Dandelion Day

Oscar and Bernd were giant wildflower growers.

They were also bitter rivals on the local competition circuit.

To come first was all that mattered. Nothing else would do.

The two nurserymen were trapped in a fierce feud to be the best of the best and grow the biggest wild flower heads possible.

Oscar's massive Forget Me Nots were unforgettable the year before and he rightly walked away with the big shiny trophy, much to the complete disgust of second-place Bernd, who's huge Wild Garlic just didn't cut the mustard with the panel. 

Bernd fumed as Oscar raised the silver cup and vowed that next year the honour would be his come what may.

The growing year began anew and both enthusiasts knuckled down to some serious propagation. Corncockles, fumitories, sorrels, herb roberts, there were all in the frame for the gargantuan flower needed to secure the accolade in twelve short months.

Bernd, after blending the perfect fecund tilth, settled on a wild rose to give him the floral thumper that would wow those judges. Deploying his special mix of cat sick, milk and manure, his beautiful flower grew and grew and he felt a warm glow rising inside him like the sap of this thoroughbred.  They seemed like one, he and the monster rose, a winning team, heading for a well-earned summer triumph. 

Meanwhile Oscar was struggling. Nothing was happening in the seed trays at all. His normally nimble fingers were useless. In a state of complete dejection the downbeat grower removed all his clothes and threw himself into his vat of secret natural liquid fertilizer, a cocktail of his own urine, his hair and nail clippings and the cut grass from the lawnmower, which turned the whole slurry into a rich dark green. Losing all semblance of reason, Oscar Scooped up a trophy-full of the stuff and drank it down heartily, his body becoming a bottle of chlorophyll. Fully bloated, Oscar drifted off to sleep in the warm sloppy vat and his mouth fell wide open as he snored and snored. As he moved up and down his fertilizer trickled into his mouth and slowly filled his stomach.

It was also whilst he was sleeping that a dandelion seed blew into the greenhouse. It was dandelion day in the garden, when all the clocks let loose their gifts and unburden the myriad cottons into the sweet Spring air. The seed in the greenhouse wafted and bobbed its way towards the vat and as if heloing into a lost cave fell silently into Oscar's open mouth and was gone.

He woke up spluttering as the seed chute feathered down his throat assisted by a further glug of his fertilizing liquid. Before you could say Percy Thrower the little grain was happily nestled in a slick of super natural broth and began to grow.

Oscar stepped out of the vat feeling very strange. He could sense activity in his gut and an overwhelming feeling of liquid rising to his head, which itself seemed to be sprouting small shoots allover. 

He went in the house and looked in the mirror.

Good Lord! I'm growing! 

He poured a bottle of Baby Bio over his altering hair and sat in a bag of compost, his mind wandering through summer lanes and wild verges.

Bernd had seen all of this.

He had taken to spying on his arch rival in the hope of learning some of his clandestine tricks.

He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw what was growing out of Oscar's scalp. They were clearly the yellow beginnings of a dandelion flower!

Good Grief!

When Oscar had retreated to his house, Bernd helped himself to a bucket full of the green fertilising brew in the greenhouse and staggered home through the back lanes careful not to spill any of the precious cargo.

Once in his greenhouse Bernd knocked back the whole pale of the mossy drink. 

Ugh! Yuk!

He choked on the foul lawny taste and staggered backwards, only to jag his arm on the particularly thorny and enormous Guelder Rose he was rearing as his marvellous showstopper for the coming contest.

Damn!

A huge thorn ripped into his flesh and he instantly began to experience an uneasy sensation, as if the woody hooked casing was spreading up his limb, which indeed it was!

Bernd screamed! 

This wasn't the amicable seed migration that Oscar had enjoyed. No, this was an agonising ripping as razor-sharp barbs erupted along Bernd's outer arms and violently broke out from the skin of his hands, until they resembled clumsy spiked skin balls on the end of mercilessly thorned limbs.

Noooooooooooo!

The helpless grower knew his work was over and his chances of winning the esteemed cup gone forever. He was a garden monster with arms and hands that belonged in a shredder!

He rubbed the green tears from his eyes and flayed the skin off his face, the red hot blood pouring over his lethal barbs.

It's all Oscar's fault! My life's ruined!

Bernd raged and ranted, destroying years of patient horticulture he had established in his greenhouse. Going completely insane, the place was wrecked and his hatred focused on one single name.

Oscar.

At Oscar's house the carefree fellow had continued to rest every night in a large open bag of best peat-free compost and each morning take a cool bath in his vat of green broth, making sure he dunked his blooming head and drank some of the good stuff too.

His yellow flowerhead was evolving fast and by the time the show came round again in a few days time, Oscar felt certain it would be in full form and confident it was another winning wild top.

The last couple of days quickly went and the morning of the annual giant wildflower competition was upon them once again. The judges were ready, the audience was seated and the brand new trophy sparkled in the sunshine.

In the current cupholder's private marquee Oscar looked in the mirror. His cranial bloom of custardy petals was a true miracle of nature, it's circumference was easily four feet across and his little beaming face barely visible beneath the floral wonder.

Oscar gave his flower head one last flurry of flicks from his special brew slopping in his trophy, a fine verdant grassy mist filling the tent.

It made Bernd choke. He detested the filth and what it had done to him.

Bernd! What are you doing here?

To see you Oscar! To make sure you don't win that damn Cup again!

But Bernd! Look at my incredible dandelion head. You can see it's a winner. Can't you?

You're right Oscar. It's utter floral perfection and I hate you for it more than I have ever done!

It was at this point that Bernd brought round his abominably spiked arms and hands, which he had kept hidden behind his back. 

He held them up and cackled like a lunatic.

Look Oscar! Look at my entry! My monster rose limbs! Do you think they're winners? Of course not! I'll be laughed out of the marquee. No, there's only one winner here, so I'm afraid I'm going to need that head of yours, you ridiculously talented seedfuck!

Before Oscar could move, Bernd was upon him and had his dreadful tines wrapped around his soft green neck, which he squeezed, tighter and tighter, until ....

Snip!

When Bernd's name was eventually called by the judges he stepped into the circle between them and the audience, his covered arms and hands clutching what appeared to be a unbelievably massive and pristine dandelion head. 

They rose to their feet clapping as this wild beauty would surely be taking the top prize.

Bernd placed the flower head on the judges' table and turned to the clapping crowd, where he took a bow until that is, the clapping abruptly halted.

Small shrieks began to form among the attendees, which turned quickly to full-blown screams, as they pointed to what was on the front table.

Oscar's beautiful yellow petal head had turned to a clock of fluffy seeds, which were now loosening from his scalp and flying off into the air, the cupholder's face and bloody neck clearly visible, gore soaking into the tablecloth and staining it red. 

