F R O B I E S

The cesarian went well until they left her wide open. 

The midwife spoke to the orderly.

Here. Take it downstairs. Quickly.

Pat Stran came to and tried to rise. Her stomach was slit from top to bottom, blood welling up and brimming in her belly.

My baby. Where's my baby?

Pat, I'm so sorry to have to  tell you this. Your baby died during the procedure. The umbilical had strangled him and we opened you up too late.

Where is my baby you fucking bitch!

Now, now Pat. I've just explained to you. Your son was dead. Stillborn. You're bound to feel guilty but it's not your fault. Just lie there and a nurse will be along to stitch you up.

The midwife walked out leaving Pat to flail on the gurney like a gutted carp.

The next day Pat was released from hospital back into the sprawling city of Suck.

Her sutures had been roughly done and the infected wound already seeped. The pain was unbearable but she staggered to the AI mine, where Zal her husband worked keeping the towers cool for the rich folks in Cedar City.

Pat shambled into the office and begged the grizzled supervisor to fetch Zal.

Just this once. He's busy! 

Zal rushed from the sweat caves to find his wife gasping in the floor.

Zal, oh Zal! Our son! He's dead! Our baby died! They told me our baby had died!

The man shouted to the supervisor to get a doctor quick, but his slow coasting would ensure none came in time. This was the lot of those unfortunate enough to exist in the vast slums of Suck and Zal felt helpless as he clutched the hand of his dying wife on what should have been the happiest day of their miserable lives. 

No one lived long in Suck. No one lived well. Everyone was starving and precious babies died.

Not like Cedar City across the river, where the parents were fat with excess food and the children's brains were swilling with the latest lessons from super exclusive AI schooling.

Everything was peachy in the Cedars.

Everything sucked elsewhere.

Zal was bereft. His beautiful girl lying cold on the office floor. No room for love, no money for funerals. He knew Pat would be tossed into the river without so much as a thank you for your shit short life.

She's dead. Get back to work Stran. Those data banks won't fan themselves! 

The brutal boss man shoved Zal hard. It knocked him off balance and he fell head first over Pat's setting body.

Why you mean fuc....!

Seeing red, Zal was ready to give the supervisor what he deserved, a damn good hiding, even though he knew it would most certainly end up in his own death sentence. 

But as he rose he saw something on his wife's wristband. 

Something strange. 

One single word. 

FROBY.

He stared at it and for a second wondered if he and Pat had come up with it as a name but he knew they hadn't. There'd been no real time but they'd half-settled on a name for either gender. Apple.

It would have been the apple of their eyes in a world of dire consequences and hopelessness. Life in Suck saw to that, the twin evils of penury and starvation trapping them in Hell on Earth.

You! What does FROBY mean?

The supervisor ignored the flaming anger in the worker's voice.

Get up and get back to work!

Zal lunged upwards and grabbed the middling boss by the scruff of his coat and screamed in his face.

What the fuck does FROBY mean you heartless bastard!

I ... I ... Think it's something to do with Cedar City. 

What! The fuckin Cedars! How?

I dunno. Honest. I dunno! I heard the top gaffer saying he'd be getting a FROBY soon and he lives in the Cedars. He's a real rich guy. 

Zal let go of his collar and threw the man to the ground.

He loomed over him, fists clenched.

What's his fucking name? The big boss?

Tsardom Ro.

Zal stormed out of the building whispering a tearful farewell to his wife.

Goodbye Pat my love. I promise you that I'll find out what happened to our son. I promise you on my life.

The vengeful husband crept gingerly into the execs' car port and avoiding the sleeping guard, he found the vast, pristine and neon- illuminated spot for President Ro.

Zal shook his head. The sheer luxury of the AI-clouded sports car sat there was overwhelming, it's value no doubt more than the whole of Suck's million rickety wrecks put together.

You flash entitled twat Ro!

Used to tight spaces in the AI caves, the embittered man slid under the car and bundled himself in the air cavity below the mainframe.

He didn't need to wait long before Tsardom Ro rushed to his bay and opened the gull-wing. He was chatting excitedly on his comms.

Darling Darling, out wait is over! I'm on my way. Meet me at Frobies at three. 

