and her little heart fluttered and gave out. Her face hit the tiles and I got to work.

There’s not really an art to this. It’s pretty simple. The person dies. Their spirit leaves the body like a reflex. And in you pop. The best way to describe it is like climbing into a wetsuit. You’ve got to wiggle your way all the way down the arms and legs, make sure your fingers and toes are in properly. If you do it right you’ve got total control of the body in terms of movement, vocal chords and so forth. You can walk, talk, smile. Sadly, you don’t have any say over the body’s decomposition. You’ve got about an hour, maybe two before people start to notice that you look and smell terrible.

A word of advice. Always take the time to clean yourself up. People tend to notice if there’s a dreadful stink of shit coming from you, or worse, there might be a wound that you haven’t noticed. Claiming to be drunk will only get you so far if you haven’t spotted that the back of your head is open and dripping.

So, I cleaned the blood from her nose and got the arms and legs moving. No stiffness yet, everything seemed to be working as normal. And she hadn’t shat herself, which was a relief. Obviously, sometimes you have to clean up but when you don’t have a lot of time you don’t want to waste it in the stalls. I gave her face a bit of a touch-up with the make-up kit in her bag. Her being a bit of a druggie was a relief; her friends would be used to seeing her pale. The outfit wasn’t too bad. A damp patch from the floor but I could always blame that on busted taps; in a place like this the girls downstairs would believe it.

I went back downstairs, going carefully to get the hang of her pins. The people at the table looked happy to see me. I was accused of taking my sweet time, to which I answered that I’d had too much to drink. They called me Tania, which I made a note of. Then I downed my pint, left the pub, and got into a taxi with them. On the way there I didn’t say a lot. I tried to focus on the little things. Feeling fabric against Tania’s skin. The air from the open window on Tania’s face, rushing through Tania’s hair. The after-taste of watered-down lager on Tania’s tongue. These things make Elsie happy. Before I knew it we’d arrived at the club.

I don’t really know the best way to describe trying to dance with limbs that don’t have blood pumping through them anymore. You know the Thriller video? It’s fuck all like that. There’s much less coordination. You just try to move your limbs as much as possible, really. I think maybe it helps postpone the stiffness but I have no idea. It’s just nice to have the feeling that the body you’re in is responding to instructions. I’ve tried haunting an aerobics class but anyone who’s going to snuff it at the gym tends to so fairly publicly, everyone hovering around them. You want people to go privately.

I noticed a couple of guys checking me out and quickly discouraged them, sticking to the group of friends this girl had found for herself. I’m not stupid enough to attempt intercourse while inhabiting a corpse. That would be horrible and incredibly ill-advised. Well, I tried it once. Once. After six years of being dead I finally had to give it a try. It was as disastrous and disgusting as you’d assume, and we’ll say no more about it. There were…fluids. Jesus, I’m shuddering just thinking about it.

I’d kept an eye on the time and it was approaching midnight. Time to get going, but I still had a couple of minutes to think about it. How did I want people to find Tania? She had friends with her, most of them seemed nice. A girl called Sarah seemed to be closest to her, a slightly chubby freckly red-head who had asked if I was alright and had tried to make me laugh. She’d stayed on the dance floor with me and shown a similar disregard for people trying to dance with her. I wondered if they were together. However, I wasn’t going to find out. I could feel the changes starting to happen and I didn’t want to freak her out unnecessarily.

Now, when it comes to getting rid of your body you can go for the alley-drop but that always struck me as a bit cruel on the survivors. I didn’t really want Sarah feeling guilty because she’d let her drunk best friend wander off to expire alone in a dirty alley. So I considered the “I just died in your arms tonight” approach. She’d always remember that. She could call an ambulance. That would make her feel better, if she’d been proactive. She could tell herself that she’d tried to help. I went for it.

I stuck around in the body long enough to give the illusion that Tania was dying in Sarah’s panicking arms, a bit of light convulsing, eyelids fluttering, some shallow breathing . Once people starting yelling I left. You don’t want to hang around all that. That’s none of your business; it’s nothing to do with you. Best left alone. So off I went.

You probably think all of this is wrong. Maybe you think it’s immoral, that I’ll burn in hell for it. Well I’m not there yet. And when you’ve been stranded in spectral form for thirty years you can talk to me about it.

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Hello there. I hope you enjoyed this one. I was worried at first that the voice was a little to similar to Eliza in Witch's Bile but I think Elsie's more disaffected than malicious. Anyway, she was a lot of fun to write and I have a plan for a second story with her where something actually happens, as opposed to this, which I think is just her normal Friday night.

Not sure which story will be next but it will be another week or two. The title from this story came from @merazad and I'm very grateful!

Slide Left

“Slide left.”

His father’s voice. It didn’t belong here and it didn’t hang around.

The door to the basement slammed and Michael opened his eyes. Whatever was down there with him shifted its weight and sighed. Michael pushed himself across the wet dirt floor back towards the cellar steps. The door would be locked. He knew it. He'd heard the metal screech of a dead-bolt. He was trapped down here. In the dark, with this rotten smell and with whatever this thing was.

He found a wall and pressed himself against it. Some impulse told him to set about looking for a weapon but what would be down here? Where would he find something to protect him from whatever had made his captors cackle as they pushed him down the steps? He tried desperately to make sense of what had happened.

His car had broken down in the rain. That was it. That was how it had started. The battery had died and he was looking for a phone so he could get some help because his bloody phone battery was as dead as the one in his car. He was only looking for help. He should have known. He should have guessed by the smiles on these people’s faces that they weren’t quite right. The house had looked normal from the outside. The man and the woman, both tall, she had lots of blonde hair and he had hardly any. They invited him in. Said they knew the number for the services. It all looked…normal. He could smell their dinner cooking in the oven. Heard some crooner on the radio. It had all been fine.

Then he had seen through to the living room. There was a girl lying on the floor, not moving, a pool of blood circling her head. He’d rushed over to help. He’d been trying to help. He’d had a hand on her shoulder and was shouting and then he'd heard laughter. And a scream. And everything had gone black.

“Hello,” said a woman’s voice. “You shouldn’t be down here.”

Michael looked up with a start, his heart pounding deafening blood, peering into the darkness. Whoever had spoken was hidden but the voice didn’t sound unkind. It sounded apologetic.

“I know,” he said stupidly, “I don’t know what happened…I think...something hit me on the head and I fell down. There was a girl. What…who are these people?”

The sigh again. It was less sinister now, sadder. Michael leaned forward.

“Don’t you know? They’re killers. They take people like you and me and they put us down here and then they wait.”

“Wait for what?” asked Michael. He knew he didn’t want an answer but he couldn’t help himself. He didn't have to wait long for it.

“They wait for us to stop. They wait for us to stop fighting, to stop trying, to stop hoping. Then we stop breathing.”