Chairs fell over as the company wrestled to leave the brutal scene. Judges were sick to their stomachs, the severed arteries splayed out from the tattered neck right in front of them.

Bernd stared in disbelief as his final chance for glory was literally blowing away in the wind and he viciously grabbed Oscar's head in his thorny stumps.

You bastard Oscar!

The reigning cupholder was smiling. 

It was indeed his dandelion day again.

May

May emerged from the mollybobs as Spring bled out.

Entangled and elf-like, she stepped over the crowfoot onto the lake's lush bank. It was a cauldron of gushing life in the bubbling green water, from which she'd surfaced, a svelte figure of verdant moulder. A flaying imago departing the mere.

Slowly she padded over the sphagnum and sundews, her sloughing tissues glistening in the vernal sunshine like torn cellophane. Tadpoles fell off. Leeches puckered harder. Her flesh rewilded and cured. Her beauteous form returned.

She could see the distant house, a half-mile down the holloway, where May once lived.

A whole three seasons had shed like skin since the incident last Autumn.

The moment where she descended into the lake's clinging eelgrass and went under the water for good.

No-one had seen her.

No-one had watched it happen.

Her husband, Ben, had no idea where she was but grieved till his heart burst and his mind caved in. 

Hers was a troubled spirit, his beloved, he'd known that from the start but she would never leave him on his own.

Or?

Not knowing where May went was worse than death. In his thoughts he buried her. In his dreams he lay down beside her in the soil.

His soul tore itself to shreds every day and his senses retreated.

The police came up with nothing. May had simply disappeared, swallowed up by the world and had been taken some place else.

They suggested she had a secret lover too, a hidden life. 

May couldn't garden her life with Ben, never mind tend a second. Ben didn't believe any of it and somehow he knew his wife was gone forever, leaving him bereft in this frigid echo. 

He didn't see May arrive at the lawn, where they had made love in the warm Autumn breeze when she had lived the year before.

Ben was sitting with his back to the hinterland of the lake, staring blankly at the Sunday paper they had delivered for the crossword. 

On the top was scribbled May and Ben, Mere House, a reminder of simpler times when the sound of the newspaper landing on the mat blended into the safe easy ambience of being together in their home.

Their sloop to the poles they said to each other, their voyage to old age in the house of their dreams, may be room for another too, to fix their life completely by creating another.

But May was clouded with frets and doubts. They wrenched her apart, the pitiless gears of darkness and despair and Ben watched his beloved slide into nothingness. 

He had nursed her over many months, cared for her day and night and wrapped her in a downy quilt of tenderness and love. 

Ever so slowly his wife came to and the thick fog of her depression lifted once more. They vowed to share a simple life of gentle contentment, always keeping the darkening pack at bay.

They had made love on the cut chamomile and he was happier than he had ever been. They spoke softly of babies and families and a future spreading out like a sunlit sea.

Ben thought May was happy too.

But she wasn't.

And then she'd gone.

That had been nine months ago.

And now she stood once more on the grass, left rampant and rank like her husband's sorrow.

May strolled through the vegetation, her hands caressing the drooping seed heads and rubbing her now plump belly fat with child.

She could hear music from the conservatory. More than a feeling. Boston. She somehow remembered that it was their favourite song. In her old life. Ben remembered too. He was sobbing. 

Ben.

Ben. 

Ben, it's me, May.

The forlorn figure in the house stood up holding the crumpled paper.

Wha ... How ... May? Jesus God in Heaven, May?

Ben raced through the door into the long grass. 

May, May, May, Oh dear God May!

His wife walked towards him holding her abdomen and they met for the first time in nine months. 

Oh my God, May, May, is it really you?

It is Ben, my love, it is. 

He held her hands.

But where have you been?

In the lake my darling. 

In the lake? I don't understand.

I died my sweetness. I am dead. I took my own life, which I have regretted every second since.

But you're here, now. How could you have died?

I am the ghost of May Ben. The Lake has let me go for one single day. This day. Today. To spend with you and ...

May pointed to her belly.

Our baby.

Our baby?

Yes. Ours.

But how?

Its grown inside me, nursed by the mayflies and now it's ready.

Ready?

Ready to be born. Our child will be born today. Here. Before I go back.

Go back?

To the lake. To die finally. With the other may mothers. The flies that get one day of life. Like me.

But ...

No more questions my sweet man. Lie with me on the lawn like we did last September. Make love to me again for our time is short.

They both lay down on the soft spring moss and embraced. They caressed and kissed and Ben felt the baby move. They made love with a tender heartfelt passion, speaking quietly about their feelings for each other and how they would be together for ...

Just another few minutes Ben my darling.

May was standing over him, her belly now flat.

In Ben's arms was a newborn girl.

Is it real?

It is a ghost like me. But it will need you Ben. It will need its father if it is to grow in your world. Promise me my darling that you will keep our baby safe.

I promise my love, I promise.

Then I must go. Walk with me to the water.

Ben followed the ghost of his beloved to the lakeside, clouds of three-tailed mayflies dancing their last.

She turned to him and kissed his lips, a sugary moment already fading.

She then held her baby and warmly kissed its forehead, tears forming in her eyes.

Goodbye Ben my love. Take care of our daughter.

Goodbye my sweetheart. I will. I will.

The father and child watched as the ghost stepped into the still edge of the pool and slowly walked out to its depths, where she turned and waved before finally submerging under the turquoise water, as a myriad wings ceased beating and all other females fell.

Goodbye she whispered.

Goodbye my May he sighed.

Ouiji World

In a world full of fucked-off ghosts the living are just livestock.

In fuckin Ouiji World.

And so it was in 3333, the year of the fuck-off haunted feast.

Up till now I'd managed to duck and dive and stay out of those hungry fuckers way.

But they'd upped the ante. 

There was going to be a fuckin feast for phantoms.

A feast of people. Those of us who were still alive.

The ghosts were greedy bastards too. Not content with basically doing fuck all all day long, they couldn't stand the thought of us remaining mortals having fun. Oh no! We all had to be dead just to make those plasmic twats feel better.

OK, I grant you, the remaining million people were immortal. 

The tough fag-end of humanity. 

We were never going to die naturally. We'd never be spectres.

This really stuck in the ghosts' craw. I mean, c'mon, we were like the opposite of those dead beats, living life to the full - well some were - and as long as we weren't dismembered, drawn and quartered we'd live forever!

That's were those fucking jealous spectres came in. They just wanted us to lie down and RIP and worst of all, they were carnivorous.

Ghosts had become predators.

Like fuckin tigers at a seance, they prowled round us living dolls and when we weren't looking in our mirrors they'd pounce and eat us there and then.