Zal heard that word again. Froby. This time the plural. What the fuck does it mean? He grasped the suspension and the sportster glided out of the car park and onto the freeway to Cedar City across the river.

The bridge across the waters was made of glass, the super wealthy wishing to see the detritus of the world float by as they entered the salubrious grandeur of their gated existence. 

Zal saw too.

He saw bodies. 

Countless female bodies drifting downstream to the far ocean's empties and among them his own beloved Pat, hurled into the drink like a kitten sack along with all the rest of Suck's dead mothers.

What the fuck is going on?

Zal grimaced. He wretched and knew instinctively that some heinous fuckery was happening in the City of the rich. He just didn't know how, but he'd vowed to find out no matter what.

With the Cedar gates closed again, it was nearly three and Tsardom Ro revved to a standstill in the VIP space outside a huge store. 

His gull-wing door let him out and he greeted his beautiful enhanced girlfriend Zoos. 

This is it Zoosy. This is it! 

Ecstatic for some as yet unknown reason, Zal watched the bouncing couple hop into the enormous shop. 

Unfurling from under the chassis he stood in the shadows and stared at the store's name sign.

F R O B I E S

Entering the building through an unguarded side-door, the man from Suck scurried between empty plastic boxes, which he instantly recognized as incubators. Baby incubators from hospitals stacked like lobster pots in the olden days.

What the .....!

Zal clambered further in and held a door ajar. He could hear voices and recognized his boss Ro's educated speech nearby. He crawled into the main store and hid behind what felt like a freezer. It was long and he could see it was one of many stretching across the vastness of the shop floor. 

Good afternoon Mr. Ro and Miss. Zoos. We have been waiting for you. As you know from our communications this morning, a brand new opportunity has arisen in our mint stock. An opportunity I doubt you will want to miss and hence my enthusiasm in inviting you in.

The shopkeeper rubbed his hands together like a bluebottle. 

It is the unending woe of our safe Cedars life that luxury has brought with it infertility and that our fine residents should endure its barren emptiness. 

But we at Frobies have decreed to reverse that woe and turn it into a lifetime of happiness for our gorgeous elite and a childhood of privilege for those less fortunate, the unwanted newborns of penniless mothers in Suck across the river, who remain forever-grateful to the kindness of Cedar's welcoming couples.

But we also offer a discreet and exclusive service for those greater citizens with, how shall I put it, perhaps more immediate and discerning tastes of a wholly different flavour.

And so, with the latter in mind, it is my great pleasure to offer you both this latest product, a new infant of the subtlest textures, reared by thankful and less-fortunate donors. Here he is, their plump and freshly frozen baby.

Oh my! Oh my!

Zoos swooned into her boyfriend's arms and tearing up, burbled gleefully.

He's lovely, simply delectable! We'll take him! We'll take him home! He'll be perfect! Just perfect! 

Ah, splendid! He is indeed a wonderful Froby!

The storekeeper cooed and held the chunky shrink-wrapped infant aloft. 

Nearby, from his hidden position, Zal could see the contents of all the long chest freezers traversing the store.

Jesus Christ! There's hundreds of them. All babies! All taken from Suck! Those fuckin' rich bastards!

And then in a moment of terrible realization he understood the shop's name. 

Frobies. 

Frozen Babies! 

Bewildered by the sheer scale of the monstrous injustice he was witnessing, Zal looked up and caught sight of the label underneath the baby in the girlfriend's arms.

To his complete horror he read a familiar name

STRAN!

Oh my dear God! Our son! Christ in heaven, it's our son, Pat! 

Fuelled by a burgeoning outpouring of rage, Zal was about to spring from behind the freezer to rescue their child, when a posse of well-armed security guards wearing FROBIES jackets cornered him with a ring of Kalashnikovs. 

What do have we here? An intruder from Suck no less! 

That's my fucking son over there in that woman's arms! 

Be quiet Suck scum! Who the fuck cares about your shitty offspring!

The lead guard radioed the storekeeper.

Where shall we take the intruder?

He received a one word reply.

FRODULTS.

Yes Sir!

Turning to Zal, he hit him squarely in the gut with his rifle butt.

Let's be having you Suck filth! We've a brand new store opening across the road! You'll look superb trussed up in the refrigerated window!