A hammering sound from upstairs. Fists on the door, a mocking wailing, and finally laughter. Michael closed his eyes.

“How long have you been down here?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I was seventeen when I first woke up. How old do I sound?”

Michael thought the voice coming from the darkness was that of a young woman. He inched along the wall towards her. If only he could see who he was talking to. If they could work together, they could find a way out, and he told her so.

“You can’t get out of here. There’s not an out.” The girl was resigned.

Michael was not going to listen to this. There was a way out. There had to be. There was a way in so there was a way out. The two freaks upstairs couldn’t keep him locked down here for ever. And this girl, the one down here, she needed his help. No matter how scared he was, he had responsibilities. So he took a deep breath. And he told her about what his father used to tell him about bad situations.

“He used to tell me that when the worst thing in the world is coming towards you like a fucking lorry, just slide left. That’s all you need to do. No matter how hopeless, how inevitable it seems, there’s always another way out, another way around. You don’t need the perfect solution, it doesn’t have to be a work of genius, but that’s all you need sometimes. To just…slide left. To get out of the way.”

“It’s not always as simple as that,” the voice came back. There was less sorrow, more determination. How long had she been down here? Maybe she really believed there was no way out.

“It can be. There’s always a way.”

Then a thought made him stop cold.

“Wait…you said ‘us’. Have there been others?”

“Of course,” returned the voice. “Some have gone. One or two are still here.”

Michael stopped cold. If there was a group, why had they not mounted an escape? Even teenagers like this girl should surely be capable of taking on the two upstairs. He blinked again and was relieved that his vision was starting to improve.

“Who else is here? Why aren’t they talking?”

“Patrick can’t. Millie’s shy.”

He looked around the room, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness even faster. Why couldn’t he see further than a few inches?

“Tell them not to worry. I’m going to get us out of here.” He needed to believe it. Because he could do this. He could get out. He could get them all out, whoever the hell was down here. They’d all get out together.

The sigh again.

“We’re not worried. Millie says thank you for trying to help. She appreciated the gesture but you should never have come. The rest of us feel the same. We don't like you coming down here and talking about a way out. Like it was easy. Like it was something we hadn't thought of. Patrick can’t talk to you because they took his tongue. There’s a boy called Dominic around here somewhere but he doesn’t like anyone to see him since they took his skin.”

Michael couldn’t breathe. He could barely speak. But he had to.

“What did they take from you?”

“Everything. They took everything from me, Michael. And then they took my heart.”

A face thrust in front of him, skin a torn mass of white and red, blood running down from her mouth over shattered teeth, sickly eyes rolled up towards the ceiling and a guttural voice coming from a bottomless well of agony.

“Do you want to see my way out, Michael? Are you ready to escape, you arrogant piece of shit?”

Michael opened his mouth to scream.

“If only I'd tried sliding left, you stupid fucking moron.”

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Hi there.

First of all, sorry about the delay in getting new fiction up. I've ended up being very busy with non-fictional things, some of which have been good, some of which have been bad, all of which have taken time. Anyway. Here's a short story. Kind of a companion piece to This Bitter Family Tree, except I couldn't do it in 500 words so I had to settle for 1000. The title comes from @Daanando and it's not quite what I had in mind for it originally, but I couldn't quite figure out what to do with that story. It was also going to be a lot more mournful but suddenly she was angry and I liked that a lot more.

Samurai Surprise

Hello there. The title for this short story comes from @lafemmeflaneuse . I hope you enjoy it.

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You want to know how he got to be like that, that’s it, isn’t it? Now, I don’t mind telling you I did it. That’s fine. But I want to explain how it was that I came to be there, why I did what I did. You don’t have to believe me. I don’t expect you to. But you are going to sit here and listen to what I have to tell you.

You know my record. You know what I was in for; you’ve got my bloody file there in front of you. You can see I did six years for hitting that bloke. It wasn’t my fault he died; I didn’t know he had that condition, whatever it was. I didn’t even know he did die until they caught up with me at the pub two hours later. And obviously I’m not the first man ever to give up on boxing and get paid to hit people outside of the ring. But that’s not important. That time I was away, that’s not important either. The important thing came when I got out. I needed to find a job. I needed to pay my way, but I had nothing and nobody would give me the time of day. Not my parents. Not my old friends. And I couldn’t call Liz; she’d told me to leave her be. She didn’t want the boy to get confused. So I was alone.

I was living on the few quid I’d saved before I got put away but it was running out faster than I’d hoped. The day I met him I was sitting in Gina’s café drinking a cup of shit tea and feeling sorry for myself. Then in he walked. Sat down opposite me, grinned at me like he knew me. The stink of his aftershave wafted over the table. White hair slicked back over his scalp, wrinkles so deep you could hide things in them. Teeth yellow and cracked like old boiled sweets.

“Hello, Jimmy,” he said. “How are you doing, son?” I gave him a nod and told him I was doing alright. I thought he was mental, I thought maybe he’d just go away. But he leaned over the table with that grin. “I heard you got out, Jimmy, and I thought I’d pay you a visit. Now, don’t look at me like that, that won’t do. It’s good news, Jimmy. I want to help you. I want to give you a job.”

Of course, that was the magic word, that was. He might be a nutter, I thought, but if he’s got some cash to throw my way I can put up with a nutter for a bit. So I asked him how he knew my name.

“Oh, I know all about you. I know about that thing that they charged you for. I heard all about that. We’ve got friends in common, you and me. You know Mikey Brinch? Your old mate Mikey? He told me that you got out the other day and I know what that’s like. I know that it can be difficult to lay your hands on some money. And as luck would have it, I need someone handy. I’ve got something that you might be interested in. I’ve got a job and I’ve got a place for you to stay, rent-free. Now, tell me you’re not interested in that, eh?”

There was something about his grin; I just couldn’t keep eye contact with him. But the way he talked, the sentences running into each other, I couldn’t interrupt him. I had to wait till he’d finished before I could answer.

“I don’t know what Mikey told you about me but I’m not interested in anything…” I let the words tail off but he knew what I meant.

“Oh, don’t worry, Jimmy, I’m not going to ask you to rob a bank or anything. Jesus! Look, I’ve got a shop on Old Fork Road and I’ve had some trouble recently. Nothing too drastic but I could do with someone around the place who can handle himself if anyone takes it upon themselves to come round and start some trouble. And sadly, old bastard that I am, I’m not exactly up to it myself these days.”

Protection. That was what he was asking me for. Looking at him, I was pretty sure he could handle himself. He might have been old but there was a look in his eye that told me that he would definitely be capable of picked up a piece of cutlery and ramming it into my eye if he thought I was going to nick his wallet. He patted the table and stood up.