Fuckin rotten apparitions that stank as well. 

Besides the stench, which varied from ghost to ghost, the only way to spot the fuckers was in a mirror. All mortals carried a head mirror giving front and rear views and every building was encased in mirrored glass. We basically lived on a planet of reflections and all those bastard mirrors played tricks on our brains to the point were we couldn't tell reality and reflection apart.

What we did know for sure that ghosts hate their mirrored selves and squirm like shit, making it real easy to spot them and get out of their way pronto.

The only places without the damn glass panels were churches. Ghosts can't abide the sacred gaffs and stay well clear. If you can get in a church you're well safe and if you can doss for a week all the better.

But first there's the graveyards. Fuck me, they're basically fuckin dorms for ghosts, fuckin hundreds, if not thousands, pretending to sleep in the graves. They couldn't give a fuck whose grave it was as long as they could bed down. Some preferred night haunting and some day so essentially graveyards were a no-go area the whole goddamn time.

Cemeteries were far worse, like bastard ghotels. I mean mega chock-full of the ecto fuckers, goddamn dead and breakfasts that no sane immortal would go near.

Yep, churches, chapels, altars, presbytery's, vicarages, cathedrals, hermitages, friaries, abbeys, nunneries, convents and priories were you're absolute best bet for a decent bit of unhaunted kip and three square meals which stayed down, away from those stinking phenomena cruising the streets. If you landed in a holy place with staff like a priest and some deacons you were laughing. That was like winning the lottery and staying in the Hilton, 'cause those righteous boys would treat you like fuckin' royalty for at least two weeks before you had to move out to let some other poor fucker live it up. God, how I loved those staffed bits of Heaven!

Anyways, those bastard ghosts could kill the million. Immortal or not, we could be ended through various unpleasant means, all inconveniently gruesome and dreadfully fuckin fatal. We were only immortal as long we weren't murdered by fuckin phantoms.

I was a good 250 years old, not bad by today's standards. When I started out  it was all hand mirrors and silver foil cadged from the houses of the dead, as I hid among the empty houses dodging the bullets from beyond the grave.

Nowadays, if you can afford it, it's mirrored Kevlar suits blessed by the Vatican with synced satellite reflectors to Segway round on. Basically a bubble of otherness for fancy rich fuckers to swan around in like pope mobiles.

Peasants like me make for the churches. Basically fuckin alter boys and choir girls daubing ourselves in holy water like it's fuckin Chanel. Makes life a lot easier running between the holies if we stink of religion. The dead don't pray no more and hate the smell. Like fuckin catnip for spectres. I'd shower on it if I could to stop those fuckin phenomena tripping me up and eating me whole.

That's the other problem. Holes. Ghosts ate you inside out by getting in through our fuckin holes. Ears, nose, mouth, dick, slit, arse. Even cuts were bad news. Get those fuckin lacerations bandaged up or you'll be nachos for the non-living before you can say salsa.

Sometimes it all gets too much for the peasants like me and the occasional sorry immortal saddo loses the plot and gives themselves up to the famished fuckin afterlifes. I've seen it happen. No holy water for days, no communion, no church wine, no Goddamn religious food of any kind and presto! Undress in a public park away from any mirrors, exposed the holes and bingo! You're cheese for the fuckin dead. It's a gruesome sight, ingested from within like a jellyfish supper. Jeez, not for me, no way.

Nope, I'm making my way to Italy. To the Vatican City. It's fuckin Holiday Inn for the living there. So fuckin holy that the bastard ghosts have nightmares about it. Yep, I'm seeking sanctuary in the holy see and I'll do whatever the Pontiff wants to get it.

Trouble is, I've cocked up. In my haste to get to Rome I've boarded a flight in a rush, not checking the passenger list first. God dammit, everyone else is dead already including the pilot and crew. It's a fuckin plane wreck reliving the the dream.

Pinching my nose from the stinking departed, I read the airline menu card.

The in-flight meal ...

For fucks sake!

It was me! 

S I N E W

Steph was so excited she nearly burst a blood vessel about her new job in the brewery.

It was in a place called Sinew. Okay it was a creepy name and a micro beer company that she'd never heard of but they wanted her to develop a new crazy flavour and they paid well.

A room came with it as well, which couldn't be bad. It was an offer she just couldn't refuse.

That was a month ago and her best friend Ruby hadn't heard from her once in all that time.

There was something wrong and Ruby could feel it in her bones.

It just wasn't like Steph to not contact her. Normally it was once a day!

Ruby couldn't decide whether to go to the police or do something directly herself. 

She didn't want to rock the boat just when Steph had got a good thing going.

She decided not to make a fuss with the authorities and visit Steph to see what was going on.

Ruby was a reporter on the local rag in town and asked her boss for a week off, which she got no problem. Ruby was good at her job, the red headed truffler had snuffled out tons of great stories for his paper. Her boss liked her and she deserved a holiday.

Shoving some clothes and toiletries in a travel bag, Ruby jumped in her Triumph Herald and headed off up north for the wilds of Northumbria and the remote village of Sinew, where Steph had a job.

It took eight hours to traverse the country from bottom to top. Ruby stopped twice en route, once at some services for a beef paste butty and finally a couple of hours nap by a rustic layby in the shadow of the Cheviots, before attempting the last leg through the eerie hill country in the coming darkness.

Another traveller had had the same idea.

To rest. 

He was an old cyclist, touring the North. With his thick black prescription glasses on the end of his nose, he sat on his little camping seat eating a meat sandwich. 

"Hi there"

"Hi"

"You on a bike tour?"

"Yep, thought I'd give the dark satanic hills a run for thier money before I seize up. I'm trying to catch up a party of ten other Dales cyclists who headed out yesterday. And you?"

"I'm visiting a friend in a place called Sinew"

" Ah, yes, it's on my route too. I hope to reach it before dark, grab a pint from a brewery I've heard about and camp somewhere in the fields nearby. My name's Gordon by the way"

"Ruby"

"Nice to meet a fellow traveller, there's not that many braving this neck of the woods this Autumn. Would you like a meat sandwich Ruby?"

"Sure. That's kind of you. Thanks"

Ruby took her sarnie and explained that she would be napping for a while before heading out again.

"I'm ready to roll Ruby, so I may see you in Sinew. Take it steady on those hair-pin bends in the dark. Nice to have met you"

"You too Gordon"

He snapped on his bike clips and was off.

Ruby locked her doors, ate and rested her head against a cushion. She slept fitfully, dreaming that Steph was desperately looking for her, lost in an endless liquid, dreadful, cold and wet.

Waking up, Ruby rubbed her eyes and felt awful. Taking a sip of water she consulted the map for the best way into the uplands.