Another brutal rifle blow, Zal groaned in agony, but not before overhearing the salesman's final patter.

Shall I thaw the little tyke out or keep him freshly wrapped?

Then Zal heard the real motivation behind the couple coming to FROBIES.

Tsardom Ro beamed at the shop assistant.

Oh, shrink-wrapped please! Yes, keep him fresh.

Oh Tsardom, what a fabulous dinner we'll put on for our friends. I can't wait to walk out of the kitchen with this prize frozen specimen roasted to total perfection. It's going to be spectacular! The best one yet!

Zal Stran's mind imploded. 

They were going to cook his son for their friends!

Thinking only of his beloved Pat and his earnest vow, as she lay dying, Zal, with a Herculean leap, lurched past the guards towards the drooling couple, shouting out his son's unused name.

APPLE! WE WERE GOING TO CALL HIM APPLE, YOU CANNIBALISTIC FUCKERS!

The pair looked across the store and saw the crazed man bounding towards them. The storekeeper quickly lead them away to his office but not before whispering into his radio.

Kill him!

Several shots rang out and then, total silence.

As the couple took possession of their new purchase in a large FROBIES carrier bag, Zoos looked through the sound-proofed office window.

Who was that?

Oh, just some vagrant from Suck determined to spoil your meal.

Oh, nothing could spoil our annual newborn dinner, could it Zoos!

Tsardom smiled at his girlfriend.

It's a super idea though Zoosy. An apple! We'll stuff a juicy apple in his mouth just before we wheel him out!

The shopkeeper clapped his hands.

Oh yes! How succulent! A wonderfully personal touch I agree!

Deek's got all the Monster Props

It was as dark as the dead of night in the old studio's basement. A thick miasma of dust and dander filled it like a London smog.

How the fuck can anyone work down here!

Boswell the film director stumbled as he attempted to traverse the minefield of plaster heads, rubber arms and grisly masks. He was trying to find Deek the old props guy because he needed something specific for his latest movie, The Parade of Monsters.

Deek, you old bastard! Where are you for fucks sake?

There was no love lost between the new director and the ancient propmaster. It was a tectonic clash between the modern and the hoary what was. Neither one respected the other, but in that twisted reality of reel economics they both needed one another.

Boswell needed monsters. Deek had all the props. Simple. 

Deek Lugos had been in the film industry for over 70 years. Nearly one hundred years old, he had never missed a single day of work, except when his beloved wife Elsa was interred in '45. He was that strange unique bridge across eons of movie making, from the beautiful silents to the gabbling talkies to the big studios and now to the velvet jacketed effete of the trippy decade. It was 1970 and Deek had amassed the biggest storeroom of horror film artefacts, costumes and props in the world. Some where older than him and he loved them all like his children.

His dearest Elsa had loved film too and in her heyday was the most sought-after costumier in horror. Together they'd worked with the greats: Max Shreck, Bela, Karloff, Lanchester and Lorre. Sadly Elsa never got to meet the newcomers like Pitt, Cushing, Price and Lee, who's careers were now burgeoning. Elsa had been distracted by Vulp, Aldo Vulp, the seductively fresh and suave director in '44, an incubus in silk who turned Elsa's head and charmed her into bed, whilst Deek was away searching for props in Romania. Vulp secretly ravaged Elsa like a caustic fox that summer but by the winter he was bored. Discarded and distraught she killed herself on New Year's Day 1945 and with a primordial rage Deek had hated Vulp from that moment on. 

After Elsa's funeral, her secret scorn interred within her, Deek had made a vow. He could forgive his beloved but not Arlo Vulp.

There would be a reckoning. 

His broken darling boxed in the coffin would be avenged.

The Fates did not concur, however, and Arlo Vulp was killed in a motor car accident in St.Tropez, as he drove his Maserati way too fast like the brash poseur that he was. His wife and infant son survived however.

Thwarted but stoical, for a quarter of a century Deek had forgotten that Arlo Vulp had ever existed.

Until today.

Lugos! Where the fuck are you?

I'm right here Sir. How may I be of service?

Deek stepped out from behind the startling costume of a She-Creature, it's whiskered antennae brushing his fantastically wrinkled face, which was illumined by the half-glow of a weak naked bulb.