“Look, why don’t you just come round and have a look at the shop with me. I’ll show you the room and I’ll tell you exactly what I need from you. You can tell me what you think is a fair price for your services and if we agree, you can move in right away. If not, we’ll go our separate ways? How’s that?”

I didn’t like him. I didn’t trust him. But I wasn’t in a situation where I could be choosy about who I liked and trust wasn’t a luxury I’d had in a long time. So I agreed. He thrust out his hand. “The name’s Ayres.”

Old Fork Road was a twenty minute walk from Gina’s. Ayres prattled on the whole way about this and that. The changing face of London. The effect that global warming was having on the weather. The fact that his doctor wouldn’t let him eat bacon any more. All sorts of bollocks. I walked along with him and nodded at the right moments and was bloody relieved when we finally got there.

He unlocked the front door and took down the “Back in 10 minutes sign”. God knows how long he’d actually been away for. His shop was a newsagent, basically. You’ve been round there tonight, you’ve seen it. Magazines, fags, sweets, stationery, key cutting, all that stuff. Whatever you need when you can’t be arsed to walk to the supermarket. There’s so much stuff there that there’s barely room to swing a cat. He had one of those “5 children allowed at one time” signs up in the window, but I don’t think any kids ever came in. They were probably scared of him and that grin of his. Once he’d given me the tour of the shop he took me through to the back. On the right was a small stockroom, with another door which went down the basement (“Where the stuff I can’t shift lives”), and directly ahead was a flight of scabbily-carpeted stairs which curled sharply round to the left.

There were four rooms upstairs: his bedroom, a living room which doubled as a kitchen, a windowless bathroom, and a second bedroom. He opened the door with a grand sweep and laughed. “All this could be yours,” he told me. It was nothing special. A single bed, a bookcase, a small radiator and a large window looking out onto the street. I hadn’t expected anything better and I’d been scared of something worse.

We went through to the sitting room, where he took a seat in an armchair and directed me towards the sofa.

“What’s this trouble, then?” I asked. He shrugged.

“Hard to say, really, Jimmy. It’s difficult to know what to expect. Might be nothing at all, might be something serious. But, like I said, I hear you can handle yourself, so I’d like you here in case of emergency.”

“So no one’s made any specific threats?”

“No, not specifically. Like I said, there’s been a bit of trouble recently and I’m scared of a reoccurrence.” He shifted forward in his armchair. “Look, tell you what. I’ll pay you for a week, right now. During this week you can leave whenever you want if you don’t like it. I think you’ll see very quickly whether it’s for you or not, and I won’t judge you if you want to leave.”

He was making it very difficult for me to say no to him. He made it even more difficult when he put a grand in cash in my hands. “For the week, mind. We can discuss your fees again as and when you decide you want to continue.”

What choice did I have? I said yes. I went straight over to my hostel and grabbed my things from the locker. I went round my mum’s and posted a note through the door with the address of Ayres’ shop, in case she needed to find me. Then I was back, unpacking the few things I had. Once I’d finished I went back down into the shop. Ayres was standing behind the counter reading the paper. He glanced up as I came in and nodded. “You get squared away alright?” he asked. I told him I had and asked if there was anything I could do. “You’re doing it, son. Read the papers or magazines if you want, we close at nine.”

The day went slowly. Ayres had about three customers an hour until six o’clock and I’d guess about twenty people came in. I had no idea how he was making money. Finally nine o’clock came and he locked the door, flipped the sign, and we went upstairs. He heated up two of those ready-made chicken tikkas, the supermarket ones, and then we settled down in front of the telly. He flicked through the channels until he came across a black and white film with subtitles. I’ve never had much time for films but when I do I normally go for comedies. But Ayres got all excited when he saw this film was on. “Have you seen Seven Samurai before?” he asked. I shook my head. “You’re in for a treat, my son, watch this.” So I moved a little closer to the edge of my seat so I could read the subtitles, and I got involved.

It was a long fucking film. But I could see why Ayres was so excited about it. When it was over he clapped his hands and looked at me, grinning away. “Bloody masterpiece, that is. I love that film. What did you think?” When I told him I agreed he clapped me on the shoulder. “Good, good. See, you’re getting more than money out of this arrangement, Jim. You’re getting an education in classic cinema. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Let me know if you have any problems during the night.” I was going to ask him what he meant by problems but he was gone before I could. I put it down to his general strangeness and went off to bed.

I never slept well inside and it’s not a habit I’ve been able to shake. I wake up every hour or so then drift back to sleep. Any little noise will wake me up. So when there was the sound of something small falling to the floor in the shop below, I was out of bed like a shot. This was what I was being paid for. If someone was downstairs, I was going to get them out.

I don’t like violence at all. I never enjoyed hurting people, but I got paid to do it. It was as simple as that. Ayres’ had hired me and I was going to deliver. I’m not trying to big myself up but I can handle myself, and as I went downstairs but I knew that I could handle a confrontation if there was one. But it wasn’t a simple confrontation I had to deal with.

I peered round the bottom of the stairs to try and see what was what. Through the racks and shelves I could clearly see a figure by the door. Someone was inside, trespassing, so there was no need to play it quiet. I barged in, making as much noise as possible, shouting for whoever it was to get the fuck out now or I would beat the living shit out of them. The figure turned and I stopped shouting.

Standing in front of me, ready for a fight, was a bloody samurai. I am not making this up. There could be no doubt about it. Toshiro Mifune, or Kikuchiyo, I remember he was called, stood by the pick and mix at the counter. That’s not all. Not only was there a samurai standing there, he was in black and white and his edges were flickering. Obviously this wasn’t possible. It was a dream. I rubbed my eyes and this slightly grainy figure was still standing about six feet from me. A voice inside my head was telling me that there was no way a black and white samurai was there, but instinct made me duck as this monochrome fucking fictional character took his sword out from its sheath and ran at me.

I rolled behind the counter and reached for the bat that I’d seen stashed there earlier. The samurai’s sword crashed down above me, smashing the RSPCA change tin and sending copper change flying. I darted back out and swung the bat at his legs. I heard his left shin crack and he cried out in Japanese. As he went stumbling backwards his feet skidded on the coin and he tipped backwards, dropping his sword with a clatter on the floor. That same instinct that had saved my neck earlier told me to drop the bat and pick up the sword. As the samurai regained his balance I drove the point of his sword into his chest. The samurai staggered and fell without a word. I prodded him with my bare foot. He was dead.

I stood there staring at him for roughly five minutes. Then I woke up Ayres and dragged him, muttering, downstairs. I pointed at the samurai lying dead on his shop floor. He rubbed his eyes.

“Toshiro Mifune. That’s a first. Come upstairs, I’ll make us a drink. Leave him; he’ll be gone in a minute.”

Up in the living room, Ayres poured me a large whiskey and sat me down. My hands were still shaking and I still wasn’t convinced that I was actually awake.