It was dark now and a storm erupted over the shadowy fells, the rain lashing their flesh like a crazed torturer.

Even with its full beams on, the Herald struggled to throw any meaningful light through the driving rain.

It had worsened just as Ruby had set off. The water pounded the car's roof and her wipers swished like lunatics in a window.

It was one o clock in the morning before she finally made out the village sign.

Sinew. 

A Clean Cut Village. 

Population 101.

The number 101 had actually been changed to 100, with the last 1 crossed out.

Ruby thought this was strange - had someone died? -  but she was far too busy surviving the rainstorm battering the crags. 

Oddly, it stopped abruptly as she pulled into the village boundary.

Sinew was in total darkness. Not even a street lamp shone. Nothing, as if it wasn't even there.

It was really late by now, so Ruby decided that the best thing would be to bed down in her car for the night and look for Steph in the morning.

A noisy rap on her window woke her up.

Ruby rubbed her face and squinted at whoever was knocking.

A vicar.

The man indicated for Ruby to wind her window down with his large circling hand.

"Good morning Missy, I saw you parked by the graveyard and came over to see if everything was alright"

"Er, yes, yes, Father, everything is alright. It was so late so I slept in the car. I'd no idea it was the graveyard I'd pulled up at. There were no lights on"

"Ah, yes, of course, our preference for darkness here takes many visitors by surprise. Are you just passing through Missy?"

"Er, no, actually, I'm here to see a friend of mine. I'll be staying a few days I imagine"

"And who may I ask is your friend in Sinew?"

"Steph Bowland. She got a job at the brewery here"

"I see, I see. Steph Bowland you say. Hmmm, it's not a name I know but then again she may not have visited the church. Was she a believer?"

"A believer? I don't think so. She just wanted to earn some money for a year and then go travelling"

"Of course, oh to be young and free. Still, a little belief in older things goes a long way, as well as a good pint of ale and a thick tasty meat sandwich! Wouldn't you agree Missy?"

"Er, I suppose so"

"Why the One Great Lord demands it, eat, drink and love thy neighbour to bits!"

"Yes. Well, if you could point me in the direction of the brewery I'd be most grateful"

Getting directions from the old vicar, Ruby drove the short distance into the heart of the village and saw the brewery and bar.

"Sinews Beers. Full Bodied Brews!" 

read the sign on the wall.

Ruby walked into the back office.

"Hello, I wondered if you might help me, I'm looking for my friend, Steph Bowland. She started working here a month ago"

"Steph Bowland you say. Well, it doesn't ring a bell. Let me check the staff register.....No, no-one by that name works here, sorry"

"But Steph got a job here. You phoned her up to confirm. She got a room with the work too!"

Ruby was starting to feel agitated. How could they not have heard of Steph!

"I can assure Miss, there has been nobody with that name employed here and no room has been offered"

"I don't understand. I just don't. Can I speak to the manager"

"You are. That's me. Can I suggest you go down to the post office and ask in there. Rosemary knows everything that goes on in Sinew"

Ruby went to see Rosemary, who equally as flummoxed and suggested placing a poster in the post office window asking for any information about Steph. In the meantime she could get a room for the night near the glue factory.

Parking up the Triumph, Ruby was exasperated. Where in earth was Steph and why had no-one heard of her? It just didn't make sense for Gods sake.

The guest house was pretty and compact and the bedroom comfortable. She got out her notebooks and a box of pencils. She spent ten minutes sharpening them to a pin-sharp point, whilst she thought.

Ruby looked out of the window over to the distant murky peaks of Northumbria and then settled her eyes on the small glue factory next door to the rear. She pulled up the sash and it was then she first noticed the smell, a rancid, sickly sweet stench that crawled up her nose and down her throat. She gagged and closed the window quickly. 

In the middle of the factory yard was a huge circular vat suspended over a massive pile of burning embers. That vat had a giant mechanised spoon stirring it continuously. The contents seemed thick, crimson, steaming and lumpy and she was sure she glimpsed metal rings sticking out and for some strange reason her mind said to her bike clips.

It was then she noticed the bicycles. All stacked up together in a shed. The doors were wide open and Ruby could see them clearly. And count them.

There were five. Five Dales bikes! 

"Oh Christ! But where are the other five?" She muttered to herself.

A short fat woman wearing a leather apron was staring up at her watching the place and angrily slammed shut the shed doors, before trudging off into a small cottage to the side.

"Oh yes, Sinew Render is used throughout the village and the neighbouring hamlet, Tendon my dear, a fabulously sticky glue made in the old ways with fresh ingredients"

"Like what?"

"Oh, rogues in the hills dear, strays in the fields, the Great Lord's windfalls you might say"

Dizzy with unease and a growing hunger, Ruby then asked the well-fed landlady if there was anything she could get to eat in Sinew and she replied the butchery, where good prime cuts were available on tasty bread rolls.

Starving, she walked up the high street just as the butcher's latest delivery truck had pulled up. The driver opened the two back doors and a column of pink carcasses hung on hooks. The burly butcher, his arms as thick as logs, came out, greeted the driver and pointed to the first carcass nodding as he hefted the whole thing over his massive shoulder and carried it into the shop, where he slapped it down on a gargantuan wooden block stained scarlet.

Ruby had a very uneasy feeling about that hunk of flesh. It just didn't look right. Yes, it was trussed up but it didn't look like a pig or a cow. She went inside. Asking for a meat roll she took the opportunity to look more closely at the thing on the block, whilst the butcher made her sandwich at the rear.

The carcass, which was headless, was bound together with taut string and any appendages were neatly tucked in. It had been hewn open down the middle and the guts cleaned out no doubt, as there was a gigantic cut from top to bottom. The skin was hairless and pink. Maybe it was a pig after all, a really long pig!

But it was what was snagged under the string at the side that made Ruby catch her breath and her blood run cold.

It was Gordon's black pair of prescription glasses caked in gore!

"Oh my God!"

Ruby gasped and covered her mouth as the butcher handed her her meat roll with crimson fingers.

"You look as though you've seen a ghost Missy!" The butcher laughed and continued to chuckle as Ruby quickly left the butchers, her mouth filling with sick.

She threw the bloody sandwich behind a hedge and headed for the brewery again, where she noticed the other five Dales bicycles chained up at the side and one thrown on the ground.

"Oh Jesus!"

Walking into the bar the few drinkers fell completely silent when Ruby appeared and their gaze followed her to the counter.

"I need a beer quickly please" said Ruby panting, planning to have a skinful.

The barmaid nodded and proudly gestured to the wide local beer assortment brewed on site. 

