 
# Breakdown At Tiffany's

### (and other stories)

A Short Story Collection

by

David Braga

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

David Braga on Smashwords

Breakdown At Tiffany's:

A Short Story Collection

Copyright © 2011 by David Braga

cover design by heartstrand.co.uk

Some of these stories have been previously published:

A shortened version of Shadows was published by Pill Hill Press

Man on a Mission was published by Structo Magazine

Breakdown at Tiffany's was published by Whisper and Scream Magazine

Shopping was published and performed by Liars' League

Underground was published in Twisted Dreams Magazine

Death In The Village was published by Ether Books

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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

* * * * *

# Shadows

As young Elliott Houlden settled into bed, Sam's mum turned out the light and wished him sweet dreams. Drifting towards sleep, Elliott reflected on the wonderful time he and Sam had just enjoyed. They had played football in the park, computer games in Sam's bedroom, and watched a scary video in the evening, just after eating cheeseburger and chips, a special treat made by Sam's mum. It was his first night away from home, but Elliott hadn't spared his family a second thought all day. He'd never have been allowed that meal normally, and Sam's parents were so nice to him, he was only really feeling envious about how Sam must spend every day, and wished he could stay forever.

When he awoke, it was still dark. Unfamiliar with the room he was sleeping in, he was suddenly afraid. The air seemed different, smoky or something, and the surroundings seemed strange and hostile. In his short life, he was used to everything in its usual place, and shorn of that comfort, he felt confused and alone. There was a window running along the left-hand side of the room. It had a blind rather than curtains, and the moon had managed to poke between its slats, bringing with it just enough light for Elliott to see suggestions of his surroundings. There was a towel hanging off the radiator under the window, and this received most of the light, making it seem to glow a strange, unearthly blue. He could also see the edge of a bookshelf jutting out on the other side of the window, casting most of the far part of the room into unequivocal blackness. On his right, Elliott could just about see the door, and some of the wall, both faintly shrouded in cold, dark blue light.

The horizontal strips of cold light created several silhouettes, sinister and threatening to Elliott, and his breathing quickened. He tried to remember what the room had consisted of when the light had been on, a lifetime ago, back when things were safe. A ghost with one outstretched arm, hovering by the door, he knew was the dressing gown he had worn while brushing his teeth. He remembered hanging it on the back of the door. There was a massive, wolf-like creature with a crooked nose and big sunken eyes, standing by the door ready to pounce. He was fairly sure this was created by the chest of drawers that he remembered had piles of boxes and clothes on it. There was also, just next to that, a man in some kind of hat, the type worn by detectives in the films his mother liked to watch on a Sunday afternoon. Tall, and yet stooping, as if hunched, ready to pounce, it stood, looking at Elliott, with its head angled slightly to one side. He couldn't remember what was in that part of the room, so couldn't rationalise it to himself. He watched it carefully then, waiting for it to move. He didn't know what he'd do if the monster's head slowly righted itself, and it crept towards him, arms outstretched, but he still didn't dare take his eyes off it.

The silence, both inside and outside, merely intensified Elliott's discomfort. He found himself longing for morning. He knew he would laugh to himself at how uncomfortable he had felt, but at this moment, with nobody to call for, and nobody to check on him, he couldn't see how. He wanted to go to the toilet. He wanted to turn the light on, to demystify the shadows and remove the power from the darkness, but he was scared to get out of bed. He felt the surety that any movement, the exposing of any part of him from underneath the racing car duvet, was condoning his immediate execution. He could actually anticipate. with a thrilling certainty, the feel of the cold hand around his ankle, should his skinny, eight-year-old, pyjama-clad leg escape from the confines of his Ferrari cocoon.

The next time he opened his eyes, sunlight was streaming through the same slats that had caused him such unrest. He rubbed his eyes, and a knock on the door told him that the rest of the household had also made it successfully through the night. Elliott rose and diligently brushed his teeth and combed his hair. Returning from the bathroom, he was mid-way through getting dressed when he remembered his interrupted sleep the night before. He looked around the room at the inanimate objects that had become shadows in his mind. The harmless dressing gown hung lifelessly from the back of the door, the pile of ordinary cardboard boxes and assorted clothes still adorned the chest of drawers. Next to that, there was nothing, merely a bare expanse of cream wall.

By the time Elliott joined Sam's family at the kitchen table for breakfast, the traumas of the preceding night had escaped his consciousness. In much the same way as a treated scrape or cut on the playground, once it stops hurting, the child forgets its presence. He and Sam chewed their cereal while laughing at their plans for that morning, and the things they had got up to the previous afternoon.

Later that day, when Sam's dad told them he had to take Elliott home, Elliott dutifully put on his bright blue anorak, and gathered his overnight possessions together. He politely thanked Sam's mum for letting him stay over, told Sam he'd see him in school, and then, with the formalities complete, he climbed into the back of Sam's dad's Vauxhall, and clicked the seatbelt shut. Sam's dad came out of the house, a battered grey fedora firmly clamped down over his head, and climbed into the driver's seat. Sparking up a cigarette, he eased the car backwards out of the driveway, paused to turn on the radio to a local channel, and slowly headed down the road as the rain began to fall.

# House Party

The sun was painful, hitting the back of his eyes as they opened. He cursed the lack of curtain, but, lacking the strength to move, he lay still, watching the dust motes gently dance, and he listened for something, anything, to indicate what time it might be. There was nothing. There were usually milkmen, birds, cars. He was used to at least the ticking of his clock, but now, of course, that was gone too.

He groaned and lifted his head. His throat was dry. Squinting, he rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead, brushing back his hair, greasy and wiry against his skin. He scooped the pack from the floorboards, grabbed the lighter from within, and one of the two remaining cigarettes. Firing third time, he lit up with the disinterested urgency of the long-term smoker. After he had taken a drag, the tension went out of his neck, and his head lowered onto the pillow as if let down by faulty hydraulics.

He lay like that, looking at the ceiling, until long after the cigarette had turned to filter and dust between his fingers. He held it, unmoving, without even noticing it, until he stubbed it against the floorboards, keeping his eyes pointing upwards.

He thought of the process of memory, while visions passed before him, and he didn't trust it, or them. Moreover, he didn't trust himself.

He looked around the room. There was little to linger on. Floorboards, yellow walls with white scratches, faded in places, and a big bay window. That was all, except for his clothes lying in a heap, the sagging mattress that he lay on, a faded brown sheet, and a matching duvet tossed carelessly aside in the heat. He lay there, naked, his legs slightly parted, feeling like a corpse awaiting autopsy.

There was a knock at the door. He lay there for a while longer, willing it to have never happened. It came again. He sighed, and rose, picking up a bottle of gin that was near the bed. Dragging on his jeans, he slowly shuffled through to the hall, leaving the top button undone. He opened the door, to the sun, to the world.

Three men looked at him, the nearest wearing a suit, his face already wrinkled in anticipation.

"Mr Jackson?" the man said.

Jackson let the question hang in the air, and found himself almost bemused by his lack of feeling. He felt as if he were watching a film or something.

The other two shrugged past him, glorious in their power. The suited man stayed back, embarrassed, pinching the top of his nose furiously, as if that was where his shame pooled, and he was trying to tap some of it off.

"Mr Jackson." He said it again, but this time it wasn't a question. He followed it with a hurried spiel of regurgitated information, as impersonal and incomprehensible as a computer attempting some rudimentary version of human speech. The words that he recognised emerged, forced themselves at him. The most important of these words was "eviction".

He was a visitor now. He had to leave. He went back into the bedroom and wrestled on a shirt, suddenly embarrassed by the nakedness of his chest.

"Guys," he said, coming back to the man in the suit, trying to ward off the impersonal nature, trying to make it more of a "collaborative" effort. "Guys, I'm fine with this. We've no need for it to be bad." He raised his arms suggestively. "Look around! I've nothing left. It's all gone."

He laughed. It was dry, and cracked in half somewhere against the corner of wall that led into the kitchen. It was loud, but other noises came from somewhere in the house, and it was lost.

The two men walked past. They were carrying a table.

"Afraid I didn't leave you much," he said with a chuckle, half victorious and half embarrassed, and he swigged from the bottle.  
"Sir, we require you to vacate the property now, " said the suit.  
"Sure," said Jackson, reaching for his boots. "You want some gin?"

The suit declined, through a wave of his hand, already looking towards the kitchen. Jackson found that rude. He'd had a notion of doing it the right way, of going down with his ship, showing dignity. Now he thought he was casting a sad figure, begging to please the people who were taking the last of it away. He pictured tonight. There was Betty, possibly. Probably not. If not, he didn't know. And here he was, trying to make these people feel better.

He laughed, for no reason. The suit looked at him. Jackson raised the bottle to his lips, and swigged defiantly.

"I was after a sea view anyway," he said. It was meant to be memorable, but he slurred it, blew the line, and the guy with the suit was turning away anyway, signing for something that one of the other guys was showing him.

He opened the door and stepped down onto the front lawn. He looked around. She'd liked this lawn. It used to be better than this. There wasn't much to love there now. Out of all the memories he'd had that morning, it was the sight of those dead, bare patches of earth amongst the unkempt lawn that brought a solitary tear to his eye. He didn't so much wipe it, as push it back in, violently, with the back of his dirty wrist.

He took another swig from the bottle, lit his final cigarette, and tossed the empty packet down into the long grass. The lighter worked first time. He took a drag and looked around, exhaling all he could of what was inside of him.

He leaned down and picked the packet up. Looking around, he ended up shoving it deep into his pocket. Turning, unsteadily, he walked down the path towards the pavement, towards everything else.

# The Path To Heaven

Frank King freewheeled the last few yards into his driveway with the engine off, yanking up the handbrake as the gradient of the tarmac cancelled out the car's forward motion. It was lunchtime. He'd been sent home from work because a freak power surge had broken the air conditioning system where he worked. The sound of the radio announcer had been cut short in the midst of informing Frank about a farming dispute, but Frank didn't care. He hated farming and he hated disputes. Anyway, he wasn't listening. He was looking at the bungalow, or, more importantly, the car that was outside it. It belonged to Jim McGregor. Jimmy Mac, as he was sometimes known, when it suited the occasion. Occasions like when they played poker once a month, when they'd all get together round Dougie Brook's house. Frank pictured him the last time he'd seen him, collecting some chips wearing his loud blue Hawaiian-style shirt with white flamingos on it. He always wore that one at poker. It brought him luck, apparently. "Come to Uncle Jimmy," he'd shout when he landed a big pot; a huge, smug, shit-eating grin on his face as he reeled them in, laughing at the indignation of someone whose straight had just been trumped by his full house. It was Dougie himself on that occasion, if Frank remembered it right. He normally did remember it right. He had quite the photographic memory, did Frank.

Frank threw the door open and put one leg out, and paused, the sun quickly warming his leg through the material of his trousers. He would normally have hauled his big frame out of the cramped Volkswagen that carried him to and from the council buildings where he worked each and every weekday, but he was still looking at Jimmy's car. The question raced through his mind, beginning again as soon as it had finished, in a continuous internal dialogue. What was Jimmy doing here in the middle of the day? Frank couldn't help himself thinking the worst. He didn't like jumping to conclusions, but he was struggling to come up with alternatives. Debbie was home alone, and Frank had arrived home hours earlier than he usually did, so what was Jimmy doing here in the middle of the day? They never saw each other during the week. Only the last Friday of every month for poker or the general parties arranged by one couple or other at various points throughout the year. The last thing he wanted was to blaze in like an idiot with the wrong end of the stick, but he was damned if some Hawaiian shirt wearing bastard was going to steal a march on him.

The thing was, he thought, his eyes flicking uncertainly between the car and the silent bungalow, this wouldn't even be a total surprise. He'd always thought Debbie might have that streak in her, that craving for excitement, for danger. He'd never been enough for her, he was sure of that. A part of him, he realised, had been expecting this one day. Hadn't he quite often raced to be home quicker than he said he would, just to see if he could catch her in some flagrant embrace? There had been that time when the Stewarts had been living next door. Colin Stewart was a pretty gregarious and entertaining sort of guy. Frank had seen that from the off, and Debbie had loved it, hadn't she? They always seemed to be getting or giving invites to this and that. "Who's married to who?" he'd shouted at her one night, possibly loud enough for the Stewarts to hear. "Can we go anywhere without the fucking Stewarts tagging along?" The Stewarts had moved just a month or two after that. Frank thought a guilty conscience might have helped the move go through quickly, but, without proof, what did he know? Just enough to keep him awake at night, that's all. Just enough to fill his mind with all sorts of unwanted images.

He'd recently begun to think that something might have happened between Deb and Jimmy. Hadn't Jimmy been eyeing her up at Dave and Claire's last barbecue? He remembered Debbie putting her hand on Jim's arm at a party not too long after that too, resting longer than was comfortable as she laughed at some pathetic joke he'd made, his shit eating grin making a guest appearance. She'd laughed too, he thought, looking back. She'd laughed too.

The memory still burning, he forced himself out of the car. It was a particularly hot day, and the sun felt like a physical garment on his bare forearms. The hairs on his arm reacted immediately, doing their best to cool down the large King frame, but the way his mind was working that just wasn't going to do it today. He wandered over to Jimmy's Ford and peered in, saluting his hand over his eyes to shield out the exuberant sun. The car was a tip. There were drinks cans in there, magazines, sweet wrappers. The ashtray was overflowing with bent cigarette butts, several of which had ended up in the busy area between the two front seats. Frank even saw an unfinished Big Mac still in its carton in the footwell of the passenger seat. He grimaced. He glanced an eye port-ways to the back seat. It was cleaner back there, but not much. Had they moved stuff around one night? Maybe while he was down the Sun and Moon? Or playing squash at Ridgewood Gym? Or working late, to provide that bitch with a decent way of living? His temper was rising as he pictured them writhing on that beige-coloured seat amongst the decaying packaging and the detritus of Jimmy's sordid life. He pictured the shit-eating grin, this time aimed at the absent Frank. This one's for you Frank, he pictured Jimmy saying. Come to Uncle Jimmy. Those hands that had pulled the chips towards him doing the same with Debbie, clasping her naked back, and dragging her towards him. Frank pictured the mole just above the centre of her back which he always rubbed with his right index finger as they lay in bed, where he would whisper that he loved her.

The car was hot under Frank's fingers, and he suddenly wondered how long he'd been standing there, looking through the windows of Jimmy's car. He raised himself, turning his head towards the bungalow. The windows were shut, even on a hot day such as this, and the place looked unoccupied. No sound emanated from it, and he knew Debbie nearly always had the television on if she was in; one stupid daytime TV show segueing into another until it became evening and a string of life-negating soaps took their place. On weekday evenings, he'd generally chat and drink a beer or two until food was ready, and then, afterwards, make his way to the sanctity of his "study", where he would read and drink beer until it was time to go and take his wife to the bedroom, where they'd either make love or fall asleep, her leg wrapped delicately around his and her face pressed against his softly-rising chest. The rhythmic sound of her breathing would quicken his own descent into sleep. On rare nights away from her, he always found it near impossible to sleep without that contact, that smell, and that sound. He wondered if Jim found it quite as relaxing as he did. Maybe they were like that right now. He pictured her lying on Jim the same way, and shook his head and clenched his teeth.

Walking quickly over to the front door, he raised his hand to the lock absent-mindedly, his thoughts still trained on the images his treacherous mind had conjured up. He was surprised to see his keys in his hand, the correct one selected and ready for duty. Amazing what the mind can do when required, he thought. He paused once the key was inserted, resting his head against the green paint of the door. It still smelled fresh, even though he could hardly remember painting it. He turned the key slowly. The door opened in front of him, and, in an almost dreamlike state, he entered the bungalow. Jimmy Mac or Jimmy Mack, he was thinking to himself. He didn't know why. He started to put the keys back in his pocket, and then thought against it. He wasn't sure about the reasons for that either, but he put them on the coffee table as he made his way in from the hall, through the lounge, towards the kitchen.

Well, they weren't in the lounge. That wasn't a good sign either. He just couldn't see a way where this wasn't going to end up with serious repercussions. His mind was flicking between the two scenes in his mind - the sheer rage he felt towards Jimmy or the betrayal and hurt he felt towards Debbie. He stopped by the fire, and grabbed the brass poker he and Debbie had bought from some stupid car boot sale not long after they'd moved in, excited by the fact it had a real log fireplace. They'd hardly ever used it, settling for the less glamorous but easier option of central heating, and the poker gleamed at him, unused and reproachful. He squeezed it, cold against his hot fingers, and walked purposefully back out into the hallway, and towards the closed bedroom door. Standing against it, he waited for seconds, hearing nothing, gripping both the door handle and the poker. He was breathing fast and shallow. He pushed the handle down and in, and almost stumbled into the room. There was nobody there. The bed was made, and all was normal. A tear in his eye, possibly of relief, as he turned back out of the room.