“Right, how best to explain this…This is what I’m paying you for” he told me. “This…incident is an example of the trouble I was talking about. You see, Jimmy, I’ve recently discovered I have a remarkable gift. Everyone wishes their dreams would come true. Well, mine do. They…what’s the word, they manifest. Physically. But it’s not exactly a blessing. The dreams, these figures that are made real, they’re violent, they’re murderous. The first time it happened I woke up and my best friend from school had his hands around my throat. I assume Toshiro attacked you, rather than the other way around, right? I can’t explain why this is happening; I only know that it is. Maybe it’s punishment for something. I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of. Maybe it’s a freak fucking accident. But I need protection. I can’t handle them by myself. I need you.”

I let him talk. I let him explain, as much as he could. It was obvious that there was a lot he didn’t know. There was one question I had that was particularly pressing.

“Am I replacing anyone?” I asked. “I mean, have you had someone doing this for you before?”

“Oh, plenty,” he said. “Most left after a week or two, they couldn’t handle it. And sadly a couple of them have died.”

So there was my answer.

“You can still walk away, Jim. You can keep the thousand. I’m not short of cash, I’m sure you’ve realised the shop isn’t my…main source of income. It’s up to you. If you stay, I’ll knock it up to five.”

So I stayed.

He didn’t dream every night. Those quiet nights were the worst somehow, trying to guess what would come storming out of his imagination that I would have to beat to death. Like I said, I’m not a violent man, but there was something about the challenge that a part of me found exciting. And it was consequence free. These things weren’t real. About half an hour after their death they would simply vanish into thin air.

I can see by the look on your faces that you don’t believe me but in all my years in the ring I never had fights like these. I fought a man twice my size and I won. I fought boxers from the telly and took a beating but by God I caved their heads in. Mostly they were people I didn’t recognise, people I assume were from Ayres’ past, but that was none of my business. I beat them all. We only had one more film star after the samurai. I can say that I knocked the gun out of John Wayne’s hand before he could use it. And it was all staged like a fight, the way they would always come in that front door. Part of me wished that I’d had a crowd to see it. Not the killing, obviously, but the fight itself. I’ve never fought as well as I did fighting those things, whatever they were doing there. I had about two months of fighting at the top of my game.

Yesterday morning I was making a cup of tea in the back and I heard Ayres’ voice calling me. It didn’t sound urgent so I took my time. When I came through to the shop carrying my mug I saw Ayres chatting happily away to my wife and son.

I wasn’t prepared in the slightest. I hadn’t seen Liz since she’d visited me the first week I was inside when she told me that she wouldn’t be coming back. And my boy…I’d never met him. Mum had sent me pictures in the card she sent every year. She wouldn’t talk to me, Mum, but she’d still send me a card at Christmas. Anyway, I couldn’t speak. Ayres made his excuses and went upstairs, leaving me with these two people who felt like strangers. Liz smiled at me, the kind of smile that people make when they actually want to cry.

“How are you, Jimmy?” she asked. I told her I was fine. “I went round your Mum’s,” she said, “to see how you were doing. She said she hadn’t seen you but she knew you were working. She said you were staying out of trouble. Is that true?” What do you say to that? I told her it was, that I was keeping my nose clean and working hard. She wiped a tear from her eye and put a hand on the boy’s head. “This is Oscar. I wanted him to see his dad, and I wanted you to see him too.”

“Hello, Oscar.” I said. He hid behind his mum. I didn’t blame him but it hurt.

“Look,” she said. “I’m not promising anything but I wanted you to know that we’re still here, Jimmy. We haven’t gone anywhere and we’re not going to. But we need to know that you’re alright, that you can stick to this. If you can, I think we can maybe give it another go.”

I don’t remember much of what she said after that. She left about a minute later and I just remember feeling…happy. Like something good was going to happen. Something good was finally going to happen to me. I could have a normal life. I spent the rest of the day on cloud bloody nine. I’m sure things must have happened but I don’t recall. All I remember is going to sleep with a smile on my face for the first time in more than six years.

Obviously I wasn’t surprised when I heard a noise from downstairs. I grabbed the bat from its new home under my bed and went downstairs. Whatever it was, I hoped it was nothing too fierce. I was in too good a mood for a nasty scrap.

It wasn’t just one thing standing in the shop waiting for me. It was two. One was smaller than the other. They were holding hands. And as they stepped into the light I screamed. I screamed for the first time since I’d started fighting Ayres’ dreams. I screamed as my wife and son screamed back and attacked me.

When I’d finished I lay their bodies next to each other and tried to clean them up as best I could. I knew they would disappear soon enough but I couldn’t bear to see them looking like that. I’d tried to make it as quick as possible but a bat isn’t a clean weapon. It had taken a lot to make them stop. They were barely recognisable. This wasn’t just Ayres’ nightmare, it was mine.

Obviously you can’t control what you dream about. But no one should have to go through what I did. So, while I know you don’t believe me, this is the reason why I took the baseball bat, went up to Ayres’ bedroom and caved his head in. He won’t be dreaming any more. And I’m bloody praying that I won’t be either. 

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Hope you enjoyed this one. I'm not quite sure the voice is convincing but hopefully the story's fun. As I said, this title comes from @lafemmeflaneuse and I'm very grateful for it. Oh, I have a list of titles that lovely Twitter folks have provided me with. Here goes:

....and the wind blew and they stayed like it (@jpwtweet)

Yesterday's Shoes (@nolanzebra3)

She Wore Stripes (@Merazad)

The Mystery of the Pomegranates (@mant_a_tangi)

An Empty Space on the Bookshelf (@andylonsdale21)

The Lesser Evil (@SFXPennyD)

Slide Left (@Daanando)

The Night My Heart Exploded (@DavidHayes4)

The Unexpected Samurai (martang66)

There's some great stuff here, please keep them coming, either on Twitter or in the comments section!

Thanks again for reading.

The Widow and the Tree House

Eddie had one more signature still to get. One more, then he could go back to the office and tell Grace to shut her stupid anorexic face because he’d got fifty signatures pledging to vote to keep Clive Adamson MP in his seat. Grace had got forty yesterday and had come back to the office at seven minutes to five to gales of applause from the idiots who thought she was brilliant because she tall, blonde, and his superiors struggled to look her in the eye. But he knew that it wasn’t about looks. They’d get you so far, yeah, but it was about character. Image, appearance wasn’t everything. He could turn on the smile if he had to, but it wasn’t about that. It was about convincing the voters that their man was the right man for the job. Because he had something that Grace didn’t have. He believed in what he was doing. You don’t just believe in the party, you believe in yourself. Now he just had to get one more.