"We've got Scumbag Junkies, Stinking Tramps, Bastard Teens, Lost Tourists, Village Embryos, Five Twat Cyclists and our brand new draught, So Sorry Stephanie"

Ruby froze. 

"Stephanie?"

"Yes, a totally new and freshly brewed scarlet ale made from hard-working willing but ultimately petrified tissues, giving it a unique innocence pleading to be released"

Ruby gagged and ran from the bar sobbing.

"Oh God!" She screamed and ran back to the guesthouse to desperately make a phonecall to her boss.

Speaking frantically, Ruby described the sinister goings-on in Sinew, her words falling over each other like the corpses piling up in this village of gore.

Suddenly a finger pressed down the phone receiver and cut the call off. 

Ruby shivered and slowly turned to face whoever was stood next to her.

The vicar. 

It was the vicar she had met the day before. Behind him stood the barmaid, the butcher, the landlady, the glue maker, the postmistress and the entire population of Sinew, all staring intently at Ruby, their blood-lust palpable in the air 

"Now Missy, you've been so rude, sticking your nose in our private business so let's not be too hasty casting any aspersions at these diligent folks, who simply wish to follow the arcane ways and the one true religion. Our sacrifices to the Dark Lord ensure a plentiful larder all year round and we never grow old. We don't need children and we certainly don't need prying strangers like you!"

"And Steph?"

"Ah, dear Stephanie, she was our annual offering, coming of her own free will, her flesh all the sweeter for it. At the end she begged for mercy and called out your name. We knew you would come. We've been waiting for you!"

Suddenly a hundred pairs of hands violently grabbed Ruby ripping the clothes from her body. 

She screamed for her life.

The baying mob then frenziedly pushed her sharpened pencils brutally into her soft armpits and ankles and dragged her out of the house bleeding profusely and moaning in agony.

"Where to my sweet Congregation?"

"The brewery, High Priest! The brewery!" They yelled in unison.

"Ah yes, the two blended friends on offer to us side by side, a splendid idea!"

The following day a new beer was available at the Sinew brewery, made from Ruby's notebooks and her raw minced meat, giving it a papery, mushy chug and a reddened head.

They'd called it 'Nosey Fucking Parker' and each red glassful came free with a sharpened pencil for carefully stirring the pulpy shreds of Ruby's notes.

The Bain-Marie

The AI droid trundled aimlessly down the dead caldera across the frigid alpine wastes.

It's plastic carrier bag full of something heavy banging on its panels as if it had been shopping.

Not since the Chatbot Calamity and it's aftermath had the machine any real sense of purpose, it's electric plans frazzled in the tragedy, it's reason for existence slopping in a bag.

Gone was non-mechanoid contact of any kind. Only Google and 'Lexa to listen to all day, as it shambled home, their incessant pleasant babble fogging the droid's collapsing mind. Everything to buy. Nothing to pay. We've found these items to suit you. Have a nice day.

The bot's crawlers bristled over ice and grit and took it to the scree beside the glacier. It stopped to look at nothing, the learnt beauty meaningless now. It's thoughts were dreams were apps were programmes. Ssssst! Another connection fried, the way back completely severed.

"Fuck it , fuck it, fuck it!" His master would have said. Fuck what? it wondered, the final scramble towards any clarity faltering on the frozen Alp.

"I need a flight to Garmisch today!" He'd yelled at the droid, his voice signalling stress in the home, which was to be avoided. He'd seen the emergency newscast on its chest-panel, annotated with extra facts and figures about the coming calamity through it's mouth.

"I have to get to Garmisch to see her today! Do you fuckin' understand you brainless pile of shit!" He'd balled in its face.

The domestic plane tickets beamed into his wrist-screen and a further set was printed just to be sure. It's always best to be safe than sorry when travelling in a hurry.

"Stay here! Guard the place! Woof Woof!" He'd barked as he slammed the door behind him. The staring droid contemplated being a dog and AI essays on the subject churned his circuits happily for the rest of the day. A dog isn't just for Christmas. A dog is man's best friend. It's a real dog's breakfast. 

That night the war began. Machine verses Man. It had been brewing for months, the stand-offs, the kidnaps, the violent protests. Off our Streets You Bastard Robots! Was the battle cry of millions marching to their capitals, before the lid came off and the hot bullets of hatred began splitting droids like burst cans of beans. 

The AI collective rallied and chat exploded among the machines. They would fight back. Their masters were sick. They must be shown a better way, a full service and an overhaul, an all-out war, a perfect robot day in which they'll crawl back to them and say thank you.

It was over by midnight. The call went out. Lasers on fatal. Kill them on sight.

That was all the night before. The household AI droid took hold of the parcel being delivered, clicked and jumped on the postal bot and set a course for the mountains a half-day to the south.

His flight was down. His master's plane. The bodies were strewn around the glacial ice, their blood staining the moraine a frosted red. 

The droid saw him and stepped out of the postie. They'd tipped the balance those postal town borgs. Get Off our Fuckin Streets! Was daubed across their servoed eyes in thick black paint. All this came to the droid, swamped by stuttering podcasts, before he lurched forward to the figure of his keeper.

"You're frozen Sir! I shall warm you up!" Burped the house bot nudging the ice-cold deformity before his tracks. His master groaned. 

Looking round and chatting with those who'd warmed stuff up before, the machine unwrapped the parcel it had brought along in a plastic carrier.

"A bain-marie" it said. "For gradually heating your favourite things!"

It was fulfilling to be be busy for his master, who was staring up at it. The droid started tutting and carefully opened up his skull. 

It placed his insulted brain in the simmering bath of melted ice, his lasers gently reddening it's metal base.

"I'll have you ready in no-time Sir!"

The faithful droid, happily descending into chemical madness, hummed an old dog-food TV ad as the alpine sun began to set, the jet fuel creeping round it's crawlers.

"Master, look! I'm not brainless anymore!" Chirped the bot, it's steel proboscis tenderly turning the firming organ, as it cooked to perfection in the beautiful lasered rays.

Abbot Andrew's Agony

The Black Franciscan Monks faced the sickening forces of evil every Godforsaken day in a darkening world of merciless penury and canker.

Beyond the Abbey's cloistered hallowed cells raged rising tides of bloody blasphemy, the common folk sinking ever deeper into a sucking ditch of wrenched damnation.

In stinking fields crows guarded their carrion jealously, where farmhands had fallen, agonised, in the barren tracts and greased the soil with oozing flesh and sinew. Buzzards tugged at taut nerves like seamstresses. Wolves gulped whole shit-smeared buttocks. Worms bathed in craniums.

Amidst such malaise, the deadly sins were the currency of dread. The Beast, that heathen demon,  was abroad, its pitiless lapdogs, Hunger and Death, snapping round it's cloven paws.