Back in the lounge, he threw the poker onto the sofa and poured himself a generous glass of whisky. His hands were somewhat shaky, and he downed it in one before repeating the action and sitting down, gratefully, onto the sofa to drink the refill. He pictured Debbie in the gown she wore at her last birthday. He could still smell her perfume if he thought hard enough. He lit a cigarette, and was in the middle of exhaling the smoke when he heard a laugh. Debbie's laugh. He paused, the smoke curtailing almost guiltily before he allowed the rest to plume out of his nostrils as he rose. Walking over to the lounge window, he gazed out onto the back garden. There were Debbie and Jimmy, sitting on neighbouring loungers, cocktails between them. Mojitos if he had been forced to guess. He was wearing a white t-shirt and khaki shorts, and she had on a bright orange bikini. Jimmy was smoking a cigarette. His eyes narrowed and he raised his cigarette to his lips again. It had never even occurred to him to look out back. Debbie never went outside if she could help it.

They looked relaxed enough. Frank returned to the sofa and grabbed the poker. Flexing his fingers around it, he downed the rest of his whisky, topped up again, and strode back to the window. He sucked savagely on his cigarette and resumed his watch on the back garden and the miscreants that occupied it. One of them had just said something hilarious, by the look of it, and they were both doubled up with laughter. Jimmy passed his cigarette to Debbie, and Frank realised it wasn't a cigarette. It was a joint. They were really living it up on this Friday lunchtime. Frank's temper increased. He was really going to break up this party.

He was thrown by the sound of the doorbell. A glance at Debbie and Jimmy showed that they hadn't heard it, and, wanting more of the courage given him by the whisky, he put down the poker, and took the glass to the door to answer it. A middle-aged man, dressed in a pressed striped suit and sporting a savage centre parting, beamed at Frank, and proudly showed him a book.

"Hello Sir," said the man. "My name is Nathan. I hope you're enjoying this beautiful Friday?"

Frank gazed at him, until Nathan's gaze faltered. Frank raised his whisky and drained off half of it.

"Certainly am," he croaked. "Are you?"

"Oh absolutely!" confirmed Nathan, as Frank sucked on his cigarette. "I'm here today to give you a great opportunity."

"Right," said Frank. "And what is that?"

"Ten years ago, I had a nervous breakdown. It all got too much for me, and I realised I couldn't go on how I was."

Frank nodded and was silent.

"I quit my job, I was staying at a friend's house, and, well, I think you're going to laugh at the next bit," he continued.

Frank raised his eyebrows to indicate his reservation of judgement on the issue. Nathan paused for courage, and then continued.

"I found God."

Frank didn't laugh. He did, however, finish his whisky in a gulp.

"I understand your scepticism, Sir. I would have-"

Nathan paused when Frank disappeared from view. He stood there, and nervously shined his right shoe on the back of his left leg. All of a sudden, Frank reappeared, holding the bottle of whisky, and waved Nathan in with a cigarette that was soon to go out.

"Come on in," he said, and walked into the lounge.

Walking in, he was greeted by the sight of Frank holding the gleaming metal poker.

"Don't mind me," Frank said, and gestured to the armchair. "I'm waiting for Judgment Day."

Nathan waited for Frank to laugh, but he didn't. After a few seconds, Nathan ploughed ahead with his plan A, the words coming out in a nervous rush.

"I'm here to talk to you because I think most people today need saving."

"I'm not the one who needs saving today." Frank was gazing at him intently, and Nathan clutched his book. "Tell me about forgiveness," continued Frank. "Is it turn the other cheek or eye for an eye? Which is it?"

"I-". The man faltered. "I wonder if I've done something to offend you, Sir."

"You? Not yet, no." admitted Frank. "Got anything in mind?"

"I really think I should be going," said Nathan.

"Answer my question," said Frank.

"I think forgiveness is the path to heaven," said Nathan, in a kind of squeak.

He was gone before Frank had even acknowledged his answer, which, he had to admit, was a good one. He left the door banging on the latch behind him.

Frank looked out at the happy couple again. They had given up the idea of separate loungers, and Debbie was attempting to balance on Jimmy's, with apparently hilarious results. They eventually managed it, with Jimmy's arm around her delicate shoulder. She leaned in and they kissed. He turned back to the living room, and looked around him. The room was full of items they'd bought in their years together, mainly on holiday. Frank wasn't an adventurous man. They probably wouldn't have gone anywhere if it hadn't been for Debbie, packing for both of them, and dragging them off to exotic locations. His stomach turning and his heart rate doubled, he ran some of them over in his mind. The fish restaurant in St Lucia, the taverna in Cyprus, the café in Malaga. That beach in southern France where they'd built sand models of each other that had had the other beach dwellers in hysterics. The time in Italy that he had got sunburned on the first day, to the point of being incapacitated, and she had looked after him so well that he had rated it the best holiday he'd ever had, despite not being able to go anywhere or do anything. He looked at the bunches of fresh flowers that she had gathered, as she did once a week, ready to spread around the house. That had always been one of her biggest loves, and Frank had been slowly converted from finding it hilariously ridiculous to looking forward to different times of the year for the fresh scents they would bring.

He looked around him, and put the poker back down in the hearth. Then he placed his drained whisky glass upside-down where he'd found it. He looked out, finally, into the back garden, the two lovers engaged in a fond embrace, and pinched his fingers to the bridge of his nose. He moved slowly to the front door, surveying his route as he did so. Satisfied as far as he could be, he left, got into his car, reversed slowly down the driveway and moved to a nearby side street. He dozed on and off, in the sweltering heat, for several hours. Finally, once the heat had receded, and dusk began to fall, he eased out onto the road once more, and pulled back into his driveway.

Feeling like several months had gone by, like the house was no longer his, he opened the front door with his key and stepped through the hall into the lounge. Debbie was there, and greeted him as she did usually, kissing him on the lips.

"Hi hon, how was your day?" she said.

He was amazed that there was no trace of weed or rum on her lips. He almost choked on his reply, but, instead, spoke firmly and cheerfully. "Normal," he said. "How about you?"

"Same," she said. "You know me."

He laughed, and it nearly caught in his throat. He could still picture them, joined together on the lounger, the one he always used. He thought he would always be able to picture that. He had quite the photographic memory, did Frank. He turned away, towards the whisky, and pretended to cough as he wiped away a tear.

"Sure do," he said. "Sure do."

# Man on a Mission

Surrounded by the rest of his unit, Private John Walters put streaks of mud on his cheeks and forehead, for camouflage. Listening to his instructions once again, John's determination was clear on his face as he tried to commit them to memory. He knew the importance of this mission, and his body was producing so much adrenaline he was forced to stamp his feet and blow out air in nervous, visible plumes in front of him. He felt as if he was breathing in more air than he could store, and unless he got rid of the excess he would burst. To stop his hands shaking in front of his colleagues, he thrust them firmly into his coat pockets, balling them into tight fists deep in the snug lining.

When his leader, Captain Sharwood, asked him if he understood what failure would mean, John tried to prevent his gaze from dropping to the ground. He knew, alright. It meant he might as well not come back. For a lowly grunt like himself, this was his one chance to shine, and when the Captain asked him if he would fail, he knew what to say.

"No, Sir!"

Each word was delivered with an earnest fervour that drew a satisfied smile from the Captain, and with the cheers of the rest of his unit hanging in the air, John Walters was despatched from the clearing into the surrounding woods to begin his mission.

Whilst he understood the ramifications of failure, he also knew what success might mean. He was close to a promoshun. His captain had told him so. Just succeed with this, he told himself, and everything would be different. The rest of the unit had all seemed to want him to do it. They had cheered him as he left, hadn't they? Although there'd been laughing too.

Grazing his arm on a protruding branch brought a grunt from him, but the determination did not waver. His eyes darted randomly over the mottled green canopy, in front of him and all around him, making him feel claustrophobic. His breathing was heavy in his own ears, and he encouraged himself with little meaningless phrases. His running equated to a cumbersome shuffle, his feet hardly leaving the floor, which caused frequent stumbles over slippery leaves, jutting roots, and the uneven ground.

John knew that he was stupid. A dummy. An idiot. He couldn't avoid the fact, seeing as he had been told it all his life. He had always been big for his age, so the bullying had nearly always been verbal rather than physical, but it had hurt as much. Maybe more. They called him Hulk which, on the face of it, could be read as a compliment to his size and strength, but he knew the way they had said it; he saw the contempt behind their eyes. He was stupid, but he could still see that.

Well, this was when things would change. Hulk Walters was going to change some people's minds about him. When he returned victorious, he knew the promoshun would change everything. Maybe they'd even come up with a new nickname for him. The smell of the forest around him usually calmed him, but that was when he was engaged on one of his long, aimless strolls. Now, the damp bark and pungent moss were oppressive odours that churned his mind and his stomach until he felt dizzy and nauseous.

Eventually, he emerged from the woods, and he crossed the road, checking left and right for cars. He ran clumsily, even after leaving the woodland; trying to stoop in the open terrain, so as to conceal his over-large figure, and yet not stooping enough to be effective, as he was aware that speed was vital to the success of the mission. This created the fairly ludicrous appearance of a lumbering, self-conscious figure with limbs that seemed too long for their owner, so that he seemed constantly a step away from tripping himself up.

Having navigated his way across the road, he crashed through the light foliage separating the road from the grounds of the nearby house, and paused, panting, to try and compose himself. This was it. This was the scene of the mission.

He was on a supplies raid. According to Captain Sharwood, supplies were dangerously low, and the needs of the army overrode any laws, such as theft. Without supplies, the company might starve, and who would defend the freedom of the country then? No, this was a situation that needed direct and immediate action.

Staring at the house, he felt, and fought to suppress, a sense of rising panic. This couldn't be right. If it was a glorious mission that he was on, he wouldn't feel what he could feel pressing down on his guts, a sense of pure, unadulterated wrongness. He didn't feel like a hero on the verge of success. He felt like a small child about to get caught. Recalling the implications of a failed mission, however, he pushed the doubts down, away into his churning stomach. Spotting an open window, John ran towards it, again affecting that strange lumbering gait. It seemed to take an age, but he got there without incident, and, not allowing himself a moment to reconsider, he pulled the window wide open and hoisted himself up.

Breathlessly and gracelessly, he clambered into what appeared to be an old, carefully decorated dining room, complete with a large, immaculately polished table, and a matching dresser on the far side of the room. He had been briefed as to which item constituted his number one priority on the raid (they'd all called it noomero oono), and where it would be. He ran for the dresser, and began opening the cupboards one after the other, until he found it.

A large clear bottle, half full, with a clear liquid inside, he saw a word written in large red letters on the side. He didn't understand the word, but had been shown it written down enough to recognise it, in preparation for the mission. Speaking aloud, he broke the word into two confirming syllables:

"Smern. Off."

As he turned to flee, the door next to him opened, and a middle-aged man walked in, wearing a loose-fitting, woollen cardigan. For a moment, they stared at each other, frozen as if posing for an artist: the man leaning slightly backwards, his mouth forming an almost perfect 'O' of surprise; John's countenance a contrast between the black mud plastered over his face and the whites of his helplessly panicking eyeballs, his only movement a rapidly pulsing chest. He saw the man's face in intricate detail, from the neatly trimmed, brown moustache to the vein that protruded slightly on his forehead. Panicking, John also saw that the man was between him and the window. The mission, and all it stood for, was in terrible danger.

As the man uttered an indignant exclamation, John acted, instincts pushing to the fore while his mind dithered helplessly. He had to stop the noise. Feeling as sluggish as in a dream, he utilised the only weapon he had. He swung the vodka bottle round in a perfect arc, slamming it into the side of Keith Brook's purple, stammering face. The bottle smashed open, and an arc of blood and vodka spattered a morbidly picturesque pattern over the table and carpet, and over one of the walls.

The unfortunate Mr. Brook collapsed and lay still, and a scared, disbelieving twelve year old boy looked, dumbfounded, at what was left of the bottle top, trembling in the white, tight grip of his stupid, hulking hand.

"Keith?"

A woman's uncertain voice came from the corridor. John ran for the window, and vaulted out. Catching his foot on the sill, he fell and lay, momentarily winded, on the path that lay just outside the window. As he struggled upright and limped awkwardly away towards the foliage, no longer stooping, the devastated wail of Mrs Brook followed him. He would hear that sound in his mind repeatedly through the days to come, but also the nights. Especially the nights.

Running back towards the woods, he remembered the promised price of failure, and he stopped dead, knowing that he would never be accepted by the other kids now. He knew how angry they would be. Especially Bobby Sharwood. He'd punish him, with all the others laughing. Everyone laughed when Bobby Sharwood did something, no matter how cruel, because everybody loved him. It's why he always got to play Captain. Even Hulk Walters loved him, despite the jibes, despite the scorn. He still longed for just one compliment, one pat on the back to say 'Well done'. He'd console himself in the moments before sleep by conjuring up such a scenario in his mind.

He knew he couldn't go there now, not to them, not without the bottle. But he'd had it. That was the biggest regret. He'd had it in his hands. He'd held the smern off. It wasn't fair.

The town clock chimed five, and his heart wrenched. He knew that was five for teatime. Five always meant tea. His mum always made him promise to come back when he heard five o'clock, and whenever the clock announced the hour, he would pause whatever he was doing, and listen intently, to make sure. When it was five o'clock, he would stop whatever game he was playing, however involved he was, and run home as fast as he could.

Starting back towards the town, towards home, he realised he would have to pass the house that he had just run from. He couldn't go back there, not for anything. He stopped, looking uncertainly in every direction, impotently clenching and relaxing his fists, tears running silently down his cheeks, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. Eventually, Private Hulk Walters, grubbily rubbing his mud-streaked face with his sleeve, sat down beside the road, and it was there, asleep in the long grass, that they found him.

# Nobody Home

Ray paused in the hallway as the front door slowly closed itself behind him, shutting out the sunlight and casting his face into shadow. His head cocked, he stood absolutely still and listened for sounds in the house. There were none, not even a clock ticking. Maxine wasn't home yet. After a couple of seconds, he coughed. He hadn't needed to, but he hated the silence. It scared him nowadays.

He walked slowly into the kitchen and put his coat on the back of one of the chairs. Maxine always shouted at him for doing it, but he'd always done it, and he was damned if he was going to stop now.

"It stinks of oil," she'd shout. "I can't eat when that thing's in here."

But she was half joking. She knew he'd never change anyway. He supposed she was right about the oil. All his weekday clothes were covered in it, his hands too, no matter how much he washed them. All around the fingernails. It was part of being a mechanic, really. He'd long stopped worrying about it.

"Puts the damn food on the table in the first place," he'd reply.

He looked at the clock. He had just under an hour, he reckoned, till she was home. He went back into the hall, and pulled the bolt across from the door that led down into the basement. It was rusty for the first bit, but then suddenly slid across easily, so you could catch your finger if you weren't careful. Ray knew all about it though, and eased it home. He navigated the stairs in the dark easily enough, felt for the little white switch on a nearby beam, and then the basement was lit up. Barely, anyway. It was all dusty dark yellow flickers and shadows.

It was a ramshackle basement really. He'd always meant to sort it out. The stairs, the lighting, the whole thing. He'd meant to clean the place too, to get rid of the clutter. There was stuff everywhere; boxes, bags, old suitcases and the like, all covered in a soft, depressing layer of dust and dead insects. Too hot down here in the summer, he said to himself. Maybe when it gets colder, I'll do it. Maybe in the winter. Give it a real good clean out.

He was thinking all this while fetching down the one thing in the basement he did look after, covered in the only dustsheet he had bothered to invest in. Removing this exposed a light brown suitcase, one that looked in perfect condition. He carefully carried it back up the stairs, pausing to flick the light back off. After bolting the basement door again, he carried on upstairs to the bedroom.

Opening the suitcase up on his bed, looking around guiltily, he took out a drawstring bag. He undressed hastily, leaving his clothes piled up on the floor, and took the bag into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and emptied out the various bottles onto a shelf over the sink. Putting two aside, having tried them last time, he held up the third and scrutinised the label. "Watermelon body scrub," he said aloud, and put it to one side. He found a papaya-based exfoliating scrub, and stood it next to the watermelon one. When he saw the "White Truffle Luxury Shampoo", he raised a hand to his mouth, overcome.

