 
Synopsis

I have written six books before this and the problem that all new authors have is getting readers to splash out their hard earned cash on an author whose works they may not like. So here are a very mixed bag of twelve short stories written by me:

Alien Hunt

Detective Katt

My Brother Alex

Somewhere There is a Monument

The Dark Light Years

The Evil Empire

The Golfer and the Leprechaun

The Old House

The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes

Tis the Season to be Merry

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

When Satan Comes Calling
Alien Hunt

It had started as a dare. Sbax was royalty belonging to the ruling family of the fourth planet of the Dendar system, some ninety five light years from Earth. College tends to be a great equaliser. Their families all had money and power or they would not have been in that particular College. Sbax wanted to be accepted so went along with what others did and said.

There was a short break from College now and Sbax's group played the dare game. They got numbers given to them by a random number generator and did dares based on that number. It was supposed to be one to one hundred and as one to ten were quite tame, anyone who got one of those numbers had a second draw. Anything above ninety was considered to be dangerous and anyone who got such a number was given the opportunity of having another draw, though few did as they would lose all prestige.

Sbax watched the others draw numbers and hoped his was low. He wanted to be one of the guys but he was not as brave as some of the others were or at least as brave as they talked. His turn came and his eyes almost popped out of his head. He had drawn one hundred, the most dangerous dare number. He gulped and looked at the others.

They all looked at him, as if to ask him what number he had drawn, when they all knew. They had rigged the machine so they should know. He showed them and a big cheer went up. They knew he dare not ask for a redraw.

When all had drawn, they each put their number into another machine which gave them tasks according to their number. They had rigged this too and smiled as they watched the sick look on Sbax's face when he saw his task.

'Spend two days on Earth'.

Earth as everyone knew was a backwards savage planet and even the tough guys there would not spend an hour on the planet let alone two days so they waited for Sbax to make his excuses so he did not have to go but were a bit shocked when he showed no sign of backing out. Drong had once been on a tour which had taken in Earth but even that had just seen Earth through ultra-telescopes and seen from orbit. No one dared go down there.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" asked Drong. He now had deep reservations that their prank might go too far. Why hadn't the idiot just pulled out?

Sbax didn't want to go through with it but he would rather face a garthian lizard unarmed than back out in front of all his college friends. He would lose face and be called names behind his back if he did. Which had been their plan all along. The one thing people with money and power hate is people with even more money and more power, which Sbax's parents had in spades.

So they went through with the dares. Obviously Sbax could not use one of his father's space ships or his family would want to know why. So they borrowed a spaceship belonging to Ngan. He was off with his family for a few days and would not mind. And tough luck if he did.

Sbax familiarised himself with this particular model ship, an old one unlike his father's new ships, and a false name and flight plan were filed and watched by nervous people he believed were his friends as Sbax took off and headed for Earth. A truth booth when he came back would tell whether he had been there or not and what he had done there. No witness was needed because you cannot lie to a truth booth.

Sbax had programmed the course into the star-nav and settled back. It was only two days flying time away and he settled back and made himself something to eat while watching a 3D show on an entertainment screen. He was not happy but thought it was just two days on Earth and he could come back the conquering hero.

The journey was routine and Sbax set the course for a landing in a sparse region on the night side of Earth. That was where the trouble started. Ngan had not taken his ship away with him because it needed some repair work on it. Quite a bit in fact and as the ship entered Earth's atmosphere, there were some system failures, as Sbax found out too late. Desperately he tried to get the ship out of Earth's atmosphere again but another failure meant it continued its wild descent towards ground.

While Sbax struggled with the controls, a fire began in the electronics. It was automatically extinguished but when the extinguishing spray was stopped, it started again.

He tried to send out an emergency call so he could be rescued, but that button did not work. Sbax cursed, using a word that if his aunt had heard it, she would have given him a glance that would have instantly turned water to ice. He was going down hard and all he could do was to try and prepare for it. The ships were made to protect the people inside them, even old ones like this one

Sbax got out in one piece, with some cuts and bruises. Which was more than could be said of the ship. Despite the efforts of automatic fire extinguishers, it burned very hotly and then exploded. From nearby, Sbax watched in horror. He had thankfully managed to salvage a few things including his holographic disguise unit. His kind looked vaguely like humans but comparing the two he was not like the beings of this planet, and his skin was almost mauve from his very dark coloured blood.

Fortunately he could breathe the air of this world if he did not exert himself too much and drink the water. The temperature was a little cold but OK. He could eat most of the food too. He had studied English, French, German and Russian on the way here, the education helmets teaching him all he needed to know of each language in 20 minutes or so.

Sbax looked around him. On his descent, he had noted that he was heading for the forest areas in north America or southern Canada and around him now were many trees. True he had not been able to send out an emergency call but his family would go looking for him, and his friends would tell them where he was. Sbax had a reality check here. He called them friends but knew some of them resented him. When his family found out what had happened, they would be in deep trouble, and more so if anything happened to him before he was found so they would not rush forwards with their knowledge.

Also he was on a school break so the teachers would not notice he was missing for several days, so he had to survive at least that long. He heard what he believed was water running in the distance and the Earth word 'river' popped into his mind. Now about food?

On primitive planets it grew on trees and bushes, and he was surrounded by them. He walked over to a tree and plucked something from it. His food tester indicated it was not poisonous but when he tried to eat a bit of it, he discarded the rest, having found that pine cones were not good to eat. Berries were next and some were good to eat and some were rated poisonous by his detector.

He guessed he could not stay here for anything up to ten days while he waited to be rescued so he headed in a slightly downhill direction, hoping to come to a road and then a small town. His people were fit and of reasonable weight but his kind did not exercise and he found it hard going and it was quite late in the day when he found a road. Which direction? He guessed that trucks full up were moving towards a town and trucks empty had delivered their load in a hopefully nearby town. So he started walking.

He had walked about an hour when a truck pulled up and he was asked if he wanted a lift? It took him a moment to realise what was asked of him and he called out yes, and got into the cab and was asked where he was going.

To town he said, not knowing the names of any settlements in the area.

'Town' was about twenty minutes miles away, and he started noticing small buildings. The driver talked continuously about nothing in particular, needing little answer from Sbax. It was quite a distance from where he had met the truck so he was glad he had not had to walk it. Also listening to the trucker he had got to understand how English was spoken by the local people. Learning a language and speaking it could be two very different things, as he had found in the past.

The driver stopped at his depot and Sbax walked away, not knowing what to do now that he had arrived in town. A quick familiarisation course on the way to this planet had told him about money and such, but he did not have any. Could he get some? He saw someone using an ATM and realised what it was when the man walked away with some money. There was no one about so he walked over to it and studied it. It was primitive machinery but it fulfilled its purpose.

Sbax lent his small computer against it, the equivalent of a Dendarian mobile phone. It showed busy for about a minute then asked for a number. Sbax considered. He had some idea of Earth money and said two hundred in his own language. Two hundred dollars came out of the ATM. Sbax took the money, thanked the ATM and walked away at a moderately fast pace so as not to be connected if anything went wrong.

A little distance away and on his own, he examined the notes. Three fifty dollars notes, two twenties and a ten. There was a large one floor lighted building nearby which had the word 'DINER' in lights. He knew that meant Earth eating place, so he entered it and sat down at one of the many empty tables. He watched someone order food and drink and when a waitress came over to him, he said he'd have the same as him. He could read English as in the menu but was a little vague as to what words like; eggs, steak, fries, coffee and such meant. The food arrived and it looked and smelt good. Unseen by others, he used his detector on it and it pronounced that the food was good to eat. He tried it and decided that the detector was right. There was also a glass of a cold dark liquid. He sniffed it. It was an alcoholic drink. His kind had a high tolerance for alcohol and that was good too. A week on Earth might not be so bad after all, he decided.

His inner self satisfied, it was quite dark outside now and a short distance away he saw a 'MOTEL' sign. At the motel desk, he was asked for identification, and absent mindedly handed over his ID from his own planet. It had his photo on it and a telepathic circuit which translated the basic information on it into the language of the person looking at it.

"Where are you from, Mr. Sbax, if you don't mind me asking."

"Ston" he said, giving the name of his home planet. "It's a little town in Albania."

He had guessed that the man would know nothing about a small country far away and it had been sufficient to get him a room, with cash for two nights, paid in advance. The room was basic, which was good enough for Sbax and he lay down on the bed and was quickly asleep.

Next morning he worked out how the shower worked and had a lukewarm shower. Hot he did not like. His clothes were 'perma-cleans' and could be worn for months at a time, so that was no problem. He went out for breakfast at the same diner he had used the night before. Thanks to a menu outside that he had not noticed in the darkness which featured pictures of food and drinks with names next to them, he now had some idea of putting writing to meaning and had two eggs on toast and a coffee.

Now what to do today? He did not want to sit in his room for maybe ten days. He decided on a walk around the small town. He looked in windows. He saw clothes, sports equipment, a gun shop, a book shop, a few food shops, and other shops. He was reluctant to go inside them as someone might ask him what he wanted.

Sbax had a fairly good day, walking around the town and its outskirts. Finally he headed back to the motel for a wash then he would have something to eat. He entered the lobby to get his key and the man looked up, then almost jumped, shocked. Sbax could not understand the look on the man's face, until he noticed himself in the mirror behind the man. He too was shocked. He now looked like his normal self, an alien to this planet.

He wanted to say something but what could he say? His holographic device had somehow failed him, but that was impossible. They were supposed to last centuries of use without any problems. Sbax did the only thing he could do. He ran. He had nothing in his room. He had nothing more than was in his pockets so he ran towards the woods which were nearby as the motel was near the edge of town. As he did so, three truckers from the nearby depot who were heading for the nearby diner saw him. And a woman in a passing car screamed when she saw him.

Sbax ran faster. What was wrong with these Earth people? He looked fairly human. There were beings out there that scared even him, though he was friends with some of them. Sbax reached the woods and continued running, his lungs pumping from the unusual exertions.

Back in the nearby town, the people who had seen him were talking about him in fearful tones, as though he were some kind of monster. Others heard and the stories grew. Fear spread and it was not long before a mob was created as people grabbed guns and whatever other weapons they could find to kill the monster.

The sheriff was a peaceable man living in what had been a peaceable town and knew he could not stop this mob so did not try. He was a keen fan of the TV show 'The X-Files' and he had a brother-in-law who worked for some secret agency in Washington and he phoned him about it. The brother-in-law phoned someone else and within half an hour, a number of people working for an agency that supposedly did not exist, but which had been mentioned on the internet in dark hints, headed for that town, with all the equipment they could get their hands on.

Sbax paused to rest. What had happened? He looked at the holographic device using the torch on his small computer and could see nothing wrong with it. He sniffed at it. Something had burned out. That was impossible. Such things did not happen. Then he remembered that Rzac had given it to him. Rzac who he knew did not like him and was jealous of him for many real and imagined reasons. He must have sabotaged it. That did not help him now, he thought as he started running again.

The lynch mob from town searched the woods for him and apart from one of them shooting another in the leg and one killing a rabbit who came out of his hole at the wrong time, they found nothing as it began to get dark and none of them had thought to bring torches. They quickly made their way back to town in the decreasing light and were glad to get back to civilization again. Who knows what a monster like that may have done to them under cover of darkness?

Government men had arrived in town with large vehicles. Helicopters landed in a large open space no one ever used. The townspeople were interviewed and reading between the lines, they decided that they may have a real alien on their hands, a real live visitor from space, though they guessed he was probably harmless.

Helicopters took off, with searchlights, with infra-red, with sound amplifiers, and with radar tracking equipment. There were four copters in all. No expense had been spared. They had planned for this moment for years. They wanted this alien alive.

It took them some hours but eventually they tracked Sbax down. Dogs were sent in relying on the scent from Sbax's motel room and he was eventually cornered, a pitiful figure trying to hide next to a tree and surrounded by enough fire power to take out a town.

He was hand cuffed, twice, and his feet shackled too. He was gagged as he cried in fear and a bag was roughly put over his head. He was taken out of the woods, surrounded by ten heavily armed men then he was put inside a large military helicopter and taken away. Some asked questions but badges were flashed in the faces of civilians who were warned of dire consequences to them and their families if they talked. They were told that social media would be watched for people who wanted to die mysteriously. That shut them up.

Sbax had most of his restraints and coverings and the gag removed when he was deep underground in a hidden base. He was chained to a metal chair next to a metal table in a small bare room. A succession of men came in and questioned him. They tried sodium pentathol truth serum on him and it made him a bit jumpy but seemed to have no other effect on his alien metabolism.

After six hours a group of men sat and talked about 'the alien'. They took turns speaking.

"I would guess he is the alien equivalent of a teenager. He knows some stuff but he only knows basic English and cannot translate it so that we can understand it. As someone said: 'How would you explain to a caveman how to make a plasma TV?' "

"It seems that his spaceship crashed and exploded. We think we have found where, with the help of a truck driver who gave him a lift into town when he looked human. Nothing remains of the spaceship that we can used. Only severely burned and twisted wreckage."

"He has a computer on him that is light years beyond anything we have. But it is personal. Not just password protected but it will only work for him and respond to him. We tried to get him to work it for us but he said something in his alien language and it is what we would call 'locked'. We cannot use it. It defies x-rays and we cannot open it. Even a diamond drill hardly marked it."

"We tried some torture on him to see if he was holding out. He does not handle pain well and he told us nothing new."

There was more talk but it seemed they had got all they could out of the alien. Finally the man in charge nodded and said:

"I guess he's no more use to us alive. Cut him up and see if there is anything we can put into the super-soldier we are trying to build. How's that going?"

Someone shook their head.

"Get some results!" he demanded.

Sbax was taken along blank corridors to an operating room and strapped down. They tried gas on him but he choked and would have died had they continued. They tried chloroform and that made him sick each time it was used. Nothing worked so with the inhumanity of a Josef Mengele, he and others operated on Sbax without any anaesthetic and when they got tired of his screams, they cut his tongue out. It was some time before he died and they continued cutting him to pieces and putting everything into labelled jars, with some video cameras watching and recording their work.

A week passed on Ston, Sbax's home planet before they noticed he was missing. As a future ruler of the planet, no stone was left unturned in their search for him and in the truth booths, his so-called friends confessed all. They were locked away and told that their future punishments would be decided when they returned from Earth.

Shortly afterwards, six one mile long spaceships entered Earth's atmosphere and skimmed low over the planet. No communications were accepted by them and no missile could be launched against them. Any plane that come within five miles of them crashed and burned.

The craft shortly stopped over the hidden base and twelve humanoid robots appeared at the entrance. Gates, barriers and such just vanished before them. Guns and other firepower did not work. Any human who tried to attack them dropped dead. They made their way unerringly to the hidden operating room. Nearby they found all that remained of Sbax, in glass jars. The feeds of video cameras in the area were accessed and the questioning, then the dissection of Sbax while he was still alive was seen on the ships above the area.

The remains of Sbax were taken away, to be buried with ceremony on his home planet when they returned. A piercingly bright ray lanced down at the secret base for a few seconds and a smouldering crater several miles across and five miles deep was all that was left of it.

Meanwhile the ships now hovered above Earth's atmosphere deciding on the fate of the planet. Some were for using a deadly virus to wipe out the population slowly. Some were for setting fire to the planet and killing everyone fast. In the end, the decision of Tkan, the mentor of Sbax was followed.

It did not come by radio, television, internet or any other means but everyone on Earth knew the fate of the Earth for the murder of the ruler's son of the planet Ston. All electricity on Earth would cease in one hour. There would be no electrical current that could be used on Earth for the next thousand years. Planes were advised to quickly land, ships to dock, and so on before that hour was up.

The aliens were as good as their word. Generators, dynamos, nuclear power stations, solar panels, hydro-electric dams and so on suddenly stopped producing electricity Batteries no longer worked either. And all digital data was wiped as if it had never existed. Even lightning storms stopped though no one could explain how the aliens did that.

It was a worldwide disaster. In an hour, mankind had gone back to the Stone Age. There was no doubt that billions would die. Armed buoys were put in space a million miles from Earth warning that if any spaceship approached any closer to Earth, they would be destroyed, by order of Ston.

On Ston, Rzac was given gradual disintegration which would last for hours. He would know pain like Sbax had. The others were sent to mine drog crystals on a nearby hostile planet. Such a sentence was known as a living death with few lasting even ten years there.

In the bio-vats on Ston, another Sbax was created. They would still need a new ruler one day.

THE END.

DETECTIVE KATT.

Detective John Katt thought he was a good cop. So did the criminals who pumped several bullets into him.

He had gone for a meeting with an informer which had turned out to be a trap. He knew it when he saw the bloody corpse of his dead contact. He turned and ran but that did not save him. The guns made a lot of noise so the police and ambulance were called and within ten minutes, Detective Katt was in the nearby hospital, then straight into the operating room. He was there several hours and then into Intensive Therapy. His wife and colleagues were told that there was not much chance for him.

Katt was an atheist. When those bullets hit him he was sure he was dead but the next thing he remembered was that he was standing on a dustbin and nosing inside it. He stopped suddenly? WTH? He did not believe in heaven or hell, and anyway, this was obviously neither. He peered around. Everything seemed so big and then he spotted a broken mirror someone had thrown away. There was a black cat on top of a dustbin. It took him some seconds to realise he was looking at himself as it was impossible. He moved his head and the black cat moved its head. He lifted a leg and the cat lifted a leg.

He stared for several seconds, trying to take it in. He remembered being shot and next thing he knew, he was a cat???? He didn't believe in reincarnation so what had happened? It looked like Katt by name and now cat by nature.

Then a thought came to him and he did not know why just then. Several months ago, an antique shop was broken into and just about everything stolen. The owner, an Egyptian had been heart broken. Katt had called in a favour, got a name and recovered everything before it could be sold on to a collector. The owner had been overwhelmed with gratitude and wanted to give him a reward. Katt had said that he could not accept a reward so he had instead had a small cat figure thrust on him.

"A cat for a Katt. It is Bastet, a cat god. She will bring you good luck" the man had assured him.

Katt had reluctantly accepted the little figurine and put it in his jacket pocket, and there it had stayed. He had given it no more thought.

And now he was a cat? Did that mean that his human body was dead and gone?

Katt headed along the alley to the main road, finding that now having four feet came naturally to him, and now he knew where he was. Grover Street. The hospital where they would have taken him was a short walk away. The meeting with his contact had been late in the day and it was now getting dark though everything was quiet bright to him. And now he was outside the dullness of the alley, he realised that everything was in black and white, some faded blues and endless shades of grey to him. He had lost his colour vision.

He waited there a while, with people walking by ignoring him. When things had quietened down, he headed to the hospital. He had to know.

Arriving there, a door was open and at speed he slipped inside and again no one seemed to notice him. That was the public but he thought that hospital personnel would not want a cat in their hospital so he started avoiding people, taking what cover he could, which was not hard as he was now cat sized.

As a detective he had been in here a number of times before to interview people who had been injured and shot, so he had a good idea of the floor plan of the hospital. He thought he would have been taken up to the third floor. The fire escape door was open and he could hear no one on the stairs there, realising now how good his cat hearing was, and he started up the stairs. Fortunately it had been a hot day so doors that should really have been kept shut were still open and he exited the stairs on the third floor.

Though the corridors were fairly well lit and staff moving about had other things on their minds so he was able to get where he wanted, unnoticed. He was outside one of the Intensive Therapy rooms, or as some called them 'Intensive Care'. The door would push open, which was easy for a human being, even a child but not so easy for a cat.

Katt put his shoulder against the door and shoved as hard as he could. The door slowly opened, and just in time, he remembered he now had a tail as he rushed through the door. He looked at the main bed in the room with instruments around it and heard a woman's voice nearby. It was his wife Margaret, and she was on the other side of the bed, so could not see him. He heard her crying. Like any police officer's wife, she had feared something like this would happen one day, and it had finally happened.

Katt heard the regular beeping of an instrument and hoped it meant that he was alright for now.

Keeping as far away as possible in the low light of that room, Katt tried to get a better view of himself. Silent as a wisp, he leaped and landed on a small cupboard and from bed height, saw his human self. He did look rough, with what little of him showing, heavily bandaged and some spots of blood showing through on the fresh bandages. He heard his laboured breathing. He did not remember anything after the third shot but guessed he had been shot several times. Not in the face or limbs, but body shots. Not his heart or he would not be here now but nevertheless, damaging shots.

The door opened and a doctor came in, and Katt withdrew into the shadows, thankful that he had black fur and better eyesight than humans.

"You might as well go home and get some sleep, Mrs. Katt" the doctor said. "The next twenty four hours will be important so you can come back again anytime you like after you have had some sleep and something to eat."

His wife nodded, let go of her husband's hand and quietly left the room. The doctor, having checked the instruments and tubes were as they should be, left too.

On his own now, Katt leaped lightly onto the bed and watched his human self.

'Hang in there' he said, though it came out as a soft, plaintive meow.

He nudged the hand of his human self with his nose and then leapt to the floor again. He followed the same route out of the hospital and now on the street, wondered what he should do now? If he found somewhere safe, sleeping should be no problem but he would need food. His cat self was after food when he first inhabited it.

Staying clear of humans who might be cruel to him, he headed for an alleyway nearby and found some dustbins. He did not like the idea of scavenging like this but he either did that or starved. As he sorted through the garbage, he heard a whining voice he recognised. It was that of a small time crook he knew who everyone called Weasel.

Weasel was in trouble again. It was his usual state of affairs. He was not a bad person but lived at the bottom of the criminal food chain and everyone treated him badly.

"I need that ten bucks you owe me, Weasel. You said you would pay me today, so where is the money?"

Another voice, Katt recognised. It belonged to someone nicknamed Maggot. He too was at the bottom of the criminal food chain, but he was a particularly nasty character. If Weasel owed him money, he was in trouble, and dumb for borrowing from Maggot if he could not pay him back.

"The money!" shouted Maggot.

Weasel cowered. He guessed he had a beating coming. Not his first and not his last. Maggot slapped his face then slapped it again.

Weasel cried out in pain. Maggot swung his arm back for another blow. Katt had watched the first two blows but decided he could not stand more.

He launched himself at Maggot's ankles. Razor sharp claws raked Maggot's ankles leaving long and bloody scratches.

Maggot screamed out in pain and started jumping about as he looked down at his tormentor. Katt moved back. He did not want Maggot stamping on him and killing him.

Katt hissed at him before he realised what he was doing. A paw with naked claws hung out threateningly, warning Maggot that he could get more of the same.

Maggot had had enough. He could get Weasel another day and hobbled away from the 'mad cat'.

Weasel looked down at his small savior.

"Thanks, puss" said Weasel, stroking Katt. The hand running down his back was strangely comforting. Katt meowed at him.

"You hungry?"

Katt looked up at him and meowed again.

Weasel pulled a packet out of his pocket and gave some of a meat sandwich to Katt who wolfed it down. He had not realised that he had been that hungry. As he finished it, Weasel gave him some more. Katt purred as he ate it. Weasel ate the rest himself. Maggot had not really hurt him. The slaps had been a preliminary to something worse, and the cat had thankfully saved him from that.

Looking in the dustbin, Weasel found a plastic bottle with some water in the bottom. He poured it into a small tray he found in the dustbin and Katt gratefully lapped it up. At the moment, Katt felt great friendship for Weasel, someone he had always looked down on in the past. He decided that he would make it up to Weasel if he ever became human again.

That night he slept high up on a ledge. Like other cats, he had lost any fear of heights that he had. Up here, he would not be bothered by humans and dogs, and birds would leave him alone. On his way down he came across another cat, a female, he knew somehow. He ignored her. He might look like a cat but he was a human still. She strolled towards him, and he noted a smell about her. She must be on heat, he decided. Well, he was a human in cat form so when she got too close, he hissed at her, and moved off at a slow run. She looked after him, then walked away.

He was a cat but he was also a human and also a cop. People had tried to kill him and he decided to see if he could do anything about it. He had an idea who. He had been investigating Jimmy Klugg who was into counterfeiting and word had got about the Klugg was negotiating to buy two fifty dollar plates so he could make almost perfect counterfeit fifty dollar bills. His contact had been ready to give him the time and meeting place.

He still did not know either but he knew where Klugg hung out so it was just a matter of following him. Not as easy said as done when you are a cat, but at least he was not as conspicuous as a human policeman. He found Klugg but could not get anywhere near him as the gangster had two dogs roaming free. Both Rottweilers. Pure poison to cats. As he saw the dogs, so one of them turned its head and looked around and saw him.

The dog came at him at a run. With a skill only another cat could match, he ran up the side of an almost vertical brick wall. He was just in time as the dog leaped for him, growling like a mad thing. It tried again but could not quite make it. As it tried again, Katt decided it was time for a pee and let the dog have it in the face. On the ground again, the dog shook its head and stumbled back to where it's owner and the other dog was. The other dog went for it and there was a vicious fight. It looked like another dog but smelled like a cat and that was good enough for it.