Ah, there you are! I've been looking for you in all this decrepit shite you've piled up in here!

This, er, pile represents film history Sir. Most of it from before you were born.

History, schmistory! As long as you've got what I need I don't give a flying fuck about the rest of it Lugos!

Deek bristled at this crass young upstart with his filthy tongue and ridiculous paisley neckerchief.

What is it you seek Sir?

Monsters! I need monsters. Classic ones. The old Universal kind. Have you got anything useful like that in this heap of dross?

I do Sir, Indeed I do. I have all the original props. Costumes, make-up, jewellery, the lot. Real treasures saved from the mob. Would you like to see them?

No. Just have it all clean and ready this time next week old man or you'll be out on your ear. Understand!

As he said this the obnoxious director stepped forward into the light and Deek saw his name-badge for the very first time.

Boswell Vulp.

Vulp! That's an unusual surname Sir. Are you related perhaps to the famous Arlo Vulp by any chance?

I am, not that it's any concern of yours. I didn't know my Father long, but in those short five years he taught me to take what I want from whomever I want. And I want my monsters, so you'd better deliver Deek Lugos!

The rude Director left the old propman to brood.

And brood he did.

A Vulp. Here in this building! I can't believe it! The progeny of the snake himself!

It was late one evening the following week when a young girl stumbled into the basement at the top of the stairs. She slammed the door shut and fastened the two great bolts, holding the handle tight and staring at the door, panting, as if someone were chasing her.

Hello.

Deek spoke softly so as not to scare her, as she was clearly distressed. 

Shhhhhh! He'll hear us!

Deek surmised she was about twenty. Wearing a lanyard, he could see she worked here at the studio. 

Suddenly there was a pounding on the other side of the door.

Val! Are you in there! I know you're hiding in there! Lugos, if you can hear me then open this door and I mean fucking pronto! I'll get you Val. I'm bleeding you bitch! 

Recognising the mean-spirited bleating of one Boswell Vulp, Deek looked at the girl and placed his finger over his lips.

Shhhhh.

They remained silent like this for a good ten minutes until they were sure that Vulp had left to look elsewhere.

The young girl descended the stairs quietly.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

I'm Valderia Dracul. I'm working here as an extra in the new movie, The Parade of Monsters. Boswell the Director liked my Eastern European accent so hired me for the night shift. He also likes other things about me. 

That's why you are hiding. You're hiding from the director?

Yes.

Has he hurt you?

Yes, he slapped me hard when I refused to sleep with him. I tried to bite him but scratched his face instead and ran. 

I see. He is a bad one for sure. 

I think he would kill me if he could.

Hmmm. Well, you are welcome to stay here until the coast is clear.

Thank you.

Dracul? That's an unusual name. I've come across it before on a visit to Romania looking for props many years ago.

Yes, I am from Bran the home if the Dracula dynasty in Transylvania. I have come to, how you say, improve my English.

Bran, eh. I went to the castle there. In fact I bought some items and brought them back. 

What kind of items?

Oh, some mouldy old earth and a coffin.

A coffin?

Yes.

What's inside it?

A body.

A body?

Yes.

Who's.

Count Dracula.

The Count? Here?

Yes.

I can't believe it! Count Dracula is my Father! I am one of his many daughters scattered across Europe. None of us knew where he was.

Well, Valderia, your Father is here. He's quite safe and secret. Would you like to see him?

Oh, yes please! 

The pair walked through the long basement to a further wide chamber.

Deek lit a torch with his cigarette lighter. 

Inside the gloom were four objects.

As Valderia approached she could see that one was a sarcophagus, one a metal bed with a body on top, one a hospital bed with another body attached to a drip and lastly, a coffin.

Here is your father Valderia.

Deek opened the lid of the casket to reveal a prone male and emaciated figure sleeping within, his arms folded over his chest.

I give you Count Dracula.

Father! Oh, Father! 

Valderia stooped and kissed Dracula's forehead.

Why does he not wake? 

Your Father requires blood. He has been dormant for so long, we would need to feed him. 

How? 

I have several bags of blood in a small fridge for such an occasion. 

Why not now?

If I could indulge you a little longer Valderia, I assure you we can wake your him and his compatriots to both re-unite you and your father but also  avenge both of us for heinous slights committed by the Vulps.