Taking all three bottles he stepped into the shower and balanced them on the small ledge underneath the showerhead. As the hot water hissed against his face and dripped down his body, he poured a measure from the first bottle into his hand and, balancing the bottle back on the ledge, he rubbed it over his chest. The aroma hit him straight away, and he nodded his head in wordless bliss. Rubbing it vigourously, the lather covered his entire body. He'd used too much, and he cursed himself.

When the final traces went down the plughole, he poured a much smaller amount from the second bottle, and repeated the action. Rinse and repeat, he thought to himself. The aroma of this one wasn't as recognisable, and he didn't dwell as long. Besides, he didn't have much time. He'd saved the best for last anyway, and savoured every moment from taking the top off the bottle and sniffing inside, those beautiful subtle scents, to shampooing himself thoroughly. He stood there like a simpleton in the steam, with the water dripping shampoo down his nose, his eyes closed, and his mouth open. That was it. That was the smell he knew so well.

He finally roused himself, and stumbled out of the shower. He'd taken too long. He still had things to do. He roughly dried himself, put the bottles back in the bag, and went back into the bedroom. Placing the bag to the side of the suitcase, he carefully examined the other contents. He picked out a blouse. It was red with small black threads running through it. He ran his fingers over it, lovingly, and then saw the dress under it; black, strapless, and very classy. Putting the first one down, he lifted the dress and held it to his face. So beautiful, he thought, his vision blurring. God, she'd been so beautiful.

That was it, he'd taken too long already. He couldn't allow himself any longer, not even with the jewellery. That would have to be first next time. He put the clothes back in the suitcase, oh so very carefully, and the washbag on top of that, checking that it wasn't wet. He dressed quickly and carelessly, slinging on a creased white shirt and a clean pair of jeans. He fastened the suitcase and hurried downstairs, down to the hall, and down into the basement. He covered the case with the dustsheet and was in the middle of raising it onto the shelf, when he heard the front door bang shut, and Maxine's voice yelling out.

"Dad? You home?"

# The Bully and the Butterfly

As the school clock's minute hand clicked firmly into two o'clock, and the bell signalled the end of lunch break, a breathless Terry ran up to me, his hair matted down at the front with sweat but still stubbornly sticking up at the back.

"Simon's gonna get you straight after school," he warned.

Simon. Not generally a name to strike fear into the heart. The first, second and even third year pupils at my secondary school thought differently though, with Simon Shaw ruling through intimidation, and generally proving the "brain over brawn" argument to be fundamentally and fatally flawed. He was one of those kids that grew at a different rate to everybody else. It was as though a fully formed adult had wandered in off the streets, and was traversing our school classrooms and grounds purely to terrorise small children.

Back in the classroom, word had got around. The other pupils in class huddled and whispered, monitoring my state, as my hands clasped and unclasped with clammy uselessness. They would occasionally inquire as to how I was feeling, although I knew this was more out of morbid curiosity than concern. Everyone is interested in the final thoughts of a condemned man. I blinked furiously. There had to be a way out.

As the infernal tick tick ticking noise of the clock on the wall seemed to increase in both speed and volume, I allowed myself the luxury of remembering what had brought about my imminent demise. I wasted several valuable minutes dreamily imagining not having done it, thus averting the path of fate. If I had not been in his way as he chased after some other poor wretch, he would not have tripped over my ankle, launched through the air, and landed in a huge, scrambling heap of raging embarrassment at the feet of a group of laughing pupils. With all of this erased from the course of history, he would have had no need to draw himself to his full height, with blood appearing along scrapes on his arms and dirt on his trousers around the knees, and point a colossal finger at me and scream my name.

The hands on the clock on the wall whisked round as if aiming for a personal best. The teacher asked me if I was feeling alright, as I looked pale. I was about to nod automatically, and then, realising my opportunity, I seized it as the lifeline it really was. Affecting a slightly more sickly air than I felt, I moaned, at a level just within the realms of belief, that I thought I might be about to be sick. With her permission, I gathered up my belongings and left the room. The door opened onto the summer afternoon, with flies and sun and warm gravel and lazy walls, and I heard the door of my prison chamber click shut behind me.

As I walked along the unpopulated path towards the safety of the high street, I saw a butterfly on a nearby flower. With a benevolent air, I picked it up in my small hands and flung it dramatically and emphatically upwards, like a white dove of hope. As the butterfly clambered ungracefully towards the sun, I saw, through the V of my still raised arms, Simon, standing with his arms folded, waiting for me. The sun was behind him, and the ground around him seemed dark.

With everybody else still in lessons, the schoolyard was eerily silent as we stood, twenty yards apart, facing each other. Shadows covered his face like a mask, but I could see his teeth, in some kind of smirk or grin, whereas the sun caused me to squint awkwardly at him. The heat made me feel sluggish and my limbs did not feel like my own. Time seemed stretched, as though in a dream. All seemed possible. I did not know what to do, but I had all eternity to decide. Nothing felt real.

I smiled, and sensed a change in Simon's demeanour as I stepped towards him. He outweighed me considerably, and my head only came halfway up his chest, but he seemed taken aback, as if my refusal to follow the script had left him floundering in a sea of messy improvisation. I continued walking slowly towards him, and he continued to stand, waiting. When I stopped, we were ten feet apart.

This was it. Even the sound of the birds and insects had stopped, and I was conscious of absolute silence around us. This was the first time I was free of the ticking clock since lunchtime, and it seemed possible that time itself had actually stopped.

The sound of the last bell of the day came as a shock to us both. I saw his eyes flicker towards the door from which all the pupils and teachers in the school would emerge at any moment. While he was momentarily distracted, I acted. Feeling the most powerful I have ever felt, I yelled; all my fury and emotion uttered in a piercing feral scream. I dropped my bag and ran at him.

A huge butterfly climbed up a wall, and I climbed up after it. The sun was shining down, and hurting my head, but I knew I had to catch the butterfly. I also knew I did not want to look down. I had climbed pretty high. The butterfly was getting away.

"It's alright, I've got his tongue".

My head throbbing, I opened my eyes. I felt dizzy and sick. An unfeasibly large adult hand was reaching into my face, and two of its fingers were pulling roughly on my tongue. I could taste the salt on the skin. Noticing that I had awakened, the teacher removed his hand, revealing a host of pupils, chattering excitedly. Looking unsteadily around me, I realised they were surrounding me in a huge, overwhelming circle, and that I was at the centre, like the middle of a stopped clock.

# Shopping

He walks round the aisles of the supermarket nervously, like an caged animal unsettled by an oncoming storm. He grips the handles of the basket so tightly that it hurts after a while, and he swaps the basket from hand to hand, flexing his red lined fingers absent-mindedly. He picks up items, examining them minutely, and then puts them back again. None of them are what is needed, none of them are Right with a capital R. Pasta? Everybody cooks pasta. A joint of meat? What if she doesn't like meat? It's too early to know what she likes and what she doesn't. This is a fucking minefield. It all depends on the details, he murmers, as he puts some soup back on the shelf, angrily – what kind of a starter is soup? This isn't the fucking 70's, he berates himself.

Then he sees them. Salmon steaks. This is more like it. Classy, like James Fucking Bond, he thinks triumphantly. Half price new potatoes if I buy these, too – bargain! This is a triumph. It means putting back the red wine he has picked up – the only thing he'd felt sure of. He visualises them raising glasses to each other over candles, gazing into each others eyes, with some soft music, possibly Eva Cassidy, playing in the background – all he has to do is be there and not fuck it up. "Don't fuck it up", he says aloud, "like you always fucking do." His closed fist bangs against his forehead with each of the last three words, and a couple of other shoppers choose to go to different aisles. He doesn't notice. Ah bollocks, he thinks. White will do.

OK, salmon, potatoes, white wine. Now he is getting somewhere. He grabs some green veg. The photo on the salmon shows green veg, and he decides to get the same. Green beans? Nice. Broccoli? He hates broccoli. Ah well, he gets it anyway. What we do for love, eh? She'll appreciate it. Women go crazy for shit like that. Maybe it shouldn't be Eva Cassidy. Not straight away. He'll work up to it. What do women listen to? He picks up some pâté. That would do. Pâté followed by salmon. "Oh, I'm glad you like that, it's one of my favourites", he practises in his mind, and decided on James Blunt. He'll pick it up at the CD section. Pure shite, but it's bound to get her wet. Don't forget the bread.

After that, he only has the pudding to go, which is easy. Any frozen shite with chocolate on it. They all take two hours to defrost. Ah well, it's only five o'clock. Not a problem. On his way to the checkout, he doubles back for a second bottle of wine. Don't want to run out just when it's all in place do we, he chuckles, scrunching his eyes up tight. He can't believe that if it all works out, they'll be lying in his bed tonight. He joins the queue at the checkout, busily scanning his basket in case he's forgotten anything.

The person at the front of the queue is taking an age – some old biddy trying to pay with a card that isn't being accepted, or she's put it in wrong, or something like that. "Come on," he mutters anxiously, looking at his watch. "Fucking come on!" Too loud. Someone else in the queue looks back and tuts. He stares at them, angry, so angry, but the queue begins moving again. He starts putting his items out on the conveyor belt. Bread only gets toasted just before we eat, he thinks. Salmon's probably ten minutes, but I'll check the packaging when I get home. Potatoes, they've got to be fifteen, minimum, maybe twenty. I should have got stuff that takes the same amount of time to cook, he thinks, I need to be talking to her while I do it. Don't want to fuck it up.

He is trying to work out whether to defrost the pudding in the fridge or on the surface, when he is interrupted by the fact he is being served.

"Hello", says the girl at the checkout. He nods briefly, and looks studiously at the wine. "It's a nice-looking meal you've got here", she smiles. "Entertaining, are we?" He looks up at her, and she is smiling at the girl in the next checkout, like it's a joke. A big fucking joke. She thinks I can't entertain, he thinks. He looks at the potatoes. What is he buying potatoes for? Look at that wine. Three ninety-nine! You can't woo a woman on wine that costs three pounds ninety-fucking-nine! He bundles the stuff in the bag, as quickly as he can, and pays for it quickly, reeling off three notes. She hands him some coins back. "Here you are, have a lovely evening". The girl is smiling at him. He takes his change awkwardly, spilling some, just as he is about to say something. He changes his mind and goes, leaving the coins where they have fallen.

He almost stumbles out of the shop, his breathing short and irregular. The bitch! He can't believe she's laughed at him like that. He'd been about to ask her too. This was the time he was going to fucking ask her. He stares at her through the window, serving the next customer. His stomach rolls like he is on some fairground ride, like he is on the "Big Fucking Dipper". He stares stupidly at his bag. She has ruined it, he thinks. Tears come to his eyes. This would have been it, this would have been the best night of both their lives, and she has fucking well ruined it. And he STILL hasn't said anything.

He takes the food home and lays it out on the counter. He examines each item carefully. It all lasts at least a couple of days. Maybe he'll ask her tomorrow.

# 'Round Midnight

Sarah sat between Christian and Bethan at dinner and gazed, openmouthed, at the beautiful summer scene in front of her. The setting sun, perfectly framed by the dining room window, painted the whole room orange, creating both a natural masterpiece and an automatic conversation piece. Sarah, however, had yet to develop the ability to speak, and so opted for cooing, fidgeting and looking around enthusiastically.

Christian looked at Sarah, and then at Bethan, and raised his glass to his mouth. It was a shiraz. £7.99, so pretty decent. They weren't well off, and that indicated a pretty significant investment for a non-event weekday evening. One that Bethan wouldn't appreciate, Christian thought, as he raised it again in defiance. She didn't even like red wine. That's where the money counts though, he reasoned to himself. White wine can be as cheap as you like; ice cold, no taste. Bethan liked white wine.

When Bethan rose and took her plate and Christian's into the kitchen, he moved his eyes guiltily, as if that were somehow helping. Then he picked his glass up again and drank. He tried to rationalise it in his mind as tidying up. In his own way, he was helping Bethan remove the foodstuffs from the table.

A noise in the living room indicated that Bethan had finished in the kitchen, had wiped, rubbed, fiddled and busied it into a state that she felt happy with, something he could never seemingly achieve, and settled down in front of the television for the evening. Christian sighed, and finished the last of the wine in his glass. He knew there was no more wine in the bottle, or in the house, and that opening the new bottle of gin that was calling him from the dining room cabinet might create some kind of discussion about his alcohol intake. Not something he planned on having tonight; he didn't have the energy.

After a short pause, he rose, walked over to the cabinet, and snapped open the gin. "Sometimes you just have to take a risk," he muttered quietly, and ventured into the kitchen for the tonic. After making his drink, he replaced the tonic and, closing the fridge with a smack of the back and a satisfied "Olé", returned to the dining room. Sarah was examining her fingers, apparently unconcerned at having been abandoned for the evils of alcohol, and cooed excitedly as he returned.

"Oh yeah baby," he said, and swept her up into his arms, and she giggled. He danced backwards into the lounge, Sarah in one arm, drink in the other. It was unnoticed by Bethan, but it amused them. Bethan was sitting on the sofa, and Christian looked uncertainly between her and the television. It was some reality show, indistinguishable from all the others, and the clock promised several hours of unrelenting boredom.

"Wanna watch a film?" he asked.

"No, I've been waiting for this."

He nodded, and slumped to his defeat on the sofa next to her.

***

A couple of hours later, with all of them succumbing to inertia, she was the one to oppose it. Shaking her head, she rose and coughed.

"Wow, it's our bedtime." She saw him watching her. "You coming?"

"No. Gonna stay up a bit."

"OK."

She lowered Sarah for a kiss. He obliged. Then she lowered her own face to his. He remembered the passion the first few times they'd got it together, and looked at her cute upturned nose as she stood, eyes closed, awaiting a peck and nothing more. He kissed her roughly on the lips. She opened her eyes in shock.

"Hey!""

"What?"

She shied away.

"Goddamit!" he said, annoyed. "You gonna kiss me?"

"I just did."

She moved Sarah's hand with her own.

"Say goodnight, Sarah."

Christian waved back, and they went upstairs. He turned back to the television, and raised the remote control. He found a poker program, where some blonde in a tiny dress announced breathlessly that the winner would get over two million dollars. God, he loved this sort of thing. Millions of dollars going to bored illiterate teenagers, all decisions coming from the body language, the cards, the situation, the confidence. Just think of it: the glamour, no boss, world travel. All it took was some confidence. All it took was balls.

***

Christian tiptoed up the stairs, his hand brushing the wall to guide him. He was drunk. He stood swaying, facing the bedroom. He had a just-opened bottle of beer from the garage in his hand, and it had just passed midnight. He didn't want to go to bed. He walked unsteadily over to the spare room, and flicked the power switch of his computer.

Several minutes later, the poker site logo announced that he was just seconds away from the big money. This was his night. Swigging his beer, he chose his table. He sat out most early rounds, letting several players bust themselves with their own enthusiasm. Whenever he saw someone go all in before the flop, he'd fold and smile grimly as they generally played out some ridiculous hand, like Ace Four, or Jack Queen, or something. "Kids," he tutted angrily, especially when he had to fold with Ace Queen. But he'd never liked Ace Queen. Looks so nice, but so rarely wins, he thought. He tried to think of something witty to say about Ace Queen, but he couldn't. It was a nothing hand in all respects, apparently.

Eventually it came down to him and Feelgud206. He had an Ace King suited when he got called all-in. He took it, and Feelgud206 had a pair of tens. He caught a King on the flop, and saw it home. He had won. $9.18 was his. He clenched his fist, angrily. This one was for him. He wanted to cheer, but it might have woken Sarah or Bethan. He raised the beer to his lips, and finished it at a gulp. Victory at midnight. It was something.

# Death in the Village

On the morning of the funeral of Elsie Welks, Raymond and Joan West were sitting at the kitchen table, with two untouched cups of tea going cold between them. Raymond's head was in his hands.

"You're going to have to speak to her", said Joan.

"I know", said Raymond, after a pause.

"She'll want to talk to everybody afterwards. At the wake, I mean".

"I know", said Raymond again, irritably. "She always does. Remember Georgie?" Joan laughed and nodded. Raymond grimaced. "You think there's any way we can stop her?" Jane shook her head, and Raymond sighed. "OK, " he said. "We'll see you at the church. Wish me luck."

***

Miss Marple had already risen, and made herself a lovely breakfast, consisting of a boiled egg, a piece of toast, and a pot of steaming hot tea. The teapot had been given to her by her dear friend Leonard Clement, after she had cleverly solved the murder of Colonel Protheroe many years ago, and she was very fond of it. Despite all the cases that she had solved since, that had remained her proudest moment, where she had first shocked everyone with her quick wit and sharp mind.