From a point of safety even higher up, Katt watched the fun, as Klugg tried to separate the dogs, and tried not to get bitten as they viciously attacked each other. The dogs were a lot tougher than Katt was but they did not have human intelligence. Klugg eventually grabbed a baseball bat and started on them with that. Neither dog liked it so Klugg ended up having to run and hide in a cupboard from them. As neither showed any sign of relenting, a gun pointed out of a barely open door and two shots finished his dog problem.

"Good shooting" thought Katt from nearby. He'd have to be careful of Klugg.

With the patience of a cat, Katt waited and was later rewarded when two of Klugg's men came into the room. Klugg had since disposed of the two dog's bodies. They told him the deal was on for tonight.

Klugg asked about Detective Katt.

He was told he was still hanging on and he might need a visit to make sure he did not recover in case he had seen them shoot him. Katt decided they would pay for that.

Klugg opened one of two briefcases bought to him by the men. It was packed with one hundred dollar bills. The other proved to be the same. The money to buy the two 'perfect' plates. Klugg put the cases behind a large settee and told his other two men to wait outside till later. He was going to have a rest before tonight's deal.

Klugg nodded off and Katt could hear his regular breathing. He descended to floor level. Though the place stunk of dogs, he no longer had to worry about them. He headed towards the sleeping Klugg, wondering what he could do. He saw the ashtray with some cigarette ends in it. A half empty packet of cigarettes and a cigarette lighter. Ideal.

First Katt got the light cover which was draped over Krugg in his teeth and draped it around Krugg's legs and tangled it up as much as he could. A pity he could not tie any knots.

Ever seen a cat trying to use a cigarette lighter? Katt can tell you it is not easy. His paws were not that strong but by dint of effort, he eventually succeeded in getting it alight and held the flame against the material of the settee. It was an old style settee. Very comfortable but not fireproof and it needed little encouragement to catch light.

Krugg must have been a heavy sleeper, maybe something to do with a number of empty wine bottles, and the settee was going quite well when he suddenly yelled out in pain as the flames burned his legs. He tried to get off the settee and fell to the floor, bringing the burning drape with him, burning him further.

From a safe distance and near an open window, Katt watched and was pleased to see the hand of a small ornamental figure he had used as a wedge to slow down Klugg's two men from opening the door and getting into the room. The figure broke and they knocked the door wide open. They rushed for Krugg and helped him beat out the flames of his own clothes which had caught alight in places.

There was a lot of swearing coming from the other room for a full minute before Klugg remembered the money behind the settee. All three rushed into the room and with difficulty dragged the burning settee away from the wall, only to reveal two burning briefcases. There was a fresh round of swearing as they tried to put the briefcases out. Had they been real leather, they would have hardly burned but the cheap imitation burned well, as did the money inside. There was little left inside when they finally stamped the flames out and managed to open them.

"What do we do now?" asked one of Klugg's men.

"It'd take too long to get more money and this deal has to go ahead tonight" said Klugg.

They made plans. From nearby, Katt liked what he heard. This had all the possibilities of turning into a complete disaster. As they made their plans, Katt listened in.

At midnight, in a deserted warehouse nearby, two groups of hard men met. One had two plates that could print millions of counterfeit dollars. The other had two briefcases full of blank paper with a tiny number of hundred dollar bills on the top. Both sides had guns and neither side trusted the other. Which was normal. That was how such deals were done. As the two sides advanced on each other, Klugg had a third man (Brock) nearby with a set of police sirens and a deep voice through which he could tell them it was a police raid. And a tape which sounded like a police raid when played full volume. If Klugg could get the other side surprised, they could take the plates off of their dead bodies.

Brock watched for the signal, when he should sound off the police sirens. And suddenly something dropped onto his head. It was only light, but it was like the devil himself. Claws ripped at his scalp, at his eyes and nose and mouth. Bits of his ears were ripped off in Katt's teeth. To save his life, Brock could not have followed Klugg's plans now as he screeched like a little girl as blood poured from many places on his head and elsewhere. Everyone turned to look at the high balcony where Brock was as he fell against the equipment and a police siren fell over the balcony, hit the floor and sounded off.

Both sides looked at it, knowing it was fake. The other side looked at Brock, knowing he was one of Klugg's men and knew there was something wrong and guns were drawn.

"Show us the money" the other side demanded, and knowing they could not now get away with it, Klugg's men started shooting as did the other side. Within two minutes all were dead or dying.

Except Brock.

"You did this!" shouted Brock to the cat. He did not know how a cat had done it but he knew it had. Brock drew his gun and fired at the cat as it leaped for his face again. Brock backed up and fell from the balcony, landing head first and was instantly killed.

Cats are always supposed to land on their feet but Katt didn't. It may be because he had had a bullet pass through some flesh. He howled. He knew he had little time left. With a grim determination that came fully from his human side, he started for the hospital nearby. How he made it there, he never knew. Climbing the three floors of steps was a nightmare. He made it to the room where his human self was, hoping that it was still alive.

But he had no strength to open the door. He would die only yards from his human self. Then the door opened and his wife Margaret was there.

He made a piteous meow and started for the bed, dragging himself there. She stood and watched in amazement as a blood trail followed the cat. As the cat struggled towards her husband, she saw one of his hands flop out of bed, towards the cat.

While John had always been a strict atheist, she had been many things and had many superstitions. There was no way a normal cat could do this, especially as badly injured as this one obviously was. Her husband had been comatose and had not moved since the day he was shot, and now he had moved. She put two and two together in her own way and very gently lifted the cat up and as it looked at her husband, she placed it on his chest.

With a last shudder, the cat died. She stared at it, not knowing what to do when there was a weak whisper.

"Margaret!"

She gasped.

"John!"

He was awake now and looking at her and she knew now that he was going to be OK.

The doctors confirmed it and ten days later, he was allowed home and told him not to exert himself. A nurse paid visits to check on him and change bandages if needed. He had medicine and pills to take too but was well on the mend.

As one nurse left, she asked about something she had seen in the garden.

"It looks like a little grave" she said.

"It is" answered John Katt. "It is the resting place of the bravest cat that ever lived."

THE END.

MY BROTHER ALEX.
CHAPTER ONE

Sam came indoors and without a word to his parents, went up to his room and cried. Life was not fair. Neither was Bully Jones picking on him. Jones was in the year above him at school and for some reason had taken a disliking to him, or maybe just saw him as easy prey. He had tried standing up to Jones but even for a boy a year older, he was large for his age and most other kids in his own year stayed away from him. That had been a disaster and he had collected more bruises that usual.

Typically this time he had been waiting for him after school and Sam had done the only thing he could do. He ran. Jones was faster than him and had come within inches of him when he ran across the path of a woman with her shopping. He had just made it and Jones had crashed into her.

Then her large sized husband had turned up and he knew he should not have but he had laughed as the man beat Bully Jones about the head several hard blows before Jones had escaped at a fast pace. He would pay for laughing tomorrow when Jones saw him again, but Jones would have made him pay anyway so what difference?

He hated school. The lessons were not bad, even a bit boring because he was a smart kid. But it was Jones. If only he'd die. If only he had some way of getting back at him. He could take up judo, karate and the like and in a few years time maybe beat Jones but he needed help now.

He dried his eyes and went down to dinner. His mother looked at him and said nothing. Neither did his father. He had once tried telling him but his father had just said that he should stand up for himself and that all bullies were cowards. He had tried that the following day and Jones had almost played with him as he beat him up so easily.

It was alright for his father saying that, but he did not follow his own advice. He knew he too got bullied at work. It must run in the family, he thought. Would he too get bullied at work one day? What a depressing thought.

After dinner he went upstairs to his bedroom and did his homework. After that he thought about going out, but Bully Jones lived nearby and may even be waiting for him, so he stayed in. He spent a bit of time online, watched some TV and then bed. Worry about the following day meant that it took some time to get to sleep and after a few dreary dreams, he suddenly found himself confronting another boy his own height and age who looked just like him.

In a dreamlike state he vaguely wondered who the other boy was?

"I'm Alex" said the other boy, holding out his hand.

Sam not knowing what else to do in this weird dream took his hand and shook it.

"I would guess you are wondering why I look like you?"

Sam nodded.

"I'm your twin brother."

That shocked Sam. He had been told that when born, he'd been one of identical twins, but only he had survived. His twin had died. He knew that but almost nothing else. His parents would not talk about it, and his mother got very upset when it was mentioned. Was this some memory of the brother he had never had, that had come now to haunt his dreams?

"You are wondering why I am here?" asked Alex.

He knew it was a dream but it was so real, and Alex's hand had felt so real when he shook it.

"Like a disembodied phantom, which I suppose I am, I have been with you all your life" said Alex. "I have seen your ups and downs and I have seen Bully Jones. I have seen you beaten up by him so many times, and we both know you are due for a bad beating tomorrow. I have wished and wished I could have helped you but have been helpless. But now something has changed. I do not know what but tomorrow, together we will beat Bully Jones."

Sam's head was in a whirl. As dreams go, this was his strangest ever.

"Are you a ghost?" asked Sam.

"No" said Alex with a half smile on his face.

It was really like looking into a mirror, thought Sam.

"Have you come from heaven?" Sam asked.

"I have no idea if heaven or hell exists. I have existed like this since I was born. I was never really alive, so I was never really dead, I suppose" guessed Alex.

"But what can you do against that bully?" asked Sam.

"That we'll see tomorrow. Now get a good night's sleep because among other things, you have a history test tomorrow."

Sam remembered nothing more till he woke up next morning. That was definitely the weirdest dream he had ever had but he had to know something. He could not ask his mother because it was and would always be a sore point with her but he approached his father while he was shaving.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Sam."

"You once said that I had been born one of twins."

His father shushed him.

"Don't let your mother hear you talking about that."

"I have a question to ask you" Sam said in a whisper.

"OK, but just one then it's over."

"Did you name my twin before he died. I know in such cases, some parents do."

His father reluctantly nodded.

"Was it Alex?" he asked.

"Oww!" said his father as he cut himself.

He put a bit of toilet paper on the small cut to mop up the blood and asked Sam how he knew?

"I had a funny dream last night" Sam said, and would say no more.

It was soon time for school and while he felt trepidation about getting another beating from Bully Jones, he felt some elation too though he could not say why. He grabbed his brief case full of books and was out the door. He made it half way to school when Jones suddenly appeared from around a corner.

"I see that you thought it funny when that woman's husband hit me yesterday" said Jones.

"Well. You seem to think it funny when I get a beating" said Sam. He knew Jones would attack him so he had nothing to lose.

Jones started advancing on him, his hands now big fists. He had promised himself that Sam Kirby would get a good beating today.

Sam felt himself trembling and thought of running away in the hope of escaping when there was a whisper in his ear.

"It's Alex. Stand your ground and we'll beat this thug together."

There was a moment's shock, the realisation that last night's dream had not been a dream at all, it seemed. But what could his ghostly other half do?

Bully Jones suddenly ran at him, intent on doing as much damage as possible as quick as possible. And tripped over and fell face first on the hard pavement.

"Jump on his back" whispered a voice in his ear.

Sam needed no second urging and did so. And he jumped up and down a few times on Jones' back, and even if Jones killed him for it, it was worth it.

Jones roared.

"Now his head. Push it down" came a whisper in his ear.

Using two hands and all his weight, Sam pushed Jones' head down hard on the pavement and the bully roared again as blood spurted out of his nose.

"Now stand next to his head and threaten to kick his head but don't do it unless you have to," came the whisper.

Sam did that.

"I'm now going to play football with that useless block of wood you call a head" shouted Sam.

Bully Jones looked to the side and saw the show drawn back to kick him in the head. Blood poured from his nose, his head and back hurt and he was confused, wondering what had happened. He looked up and saw Sam's angry face. He knew he deserved a good kicking for what he had done to the kid in the past and expected to get it.

"Don't. Please don't" whined Jones.

Sam slowly put his foot on the ground. He bent down so his face was close to Jones' bleeding face.

"This time I let you off. Next time, it's football."

Sam stood up and picking up his brief case, walked away.

"Don't look back" said the whisper. I'll keep my eye on him. Show your contempt for Jones."

Sam felt uneasy not looking back, but he also felt on top of the world. He had beaten Bully Jones at his own game and he didn't know how but felt like he could do it again if necessary.

The rest of the trip to school was uneventful though he felt like he was walking on clouds. But all was not sunshine. History test today and it was his weakest subject. He saw no point in learning all those stupid dates and past kings and queens. He struggled to remember dates and historical events.

The test came. He looked at the questions.

'The Battle of the Standard'? He didn't have a clue. While he was trying to think up an answer, there was that familiar whisper in his ear.

"1138. The English defeated an invading Scottish army led by King David the first."

'What' he thought to himself as he automatically wrote it down.

"Pilkington has the answers paper open on his desk for when he marks them later. Teacher needs a crib himself."

A few more answers arrived by the same method, then a whisper again.

"That's enough. The teacher will be suspicious if you do too well."

Sam nodded to himself. The test was finally done and while they read a history text book, the teacher quickly marked the papers.

Some pupils came in for condemnation and some for praise, including Sam.

"Well done, Kirby. Eighty six percent. You must have been doing your homework for once."

Sam nodded a bit uneasily. He would normally have been happy to get fifty percent on a history test. The trouble with a good mark was that it would be expected again in the future.

Morning break came and Sam gathered with several other boys from his class in the playground.

"Did you hear about Bully Jones?" asked Specky (he wore glasses).

There was a shaking of heads.

"He was sent home this morning. He claims to have tripped over but he suffered quite a bit of damage and seemed to be shaken. I think maybe someone beat him up."

"Maybe it was the man from last night" said Sam, and related the incident where Jones had blundered into someone's wife and got hit by the husband before running away.

There were nods and laughter. No one liked Jones and if someone had beaten him up, it was generally agreed that he deserved it.

"Susan is looking at you again" said Pete to him.

The others laughed. Some kids in his class already had girlfriends but he was rather shy. He looked at her. She was definitely attractive and if only he had the courage....

"She definitely likes you, Sam" came a voice in his ear.

He looked around but no one else had heard Alex's voice.

"Go on, ask her out."

He felt a slight shove in her direction, then another..

"Go on" whispered the voice in his ear. "Do you want to die a bachelor? The worst she can say is no, and Diane fancies you too, so will jump at a chance to be friendly with you if she does."

Diane was nice but not quite in Susan's league. Almost before he knew what was happening, he found himself facing three girls. Susan, Diane and Lesley.

The voice in his ear told him that he had a bit of money put aside and to invite Susan to the pictures tonight. Ask her now, the girls are waiting for you to say something.

"Ahhhh, Susan."

She smiled at him, hoping he was going to say what she thought he would.

"Would you, could you come to the pictures with me tonight. There is a good film on at the local cinema"

There, he'd asked her, even if his face felt hot enough to boil water. The two other girls now looked from him to Susan.

"I thought you'd never ask" she said. She has known that Sam was shy, and without being too obvious about it, had given him a few chances to do something. She knew that Diane was interested in him too, but Diane was OK and would not be catty over it.

"Seven thirty was whispered in his ear."

"I know where you live. Would seven thirty be alright?"

"See you then, Sam" she said, a big smile on her face.

Sam walked back to his friends and they were all staring at him. So the girls could not see it, he gave a thumbs up. There were smiles all round.

Sam's parents were pleased to hear that he was going out on his first date. When his mum was not there, his father sat him down to give him some advice.

"Take note of her appearance and compliment her. Never say anything bad. When she talks, listen to what she says and don't talk over her. Don't be a skinflint (here his father slipped him some money) but don't be too lavish. Let her lead. In the dark cinema, don't try for a 'feel' and definitely don't grope her. If she wants you to kiss her, she'll let you know, or she'll do it. Tomorrow at school, your friends will ask how it went. Don't tell them anything because it will get back to her. Just say it went OK, even if it did not. First dates are always a bit uncertain. At the end of it, you have to decide if you want a second date, as females are not always all they seem. And she will have to decide too."

Sam got himself dressed smartly.

"Sorry I can't help you on this" said a voice in his ear. "Girls are as much a mystery to me as they are to you."

He went to Susan's house, arriving early and was welcomed by her parents. They left at 7:30 pm and walked arm in arm to the pictures. Remembering his father's advice, Sam kept things low key and they both enjoyed the picture, and each other's company. They were very friendly in a purely platonic fashion. Not knowing what to expect, Sam was happy with this.

As it was getting near the time he had promised to have her home by, as tomorrow was a school day for them both, they popped into a fish and chip shop, and ate chips on the way to her house.

On the doorstep, he noticed the curtains twitch as they talked. It was Friday tomorrow and they arranged to meet again on Saturday morning. She gave Sam a peck on the cheek and went inside.

Sam weighed the pros and cons as he walked home. It had seemed to go well and he had not made any bonehead mistakes as he feared he would. He had not talked much, not quite knowing what to say but Susan had talked enough for both of them so it had not mattered. His parents asked how it had gone and he was vague and said it was OK. His mother never saw his father wink at him.

On his way to school next morning, he saw Susan's father, Mr. Woodley. He had seen him a number of times before when going to school and had not known who he was. He stopped and said 'hello!'

"Susan said she likes you and is going to see you again. I knew you were OK when I saw you bring her home last night."

Sam looked askance at him.

"Her last boyfriend only lasted one date as he became a bit too familiar in the darkness of the pictures," Mr. Woodley explained. "I saw him next day and he had a beautiful black eye. I used to do a bit of professional boxing and I taught my Susan some self defence."

Sam gulped. He would have to be careful of her in the future, he decided.

"But don't worry, Sam. I taught her that boxing is only for self defence and is not for bullying. Don't tell her I told you this. She likes to pretend she is a helpless young girl."

Sam nodded, not really reassured.

"There ain't no such thing," Mr. Woodley added with a laugh as they parted.

Sam got the third degree when he arrived at school and all he would say was that they had been to the pictures together and had some chips on the way back to her house. He did not even mention that they were going out again tomorrow morning. He wondered what Susan had said about him to her friends? Nothing bad, he hoped.
CHAPTER TWO

He had left school behind and got a job in an office. But he didn't like it. His boss was incompetent and gave him a hard time and a colleague named Gary Fielding was just plain nasty.

"Haven't you finished that work yet, Kirby" his boss growled over his shoulder.

"I haven't had time yet" said Sam. He hadn't. He had only got the work twenty minutes ago and had been working at it hard ever since.

"You've had an hour to do it in."

"But I only got it twenty minutes ago" complained Sam.

"Gary told me he gave it to you over an hour ago and if I have a choice between believing you or Gary, I'll believe him any time."

Sam said nothing. He could no longer take his boss or brown nosed Gary. It was time to look for another job. His boss walked away growling and Gary just laughed that nasty laugh of his.

"Things getting tough?" asked a voice in his ear.

Sam looked around with a sharp retort ready and saw no one.

"It's me. Your brother, Alex."

"I haven't heard from you for a long time" said Sam.

"You've had a pretty easy life of it up till now so I've left you alone. It looks like you need some help now with Gary Fielding and old Grimshawe. Leave them to me."

Smarmy Gary was talking to two of the office girls. He had his lecherous eyes on Leonora's ample breasts as he did so. The women would have liked to tell him to get lost but he was the boss's favourite.

One moment Gary was talking and ogling and the next he was thrust forwards and putting out his hands to save himself, they both landed on Leonora's ample breasts. Alex held them there for several seconds as Gary struggled to get up. Leonora instead saw this as he had attacked her and was now groping her.

Both girls screamed and even then, smarmy Gary might have lied himself out of it had Grimshawe not been walking past. He stared, not able to believe his eyes. The girls continued screaming.

Gary and Leonora finally managed to separate themselves. Leonora was from Spain and had a fiery temperament. She was all for using her fists to damage Gary's smug face but her friend held her back and shook her head. Leonora hesitated then caught on. This was a chance to get rid of sex pest Gary.

"If you don't sack Gary Fielding, I'll go to an industrial tribunal over this" she shouted at Grimshawe. "Linda saw it all and will be my witness."

Her friend Linda nodded.

Grimshawe knew about Gary and women, his 'accidental brushing' against them and such but really, he had gone way too far now, and another woman was a witness, and truth be told, so was he. He looked at Fielding as the man stood there embarrassed.

"Sorry, Mr. Fielding but I am going to have to let you go as of now. We cannot condone such sexist behaviour in our offices."

"But I was pushed" shouted Fielding.

"I was walking past at the time" said Grimshawe. "There was no one behind you."

Sam had just finished his work, and picked it up and handed it to Grimshawe and stood there with a big grin on his face, looking at Fielding's discomfiture. He guessed what had happened. It was long overdue. He watched as Fielding gathered up his things and left the office. As he got into the lift, he was thrust forwards and bashed into the opposite side of the lift, scattering his stuff all over the floor of the lift. He looked around as the doors started to close and there was no one there. He could swear that someone had kicked him up the backside.

Grimshawe was at his desk and had sipped at a glass of water and put it down again to look at some papers. As he reached with his left hand for a folder, the glass tipped over and almost full, it spilled into his lap. He jumped up just as Linda came in with some papers to sign. She saw him and barely hid a smirk as it looked like he had just 'wet himself'. She put the papers down on the desk and hurriedly left, to tell Leonora about what she had seen.

Later it was Grimshawe's 'rest period' when he was working and did not want to be disturbed. Everyone knew he was having forty winks and no one disturbed them because it meant that he was not about the office bothering them. It was about time for Grimshawe to join the world of the living again when a whisper in Sam's ear told him to look round.

Sam looked and Grimshawe's door opened and out he came. Sam did a double take then struggled not to laugh. Grimshawe's face was black. Sam guessed that Alex had used his inkpad to blacken his sleeping face. Unaware of this, Grimshawe walked about the office, oblivious to the stares he received. He had an important client waiting for him, his secretary told him. He was in the waiting room.

Mr. Brown had waited ten minutes to see Mr. Grimshawe and was not too happy about having done so. The door opened and in walked Grimshawe. It was unfortunate that Mr. Brown was from Africa and when he saw Grimshawe, obviously a white man with a blacked up face coming towards him, he took it as a direct insult and stormed out. He would make a strong report to his bosses about this insult. Grimshawe meanwhile could not understand what had happened, and gave up trying.

Grimshawe continued in his own way for the next few hours and finally needed to go to the toilet. Having had a pee, he went to the sink to wash his hands, and nearly fell over from shock as he saw his face in the mirror. He gasped as he touched it. Had he washed it off straight away, he could have gotten rid of just about all of it but the ink had had hours to soak into his skin and even scrubbing with soap and water barely touched it.

It was coming up to the end of the working day. How could he go home like this? Sam walked into the toilet then and saw his boss trying to clean his face, and took pity on him.

"Some alcohol might work, sir" he suggested.

Grimshawe nodded, went to his office and returned with a bottle of his best vodka. He almost collapsed with relief when he saw that it worked and his skin was returning to its normal pasty white colour again. As he went back to his office, he thanked Sam as he passed his desk.

A week later, Grimshawe took early retirement. He was sixty and could leave on a good package. There had been another few minor incidents and he had decided that work was getting to be too much for him. His replacement was a younger man with more 'get up and go' but he treated his staff well, and so got more work out of them.

Things drifted along smoothly for Sam for the next several months, then while walking home late one night to his small house, he was mugged and his money stolen. He woke up in hospital later, with a bandage around a very sore head. A police officer who had waited for him to recover told him he had been bashed over the head and had all his money and credit cards stolen. He later discharged himself, went home and cancelled his three credit cards. Then he phoned work and told them what had happened and that he would not be in next day, and after taking two aspirins he went to bed, not feeling up to anything else.

He felt a bit better in the morning, but took another aspirin as there was still some headache. He had a quiet day at home and an early night.

He felt better next day and went to work. Sitting near him on the bus, two young women talked in hushed tones about a brutal rapist on the local common last night. There were worse things than being mugged, he consoled himself.

A few days later, he read in the local newspaper of a man being savagely beaten then stabbed to death on the other side of town. Nowhere was safe these days, he reflected.

A month passed and the area seemed to have become a crime hotspot. He was careful not to go out at night now. One such mugging had been one too many for him.

More crimes happened and Sam dragged himself out of bed one morning. He seemed to have no energy lately because he did not sleep well. He felt a pain in his hand as he picked up something and saw a red gash there. He stared at it. How had he done that? Maybe he had caught it on the headboard of the bed. It was hard wood and the ninety degree angles were a bit sharp. Maybe he'd have to plane them down a bit?

He had an early night and next thing he knew it was dark and he was in a wooded area and there were people chasing him. He thought for a moment that this was a weird dream, but only for a moment then realised it was not a dream. Breathless he rushed on through the darkness, branches whipping at his face and things under his feet trying to trip him up. Voices came from behind him, the voices of people chasing him. He had no idea what was happening but they spurred him to even greater efforts.