He pulled over to the side of the road and looked at the house opposite. Looked OK from the outside. No obvious commitment to any party. Which meant that they were fair game. He straightened his tie (party colours, obviously), checked his hair in the rear view mirror, and spat his half-finished polo mint into the ashtray. Couldn’t be seen to be eating in front of the voters. He checked his jacket pockets and his clipboard to be sure he had all the correct literature with him and walked briskly (but not hurriedly) across the road and up to the front door.

He pressed the doorbell once, holding it for as close to a second as he could make it. You didn’t want to seem insistent but you didn’t want it to seem like you were just going to go away either. Which is why he waited for thirty seconds and then pressed it for a further second. He heard footsteps approaching and readied his best smile.

What were they bothering her with this time? She never had anything to give these people, these people who came to the door and gave her grief about God or Jesus or bloody make-up. She supposed she should just let them ring the bell until they got sick of it and went away but Terence would never have stood for it. Terence would fling wide the door and tell them to stop bloody bothering them, to leave them alone and never come back. She didn’t have the nerve to do that. She could tell them that she wasn’t interested though. Tommy would be wanting his dinner soon and she hadn’t got anything ready.

She pulled the net curtain open just a little, which was a mistake as the chap saw her. He knew she was in. Gave a grin that Terence would have called shit-eating, though she wouldn’t have used such language, not in front of strangers anyway. Then again, she hadn’t talked to anyone at all really, not for a few years now. Oh well. Might as well see what this grinning loon wants. The sooner she did the sooner she’d be rid of him.

He saw the net curtain flicker and he flashed his teeth at her. Sure enough, the front door opened, just like he knew it would. The woman standing before him couldn’t have had many years past forty but she seemed much older somehow. She was hunched to the point where her eyes seemed to be nearly level with her shoulders. Her hand shook on the door. Her greying dark hair was decidedly unkempt. Eddie suddenly registered all the closed curtains, matched by the musty smell that wafted out of the house like it was trying to escape. This woman was clearly a shut-in. Someone who wouldn’t leave the house if it was on fire. Someone like this wouldn’t get out of the house to vote. There was a moment of self-doubt, but only a moment. What a story this would make, if he could get this agoraphobic lunatic to vote. Anyway, even she didn’t get out, he thought, that’s what the postal ballot is for.

“Hello, Madam,” he began before she could ask what he wanted, “my name is Edward Clackett and I’m out here today on behalf of Clive Adamson, your local MP. Can I ask, have you decided how you’re going to vote in the election next week?”

As he suspected, the woman looked utterly confused. He knew she was going to say no before her mouth started trying to form a word.

“Could I possibly come in? I have some literature here that might help you decide one way or the other.”

And with a gentle but forceful push, he was inside. You don’t want to seem threatening when you’re making your way into someone’s house but you want them to know that you are going to get into their living room so they might as well put the kettle on.

What was he doing? What was he talking about? She hadn’t voted in years, not since Terence died. After he passed there didn’t seem to be any point to it. So what was the oily, grinning man-child doing forcing his way into her home? She didn’t like this. She didn’t like this at all.

She looked skittish, which worried Eddie. It had been easy enough to get inside but if she started panicking it was game over. And then the story wouldn’t be about how he convinced a mad shut-in that voting for Clive Adamson MP was the right thing to do, it would be how he terrified a helpless old (but she wasn’t that old, not that they’d care) woman who probably wasn’t in full possession of her faculties. And that would be very bad indeed. So he needed to smooth things over. He needed to correct the atmosphere, get her sitting down and get her calm.

“Is it alright if I take a seat?” he asked. He didn’t want to presume to do anything now; he needed permission with someone this jumpy. There was an awkward pause but finally she gave a tiny tremulous nod and he smiled and took a seat in a white armchair which gave a quiet moan as he put his weight on it. There was a further awkward pause during which it looked like she might not sit down and just stand there staring at him, but finally she sat on the faded green sofa opposite and stared at him from there. He needed an ice breaker. He looked around the room for something banal and comforting to comment on. There it was. A family photo. Her, apparently a hundred years ago, a man slightly older than she was, and a young boy, about five years old.

“Is that your family?” he asked. Stupid question, but stupid was often the best way to start with these ones. She shifted in her seat, her top lip started to wobble. Bollocks, he thought, maybe this wasn’t the best way to start.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s me and my husband Terence, and our son Thomas. Terence…passed. Some years back.”

A grieving shut-in. He assumed his most contrite expression and leant forward. Just far enough to make it clear that he wanted to comfort her but not far enough to make her worried that he was actually going to touch her. She looked like she didn’t want to be touched. A hand on the knee might draw screams.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her. “It’s truly tragic to suffer a loss like that.” Truly tragic. He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad but there was no room for backtracking. He needed to be confident. Sincere. He paused a moment before asking what he knew was a risky bloody question. “And your son?” He held his breath and prayed that Tommy hadn’t been killed in some terrible fire with his father.

What did he want? What was he asking about her husband for, about Tommy? Slimy little shit. She needed to get rid of him before Tommy came in for his dinner. She still had to get it ready, he wouldn’t be at all happy if he came in to find nothing to eat and this salesman on the sofa. Asking about voting, indeed. She’d just have to give him what he wanted and get him out of here.

“Tommy’s living at home now,” she told him. He gave what he hoped was a comforting grin.

“That’s partly what I’m talking about, Mrs…” he left a pause for her to fill in her last name but she didn’t say a word. That didn’t matter; she could put it on the form when she signed the bloody thing. For now he would just carry on with his patter. “The youth of today need to be sent the right message. They need to know that there is someone who is looking out for them. In these uncertain economic times a young man’s future can seem awfully desperate, awfully unclear. Too many young people are simply drifting into a depressing void at the moment, moving home and wondering what they can possibly do with themselves. What Mr Adamson stands for is providing our young people with a strong work ethic and the opportunity to put it to good use.”

He inched a little closer to the edge of his seat, warming to his theme now.

“Because we know, our party that is, we know that things haven’t been easy over the last few years. But we’re determined that we can create a brighter future for the all of us here in the UK. And that’s what’s really important, isn’t it? A brighter future for kids like your Thomas. Our party is committed to your children and giving them the lives they deserve. Tell me, madam. Who did you vote for in the last election?”

He could certainly jabber on, this strange little man. He’d even started sweating when he really got going. She’d seen little flecks of spit flying from between his too-white teeth as he’d hit the word ‘people’ and the ‘s’ in ‘Adamson’. But she didn’t have time for his rambling. She had things to do, things to get ready. She didn’t have time for this man at all.

“What is it you want from me?” she asked, hoping that this would cut right to the point. But he just shook his head and leaned back in Terence’s armchair.