It had been a while since she had last had chance to show off her powers of deduction, and it was these periods that filled her with a sense of frustration and boredom. St Mary Mead was a lovely place, but since she had discovered how useful she could be, she began to despise the slow pace of village life. Where was the glory in that? She remembered the looks of admiration the dear Leonard and his wife had given her as her words and accusations had cleverly wrapped a web tight around the evil murderer.

Although there had been a really quite astounding number of murders over the years, there was always at least a year between each one. In trying to keep alert, she had tried to solve other cases that may, on the face of it, be seen as less important or newsworthy, but, she reminded herself, they still mattered to somebody. Burglaries were the obvious next rung down the ladder, but eventually she found herself investigating missing pets and trailing people who village gossip suggested might be having affairs.

She had caused scandal three years ago, when she accused Hilda Gray of cheating at bridge. Mrs Gray's protestations were ignored, as the name Miss Marple was beyond reproach, and Mrs Gray was never permitted to play again. That was Miss Marple's one regret in all her years of deduction, as she had not suspected Mrs Gray of any cheating at all, but was merely annoyed at losing to her for the third game running. Thinking of this caused her brow to furrow, and she poured another cup of tea and pushed the memory to the back of her well-ordered mind.

She was disturbed from her reverie by a knock at the door.

"Aunt Jane?"

The voice was timid. Trepidation, she thought. Guilt. He's hiding something. Then she paused, a smile on her lips. I've still got it, she thought.

"Come in, Raymond dear."

"Hello Aunt Jane. Are you ready to go?"

"I'm just finishing my tea, dear, but I'm all ready. Do you like my shawl?"

"Yes, it's very nice. I was just think-"

"It's a present from Captain Treveaux, when I solved the murder of that poor Doctor."

Raymond sighed.

"That was a game of Cluedo on your birthday, Aunt Jane. The shawl was your birthday present."

"Oh hush now, Raymond. Did you know what gave it away? I noticed, quite early in the evening, that Mrs White had a guilty expression. She had the motive too. I said at the time-"

"Look, we have to be going, Aunt Jane. You're going to behave today, aren't you? We'll go to the wake, but we'll only stay for one cup of tea."

"Oh yes, it will be fine. Poor Elsie. Who would have thought such a thing could happen in a small village such as this. Bludgeoned by a blunt instrument. It makes one shudder, doesn't it?"

"She was hit by a bus, Aunt Jane."

"And at such a young age, too. I'll get to the bottom of this one, mark my words".

"She was ninety-six, Aunt Jane. You have to realise it isn't always somebody's fault. It isn't always murder."

"Of course it is, dear", said Miss Marple, briskly. "People don't just die. There is always a reason, and always work to be done. Just because I'm old-"

"It's not that. I'm not questioning your brilliant mind. It's just that sometimes, things happen. People die. Animals die."

"Are you talking about poor Georgie again?"

"Don't bring that shit up again!" yelled Raymond.

"Raymond!" shrieked a startled Miss Marple.

During the previous Christmas holidays, when Miss Marple was staying at Raymond and Joan's for a few days, they had come downstairs to find the pet fish floating at the top of its tank. Miss Marple had spent over three hours interrogating each of them in separate rooms as to their whereabouts over the previous twenty-four hours. Only after ringing the police sergeant at his home and obtaining his weary promise to arrest them both "once the 'olidays are over. Probably Tuesday" would she allow herself to be seated for an awkward Christmas dinner that was eaten in total silence.

***

Raymond and Miss Marple never arrived at the funeral. Miss Marple was found in her house, dead. She had been stabbed fifty-seven times. Raymond was never seen again. The local constabulary, their skills grown rusty from years of allowing Miss Marple to do their detective work, were unable to piece these two facts together, and attributed the death to the assumption that she had been chopping vegetables while suffering from Parkinson's Disease. After a few months, Joan moved her young, muscle-bound gardener into her home and they lived happily ever after.

# Breakdown At Tiffany's

You're parked across the road from the same café for the sixth day in a row, but today is different. Night after night, your sleep has been broken, images forming in your mind no matter how loud you turn up the radio. In bed, you have relentlessly fidgeted; rearranging pillows, opening and closing windows, getting glasses of water, and drinking them while staring out into the dark night, waiting for morning. But last night was different. Last night, you slept. It came easily, and was complete. No dreams. You didn't wake until the sunlight pierced the defence of your clenched eyelids. It must have been seven or eight hours, more than the previous five days combined. Today, you feel rested. Not content. You don't think you could ever feel content, not after what happened. But rested? Well, you figure in the circumstances that rested will do just fine.

You remember being in that café a few months ago. That day when it all went wrong. The waitress had been looking at you, as normal, giving you "The Eye". You had sat there with your coffee, and, plucking up the courage, asked her if she wanted to maybe go for a drink somewhere that evening. It hadn't been bad. Too quiet, maybe. A bit of a stutter, but that was understandable. Not as clear as the best of the times you'd practised it, but not bad. It certainly hadn't deserved the derisive laugh that had formed her reply. You remember the heat that filled the room, your face going red, the sharp intake of breath. You accidentally spilled your coffee as you hurriedly rose, her apologies in your ear only making things worse, making things more painful.

You watch the people crossing the road in front of your car, and walking along the pavements, and going in and out of that café. You're detached from them. You're not one of them. The women with their caked-on make-up, the men with their expensive haircuts and sunglasses. The sun reflects off their shining teeth like it would do off the knife that you can feel, heavy in your jacket pocket, were you to get out of the car and run at them, holding it aloft. You picture the screams, the confusion, and you smile. You feel your heart beating faster, and you exhale, dismissing the thoughts with an effort, looking back towards the café. Today's the day, you're sure of it, and you don't want to miss your opportunity. Not today.

You remember the panic you felt after you came out of the café. You paced around a few streets away, running it over in your mind, occasionally screwing your face up, occasionally uttering the odd word in a stifled yell. You abruptly turned, heading back to the café. Remember the startled look on her face as you went in. You liked that. And you liked the bits of your spittle that went on the table that stood between you, maybe even on her beautiful, coffee-stained pinafore, as you regained your dignity, as you got the Upper Hand. You can still see her face when you told her what you wanted to do. You remember turning over a chair that was on your direct path back out, and the slam of the door as you left.

After six days, you even recognise some of the same people who use the café every day, probably on their way to work. You open the car door, and slowly emerge, blinking up into the unrelenting sun, the same sun that woke you up this morning.

You remember the police arriving at your office, the ogling, unfathoming faces of your work comrades, like dogs watching a Beckett play; the shame as you follow them out of your office; your company Letting You Go, and the restraining order. You remember the worry of trying to find a new job. It's a small, unexciting town, and your face has become a little too famous. You remember the rising panic of the bills that kept coming, forming a pile of white worry in the corner of the room, and the one with the words "notice of eviction" in them. Cold words. Inhuman words.

You approach the café, your fingers playing, playing, playing with the knife through the fabric of your pocket. You can see her through the window. She's smiling and sharing a joke with some customers. How nice for them. She's spared THEM the humiliation she gave to you. And now she sees you. NOW she sees you, and the smile dies on her face, the same way a flapping curtain slowly dies when the breeze fades. Her eyes are open wide. She's not mocking now, that's pretty clear, and it's pretty fucking satisfying. You speed up, your hand slipping inside the pocket for real, encircling the handle, gripping it hard. This is your destiny. Yours and hers. The blade is out, and it looks beautiful. Your breathing is long and deliberate, the air smells of sunshine, of coffee, and of death.

As the tinkling bell announces your arrival in a surreal, cheery way, she has retreated to the back of the café, behind the counter. A fat man, in a grease-covered apron, has picked up the phone, and is dialling with shaking wrinkled digits, his eyes darting between the phone and you. Four customers are in the shop, looking at you aghast, but none of them have moved, and none look likely to. You notice all this calmly, and then return your gaze to her, as she looks around for escape. Time has changed for you. As the fat man stammers "Police" down the phone, you realise you have all the time in the world.

# That Summer

This happened years ago. I've never told anyone, I've never felt able to, but now I do. I feel I need to get it down, get it out of me. Nobody will believe it, but the facts are there. Check them. If you don't check them, treat it as a work of fiction. I don't care.

We were fourteen years old. It was one of those summers that seemed endless. I spent every day of my holidays with my best friend, Stan. Stan the man. We were several weeks into the holiday, and walking back from playing football in the field. Nothing odd about that – we did it every day. We kicked the ball half-heartedly between us, walking slowly. It was a hot day, and we were in need of a drink and our feet were aching. We stopped at the same shop window as we always did, and looked inside. It was the best shop in town for a fourteen-year old kid. All the exciting stuff was there, all the toys, the gadgets, and the sweets. If you had money, THIS was where you came. Stan looked at the bike, as he had done every day for weeks. It was old, second hand, but magnificent. Sure it had scratches and the paint was a bit dim, but that gave it history. They were battle scars. This bike had lived! It was too big, but that made it a grown-up's bike. It still had the $95 price tag on it, that seemed just as inaccessible as it always had.

Stan was different to everyone I knew – more mature. He wasn't a leader, he was too detached for that, but you got the feeling he could have been a leader if he'd wanted to. Most people didn't know him. Bullies avoided him, girls giggled coyly, but he ignored them, and nobody else was aware enough to give him much attention as he never asked for any. But I knew him – I had my mum to thank for that. When I was nine, his family moved into town, a couple of doors down from mine. I didn't want to meet a stranger. I was as embarrassed as any kid about making friends with new people. I wanted to ignore him, to gossip about him with the people I did know, to point out any differences that we could laugh about. But my mum knew what the correct thing to do was, and that was to be a good neighbor. So I was sent round with instructions to knock on the door and ask if he wanted to play. He came out, pushed into it by his mum.

So there we were, neither of us wanting to be there, the product of our mums' neighborly intentions. We walked around a bit, aimlessly. A bit of small talk. He'd come from up north. He hadn't wanted to move. We found a can in the street, and passed it back and forth, at first aimlessly, then with increasing vigour. We picked up speed, grinning when we nearly lost control, laughing when one of us tried something a bit audacious. We began commentating – found we both supported the same team, and when we tried to pass our way round an old gentleman coming the other way, we kicked it into his foot. He shouted something to us, something angry, and we ran away, one part scared, but nine parts exhilarated. And the barrier was broken. We were friends. I took him round my favourite places, and over that summer, introduced him to my other friends. We played a lot of football in the fields, in the streets, and were generally inseparable, in the way young kids are. From then, and for the following five fantastic years, he really was the best friend I've ever had.

"Give it up, buddy", I taunted gently. "You're only torturing yourself. Let's go".

"Not this time, bud", came the reply. Stan reached into his pocket and held up a wad of $10 notes. I'd never seen so much money. He counted it all out slowly, and as the last note shifted from one hand to the other, he reached the magic number.

"...eighty, ninety, ONE HUNDRED!" he said, triumphantly, with a grin on his face I'll never forget.

"Where did you get it, Stan?" I stammered. "Where the hell did you get all that?"

"Got a job, my man," he said, his eyes gleaming, and returning their full attention to the bike.

As far as I knew, he didn't even have a paper round. I'd spent every day with him for weeks.

"No you haven't! I've been with you all holiday!"

"It's quicker than that, bud. It takes no time, and I get paid very well" he said, with the satisfied tone of a businessman who knows he's got a good deal.

And he told me all about it. Apparently, ten weeks previously, he had been approached by a guy in a suit with a "business proposition. That's what he said. A boney fidey business proposition", he said, not confident of the expression. Whereas most kids our age would have run a mile, Stan had chatted to him. I guess he'd loved being approached as an adult – he'd always wanted to be older than he was. He saw himself as the man of the house (his dad had left them before he'd even moved to town), and this was playing into that persona. Apparently, Stan had been promised a regular weekly wage of $10, payable in advance, and all he had to do was deliver the odd letter. It had sounded too good to be true, and Stan was "no fool, bud. But he gave me the money. Right there and then. Brand new one, too!"

"What did you do?" I asked. Even though the answer was obvious, it seemed the right thing to say.

"What do you think I did? I took it!"

"And the letter?"

"That's the thing. He didn't give me a letter. He said he'd be in touch. I asked how he'd find me, but he'd already gone. He'd walked off. I figured I'd probably never see him again, but that was OK. I had ten bucks," he laughed.

"Why haven't you told me any of this before?"

"Didn't want to jinx it, did I? And I knew you'd tell me off for talking to weirdos. You never want to a chance".

Stan hadn't seen him for the whole week. On exactly the same day, the next week, he had been walking home from school, turned a corner, and there was the same guy. In the same suit. Stan was surprised, but lured by the thought of more easy money, he went up to him. Sure enough, another crisp ten dollar bill. And nothing else. The third time, there had been a letter. He hadn't heard of the recipient, but there was an address on there, like most letters have, and he had heard of the street. The man looked at Stan, and had apparently stressed, in the same business-like tone, how important it was that it got delivered that day.

"I thought I ought to get home", said Stan, "but didn't want to risk the money drying up, so I took it. It took me ages to get to the street, and it was starting to get dark. I found the driveway, went up to the house, and put the letter through the letterbox. Someone came to the door as it dropped, and started unlocking the door. I just ran. Didn't know what to say if they asked me anything. I never saw them or anything. I was gone by the time they opened the door."

The money had continued to come, but only one other letter in the whole ten weeks since it started. It was addressed to some woman – Stan couldn't remember the name. "Walker? Walters? Something beginning with W, anyway". He had delivered it fine, and the money had kept coming. The ten dollars that had finally made the bike affordable had been given to him last night, walking home from my house. And now, here went Stan into the shop, clutching his wad of cash. Within ten minutes, we were walking down the street, Stan wheeling his brand new (well, to him, anyway) bike, like he had just invested in a brand-new Cadillac or something.

The next week, he'd got another ten dollar bill, but also another letter. He came round to my house, still holding the letter.

"I'm gonna deliver it now. Wanna come?"

Did I? I really didn't know. I didn't think I wanted to get involved, but I was so curious. I couldn't work out why someone would pay someone ten dollars a week to deliver something they could either post or deliver themselves. It just didn't make sense. I asked to see the letter. He didn't hand it to me, but carefully rotated it in his hands, so I could examine the front and back. The writing was thin but firm and insistent. The beginning of the first letter of each line was indented, and each letter flowed carefully, but immaculately into the next. It had, well, looking back, I guess I'd call it a "flourish" to it, but not ostentatiously so. It wasn't a calligraphy exercise, but it had had discipline and care paid to it. The ink was black, and there was obviously no stamp. It was a plain white envelope, with no other distinguishing marks at all. I was no detective. I didn't know what I was looking for, so I shrugged, and Stan put his hand back down. He didn't put the letter in his pocket, but clutched it rather tightly. He seemed nervous.

"I've got to go. Now. Are you coming?"

"Yeah, ok. Let's go."

We went to the address. It was nearer than the two he'd told me about. I knew the street, but not the person, a "Mister John Osbourne". We slipped the letter through the letterbox. As it dropped, a dog barked, and we heard a voice quietening the beast. We turned and ran, out of the driveway, across the road, and behind a tree on the other side of the road. The door opened, and a small man, with a moustache and balding head, came out, looking in several directions. The confusion on his face was evident. We sniggered to ourselves, mostly through nerves. He opened the envelope, and his expression changed. It seemed to, I don't know, deaden – that's the only word I can think of that seems right. He walked down the driveway, still holding the letter. The dog had escaped, as he hadn't closed the door, and it ran excitedly round the heels of its owner, but he paid it no attention. He reached the bottom of the driveway, and was only a few yards from us. We shrank back, but I get the feeling that even if we had stepped out into the open he wouldn't have seen us. There was something strange about him. He was still holding the letter, loosely, in his hand. He walked slowly up the road, and we followed at a distance.

It took about an hour at such a slow pace for him to get to the field. We didn't know the field, which was strange as it was in an area we used to hang around. We hadn't been there for a while, but knew most of the area around there pretty well, and we both nervously agreed that we had never seen that field before. It was out of town, up a hill, and when John Osbourne stopped at the gate of the field, and re-examined the letter, we ran up one side of the wall at the side of the field. There were trees lining it, and we found one suitable for climbing, and, near the top, we found a good viewpoint that covered nearly the whole area. It was getting dark, there was an eerie dusk settling, and it was hard to see across the field, so the trees at the opposite side became just an ominous shadow. The grass grew long, about thigh high on us, and there were nettles and weeds everywhere. We saw Osbourne gingerly open the gate. The dog was still with him, and leapt enthusiastically through the gap this created, into the field.