Eventually he managed to lose his pursuers, more by luck than anything else. By a roundabout way, he made his way home, shut his street door, and leaned against it, gasping. What the hell had just happened? He looked down at his clothes. He was wearing dark clothes, which had helped hide him from his pursuers but why had he been chased? What was he doing in the woods at this time of night, or rather morning he thought as he looked at a clock. It was gone one am.

He searched his pockets. He was carrying about two hundred pounds and a knife. He looked hard at the knife. There were some reddish stains on it that looked like dried blood. And some fresh red stains, that looked like blood. And the money? He had only ten pounds on him yesterday, and had decided to visit an ATM on the way to work today to get some more money.

He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and there was a haunted look to his face. He splashed cold water on his face but that did not help. How had this happened? He had never even walked in his sleep before let alone going out and doing who knows what? Committing crimes by the looks of it.

"Alex!" he said. Nothing from his other half.

"Alex!" louder. Still nothing.

"Have you anything to do with this, Alex?"

His absence meant nothing. Alex had never come when called. But he had no other possible explanation for what had happened. Instead of being a distinct other ghostly personality, it could be that now Alex could control his body when he was asleep. That could be why he was tired lately, never seeming to get enough sleep.

Very troubled in mind, he finally got to sleep.

Next morning, he listened to the local news on the radio. A woman raped. A man mugged and stabbed when he put up a fight. Just in the arm fortunately.

Had he, or rather Alex done that?

He thoroughly washed the knife, broke it and dropped it down a drain on the way to work. At work he had to admit it was not a good day there as his mind was on other things. His boss noticed, and he told him to do better. He tried.

He went home and now he feared going to sleep. Of course he could drink pots of coffee and walk about endlessly but eventually he had to sleep. Humans could not manage without sleep. And long term lack of sleep it was said caused people to become crazy, and that could only make things worse.

Before going to bed that night, he dug out a clothes line he had bought and never used. He tied both his feet tightly together and then to one of the legs of his very solid bed. If the house caught alight, he was in trouble. And he slept.

He woke up in the middle of the night and had been in the process of untying the rope around his legs. He was shocked. He was appalled. Was it him doing it or was it Alex doing it?

He retied the ropes even tighter so it would be hard to undo them in the morning but he would worry about that when he came to that problem.

He slept soundly for the rest of the night and listening to the local news, there had been no crimes of the sort he worried about, committed.

Next night he woke up at two am. Despite him tying the ropes as right as he could, they had almost been untied. He broke out into a sweat. What could he do?

Reading a national newspaper on the way to work, he saw that what he suspected were his crimes had made the national news. The guilty person had been dubbed "The Night Stalker". An unimaginative title. Then he looked down the list of crimes attributed to him. It went on and on. There were muggings, there were stabbings, there were rapes, and there were even murders. The police had picked up various clues but the guilty party was said to be very cunning and very patient. Only once had he nearly been caught.

The chase that night haunted Sam again. Now he was sure it was him the newspaper was talking about. He thought about it so hard, he missed his stop. He was sure, that despite his precautions, Alex, if it was him, would finally get free again tonight and continue hurting and killing people.

He got off the bus at the next stop and the fact that the local police station was across the road made his mind up for him. There was only one thing he could do. He walked inside and the officer on the front desk asked what it was about? Sam showed him the newspaper story and said that he thought he was the one the police wanted.

Other police quickly appeared and he was ushered into a room with two officers and a tape machine. He was asked if he wanted a lawyer, and refused.

Leaving out the supernatural aspect of his brother Alex, he told the police he had heard voices since he was a kid and he attributed them to his unborn brother Alex. He had led a normal life till a mugging a while back where he sustained a bad head injury. He gave the date and it almost coincided with the start of the 'Stalker's' activities. He explained how he seemed to be tired all the time and could not explain why till he had seemed to wake up in a forest, being chased by people. He gave a date and they nodded. He explained how he had come to believe that he, or Alex was responsible while he slept, controlling his body, and had started tying his legs together. But he had woke up a few times in the night to find the rope almost undone and he feared that next time Alex would succeed and start committing his horrible crimes again.

That was essentially it but there was lots more detail. Sam was put in a holding cell. There was a whisper in his ear.

"Do you want me to get you out of here?"

"No!" said Sam. "If we go on the run, what are we going to do? Live like a dog till they catch us and put us in prison again. You are responsible for this, Alex."

It was not a question but a statement and Alex was silent.

The police searched Sam's house and the garden outside and found things to connect him to the crimes he had committed.

Sam spent some time in jail before he was taken before a psychiatrist. It was Sir Josiah Beeching, an eminent man and at the top of his profession. Sam was probably lucky to get him. They talked and talked and talked and Beeching wrote pages of notes. Sam also went to a hospital for a scan of his brain.

Then there was his trial. Beeching said that Mr. Kirby had led a normal and blameless life up till the point where he had what a scan shows is a minor brain injury due to being mugged by an unknown criminal. He had suffered from a few periods of schizophrenia as a youth but it seems to have been more of an imaginary playmate of a child who had been bullied rather than anything menacing. The brain injury changed that and his imaginary friend became a very real dangerous criminal who took over his body when asleep and committed the long list of crimes that has been read out before the court today.

Beeching told them that Mr. Kirby is blameless in this in that he never knowingly took part in any of these crimes. He however realised that his other personality was beyond his control and he voluntarily gave himself up to the police to stop any more crimes being committed. He further realises that he should be put away from the public as the only way to cage the other personality inside him. I have advised that he be put in the Stanthorpe Secure Unit where he will be kept under constant watch and get treatments which we hope will one day cure him.

The judge was satisfied and Sam was taken away to his new place of residence. He had a nice room and a very solid ankle bracelet that very noisily stopped him going anywhere outside the Unit. And a casual eye was kept on him. At night, on his own insistence, he was locked in the room and checked on regularly.

There was a whisper in his ear.

"Shut up, Alex. Haven't you got me into enough trouble?"

THE END.

SOMEWHERE THERE IS A MONUMENT

Robert Jones had started off with a fair sized pet shop after a small win on the lottery. He liked animals but there was little activity in the shop and after two years he was bored with it.

While working in the pet shop what he had noted was that many pet foods were cheap and of poor quality. If you wanted better quality, it was expensive and often little better. And most people would not pay those high prices for the daily food for their pets.

He had experimented with his own brand of cat food. A moist solid food that had all the right vitamins and minerals that a healthy cat needed. He tried it out on the cats in the shop. The early versions did not go well, with the cats generally turning their noses up at them. Even stray cats he fed did not want them.

It took a while but finally he believed he had something that cats did like, and dogs too (since they could eat what cats ate), and it could be made at a reasonable price. He knew of an old school friend, Simon Martin, living in the area who had a chain of pet shops across the South. He had sounded him out and as a favour Martin said he would try them out in his shops if he could manufacture them. Martin had confided in him that the cat biscuits he was getting now looked like they were made of flavoured sawdust so he wanted something better.

When Martin offered to buy him out and add his shop to his chain, it was not as much as he would have liked but he sold the pet shop and with his savings thrown in, bought a small warehouse on the edge of town in a yet to be developed area. More money was spent on a machine that would make the moist cat biscuits he wanted to make, and then more on the ingredients.

He agreed with Martin on a fairly large sample amount, twenty 50 kg sacks, which were 'sale or return'. There was a risk since if they did not sell, he would have to take them back and get nothing but he felt it was worth the risk. At the stores, they would be put into 2kg bags with 'Martin's Pet Shops' name on them, with a good mark up after biscuits and bagging was paid for. They would still be cheap though compared to expensive brands.

There were special offers on at the warehouse where he got his supplies so he bought more than he really wanted to, but it gave him a good discount. He knew how the machine worked now and wanting to get his business up and running, phoned Martin that he would deliver the twenty 50 kg sacks next day.

In the afternoon he started the machine up and taking care, he finally got the twenty sacks filled with his 'new and improved' cat biscuits. Then it was just a matter of loading them into the van. 50kg was 110 lbs but he had a 'sack barrow" and the back of the old van was low so he managed it on his own.

It was dark as he loaded the last one and he would be glad to get home and get a good night's sleep, then up early in the morning and take the load to Martins to be rebagged and distributed through his shops. It just needed him putting the van away for the night. He was about to lock its back door when he heard a piteous me-ow behind him.

A cat he thought as he turned around and saw not one but several very malnourished kittens staring up at him. He heard some more me-ows and looked up. There were more cats, all looking starved, and as his eyes shifted, his jaw dropped. There were more cats and more and more and.....

He took the power torch out of his pocket and the powerful beam showed THOUSANDS of cats and there were no doubt more beyond its circle of light. Where had they all come from? He could not have missed them as he loaded his van. This was a desolate area, but what were all these cats doing here? And they were all skin and bone by the looks of them, all starving.

There was another piteous me-ow from one of the very skinny kittens in front of him and the others looked like they didn't even have the strength to call.

As he pulled open the van door, Jones called himself a fool. As he dragged a sack from the van, putting it down nearby and while grabbing a cutting knife from a side panel in the door, he called himself a fool. As he cut the sack and spread the contents on the ground, he called himself a fool.

Then he saw the cats, allowing the many, many kittens room to eat, ravenously starting on the food he had given them. He called himself a fool as he reached for a second sack but knew that with the same circumstances, he would do the same again.

Multitudes of cats came to be fed and gulped and gulped down the cat biscuits. He didn't know there was this many cats in the whole county. Where had they all come from, and why were they all starving? He knew cats and it was unusual for adult cats to let any other cats eat first, even kittens, and he noticed that the cats had some but left enough for the so many others rather than eating and eating. These were certainly unusual cats with uncatlike manners.

Finally the last bag was cut open and the last of the cats were still eating and purring as they did so but most had had sufficient by now and were drinking from the slow flowing fresh water stream close by, leaving the food for others who still needed it. A kitten, having eaten enough for now and drank some water, brushed against his leg and he bent down and picked it up and stroked it. The little cat purred like a small engine running

All the food, a metric ton of food, had gone now and cats were drinking from the stream and others were cleaning themselves. As he put the kitten down, he felt an itching in his head. He looked up and saw five elderly cats staring at him, with the unwinking stares cats have.

There were no words, not even any images but somehow he knew that the cats had come from an unimaginable distance, no distance wasn't the right word. Had they crossed realities, dimensions? His mind had no word for such a concept. Their world had been destroyed and the survivors had left for a new world. But the new world was so very, very far away. They had needed to rest, and needed nourishment and water so somehow had known to come here to help them make the rest of their journey.

Jones blinked for a moment. Was he day dreaming or were the cats talking to him, mind to mind?

Suddenly as if they heard a distant sound that he could not hear, all the cats lifted their heads as one and looked in one direction. They stayed still in that position for some seconds and then they started vanishing. Initially Jones was not aware of it as there were so many cats over a large area and it was fully dark now. Then he saw the cats he was looking at vanishing and within ten seconds, he was alone again, and not a single cat in sight.

Was he losing his mind? Had he dreamed it all? Then he looked down and saw the twenty empty sacks and not a single morsel of any of the food that had been in them left. He remembered to shut his mouth as he wondered what had just happened?

Ten minutes later as he automatically collected the sacks and dumped them into his waste bin in a bit of a daze and he still did not know what had happened?

He looked at the empty van. He cursed and rushed inside. Some quick calculations and he was sure he had enough ingredients to fill another twenty 50 kg sacks but now instead of going home to bed, he would spend the rest of the night replacing the cat biscuits he had given away.

He worked hard to redo the order and then got two hours sleep on a cot in the warehouse before driving off to deliver to the Martin's Pet Shops depot. He hoped they sold well because he had too little money left to buy more ingredients. It was make or break time now.

People tried out the cat biscuits on special introductory offer (Martin had put them out at cost) and found that their cats preferred them over even expensive cat foods. Dogs liked them too and two days later, Martin was on the phone to him for another larger order. Jones said he had a slight cash flow problem and Martin said to call around and when he did, gave him the cash for that order and more cash for a still bigger order. He also took him to his own bank and introduced him to his bank manager who agreed on Martin's say so to give him enough money to buy another machine and a lot more ingredients.

A month later, Jones bought a larger empty warehouse next to his present one, and a month after that, another. Business was booming and Martin's shops were selling his cat (and dog) biscuits as fast as he could put them on the shelves, and they were now selling in a main supermarket chain, under the Martin name.

Business went well and Jones had a number of staff and then some more. They were willing workers but would not go the extra mile he thought as he locked up on his own one night. Well, they were young and would no doubt be out with girlfriends or boyfriends or be at home with their young families now.

"Hey, Jones!"

It was a harsh voice and he thought he recognised it. He turned around and his heart sank as he saw Sean Murphy with some friends. Murphy had been one of his workers but in the space of just months he had seen him go downhill. He was often late, sometimes surly and when he was caught stealing, that was it and he was sacked.

"Hey, Jones. Since you sacked me, I can't get a job anywhere."

"Might that have to do with the way you've let yourself go? You were a smart young man at one time and look at you now. You look like a tramp. What drugs are you using?"

"How does he know you're doing drugs?" asked a dim looking friend of Murphy's.

"I don't know," growled Murphy, "but I do know he is going to give us lots of money to buy more. That safe of his usually has about two thousand pounds in it. Enough to keep us high for weeks."

"Sounds good to me. Hand the money over, or we'll stick you."

At this, Murphy and his three mates pulled out knives. Jones knew that even if they got the money, they would probably still kill him. They would not want a witness who could send them to jail for many years. He had thought that the town would have moved out his way by now but though it was happening, it was very slow, and the area was still deserted at night. There would be no help for him.

Murphy advanced on him, knife held out in front of him in a hand that shook a little. Not from the fear of one unarmed man but from the fact that he needed another fix of the drugs he took.

"The money, Jones," he shouted.

Just then two cats ran out of the darkness and each fastened them self by their razor sharp claws onto both of Murphy's legs. The thug howled in pain.

"Here, I'll kill them for you, Sean," said one of the men, advancing on the cats, knife ready. But then he had his own problem as two cats jumped onto his back and while one clung there by its claws, the other landed on his head and got a grip with its claws.

As Jones watched in astonishment, more cats appeared. Lots more cats and they smothered Murphy and his friends like rats. The four knife men dropped their knives and shrieked out their pain as they ran blindly away.

A few minutes later and it was quiet again. The cats came back, having lost interest in the lacerated four and surrounded Jones but he felt no fear. He somehow knew that they were they the same cats that had come here a few years ago. They all looked big and healthy now. Their new home had been kind to them.

His suspicions were confirmed when the cats heard something he could not hear and within seconds, they had vanished without trace. He was alone now and though in quiet moments in later years he often thought of them, he was destined never to see them again. Though that may have been because one cat looks like another cat, wherever they come from.

He never saw Murphy and his friends again either after that. They had ended up at the local hospital A&E and refused to explain how they ended up looking like they had each gone through a mincer. They left the area.

Jones learned from that night and put up a security fence and gate and got his own security guards for day and night shift. Business continued to improve as Jones found himself supplying other pet companies around the world and suddenly he had his own large factory.

Though he wondered how he found time to do it, Jones ended up marrying Martin's sister and they had children who grew up and who had children too, who grew up, etc. By time Jones settled down to take a breath, he had a worldwide pet food empire and children, as well as grandchildren and great grandchildren. But he never told anyone about the cats. No one would have believed him, and he did not want to be thought of as some kind of nut.

He sorted out the children with business savvy and they ran the business for him and the rest lived well on his generosity. He had a large country house and still kept his eye on the business as he did not like sitting around all day.

Eventually his wife died, and just a year later, he too died, after a short illness. He was to be buried next to his wife and there was a big turnout of friends and family. He had been a well-liked and a respected man and a pillar of the community.

Halfway through the ceremony as the priest went through the words used in a burial, one of Jones' sons whispered to another.

"You see those cats?"

They both looked and close by were eleven cats in line but what was strange is that there was an adult, a young cat, an adult, a young one, etc down the line. And in line too at the end was an old cat.

They were in a perfect line and 'sat at attention' in the way cats have. They all stared at the funeral from the top of a slight incline where they had a good view and none of them moved.

"It's spooky the way they just sit there, as if they were paying their respects too."

The other nodded and kept his eyes on the strange cats that ignored the humans.

Finally the ceremony was over and there was a short prayer lasting just thirty seconds. The pair opened their eyes and looked for the cats. They were gone.

"The cats are gone," one hissed.

"I see, but where?" the other hissed back. "We can see for a few hundred yards in all directions of where they were and there is no trace of them."

"It's as if they came here solely to see dad's funeral and left straight afterwards."

The other shrugged, not wanting others to know what they were talking about. Cats didn't just disappear.

THE END.

THE DARK LIGHT YEARS

It was considered pure luck that a stasis field was invented and a few years later, the 'Dark Drive' was invented.

The stasis field stopped time when it was working and though it could preserve materials or people maybe forever, it had no real use till the Dark Drive was invented. The Drive was a working faster than light spaceship engine.

The Dark Drive was tested in trips around the solar system. It got its name from the fact that when it was working, outside the spaceship was absolute black and it was like being in a solid black sphere, with no sensation of movement. Which had an upside to it. There was no acceleration or deceleration as the ship reached maximum speed immediately. Travelling at the Drive's normal speed of four times light speed, it meant from take-off to arrival, distant Pluto was less than two hours flight time away.

The lack of any view of the Universe of course meant that the course of a spaceship had to be planned beforehand but as the ship was 'outside the Universe' when travelling there should be no collisions with unseen asteroids and the like. A spaceship only had to arrive near the target, then another short hop or atomic drive would take it exactly where it wanted to be.

As spaceships now travelled around the solar system easier than the Apollo rockets had travelled to the Moon. Such travel become commonplace.

But now a trip to the stars was planned. The recently launched 'Carl Sagan' space telescope had detected two Earthlike planets with breathable atmospheres around a star some 12 light years from Earth. A mere three years by a Dark Drive ship and with the astronauts using stasis fields, all supplies could be kept to a minimum as they would only need air, food and water when leaving Earth and when arriving at their destination.

The ship (the Dark One) was built on Earth, with an atomic engine, with a Dark Drive engine and with ten stasis chambers, for five men and five women, who were all in comprehensive physical and mental training for the trip and for whatever they might find on the new worlds when they arrived there.

Faster than light communication was still impossible so when they left Earth till when they returned, they would be on their own so they would have to know every nut, bolt and chip on the Dark One in case anything went wrong.

The big day came and all the world watched the countdown and as the Dark One lifted off from its launch pad to space on its atomic drive. Then a short distance from Earth, it vanished as its Dark Drive was started. Up to this point, it was the same as many other spaceships, but this one would not be coming back within hours, days or weeks. This spaceship was going to 'the stars' and would not be back for several years. An incredible feat.

Unlike in science fiction films and TV series, it was quite cramped inside the ship but as the crew expected to only be up and about for a very short time, they did not mind. Every instrument was checked and double checked and found to be working as it should be.

"We are passing Pluto's orbit" said Captain Scott. He had rugged good looks and a sportsman's physique but that would not have got him a place on this ship. He also had a brilliant mind and did well in electronics as in a number of other fields.

Renlow specialised in electronics and computers and fussed over the ship's machinery like a mother hen. Cardew specialised in geology and though he had been trained in the running of the ship, his work would really start when they landed on the new world. The same with Stanbury who was a biologist and who was at the top of her field. Dr. Leeming looked after the ships's physical and mental health and the crew were not surprised to see her watching them for any signs of anything unusual. That was her job.

The other five had their specialties, and a man named Blackburn had an extra specialty that he told no one about. If there was trouble on this ship, anything unexpected, he was there to sort it out in any way he deemed necessary.

One by one, the crew started getting in their stasis chambers. The chamber timer turned them on a minute later and they became like mirrors, stopping all time inside them.

Scott turned to the navigator.

"Course set?"

"Yes Captain" said Templeton. "I have allowed for every factor I can and the navigation computer should compensate before we are woken up. We should arrive within about one light day of the target star, and we can do a number of 'Dark jumps' in from there to our target planets."

Scott was the last one to enter stasis. Though he was an expert at electronics, he had a slight unease. What if something went wrong and they never work up? Or they arrived in the middle of a star. Though he never showed it, he did worry about such things. Still, a captain was there to do just that.

Time passed in an infinity of darkness, and then the stasis chambers switched off and the crew revived, not knowing if they had been in stasis for a second or a million years.

Templeton checked his machines and noted that they had made a series of Dark jumps. They had not arrived as close as he thought they would to the target sun, but at least the computers had kept them in stasis till they reached their destination, so it did not matter.

He used the spacecraft's telescope and found the target planets. There were also three gas giants and two small rocky planets. One near the sun and one far out. He programmed in a Dark jump, warned everyone what was going to happen and the Universe vanished again. Then another one to bring them nearer.

After the second jump, the Universe appeared and their target star was now quite bright in the alien sky. The planets themselves were round lights showing a little detail using just the naked eye. Templeton turned the telescope to one of them and gasped.

"Captain!" he gasped excitedly.

Scott took note. Templeton was a placid man and not one to get easily excited. He wanted the Captain to look through the telescope. What had he discovered?

Scott did and found himself shaking.

"What do you make of it?" asked Templeton. He wanted confirmation.

"We are too far away to see details but it looks like there are some space craft near that planet, and they must be huge to be seen from this distance, even with our telescope."

"Take us a little closer" said Scott. "But not too close."

There was another period of darkness outside then they were back in normal space again. While the others waited, not knowing what to do, Scott took another look through the telescope. He looked at the other target planet.

"There are spaceships around both planets. Large ones, possibly miles across. They are not of any earthly design" he said, as Blackburn managed to get a look through the telescope.

"What do we do?" asked Dr. Leeming.

"I don't know" said Scott. "There is a possibility they are hostile. We have no weapons other than stun guns. There was talk of putting a nuclear bomb on board but it was deemed that it would be better for us all to die rather than maybe start a war with aliens."

Blackburn stood near a panel. It was a last resort gadget. With the input of a code, it would wipe clean their navigation computer so aliens would not know where they had come from, so could not trace the ship back to Earth.

They took turns watching the distant spaceships, some of which they guessed were probably space cities from their size.

Cardew suggested they go and introduce themselves as the aliens did not seem hostile but no one agreed with him. Some of the most bloodthirsty people in human history had been peaceable in quiet times. These unknown aliens could destroy them or even worse capture and torture them, and even dissect them.

Templeton suggested getting a bit nearer and not knowing what else to do, it was done, using the Dark Drive. They did not dare use their atomic drive as that might be seen or detected, even from such a great distance. From their new position, the telescope now showed detail on the large space craft.

As the others used the telescope, and the radar operator checked for anything nearby moving towards them, Templeton had put a new destination into the navigagtion computer and was ready to activate it at a moment's notice. He had suddenly become very nervous and feared the worst.

It happened. After some twenty minutes, the radar operator said that there was an object moving in their direction.

Templeton pressed the button and again the Universe was gone and it was dark outside. Four hours later, the Universe appeared again, and the radar operator searched nervously for anything unexpected in the area. The target star was now a tiny dot and there appeared to be no artificial objects nearby.

They sat down and debated and argued. Should they contact the aliens and hope they were peaceful or should they go back to earth and warn them of possibly hostile aliens? Blackburn listened to the many arguments and in a quite moment, spoke.

"I was originally for the knee jerk reaction of going back and warning Earth. But that changed. These beings are only 12 light years from Earth. We can do the journey in three years. They are more advanced than we are so I would guess that they have their own version of the Dark Drive and may be able to travel a lot faster than we can. I would guess that like we found two planets here are habitable by us, these aliens realised that Earth would be habitable to them long ago, possibly even centuries or millennia ago. If they have 'evil designs' on the Earth, they could have invaded us when we were in the Bronze Age maybe and walked all over us.

"There is a second point here. Even if they are benign aliens, we know from Earth's history that when people from Europe contacted the native Americans, Aborigines and other less advanced societies, they ruined them, They may not have contacted us for that reason."

There was more talking but Blackburn's argument swung it and somewhat reluctantly, they decided to make first contact with the aliens. A few Dark jumps and they came close to one of the inhabited planets and after some minutes, an alien spaceship detached itself from a larger ship and slowly headed in their direction. With some trepidation they waited. They had set their course and there was nothing they could do but play it out.

Their radio suddenly came to life.

"Attention Dark One. We are taking your ship on board. There is no need to fear us."

They all stared at each other as a ray from the other ship gently pulled their craft towards an opening in the larger alien ship.

Not only did the aliens speak English but they knew who they were. A million questions filled their minds as a voice on the radio told them that all would be explained soon.

Their ship was gently grounded in a large bay, the outer door of the large ship was closed and the bay was pumped full of air. A quick check showed it was breathable and the temperature in the bay was a moderate twenty two centigrade. Without bothering with spacesuits, they left their craft and saw a number of beings walking towards them. To all intents, these beings were one hundred percent human. Things just got stranger and stranger.