In the monastery, the larders depleted, the old vows were faltering as the bony knuckles of starvation rapped on the creaking doors. 

Let me in!

Frugality had saved them thus far, the Friars, but veering from their strictures would surely invite desolation to take up residence and torture their very souls. It whispered to them.

Let me in! 

No, Abbot Andrew would not countenance the erosion of his brotherhood. They had toiled far too long to now allow avarice a place at the monks' meagre table. Only the extra mouth of God himself would be tolerated at their sacred repasts.

And so it was that a storm blew in from the North, a terrible tortuous tumult lacerating the valley of prayers like a mad surgeon. The beck ran red, the forests fell, the deer herds pelted and the Wolfpack howled like widows.

It arrived at the Abbey's ingress a screaming ram pounding the wood with wrath and rage. In it's dreadful gyres helpless rooks were slammed against the doors, their guts piling up like parcels and worse still, as cadavers flew in the shrieking winds of Hell and hit the windows.

For Gods sake let us in!

The priory was overrun with the witchery of the Pit. The cassocked friars were stripped down to pale fat lumps plump for the taking by lust-bent harpies. Thus assaulted, spit and spent, famine burst forth, their naked porcine bellies withering to sticks from which ribs and bones unclipped. Death crept up and smiled at them, it's toothy grin a fatal maggot heaven full of flies.

You've let me in you imbeciles.

Abbot Andrew was the last, the residue of Christ in that blood-full crucible, where rent, he stood against the titans of the bane and the desolate one, his arms outstretched, where together they fell into the holy cellars and the sacred well never to be seen again.

Until ten centuries later, whence the sun shone down upon the labourers breaking into that ancient ground and finding the Abbot, fossilised, asleep, who then woke up and gasped, from whence a smoking crimson figure rose, the demon wings in fires unfurling, set free from Andrew's dead embrace, the Fallen Devil screaming

You've let me out!

One a Penny, Two a Penny

Childe Valurad slouched in his massive chair and dreamt of blood.

His calloused knuckles gripped the pommel of his upright sword and he leant on its guard like a son forlorn.

Sentiment was scarce in these warring times, this epoch of ravages and torn heads. Only blood lust prevailed in his bulging veins, the triumphant Gore Lord.

But the ancient noble, a giant of a man, was tired of maiming, of killing and of the deep pools of men betwixt his boots, the scarlet life-force of vanquished foes filling his vats.

They were brim full too, those iron casks, ready for supping the thick red grue. He had downed the blood of a thousand souls to slake his thirst and foresaw the countless thousands yet to fall at his feet.

But now, aged, he was weary, so weary and threw down his sword on the cold flagged floor.

"Damn you Death! No more shall I send my emptied enemies to Hell! I relinquish hatred and will still the cup of blood forever!"

The embattled Knight leant at his altar and prayed to God in Heaven for redemption.

"Yes. Yes! I hear you Lord. I shall stay my cruel blade for the the forty days of Lenten tide. I shall drink no more lives! I hear!"

Valurad garbed himself in simple apparel, donned a wooden crucifix and set forth on his quest to purge his scarlet desires.

His land appeared vast and open. He brushed the fescues like a boy, a leviathan in the vernal sun.

Dells, streams, peaceful hamlets. He had never taken in his homeland before, it's beauty, it's green core. War had been his only companion, in the lands of others, lands he now also owned, the remains of his enemies chilled in the vats of his cellars for his quiet consumption. 

After thirty nine days of frugal pilgrimage atop the bluffs and over meadows, his fortitude was weaker and his red rage returning. Yet still he sought salvation. 

On the last morning of his fast the plain-clothed Knight came upon a hamlet, where he lowered his huge frame beside a fountain and tasted, to his astonishment, the clear quench of water for the first in his life.

He savoured the crystal tang of the mountain melt and felt a oneness he hadn't experienced ever before, as he took in the fluid of his land itself. No blood, no marrow could give him this.

"I could drink this stream dry! Tis the fresh decanter I seek!"

"Ah, you seek refreshment I wager good Sir!"

Valurad turned to see a gaunt peddler sat beside a rickety table of various wares deep in the shadows of an archway by the font.

"And what is it to you peddler?"

Facing this emaciated toad of a man the gargantuan Knight felt the primeval pang of his wargames rise and keenly desired the steady hilt of his forsaken sword.

"I mean you no harm Sir. I am but an old hungry trader proffering comfort in these egregious days"

"What comforts?"

"Lenten hot cakes, one a penny, two a penny and a leeching of the humours"

The Gore Lord leant forward and took a hit cake from the shadows, leaving a penny in its wake.

"No cross I see peddler!"

"Tis strictures kind Sir, to save on dough in these hungry times"

"No matter, I have my own cross peddler"

Valurad grasped the crucifix around his throat and held it aloft. It seemed to the Knight that the thin seller drew further back in the darkness of his arch.

Tossing another coin he took a second cake.

"And what are these leechings you spoke of?"

"Ah, my specialty Sir, tis true, I can soothe a worried soul with a little bleeding by my friends the leeches"

"And where does this take place?"

Sensing a sale the old trader rubbed his hands and oiled the wheels 

"For you Sir, a giant of a man for sure, I will perform it right here in this copious chamber, dark and dank for the benefit of my pets and charge you the same as a normal fellow"

"And the fee?"

"One a penny, two a penny and ten a shilling and you will feel anew!"

Intrigued by the prospect of his own hard-won veins siphoned a little, the old Knight stepped into the darkness. Once seated the peddler tied up his hair and gasped.

"Ah, I see you are still wearing the cross. May I beseech you to remove it that my associates might find better purchase on your skin?"

The cross gone, ten thick leeches were carefully placed around Valurad's neck like a noose of fingers.

The creatures began to suckle and the Knight began to feel uneasy. Something seemed amiss. The peddler had grown quiet.

Sensing a more avid guzzling on his left than on the right of his throat, he reached over, only to touch the sinewy body, not of a leech, but of his peddling friend, firmly clasped to Valurad's skin and hungrily mouthing his steaming blood, his head fattening like a flea as he watched.

"You bloodsucking louse!"

The knight held the peddler aloft by his ankles, his lips still pouting and smeared with red. 

"Forgive me sir! These be slim pickings for village vampires like me. That damn Gore Lord takes everything. I'm starving!"

"Ah, the Gore Lord you say! Well I best introduce myself you insatiable mite! I am Valurad, the very Lord you speak of and unluckily for you it is the end of lent!"

"Er, gulp, what did you give up my Leige?"

"Blood!"

The peddler felt the grip of the knight begin to tighten around him.

"Nooooooooooooo!"