After Osbourne had gone some way in from the gate, we could see someone waiting for him in the middle of the field. He was facing directly opposite Osbourne, so was side on to us, and I couldn't see him clearly. I think this was partly due to the fading light, but I also felt he just didn't want to be seen. Writing that down, that isn't exactly what I mean, but I'm not sure how to put it better. There was an unwillingness about him, an elusiveness. That will have to do. He was tall, much taller than the diminutive Osbourne, and was dressed in a very elegant, 19th Century looking suit. He was all hidden, though, by the long grass and a long black cloak, that seemed, in the half-light, to make him look like some kind of animal, a beast. His skin seemed very pale, and his hair seemed dark, although the light made it hard to see whether that was actually the case. I got a chill from looking at him, and even though we were a good distance away from him, I was fervently wishing we were further away. Indeed, I found myself praying that we could somehow change the decision we'd made to even come here in the first place. I turned to Stan, and his white face peering back at me, with nervous rabbit eyes, confirmed the same thoughts were going through his head. We looked back, reluctantly, and saw that Osbourne had stopped several paces away from the stranger. The dog, once so excited, was cowering behind Osbourne. It clearly shared our feelings about this man.

The man said something to Osbourne, but we were too far away to hear what. Osbourne started to reply, some kind of stammering apology, but the man ran at him. It was so sudden, and he ran so fast, that I can't remember it clearly, except like a bit from a nightmare. Vivid and vague at the same time. I heard Stan gasp, and I think I remember that more than the event itself. Osbourne had turned to run, but he had no chance to even make a step before the man had covered the distance between them. He seemed to leap the last couple of steps, and that, coupled with his extra height, meant that he hit Osbourne seemingly from above. They both landed, the man on top of Osbourne, and his cloak seemed to cover them both. The image in my mind is reminiscent of a bird of prey shielding its victim from other potential challengers. I also remember seeing the dog, lying dead some distance away, even though I don't think the man had touched it. I remember Stan crying out in horror, or it might have been me, but the thing I'll never forget is how the man's face appeared, as he looked up from his prey. His white face, streaked with Osbourne's blood, was arrowed straight in our direction, and his eyes were red. I did not make that up in some stress-induced memory-remake. They were red, and shone brightly. He looked right at us, and I remember it like a photograph. It will always chill me nearly as much as when we were there.

We both lurched backwards, as if shot, and toppled out of the tree, falling heavily to earth. Winded, we were up and running before even knowing if we were injured. I have no doubt I'd have run home even if both my legs had been broken. All I could hear were our feet hitting the ground, mine and Stan's. The noise was haphazard in its pattern, our legs not responding correctly to the scrambled commands being barked out by our terrified brains. We were crying too, sometimes, the odd strangled sob breaking up the monotony of the footsteps and the air, and our heavy breathing. I remember my ears working overtime to try and hear if there were other footsteps behind us or not. I'm still not sure, although given the speed he had attacked Osbourne with, I can only assume there were not. We would surely never have been able to outdistance him, were he intent on catching us.

We ran the full distance back to town, back to Stan's house, even though we had no breath left after about half that distance. I genuinely don't remember much about the rest of that night. I remember Stan's mum was out, as she often was, and we talked. I asked him if the man was the same man who had given him the envelopes and he shook his head. He'd never seen him before. We talked nervously in his room for hours, but the conversation was garbled, and there were periods of silence, and I don't remember when I went home. I remember I ran all the way though.

A week went by, and we hadn't spoken of it since that night. Leading up to the day when Stan would be approached by the man in the suit, we got more and more worried. We hadn't talked about it, but you could tell. Our eyes were hardly meeting these days. The day before it normally happened, I approached Stan.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. Maybe we just shouldn't go out?"

I thought about it. I liked it.

"How long can that last?"

"I don't know". Stan paused. "But I don't want to go out".

So he didn't. I went round to his house, and we stayed inside. All day. It was baking hot, but we stuck to it. Stan's mum, when she was in, was surprised to see us. On the second day, we did the same thing. She seemed confused and concerned. Why were we inside on a beautiful day like this? Why didn't we go out and get some fresh air? On the third day, I was going round to Stan's, but as I was walking down my drive, I saw to my surprise that he was walking up the road to meet me.

Even from a distance, I could see he wasn't right. He was looking around, nervously, his steps were short and timid. As we got nearer, I saw what he was carrying. A letter. To be honest, "gripping" was a more truthful term than "carrying". As we approached each other, I could see it was bent by the force his sweating hands were exerting, almost mangling it out of recognisable shape. I gave a half-hearted "hello", that wilted as I could see he'd been crying. He had sweat and tears on his face.

It turned out his mum had made him go out that morning. She had wanted him to go down to the local shop to get some bread. He'd refused. She had shouted. I asked why he hadn't said something to his mum about the man.

"Have you said anything to yours?" he asked.

I shook my head. It didn't seem possible to tell anyone to be honest. I still can't explain why. He'd decided to ride his bike to the shop, to go as fast as it could carry him, but I think he'd known his plan couldn't work. He raced to the shop in record time, got the bread, and was haring back to the house. As he'd skidded round a corner, he rode straight into the suited man. The man had calmly grabbed the front of the bike, maybe to stop it hitting him full force, and maybe to stop Stan falling or trying to get away. Stan said he felt like he couldn't run away anyway, like there was no point.

The man had talked calmly to him, as normal, giving no indication they knew he had gone up to the field, and given him ten dollars as normal. And a letter. As the man walked away, Stan turned and rode, slowly and mechanically, back to the house. He'd given his mum the bread, shrugged off her comments and questions about what he was going to do with the day, and gone upstairs with the letter. It was only when he was upstairs that he looked at the name and address that were written on the front, as carefully as always.

He looked at me now, his eyes wide with fear.

"It's you".

I stared at him, not fully comprehending. He looked back at me, like a trapped animal. He showed me the envelope. The writing went in and out of focus, blood was making spots appear in my vision, and I felt faint, like I wasn't fully there. My name, and full address, were carefully written on the front of the envelope, in the same style as the others had been. I saw every indentation, as my pulse quickened. I could feel my brain struggle to cope with this information. I staggered, and Stan grabbed my arm. Neither of us spoke. We went back to my room in silence, and sat there for hours and hours. Lunchtime came and went. My mum was out, and all we could hear was the ticking clock in the hallway.

We sat there until it started to grow dark. We knew we were both trying to think of a plan, but neither of us could. The envelope sat between us, unopened. I remembered the otherworldliness that had struck Osbourne when he had opened the letter. I tried to think what would happen, what could possibly be on the letter, to make someone lose their faculties just by reading or seeing something. I pictured myself, time and time again, opening the letter, and becoming numb, rising, brushing past Stan, and walking slowly down the stairs, up the road, up the hill, to the field in the dark. In the weeds. In the dark weeds.

The phone went. We both jumped. I answered it, and it was Stan's mum. Somehow, I acted reasonably normal while she asked if Stan could come home for his tea. I nodded, remembered I was on the phone, and said "Yes". She said her goodbyes, and I said nothing, and hung up the phone. Stan had understood the point of the call, and a quick discussion followed. We decided we could do nothing that night. I would stay indoors until we had thought of something. After all, Stan had avoided the suited man by staying inside after he should have met him on the streets. The field had a power to it, maybe. Maybe that was why the white-faced man couldn't come into town himself.

"Let's tell people. We can get help." I pleaded with him.

"Maybe tomorrow", he said, although we both knew we couldn't.

His firm and final tone, and the authority that he'd always had, combined with the wanting (the needing) for a solution that had gripped us both for the past several hours or days, and I let him go. He took the letter and put it in his pocket. We shook hands, something we'd never done before, and, closing my door behind him, I stood with my head against the varnished wood and listened to him go down the stairs, my pulse echoing in my head, in time with his heavy footsteps.

I almost wasn't surprised when Stan's mum rang up half an hour later, angrily inquiring why Stan couldn't obey instructions and come home immediately. When I told her that he had left ages ago, her anger turned, via brief incomprehension, to the panic that I knew it would, but I was strangely unaffected. I guess it was shock, that numbness when your brain just can't take any more.

The police search lasted for days, for weeks. It made all the press. They tried to talk to me, but I couldn't respond. I saw child psychiatrists and child psychologists. I wanted to tell them everything. I wanted to shout it at them. But I couldn't. I couldn't emit a sound. They proffered notepads at me, and all I could do was look at them helplessly. I couldn't describe the white-faced man in the field. I couldn't even mention him. I still don't know why. It's the same reason I haven't been able to relate this story to anyone until now. Some kind of power over me, maybe the power that's in the letters that made people climb to their deaths in that field at the top of the hill, outside town.

Later that year, my mother moved us to a different town. Gradually, I began to talk again, making my mother weep with joy. I went to a different school, and made new friends, and as horrible as it may seem, tried never to think of Stan. Whenever I did, I felt my insides leap violently, gripped by something cold. Now twenty years later, I have never gone back to that town. And I never will.

# Hollywood

I moved next door to them near the end of summer, back when the fields and roads were covered with a lazy kind of dust and time seemed to drip by at half speed. They were a cute family: hardworking dad, doting mum, couple of young kids. I was ready for the slower pace. The way I figure it, you can have too much of the city, eventually.

I took to having the odd beer out on the porch to watch the sun go down, and I smoked the odd cigar too. Anyways, most evenings the boys would be out playing until bedtime. I have to say I didn't mind too much. A guy can get fed up of birdsong if that's the only thing he hears, and the sound of good honest fun's not too hard to put up with.

Cowboys were their favourite. There'd be caps firing, yeehah's yelling, and full blooded screams of victory and of defeat.

One time, one of them, the younger one, seven or eight, with an unruly mess of bright blonde hair, came retreating up the path that led to my porch, where I sat with my beer. He backed all the way up the path, and up the stairs. He was right next to me, but was too involved to notice. I found it highly amusing, but kept quiet.

Suddenly, his brother popped up over the hedge and shot him. A good one too, left him nowhere to hide. Blondie took it well: clutched his chest, squawked, and staggered backwards, right over my leg. The victorious brother took one startled look at me and disappeared from view, each eye wide as the moon; a look of fear duplicated by his brother, lying at my feet gazing up at me. I laughed, hard, and it turned into a cough. I coughed until I thought I might end up lying next to Blondie, but I gradually got it under control.

"Hi there, blondie. He got you good. Let me help you up."

I reached down my arm, and, after hesitating a second, he let me pull him to his feet.

"Thought you were gonna have him that time," I added.

"He always gets me in the end," he said, somewhat forlornly.

"Well, he's bigger than you. You fell good though, like a stuntman."

He studied me. After a second, he smiled. "Thanks. I quite like that bit."

"There's a market for that in Hollywood."

"In what?"

"Hollywood. Acting in films. Fame. Power. Money."

He gazed at me, wide-eyed, drinking in every word.

"I mean it. I've seen all those films. You've got it made, son."

He was clearly about to ask more, but a yell from his mother put paid to that.

"Bedtime, Carl!"

"I've got to go," he said.

I nodded.

"Even stuntmen have to sleep. Nice to meet you Carl."

He turned and ran down the path.

It was about a week later I heard the first argument. The only surprise was that I felt surprised. These things happen to all kids, don't they? Even best friends, and even brothers. Hell, especially brothers. Anyway, there was shouting. I saw Carl appear briefly at the bottom of my drive, but he didn't look my way. He had his arms folded stubbornly across his chest, and a huge pout on his red face. There had been tears there, but they'd been furiously wiped away with a muddy forearm. He walked quickly past the entrance to my drive and beyond, one loud sniff his only leaving present. I smiled, in sympathy rather than schadenfreude and raised my beer to my mouth. Boys will be boys, I thought.

It was only maybe twenty minutes later, when panic erupted from the other side of the hedge, that I realised what had happened.

"Where's Carl?"

"I don't know."

"What happened?"

"He cheated."

"Not the game. What happened to Carl? Is he OK?"

"He's fine. Just in a mood."

"So where is he?"

"I don't know."

I huffed my way out of my chair, bringing on another coughing fit. Damn cigars. I leaned over the hedge, and said "I saw him going down the road a while back."

"Oh God, said the mother, exasperated. "Not again. And with Jack not back yet."

"I'll go get him in the car if you don't mind me doing so," I said.

"Would you?"

"No bother."

I checked for my keys, and shuffled down to my car. It took a few minutes to catch him up. He was still walking. I pulled up alongside and matched his pace, with the window down.

"Hey, blondie," I said. "Where you heading?"

After a minute, he spoke. "Hollywood."

"Hollywood? That's some distance, you know?"

"Yeah? How far?"

"I'm not sure, exactly," I confessed. "Several thousand miles, anyway."

"That's OK," he said sullenly. "I'll get there."

"How old are you, Blondie?"

"Eight."

"Oh man, really?"

He nodded.

"That's a real shame. They don't let eight-year-olds work there at the moment."

He stopped then, his feet faltering in the dirt. He turned to face me.

"What?"

"No, you've got to be..." I paused. "Twelve," I finished.

He raised his eyes to the sky, and I think would have cursed had he known a good enough word. His hands flapped uselessly by his side.

"Well, is there anywhere else I can do it? Be a stuntman, I mean?"

I thought about it for a while, and then shook my head.

He looked around, at the grass verge, at the fields, and at the unyielding sun. After a pause he clambered in.

"What were you fighting about, anyway?" I asked.

"Simon cheated," he said. "He always cheats."

"Older brothers do," I said. "I think it's in the contract."

We drove back in silence for a minute.

"Have you been to Hollywood?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I bet it's a hell of a place though."

His eyes gleamed.

"I'll tell you all about it, once I'm there," he said.

# Max's Story

The doorbell rang, and I let him in. He was in a terrible state and barged past me, wild eyed, clutching a carrier bag filled with alcohol.

"Come in, Max," I said.

"Jesus," was all he said, and when I walked into my living room, he'd taken out the beers, and had unscrewed the whisky that was more his kind of drink. I grabbed a beer on my way to my armchair, and, sitting down, I flicked the ring pull and took a swig.

"What's up this time, Max?"

"I killed someone."

I paused. This was more than normal.

"You actually killed someone?"

"Maybe more than one," he said. "As good as, anyway."

His glass rattled against his teeth.

"'As good as' implies that you might not have done, Max," I said. "Now I suggest you down that whisky, pour yourself another, and tell me, as calmly as you can, what led you to this point."

He did as I suggested. When he sat down, his eyes were all over the room, wide open, and his breathing was that of a wounded animal.

"This guy that I work with," he said at last, "he spoke to me a while back. He came over at lunch. He said he'd been married about a year, and he wasn't sure if she was cheating on him."

"Well, that doesn't exactly make him unusual," I remarked.

"I asked him what made him so sure. He didn't really pin it down, but it amounted to her going out with her friends quite a lot, not being so affectionate towards him. You know, the usual stuff."

I nodded. I knew.

"He was all crazy, in his eyes. He just said he couldn't imagine losing her. He kept saying 'That's my woman.' Talked about the marriage vows."

"The marriage vows? Jesus."

"I know. Jesus, right?"

"That's a crock of shit right there."

"That's what I said."

"Richer or poorer? Sickness and health? Marriage is a contract. Nothing more. If it doesn't suit either party, they're out of there."

"That's it," he said, excited.

"Lose your job? Break your back? Game over, man. Every relationship is being constantly tested by the other people you meet. Your woman gets friendly with a guy who's a bit of a high flier? Well, your job suddenly doesn't look as good. She meets a guy with a six-pack? Your flab-o-meat is suddenly irreconcilable differences."

"I know."

"Bukowski once said, 'You never own a woman. You only borrow her for a while.'"

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Look, the fact is, I don't think I helped him."

I cracked another beer.

"So what happened?" I asked.

"I said he should come out drinking more often, and get used to it. Said she wasn't worth it anyway."

"Well, it's to the point," I said.

"He didn't like it."

"He probably wouldn't."

"He said that she was his reason for getting out of bed in the morning."

"He said that?"

"Yeah. He said she was his raisin dettrer, or something."

"Raison d'etre. Look, my missus gets me out of bed in the morning, but that's the B.O."

"Well anyway, he took his lunch, and he took his paper, and he walked off."

He reached for more whisky, and I took another beer. Frankly, I needed it. Max's story was boring the hell out of me. Max continued:

"He didn't put the tray back."

"What, you got that on your conscience too, huh?"

"He took it back into the office."

"Well, I guess I saw similar in CSI. You've every right to feel guilty."

"Look, he took it back in the office and a guy tried to stop him. Told him he couldn't take it out of the canteen. He wrapped it round the guy's head."

I sat upright.

"He did what?"