Neither they nor the others were armed. To their surprise, the beings now only shook hands with them but greeted them by name.

"You are Captain Scott" said a young man, facing Scott.

The others were similarly greeted.

"I know this all seems very strange to you but our ancestors come from Earth too. Come with us and we will explain."

Was this some ancient colony of Earth's, they wondered? Maybe from the time of Atlantis, as some had claimed.

They were taken to a large room and empty glasses were before them.

"Place the glass in the replicator and tell it what you want. Spirits, soft drinks, fruit juices, tea, coffee, water, anything."

They did so, and carefully tried their drinks. They were what they had ordered.

"What I am about to say will shock you all" said the obvious leader. "You think you left Earth three years ago, using your Dark Drive ship. In reality, nineteen thousand years have passed since you left Earth."

The crew had thought that nothing more could surprise them but this did.

"When the Dark Drive was invented, people used it to travel around the solar system and out into the Kuiper Belt without any problems. It was ideal for that sort of travel. So the powers that be decided to send a ship to the stars. Send you to here, in such a ship. But they made an elementary blunder. It had not occurred to anyone that the Dark drive and the stasis chambers have some similarities and that the stasis chamber could affect the Dark Drive.

"When your ship did not return within six, seven or eight years, the star ships that had been built to follow you out to the stars were not launched. They investigated. In one experiment they sent out two volunteers in stasis chambers on a one light day trip, intending to go up in time scales after that. The ship did not return and the use of a stasis chamber in a Dark Drive ship was banned.

"The one day trip craft returned some eight years later. The people inside were completely healthy but were shocked to find such a long time had passed. They had fortunately come back without using the stasis chamber so did the journey in just six hours.

"We knew then what had happened to the Dark One spaceship, but we had no way of contacting you. Even all these years later we know of no way of contacting a craft in 'Dark space', though we still use the Dark Drive for short journeys.

"While you were all in stasis for nineteen thousand years, we found a new alternative for the Dark Drive which is much faster. We colonised the planets of a number of nearby stars, like this one, not touching those with even advanced animal life on them. We have met a number of alien races and are what you would call 'friendly' with them."

"How about us?" asked Scott.

"We knew this day would come so have prepared a number of options from which you can choose. This environment you see here is one we thought you would be comfortable with but it is not real. The sad truth is that it would be harder for you to fit in with our 'modern day society' than for a caveman to fit into the society you had before you left Earth. We know of a planet some 530 light years away with almost human people and they live in a late twentieth century society. We could take away your memories of the advanced science in the era you came from and programme you with the language and customs of that planet so you could live the rest of your lives there."

"And if we decide to live here instead?" asked Scott.

"This is who we really are" said the being facing him.

His human image faded and was replaced by a large brain with large dark eyes on a humanoid body with two solid arms and two 'phantom arms'. It hovered a few feet above the ground.

"We left our humanity behind five thousand years ago" said the strange figure in front of him, now talking to his mind and not his ears. "It has many benefits that the human body does not have and we are essentially immortal. You could become as we are but sensing your repulsion, I think not."

Scott and the others nodded.

"Take us to that other planet" he told him.

The leader again looked like an Earth man.

"It is a short journey, just a few months Earth time. Come with me and we will arrange it."

THE END.

THE EVIL EMPIRE.
CHAPTER ONE.

Colin Storm liked to think of himself as an amateur astronomer, but had to admit that he did not spend much time outside in winter, or pull any all-nighters at his telescope. In that sense, he was more of an armchair astronomer.

But as luck, or otherwise would have it, he was at his telescope on that fateful night when the Moon lit up. One moment it was just a bright full moon. The next it was so bright, it would have outshone the sun had it been in the sky then,

There was a moment's hesitation then he was running as if his life depended on it, and he believed it did. His house was next to a mountain and he was running flat out for a cave just a hundred yards away. He hoped he made it because even three quarters of the way there, he could feel the unbearable heat, and he knew what he believed was true.

Feeling as if his clothes were afire, he made the cave entrance and as he passed a large red button, he hit it and not slowing down, he hit another button ten feet further on and a third button another ten feet further on. Behind him in three places, there was thunder as the roof of the cave collapsed as pre-arranged. He continued moving forwards to another red button ten yards further in and hesitated. He could feel the heat and it was not just through his exertions. He hit that button. Unlike the others it had a ten second delay. It too brought the cave ceiling down.

Emergency lighting was on now. It had started up when he hit the first button. He slowly made his way into a large cavern. These were his father's preparations for a nuclear war. Many had thought him crazy, and maybe he was, but he had been a good father.

Colin had followed in his father's footsteps after many talks from him and had regularly replaced rations and water and fuel for a small generator and so on. If worse came to worse, he should have enough to keep him here for months, he thought as he made his way to a periscope tube that his father had constructed which showed outside the cave and the countryside beyond.

He put the filters in place and looked and it was as bad as he feared. His house burned like a cardboard box in a furnace. What he could see of the surrounding countryside burned with ravening flames. Then he saw no more. The outer side of the periscope had been made to resist heat and radiation but even that had its limits and they had been surpassed.

He sat and considered. By comparison a nuclear war was mild. People would have survived it, even if later some were killed by radiation, but the impossible had happened. The sun had blown up. He knew it when he saw the moon become impossibly bright, since it shone by the sun's reflected light.

But he knew enough astronomy to know that the sun should have been stable for billions of years yet. And when it finally hit old age, it would probably expand to a red giant. But instead the sun had gone nova, or even super-nova. He searched through his knowledge of astronomy and could not think how that could have happened. In fact, the sun had been quiet lately with few sun spots on it, so how could it have blown up?

He could only come to one decision. Something had made it explode. The planets were all stable in their orbits as were the moons. There were no rogue bodies in the solar system that he had heard of. The only idea he could come up with was that someone or something had made the sun blow up. Someone had killed the Earth and getting on eight billion people on it. He had to be the last survivor and how long could he last?

The air in the cavern was now getting uncomfortably warm. A stream flowed though it and that water was bubbling. The uncomfortable heat continued for about a day then it started to cool down again. The worst of the explosion was over and the sun was shrinking again and would end up as a small dwarf star which would not be much use to the Earth.

A few days later, Storm noticed that the air was getting hard to breathe. He had a rack of oxygen cylinders and donned a mask and felt better after a few minutes breathing oxygen. But he only had a limited supply of oxygen. What was it like outside now?

The air continued to be very refined. Several years ago he had gone to Peru and Chile and had spent some time at 15,000 feet and higher and this was like that. But he had had no chance to acclimatise. Knowing that, he moved slowly and only when necessary. He breathed deep breaths to compensate for the low density of the air in the cave. And it gradually got colder. A thermometer showed the temperature heading down to zero centigrade and it continued getting colder. Minus ten, minus twenty and seemed to settle at minus thirty to minus thirty five. Was that the day and night norms now on a cold, dead Earth?

Well, he had plenty of clothing here and rather than using any heating from his scant supplies he wore many layers of clothing and shivered. And he ate most of his food cold, even having to eat some of it frozen. He tried his radio and try as he might, he got nothing more than static. The outside aerial had undoubtedly melted but the inside aerial seemed to make no difference. Anyway, he believed he was the last person on Earth so it was just a way of passing time, trying to contact people who were almost certainly all dead.

Two months passed and he decided it was time. His days were numbered anyway on Earth but he had to know what was outside. Working very slowly as hard work had him gasping for breath, he started clearing the rocks from the entrance to the cave. That took over a week. When the last rock was gone, the inside of the cave was little different in temperature or air quality from outside. He looked up into the sky and a tiny red dot was probably all that remained of the sun.

It looked like the Earth had gotten off fairly light, all things considered. It had not been burned to a crisp and it still seemed to have some heat though that may have been partly volcanic he decided as he saw what looked like a volcanic eruption not many miles away. Another appeared to be some miles to the side of that. This in what had been southern England. The air was very thin but as long as he moved very slowly, he could manage without using his oxygen cylinder and mask. He seemed to have become acclimatised to it to some degree over the last two months.

Of the Earth itself, it had been burned. Every bit of greenery was gone without trace. Rivers were gone leaving just dried river beds. Even mountains had suffered from the heat, he thought looking at his own mountain's condition in the torch light. Fortunately it had not fused the rock so maybe trapping him inside, but then again, the nova or whatever it was had happened on the dayside of the planet and he had been on the other side, the night side and away from the worst.

Of his house, there was of course no trace where it had been. He knew where neighbours had lived and their houses had gone without trace too. Nothing other than hard rock had survived the solar inferno. He was on a dead world, and he, the last man on Earth would soon be dead too.

Some months later he was outside his cave and heading slowly towards a volcano nearby. It was hard going, walking there, but he just wanted to feel some heat again. The moon was high in the sky, providing light so he would not have to waste his torch batteries. Its face had changed considerably, having melted when the sun went nova. He was staring at it, lost in thought when he noticed movement in the sky.

He stopped suddenly as his leaden thoughts tried to work out what he saw. It could not be a plane because there were none left, as there were no people left other than himself. There was no other life left either so it was artificial and not of human manufacture. It had to be a UFO he decided. He had a small hand telescope that he had brought with him that fitted in his pocket and looked up at it. It seemed to be a spacecraft from what little he could make of it.

Remembering the torch in his pocket, he quickly snatched it out and shone it up at the unknown craft. He moved the torch back and forth so the beam of light would be seen to be of artificial origin. If they were aliens, he did not care what they looked like. If they were ten foot high lizards, he would be happy if they rescued him from certain death later this year when his supplies ran out.

The craft slowly altered course and hovered near him as he frantically signalled with his torch beam, thankful that he had put in it a new set of batteries recently. The craft slowly descended and landed on a flat area near him. Beings about his own height emerged, and they carried some kind of guns with them. He could not blame them. He must look like a crazy man after months in that cavern and he certainly acted like one. He calmed down, and pointed the torch at the ground.

The aliens came towards him. There were minor differences he noted but in a bad light they could pass for humans. They made gestures that he should speak and held up devices in front of them.

"I am the last man on Earth. Our sun was destroyed by a nova" he said and spoke lots more. After a few minutes, one held up his hand and he stopped speaking.

"You are of this planet" came a near human voice from what had to be translators that one was holding.

"Yes!" said Storm. "I am the last man here."

One alien pointed up at the tiny red sun.

"Your sun exploded. It should have had billions of ******* (the word did not translate but undoubtedly meant units of time, like years) left in it. We believe that the ***** were responsible. It would not be the first time they have murdered an entire world."

The word had sounded like 'gork'. These gork had murdered his world, killed everyone on Earth. Storm felt an anger growing inside him but could do nothing. Maybe one day.

"Can you rescue me" asked Storm. "The planet is dead and I soon will be if I stay here."

There was a conference among the aliens, which was not translated and there were nods of heads. He hoped that meant yes. It did. He had nothing in the cave worth saving, his mementos had been in the house that burned to ash when the sun blew up. He followed them inside their ship and it went into orbit and went inside a larger ship. There was some talk to the crew of the main ship, more nods and Storm was presented with a translator, which he hung around his neck. He seemed to be one of the crew now. He sat down in a chair while the aliens explored the burned planet, which was depressingly the same the world over. He was asked questions about Earth and answered them as best he could.

He was given something to eat, which had a strange taste but seemed to be OK and at least it was fairly hot, and a liquid to drink which was not water but nearly so. He felt a lot better afterwards with a full stomach.

He divested himself of most of his extra clothes as it was fairly warm in the spacecraft, and they gave him a suit to wear, of the kind they were wearing. He was led to a cubicle which provided a hot and comfortable shower and the dirt of months was washed off of him with little effort of his own. He put on the new clothes. One of the aliens looked at him, and asked him to sit down.

"I make you look better" he was told, and found himself getting a haircut and shave. Not in the old fashioned way but with a device which did it all within a minute or less. He looked at himself in a mirror and felt 'human' again, for the first time in months. He thanked the man, as he now thought of him. They were not aliens. They were friends.

The large spacecraft left Earth for another destination and while others busied themselves with various tasks, Storm had a helmet put on his head and quickly learned the universal language that was used by most races in the galaxy. And then the workings of the spacecraft they were in, so he could become a member of the crew. After that session was over, he was taken to a sleeping area, and assigned a bunk and told to sleep there. He had a bit of a headache so laid down and was asleep within a minute.

He dreamed that he was back in the cold, dark cave and struggling to breathe only to wake up in the comfort of the spaceship, warm and safe with the distant throb of mighty engines. He went back to sleep and slept better this time, with dreams he could not remember.

He later got up and reported to the mess hall for something to eat. His teaching meant he knew where everything was now. He was given hot food and drink and there were two others at his table. They asked him about his planet and he told them, aware that he was speaking an alien language. They left and he finished his meal.

He reported to an officer and was detailed work. It was on the reactor that controlled the Delta Drive unit which enabled the spacecraft to travel between the stars. He worked with another man and it was probably one of the hardest jobs on the ship as the gauges needed continuous checking and sometimes calibration but Storm had never been shy where hard work was and he did his job as if he had been doing it for years. The other worker, named Tale, was pleased with him, and they become friends. In break time, Tale brought him up to speed on the gossip on the ship; who wanted promotion, who was lazy, who was having an affair with who, and so on.

Storm had seen the females on the ship but had had no contact with them. There were some in the mess hall at their next meal break and Tale went and sat with two of them, and Storm followed.

"So you are the Earth man" one of the women called Krist said.

"The last of my kind"

"The gork killed his planet" added Tale. "They made the Earth's sun go nova".

"And you survived" said Alee, the other woman sitting with them.

"It wasn't easy" said Storm.

There was some small talk and before they left, Krist asked him if he wanted 'to do it' on the next rest break.

He looked unsure at her, wondering if she meant what he thought she meant.

Tale said he'd explain to Storm. When the women had gone, it turned out to be what Storm had thought it was. He gave Storm a tablet and told him to take one of these every fifty days. The word came out as days but it was basically duty periods on ship. All crew took the pills so as to insure no unwanted pregnancies onboard. Sexual diseases seemed to be unknown and Storm knew he was 'clean'.

After their next work break, Krist was waiting for him, and Tale gave him a shove in her direction. She led him to one of a number of small private rooms that were used for sex and hesitantly, he did it. It was pretty much the same for this race as it was for Earth people and though Storm had not had many partners, he seemed to know enough to please Krist who suggested it again in two breaks time.

After a shower, he went back to work with Tale who asked him how it had gone. He told Tale that he thought it had gone well and that she wanted to see him again in two work breaks. Tale laughed and said the rule on the ship was a break between having sex as a woman like Krist could soon wear a man out. He smiled as he got on with his work.

Day followed day and Storm made more friends on the ship, both male and female and eventually the ship came into orbit around another planet. This one was full of life. It was their equivalent of a shore break. They were all issued with bracelets (which could be used to buy things, within the limits of the currency put on them) and let loose on the town, which was near the spaceport. Storm had known some sailors on Earth as there had been a base near where he lived, and this was pretty much the same.

He, Tale and some others went in bars, bought souvenirs, checked out brothels, saw a few shows and some of the local sights. It was both interesting and strange and in numerous ways like Earth, except there were many aliens there. Some like humans and some not. While they were in a market, a large and ugly alien shoved past Storm. Storm was all for going after the alien but Tale and another man in his party grabbed an arm each and shook their heads.

"Gork" said Tale and that was all that was needed. In a quiet period on the ship, Storm had donned a helmet and had a potted history of the galaxy and he had learned about the gork but this was the first time he had seen one. They were strong, arrogant and dangerous and it was death to mess with them. Storm nodded and while the others were looking at some tourist tat on another stool, he went to a different stall and bought two wicked looking knives, which he concealed about his person. He wanted to meet some more gork but now was not the time.
CHAPTER TWO.

They all went back to the ship, the bracelets were returned and back to their jobs. Take off would be commencing shortly. While they waited, a body was bought on board. It was Jann, one of the men he had become friends with. Storm followed the stretcher bearers as they carried the body down to the doctor's office. In an operating theatre, he saw the doctor work on the body. The doctor, seeing him said he had been killed by one of the gork. Jann had been severely beaten first and there were wounds to his body.

While the doctor left the room to answer a call, Storm took a closer look at the body and noticed a tiny sliver of metal sticking out of the corpse's arm. He pulled and it came loose. He recognised it as an identity tag. All the other crew members had them but not him. He decided to hang onto it. There was an alarm showing that the ship would be leaving the planet shortly. Storm pocketed the small piece of metal and headed to his work station, at the reactor.

They were off planet again. On his first break, Storm had a helmet on and wanted to know everything about the gork. He learned that a spacecraft had crashed on their backwards planet, that they had forced the crew of 140 to give them knowledge of spacecraft, killing some as they did so. And so they had become a space faring race. They had worked their way up the food chain with a brutality and savagery unseen for many millennia and ruthlessly murdered not just those against them but anyone they thought were against them.

They built up an empire and spread over a good number of planets. As well as arrogant, the race were paranoid and trusted no one. They gained loyalty by implanting a device in the arms of conquered races which on command would paralyze anyone so making them easy to punish or kill. Here Storm looked at the device he had taken from the dead body. This had to be it, he thought, examining it. So his new friends were one of the conquered races. That made sense since the gork did not attack them.

A week later their ship was ordered to stop, being the nearest in the area, and to rendezvous with a gork ship. When they did so, the gork demanded a member of their crew. They needed one for a job on their ship as the previous being in that job had suddenly died. All could guess how.

The captain asked for a volunteer and Storm saw his chance. He volunteered. The captain was glad that he had not had to pick a member of his crew and send him to probable slavery and death, but he felt sorry for Storm all the same and told him to do whatever the gork said, without question. Storm nodded. He had the gork device taped to his arm, up near the armpit, with some flesh coloured tape. And he had the two knives hidden away. He relied on the gorks legendary arrogance and surety of immobilising the enemy so that he would not be searched.

He was transferred to the gork ship and told what to do. It was menial work and long hours with a thin gruel to eat. He got slaps and kicks while he did it and cruel laughter but with a goal in sight, he did as he was told. He listened to the endless propaganda broadcasts, reminding him of the hated traitor, Lord Haw Haw in world war two on Earth. That trip lasted nearly a month of ship time and then he got his wish. The gork ship was heading towards their home planet.

On arrival, they all disembarked while alien slaves refurbished and refuelled the ship for the next time it left for space. Storm found himself the captain's slave and did as he was told with great care so as to attract no more than casual beatings. He maintained a blank stare on his face, to hide the volcano inside him.

Storm had spent considerable time learning about the gork, every detail he could, even learning their particular language, talking it and reading it, and now he had a plan. There was a central reactor on their home planet. It was the size of a city and powered the whole planet, and it was underground. Storm had known they would not be long on the planet so as soon as possible, had deserted. He could have easily killed the gork officer while he slept but did not want to attract attention.

The gork's arrogance was also their weakness. Storm had seen various alien slaves walking hurriedly about, carrying things, and he did the same, and the gork ignored him as they considered him nothing. A common gork name was 'Leto' and he was prepared to say he was carrying the goods to Leto who would punish him if he did not deliver it fast enough. And twice when he was stopped, it worked. The gork were so self-confident, that they were fools.

He found the lift to the underground power plant and with gork beings and various aliens he headed down to the correct level. The power plant, as said was the size of a city and he struggled to find the control room. And then there was some more luck. A gork of high rank decided he needed a helper and commandeered Storm, who meekly went with him. He was given a job to do which was complicated but easily mastered and he did it well. That was all that was required of him so he was left alone.

He spent what little spare time he had, exploring the huge area and eventually found the control room. It was as alien as he expected it to be, but there are basic concepts and with some study and time spent in the reactor room of the ship that had taken him off of the dead Earth, he learned what did what. He bided his time. He knew that he would only get one chance.

Spending a lot of time near the control room, as planned he was again commandeered to work inside it. His aptitude for such work quickly became apparent so he was left alone, and he studied the panels further to finalise his plan. And when he was almost ready, disaster struck.

Someone high in the ranks of the gork was given a tour of the control room and he spotted Storm.

"What planet do you come from, slave?" he asked.

"Soneq" answered Storm, hoping that that would do.He had heard it was in the outer reaches of the gork empire.

"I have a slave from Soneq" said the gork. "It is close to its parent star and all the natives there are very dark brown to black and yet you are almost white. Arrest him."

It caught Storm suddenly and before he could do anything, three large gork soldiers piled onto him and held him helpless.

The gork leader stared down at him for some moments.

"Take him to interrogation and find out the truth about him. Then kill him."

Then with the arrogance of his kind, he turned his back on Storm and strode away.

Storm knew he had no chance so did not resist. It would have been futile. He was dragged down endless corridors to a room some distance away and put in the hands of a particularly nasty looking gork.

"Find out everything you can about him, then kill him" he was told.

He nodded, and then come over to Storm who had been chained to a chair. He examined him closely.

"You are similar to five different species I can think of but not from any of them. Where are you from?"

Storm stared back at him and said nothing.

He was then put in a transparent cage and blasted with hypersonic noise.

"I will see you later. I have other people to torture at the moment."

He left. Storm felt like he was going out of his mind with the high intensity sound blasting at his ear drums. As the gork and his servant left, Storm uncovered one of the knives he carried. The speakers were not high up and it was simple for Storm to find a weak spot in the tough speakers and wreck them. He could not get out of this cage so he settled down and went to sleep. He had an idea that he would not get much in the coming hours.

Later he was woken by a screech of anger from his torturer. He checked the dials on a small panel and obviously his sonic torture was not working. He sent his servant in to get Storm out and Storm casually stuck a knife in where he hoped his heart was.

His torturer shouted "Stop!" in the gork language, and Storm felt a buzzing in the device taped under his arm, but thankfully no more. He was not immobilised as anyone fitted with those devices would have been. The gork gaped at him as he continued advancing. He would have shouted for him to stop again, but he died before he could manage it.

Storm searched him and found the key to his chains and took them off. He promptly picked up some files, walked out of the room and headed back to the control room. He passed some gork on the way. They ignored him as he was just another slave doing his job. He slipped into the control room and as his erstwhile boss there was about to turn and face him, Storm killed him. He had to do it as he would have recognised Storm. Storm hid his body and found another gork. He died. And so did another in that large room. The bodies were hidden as best he could.

Now for the controls. He upped the power, and upped it again and again. Indicators went into the red. He upped it again and they went further into the red. Storm was thankful that there were universal things he could rely on. While warning lights flashed, Storm walked over and pried up the top of a panel with a knife and started wrecking the fail-safes inside. And then another lot. And another before the first lot of technicians reached the control room entrance. He had blocked it as best as he could but it would not hold for long. Some gork had pulled out nasty looking weapons but were warned not to use them 'here'.

Storm pushed some levers to their maximum while the horrified technicians watched. Then he went to the door as they started breaking through and with two knives, like a maniac, he started stabbing any flesh within reach with a fixed grin on his face.

More people turned up outside as sirens screeched their warnings and flashing lights warned of deadly danger. Desperately people tried to get inside and Storm fought like a madman to stop them with his razor sharp knives. At the back of his mind, he thought that the knives were as good as the seller in the market had said they were, that they'd cut through virtually anything and that the blades would remain sharp. Bodies now blocked the entrance to the control room and were dragged aside and Storm added more bodies to the growing pile.

It could not have gone on for much longer but it did not need to. There were some huge upheavals and parts of the ceiling of the massive cave started falling in. Fires started in many places and thick smoke belched out seemingly everywhere. Technicians who had tried to breach the control room walls elsewhere gave up and ran for their lives as did others. The air became hot and choking so Storm donned a breathing apparatus set and thick overalls that he would guess the local firemen would wear and hiding his two knives, he rushed away from the control room, which was now burning and looked to be beyond repair.

The gork, for all their stolen technology were still ignorant savages he thought as he joined the others racing for safety. He expected to die today, but he had avenged Earth. They had destroyed his planet so he had destroyed their planet. As he reached surface level, he saw evidence of this. It was like Armageddon as tall buildings burned, earthquakes caused huge buildings to fall and vehicles fell into the holes the quakes made, as spaceships fell from the sky and as terrified gorks died by their thousands.

Storm headed for the spaceport not quite knowing what to expect. He had gotten rid of the overalls and breathing apparatus which had saved him from the infernos below ground. He joined thousands of other aliens and gorks, trying to escape the destruction of the planet. Stuck in the midst of a crowd, he was pushed into a large passenger ship which took off shortly afterwards. The ship roared out of the atmosphere as gorks and aliens crowded to the windows and watched the destruction of the planet below.

A week later they were dumped on another planet and Storm got a berth on an old freighter. They always needed competent people who could handle a Delta Drive unit. A month later he jumped ship on a planet with a fair sized gork colony. Members of the gork race started dying in suspicious circumstances there. Buildings were burned down or blown up. And when it got too hot, Storm moved to another planet, and it was the same there. And then he arrived at another planet, but one he wanted to visit this time.