“It’s not what we want from you, Madam. It’s what we can give you. Not just a brighter future for your children but a brighter present for yourself too. Clive Adamson is working tirelessly to help put an end to this terrible state of affairs we’re in at the moment and if you would just sign our…” She nearly leapt to her feet here, hoping for the opportunity to something, anything to get rid of him, but instead he reached into his jacket and took out some leaflets.

“I have some literature here, if you’d care to read it. Just some information and some testimonials about Mr Adamson if you’d like to…”

“Give them here,” she told him. He was surprised to see her so anxious to read them but he didn’t question it. He handed them over and leaned back in his chair. He thought about carrying on talking but thought maybe a bit of quiet would be good, to let the importance of what she was reading really sink in. He turned his head to his left and looked out of the window. He was too committed now. A signature wasn’t going to be enough. He wasn’t going to be fobbed off with some ink on a piece of paper. He wanted this woman convinced. He wanted her to be a real party member. He wanted a fucking sticker in her window for when the papers came so everyone could see just what he’d accomplished.

Not that a sticker would be much use on this back window. The garden was much nicer than he’d expected given the state of the house. A good-sized patch of grass, bordered on all sides with well-kept flowerbeds, a small greenhouse, and what he would have guessed was an oak tree standing tall near the end of the garden. And there, up in the oak tree, was a good-sized tree house. Eddie had longed for a tree house growing up and hadn’t seen one in years. He had assumed the tradition had been lost when pre-teens had started getting iPhones for their birthdays. But here was one, in the heart of his community, in the home of this brave widowed woman who was preparing to commit herself to the right honourable candidate. His candidate. It was perfect. Except…

There was a glow coming from the oak tree that had nothing to do with the sunset. He could see a small but definite flow of black smoke coming from the window of the tree house. He got to his feet and hurried to the window. Yes, there was definitely smoke. The tree house was on fire. He turned to the woman who was flicking quickly through the descriptions of where you could find the party on social media. She hadn’t noticed the fire. If he sorted this out the widow would have no choice but to give them her vote, on account of his heroics. Perhaps even a story in the paper.

“Mrs… your tree house, it’s on fire!” he shouted, and ran to the back door, taking off his jacket and flinging the door open in one fluid movement. He could hear her shouting, probably telling him not to risk himself, or maybe asking him to hurry, it didn’t matter. He was going to put this fire out and win her allegiance.

She told him to stop. He didn’t listen. Going running off to the tree house Terence had built when they’d first been expecting. She didn’t go up there anymore.

Eddie scaled the oak tree with an ease that surprised him, given how little he’d been able to get to the gym recently. He was soon at the tree house door and ducked inside. Sure enough, a small pile of paper had been set alight. Probably some neighbourhood kids messing about, using the tree house without permission, kids that should have been in school. He stamped out the fire; his shoe could take the hit for the story. When he felt a sharp pain he assumed it was the heat, and lifted his foot clear. As he did so, he looked down and saw that his heel had been slashed. His foot stayed where it was, for the most part. Blood gushed from a savage tear in his navy sock. He screamed and fell backwards.

Eddie fell through the opening to the tree house and down to the ground, about twelve feet, landing on his back. As he looked up he saw a dark shape emerge from the tree house, jump, and land on its feet beside him. He wanted to scream but the air had been knocked out of him by the fall. As it knelt down and brought its face closer to Eddie’s, he saw who it was. The boy from the photo. A few years older, yes, and his face blackened by smoke, but definitely him. He grinned. The teeth had been sharpened into yellow points. Eddie now managed a scream, and the boy grabbed his hair and dragged him over the grass back towards the house.

The back door was still open. As Eddie was pulled inside his heel caught on the doorstep, twisting and tearing, sending another jet of pain up his leg. The boy pulled harder and got him inside, slamming the door behind him.

There was Tommy now. And he’d got the stupid man. She didn’t enjoy what Tommy did and she’d tried explaining that he shouldn’t do it. But if she was being honest, she wasn’t sorry to hear that man scream.

He was starting to lose awareness of what was happening to him. He was in the kitchen; his head had bounced off a hob and was now resting on a linoleum floor. He heard the slam of a drawer being yanked open and a clattering of silverware. He heard the boy laughing. Then he wasn’t aware of anything except the pain in his stomach.

So that was what he was doing for dinner then. She needn’t have worried.

It took some effort but Eddie managed to lift his head off the floor too look at what exactly this boy was doing to him. All he could see was a mess of hair above a widening patch of red around his belly. As his mouth dropped open, the boy lifted his head to look back at Eddie. His face was glistening with dark red goo. He flashed those sharpened teeth again. And between those teeth lay a rope of his intestines, skewered on the boy’s fangs, which he was working furiously back and forth. The boy’s grin widened as their eyes met, before he plunged his head back into the messy soup of Eddie’s stomach. Eddie felt his reason depart as the slurping started and let his head drop backwards.

Such a mess. Getting it everywhere. What a mess, what a terrible mess.

Eddie’s head fell to the right. Everything was becoming terribly blurry. But he could still make out the slippered feet of the widow hurrying over, and see Clive Adamson’s campaign literature used to move his blood and a few chunks of what he assumed were his viscera into one neat puddle on the lino by his nose, before he felt a hand reach up and under his ribcage and everything stopped.

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Hello there. I hope you enjoyed this story. I hoped to have it up a bit sooner but things have been pretty hectic with the London Film Festival, which I'm covering for Cinetalk (find our coverage there).

This short story title comes from @scottywrotem and I really like it, I was buzzing with ideas as soon as he suggested it, so thank you very much to him for that.

So, I don't really have a lot to say about this story beyond the fact that I didn't want to do another ghost story (at least, not yet), and I wanted to write something that ended messily. I wanted to write something that wasn't subtle at all. So the humour's about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but I enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Oh and I promise I will stop ripping off Jack Ketchum soon. Other stories are under-way but please give me your titles! Thanks for reading.

Witch's Bile Part Nine: Open Flames

Hello and welcome to the ninth and penultimate instalment of Witch's Bile. Just a quick reminder that parts 1-8 are here if you haven't read them yet and you want to understand what's going on. Otherwise, the monster is on his way. Please enjoy

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I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. Well, actually, scared’s a bit of an exaggeration. Concerned. I was concerned that arranging for a murderous monster to be directed towards my house might be a bit reckless. I mean, he might kill Jo, who I was supposed to be looking after, and more importantly, he might kill me. And Jo wouldn’t have been my problem if you hadn’t sent her to me, Émilie, so technically anything bad that happens to her while in this country is your fault. She could have been safe in Paris, or London. Anywhere, really. But instead she’s in a small town in Illinois, USA, with me. Because you sent her. And because you sent her, he came too.

I was aware that my plan had problems. These beasts that have one single, unalterable goal can seem easy to direct but there are annoying little variables. Monsters in a trap will always react violently, lashing out in any bloody direction. Bloodily. And no matter how stupid you think they are there’s never any guarantee that they won’t suddenly figure out what’s going on. So yes, I had my concerns. I thought it would work, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a very stupid idiot who thinks that their plan will go off without a hitch.