"Shit went everywhere. The guy went down. Then he calmly bent down and bent that fucker over his head several more times. Man, he looked so calm."

I sat there. My mouth was open so I put more beer in it. Max now had my attention.

"Left the tray there, on top of the guy's face. Nobody even reacted. He went out. I can see the door still swinging, man..." He trailed off, and then looked at me. "I think I should have said something else."

"So what happened to him? The police come down?"

"Well we were all talking in the canteen, and then I went back towards the office."

"So did you see him?"

"No, but he'd gone to Campbell's office."

"Campbell?"

"Our boss."

"And?"

"And it was fenced off. That fat fuck from security. He was up there. Man, I've never seen him move from behind that desk but there he was, acting like John fucking Wayne. No fucker getting near the room. I could see shit though. Furniture lying on the floor, and then-"

He paused.

"What?"

"There were stains, man. I saw stains."

"Fuck!" I breathed.

"I know. And he'd gone off looking for his woman. Just heard on the news, he's taken her hostage in their house. Police all around."

"Jesus!"

"Yeah, wanna see what's going on?"

"Fucking hell, yeah."

I switched on the set, found the channel. Live coverage filled the screen, random press ramblings scrolled along the bottom.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me this bit when you walked in? I've been listening to you prattling on for half a fucking hour!"

"You need the background, man. Can't appreciate it without the background. Want another beer?"

"Fuck, yeah."

He gave me a beer, and took a whisky for himself.

"Look at those copters man, that's proper coverage."

"Yeah, he's never getting out of there."

"He's fucked, mate. They never let a man out alive."

"Yeah," I said.

We sat there in silence, watching the screen.

"Fucking women," he said.

I nodded, and drank my beer.

"Fucking women."

# A Matter of Morals

On a hot summer day, Carl Shuttinger nervously got off a train in Brighton, with the sole intention of finding somebody to murder.

Murder was a cold word, and a glamourous one. It was inconceivable to most people, and so they were fascinated by it. It wasn't inconceivable to Carl. Thinking logically, it would be hard for him to kill any one of a large percentage people he knew, even taking the moral side away. He wasn't a big guy - he'd never really worked out, and while not being short, had a very modest build that would not terrify people if they encountered him in a dark alley. He decided he would have to target the old or weak. He was confident he would be able to do the deed, when it came to it, and having obvious physical superiority over his potential victim, who might just die anyway when faced with such an encounter, put the odds almost entirely in his favour. The only possibility of things going wrong would be getting caught in the act, or of it being traced back to him.

He had decided he would pay cash for train tickets, and go to random places each time, making sure there was no discernable pattern to the places he went, except that he would never go to the same town twice. Towns were anonymous - people were so caught up in the drudgery of their everyday lives that they often didn't see that some old dear had milk piling up on her doorstep - he'd seen that on the news plenty of times. He'd travel smart, hair slicked back, wear a suit, and carry a suitcase. He'd put an encyclopaedia in it, and attempt to enter old people's houses by being an encyclopaedia salesman. With that in his case, and some suitably forged document, he would have excuse if stopped, and room for storing a certain amount of valuables - as long as they didn't seem unique or in any other way traceable - from any house he managed to suitably "clear". One house per town - don't get greedy - and back to the train station. No proximity to the case would surely make it next to impossible for anyone to pinpoint his location.

His plan concocted, he had looked at the map to determine his first port of call, in the end selecting Brighton. He'd spent some weeks designing the documents he would need for pawning goods and for proving he was an encyclopaedia salesman. He'd copy his own identification documents, changing the name and address so he would be able to produce documents local to whichever area he was currently in. It took some time to get right but, once satisfied with the result, he set the target date for the coming Thursday, surmising that the more active sector of the community would have commuted to the city for the day, thus leaving the town less well attended.

The night before he went, he hardly slept, so filled was he with worry and doubt. Had he thought of everything? This would be it - no going back, no second chances. If he left some clue that came straight back to him, he didn't know how he would cope. The vision of spending the rest of his life in prison terrified him. But this was no way to succeed in life. He had to stay strong, and positive, and to make sure he followed his plan through. He had thought of everything. There was no way he could get caught if he stuck to his plan. He slept fitfully, and then, when he arose the next morning, he followed his plans out to the letter.

He dressed normally, putting a suit in the suitcase. He went to the station, paid for a locker, and went to the station toilets. Changing into the suit in a small cubicle, he drew a small holdall out of the suitcase. He put his spare clothes in this, and then, at the washbasin, he slicked back his hair so as to change his appearance. He left the toilets, storing the holdall in his newly-acquired locker, and, adjusting his tie, carried his suitcase, complete with encyclopaedia and Brighton documentation, to the ticket office. He bought a day return ticket to Brighton, and paid by cash, as he had planned.

Once the train had arrived in Brighton, and he had disembarked, he found himself wandering, sick with nerves, his back already plastered with sweat. He walked up and down several streets. He didn't want to just hope a house had old people in it, he wanted to know. Eventually he saw what he was looking for: an old woman talking to another over the gate of her driveway. As he approached, he slowed right down, trying to wait until they'd finished talking. The house at the top of the driveway was small, he guessed either two bedrooms or one bedroom and a box-room, and assumed it would be either just her on her own or her and her husband. He was hoping some conversation as she arrived would fill him in on that fact, but they were just gossiping on about the garden. Was the fact that she was doing the garden salient? Shouldn't that be the job of the husband? Who knows? He could be away, it could be her hobby while he stayed indoors polishing his shotguns.

As he approached, the friend made her goodbyes and waddled importantly down the street away from him. The object of his attention walked slowly back up her driveway, still smiling, and carefully took her garden boots off carefully in the doorway, before shutting it behind her. He dusted himself down, even though he was spotless, and opened the gate.

Ringing the doorbell, he felt a rush of adrenaline. An old man answered, and his appearance was so unexpected as to cause Carl to take a step backwards. He made some bluster of encyclopaedia talk, and the man tutted, shook his head and closed the door.

It took Carl some time to recover, and he walked around, pacing the streets until his fist stopped clenching, and his breath returned to normal. He saw another woman on her own, in her garden, and, growing a bit panicky about the amount of time this was taking, began talking to her about encyclopedias without even knowing if anyone else was in the house. As it turned out, she wasn't remotely interested in looking at the book, and he could think of no other pretence of getting her into the house. As he re-emerged onto the road, he began to wonder whether he was really cut out for the murdering trade.

With his mind oscillating between forcing into a home and dealing with however many people happened to be inside, and giving up on the whole thing and going home, he saw an old woman come out of her doorway and wave in his direction. He turned to see who she was waving at, but there was nobody in the entire street. He turned back to her, amazed, and there she was, beckoning him with a "Coo-ee!" Stupefied, he found himself waiting at the bottom of her driveway, as she came shuffling down towards him in her slippers.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you", she was saying, "but I was just wondering if you could help me out. I need a lightbulb changing, it's been out for a couple of days, and with me being all on my own, and so terribly useless, I can't reach it. You're so young and tall, I do hope you wouldn't mind changing it for me?". His mind was still processing what was happening to him as she shepherded him up the pathway and into the house. "You are a dear," she said, "it's just through here", and led him through into the lounge.

He looked around in amazement - the room was full of paintings, ornaments and statues. He'd hit the jackpot. He stood in wonder for a full minute until he was aware that she was pointing out the offending bulb. Taking the proffered replacement bulb from the eager old lady, he did the necessary screwing and unscrewing. When he stood back, and she pressed the switch, light flooded the room, and she applauded triumphantly, as if he were her only son accepting a nobel prize.

"You must let me give you some reward", she said, "I have some tea and cake. It's all ready. I do hope you'll have a little something?"

Carl nodded, still dazed. This delayed him having to do the deed, at least for a few minutes, and to be honest, a cup of tea was sounding very tempting right now, in the absence of something stronger. At his nod, she clapped her hands together, and disappeared off into the kitchen. She talked to him as she readied it, and he wandered slowly around the room, debating the relative merits of each item, weighing up potential value against the amount of room it would take in his suitcase.

When she wheeled a little serving trolley through, it had a teapot, cups, milk, and two pieces of cake. "Please, please", she said, pointing to a nearby chair, and Carl sat down meekly, looking at her. Could he go through with this, he wondered. She poured, her voice never ceasing. His mind was in overdrive, and he couldn't process what she was saying, so he nodded and smiled in all the right places, and she seemed not to notice. At any rate, she wasn't giving him any room to add any input of his own. She thrust a cup of tea into his hand, and he drank it down greedily, not caring how hot it was. She coo'ed, and topped it up again, before she had even poured any herself. When she thrust the plate of cakes at him, he put the tea down, and took one, holding it over his other hand, so as not to catch crumbs. She nodded appreciatively, before carrying on her inane chatter.

He was relaxing, and was now confident that he could go through with this. It even made her non-stop talking ok, he thought. It would be nice to shut that up. He had the beginnings of a headache, and he couldn't wait to get this all out of the way and get back home. He rubbed his temples, as she announced "Ooh, it's nearly time for the news. You don't mind if I put it on, do you?" Seeing as it might actually stop her talking, and would also provide some cover noise, he nodded gratefully. She wandered over to the set and turned it on. The programme before the news was still on, and she turned, and started wandering back to the kitchen.

This was it. If he was going to kill her, it had to be now. If he wasn't, he could still finish his tea, and go home, and give up the role of murderer once and for all. But he was so close. There had to be good money here. People like this must keep some kind of stash in here, probably up in the bedroom somewhere. Once she was dead, he could take his time, take the house apart if necessary.

He grabbed a large ornament from the mantlepiece, testing it for weight. He tip-toed towards the kitchen, but before he reached it, in the little hallway, he came face to face with the old lady, who was coming back. She smiled at him, and then looked at the ornament. Confusion crossed her face. He tried to think of some excuse for having it there, realised there was none, and lifted the ornament in the air, an almost apologetic look on his face. Terror replaced confusion in her eyes, as he brought the ornament down on her skull. It produced a dull thud, rather than the loud crack he had been expecting, and she sunk to the floor, her arms still half-raised in the air, but not raised enough.

She was wailing softly, and he brought the ornament down on her again and again, until she stopped. Blood was seeping out into the carpet, and he stood up. For some strange reason, he rearranged his tie. He looked into the mirror, the red, sweating, panicking face of a killer staring back at him. She was dead. He'd actually done it. He didn't feel relief, and he didn't feel shame. He didn't even feel real. He did still have a headache though - he felt so weary, and dizzy with the adrenaline that was still coursing through him. He dropped the ornament by her body, and, after looking at her again, started upstairs.

He was faced with four doorways. Opening the first, he found a cupboard, filled with vacuum cleaner and buckets. Ignoring this, he turned and opened the first door on the right. It was the bathroom - small and conspicuously clean, there was clearly nothing here. The second door on the left revealed her bedroom. He looked under the bed, checking there was nothing there, and then turned his attention to the chest of drawers. He found her jewellery box, and looked in. Some nice looking stuff, and he loaded it into his pockets. Going through the drawers, he found nothing but old clothes. Frustrated, he stood to go to the wardrobe. As he did, he felt dizzy, his head pounding. Come on, hold it together, he told himself. Clutching the wardrobe, he shook his head to clear his mind, and looked inside. After dragging out spare blankets from the top shelf, and rooting through boxes that lay amongst the shoes in the bottom underneath the floral dresses, he stood, perspiring freely. He had one room left to go, and then he was going to throw some cold water over his face and get the hell out of here, with or without the shoebox full of money that he was sure was here somewhere.

His head hurt so much he could feel his pulse like a hammer, as he tried the last door. It was locked, but the key was in the lock, and, turning it, he almost fell through the door. It was dark inside, the curtains were drawn, and there was a strange smell assaulting his nostrils. Turning the light on, he saw somebody lying on the spare bed, and his first instinct was to run. He had actually started to turn before he realised there was no need, and gasped in horror. Whoever it was was clearly dead, and also the source of the smell. Decomposition had set it, and the eyes stared endlessly at the ceiling. The body, a young man in his early twenties or thereabouts, was naked, and Carl started to scream, but the effort took even more out of him and it came out as a gutteral moan. He grabbed the wall to prevent himself fainting.

As he dragged his eyes away from the body, and looked around the room, he saw another body propped up on a chair, behind the door that he had entered. Also naked, this one was a female, of similar age, and in a similar state of decay. Carl's head felt as light as a balloon, and spots were in his eyes. He could hear a consistent loud buzzing to accompany the hammering pulse, and he felt sick. When he turned to go downstairs, all thoughts of money removed from his mind, he couldn't even focus on the doorway. It seemed to move in front of him, as if he were at sea in a heavy storm, and he clutched at the wall once more, as if it were trying to get away from him.

What were these people doing here? Why did this woman have dead people in her house? Why did he feel so sick? It couldn't just be shock. His mind flashed to the tea, to the cakes. Had she had any? He didn't think so. In fact, playing it back as clearly as he could in his addled mind, he knew she hadn't. She'd been talking, she'd been re-filling his cup, she'd been putting the television on. She hadn't touched a drop of the tea, and hadn't eaten a crumb of cake. He retched on the floor, and gazed dully at the resulting mess that lay in front of him. He thought, almost drunkenly, of his suitcase downstairs, of the encyclopaedia in it, of his false documentation. He'd thought of everything. As he fell forwards, his head struck the floorboards with a thud reminiscent of the old lady's head under the ornament he had wielded only minutes earlier.

In the renewed quiet that took over the house, as his breathing slowed, and just before it ceased, he might have just heard the strains of the television downstairs. The main news had finished, and the local news had begun, announcing the state of the police investigation that had been ongoing into the disappearance of a young couple who had last been reported as arriving in Brighton. The last contact from them had been a postcard sent to their parents that they had arrived, announcing that the journey had been fine and they were off to look for accommodation. On the television screen, a photo of a smiling young couple, with blond hair, and blue eyes, and healthy carefree smiles was displayed while the serious tones of the newsreader announced that they had been missing for some weeks now, and police were appealing for fresh information. His tone brightened, however, as he moved onto the next news item. A charity concert was being planned for two weeks time on Brighton beach. That, he assured everybody watching, promised to be some show.

#  Enlightenment

After the plane took off, Humphrey Bogart walked into the mist, beginning a beautiful friendship with Claude Rains.

"The End".

The words appeared in big, clumsy letters, and Kris Ahlers voiced the command that shut down the projector, cutting dead the brass fanfare mid-stride. He absent-mindedly wiped a tear from his cheek. He'd been crying a lot lately. Raising his head, Kris spoke loudly and clearly, belying the shakiness in his voice.

"Record start. Fifty-third new year. Day 2,853. Casablanca. No new insights to report".

He paused. When he uttered his next command, his voice was different, malformed and barely audible, but the recorder complied, ever obedient.

"Record stop".

***

After the Great Global War, when over ninety-five percent of the world had perished in a mutually-destructive bloodbath, the survivors, cautiously starting to piece together some form of society again, found that the computers had remained undamaged. The same technology that had facilitated the wiping out of billions of people was harnessed for an entirely different purpose: to help humankind to survive. Transformed from aggressors to protectors, its priorities were changed to creating and maintaining accommodation, transport, hygiene, and healthcare. And food. Animals, water, vegetables, and fruit were tended until they were freely available on demand.

Even before the war, medical knowledge had been taken to its full conclusion, and any illnesses were detected as part of daily scans as people went about their daily routines. Drugs administered into people's diets automatically meant they were cured of once fatal illnesses without ever knowing they had them. Genetic deficiencies were being ironed out slowly, through the generations, and this, along with the regulated diet and lack of stress, had the effect of the average age being extended, generation by generation, to the point where humans were now living for nearly two hundred years (in Old World terms, anyway. Nowadays, a new year started only when the leader of the New World Order died and a new one was elected).

***

Kris turned and surveyed his office. A large spacious room, clean and comfortable, it had been his office for over fourteen thousand days now. He remembered back in the fifty-second new year, when he had ordered it. Machinery, available to all civilians as decreed by the New World Order, had built it onto the side of his already substantial mansion, taking two days to carry out his verbal description of how it should look. He had been unsurprised to note that they did it perfectly. Due to his obsession with the Old World, the books he'd read and the films he'd seen, he knew that jobs were "applied for", and you went for "interviews" to talk about "salaries". Although understanding how it happened, he couldn't fully understand why, because now that nobody needed to work and "money" was non-existent, it wasn't an easy concept to grasp. However, he had done some painstaking research of "Old World" media materials, and his office was a faithful rendition of what he believed an office, belonging to a successful "executive", would have looked like; one belonging to a big company's Managing Director, or perhaps one of the mysterious C.E.O.'s that he knew were superior to all the other workers.