A large, fat gork was reading into a microphone from a prepared script. It was the gork propaganda ministry that Storm had heard so much about on gork colonies and a gork ship. He was in mid broadcast when he made a funny sound. Another voice took over, speaking in the gork language.

"That sound you just heard was Jenta getting his throat cut so he will not be making any more broadcasts for the gork or anyone else. The days of the gork are numbered. Wherever you hide, I will find you and I will kill you."

And there was more. The gork broke into the room several minutes later and all they found was a small recorder playing a message. The bomb that killed them all went off a minute later, timed to go off one minute after the door opened.

The fight went on for years more and Storm was killed one day. He had gone into a trap guessing it was yet another trap meant to get him but to make it look good they had several leading gorks supposedly at a meeting there. The gorks had cornered him but still they understood little of guerilla warfare and had not known of the twenty five pound pack on his back which had contained one of the most violent explosives in the galaxy, or his willingness to kill himself rather than being taken alive.

When the smoke cleared there was a large crater and the leading gorks and over a hundred of their soldiers were dead or dying. It had been a severe blow to them and they lost morale over it and never really recovered as attacks on their people were taking place all over the gork empire. Also they had no body to show for it, so the legend of the gork killer continued.

Finally the gorks were beaten and the last of them exterminated and on a distant planet several hundred light years from a burned planet orbiting a dull red dwarf star, a monument was erected to the unknown soldier who had saved the galaxy from the gorks.

THE END.

THE GOLFER AND THE LEPRECHAUN.

It did not help that it was a particularly hot day as Timothy O'Donnell hit the ball into the rough. He liked golf but had never been a good player, and today he was hopeless. He was visiting his family in southern Ireland and had fancied a game of golf. Being a hot day, he had first popped into the 'Nineteeth Hole' bar for a soft drink first and another golfer, also on his own had suggested they play against each other.

O'Donnell had reluctantly agreed as the other man had been quite forceful and he now regretted it. It was not losing the ten pounds bet. He was not short of money. It was that his fellow golfer, one Pat Brannigan was anything but a good sportsman. He knew the man cheated when writing his score down, not that he needed to because as said O'Donnell was playing a bad game.

It was his constant depreciation of O'Donnell's game and pointing out every wrong move he made, the way he held his golf club for the swing and so on while saying what a good golfer he was. Brannigan even had the cheek to laugh when his ball went into bushes.

O'Donnell went into the rough where a few trees at least gave him some relief from today's record sunshine as he searched for his ball. He found it and jumped as there was a groan from nearby. He first thought he had hit an animal but that groan sounded human. It was small whatever it was. Surely not a little child allowed onto the greens?

It was a man but he looked to be stocky and maybe just two feet tall. A dwarf, by the looks of him. He got hold of the man's arm to see how he was and help him up.

"Ohhhh" the dwarf said. "You've caught me fair and square."

"What?" asked O'Donnell.

"You've caught me, human" said the small man.

"What?" asked O'Donnell again, shocked and not quite knowing what to say.

"I'm a leprechaun and if a human catches me, I must pay him."

O'Donnell looked around for the hidden cameras. His father in Ireland had teased him with leprechauns and beasties when he was a kid but he knew his father did not believe in them either. Yet here was a little man claiming to be a leprechaun.

O'Donnell looked askance at him, still holding onto his arm. His golf ball had hit the dwarf on the head and dazed him for some seconds, it seemed.

"I don't have any pot of gold" said the self-confessed Leprechaun, "but if you wish for something small, if it is within my ability to grant the wish, I will do so."

O'Donnell decided to play along.

"I wish I was a great golfer who could beat anyone" he said. He would love to beat Brannigan more than anything else at the moment.

"Granted!" said the little man, and O'Donnell found his hand open of its own accord and the little man ran off at a speed he could never match.

With his mouth open, O'Donnell heard Brannigan urge him to hurry up and play his ball. If O'Donnell was going to lose, he could at least do it quickly.

Having a rough idea in which direction the hole lay, O'Donnell took a hard swipe at the ball hoping to at least clear the bushes.

"Good shot, old man!" said someone whose voice he did not recognise.

O'Donnell came out of the bushes and saw the club coach standing nearby.

"A brilliant shot. I would not have thought anyone could have scored a hole from the rough here. It's a good one hundred yards away too."

O'Donnell looked at the smiling coach, at the hole, and at Brannigan who was standing nearby with his mouth wide open.

He strode over to the hole and retrieved his ball. He had his balls marked so knew it was his. He looked back at the 'rough'. How the hell had he made that shot? He looked again at Brannigan who had remembered to shut his mouth, and he marked his card.

"Lucky shot" said Brannigan.

He said nothing. He had to agree.

Next hole, Brannigan made a good drive. Being an asshole aside, Brannigan was a good golfer. O'Donnell pointed himself in the right direction, with Brannigan still being somewhat dazed and so not making some cutting remark against him. He swung his club and the ball went up and up and landed on the green and rolled into the hole. A hole in one. His first ever.

Brannigan was not the only one with his mouth open this time.

O'Donnell considered. How had he done that? Even on his best day he could not make a shot like that. And until he had met the little man, this had been his worst day. The little man? Was he a real leprechaun who had granted his wish? No. He did not believe in magic. This was the twenty first century. Who believed in magic these days? And yet, he had just made two shots that even a top golfer would have been proud of.

Brannigan was muttering to himself as he walked to his ball and took a mighty swing at it, when all it had needed was a moderate swing. O'Donnell would not have been surprised to see him get it in two as he had made some good shots today but his game now seemed to be off. Way off. Brannigan cursed as the ball went some distance the other side of the hole.

As O'Donnell picked his ball out of the hole, he watched Brannigan. Not only was the man a poor sportsman, but he seemed to be a poor loser too. On a hole he could have made in two, it took him five drives to get a hole.

"Five" said O'Donnell loudly. "Hard luck old man."

Brannigan crossed out the four he had written on his scorecard and made it a five. Though he was a cheat, he did not want to be found out.

O'Donnell scored a few more holes in one and as his tally dropped below that of Brannigan's, O'Donnell found himself getting twos and threes. Not that he was bothered. He was playing, for him, a brilliant game and he knew he was winning. If it was magic, and surely it must be, what need did he have to score holes in one when he had his opponent beat?

They compared scorecards after the eighteenth hole and Brannigan had seven more strokes than he, so O'Donnell had won. He considered having his scorecard framed as he had never, ever scored anything this low on a golf round before.

"How about a drink, old man" said O'Donnell, carefully keeping any hint of triumph out of his voice

Brannigan looked so angry he was about to shout abuse at O'Donnell but then the golf coach strolled along to congratulate him so Brannigan shut his mouth and managed a sour smile. The three went into the bar and having scored a hole in one, O'Donnell bought a round of drinks for everyone.

When it came to paying, he got out some money of his own and held his hand out to Brannigan, and said: "The ten pounds we had bet on the round."

Brannigan looked at the coach standing behind O'Donnell and paid up. This was his local golf course and he knew better than to upset the coach.

"Are you a professional?" asked the coach when Brannigan had gone out to his car.

"No. Not me. I normally play a poor game of golf but today, I could not put a foot wrong. My best day ever."

"Modest too. I hope you'll come back to the course if you are still in the area."

O'Donnell nodded.

Later he went out to his car and nearby where he guessed Brannigan's car had been parked, there were some severely damaged golf clubs on the ground.

Definitely a poor loser.

As he had another day to his holiday, he came back and played next day on his own, and he played a stinker. Luckily the coach was not about to see him play today, he thought.

He now thought that game against Brannigan had been a fluke but when back in America, he had played two work colleagues at a nearby course and had beat them both without much effort. Not by a huge amount but sufficient to beat them. Having an idea, he had an afternoon off a few days later and played on his own, and played his usual mediocre game.

Now he was sure of it. He could beat any player when he played other players but on his own, when there was no one to win against, he was his usual hopeless self. That had been the wish granted him. That he could beat anyone.

He idly considered that he could take up the game professionally and make millions but somewhere deep down, and he could not say why, he knew his talent would desert him if he did so, if he played for big money.

He played some other games against workmates and friends but it soon became obvious to them that he was a far superior player and the fact that he won by several strokes each time convinced some of them that he was playing with them. That he could easily beat them if he wished.

So, they conspired to get their own back on him. A C.E.O. from another branch was coming to visit and the man fancied himself a champion golfer. What better than to have O'Donnell thrash him and then pay for it?

The C.E.O., one William Spencer arrived. He was a self-important sort of person who had got a high position in the company and had made his way to the top through family connections some said though others said he had worked his way up the ladder. He had meetings, interviewed people, made a nuisance of himself to the general staff and dined out whenever he could, which was every night.

O'Donnell like others kept his distance from him, knowing the man could get him sacked for the slightest reason if he wanted to.

And then one of O'Donnell's so called friends suggested that he have a game of golf since he was within easy reach of one of the best courses in America. Spencer liked the idea. His own boss, a Mr. Brown was roped in. He was a competent player but knew enough to lose if he played Spencer. It was said that Spencer did not like losing, at business, in love, or in sports.

They wanted a third and with a number of people putting his name forwards, before he knew what happened, O'Donnell was down to play his boss and the C.E.O. in a game that common sense told him he should lose.

Except that he could not lose. He would win. Even if he held the clubs upside down, he was sure he would win. He tried to convince his boss that he was a hopeless player but with others saying he was the best player they had seen, he had no chance. O'Donnell knew that he had been stitched up and planned some kind of revenge against his so called work mates, if he still had a job after the match.

O'Donnell went out and bought himself a $100 jacket for the match as his normal idea of sportswear would not do. The night before the match, he made a fool of himself in his apartment, trying to call up the leprechaun to release him from his wish. Nothing happened, of course.

And the big day came. O'Donnell wiped the sweat from his brow, which had nothing to do with the fact that it was another hot day. He felt like a man going to his own execution. He would surely be out of work tomorrow.

The game started and O'Donnell was level with Spencer but started edging ahead. Catching him alone for a moment, his boss hissed to him that he was a fool and to start losing. O'Donnell would have loved to but he could not lose if his life depended on it. It was not his life he was worried about losing. It was his job.

O'Donnell did not score any holes in one but he did not need to. Spencer played a great game and against even a number of professional players, he might have won, but O'Donnell knew he had no chance against him.

"You're doing well, boy" said a voice from nearby.

O'Donnell jumped. There had been no one there a minute ago. He swung around and saw the leprechaun. He felt instant relief.

"You've got to help me" he pleaded. If I win this game, I'll lose my job."

"Nonsense. Spencer is a son of good old Ireland. Play the game and win."

Then the leprechaun was gone and O'Donnell was on his own again as his boss and Spencer walked towards him.

O'Donnell won by three strokes. He had known he would win but at least it was only three strokes and not a dozen. His boss looked at him over Spencer's shoulder as if saying goodbye to him already. They went for a drink afterwards, and there was some small talk, then a limousine back to the office block. It was late in the day now and O'Donnell said goodbye to them and left. No doubt, tomorrow he would have to come back and clear his desk.

He did not sleep much that night. He would probably be looking in the 'Situations Vacant' columns tomorrow.

Next morning he turned up at work as usual, fearing the worst. On arrival, the Head Secretary called him and told him to follow her. They were heading to the Boss's office and he could guess what was going to come next.

She opened the door for him, he walked in and she silently closed the door behind him. O'Donnell was surprised to see Spencer sitting in his Boss's chair. He had thought he'd gone back to Head office this morning.

"Have a drink" said Spencer, smiling, and passing over a glass and some fine old brandy.

O'Donnell poured himself a small amount, and took a sip. He felt like downing a full glass in one but now was not the time for such things.

"You won at golf yesterday."

O'Donnell nodded.

"You played your best game?"

"Yessir!"

"Good" said Spencer, nodding.

"You beat me but not by much so maybe next time I'll win."

O'Donnell didn't know what to say.

"You see, Timothy... You don't mind if I call you Timothy?"

"No problem, sir."

"While we are alone here, call me Bill."

O'Donnell could not have been more surprised had Bill sprouted wings and flew out of the window.

"You see, I like a good game of golf but I get it so rarely. Everyone has this view that I am a bad loser so they let me win. Take Brown, your boss. He deliberately fluffed some strokes so I could beat him, and that I do not like. I know he could have done better. But you played an honest game and beat me, and that I can respect. As I said I hope to beat you next time we play, but I expect you to do your best then too. There is no reward in winning a fixed game."

"Now the reason you are here. We are looking for get up and go people in this business and we feel that this office could do better. I am moving Brown to another office more suitable to his talents, or rather lack of them. I took your folder back to the hotel with me last night and read it. I think you have what the company needs to make this branch perform better so as of now, you have taken Brown's place and are the manager here."

O'Donnell thought nothing more could surprise him but he had been wrong. Not only was he not sacked but he was now the boss here. Spencer used the intercom to get the secretary to call an office meeting. Out in the main area and with all the workers there, Spencer introduced them to their new boss. There were some shocked people there, especially those who had set up O'Donnell. They looked a bit sick, fearing what he might do to them.

Spencer left O'Donnell to it. It took O'Donnell a dozen seconds to gather his mental wits then he addressed the people, his people.

"Mr. Brown has been moved to another office because this branch has not been pulling its weight. I intend to change that. I know all the slackers and all the dodges and as of now, that stops. Work well and you have a job here for as long as you want it. Shuffle papers, make personal calls, check social media in working hours, spend time at the water cooler, watch the clock and such behaviour and I hope your replacements will take more interest in the job than you do. I do not hold grudges (he said looking at a small group of nervous men) but I expect a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. Dismissed."

Watching them from a hidden corner, Spencer nodded his head to himself and thought: 'He'll do.'

Back in his new office O'Donnell started moving papers about to prioritise them when a voice nearby said "Hello!"

It was the leprechaun.

O'Donnell reached over and shook hands with him.

"It all turned out well" said the little man.

O'Donnell nodded.

"Just one thing...."

"I know" said the little man. "I have altered your wish. You are not the best golfer ever. Just a great one who can give Spencer a hard time in the future, though he will win sometimes."

"Thanks" said O'Donnell. "Is there anything I can do for you in return?"

There was a moment's hesitation.

"I thought I had judged you right, and there is. Buy this piece of land, and leave it as it is."

He handed O'Donnell a deed for a piece of woodland. An attached map showed it covered a fair area and was only $25,000. O'Donnell had about $33,000 saved in his bank account. He looked at the leprechaun who looked back. He asked no questions as he owed the little man a favour and picked up the telephone and within fifteen minutes he had bought the piece of land with money transferred from his bank account.

"It is done" he said, handing the deed to the little man.

"Thank you, Timothy. Some of my American cousins live there and that will stop the human world intruding on them. Call on them if you ever need help."

They shook hands and the leprechaun faded away, leaving in his unique way.

THE END.

THE OLD HOUSE.

I had had enough of living in a big city. The cars, the noise, bad neighbours, the rush hours which lasted most of the day and the bad air. So I had sold up, paid off my mortgage and had enough to buy an old house out on the Fens. I could do my shopping by car once a week and that was good enough for me.

Having settled in my first morning here, it was dead quiet apart from some bird song. It sounded almost strange. When I accidentally banged my bedroom door at 8am, I winced as my neighbour did night work, and complained expecting me to be quiet in the day. Then I laughed and deliberately slammed my bedroom door again. That intolerant idiot was over 80 miles away and there was no one near enough to hear me when I made a noise.

I was an author and had a few published books and I hoped more on the way. I lived a fairly frugal lifestyle, which was just as well since writing books was not a great way to become rich. I also did a bit of online work for a financial company I used to work for. They needed a part time worker one or two days a week and they paid me fairly well, so the situation suited us both.

I visited my nearest town, Dunwell to do a bit of shopping. They had an old fashioned butchers and bakers and a grocery store for fruit and veg as well as some other shops and I was pleasantly pleased with the personal service I got there and was quickly on first name terms with the people there, as well as some neighbours, if you can call people who lived a quarter of a mile (my nearest) to over a mile away.

Having left a shop, one of my neighbours, a Mrs. Smith, stopped me for a chat.

"Are you the one who bought the old Clarke place?"

"That was the name of the man who owned it before me. I heard he died suddenly."

She nodded in a knowing way.

"You get it cheap?"

I admitted I did.

"That is because it is haunted" she said, with an air of certainty.

What can you say to that? Old houses often have claims of being haunted, but they are usually castles and mansions. Not a four bedroom house with a garden.

"What should I look out for?" I asked.

"You'll know when you see it" she warned vaguely. And left.

I dismissed her as I drove back home. Old houses in the area were forever settling because the Fens were not solid ground. Winds blew and the air made noises in an old house and rattled glass panes. There might be mice in the basement and birds in the roof space (I had heard them already as they hopped about.)

I did some more work on my latest book. With so many books being published nowadays, no author could allow the grass to grow under their feet. And then reread what I had written and made some alterations, spelling corrections, etc. It would get a few rewrites before final publication. But that was not hard on a computer. Not like in the old days where authors had to rewrite books by hand, some as many as a dozen times I had heard.

I had an evening meal, watched a bit of TV and then bed. Life here would take some getting used to. From living in a noisy town with the occasional noisy neighbours and midnight drinkers going home, here I could hear my heart beat.

I looked at my glowing electronic clock. It was twenty four minutes past two in the morning. Something had woken me up. If not for Mrs. Smith's ghost story, I would have turned over and gone back to sleep without a thought.

And there was always the possibility of a burglar, even in a quiet area like this. Knowing I would not be able to sleep without checking, I put on my trousers over my pyjama bottoms and slid on a pair of shoes. I picked up an eight inch long Phillips screwdriver I had used for tightening up the loose screws on an old chair in my bedroom and grabbed my torch. I intended to be prepared for whatever came.

Torch on, I quietly stepped outside of my bedroom and shone the torch around. I looked in the other rooms on the first floor and could see nothing. Then I heard a creak downstairs. Now a bit nervous, I started down the stairs, screwdriver held out in front of me, ready to stab anything solid that should not be in the house. I searched room by room and found nothing.

That left the cellar. As I came to the door, I heard an indefinable noise in the cellar. I turned on the cellar lights (from outside), and threw the door open, trusty screwdriver held out in front of me. I went down the old wooden staircase one slow step at a time. I had checked the staircase before I bought the house and it was nice and solid. Nothing worse than having a stair break under foot and breaking an ankle or a leg.

Five minutes later I was up on the ground floor of my house again. Nothing unusual in the cellar. There was another noise nearby. I looked in that room, searched everywhere, even in drawers, and found nothing. No wonder people thought the place was haunted. I did not believe in ghosts but....there was that old primal fear of early Man in my bones, a fear of the unknown.

That was the last noise I heard so after another fifteen minutes I went back to bed and hoped for no more noises. Next thing I knew it was nearly eight o'clock.

Today was a day I had to do some real work so after I had showered, shaved and had breakfast, I logged in at work, in London. To an extent, it was like being in a work cubical in the company's office block and I treated it as such. Just because I was my own boss, that did not mean I could skimp on work, could take breaks whenever I wanted to, browse social media, etc. I treated it like a day at a real office, and I think the company appreciated my professionalism. I even did a bit of video conferencing, my reason for looking smart. And at five thirty in the evening, I logged off.

A good day's work but no commuting involved as I was already at home. That had been what the internet was supposed to bring for many but it never did. It seemed to have changed hardly anything in a work sense.

I did some more pages on my book. You had to keep at a book while ideas flowed. It was gone eight pm when I took time off to get something to eat. Some locally made sausages. They certainly beat anything I bought in London. And some local potatoes and onions. Some TV and bed. I was in a rut here, but who cared? Not me.

I had picked up a small crowbar in London at a pound shop and after some thought, put it beside my bedside, then under my pillow. I did not want to wake up and find someone attacking me with it. I was certainly getting paranoid about noises in the night when they were probably nothing more than the house settling a bit. It was a rather large old house, though a ghost would not be seen dead in such a small house, I thought humourously. Curse Mrs. Smith. I would steer clear of her in the future.

That night was quiet, dead quiet. Not a sound. Out of curiosity I stuck my head out of the window at gone three am. I looked up in the night sky and it was an amazing sight in the pitch darkness of the area. I resolved to try and pick up a cheap telescope.

Next morning I looked though a local paper and found nothing. Then on a community site on the internet and there was a telescope for sale. A ten inch reflector. Little used. A clock drive. The price did not look bad. I phoned the number and it was still available and not far away so I drove there. The elderly man who owned it was quite enthusiastic over it and explained everything. It seems his eyesight had begun to fail recently so he had decided to get rid of it.

I paid for it and took it home. I knew which direction was north so it should be easy to set up when night came. I put it in the empty garden shed for now, and locked the door.

I heard a noise just before two o'clock in the morning but determined to ignore it. I looked out and it was a clear night. Still determined to ignore any noises, I nevertheless stuck my small crowbar in the belt of my trousers as I headed downstairs and outside to use the telescope. It was easy to set up and I plugged the drive in using an extension cord from the house but did not turn it on. I spent some time looking around the sky and then turned the drive on to look at Jupiter which was high in the sky at present. Of course it was nothing like the photos taken by huge telescopes over hours but I saw bands on the planet, the red spot and the four brightest moons. They would move over time if I waited long enough.

And something moved across the image of Jupiter. It had come and gone too quick to pick out any detail. I looked up in the sky at the small bright light that was Jupiter, and saw nothing which might have been what flickered across the screen. It had certainly not been a meteor or anything of the kind and there were no clouds in the sky at present.

I went back to Jupiter and was just considering going inside to get something to note down the positions of the moons so I could see how much they moved, when something moved across the field of view of the telescope again. I again looked at the sky but could see nothing which could have caused it.

Could it have been a weather balloon, I asked myself as I looked again? No, I decided. I looked again for about fifteen minutes and was about to look away when I saw it again, and this time it moved slowly.

"WTF?" I swore. It looked like something alive maybe a few miles up. It moved about some then vanished out of view again. I looked down the open end of the telescope and shone my torch down it to the mirror. There was nothing there. I took the eyepiece out and examined that. Again nothing, and shone my torch on the small angled reflecting mirror and still nothing. I didn't know what to think. It was not just the house that was maybe haunted but my new telescope too.

I felt uneasy and decided I had done enough sky viewing for one night. I put the telescope away and still casting uneasy glances at the night sky, I went inside. Next morning, I phoned the old man I had bought the telescope off of. He asked if it was alright. I said yes but hinted that I had seen some strange shapes high in the sky.

He assured me that there were no aberrations in the mirrors of the telescope and that maybe I had seen a weather balloon high up?

I said that that was probably it and left it at that. Examining the telescope in the light of day I could see nothing wrong with it and trying it out on some distant buildings a mile and more away, I again could see nothing wrong with it. It produced a nice sharp image on this 'still day'.

I went back to my latest book, but found it difficult to write with my mind on other things. I then did an internet search of the area for anything out of the ordinary but that turned up nothing. I looked around the house outside to see if there was anything that could account for any unusual noises in the night but could find nothing. Not even settlement. The house seemed to be stable. I remembered a pair of binoculars for sale when I was looking for a telescope and they were still available. A bit expensive but they were 25 x 75 and on a good tripod. If there was anything in the night sky that should not be there, they would hopefully find it. I handed over the money. I had tried them out before buying and they were needle sharp so they should do. I would see tonight.

"Want a torch?" the seller had asked as I was ready to leave..

"I have one" I said.

"Not like this one" he said, bringing out a bulky cylinder with a trigger. "Four million candle power. My neighbours a quarter of a mile away (he pointed) complain about how bright it is when I use it in their direction."

I handed over the money and he handed over the torch and charger. I decided this may be even better than the binoculars if I shone it up in the sky, being careful that there were no planes flying anywhere overhead.

Now I was prepared for the coming night. 'Ghostbusters' would have nothing on me.

The alarm went off at two am as planned and I quickly set up my binoculars on their tripod and had the fully charged torch ready. I waited and scoured the sky for anything unusual. An hour later I went inside, disgusted. I had seen nothing unusual.

As I went inside, there was a creak and something blurred across my view for a moment. Without thinking I pointed the four million candle power torch and pulled the trigger on it. There was a cry of pain and it was gone.

I remembered to shut my mouth and let go of the trigger of the torch.

"What the hell was that?" I said to no one, hoping I did not get an answer.

I carefully searched the house from top to bottom and found nothing that should not be there. I thought about it. Reading accounts of supposed ghostly manifestations, there was often a sharp temperature drop. I had got goosebumps, but that had nothing to do with the cold.

I do try to be rational and when I later got up, I went through everything that I had experienced since coming here to live, writing it down on a sheet of A4. It was basically this:

There seemed to be something in the house sometimes besides me, but it does not bother me and may even deliberately hide from me.

There seemed to be something high in the sky above this house, but it stays high in the sky and does not bother me.

As unusual and as unsettling as these unknowns are, they did not seem to want to harm me in any way or even bother me.