When?

Tomorrow. Boswell Vulp requires monsters for his film and we shall give him some. Alive and hungry!

The two spent the night preparing the exhibits and early next morning, when it was still dark, Deek phoned the director to please come and inspect the props as instructed.

Flustered but cooperative, Boswell burst into the studio to find Deek standing on the murky set with a flaming torch. 

Ah, Mr. Vulp! Please. This way. Let me present the requested five, er, monsters.

Vulp stepped into the torchlight and gawped at the scene in front of him.

It's fantastic Lugos, you surprising old fart! It's better than I ever imagined! I thought you'd drag out some old rubber rubbish but this is the dog's bollocks!

Indeed, Director, it is in fact the real McCoy!

Yes, these are the best damn props I've ever seen. Where on earth did you get them?

Oh, Wales, Transylvania, the Arctic and the Cairo Museum to be precise.

What?

Yes, over my long life I've travelled the world to locate and preserve the original monsters the old studios threw out.

But why were the props scattered like that?

Because they went back home to sleep and recuperate.

What the fuck are you talking about Lugos! Now you're not making sense. How can props sleep!

Oh, they're not props Boswell. They're the real thing. These are real monsters, which I've just woken up.

What? Rubbish! 

Yes. Let me introduce you. Here sat on his electric chair is the Frankenstein monster. Here stepping out of its sarcophagus is the Mummy. Here standing under the moonlit velux is the Wolfman. And here getting out of his coffin is one Count Dracula.

Je-sus Christ! They're so authentic. We'll make a killing! But you said five. Where's the fifth one?

I'm here Mr. Vulp, Director.

Valderia floated across the gothic set towards the assembly.

May I introduce the fifth monster, Dracula's daughter.

Incredible! Well done Valderia! You look great! I hope there's no hard feelings about our little misunderstanding. You really do look fantastic. What a costume! In fact all of them, such authenticity! 

I'm afraid you still don't quite get it Vulp. You have sorely affronted Valderia and your own vile Father took my beloved Elsa from me. These insults cannot be forgotten and I'm afraid your sentence is death ........ Monsters! 

The five beasts leapt forward and violently assaulted the bewildered man, their claws and teeth puncturing his soft forgiving flesh, his hot grue spurting in every direction.

Oh God! They're real! They're real monsters! Help me Deek, Valderia, help me! 

Oh, we'll help you alright! We'll help you out of your skin! 

The director screamed as the ravenous creatures tore him to shreds, freed his innards and hungrily ate every last bloody morsel. 

Over the next few nights, the movie was filmed with Deek and Valderia at the helm, the monsters happy to oblige as long as they were fed properly in the basement, coming on set each evening, the red gore and entrails still dripping from their fangs, hands and talons. 

Everyone clapped, they looked so damn good! 

A few junior crew short, the picture was wrapped on time and budget and screen tests proved a massive hit with critics and fans alike 

They all agreed that The Parade of Monsters was the most authentic classic monster movie they'd ever seen.

Deek and Valderia just smiled and looked forward to the blood-drenched sequel, the Monsters' Feast!

The Horrorscope

 Vic was a young horror nut.

It was 1965 and whilst other kids were fawning over the Beatles he was fixated with monsters.

Monsters of any kind. 

Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Mummy. Even Old Nick. He loved them all.

School was a necessary evil, but when the bell went for end of day Vic would pelt home, grab a glass of milk and a couple of jamborees and head into his bedroom to pour over his passions.

The best day by far was the monthly arrival of his subscriptions, Creepy, Eerie and Famous Monsters. When these three comics landed on the mat Vic's heart sang like a siren.

Yes! 

It was the best feeling ever, lying on his stomach on the carpet leafing through the unholy trinity of monster mags. Nothing came near it. It was heaven.

The illustrations were to die for and the storytelling was just smashing. Every single page was a masterpiece but one of Vic's favourites was Loathsome Lore, a panel which always detailed some dreadful myth or hateful legend like human sacrifices or selling souls.

Yet his absolute favourite thing in all three mags weren't the stories, the black and white photos or the movie reviews.

No.

It was the small ads scattered throughout a d culminating in a couple of dedicated pages at the back.