***

The Official Meeting that had taken place two hundred and sixteen days after the end of the Battle had overseen the election of a committee called The New World Order. Over the following days, this committee discussed and composed rulings for many things, one of the most important being education; both the system of teaching and what information should be taught. Education became a series of data recordings played repeatedly to everybody in their sleep. This stretched from rudimentary knowledge of language and arithmetic to the greatest insights of all philosophers and scientists in the history of the Old World. Over the following days and years, everybody came to possess the knowledge of the most enlightened people of the Old World. This eradicated negative values such as greed and dishonesty, jealousy and hate, and the New World Order congratulated themselves on the success and harmony that this created.

One of the first duties of the computers was to clean away the remnants of the Old World; clearing up the disease-ridden rubble of destroyed cities, and helping wildlife return to the scorched wastelands. During this procedure, any surviving architecture and artefacts of the Old World that could be saved were archived, and these became freely accessible to citizens by the second new year, by which time society was deemed advanced enough for individuals to be trusted. While these archaic pieces were ignored by most as oddities and trivialities, the ways of the Old World were a source of constant fascination for a tiny minority, such as Kris, who regularly pored over these examples of a long-gone, self-destructive, primitive version of themselves.

***

Kris leaned back in his chair, and lit a cigar. He had started having the finest Cuban cigars brought to him from the stock in the Central Old World Repository, kept there in airtight containers. Popping the cork of one of only sixty remaining bottles of Dom Perignon '96, he commanded the playback of Mozart's Requiem, a piece he had read was regarded as one of the purest examples of the extent of human culture; one of the most prominent artistic achievements of the Old World. As he filled his glass, the opening strains of 'Introitus' came through the finest speaker technology the Old World had ever produced. He listened intently, tears springing to his eyes once more. He exhaled a plume of blueish smoke, as weightily as if he'd been winded, his head spinning in a wave of nausea he knew he would never become accustomed to. It was just noise. As the choir's collective voice swelled to fill his office, he put his head in his hands and he wept. He wept for the emotions he could not feel, emotions that he was beginning to realise he would never understand.

#  Underground

Wayne Garland walked down the road, discarded and unattended, until he arrived at the entrance to the underground station. Wincing up into the drizzle, coloured orange by the nearby streetlight, that cooled and cleansed his exhausted lined face, he lit a cigarette and took a welcome drag. It was the first chance he'd had to relax all day, and it was late. He smoked it down, and then flicked it away, watching as it bounced twice off the kerb, sparking up like mini-explosions, and ended up in the gutter. Turning, he descended the stairs.

The station was deserted. The bare white lights stung his eyes after his long walk through the back streets, and the silence was oppressive. The barriers were up, meaning he didn't even have to swipe his ticket; he just wandered through, looking around for staff, who he was sure would tell him the station was closed. He carried on, his mind still registering faint protest against the lack of anybody else present.

His heels clicked loudly, echoing in protest at the absurdity of his situation. There was the adverts for various products that he saw every day. He knew them, but in the current light, and current silence, they took on a malevolent feel. The eyes in the people stared back at his, but they seemed dead and soulless. They looked at him, the faces stretched in grotesque parodies of happiness and pleasure, like waxworks in an abandoned funfair.

Some of the signs pointing out the different platforms appeared to have been taken down, but he knew the route. He'd done it for several years now, and confidently stepped from corridor to corridor, picturing the signs where necessary, and he only faintly registered the fact that after a few minutes of this, he was speeding up his walk and resisting the urge to run. There was something about emerging around a corner, and seeing the same corridor ahead of you, with no exits left or right, lit only by a sometimes flickering fluorescent tube, to make strange thoughts begin to cross your mind.

He reminded himself of the meetings he'd had that day, and of the people he'd seen, and of Barbara and their children waiting for him at home. He imagined himself telling them of his fears and of them laughing at his stupidity. He thought of the glass of wine Barbara would press into his hand, he thought of the feel of her warmth against him, and he hurried on towards the platform.

After a while, he thought the adverts were running thinner. There were some that he didn't recognise; dogeared and covered with layers of dust and dirt that he didn't remember ever having seen before. There were traces of grime all over the rest of the walls too, and on the floor. Over the next few hundred yards he became aware that the lights were not as keen as they had been up near the entrance too, or maybe his eyes were becoming tired. Unless nerves were playing up on him, he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Attempting to hum, the spittle dried on his lips, and the note quivered in a manner that convinced him to give up the idea. The adverts on the walls had dried up completely now, and he was surrounded by a white expanse of porcelain tiles, exhausting in their reflective silence.

He stopped when he heard a sound other than his own walking and breathing. There it was. The unmistakable click of someone else's footsteps, and they were getting louder. When he rounded the next corner, he saw a young man walking towards him, in a suit and wearing a hat like his own. The light was really quite dim at this point, but it was definitely a businessman.

Due to the diminished light, it was only as Wayne approached the man that he realised he was covered in dirt. Dirt on his suit, and dirt all over his face. The smile coming through the streaked face was composed of a set of yellow, rotten, and quite often missing teeth, and Wayne caught a smell as they covered the last few yards that he couldn't place. Something rotten. Wayne's returning smile faltered, sticking in his throat as quickly and as noticeably if he had unexpectedly swallowed some chewing gum.

Wayne smiled and nodded, nervously, and carried on past him, but the man turned and walked several yards behind him. Wayne was sweating and close to running, but that would give up the last semblance of normality that he was so desperately clinging on to. All he wanted was Barbara. He thought he could almost smell her perfume at this point. He pictured the living room, the brandy and the cigarettes, cuddling up on the sofa in front of the television. He wanted that so hard that a sob escaped him.

Gradually as they walked, Wayne noticed another sound, a different sound, but it entered his recognition so slowly it was impossible to tell when he had started to hear it. Had he always heard it? It sounded like a vehicle or some kind of engine, but as they neared it, it became obvious that it was much louder. Turning the corner, they entered what he could only think of as a cavern, and Wayne came to a halt with an astonished gasp. All the longing he had had to see a large group of people vanished. All he could see was people. Hundreds of them, all facing him. And the sound, deafening in Wayne's ear, was at last explained. They were all coughing.

Years before, Wayne had visited his grandfather in a hospital ward full of tuberculosis sufferers, and this sounded like a magnified version of that, with so many people, and all the acoustics that a massive cavern such as this could garner. Wayne would not have believed that a cavern like this still existed down here, if he had thought about it. But he did not. His mouth tasted of sand, and his legs ached. He realised he was feeling faint, and he clutched at the wall that was near him.

Wayne could see clearly into the first rows of the crowd. They were wearing suits of varying degrees of decay. Some were caked so badly in dirt that it was impossible to tell what colour they had originally been, and the beards and long hair of their owners indicated their stay had been lengthy. On others, streaks of soot were the only things that differentiated their owners from Wayne, and the lack of facial hair indicated that their arrival had been recent.

Wayne knew he had to act. Turning, he lashed out at the man next to him, and sprinted back into the corridor. A roar followed him, along with that coughing inferno, and the undeniable sound of movement, of running. They were coming.

He ran back, down the corridors that appeared before him. Every turn gave either another bare corridor or an unmarked doorway. He ran, he chose at random, the tiles took on a rhythm in his eyes, flickering the light. He even started thinking of rhythms in his head.

After several minutes, he noticed that the din had faded into the background. Maybe, with all the corridor choices, he had a chance of getting away here. They all had inhaled so much dirt, their lungs must be barely functioning. And then he turned another corner, and stopped in dismay.

In front of him was a dark tunnel. The light had gone. Behind him, he could just hear the noise of the coughing - it had never completely stopped - getting louder again. He gulped. Holding out a hand against the cold tile, he set off into the darkness. He ran, his eyes taking nothing in from the pitch black fog that surrounded him, his fingers bouncing angrily over the tiles.

Suddenly, he saw a dim light. There was a gap in the wall, and it was coming from there. He flung himself through. Gasping for breath, he stumbled onto a deserted platform, with one flickering light buzzing defiantly. Looking around, he was astounded. He saw old rotten wooden seats, and first-world-war adverts adorning the walls; dirty, cracked cartoons advertising toothpaste and butter. Everything was covered in soot and mould.

He looked around him, and quickly realised that the only other exits were the two tunnels through which the train would have entered and exited. His eyes glaring wildly, a sweat around his brow, he leapt from the platform into the damp mud where the broken tracks lay. He paused at the entrance of the forbidding black mouth, and the flickering light reflected off his wide open eyes that looked back at the approaching sounds with the panicking gaze of a wild animal. With a sob, he waded through the dirt and the puddles, into the dark, as the coughing behind him grew closer.

# The Delivery

Rob hung up his house phone. He'd spent weeks arguing with his network provider trying to get a new mobile, since he'd lost his old one. He'd been promised, again and again, that a new one would be delivered within the next five working days, and had long stopped believing it.

So it was a pleasant surprise for him to be woken the next day by a knock at the door. A delivery man was holding a clipboard for a signature to confirm delivery of a new phone. Signing, he was curious to find that he felt he recognised the delivery man. He paused, about to ask if he knew him, but the man just smiled good naturedly, and glanced at his watch. Rob thought better of it, and signed the page.

Closing the door, Rob opened the package. The foil packaging had no logos or markings, and once he opened it, he realised that there must have been some mistake. It was small, metallic, and unlike any he'd seen before. After all this time, they'd sent him the wrong one. He swore under his breath. He also noticed there was nothing else in the box. No power supply, no headphones, no memory cards. Nothing! How was he meant to even charge it up? This was ridiculous.

He was already conjuring up the first few lines of his sarcastic letter of complaint in his mind, when he saw the power light was flashing, strange for a new phone. He picked it up, and saw it had a bar of energy on it. Well at least he could use it until the power ran out, to see if he liked it, and then send it back. He had to speak to his sister anyway, so he thought he would try it out.

He keyed in the number and held the phone up to his ear. Then he remembered he had no SIM card. It wouldn't work anyway. Just as he thought that, he heard the phone connect through and heard a ringtone. It rang several times, and then his sister's husband answered the phone.

Confused, he affected a friendly tone, and said "Hi, James, it's Rob. Is Katie there?"

"Oh, hi Rob. No, she's gone out. She's at the park with the kids. You can get her on her mobile, though."

"Cheers mate, that'll be fine."

"No worries, I'll tell her you rang."

As Rob hung up, he took the phone away from his face. As his fingers pressed the cancel button to finish the call, he noticed the screen. Written, where the caller id is listed, it said the word "Katie". He blinked, still processing this information in his mind. He looked over the phone, but there were no removable panels, for batteries, or SIM cards, or anything. It was a sleek, small metal phone. Beautifully designed, but impregnable.

Still in a state of confusion, he looked at the main menu, and chose the photos section. There were hundreds. He opened the first one. It was one of him as a baby, his mother holding him, still in the hospital. He had never seen it. He hadn't seen any photos of his mother, who had died when he was a teenager, for a long long time. He hadn't been sure there were any left. He closed it and opened another, at random. It was Rob again, aged five or six, in a small red shiny coat, sat amongst the daffodils. Must be in some kind of park. He didn't know. The next photo showed him, still a small child, on the shoulders of a man, both of them giggling, as the man ran through a field. Looking closer at the man's face, Rob gasped. It was the delivery man. The context of the photo made him realise why he felt he had recognised him. It was his uncle, his mum's brother, who had died when Rob was just seven.

More photos filled the screen, as he pressed buttons, moving through the catalogue in a haze. He stopped only when the phone's power warning cut through the fog of his cluttered thoughts. He exited out of the photos and went to the contact list. As he scrolled down the list, name after name of his past went into and out of his mind. He recognised them all. Old friends and relatives. Names he hadn't heard of for years as well as those he was still in touch with. All of a sudden his fingers stopped their frantic pressing. The name selected stared back at him.

Mum.

His fingers sweating and quivering, he had to press twice before the phone began dialling the number. The phone beeped again, as the battery life bar flashed, menacingly. His breathing, short and heavy, could not drown out the sound of a ring tone at the other end of the line. Where was the other end of the line? A click as the phone was answered. Was someone there?

"Hello?"

It was only one word, but he thought he recognised the voice.

"Mum?". His voice was guttural, and not clear. He didn't recognise himself. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Mum?"

"Hello Rob, dear." The voice was infuriatingly calm. He recognised it though. Dear God, he recognised it. Why was she so calm?

"Mum, it's me!" He broke down. He didn't know what to say. He sobbed, long body-shaking sobs. This couldn't be real. "Mum, I love you! Where are you?"

"I love you too, Rob. I-", and the phone beeped. The voice had gone.

Rob turned his tear-streaked face to the phone, incredulously inspecting the now blank display. The battery had run out. He shook it. He turned it this way and that, he wrenched at the smooth metal exterior. There was no way in. Furiously, he slammed it violently, repeatedly, against the wall, sobbing, and it broke open into several pieces. Inside, it was empty.

# End of the Road?

The day had started no differently to any other, with Sarah climbing wearily into her car. What happened on her way to work was tragic, but not too out of the ordinary. It was a simple case of somebody not concentrating.

She was going too fast for the roads and did not compensate for the rain that was falling, which made the grip on the country road that much more tenuous. So it was that her silver Mondeo went round a corner too fast, and on the wrong side of the road.

There was a vehicle mere yards from her and coming in the opposite direction. Sarah raised a hand, instinctively and ineffectually, in front of her face, and her last words were not, as she had always jokingly told her friends they would be, "To infinity and beyond", but a stretched profanity that turned, at the point of contact, into a primal shriek.

—

Elizabeth and Charlotte sat on the bench outside school, waiting. The dusk was advancing steadily, and they held hands, defiantly, against the impending darkness.

"How long have we been here?" asked Charlotte, a hint of whining creeping into her voice.

"I don't know," replied Elizabeth. Neither of them owned a watch. "It must be late."

"Where's Mummy? Why isn't she here?"

"I don't know. She must be stuck in traffic. She'll be here soon." Despite Charlotte's whining, Elizabeth was the older sister and possessed a protective instinct. She gave Charlotte's hand a squeeze, and felt a grateful squeeze in return.

Footsteps ahead of them made them tighten their hold on each other, and they peered nervously into the murk.

"Mummy?" asked Charlotte.

The figure of a man emerged, and drew closer. As one, they gave a squeal when they recognised who it was.

"Daddy!"

They both leapt up from the bench and ran to the figure, who squatted down and put an arm around each of them.

"What are you doing here?" asked Elizabeth. "Where's Mummy? Why are you picking us up?"

"Hello, girls," the man said, as they hugged him, Charlotte squeezing so tightly. "It's alright," he said, gently. "It's alright."

There was a sadness in his voice that made Elizabeth draw her head back and look at him.

"Where's Mummy? Is she alright?"

The man paused. His reservations caused a well of panic in Elizabeth's chest. What was he finding so difficult to say?

"Can we see her?" asked Charlotte, her face still buried in her father's jacket. "Is she at home?"

The man shook his head. He looked so tired. "It's alright, girls. It's alright," he repeated.

"What's happened, Daddy?" asked Elizabeth, her eyes scrutinising his face, searching for the honesty beneath the platitutes. He caught her eye, and sighed. After a pause, the truth came.

"There was an accident, girls." He looked away. "A horrible accident."

Elizabeth felt the panic rising. A horrendous vision filled her head; she was inside a car and it was rolling, rolling, rolling, there was terror in the air, her head was filled with screaming.

"Mummy-" shouted Charlotte.  
"Mummy's in another place now, sweetheart," came the broken reply, and now they were all crying.

He gripped them tight, pulling Elizabeth back into his chest, her head still swirling as she thought of everything, how it was all changed forever, how her mother's face, so recently visible, was now gone. Could she not have been taken ill or something? That, at least, would have offered some kind of hope. To go from everything being fine to this was unfair. No second chances. It was all so final, so permanent.

Her fists clenched against her father's jacket, and she pushed at him, her eyes scrunched up tight.

"No!" she screamed. "No! It's not fair! It's not fair!"

He pulled her tighter, and shushed her gently, his own tears falling.

"I want my mummy", screamed Charlotte.  
"You'll see her again someday, sweetheart." he said. His voice was flat.

After a time, Elizabeth cried herself dry. Her head ached, but she felt calmer. "What happened in the accident, Daddy?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"There was a car, it hit us."  
"Us?" she said. Then again, but not as a question. "Us. It hit us."

He nodded.

"There was nothing I could do." He started crying again. "I wasn't speeding, it just came round on the wrong side." He was talking to himself.

"We were on our own here," said Elizabeth.