I can do nothing about what is high in the sky if it stays up there but maybe the presence in the house? Is it what they call a restless spirit or whatever? Maybe I can communicate with it?

That night I stayed in my living room. There were no lights showing, not even from my computer. And I made no sound. I did however have my small crow bar and screwdriver close to hand as well as my small torch and my large torch. I was not stupid.

I sat completely quiet and after a while struggled to stay awake, but managed somehow. It was gone one am when I heard something and I caught a momentary glimpse of a shadow slide across the room and then it stopped and seemed to look at me. I stayed motionless and looked back. It stayed motionless. It seemed to firm up some and it did not look human, but I did not feel it was in any way threatening. I had to say something.

In a low voice, I said I was sorry about the bright light yesterday.

I thought it was going to flit away but it hesitated and stayed. To my complete shock, it spoke to me in English.

"Bright lights hurt my eyes so I do not come here in your daylight."

I could not see him well but my eyes had long accustomed to the near complete darkness and I could see his outline and his eyes. He was definitely not human but at that moment I trusted him more than I trusted a number of human beings I had known.

"Why do you come here? " I asked out of curiosity.

"My house is here. Your house and my house share the same space but in slightly different realities. For some reason, they overlap at times and we can see each other and hear each other. As I said, my eyes do not handle your daylight well so I mostly visit your reality when you are sleeping. I try not to make too much noise."

"Me too" I said. "If I bother you, let me know. By the way, how do you speak English?"

"It is not really speaking your language. It is a different form of communication that is beyond language."

"One thing I must ask you. High up in the sky, I see shapes moving about. Do you know anything about them?"

"They are from my reality, and they are timid creatures. They will not bother you."

I talked with him well into the night, and who would have believed it? He was an author in his reality. We arranged to meet again the next night and became great friends and I met some of his family members. He had two great kids. I of course told no one about what I had seen. They would not believe me, and if they did, they would seek to exploit the beings from another reality or would damage them in some ways to try and learn all about them.

I saw Mrs. Smith a few weeks later while out shopping and she asked if I had seen the ghosts. I told her that she was a great kidder and everyone knew that there were no ghosts.

THE END.

THE STRANGE CASE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.

A small lottery win enabled me to move out of the old flat I was living in and paying too much rent for. I would have liked a nice house but what I could afford was somewhat run down and needed some work on it, hence the "bargain price".

The house was however structurally sound and parts of it were livable which was what counted. I had some free time on my hands at this point in my life and I was useful with my hands so I moved in and set about fixing up the house. The house had not been occupied for some time, the previous owner having died there, and his children had sold the house to get at his money. The floor boards were firm but some of the walls I was not so sure about.

Having cleared the unwanted material out of the house, I was checking on a wall in the living room which did not sound right when I tapped it a bit too hard and a small hammer I was using went through it.

"Damn!"

So I shone a torch through the hole and it looked like a shelved area in the living room had been covered over. After some seconds thought, and a shrug, I started exposing the rest of the hidden cupboard area. It was about six feet six high and had a few shelves eighteen inches apart. And there were some dusty old books and papers on the shelves.

I dragged them out, blowing thick dust off of them and hoped for some first editions I could sell on eBay. The books however were the kind I could buy for 50p each in the local charity shop, which is where they would probably end up, but there were some diaries and some papers covered with writing, so any excuse to stop work, I sat down and started reading them.

They were written by one Albert Stone and were dated late 1800's and early 1900's. A porter in a large hospital at the time, he fancied himself as an author but as the pages of writing showed, though he was a man of ideas, he was not a great writer. Stone had come south to London from Edinburgh to make his fortune and after a few failures, ended up working in a low paid job at a hospital.

Rents were high in the capital and bemoaning his efforts to try and find a small flat he could afford at a small pie shop, the man he was talking to said he was in the same quandary and he too was looking for a room. After some searching, they came across a small set of rooms near Victoria that they could not afford separately but could afford together.

The other man, one Charles Reade said he was a detective, and a good one to hear him talk of the cases he had solved. If true. He smoked a small pipe at times, which was no problem as Stone did too. He kept odd hours, and had odd visitors but he and they were quiet. One night he had asked for Stone's help as there might be some trouble with bad men. Stone had an old revolver he had been given by a dying patient he had helped and pocketed that.

A hansom cab took them through some dark streets and Stone guessed he was in the Brixton area. They entered a large old house which one would have thought was empty and found a body there. Reade called the police, meanwhile looking around for clues. Two inspectors from Scotland Yard turned up, named Jackson and Williams. They knew Reade and they discussed the murder with him, for murder it obviously was. There was quite a quantity of blood on the scene, and Stone, having worked in a hospital said fortunately that it did not bother him since he had seen worse. Reade introduced him to the two inspectors, and eventually the body was taken away to a morgue.

As they later rode back to their accommodation in a cab, Reade filled him in on some details. This was the second such murder, a revenge killing, something to do with an American religious cult. As Stone could see, the man or men who had killed the victim had done so savagely and Stone could see why he wanted back up if worse came to worse.

The next morning, Stone was up early and saw some ragged urchins leaving and Reade paid them some money. He looked askance at Reade, suspecting he liked boys, having seen him take no interest in women.

Guessing this, Reade explained.

"They are my spies. They see all that goes on in the seamy areas of London and no one takes any notice of a bunch of kids. I have given them instructions and promised a guinea to any boy who brings me the news I want. The others get a shilling each for their help."

That evening, the boys were back, and Reade suggested in future that only the lead boy come up to their rooms, possibly realising that lots of young boys entering a gentleman's rooms could give people the wrong idea. Reade told me he would need my help again and sent a telegram to Scotland Yard. That evening, the killer was arrested at the docks, ready to board a boat for Boulogne. He had an accomplice but the man had escaped and he would not give him up, saying he had played no great part in this affair. The man was duly tried and hung, his last words being that his work was done.

Stone had read a number of periodicals (left behind by patients) and hoped that if he wrote the case up, one of them would accept it and he would get paid for it. They all rejected his story. Which was not surprising as his writing style was a bit slapdash and the story was little more than 'bare bones'. The story hung around for a while in his locker at work and he showed it to a visiting physician named Doyle who had written some short stories and who read it in a quiet period at work.

"It shows promise" said Doyle. "It is a diamond in the rough and needs some polishing. You need more than facts, Mr. Stone. Maybe add a storyline to explain the murders. You cannot use the real names of the police Inspectors. While they might be grateful for your friend's help in solving this crime, they would not like to be made to look incompetents. And be careful of using the name of the murderer as it would give their names away to those who read about crimes in the newspapers. And 'Blood Revenge' is not a great title. It is like a Penny Dreadful title. Leave it with me and I'll get back to you."

A week later the doctor gave him the finished manuscript and Stone looked through it. As an author, he made a good hospital porter, he had to admit. This full length story was now so, so much better than what he had written, better than anything he had ever written. There had been many details changed, and name changes. Charles Reade was now Sherlock Holmes. The police inspector's names had been changed as expected, and someone named Watson, a doctor, told the main part of the story. He could have hardly used me, said Stone, stoically.

It was sent off to the publisher, who accepted it and some time later, a small flat parcel arrived for Albert Stone. A copy of the magazine, Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887, with the story in, and a five pound note. Under the title 'A Study in Scarlet' it had even made the front cover. He would have liked more money but there was no doubt that without the doctor's work on it, the short story would never have seen the light of day.

He considered telling Reade but he knew the man had a small range of interests and that he would not care about this. Things were quiet for a while and Reade prowled about the rooms like a caged animal, then seemed to settle down. It was some days later when coming home unexpectedly Stone found out why, when he saw Reade injecting himself.

"What is that?" he asked, fearing the worst.

"A seven percent solution of cocaine."

Stone knew about drug addicts and had once been shown around a drug den in Limehouse by a police friend. He was aghast. He tried to talk Reade out of taking more cocaine but he knew it was hopeless. Some more cases turned up and while Stone was working on them, he seemed able to cut right down on his drug intake. But those cases were too few and far between. Stone scoured the newspaper for crimes that might appeal to Reade. He had even hoped that the Jack the Ripper case might help but it seems that Reade and the police knew who the killer was, a man in a very high place and Reade told him he had been locked away and would never see the light of day again. Reade would say no more and urged Stone to say nothing if he valued his liberty.

I did not see Doyle for a few years. He had started writing some of his own books and while they met with some success, though he was annoyed to find the public wanted another Sherlock Holmes story despite the fact that his first one had not been as well received as he could have wished for.

Reade had been busy over the intervening years and I gave Doyle a number of stories I had written based on Reade's cases, crimes he had solved and crimes he had not. Doyle could always have them solved since he was writing works of fiction based on them. And he told me that he used a teacher he knew, the methods of one Joseph Bell, to help his Holmes character solve the crimes.

Doyle picked out a story he liked and though it was just a short story, he expanded it into a full book length, padding it out some and adding yet another story of revenge before the crime takes place. It was accepted by the publishers, and Doyle talking to me thought sales should have been better.

It was my turn to criticise Doyle, though he was a far better writer than I would ever be, said Stone. But I did it gently, and suggested he used the number of cases I had given him to write a book of short stories about Holmes. Keep the stories short and sharp.

Doyle considered and with some imagination, there were enough cases which could become stories for such a book, so he agreed. He would publish the short stories one at a time, fitting them in with the time spent writing his own novels, and later they could come out in book form. And it worked. The public loved the short stories of Sherlock Holmes and wanted more of them.

And then it happened. Reade had been abusing not just his body but his mind with his many years of using hard drugs. Stone told how he woke up one morning to find Reade saying that a super criminal was after him and had tried to kill him in the middle of the night but Reade had managed to fight him off. Reade says he broke into the house, but when Stone had looked, the doors and windows were as firm as ever. He asked the house keeper who had heard nothing, and then the maid who he knew was a light sleeper and she had heard nothing either.

Reade again claimed he had a brother named Mycroft who worked in government as he had a few months earlier and some discrete enquiries revealed that he was an only child, and that he did not even have any relatives called Mycroft.

Stone knew things were getting bad when he later found Reade hiding behind a curtain and looking at the road outside saying that Moriarty was across the road watching him. Stone had looked and the street was deserted. There was no one there.

"Do you see him?" shrieked Reade, pointing to the door of a locked shop opposite, where clearly there was no one in the opening outside the shop.

Stone had not known what to say. He had tried to get Reade to relax but Reade had responded by saying that he, Stone was working for his enemy Moriarty who he said was a professor working for Cambridge University and yet he ran the London Underworld, and all crimes could be laid at his door. Stone had checked with Cambridge and as he expected, there was no Professor named Moriarty there.

After another paranoid outbreak some days later, Stone responded by getting hold of Reade's cocaine supply and smashing it on the floor in front of him. His hypodermic needle and other paraphernalia was crushed to broken metal and glass and the tubes were ripped apart.

Reade watched him horrified.

"What have you done?" screeched Reade.

"These drugs have ruined your once great brain", Stone had told him coldly. "A blind man could outwit you now" he added.

Reade crumpled into a heap. After watching him for a time, Stone had managed to raise him up, carry him downstairs and out into the street. He hailed a hansom cab and gave the address of a nearby asylum.

"Dr. Ross" he said on arrival there.

Ross was a small nervous man and got quite a shock when he saw Reade. Reade had managed to help him last year when someone had tried to blackmail him.

"Can you do anything doctor" Stone had asked, explaining Reade's problem.

They got him into a consulting room and Ross examined him as best he could. He did not seem too certain that he could.

"I can put him in a lone cell for now" said Ross.

"No one must know" Stone had told him.

"I will try to wean him off the cocaine and anything else he has taken. It is not a pretty sight when a dope fiend does not get his dope. I will do my best."

"I have some money, doctor. Not much but I will help pay for his treatment."

Dr. Ross had waved the money away. Reade had helped him when no one else could, and very probably saved his career.

So Stone had left him there, and when people had called to see Reade, he told them that he was investigating a case on the Continent at the moment. Stone could not give details, but the people who knew Reade accepted that. He had always been a secretive man till a case was solved.

Years passed and Stone had given up on Reade then one day there had been a knock at the door, someone had slowly climbed the stairs and the door opened. People wanting to see Reade had just about stopped coming as he had been missing for so long and he was ready to dismiss the latest client when he had done a double take. He looked at the man harder. He was very thin, haggard of expression though his eyes were clear and had to hold onto a chair to stand up but it was Reade.

"Reade old man" said Stone as he had rushed forwards to shake his hand.

Reade had hesitated, then shook Stone's hand.

"I have been through Hell" said Reade in a weak voice.

"I am sorry to have done this to you, Charles" said Stone, feeling guilty.

"No. It was not your fault Albert. I did it to myself. I knew what drugs can do to people, and I did it to myself, knowing that I had become a slave to them. If it were not for you, I would have been dead several years ago."

"Well, we are going to get you back to health, with regular hours, good food and we will try and keep you off the alcohol and tobacco too till you are more healthy."

It had taken a year till Reade was something like his previous self. He had been kept off alcohol and tobacco, and had not taken them up again. Stone had not liked it but he had led by example and now used neither. A number of times when Reade was asleep he had checked around the house for any hidden drugs and found none. There had been no mood swings so that was a good sign.

Reade started taking cases again but he did not burn his way through them as he had done previously. He took his time and if he solved them, that was alright, and if he did not, that was alright too. No one was infallible, he now realised.

Reade had been happy to take a case on Dartmoor as a chance to get out of the city and he found the missing convict and solved a mystery there and when Stone bumped into Doyle a week later and told him all about it, adding the legend of a 'devil dog' there, which they had not seen, Doyle expanded it to 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' for a public who wanted more of Sherlock Holmes.

Doyle was forced to bring Sherlock Holmes back to life, a creation he had gotten tired of and more stories followed. He did not really need anything from Stone now as he had got used to writing Sherlock Holmes stories based entirely on his own imagination.

That was where the manuscript I found ended. I did not know what to make of it. Everyone knew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had created Sherlock Holmes and wrote the stories about him. And this story? Maybe someone who wanted their fifteen minutes of fame by claiming he had something to do with it? But then again, why had he not published his story? Well, for a start, as he admitted he had been a bad writer, and also, Doyle had only to deny it and he could end up a laughing stock. Doyle was a famous author and Albert Stone was a nobody.

I later checked records. Yes, an Albert Stone had lived here long ago. He had moved from a place in Victoria after getting left this house in the will of a rich old aunt who had liked him. Yes, there had been a Charles Reade and he was a detective of sorts. He had solved some good cases and failed other cases. By a stretch of the imagination, some could be compared to some Sherlock Holmes stories but...... The asylum had been torn down long ago and there were no records of patients there. As there was no record of where Stone and Reade lived in Victoria, or that they had shared rooms. I had no idea where or when Reade and Stone had died. Stone had left this place for parts unknown. And Reade, a shadow of his former self had retired somewhere. Not to become a beekeeper he would guess.

I ended up putting the old papers in a drawer and going back to my decorating. They would not fetch anything on eBay because no one would believe them. But whoever had created him, Sherlock Holmes had been a favourite of mine as a kid, and still was.

THE END.

TIS THE SEASON TO BE MERRY.

It was a few weeks till Christmas and the shopping frenzy had already started. Great for working crowds for a small time pick pocket like Lenny the Dip, but he still hated it, especially with all the TV cameras everywhere nowadays. There oughta be a law against them. Just the other day, a fellow pickpocket had been caught on camera, taking a wallet and was now languishing in jail till his court case come up, to keep him out of trouble.

As if that was not bad enough, he had seen a plain clothes cop following him earlier today. His only bit of fun lately was when he had pointed him out and shouted: "Help. He just picked my pocket." Let the copper try and explain that away.

It was getting harder to earn a dishonest living nowadays, not that he ever thought of making an honest living. He had too long a rap sheet for anyone to hire him. Even other villains would not trust him.

He wandered along the High Street and through the crowds but saw a number of coppers about, and some seemed to have an eye on him. He gave it up as a bad job for now and popped into a café for some tea and toast to think about it.

If he could not get money by picking pockets, maybe he should change his line of work? That would confuse the cops and all their profiling. How about a bit of burglary? He considered it. It was possible. Break a pane of glass, reach in and open the door and grab a few valuables before leaving. He knew a few people who would take stuff though they did not give good value. But beggars could not be choosers.

He knew just the person too. An old miser who lived on his own. Wait for him to go to bed tonight and he could 'do the business'. He left the café after a while and almost bumped into Detective Simms. He and Simms went way back and Simms should have been a chief detective now if it were not for the fact that he had upset too many people and that he was old fashioned in his police methods.

"Hallo, Lenny. How's business?"

"Bad" admitted Lenny. "Too many cops was bad enough but now there are too many cameras too."

Simms nodded. He could not even go somewhere for a quiet smoke with these cameras everywhere.

"Anything planned for Christmas" Simms asked.

"Nothing at the moment. The only thing I hope is that I can spend it at home and not in the Nick".

"I'd like that too but I'm working over Christmas so it's the Nick for me this Christmas."

"Well, at least you are the right side of the bars."

They nodded to each other and parted. The modern world was leaving them both behind. Lenny decided to go home and have a few hours kip so he was fresh for tonight's job.

It was gone 9pm when Lenny woke up and he had a bit to eat, a cup of tea and then got himself ready. He was not some punk kid who wore a hoody. He wore a dark jacket, dark trousers, and a thick, dark jumper to keep him warm. And a pair of thick rubber soled shoes that would make no noise. Fortunately, no snow yet. Leaving tracks would have put a damper on his plans. He dug out a light pair of cotton gloves, a dish cloth he had bought just the other day and not used yet. And a small bag. No TV's, DVD players and such for him. Just some jewellery would do him, and some cash would be even better.

Not many people about on this cold night and Lenny made it to the miser's house without being seen, as far as he could tell. The street was empty and he sneaked around to the back of the house, which had no lights on, picked up a stone and wrapped it in the cloth he had bought. It was easy to break the fine pane of glass without any noise and reach through the opening and let himself into the house. He considered maybe he should have tried burglary years ago. It looked to be easier than picking pockets.

He walked through to the front of the house and was shocked to see the light on in the front room. The heavy curtains had been drawn so he had not seen the light from outside. He did not want to rush out now he had gotten this far so carefully, very carefully, he peered around a door that was open a little way. He opened it a bit more and breathed in sharply.

There were two things he saw that made him almost faint. On the table was money. Piles of notes. There could easily be ten thousand pounds there in bundles, he guessed. But the damper on things was the miser stretched out on the floor. He was not moving and as Lenny crept towards him, he guessed that he was dead. Lenny had seen a number of dead 'uns in his life and this turned out to be another. He was not breathing.

Lenny looked at the money and at the dead body.

He reached for the money and stopped. Sure he could take the money and probably get away with it. But when the police saw the dead body, they would connect it to the missing money and think he had killed the miser.

Lenny reached for the money a second time and stopped. Sure he could use the money. That would keep him in the good life, with his frugal habits for a long time but if they put the dead body on him, he could spend ten to twenty in Dartmoor or the Scrubs.

Lenny reached for the money a third time and before he knew what he was doing, he was stacking it in his bag. He had to have that money. Nearly shaking from fear, he grabbed the last of it and as fast and as carefully as he could, he left the house the same way he had got in. The street was still empty and it was all Lenny could do to walk away from the house at a moderate pace and not run.

Despite the coldness of the night, Lenny was sweating when he reached home ten minutes walk away. He turned on the lights and put the bag of money on the table and stared at it. For better or for worse, he had done it. Now he was either a rich man or a jail bird.

First priority was to hide the money. The cops had been to his house before, looking for stolen wallets and purses so he needed somewhere they would not search. He found it in his cellar. Some brick work had collapsed and he had bought some cement to put the bricks right, but only done three quarters of them. The bag was thin, even with the money in and he slid it down the back of the shallow hole and finished the brickwork off. Then he worked to make it look old, which just needed some of the dust lying about and such. He admired the job. It looked good. A neighbour a dozen houses away had some building work going on and there was building stuff left outside his house in a heap. No one would notice the extra remains of the bag of cement he left there as it was somewhat of a mess.

In high excitement Lenny got back indoors and wondered what to do now? He had got rid of the towel in someone's dustbin on the way home. His cotton gloves burned easily and he crumpled the ashes. And his shoes? He did some work with some sandpaper and altered the appearance and size of their soles. He then ran his vacuum cleaner over the clothing he had worn and the small pile of rubber debris from his shoes. He then went down to the cellar and hoovered anywhere he had walked, then the stairs up to the main level of the house. He dumped the vacuum bag in his dustbin. The men would be around in the morning to empty it. A quick sweep of his path outside finished it off.

Now was there anything else? He made a cup of tea and drank it while he gave it some thought but could think of nothing. It was past midnight now. It was some time before he could get to sleep and he fervently hoped he would not be woken by coppers breaking in his front and back doors. Such is the curse of a guilty conscience, he reflected and not for the first time.

Morning came and there were no police. Realising he should keep up his normal habits, he headed to the town's shopping precinct with no intention of stealing anything. Which was just as well since there were coppers about. He saw a pickpocket nabbed and the cops gave him a stare as they took the unfortunate man past him to where their van was parked. "You're next!" said their stares.

Lenny did a bit of shopping and went into the market café for breakfast. As he was eating it, Simms sat down at his table with a cup of tea and two eggs on toast.

"Not busy?" he asked Lenny.

"No. I saw your boys were and it's almost enough to make me go straight."

Simms smiled, knowing there was no chance of that happening.

"A word to the wise, Lenny. After the crime spree in town last Christmas, everyone has been on the Chief Inspector's ass over it, and he has been on us, like a dose of the clap. You pinch anything in the next week or so and you can guarantee a stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure over the holiday period and well into the new year.

Lenny nodded glumly, or at least he hoped the expression on his face was glum.

"Well, I've got a few quid put away so I reckon I'll be at home watching the box for the next week or two."

Simms nodded as he carried on eating his breakfast.

Lenny decided to head back home. Simms had given him an alibi for not being out nicking to earn some money. He was stopped in the High Street by two police officers who wanted to search his bag.

Having nothing to hide, he let them. All he had was some groceries.

"Shall I turn out my pockets?" asked Lenny, in a neutral tone. "I have just had breakfast with Detective Simms in the market café if you must know."

They looked at each other. It was an alibi that could easily be checked and all three knew it. They let him go and he headed home. Another time they might have caught him with the goods but for now he was honest but was careful not to show it in any way.

With nothing else to do, he turned his radio on and listened to it. There were times when he wished he had a job to keep him busy, but he did not wish too hard. It was a local station and had news, mainly local, on the hour.

What he had waited for came on. The miser had been found dead. An accounts book hidden under his body showed that he had had nearly twelve thousand pounds in his house. The money was gone and the police were expecting an arrest soon.

It was as he thought. The police would think the money motive for the murder. An imminent arrest? He hoped not, but the local police always said that, even on cases they never solved, and he could only hope that this would not be one. He went down to his cellar and looked at the wall again, behind which he had been told was almost twelve thousand pounds. As a miser's hoard, the money would not be traceable and if he spent a little here and there, no one would ever trace the crime back to him.

The wall looked old and he was happy with his work on it. He would leave it a few months before he started using the money, he decided. He was no miser himself but he was in an uncertain business and he did have just over two hundred and fifty pounds put away in his bank account. He added a little money here and there, but not enough to match what he had stolen, so the cops could trace it.

Next morning he went for a walk in the local park and as he sat on a bench, Simms turned up.

"Are you following me?" asked Lenny, annoyed.

The guilty look on Simm's face told him he was.

"We suspect you were guilty of a crime spree last Christmas and my governor is on my ass to make sure you don't do the same this Christmas."

Lenny had to admit he had done well last Christmas. And that the cops had done poorly.

"You've warned me and I have taken it to heart. I am nowhere near any crowds now. No more nicking this year."

"I know that whatever else you are, you are truthful Lenny so I will spend less time checking up on you but to keep my boss happy, I still have to look in occasionally."

"Accepted."

Simms left.

The price of committing a crime was that you were always suspected at any future date of committing more crimes. And the one that mattered, the dead miser, Simms had no clue about. Lenny could almost laugh at the police.

Lenny did some more shopping at a quiet corner shop, away from any crowds and got himself something for dinner. While he was cooking it, he listened to the local news on the radio, and almost dropped his dinner plate. They had got someone for the murder.

Lenny turned off the gases under his food while he listened carefully to the news. The night of the murder, a young man was seen leaving the house. The next door neighbour had been out and come home late, and as he put his car away and spent time unloading stuff from it, he had seen a young man creep around from the back of the house and recognised him as someone living a few streets away. The police had arrested the man who admitted he had gone to the house with the intention of stealing something but denied killing Mr. Hardy (the old miser) or taking his money. He was now languishing in a cell at the local police station, pending a court appearance. No bail was allowed.