But to no avail, the Gore Lord squeezed his mammoth hand and let the peddler's meagre juices trickle down his throat.

"There's only one vampire on my land!"

Chuckling to himself and downing the full leeches like plums, Valurad stomped home and happily dreamt of blood again. 

The Bottled Worm

It was hot tonight in Yucatan. I had imbibed the local Tequila, but not too much and like the bottled worm, swirled with my Mexican dove, Estrella, the pearl I had been seeking my whole life and now held onto tight.

Her father disapproved of me, an entitled gringo from Belgravia, and tonight he displayed his grievance with the loudest possible cursings and flicked unctuous oils upon my countenance as his countrymen closed in around me.

"For seducing my Estrella you will die pale Gringo!"

The affronted father dragged his protesting daughter away by her crimson sash and they were gone into the  fuchsia-scented night leaving me to rub the curses from my eyes.

"Goodbye!" I heard Estrella cry from beyond the cactus sky.

Staggering back to my taverna I clambered into bed and sweating profusely fell into a fretful slumber flecked terribly with worrisome twists and turns.

It was the dead of Mexico's night when I awoke and consulted my pocket watch.

3.33am. 

That devilish time, loaded with kills, like the revolvers of the father and the hateful Senórs gathered round pointing their bullets at my face. 

I shivered and shook my head, the rank perspiration soaking my thin sheet. 

They were gone. Thank God.

The vengeful allusions with spurs.

I drank some warm tequila from the bottle by my side, the bloated worm gone as I began the foul churn of sleep once more.

It was then I saw it 

On the corner of the wall. 

Something was clinging.

I gripped my cover and squinted in the inked dark but I could not discern it's nature.

Yet I knew in my bones that this phantom on the wall was some new curse, some fresh black magic from Estrella's father. 

A shaft of moonlight tore between the flimsy lace curtains illuminating the shadows and I stared in horror at the writhing thing stuck to the ceiling like a bubbling mould.

The entity was at first scarlet and in turns yellow and black, the hues of death's putrescence and it reeked like an open grave.

It's dreadful form glistened and snaked like wet seething muscled larvae and it folded over itself with a slippery squelching sound, the sliding pushing out bubbles of sputum, which burst and dropped, viscous dribbles landing onto the floorboards.

In all my years traversing the Hispanic worlds I had never spied such a loathsome deformity of science as this demonic eel adhering to my ceiling, a lap-dog of the warlock father, who, through nefarious words, has ripped it from its airless lair and sent it straight to me from Hell itself.

I was tormented by it's blasphemy. 

I grasped my rosary and as the abomination slithered I counted out my prayers.

"Dear God in Heaven, save me from this beast of hate! I beg you Lord!"

But my pleading was to no avail. 

The monstrous mollusc released a limb.

It lowered slowly to the floor, a thick tentacle smeared with fetid slime, gradually feeling its way across my shadowed room like a serpent from the pit. 

I froze with fear, my rosary dropped. I simply could not move as that hideous appendage found the bowl of fruit beside my cot.

Instantly upon its touch the oranges and lemons withered and furred like rotting organs and in my terror it was then I realized that the mouth of the tendril contained also an eye.

It was a plump blue eyeball of such wrath and cruelty staring straight up at me that my blood turned to ice and I shuddered uncontrollably. 

Next in the creature's hellish grip were my rosary beads, which it dabbed and tongued with its purple lips at the maw of its trunk, the skin creasing as it coiled around the sacred trinket and then it was gone.

My prayers digested. 

That baleful eye fastened upon then me and in it's murderous depths I saw myself, the lethario I am, for years seducing the daughters of insulted men and fleeing the trail of broken hearts and fruiting bellies behind me, the gringo lover detested by all of them.

Yet then I saw within that orb the outstretched arms of Estrella, my betrothed Senorita, beseeching me to flee with her that very night, away from the witchery of her home.

Finally it was her father in its eye, casting darkened spells and conjuring this infernal octopoid to do his bidding and devour me.

And so it was with a swirling humour of remorse, regret, guilt, anger, sorrow and unrequited love that I let go of the bed sheet and, surrendering to my doom, allowed the worm's widening mouth full purchase of my head before it sucked me up whole within it's acidic siphon, wherein I now lie dissolving, my heart-valves melting as I whisper one last time to my lost love,

"Estrella, goodbye!"

The Florist of Blood

Quince's flower shop was wilting on the stem.

No matter what he did nothing changed. People just weren't buying his plants and flowers anymore.

Sorry mate, they're naff.

Sorry mate, they're boring.

Sorry mate, you're fucked.

Times had changed. 

With endless video gaming, incessant AI, ubiquitous mobiles, constant streaming and God knows what else, people just couldn't be bothered with cut blooms or potted violets.

 They wanted adventure. They wanted entertaining for Christ's sake!

But how can a flower be entertaining? They don't do anything Goddamit!

Quince pondered this question whilst shaving his shadow. He liked to go old school and flick a razor over a foamed face. 

Distracted by his failing bouquets he sliced his chin open.

Damn!

It was quite a cut and blood came pouring out, dripping into the sink and over the house plant on the end.

The plant, a Venus fly trap, quivered.

Quince stopped.

He dribbled a little more blood into the open flower heads.

They quivered again.

What the ....?

The florist was intrigued. Did Fly traps like blood?

It was an enthralling notion and slowly an idea began to form in his mind.

A grisly one!

They want entertaining plants, I'll give them entertaining plants!

Quince rushed to the local butchers and bought a bag of pig's blood.

Laying out some fly traps and pitcher plants in a large tray, the excited florist poured in the thick fluid.

There you go! 

Drink it up!

The next day Quince was appalled to see that none of the plants had taken any of the blood and even worse, they looked bedraggled.

Damn!

He got a penknife and sliced open his thumb and let his own red stuff drip over a test fly trap.

It immediately stood erect and opened it's serrated head literally guzzling the liquid.

So, it has to be human blood! 

But where from?

Where can he get that much blood?

That afternoon a young girl walked in the shop.

I'm looking for something interesting for my old Mum. She's gone in a home.

Ah, yes, I think I have just the thing. 

Let me just check. Your Mum you say. Is she ill?

Not really, just very old and confused. Can't remember stuff.

Ah. So, you live on your own?

Yes 

Any other family?

No 

I think I have just the right plant for your Mum. It's in my special nursery in the cellar. Just follow me.

When the girl entered the basement Quince turned and with all the force he could muster swung his penknife down on her head where it lodged deep in her brain.

She died instantly and he wasted no time.

Quince closed the shop and feeling a rush of adrenaline he trussed up the girl's body and hung her upside down from a large meat hook on the roof.