He nodded again. "I was in a coma for some time," he said sadly. "Your mum, she was holding my hand. I remember that." He winced. "I tried to talk to her. I tried to-" He broke off.

Elizabeth looked around. The school was gone now. It was no longer dark, but the air was now filled with a mist that meant that she could still not pick out any landmarks.

"Mummy's OK," she said.

Her father nodded.

"She was the only one. You two went instantly, I heard the doctors saying. I don't think they thought I could hear anything, but I could. I could hear-"

He broke off again, and composed himself.

"The woman in the other car. She went, too. Your mum was unhurt though. Not a scratch, the doctors said."

"I wish she'd come with us," said Elizabeth, and felt a hot flush of anger on her face. "I wish we were all together."

The man nodded. "I understand, Lizzy."

"What happens now, Daddy?" asked Charlotte, still crying.

"I don't know, sweetie," said the man, looking around.

The mist was beginning to clear. They were on a patch of grass. The outline of a building stood where the school had been. It was familiar.

"At least we're together," said Elizabeth, and slipped her hand into that of her father's.

He looked at her and smiled, and took Charlotte's tiny fist in his other hand.

"Let's go home, girls," he said, and together they walked up the path to their front door.

# Time To Go

One, two three. Joining the queue for the showers, clutching his towel, he struggles to think why today is different. Six, seven, eight. Everybody leaves him alone, and he talks to nobody, the same as it has been for a long time. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. He stolidly watches the ankles of the man in front of him, and counts the paces. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.

And then he's in. The hot water hits him like a birthday present, and he smiles. The only time he ever seems to feel anything is this part of the day. At that single point, every morning, for the last however many years, he isn't a prisoner. He's a man taking a shower, and nobody can do anything about it. For a time, there is only hot water. All the rest is washed away down that dirty, clogged plughole, along with the hairs and dead skin and cheap shampoo.

He peers down, taking in the expanded belly and the grey hairs on his chest, the only indicators of time in an unchanging world. How long has he been here? Nine years? He doesn't know. He remembers the verdict being read out, the devastated shriek of his mother, and the commotion as she collapsed. At least he presumes that is what happened. He never saw her again; she was too ill to visit him. She died three months later.

The case itself is hazy now. The reality has mixed with the dreams, and the rumours he's read and heard over the years. Sometimes he hears that shriek out of nowhere, and the worst of it is that he doesn't even have to be asleep.

Back in his cell, he dresses, methodically, and sits on his bunk, staring at the cold, white wall in front of him. He's waiting for whatever it is he's forgotten, whatever today is all about. Eventually it comes.

It's only one walk amongst all the other noise of insults, banging and singing, but he picks it out early, and concentrates as it gets louder and louder. As if he is sitting at a recording studio, he seems able to tone down the other sounds around him, leaving just The Walk.

More than one person, he's guessing at three. Louder and louder, until it stops at his door. As the last footstep echoes in its own importance, he hears a key rattle clumsily in the lock, and the door creaks open, revealing the presence of Johnson and two others that he doesn't recognise. Three, he thinks, with a faint sense of righteousness. I was right.

"On your feet, son," the voice comes, and he looks up at their faces; Johnson openly disparaging, the other two sullen and wary.

He pauses just long enough to get the willed-for second glance from Johnson, and then he vaults quickly to his feet, causing the other two to flinch. Johnson's only response is to curl his lip in a sneer.

"Well you've done it, Gray," he says, mockingly. "You're on your way out, a reformed man, ready to contribute to society".

He looks up at Johnson, genuinely dazed. So this was it. How could he forget this? How could he forget the day of his freedom?

He allows himself to be shepherded out, one man either side of him, Johnson leading the way, still spouting forth about redemption and second chances.

"You gonna atone, Gray?" asks Johnson, not stopping to look around, or to wait for an answer. "You really think you can right your wrongs in the time you got left? What you got? Twenty years?"

Johnson laughs.

"If that! Not exactly taken care of yourself, have you? I'd say you'll be lucky to hit ten. You'll be back here before long, anyway."

Gray sees the handrail slide past, like a train snaking along hundreds of feet below at a hundred miles an hour.

"You ever think about her, Gray?" asks Johnson. "You're getting out. She can't. She's still dead, Gray. Still in that box."

The words bounce off the walls, mingling with the random yells of other prisoners. They're excited. Anyone gets released, there's going to be some extra noise.

As they reach the end of the corridor, and they pause for Johnson to unlock the next door, he turns to say something to Gray once more. With their recent footsteps still reverberating, he pushes the two men aside, and he goes for Johnson. They're too bored to see it coming. and flounder, open-mouthed, as he rams Johnson's head into the faceless, uncommitted blue steel door. The first word that Johnson was going to say still comes out, in some kind of stubborn refusal to be censored. Gray thinks the word was "when", but he isn't sure. Holding Johnson by the hair, he thrashes him against the door again and again, and it's on the fourth attempt that the two guards have recovered. He is slammed from behind by a baton. It's too quick for him to know. One minute he is in a glorious position of power, and the next he is on the floor, unable to breathe in, and the world is a dazed collection of sounds and urgent walkie-talkie fuzz. He sees that he is lying, at least for a moment, next to Johnson.

"We're the same, right now", he manages to say, though he's too winded for anyone upright to hear him. But he thinks Johnson might have. "We're the same, you and me".

Johnson is looking at him, dazed and, laughably, offended. How could you do this to me, his face is saying, and Gray laughs. With whatever he's got left in his body, as they pin him down, and carry Johnson away, he manages to laugh loud enough for all of them to hear. Loud enough, he thinks, for the whole fucking prison.

# One Solitary Window

Billy didn't want to spend some of his precious holiday with his Great Uncle Edward, but he allowed himself to be bribed with some roller skates, as he figured he had no real chance of avoiding it anyway. They were travelling back from a holiday in Cornwall, and were stopping off for a couple of days somewhere deep in the heart of Devon. Billy's dad had been doing some work on their family tree, and was hoping this old, distant relative might provide some useful information. Billy had only met him once, when he was very young, at his grandmother's funeral. Billy had very little recollection of him, and prepared himself for a couple of days of sheer boredom, and just hoped there'd be somewhere he could practice with his roller skates.

To get there, they had to drive for what seemed like ages, first along small country lanes, then up a long dirt track, and then, when they turned left off that, only a sign warning them they were entering private property gave them any sense that they were actually getting somewhere. They turned another corner, and the house came into view. It was certainly a reasonable size, and Billy's father gave a whistle. According to him, it must have been "six or seven bedrooms. Not short of a bob or two, is he?". Billy perked up a bit – there'd certainly be plenty of room to run about, at any rate.

Great Uncle Edward was just as boring as Billy feared. He was reasonably kind, but his eyes never seemed to actually fall on anyone. He seemed distant and pre-occupied, but he offered food and drink, and their rooms were certainly comfortable. After a quick lunch of cold meats and salad, Billy was relieved when his father asked him to make himself scarce while he tried to pin him down on some family details. Billy ran round the house and grounds, exploring. He found an area near the garages which he thought would make for perfect skating. Up in his room, he ran along the corridor. All the rooms were off to the left of the corridor, which made it difficult to remember which was his room, and which was the bathroom, etc. Once he found his room, he picked up his skates, and ran back down, over to the garages at the back of the house.

After about an hour, he got bored, though he was definitely getting better. He was walking back towards the house, skates slung over his shoulder, when he saw something peculiar. On the first floor, the level of his bedroom, there was a window. Yet, he was sure that when he had been up there, there were no rooms on that side of the corridor. He went back, went upstairs, and walked the length of the corridor. There were no doorways off to the right, only firm plaster, and not new plaster at that. He poked and prodded, but found nothing. He sneaked in the other rooms on the top floor to see if there were any doors not accessible from the corridor, but nothing. He went downstairs, and explored every single room, with the same results.

He went back outside, and stood looking at that solitary window. It was dirty, and impossible to see inside, especially with the sun shining on it, but Billy was determined to see more. He felt like a detective – this was more exciting than skating. He searched the grounds, and found a ladder lying alongside the garages. He struggled with it – it was a light ladder, fairly flimsy, but still quite big for a boy not quite in his teens. He propped it against the wall, as quietly as he could. He knew he'd get in trouble if he were caught, but he had to at least look in the window.

As he climbed, a slight shift from the ladder put chills up his spine and caused him to grip the ladder and stay still while his knuckles, and his face, turned white. After a pause, he carried on and got up to the window without any further trouble. He was struggling to see past the grime of the window. It had not been cleaned in years, seemingly, in contrast to the rest of the house, which appeared to have been given regular attention. It was an old-fashioned window, and more in frustration than anything else, Billy tried to lift it. It shifted slightly, and, somewhat encouraged, he braced himself and gave it a much stronger lift. The ladder slipped slightly again, but the window gave, and opened up several inches. As he worked it patiently, first one side then the other, the ladder moved alarmingly, losing a few inches height as the bottom slipped in the mud.

Panicking, Billy wrestled the window higher and got his knee onto the sash, just as the ladder collapsed. Leaving him on the windowsill, the ladder landed on the flowerbed and grass. As he dropped off the sill onto the bare floorboards, the window dropped shut behind him, making the room even darker. He tried to open it, but it seemed jammed fast. After a minute, he sighed, turned, and surveyed the room.

His eyes, used to the sunlight outside, were struggling to get accustomed to the half-light. He looked around, curious as to what was there. There were several ornaments and pieces of furniture, most of them covered in dustsheets. There were two main objects to catch the eye in the room, but what struck him first and foremost was what wasn't there. There was no door. It was all walls, apart from the window that he had come in. How peculiar, he thought. He'd never been in a room that didn't have a door, and he didn't realise how unusual not having a door would look until this moment. There was also no light in the room, no main bulb, or lamps, or candles, or anything of that nature. The only two things in the room that were not covered stood out all the more for the fact that all the white sheets created such a uniform effect. There was a large painting on the wall to the right of the window he'd come in, and a large mirror was directly opposite it on the left.

He looked at the painting, coughing in the dust that had risen from his battle with the window and was still struggling to settle. It was of his great uncle Edward. He was wearing similar old-fashioned clothes, and bizarrely, was a similar age to how he looked now, and yet the painting looked old. He looked at the face, much stronger and more vibrant here than he appeared, but the underlying expression, and general appearance were unmistakable . Other than recognising the person involved, it was not a remarkable or memorable painting, the mouth open in a fairly relaxed smile, a dutiful dog sitting proudly at his feet. There was a signature, and Billy leaned close to look at it. It was signed, W Macey, and the date next to it read 1731. Billy stepped back, amazed. He supposed it COULD be a distant relative, but really, the likeness was so incredible it was difficult to believe it wasn't him.

He was beginning to wish that he hadn't come up, and wasn't sure how he'd get back out again. He turned, feeling a little panicked, and looked at himself in the mirror. It was large, ornate, taking up a sizeable portion of the wall. A dull, dusty mahogany finish lent weight to it. The appearance was one of royalty, or a fairy story. He could picture the wicked Queen asking who was most beautiful in this mirror; it had real grandeur to it. The room, reflected back at him, looked darker, and looked bigger in the mirror, the walls harder to detect. He supposed it was more dust, and he could see in the mirror that he himself was covered in dust too. He looked very small in such a big mirror, and gazing into his own scared blue eyes, allowed himself a moment of self-pity. He wished he'd stayed skating instead, out in the sunlight that seemed so far away now.

He could see the painting behind him in the mirror, just to his left, and it shocked him a little that the picture now scared him somewhat. The face looked crueller, the half smile seemed more mocking, the eyes were brighter. The dog's teeth had been visible before, but it had seemed innocuous. Now the expression seemed more feral, the eyes more predatory, the teeth more like fangs. Billy was about to turn back and look anew at the painting behind him when he saw something in the mirror that completely startled him. Just to his right of the painting, straight behind him, he could see a door. A black wooden door, with a brass doorknob, of a similar style to that used in his bedroom, and the bathroom, indeed all the other rooms he'd seen in the house. How had he missed it. He looked round, startled, only to find nothing there. A trick of the light? It couldn't be. He turned back again, and there it was, staring at him in the reflection of the mirror.

He stared for a long time, feeling like a hostage. His eyes flickered over towards the snarling dog, and the man (Uncle Edward?) who seemed to be leering at him, taunting him. Was he standing in a slightly different position? Billy almost felt like something was approaching him, as he stood with his back to the painting, and whirled around. There was the picture, the dog and man looking proudly out towards him. He was wrong – it was not as sinister as the mirror was making it look. He felt cornered, as if not looking at the mirror was giving it power – was it doing something behind his back? He whirled back around, and there was the man and his hound reflected back at him, their eyes surprisingly bright against the shadows dimming the rest of the picture. They seemed to be looking at him, even though he wasn't directly in front of the painting. And there was the door.

He glanced over towards the sheet-covered furniture. Was it all in the same position? He was sure it had moved. It felt closer to him, and the walls further away. He was struggling to make out the window now. The shadows in the room felt heavy, almost as if they could be picked up and propped against the wall. He felt cold, and realised he could see his breath, rapid little puffs of grey that disappeared like ghosts.

He backed slowly away from the mirror until he could see himself right in front of the door, just to the right of the painting. He put his hand out behind him, still looking at the door, and felt the cold metal of the doorknob against his trembling fingers. He waited, he didn't know how long, and then, he wasn't sure if he turned the knob, or if it turned underneath his fingers, but the door opened. He turned to face it, not believing. Nothing was real, nothing. There was nothing there. The blank expanse of wall faced him, an impassable mass of dusty cheap plaster. He hit it with his fist, in frustration. It was solid. But when he turned back to the mirror, he could see the open doorway silhouetting his fragile body.

He wanted his parents, he wanted to call out – where were they? He knew they were in the building, but it seemed a million miles away, and he had a feeling he shouldn't shout. He had a feeling he might wake something up, something much closer than his parents. Something in that room? Or through the door? Whatever it was, he felt it was something he didn't want to wake up.

Looking at the mirror, he peered into the murkiness, the grime. He could see through the doorway, could see the top of a staircase. There was light below. With his back to it, without looking at it, he could feel warmth, he could feel the noise of people moving around. There was the voice of his great uncle. He was sure of it. Was it calling to him? He wasn't sure anymore. It didn't sound like English, but it was unclear enough that he couldn't be sure. Was that the voice of his parents? He didn't know. He felt uneasy. He wanted to go and try the window again. He looked over towards it, but couldn't see it. Had it got so dark already? He couldn't see the wall the window was on, even though he was sure it had been closer than the mirror. It was all shadows, but the furniture, covered in white seemed all around him. He wasn't sure he could even get to the window, not without moving the furniture out of the way. How had that happened?

He didn't remember moving backwards, but it seemed he had. He was just inside the doorway, his hand gently resting on the doorframe. He was actually through the door – the door that didn't exist. He realised he couldn't see the mirror anymore – couldn't see any objects that were in the room. It was all dark – the only light was behind him. He didn't want to turn around, and looked down at his legs, at his shoes. They were completely bathed in shadow, but he could see the light behind him. He didn't dare look around though – it couldn't be real. When he looked up, he realised the door was slowly swinging shut. He reached out but it was too far away from his outstretched hand, and his legs wouldn't respond in time to reach it. Why was it so far away? Had he not been leaning against the doorframe? As it clicked shut, he realised there was no handle on his side.

He groped through the darkness, towards the door, determined to try and open it. After a few steps, he paused, disorientated. He had taken several steps and should surely be at the door, but his outstretched arms had found nothing to make contact with. He moved forward again, and stopped when he heard a growl in front of him. Was it the dog? The close proximity and timbre of the growl sent a shiver through his whole body.

His teeth were chattering, and he struggled to remain silent. He backed slowly towards the staircase and found himself at the edge of the stairs almost immediately, even though he had walked for a good few steps trying to find the door. He held onto the bannister, and tried to think, but his mind was in freefall. Another growl decided his next action. Instinctively, he backed down the stairs, slowly, carefully; one tentative, faltering step backwards at at time. His small, trembling hand gripped the bannister fiercely, but not fiercely enough to stop his whole body shaking. With his eyes screwed up tight, his mouth opening and closing silently (praying?), he backed down the stairs, towards the light, towards the sound.

###

About the author:

David Braga lives and works in the UK. He hopes you enjoyed his stories. If you did, please check Smashwords for more. If there is none there at the moment, there soon will be. His blog of published material and where to find it can be found at http://bartheshouting.wordpress.com, and you can contact him at david_r_braga@yahoo.co.uk. He's also (rarely at the moment) on twitter under the name david_r_braga.

Many thanks to heartstrand.co.uk for the fantastic coverart.