Lenny had not counted on this. He had hoped the case would remain unsolved. Not that someone else got blamed for the crime. If convicted, the young man could face a few decades in jail if worse came to worse. Lenny did not have much of a conscience but what he did have bothered him.

The man had protested his innocence but his lawyer had said to tale a deal and they'd let him off with ten years inside, and ten off for good behaviour. The man was appalled and said he wanted another solicitor, one who was on his side this time. He got another solicitor but things still looked bad for him.

Lenny saw Simms next day and went over to talk to him, to ask him about the case.

Simms shook his head.

"He's a young man and he's been laid off just before Christmas. With little money for bills and no money for presents for his kids, it looks like he went out and tried to steal some. People don't think. What kind of Christmas are he and his family going to have now?"

"His kids?" echoed Lenny. He felt like he had a brick in his stomach.

"Yes. Two of the nicest little girls you have ever seen. They could be married with kids of their own by time he gets out of prison."

Lenny looked as sick as he felt. Simms noticed and Lenny said it must have been something he ate.

Later he went to the address of the man accused of his crime and after a little waiting, he saw the mother and daughters come out, fearing they would be seen because of what their husband had done, and be blamed too for it by association.

Lenny went home and locked himself in his room, with the light off. He sat there for a few hours and knew he could not let things goon like this.

He later walked into the local police station and asked to see Detective Simms. He would not say why but his name was known. Simms appeared within a few minutes and he asked to have a chat with him in a private room.

As they sat down, Lenny put his bag on the desk and opened it so Simms could see the money inside. Simms gasped. In a taped interview, Lenny told him the story of what had happened, leaving nothing out. He signed a statement and was arrested and put in a cell. The man who had been arrested for the crime was given a caution, and to his total amazement, let go. He would after all spend Christmas with his family.

Lenny had asked Simms to tell everyone that they had got the wrong man and had now arrested the right man. It might have annoyed his boss, which was nothing new to Simms, but he did just that.

A month later in court, Lenny repeated his story and could not be faulted on it. He had gone to the house to rob it and found the man dead. He had robbed it, and not told the police of the dead man. All the money was recovered and he had surrendered of his own free will.

A medical examiner had said Mister Hardy had a weak heart which could have failed him at anytime. A crime scene detective had said the wound on his forehead matched as if he had fallen onto the hard marble of his fireplace. No marks of violence could be found on his body. Simms took the stand as the arresting officer and after answering questions, said that he and Lenny had gone back decades and although a prolific thief of wallets and purses when he chose to be, he had always been completely honest with him, even when arrested, and what he had said in his testimony, he had believed to be the truth.

The judge looked at Lenny.

"Mr. Jones. It looked like you could have got away with the crime by keeping quiet."

Lenny nodded.

"I have not got much of a conscience as any police officer in this area will tell you, but when I saw those two little girls who would be deprived of their father, not just over this Christmas but maybe ten or more Christmases to come, I could not do it and I had to confess."

The judge talked with his clerk then got back to Lenny.

"So Mr. Jones. In all probability, Mister Hardy died of an accidental fall brought on by a heart attack and cracking his head on the fireplace. There appears to be no evidence of any murder here. You did however steal the dead man's money, but having said that, when you realised an innocent man was blamed and could serve jail time for it, you gave yourself up and made a full confession, knowing that you, instead of him could spend a decade or more in jail.

"I think that despite your past record and despite breaking into the house to steal, you have done the right thing here. Thus I sentence you to time served. You are free to leave the jail when the formalities have been completed."

Lenny could not believe his luck.

"And Mr. Jones....."

Lenny looked gratefully at the judge.

"You got off this time but you may not be so lucky next time. Maybe you should take up another profession?"

Lenny nodded. For once in his life, he would certainly consider it.

THE END.

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

They said that the War would be over quickly. They blamed the South who they said were slave owners but Johnny never knew anyone who owned any slaves. He and his family had their little old shack and grew vegetables and such and hunted animals. They did their own work and could barely feed themselves let alone any slaves.

Then a rag tag army had come marching past and Johnny was inducted into it with the threat that his house would be burned down with him and his family in it if he did not join the army. He grabbed his rifle and a few bits and pieces and he went with the others.

When they rested later, a big heavily built man who they were told was a sergeant told them the rules and showed them how to march. Johnny took no notice of him. He had never liked bossy loud mouths who liked the sound of their own voices. This upset the sergeant who took an instant dislike to Johnny and leaned over him and shouted even louder from just a foot away.

He shouted even louder when Johnny stuck his pig sticker in the man's foot. The sergeant's friends didn't take kindly to that and despite putting up a good fight, Johnny got a good beating. Johnny had had many beatings before, from his Pa (till he was old enough to fight back) and from others so he bore no grudge.

The unit continued its march with the sergeant on horseback till his foot stopped bleeding. Johnny joined them at his own pace. He ached in a few places but he'd had worse. There were some people you could bully and some you can't and they decided Johnny was in the latter group so left him alone as long as he didn't cause any trouble, and such people rarely did as long as they were allowed to do their own things.

Two days later, they met the enemy, the 'damn Yankees' in a wooded area and Johnny proved his worth with his old squirrel gun and sure shooting. People died on both sides but Johnny who was used to woods and hiding so the animal he was hunting could not see him was not one of them. He cleaned his rifle while injured men were roughly patched up and was told to help dig graves for the dead. When he looked like he might not obey, it was suggested that he might like to dig latrines instead. People were already pooping in the bushes Johnny noted so he chose digging graves.

They had thought the war would be over quickly but one year turned into two with still no end in sight. More people seemed to be dying from diseases than bullets Johnny noted. They weren't drinking clean water and they were malnourished and in poor health. Living the prairie life he had, Johnny was tough and had lived a hard life. He had been used to going without as he had been used to hunting his own food, as he often did now rather than sharing the food handed out, some of which he noted had been made from meat which had gone off. He drank fresh water, even if he had to travel more than a mile to get it, and he stayed clear of others, especially anyone who might be sick.

Johnny might have made sergeant or even higher but for the fact that he seemed to prefer being on his own and was not keen on following orders, especially if he thought they were wrong. And in the army's view, if someone won't follow orders, then they can't give them either.

After about five years at war, one day an officer and his men rode into camp and told them it was all over. The North had beat them and General Lee had surrendered. There had been anger among the men but relief also that the war was over and they could go back to their families. That was good enough for Johnny and that night he vanished without anyone realising it and headed back home.

After a week of travelling on foot he found his home, or rather where it had been. It had been burnt to the ground and there was no sign of his family. He looked for bones or graves and found neither so maybe they had escaped alive? The vegetable garden had been ridden over and ruined but they had spouted again in disorder and he shot a small animal and made himself a meal while he decided what to do.

Johnny had a little money so he rode into town intent on getting himself a beer. He needed more time to think. It was nearly half an hour's walk away under a hot sun and he went into the shade of the bar and ordered a beer. He was standing at the bar drinking it when someone shouted at him from nearby.

The town was near the north-south border and there was a group of northerners come 'south' for some fun. They too were not happy with the result of the war and thought they should have rode right across the southlands; burning, raping and killing, instead of just letting the rebs off, as Grant had done.

Johnny ignored them.

One of them called again. A large blustering man who reminded Johnny of a sergeant he had stabbed in the foot four or five years ago.

Again, Johnny ignored him, so the man strode over and shoved Johnny so he would face him. His friends laughed.

Johnny hit the man as hard as he could in the nose, feeling it break under his small but very hard fist.

The big man staggered back, howling in pain and clutching his nose from which blood flowed freely.

The man started to reach for his gun but Johnny pulled out his knife and assured him that from this distance, he could get it between the man's eyes, ten times out of ten.

The man hesitated and then they all suddenly rushed Johnny. One he could have beaten. Two he might have beaten but several of them were too much for him and after punching him about a bit, they threw him out onto the street.

Johnny knew it was no use going back inside but over the last few years of war, he had learned to bear a grudge and seeing those several horses tied up outside the saloon, he got an idea. As there were few people about, he did a little work with his razor sharp knife and partly cut through the girths, the strap which held the saddles on the horses. All being well, the riders should get a few miles from civilization before the girths split and their saddles slid off of the horses.

He wandered off and found another drinking place and had a quiet beer there. As he come out, there was a black man in old clothes and with an old hat in his lap outside. It looked like he wanted some money so Johnny threw a quarter in his hat. Twenty five cents would get him two beers here. The man picked the coin out of his hat and went inside.

Johnny waited and the man came flying out through the doors. He landed in a heap, took stock of himself and looked up at Johnny.

"Did you know that would happen?" the black man guessed.

"I thought it might" said Johnny, keeping any trace of a smile off of his face.

The man got up angrily. He looked like he wanted to fight someone and Johnny was handy.

"Before you go starting something you might not be able to finish, I was thrown out of the Lucky Star saloon just fifteen minutes ago. A southern man in a southern town and some goddamn Yankees did it."

The black man cooled off some.

"You'll have to expect some antagonism here" Johnny told him. "The people here spent five years fighting a war that had nothing to do with them. No one had any slaves here and no one I knew of had any slaves. Yet we had to fight all the same and we lost. I come home and found my house burned down and my family gone. That's all I got for fighting for your freedom."

"My freedom?" said the black man, dusting himself down. Both of them had been lucky that it had not rained lately and the street was just dusty and not muddy.

"When word came through about no more slaves, my master kicked me and other black people out. He said if he had to pay for people, he'd pay for whites and not blacks. I had a place to sleep though it was not much. I had food too, and now I got neither. I just been dumped and told not to come back."

"It has happened to a lot of your people" said Johnny. "Coming back from the people I fought with, I saw quite a few black people just wandering about, not knowing what to do. I guess Lincoln didn't think this far ahead when he decided to free the slaves."

"That he did not."

"My names Johnny" said Johnny, holding out his hand.

"I'm Solomon" said the other, hesitating a moment, then shaking his hand. It was the first time ever that a white man had shaken his hand.

Johnny bought some supplies and they headed out of town to a small, old shack Johnny had noticed on the way into town. It had looked abandoned, and it was. They had something to eat and made themselves comfortable, and they chatted about their very different lives.

That night they were settling down to sleep as best as they could when three people rode up to the hut. Johnny put his finger over his lips and silently they looked out of the torn curtains of the window. As they had guessed from the horses, three men. The pair were in hiding when they came into the shack.

"They won't find us here", said one.

"They'd better not, with you killing two people. What did you have to do that for?"

"It's done now and it looks like we have got away with the payroll money. About five thousand dollars" said the third.

From their hiding places, Johnny and Solomon looked at each other. They did not know what mattered most. That they were crooks and killers or that they had five thousand dollars on them. And they no doubt would kill them both if they found them there. The horses were hid in a small outbuilding and the money was hidden when the three settled down for the night.

When they were asleep, Johnny signed for Solomon to stay where he was and moving as silently as a cat, went outside and come back with some stones. He took of one of his socks and filled it with stones and seemingly well skilled at such things, he silently knocked the three out for the count. He then tied them up with some string he found, knowing that the knots he tied would keep them bound for some time.

Outside Johnny and Solomon talked about what to do. Johnny was for taking the money and running. Solomon had had a good christian upbringing and said they should turn the money and criminals in. Eventually the compromised and the three were tied to their horses with four and half thousand dollars and Johnny and Solomon kept two hundred and fifty dollars each as reward money. In town, a few stones thrown from across a dark street woke the local sheriff up and he came out to find the bank robbers and the money, or at least most of the money.

He asked no questions and woke the town up. The townspeople were all for lynching them then and there but the sheriff insisted on a fair trial as the circuit judge would be visiting the town tomorrow, then they would all be lynched, legal like.

Johnny and Solomon decided to split up then. They both had families they wanted to look for and now a little money to help them. Johnny looked but never found his family or any trace of them. Probably dead he considered philosophically.

He wandered around for a month and did some trapping to get some more money. He never quite knew how he got there but he found himself in southern Canada in winter. If this is the south, I'm glad I'm not up north, he thought as he trudged through snow.

He took a short cut through Haunted Canyon. The Indians had a number of places which they said were haunted, but when the whites said this place was haunted too, that suggested it just might be. Few used the Canyon because of its reputation and he hoped to get out of there within two days. The ground was rougher than he thought it would be so he could not proceed through it fast or his horse might break a leg.

Johnny collected some wood and started a small fire for warmth and for something to eat. He settled down for some bacon and beans and coffee. It was a good meal and a welcome meal. There was silence, absolute silence which may not be good and Johnny had his ears open for anything unusual, or anything at all. He did not think that spirits existed, but there were other nasties in southern Canada in the snows this time of year.

There was a sound of someone coming towards him and Johnny prepared himself with weapons to hand as he built up the fire. He knew there was something wrong by the irregular steps and that was proved when a man stumbled out of the darkness and into his camp. It looked to be an Indian and from his injuries it looked like he had had an encounter with a bear, though he had thought they'd all be hibernating this time of year.

Johnny caught him as he stumbled forwards and laid him on his bedroll which he had ready for a night's sleep. He looked the man over. Keeping his ears open for a bear following or anything else, he patched the man up as best as he could. Five years of war had taught him that, so it had been good for something.

Then he heard a rustling some distance off and a heavy breathing and loosened both of his knives, one long and one short. Both had skinned many animals and they may get another chance tonight. Something was coming closer and Johnny dragged the injured Indian closer to the fire in the hope that it would protect him.

Johnny cursed. He heard another. There were two of them, when one would have been bad enough.

In the darkness he saw the black shape in a fast sort of waddle as it headed towards him.

"Wolverines. Two of them" he hissed, not knowing if the Indian heard or understood. He had heard of wolverines. Rumour had it that one of them could take down a bear so he took a firmer grip on his knives. He trusted them more than his gun in the woods.

The stocky animal, the size of a small bear raced towards Johnny at speed, its short claws extended and its razor sharp teeth ready to rip flesh. It was the decision of a moment. Johnny had on layers of clothes to protect him from the freezing Canadian winter and as the wolverine leaped forwards, mouth open to rip him apart, Johnny holding his short knife in front of him guided it into the wolverine's mouth and pushed it further in, his arm as stiff as he could make it. The beast bit down on his arm but it was already dying as his knife had cut several inches into its throat and body and so the damage done was not too bad. It had not broken bones as a wolverine's teeth could have done. With both feet on its shoulders and with care not to rip his hand and arm on its razor sharp teeth, Johnny pulled his blood covered arm and hand and knife from the creature's mouth.

He looked around and the other Wolverine was after the helpless Indian. Johnny sized the situation up within seconds and with a grunt, heaved the dead wolverine so it landed a foot from the other one. It stopped in midstride and looked at it. It sniffed at it. Then it seized the dead animal in its jaws and dragged it away, keeping an eye on them to make sure they did not steal its prey.

Johnny sat down, breathing heavy. He heard it move further and further away.

"If there are no more about tonight, we should be safe. There is enough meat, intestines, bones and such on that creature to keep him busy for a few days" he said to the Indian who seemed to have gained consciousness.

Johnny wiped the blood off his hand, arm and clothes as best as he could, using the snow then treated his wounds which appeared to be minor. He knew how lucky he had been. Had his gambit failed, both wolverines could be feeding off their corpses now. He made the Indian some food and a hot drink.

But they still stayed awake that night, on their guard. At first light in the morning, Johnny constructed a rough litter connected to his horse, put the Indian on it and rode off. They were both glad when they left the Canyon behind them.

A few more days and the Indian was mostly better. They came to a large valley following the Indian's directions and on the other side, he could see an Indian settlement with tents, cooking fires and people.

"This is close enough" said the Indian, standing up without any signs of pain or injuries. In the short time he had known the Indian, Johnny had heard him only say a few words of English, so he was doubly surprised to see the healthy man before him, with even his damaged clothes repaired.

"What the....?" started Johnny.

"Sorry I did this, Johnny but I had to test you."

"You know my name?" said Johnny, again shocked. He knew he had not used it in front of the Indian.

"I know many things about you. I have been keeping an eye on you for some time as I now want a replacement."

Johnny had many questions to ask but figured if he let the man talk, he'd answer them.

"About nine hundred years ago, I met a man like I am now. He said I was to be his replacement. I had sailed across a great divide of water from a cold country far away to the East to get here. The man I spoke to was a great Indian spirit. A God you would call him. He looked after the Indian tribes and he had many different names among them as I now do."

Johnny was now sure the man was crazy.

"I now want you to look after the Indian tribes in my place."

"But I know very little about Indians...." started Johnny.

"You will soon know all you need to know."

"Why don't you pick an Indian for this job?" asked Johnny.

"Because while there are many who are great men, who are great hunters and fighters, and who are brave, they have great reverence, fear and respect for me. They are too close to their people to take my place. They could not handle the job as an outsider would.

"As I said, I have kept my eye on you, in the recent war, you were brave and you only killed when you had to. You have always been close to the earth, as close as any of my people are. You mostly only kill animals to eat. You are kind and became a friend of Solomon when many of your kind would have rejected him. When I turned up, giving the appearance of being badly injured, you treated me and then you beat a wolverine, and stopped another wolverine from attacking you and me. Not that it could have harmed me but you had no way of knowing. You are brave and resourceful.

"Bad times are coming for the Indian peoples and they need someone like you who is a member of the races that will cause those bad times to see them through. Will you do it of your own free will?"

Johnny looked at the distant Indian tribe and it was suddenly like he was among them and could see the men and women going about their daily business and the children at play. He had lost his own family and these could be his new family. Many thousands of new families across America and Canada.

"Yes!" he said and suddenly he knew everything there was to know about Indians. He looked around for his Indian friend but he had vanished. Aware now of what he could do, Johnny effortlessly transformed into an Indian and walked down to visit the tribe, knowing their customs and able to speak their language as well as any of them could. It was his first day on the job and he intended doing it as well as he could, as he had always done in anything he tried.

THE END.

WHEN SATAN COMES CALLING.
CHAPTER ONE

It paid to have friends in the police force, O'Brien thought as he drove along the dark and deserted roads, his wipers going at double speed to cope with the heavy rain as he drove at speed. The last thing he wanted now was an accident. Not just for the obvious consequences of the accident, but because he was on his way to help a friend who had committed one of the worst crimes imaginable.

As he negotiated a bend which was sharper than it had appeared in his headlights and his tyres complained as he automatically compensated for the bend, O'Brien's mind was in a whirl. What had made him do it? Surely there must be some mistake but...then why would he be arrested and charged for it then if it was a mistake?

With expert ease, O'Brien missed a dog that ran out in front of him and cursed as he did so, instantly regretting what he had said and asking for God to forgive him. The first houses appeared and he did a right turn which put him on Main Street. The sheriff's office was only a little further and he slowed his speed down below the speed limit. It wouldn't do for him to get booked for speeding now.

O'Brien pulled up at a space in front of the sheriff's office, switched off his lights and ignition and dashed inside out of the rain. He was met at the front desk by a very large sheriff who had been arguing with a drunk. The peace officer ordered another man to lock him up and turned to O'Brien.

"You made good time, O'Brien", he said, knowing that O'Brien could have only got here so fast by breaking some speed limits.

O'Brien nodded, aware of what the sheriff knew.

"Where is he?" he asked so as to change the subject.

"Follow me!" was the answer and the sheriff led the way through three doors and down some stairs. Along a dingy corridor they went and he stopped at one of the metal doors and unlocked it with a key from a bunch he carried.

"He's in there, father" said the sheriff, opening the cell door.

The Bishop nodded, ignoring the term applied to juniors in his profession. The police officer probably didn't know any better, an example of today's Godless society but he was nevertheless a good man who had tipped him off about Flynn and his crime.

"Thank you, sheriff. Could I spend a little time with him? Alone!"

"Well, I....!"

"It's alright! I've known Father Flynn for over thirty years. He won't harm me."

"Yesterday, you probably would have said that he wouldn't have burned down his own church" said the sheriff, eyeing the man sitting on the bunk with his face in his hands, a posture he had adopted when they had bought him in several hours ago and which hadn't changed since.

"I know, it's a bad thing that has happened but are you sure that Father Flynn is responsible?" asked Bishop O'Brien, looking at his old friend. Patrick had always been full of life and full of good humour. He'd never seen him like this before and if he'd done what they said he'd done....? He'd rushed here as soon as he had heard, ahead of the inquisition as they were known. That was the name many gave to the organisation who investigated church matters in this state and God help him if they found him guilty.

The cop nodded.

"Out of his own mouth, Bishop!" he said sternly, not wanting to believe it himself.

Though he had once come close to rejecting the faith after his older brother had died in a bomb blast on a visit to Northern Ireland when he was only twelve, Obrien's parents were still good catholics, and priests didn't do things like this. What could he say when his mother and father found out about this and asked why Father Flynn was in jail? They'd known Flynn since before he was born. Flynn had baptised him.

"You don't say?" said O'Brien. It was all unbelievable, like some nightmare from which he soon hoped to wake. "It couldn't have been an accident for which he blames himself, could it?"

The cop shook his head.

"Look, the best I can do father is to pull the door to so that you can talk in private" he was aware of the catholic need for private confession after committing a sin and this sin had been about as big as they come, "and sit nearby. If there is any problem, you call me and I'll come running."

"Thank you, sheriff. That'll do" he said gratefully.

The Bishop walked into the room and the door was pushed to behind him as he looked around the small whitewashed room. He had an uneasy feeling, as though he were being locked in a prison cell himself, but threw the feeling off as he confronted the man on the bunk. He sighed heavily. This was going to be difficult. Where to start?

"Patrick!"

No response. He repeated it louder, then a third time as he gently put his hand on Flynn's shoulder. He thought that he would have to try a fourth time but Flynn looked up. He was shocked at the sight. Flynn, a few years short of his sixtieth birthday looked nearer ninety, and he had been crying. His face was still wet from the tears.

"Patrick!" the Bishop said sharply in his most authorative voice, looking into Flynn's eyes from barely a foot away. "What has happened?"

He had to get to the bottom of this quickly. Flynn shook his head, looking on the verge of tears again and he thought that he wasn't going to say anything but the priest spoke.

"It's all lies, Paul" Flynn whispered, barely loud enough to be heard from a foot away.

"What's all lies?" asked Paul, puzzled.

"The lot! Everything! It's all lies!" Flynn shouted angrily.

The Bishop didn't quite know what to make of Flynn's outburst when a voice came from the door.

"Are you alright father?"

"Yes thanks, sheriff!" said the Bishop with a smile that he certainly didn't feel."

The heavy door was pulled to again and he turned back to Flynn.

"What is all lies, Patrick?" asked O'Brien. What could he be talking about? He had admitted his crime.

"The Church. Everything we and millions of others believe in. It's all lies" said Flynn in a voice now devoid of all emotion.

O'Brien sat down next to Flynn on the bunk, deeply shocked.

"That's heresy, Flynn. What are you talking about?" hissed O'Brien angrily, his anger making him use his friend's family name, his voice low because he didn't want anyone else to hear. Burning down his church was bad enough but denying the one true God for a man in Flynn's position....? The inquisition wouldn't like this when they turned up to question him. He looked at the slumped figure next to him on the bunk.

"Heresy? That's just the Church's way of covering up something they don't like" said Flynn, in his dead voice. Flynn wasn't even looking at him now as he answered, just staring at a spot on the wall. O'Brien had noted that he had said 'the Church' and not 'our church'. He thought about it for a full minute before his next question.

"I last visited you six weeks ago Patrick and you were still a good Christian then. What's happened to make you reject everything that you ever believed in?"

He waited. Something serious had happened to change Flynn's whole life and he needed to know what it was. He watched Flynn as expressions flitted across the man's face aware that he was fighting a battle inside on whether to tell him or not."

"How long have we known each other?" said O'Brien, trying to make the confidence easier.

"Over forty years. All of your life" said Flynn.

"And did we ever keep secrets from one another?"

"Yes!"

"What?" gasped O'Brien. He thought Flynn had always been fully open with him. They had always been like like father and son.

"Just the one, Paul, but that was all it took" said Flynn, seeming to have reached a decision. He was going to tell.

"And that was....?" he prompted.

"You remember old crypt under my church that you helped me clean out, the dirt and cobwebs of centuries? How we came across those old parchments hidden in that seventeeth century bible?"

A moment's thought and he had it. It was many years ago. It had been hard and dirty work and at the time he had some regrets about helping his friend do that work, but it was water under the bridge. That night out had tied them even more closely together as friends for the future, till now that is.

"Yes! The bible was obviously very old, and in Latin. I was never good at languages, even the one that we in the church should know. You said that it was nothing, just letters to a friend."

"I lied!"

"But why?"

"That I'll come to. Ever wondered about the Devil? The reasons of his existence, why he does what he does?"

"A few times late at night, yes."

"Me too in them days. It was a pet project with me and I thought about it often."

"So...?" urged O'Brien.

"So, what if you could ask the Devil all those questions you've ever wondered about?"

"I've certainly got some questions I'd like to ask him" admitted O'Brien, "as has any good christian but that's impossible, isn't it?"