Jo wasn’t stupid enough to make this mistake but she went along with it. She took some convincing and grumbled enough, but she went along with it.

“If this goes wrong, we’ll die,” she told me after I’d told her that there was no other way. It was stating the obvious but I can only assume stating it made her feel better. I nodded and told her that I was sure that it wouldn’t go wrong. If it went right, we would be free from this un-killable psychopath within an hour or so.

I got the call twenty minutes after Sheriff Larch and his terrified deputy left. Apparently once I’d told him that there was a fair chance that the man he’d captured could decide to kill his entire police force, he was keen to get the monster out of his custody and into mine. I assumed that the monster couldn’t drive, so assuming Larch had called as soon as he’d freed him, we’d have our visitor knocking on our door in about forty minutes.

I got things ready as best I could. You know as well as I do that you can check and double check that you’ve prepared spells properly but there’s no guarantee that they’ll go off without a hitch. I got Jo to help me with the magic. As we sat mixing up the necessaries the books said were required, she looked up at me with this weird sort of smile.

“This is the first time you’ve taught me anything,” she said.

Cheeky little bitch.

So forty minutes later we stood in the front hall, staring at the front door, waiting. Jo looked nervously at me. I looked back at her, only slightly less nervously. We could both sense that he was close. When forty five minutes had passed I got worried. Then I heard the back door open.

I span around and saw the man standing in my kitchen. Larch hadn’t been lying. A cracked rib stuck through his black shirt and odd lumps down his right side hinted at more than that. When he opened his mouth to speak I saw he’d lost several of his teeth, which will happen if I run you over with my car.

“I heard she had someone here,” he said, speech slightly slurred. “Where is she?”

I wasn’t thrown by the question. Jo had done exactly as I’d asked and slipped out of sight. I shook my head and he stepped towards me. I took a step to my right, towards the basement.

“Don’t lie to me,” he told me. “I know she’s here. I know she’s here with someone. Where is she? I need to talk to her.”

As he moved closer I saw his scruffy beard was caked with blood. I assumed it was his own but there was no way to be sure. He reached down towards his belt and took out a long kitchen knife, which I recognised as one of mine. He must have taken it when he had been here before leaving presents for us. His stumbling stopped and he stared at me for a moment as if trying to tell whether I was lying or not. Obviously he convinced himself that I was as he moved forward with alarming speed and grabbed me by the throat.

“Where is she, bitch?” he growled. Clearly the last part of that sentence was really supposed to put the fear of god into me and I thought I had probably given Jo enough time.

“The basement,” I gasped, “she’s in the basement. With him.”

He grunted and transferred his grip to the back of my neck, pushing me towards the basement door.

“Open it,” he said. “No tricks.”

Clever boy. I opened the door for him and what he saw made him release his grip on me. It also made him go charging down the basement steps.

An illusion is simple enough to create but it’s pretty fucking useless once the person you’re trying to fool tries to get his hands on it. The monster saw a handsome young man who was moving towards Jo in suggestive fashion. To put it bluntly, he was naked. But when the fruitcake with the knife tried to cut him, it would go straight through, which is why Jo was running up the stairs as soon he finished going down them.

Had there been time and a third witch, we could easily have come with an imaginary Jo as well but as it was we had to make to with the real one. She wasn’t happy about it but I told her that there was nothing else we could do.

The other person who wasn’t happy was the monster in the basement. As Jo cleared the top step he turned and looked up at us. He’d swung for the phantom’s gullet and had hit the brick wall in front of him instead. He was furious. I could feel Jo trembling beside me.

“You tricked me,” he spat.

“Burn,” I answered. He laughed and held his arms wide.

“That won’t work on this body.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I told him and pointed at the unfortunate nest of spiders in the corner that were just catching light on top of the cans of gasoline. Not all animals are receptive to spoken magic but when I'd moved them earlier I'd managed to get on their wavelength. I felt sorry for them but there was no time to dwell on it as we slammed the door shut.

We had cast a spell on the door which took effect as soon as both of us were on the same side. I thought that this was rather selfless of me given that I could have simply locked him, her, and the imaginary nude Adonis down there to burn. Not that I told her that. We went through the living room and grabbed the bags we’d packed while waiting for the Sheriff to call as the screams began.

You never really get used to the smell of human flesh cooking but this wasn’t exactly that. There was a whiff of formaldehyde and, as the smoke poured out from under the door, another scent that I recognised but couldn’t quite place. Whoever had done this had left their mark on his body. It was familiar but I didn’t have time to really savour it. We left before the fire got out of hand, and then watched from the street as it did.

I hadn’t lived in that house for long but I had liked it. I wasn’t entirely emotionless watching it all go up in smoke. But Jo was safe for now. And so was I.

I’m sorry if this seems a bit underwhelming but it’s something that I don’t understand when witches tell each other that something can’t be killed. This thing bled. Its ribs broke. It must have been able to heal itself over time, given what Jo said about it being run over by a London bus, but very few things can survive prolonged exposure to fucking fire. There's an argument to be made for lack of subtlety or finesse but, given the noises it was making, it wasn’t surviving down there. And if it comes back, then we’ll burn the fucker again.

Anyway, I have to make a statement to Sheriff Larch. Well, I don’t have to. But I want to see the look on his face when I try to explain what happened. I’ll record another message from the road.

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Hope you enjoyed this. The final part will be up very shortly and then the blog will focus on other things for a while. There's a general blog housekeeping update in the offing but for now, please enjoy Jarvis singing Leonard Cohen. As always, thank you for reading.

Witch's Bile Part 7: A Night Out

Welcome to part 7 of the Witch's Bile series. You can find the previous parts here, I recommend that you read them first as there's not really a lot of explanation as to what's been going on otherwise. I hope you enjoy this instalment!


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Well, Émilie, I told you in the last report I sent that Jo was going to have to make some friends, with the admittedly risky aim of getting her murderous admirer out in the open. If she’s seen speaking to friends of the victim, I reasoned, then we might be able to draw him out. Get him jealous, get him visible. Charlie Kitson had been kind enough to give us the name of the bar his murdered underage son used to go to, so I made sure Jo had put some nice clothes on and a bit of slap and we drove over there.

Jo was a bit nervous in the car, I could tell. She was scratching at her nails and tugging at her bangs. I told her that she looked fine and she glared at me. OK, I thought. We hadn’t talked much before leaving the house. That was OK too. I assumed she knew what she had to do.