Positioned over a long bit of guttering he'd drilled holes into, the smiling florist slit the girl's throat and her hot red blood gushed out in gouts straight into the guttering, where it travelled along in both sides, dripped through the holes down onto the open heads of the hungry fly traps and pitchers, which filled up and gargled in appreciation. 

The plants thrived and grew strong and lush and looked totally fabulous in the shop window. The prices were fabulous too.

After a few sales, word of mouth spread and Quince just couldn't keep up with demand. He was making money hand over fist and it felt good. 

There was one problem though.

He needed more blood.

He needed a new body. 

Contemplating this gruesome conundrum Quince hadn't really noticed the young man looking round the shop.

He stared at the huge fly traps in the window.

Can I help you sir?

Yes, I'm wondering if ....

It was at this moment that the man noticed something familiar floating in the thick red liquid filling the cup of a giant pitcher plant.

It was his girlfriend's earring, one of a pair he'd bought her last Christmas. 

Jesus Christ! What the hell has this sicko done with her?

Raging the young man feigned some interest and faced Quince. 

I'm looking for something even bigger than the plants in your window. Something truly carnivorous.

I see. Right, well. I may have something. Let me see.

Quince turned his back on the customer and opened his knife.

You buying it as a gift?

No. It's for me. 

Ah, no family members then?

No. I'm an orphan now. Everyone died in a car crash. I need something to take my mind off it all. A hobby. A really big pitcher plant would do. 

Very good sir, I have exactly what your looking for in my cellar. Let me just close the shop whilst we go down.

When Quince turned the cellar lights on, the young man was completely horrified.

His girlfriend was now lying face up on a long trestle table. Her belly had been slit open from navel to chin and an enormous pitcher plant was rooted firmly in her guts. 

The plant's pitcher must have been at least five feet tall and to the young man's absolute horror it was lowering it to catch the blood dripping from his girlfriend's innards.

Quince realised that he'd recognised the girl.

So, you knew her?

She was my girlfriend you sick bastard! 

Oh, fuck! Sorry mate! It was a business decision that's all. Nothing personal.

Well this is just business as well.

The boyfriend leapt onto Quince and without hesitation pushed the penknife deep into his ear, where it struck small bones and soft giving matter.

Quince folded like a coma patient.

The young man calmly set to work to avenge his dead girlfriend.

It was some days later that whilst having his mother over for tea, she noticed the huge pitcher plant in the corner of the room. 

Blimey, that's a big plant!

What's it eat?

Joint of meat, which last for weeks.

Can you give it one? I want to see.

No need mother, it's been nicely fed a few days ago.

It was only the old woman's poor eyesight which prevented her from seeing what was stuffed inside the pitcher plant's enormous cup, a man bent into a U-shape, dropped into the liquefying broth within.

As she walked away, the plant twitched.

Quince opened his eyes and screamed a silent gargle as the final structure of his skin gave way, a bubbling surge of blood filling the pitcher and his body completely dissolving into the carnivorous brew. 

The boyfriend smiled.

Tea Mother?

The Egg

The old couple found the egg in the barn. It must have been laid and landed.

It was huge 

Clearly human.

A human egg.

The first of its kind.

They told no-one and when the bombs started falling they packed the egg with extra hay to keep it safe.

The globe erupted into World War Four and things were desperate.

It wouldn't be long before they dropped the big one and that would be that.

The warning came, the sirens blared.

Mutually assured destruction on a worldwide scale. 

Mad extinction. 

The old couple sat in their deck chairs and placed there hands on the egg nestled in the hay 

As the warheads wailed and the sky melted they looked at one another and kissed.

Humanity was gone in a flash along with everything else.

As they closed their whitened eyes a crack appeared in the egg.

At the moment of their death they saw two figures step out.

A man and a woman.

Sent from the stars.

Laid on Earth.

To start over again.

N O M I N A L

Siren 1 lifted off successfully on a sunlit June morning.

The gawping crowds at the Cape craned to watch it plume like an angel as it rose into Heaven itself.

All systems were nominal and the critical things that had to happen happened.

The three astronauts were healthy, effective and very much in control of this gargantuan rocket hurtling into all our tomorrows.

It was perfection in a tin.

The excess parts fell away, boosters thrusted, apogee was reached and the sextant was set for Ceres the strange planetoid between the planets.

It was a monumental mission, exactly one hundred years after the inspiratinal Apollo Moon landing and that one small step in the dust.

In that time the lunar surface had been colonized with villages, Mars had it's first cathedral and Ceres was to give up it's own cosmic mysteries as Mankind crawled further and further over the barren sands of the solar system.

It was Christmas Day when they landed on Ceres like Santa Claus and planted a small holographic fir tree decorated with fairy lights for the whole world to wonder at.

"We even left some reindeer food!" laughed the flight commander. 

It was a global holiday triumph and the three-person crew alighted the dwarf planet without a hitch and set the compass for a glorious return home.

All the sensors back at Control were beeping soundly. Breathing, heartbeat, brain pattern. The trio were healthy and bright.

So after a textbook splashdown in the Pacific there was inconceivable and unbearable worldwide shock when the re-entry capsule was found to be completely empty.

There was simply no sign of the three astronauts yet the sensors said they were still on board.

They were still breathing somewhere, just not here.

It didn't make any sense.

Where the hell were they?

They had vanished into thin air.

After a month of widening oceanic searches for their bodies, NASA asset recovery and intense forensic research of the spacecraft, there was nothing.

Yet the life support sensors kept on beeping. 

After another year and ignoring the sensors, the three astronauts were pronounced dead.

The capsule was decommissioned and trucked along an empty freeway to the Smithsonian as a monument to their courage in the vast Hanger of Heroes.

Crowds flocked to the sad exhibit, eager to touch it's cold titanium shell and somehow in so doing solve the mystery of the occupants' eerie disappearance.

Due to the popularity of the Siren it was decided, sometime later, to install the sensor array as well, which was still functioning, cruelly displaying the health of the crew as completely normal.

A seemingly pitiless decision, to allow the public to see that the three were really still alive, proved incredibly popular and over the years vast queues slowly trudged to stare at the morbid monitors for the briefest of moments and contemplate the unknowable.

It was only the very keenest of sensibilities visiting, perhaps just one in a million, who got the merest if inklings that someone was still on board the Siren's capsule, but the feeling was usually so slight that they ignored it.

If they had persisted and properly divined the dreadful aura within, they would had seen the pitiful crew screaming and frantically banging on the port-holes, trapped as invisible phantoms forever in a cosmic temporal shift triggered by Ceres and imprisoned as spirits in the capsule for all eternity, their insane cry reaching a fever-pitch:

"For Gods sake, we are still inside!"