Flynn shook his head.

"That small pile of old documents we found inside that bible. According to what they said, once every hundred years, there is a chance for one person to make the Devil your prisoner, to ask him anything and he will answer truthfully. Imagine finding out why he does all the evil to Mankind, why he fought and still fights against God, why he tortures people in Hell. Why he..."

Flynn stopped. He could see the scepticism written widely across O'Brien's face and he couldn't blame him. It sounded crazy even to him and he now knew better.

"I realised what the documents were and from that day on, I worked for the day when I would get the chance to confront Satan."

So that was it. Flynn had gone crazy! Well, that was a simple enough explanation that would satisfy everybody. They would just have him committed. He saw Flynn shaking his head.

"I could always read you, Paul. You think that I'm crazy."

O'Brien opened his mouth to deny it but knew that Patrick would know him for a liar if he did and that he would lose his trust and the conversation would end as soon as that happened. He nodded.

"I can't wholly blame you. There has been times over the years when I've thought the same thing as this obsession gripped me. You see, to set up the meeting with the Devil, you need certain things. Some were easy to get, like bat's blood."

He saw O'Brien make a face and ignored it.

"And some were nearly impossible, like a death mask from an ancient pharaoh."

"You didn't?"

"I just borrowed it, without the Cairo museum's permission. It's a huge place and they should have better security there. I replaced it with a copy. The real one is already on its way back having served its purpose. I sent it anonymously of course."

O'Brien nodded his head. He remembered Patrick's holiday in Egypt several years ago, but thought that it was just to look at the pyramids, like everyone else did. He never guessed...

"And then there was the Dead Sea scrolls" continued Flynn.

"You didn't...?" a look of horror on O'Brien's face.

Flynn gave a half smile and shook his head.

"Hebrew is a funny language, Paul. No vowels. Words, even sentences can be altered by putting in the wrong vowel. The church didn't want anything to do with the translation of the scrolls for obvious reasons so it was handed to students who sat with the writing on one side and the bible on the other and translated. Only they made some bad assumptions to make things fit and I needed it letter perfect for the ritual so I managed to get access to them as an interested priest, not the incorrect version that has been put on the internet to fool the atheists."

"And?"

"It took me a long, long time to get everything together and the day when all the signs were correct came two days ago and I met the Devil."
CHAPTER TWO

"You what?" gasped O'Brien. "Look, Patrick, there are many people even in the Church who do not believe in Satan. You can't have...."

"I know" said Flynn, not put out by this. "I have doubted myself many times over the years and I thought I was crazy to go on this quest using a parchment that may have been the invention of a madman and never more so than when I was breaking a Commandment by stealing the death mask. If the guards had caught me, I would probably still be in prison in Egypt and would have missed the deadline and no one ever lives long enough for a second chance."

"Maybe that would have been for the better" suggested the Bishop. He didn't know what to make of this. He himself was one of the people who didn't believe in a literal Devil, but how else to explain the evil in the world? And Patrick claimed to have met the Devil....?

"Water under the bridge, Paul. Its happened!"

His friend shrugged. He could say nothing till he had heard the rest and then he would judge his friend's sanity.

"I was, of course very secretive with all this. Had a single word got out, I could have been accused of Devil worship, or worse" said Flynn, looking O'Brien in the eye.

"Could it have been any worse than it is now if you had been?"

"Probably not" admitted Flynn, "but I had the ultimate goal in mind. A chance to question Satan himself, something any churchman would give his soul for."

O'Brien raised his eyebrows.

"Assuming that that was what you did, did you give him your soul?" asked O'Brien, his eyes searching the other's face very closely as he waited for the answer. He was surprised when Flynn laughed. It was not wholly a humourous laugh. There was some irony in it.

"No! It's still mine for what it's worth."

Flynn laughed that same laugh again, shaking his head.

"I'll explain later" he said and left his friend puzzled for now.

"You know my present church has or rather had a large crypt underneath it" Flynn said.

O'Brien nodded.

"I was desperate to get that church for that reason. It was a bit out in the sticks and not a highly sought after church and I worked hard to hold onto it since it suited my purpose."

O'Brien nodded again.

"I can't criticise that, Patrick. Up until this incident, you certainly revitalised the church.

Where other parishes were in serious decline, you actually brought new people into the church."

"A little evangelising. Give people what they want. Show them that you care about them and the community outside of church hours. Listen to their troubles. They responded well."

"And you've thrown it all away, for what?" asked O'Brien, more annoyed than angry.

"I'll explain in my own way, Paul. As I said, the large crypt was ideal for what I wanted.

There was a hall nearby for church and community activities so I let the crypt fall into misuse, telling my parishioners that it wasn't wholly safe down there. No one but me has been down there in the last five years and I made some minor alterations to fit my needs. For the ritual. It had to be done on consecrated ground, you know!"

O'Brien nodded. He was beginning to wonder. Was there Devil worship involved after all? Surely not, but such abominations were usually done in church grounds. He kept his own council and listened closer to what Flynn had to say.

"The time approached and I had all the necessary bits and pieces ready for the ceremony. I had checked and double checked everything. I could not afford to pick the wrong day, to do or even say the wrong thing. Any deviation could ruin it all and anyone only gets one chance, but as with all the best laid plans, something nearly did go wrong. You remember Joseph Brown, one of my parishioners?"

O'Brien thought for a moment and then he had him.

"The little old black guy who resembles a vulture!"

"An unkind but apt description" nodded Flynn.

"Bit of a busybody isn't he?" asked O'Brien remembering the few short conversations that he had had with the man after services.

"Definitely!" agreed Flynn. "It was less than a week till the time when he came up to me after mass on Sunday and told me that his brother was a building inspector and he had told him about my crypt and the brother had agreed on an immediate inspection and would tomorrow be OK as he was free then? I could have cheerfully throttled him then and there, Paul."

"So what did you do? Not murder I hope" said O'Brien, only half-jokingly. He hoped he hadn't.

"No though had I not been a man of the cloth, I might have. I thought about it for a few hours and hit on a solution for now anyway. You remember that mould that I had on the walls of the staircase going down into the crypt?"

It had been about ten years since he had last been down there but he nodded.

"Harmless stuff, wasn't it?"

Flynn nodded.

"Yes! I just used to spray it now and again, to keep it down. I hadn't done it for a while. I went around the crypt and scavenged what mould there was and laid it about the old staircase, then down to the local hardware store where I picked up a few bottles of ammonia. I doused it liberally about before the inspector was due and shut the door."

"It obviously worked!" said O'Brien.

Flynn nodded.

"It did. He arrived with all his gear ready for a full inspection of the crypt, poked his head around the door, caught a whiff of the fumes, saw the mould and that was enough for him. He did check the church above, but that is completely sealed off from the crypt, so there was no smell there and the floors were as solid as rock. That satisfied him. He gave me the phone numbers of some companies that dealt with moulds and advised me to have it treated as soon as possible and left. I waited an hour, then vented the place and when it was safe, gave it a quick wash down with water to get rid of the last of the ammonia."

"So, you were ready then?"

"No! As I said before about the best laid plans, I had forgotten the bat. It was in the crypt with the ammonia and then when I remembered, I checked on it and it had asphixiated. I ran around in circles for a while as I thought about how to get a replacement in time but the problem was easily solved by another parishioner. You remember Homer Jensen?"

O'Brien nodded emphatically.

"His tame crocodile almost bit my hand off when I went to feed him at Jensen's behest."

"He's also got snakes, lizards and by luck, bats. He let me borrow one to get rid of the mosquitos I said were plaguing my church. I phoned him up to tell him that it had escaped and he said not to bother as he had plenty more but I sent him the money for a replacement anyway since I felt bad about having to lie to him about the bat's usage. They are only flying mice but I came to like them as pets and killing one for its blood was very hard for me to do."

"So, everything went as planned" prompted the Bishop, wanting to get on with what actually happened to cause his friend's apparent craziness.

"Yes, despite the last minute hiccups, it went exactly to plan. I'd made a last will and testament in case anything unexpected happened. That was certainly a possibility when dealing with the Devil."

O'Brien nodded at this. He was unsure of whether the Devil existed or not, but if he did, he was the 'Great Deceiver' and nothing was sure in dealing with him. Fiction was full of stories of people who had a bargain with the Devil only to have him find a way out of the deal and condemn them to Hell.

"I locked the church and my house up and entered the crypt, locking it from inside with a heavy lock that I had put there to keep people out, especially at this time when the last thing I wanted was to be disturbed while going about such business, apart from the fact that a second person would have ruined the ritual. I got down to business. The circles were marked out with white chalk and bat blood with all the right symbols. The candles made of ox fat were lit and the electric lighting turned off. The incense made from a special formula was burned. The words were spoken from the parchments and from the words I had copied from the Dead Sea scrolls version of the bible."

Here, Flynn turned to O'Brien.

"I know what you're thinking. Yes, it was just like a black mass. Well, it was done to summon Satan so in that respect, it was exactly like a black mass. But...."

Flynn said the word firmly to make his point, a point that he had to make.

"...there was no Devil worship involved. That was where the similarity ended."

"And....?" said O'Brien.

"I finished and nothing had changed. Nothing had happened. I waited, my mind in a daze. What had I done wrong? What had I left out? I frantically read through the parchments again, especially the summoning spells, keeping my eyes on the large circle where Satan was to appear all the while, then it hit me. You know what I said about best laid plans again...?"

O'Brien nodded. He was still intently watching Flynn like a hawk, unsure at this point about his friend.

"There I was, summoning the Devil and hanging from my neck was a large silver crucifix with the crucified Son of God on it. Frantically, I ripped it off of my neck, breaking the chain and ran like a madman over to a corner and hid it under a large piece of old wood and some old sacks there. I thought that all the work I had done for decades had all been ruined by a stupid, stupid oversight and that I would never get another chance. But I was not ready to give up just yet. I then went back to the parchments and repeated the last few verses, the actual summoning spell."

Here, Flynn paused.

"And it worked?" asked O'Brien. He knew that something had. Flynn believed that he had seen the Devil. Was it a delusion brought on by inhaling the fumes from the incense in the closed crypt? Maybe some kind of hallucagenic drugs or fungii were involved? He would have to check that out when Flynn had finished his account.

"I finished the summoning spell again, my eyes glued to the circle that would be used to imprison Satan, sure that I had ruined the chance of a lifetime by one simple mistake. For several seconds, nothing happened and then I knew that I had succeeded. First, the air in the crypt, always a dank and cold place even in the midst of Summer started to get noticeably hotter, and there was a distinct smell of sulphur.

"The hairs on the back of my neck, then on my head felt like they were standing on end as a fiery red glow began to appear in the imprisoning circle and the heat in the room was like being near a large furnace and the sulphur fumes were making me choke. Flames rose in the circle, rose and burned fiercely over ten feet high and roared like the flames from a jet plane, making me put my hands over my ears to vainly try and keep the sound out while my eyes started to water from the smoke that had begun to fill the crypt. The very floor of the crypt itself trembled as though there was an earthquake and bits of the ceiling dropped in small lumps, fortunately all missing me.

"I'll tell you that at that moment when I was absolutely sure that Satan was going to appear, I would have given anything to have been wrong, to have found out that the parchments were indeed the work of a madman. I was ready to run screaming from the crypt but like in a nightmare, my feet wouldn't move. I was rooted to the spot."

O'Brien considered as he listened. He had talked with drug addicts as part of his work and had heard of bad trips from some which were like this in their fearsomeness. Was Flynn's meeting with the Devil just a bad trip from some inhaled drug fumes? Possibly!

"Just when I couldn't bare it any longer, there was a thunderclap which dazed me for a moment, then blessed silence. I stood there shaking, hardly knowing my head from my feet as I tried to sort things out. Holding onto the table for support, I looked over to the holding circle and a black form stood there, so black that even the foot high flames around its hooved feet didn't illuminate it.

"I just stood there and stared, shaking like an old man in a storm, trying to keep upright by holding onto the table for support as the reality of the situation forced itself on my numbed mind. I had succeeded! Before me was Satan himself! The all-powerful Lord of Evil. Yet even as I though this, I wondered how a few lines drawn on the ground, a little bat's blood and some uttered words could hold evil incarnate in check. I thought of my crucifix but I couldn't move my feet and so it was beyond my reach. The thoughts went through my mind; 'Had I doomed myself and my immortal soul by doing this? Would I be doomed to spend all eternity in Hell seconds from now?'

"The dark figure in the holding circle moved but stayed in the circle. It tried the boundaries but couldn't break free of the circle. I was nearly sick with relief when I realised that the circle had worked, that the Devil was caged, even if only for the next few hours. As I collected my wits at this new development, the figure in the holding circle spoke for the first time. With a voice of thunder that echoed and re-echoed from the walls of the crypt but was still distinct, it said; 'Speak, mortal. What do you want of me?'

"I had spent three decades preparing for this and I now found myself struck dumb at the awesome appearance of Satan. Even as I looked, the figure grew taller till its head touched the ceiling of the crypt, which I know to be over thirteen feet high and pushed at the invisible walls of the holding circle and they glowed with the forces involved but held. The voice of thunder spoke again, even louder now, ringing with impatience. 'Well mortal? Why have you summoned me?' And I still couldn't speak. It was just too much. Telling you it now, it seems just like a Hollywood film with special effects, but being there in person and knowing that it was all real, that Satan could kill me and punish me forever without the least effort, I don't know how I kept what few wits I still had about me. And then the strangest thing of all happened."

"Which was?" asked O'Brien quietly, now caught up in the tale.

"Satan became human!"
CHAPTER THREE

"He what?" gasped O'Brien.

"One moment he was this huge unholy monster and the next, he looked just like a normal human being" said Flynn. "He looked like a good looking businessman of about forty, pretty much what you'd expect Satan to look like when he was trying to sweet talk you out of your soul. And stranger was yet to come."

O'Brien nodded for him to go on caught up in the story now. If this was a bad drug trip, it was certainly a weird one.

"The Devil just stepped out of the holding circle as though it wasn't there, walked

over to a table I had laid out with all the things I had needed and sat down on a chair that wasn't there seconds earlier. As I stood there gasping, he waved his hand to a second chair that had appeared along with the first. I didn't know what to do for the moment then I went over and sat in the second chair across the table from him.

"You know, Paul, it's said that the Devil is a charmer and I can vouch for that. While I sat there with my mouth still partly open, not knowing what to say and wondering if the Devil was going to kill me and take my soul, he produced two drinks from nowhere. He motioned for me to try mine and it was that old brandy I like, DuMont's. I had a few large gulps out of the glass and noticed that it was still full up.

"Then the Devil spoke for the first time; 'It won't make you drunk or give you a hangover, so drink as much as you want. The glass will always be full."

I had a few more gulps of the brandy and when I put my glass down, the Devil apologised to me. I'll tell you what happened now word for word."

"Have you been hiding a photographic memory from me, Patrick? asked O'Brien, looking for a hole in the story.

"No, Paul. Satan made me remember it all, word perfect. Fifty years from now, our conversation will be as clear in my mind as though it had just happened."

"Why should he do that?"

"Because I asked him to. He was willing to wipe my mind clean of all that had happened but I refused."

"But...?"

"I'll explain as I go along Paul. Now, I'll report the conversation verbatim. Leave your questions till I've finished."

The Bishop nodded his head. He could wait.

Here is the story:

"Sorry about the dramatics earlier" the Devil said, "but that is what people expect of me, the deadly demonic form so I appear like that to people who deserve it. Even God calls me a ham. If I had materialised as I am now, you would have felt let down after all that you had been through to summon me and not believed that I was the Devil. Incidentally, this isn't my real form either. Merely one of the guises I use to communicate with humans like you."

"I had been getting my wits together by now and I said to him; 'and your real form is?'

He smiled a satanic smile of the kind that I would have thought that he could and said:

"You wouldn't like it."

I thought about it for a moment and took him at his word. I almost certainly wouldn't. My gaze had been resting on the holding circle which was meant to have imprisoned him.

"So, how did you escape from my holding circle?" I asked

Another of those devilish smiles.

"Because I was not imprisoned in the first place."

"But...? The parchments said..." I started.

"Who do you think wrote the parchments?"

"You?"

He nodded.

"But why?"

"It's a long story and you and I won't bore you with it."

I got a bit angry at that point, forgetting who I was speaking to because he looked like just another man in a business suit.

"But I've spent decades getting ready for this night so that I could ask you some questions. Are you now going to deny me them? Has this all been for nothing?"

"No, Patrick" he said and there was a sincerity to his voice, but then again he is supposed to be the 'Great Deceiver'. "I cannot have just anybody call me up on a whim, so I make it difficult for them to do so. But I'm a man of my word. You've fulfilled your part of the bargain. Now I'll fulfil mine. Anything you want to know, I will tell you."

"So tell me!" I snapped impatiently.

"There are some things that are better not known, Patrick. Incidentally call me Nick. I've had many worse names over the last few million years."

I hesitated.

"What do you mean...ah...Nick?"

"Because everything you and every other religious person believes in is wrong, Patrick. Either you will not believe me so it is a waste of time or you will everything you know will be turned upside down and in your case, your life will be ruined. Either way, you are in a lose-lose situation."

I thought about it. Was this just double talk to get out of our bargain? Surely, if I knew everything, then I could choose whether to believe or not to believe what I was told? I hastily made the decision which changed my whole future to what it is now.

"I want to know!" I demanded.

"On your head be it" said the Devil.

"Ours was one of the first races in the Universe."

"Ours?" I asked.

"God and I."

"But God lives forever, I told him."

"Nothing lives forever, not even our race which is incredibly long lived, where century long lives like yours are nothing more than the blink of an eye to us."

But God created the universe and Earth and the first two people" I answered.

"You are using the bible here, the Genesis creation story made up less than 3,000 years ago that even many Christians now do not believe in. It was made for the people of the time who knew no science, who had not the slightest idea of how the Earth or mankind came about, who had no idea that anything outside of the Earth existed. They even thought that the rest of the universe was just hundreds of fires amid the clouds in the skies above them. They had invented gods that lived on mountain tops, and gods who were part animals and so on. And then we turned up about 3,000 years ago.

"You have no idea of how boring it can be to live millions of years, and my kind sometimes plays games with lesser races like yours, like pretending to be gods, demons and such. As your Earth author, Arthur C Clarke said: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' You must know that if a man suddenly appeared from a century ago and saw the things you now take for granted; like TV's, mobile phones, radio, Airplanes, moon rockets, computers and the internet, and so on, he would think they were magic. Imagine the science a hundred years from now. A thousand years, a million years....

"We tossed for it and my friend became God, we'll call him Jehovah for convenience sake, a name he uses on the Earth, and I became the Devil. To work, it needs opposing forces. My friend is what you would call an extrovert and while he strutted around showing off his power, I was willing to take what come and work undercover, so to speak.

"We picked on a small group of people, the Israelites and gradually edged out the old gods they believed in. I made up the story about an angry God killing everyone with a worldwide Flood which made Jehovah look bad and he made up the Moses story which made him look good. There are various parts of the bible where God is made to look bad, and look like an evil tyrant who kills and kills. I slipped them by him and there was little he could do afterwards without killing the people who believed in those stories, which would have been counterproductive. But it never seemed to bother those people. I like to think I am smarter than him in that sense, though he excels in other ways."

I interrupted him here.

"So you are saying that the oldest parts of the bible are not true?"

"Of course not. You have science, you have the evolutionary record, you have archaeology. They tell you what is true and what is not true. God making people from dust? I suppose we could do that if we had to but why bother when there were people made the old fashioned way, through billions of years of evolution? And God making the stars, or should I say fires, as an afterthought on the Fourth Day? Jehovah and I still laugh at that. As you may have gathered I like a bit of mischief and so I made creationists who believed the whole lot, no matter how impossible. Ron Wyatt was one of my greatest works. What he could not find, he made up, and it got so bad that in the end, even the creationists refused to believe him."

"So, you are aliens?"

"Essentially, yes. We were not born on Earth but next galaxy over. On a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. And not really born as you know it. More a matter of made as when one of us gets bored with life, he terminates and a replacement is made. We like to keep a stable population. If we bred like you people do, we could soon fill up the universe, living as long as we do."

"But how about Jesus. Is he one of you?" I asked.

"No. He was an itinerant preacher I chose to mess with judaism, Jehovah's religion by starting a new version of it. I gave him a miraculous birth story and other stuff. You'd be surprised what the uneducated people of that time would believe. You should have seen Saul's face when I appeared to him as Jesus. He would have believed in flying elephants or anything I told him. I did some simple things like turning water to wine, healing sick people, a little levitation so he could walk on water. Kid's stuff where I come from."

"How about heaven and hell?" I asked him.

"Do you honestly think anyone cares about billions of dead people, and that we are going to bring them back to life and look after them or torture them forever?"

Put like that, both places did seem unlikely.

"Wait a minute." I said. "Others have asked this of you before?"

"Yes."

"And they have told no one?"

"If someone else had told you what I am telling you now, would you believe them? When you tell Paul O'Brien, do you think he will believe you?"

Flynn paused in his narrative and looked at O'Brien who shrugged his shoulders. Flynn had to admit that if it was O'Brien telling him this, he would have strong doubts too. He continued his narrative.

"If it was just some kind of bad drug trip, why would you burn your church down?" asked O'Brien.

Flynn nodded and continued.

The guy I picked to play Jesus did die on the cross and stayed dead. Stories of his resurrection were either added as in Mark, or changed later, as in Luke. The gospel of John even had him living a long life afterwards. Paul I have already told you about. Believers in those days believed what they wanted to, as they do now, and made excuses as they wanted to."

Then there was another voice in the crypt.

"Hey, Nick. I have something....oh, I see you have company. Human company."

"There was a man standing there who looked like the stereotypical view of God" said Flynn.

"Just chatting with him Jehovah", said Satan.

"I have something I want you to see. You can bring him with us" said Jehovah.

Satan nodded, there was a momentary blur and we were looking down on a scene from nearby. The beings were aliens but very close to humans.

"Don't worry, they cannot see or hear us" said Nick to me.

Four people were on X shaped crosses. Nailed to them Flynn noted. I had a feeling of deep foreboding about this, he said to O'Brien. They were all near death and one cried out: "My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?"

I gasped as Nick told me he was translating for me. The man/alien, then died.

"Copying my work, Jehovah, I see."

"On my honour, I had nothing to do with him saying that", said Jehovah.

Nick gave him a look as I saw a nearby soldier stick a spear in the side of the man who had just died and a little almost red blood come out. Jehovah shrugged, as if to say, not guilty, again.

Another blur and we three were back in the crypt again.

"Must dash", said Jehovah and he vanished in a flash of light.

"What we just saw took place just now, 323 light years from Earth. Forty two 'Jesus's' have died since the first one on Earth 2,000 years ago" Satan said almost apologetically. "Some quite horribly. It seems that Jehovah has found a new game he likes. Sometimes he plays God and sometimes the Devil.

"Are humanity your playthings?" I asked him, horrified. "You presumably have a civilization way beyond ours but you entertain yourself like this?"

"As I said, we get bored over long periods of time you cannot comprehend. We are not humans and your lifespans are but moment to us."

"I know, I said. Just for a moment, I saw the true face of God when he appeared, before he assumed a human form."

Satan shrugged.

"I told you that you would not like our appearance. Do you want me to wipe your memory clean, as if that meeting had never happened?"

I thought for a moment and told him no.

Satan studied me for some moments and asked if there was anything else, and I said no. Then he vanished as if he had never been there.

I took the glass of brandy, which was always full and turned it upside down and emptied it all over the floor of the crypt, then upstairs and did the same with the church. Then I lit a match, and it burned like the real brandy did and I sat outside on a gravestone and waited for the police. I told them nothing. They would not have believed me anyway."

They had a few words together then the sheriff appeared again and O'Brien left Flynn in his cell. He did not know what to believe.

"I took a while getting back to you" apologised the sheriff. "I had the officer from the local fire investigation team here and he gave me a verbal report. It seems that an accelerant was used to help the fire spread, and this is the crazy bit. You heard of DuMont's brandy?"

O'Brien nodded.

"It's expensive stuff. I can't afford to drink it on my salary. Anyway, he said the church and crypt smelt of this same Brandy, as if that was what had been used to spread the fire. It's very flammable. But there would have been so much that only a crazy millionaire could have afforded gallons of it for the fire."

Late that afternoon, O'Brien looked over the ruins of the church. As he did so, a man about forty came over to talk to him.

"I am sorry about our mutual friend, Patrick Flynn" he said. "He is a good man. After an enquiry, the police and the church will let him go. I have made sure of that. Give him a year and he will come to terms with what happened to him and what he did, and he will live out his remaining years in a monastery, at peace with himself."

O'Brien looked hard at the man.

"Are you...."

The man nodded, and vanished. One moment he was there and the next he was gone.

O'Brien walked slowly back to his car and drove to his church. There were things he had to think about.

THE END.