It was the first time I’d been around town at night, really. I only moved here a few weeks ago and since then I’ve made a point of leaving the house as little as possible. The last time I’d been out at night was the town meeting I organised at which I told everyone that I was a witch and that they should leave me alone. That didn’t really work out. It never does. Anyway, they all look the same to me, these small towns. There are the nice quiet streets with the big houses, big cars, big front porches, and the big back gardens and then you take a left and you’re sharing the road with people with completely different circumstances. But people are all the same to me. Wherever you go and wherever they come from. Everyone’s the same no matter how much money you have or how big your house is. Which is why I want them to leave me alone.

I took a right and saw the petrol station Kitson had told me about and the bar just behind it. We were close to the edge of town here, I suppose the kids thought the chances of law enforcement or their parents bothering to come and find them was pretty slim. A fluorescent red sign above the door told customers where they were: The Alhambra. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly Spanish from the outside. Still, I wouldn’t see the inside for myself.

“So what’s the plan then?” asked Jo, like she didn’t already know. I turned to face her.

“You go in, you ask around for the names on that list, and then you talk to them. Use your English accent to charm them. Well, that and your face. Offer them a cigarette and get them outside. Then we’ll see if the mystery man shows up.”

“How do you know they smoke?” she asked, and I sniffed.

“They’re underage. Of course they smoke.”

She took my pack of Gitanes and got out in a huff. I watched her cross the car park, her heels clattering on the tarmac. I’d nearly forgotten that she’d only been in America for a couple of days. I hadn’t even asked about jetlag or anything. Which probably meant she was fine, I mean, if I hadn’t noticed it. Probably. I found a new pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment and waited for Jo to make friends.

It was about five minutes before she emerged with three teenage boys and one girl. Even from across the car park I could tell that they’d all made an effort to look older than they were. All the boys were wearing shirts and long coats while the girl’s make up was visible from the car. Only one of them took a cigarette from her. There you go, I thought. I can be wrong sometimes. I let them talk for a little while, about ten minutes. There was still no sign of anyone suspicious. Frankly, I was getting bored.

Finally I struck on a way to find out if anyone was paying attention. I got out of the car, slammed the door, and ran over to where Jo was standing. She looked up as I approached, as did the teens, a little slower, admittedly.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I shouted. Jo looked shocked and unsure of herself. “What do you think you’re doing here? I leave the house for five minutes and you go straight to a bloody pub and start drinking! I thought we had agreed that you wouldn’t do this anymore!”

Jo stared, trying to understand what I was doing. I threw her a bone, as they say.

“I am your mother and you will do what I say! Is one of these that boy you’ve been seeing?” I practically screamed.

“Whoa, calm down, lady!” exclaimed one of the boys. His right eye was covered by a lank fringe of brown hair that he shifted with a movement that I couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or some sort of twitch.

“Yeah, you don’t need to shout at her like that!” said the tallest of the boys. He was wearing a blazer that actually fit him and you could tell he was the confident one of the group because he wasn’t attempting to hide any part of his face. Instead his black hair was greased back and there was a single ring in his right ear. The shorter, rounder boy behind him nodded in agreement but didn’t seem brave enough to say anything. Only the girl, a skinny little redhead in a leather jacket and short black skirt, seemed frozen stiff. Until she opened her mouth.

“I know who you are,” she told me. I stopped huffing and puffing and turned to face her.

“Do you now?” I asked, putting as much ice in my voice as possible.

“You’re the witch. You’re Eliza Belmont.”

The boys didn’t know my face but they certainly knew my name. They all took a small step back and stared a little harder. The tall one jutted his chin at me. “That true? You a witch?” I nodded at him. He turned to Jo, who looked like she wasn’t sure where she was supposed to go at this point. “And, what, she’s your mom?”

Jo took a step over to me and turned to face them. “She’s not my mother but you’ll answer any questions she has.” I was impressed and didn’t bother trying to hide a smile. So she hadn’t asked them anything. Not exactly according to plan, but at least she got out of the house.

“Where did your accent go?” asked the short one before figuring it out for himself and looking at the floor.

“Now,” I said, ignoring the little man’s question. “Last night, did you see Clyde talk to anyone?”

“We already told the police that we didn’t,” said the girl. “Clyde left early last night. He said he needed to go home and study.”

“Well it’s nice to see you’re honouring his memory,” I prodded. Her face dropped and the tall one spoke up again.

“We’re honouring his memory,” he said with all the sincerity he could muster. I grinned.

“So you didn’t see him talking to a guy you didn’t know, with straggly dark hair, beard, long coat? No?”

The short one cleared his throat and pointed.

“There’s a guy like that behind you.”

Jo turned first and grabbed my sleeve. I saw a man who fit the description I’d just given. He stared at us, looking us over one by one. There was a moment of silence. Even the tall kid couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Did you get my present, Josephine?” asked the man finally. Jo whimpered. “I left it where you could find it. Who are these people?”

I tried something risky at this point. Obviously you’re not supposed to attack without gauging your enemy. But I thought I could get the drop on him and I didn’t want to hang around in the open any longer than necessary. So I tried to make his heart explode. It’s a nice trick if you get it right, there’s relatively little mess, at least that you can see. So I focused hard. Tried to find his heartbeat.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened. He just stared at me, unblinking. I knew what to do. I grabbed Jo and ran. You don’t get to my age without learning how to run away from things. Well, not really running, if you look very closely you can see our feet weren’t touching the ground and we were going faster than a fifty year old woman and a young lady in high heels really should have been but we made it to the car and bundled ourselves in.

As I turned the key in the ignition the headlights came on. The man was walking over to us. In his right hand he held the tall boy by his skinny neck. Behind him I could see the two other boys crumpled on top of each other in a heap. The girl ran screaming back to the bar and slammed the door behind her.

The man stopped about six feet from us. As I was about to put my foot down he took out a knife and pointed it at Jo.

“I know you understand,” he said, and plunged the knife into the boy’s face, just under the hairline. He twisted the blade and began to move it downward, peeling the skin from the boy’s head as he went.

I put my foot down and drove straight at him. He didn’t try to move out of the way. He just fell under the car and I felt the bump as we ran him over. I didn’t bother looking behind us. I knew he wouldn’t stay down.

“It won’t have made any difference,” muttered Jo.

“It made me feel better,” I said.

We got home without any further incidents. Jo’s up in her room and the lights are flickering so I can tell she’s upset. I know we’re going to have a lot to deal with tomorrow when the police realise we were there and work up the nerve to ask us why, so I’m going to sign off now and get some sleep. And try to think about what kind of a monster actually doesn’t have a heart.

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I hope you enjoyed part 7. We're getting towards the end of the Witch's Bile series now and I'm going to try and post the final few parts a bit more frequently than I have been. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the series so far. 

I'm still planning to update the blog with more non-fiction posts so keep your eyes peeled for that. I'm also going to a post asking for title suggestions for short stories as I will be starting that up again soon!

Thanks for reading.