These were the zenith, the summit, the dog's bollocks of monsterdom for Vic. God, how he would have liked everything on offer from the amazing supplier, Cap Company.

But he spent all his pocket money on his magazine subscription. He just couldn't afford anything else and didn't want to pester his parents, who already thought his grisly obsession was a little unhealthy for a boy.

So, he satisfied himself with just imagining what it would be like to own a phial of Dracula's soil or a life-size poster of Frankenstein or a an LP record of The Food of the Gods, never mind the wonders of a Don Post Wolfman mask or a set of Impko horror decals. 

Oh, the beautiful gruesomeness of it all. How he longed to be part of it and not just read about it, the Universal monsters, the Black Zoo and the House of Hammer.

He woke up thinking about it and we t to bed the same. Everything else was a mundane distraction from the serious business of werewolves, vampires and ghouls.

Vic surely was mad about monsters.

And then he saw it.

It was advertised at the back of a Famous Monsters special, as if had been shoved in just for him. 

The Horrorscope DIY Movie Making Set. 

Vic couldn't believe his eyes. You could actually make your own stop-motion film and view it in the Horrorscope, along with proper movies like The Wolfman and Mighty Joe Young.

£4 and £1 shipping from the States.

£5.

A small fortune. 

It would take a month of Sundays to copper up a sum like that. He could wash all the cars in Ashton and he still wouldn't make enough.

No.

He needed a get rich quick scheme.

Brooding over this conundrum in Geography the next day, he saw a classified pinned up on the senior students' notice board. 

Aurora Monster Models,

Built or Boxed

Serious Cash Waiting!

Ask for Hilarium, Set 2.

Blimey! Aurora! I know where some are! 

Vic's synapses went into overdrive as a complex ruse formed in his feverish brain.

He rubbed his hands together like a mad scientist and smiled.

By gum! It might just work.

First up, nick a nudey mag from his older brother's bottom drawer. Best get two to be on the safe side. Old copies of Juggs.

Successful!

Next, talk to his mate Vincent.

Vinnie, you fancy a sneak peek at a couple of tasty nudey mags from my big brother?

Sure!

Here. 

Vic showed Vinnie a couple of pages then pulled it away.

You fancy owning them mate?

You're damn right!

Would you swap summat?

What?

You know that old box of Aurora models your brother has stashed away in the shed?

Yeah?

Would you swap 'em for Juggs?

They're my brothers!

I know mate but they're stuffed in the shed just gathering cobwebs. C'mon, these pair of Juggs could be yours!

Oh, OK then Vic. You're on!

The trade completed, each party very satisfied, Vic trotted off with his rickety box of monster models to find Hilarium in Set 2.

What have we got here then you little scrote?

A box full you big bastard! 

The senior boy glared at the first year and began rummaging.

Fuck me! You've got the lot! The Witch, The Mummy! Jeez, you've even got the Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare! 

I know. How much?

Four squid. Tops.

Six! It's a bargain Hilarium, you know it is...

I'll tell you what you pushy little fucker, I'll give you five pounds for the lot and not a soddin' penny more.

Done! 

Five one pound notes were handed over as was the box of monsters.

Vic stared at the money. A fortune.

He was so close to owning a Horrorscope.

He shivered with excitement and ran home to write the letter. 

Dear Sir/Madame,

Please rush me one Horrorscope,

£5 enclosed herewith.

Yours,

Vic Timm

The letter was stamped and addressed to:

F. Allenone,

666 Death Valley,

Nr. Sin City.

USA.

It was three weeks later when the package arrived.

On Halloween of all days.

Vic told his parents it was a gift from a pen pal and quickly bolted upstairs to unwrap his treasure. 

The Horrorscope DIY Movie Set.

There it was.

In all its fiendish glory!

Vic couldn't believe his eyes.

He unboxed the fantastic contraption and eagerly read the instructions, twice.

Following them closely, Vic began to make his movie using the small dark camera provided. 

He wore his best cheapo Lon Chaney mask and took twenty snaps of his own growling face.

The negatives were then plunged into the changing agent and the fuzzy images began to take shape in the tray.

Immediately Vic started to feel funny. 

As his portraits for the movie emerged one by one he began to get weaker by the minute.

Collecting his finished prints, Vic slowly put them in order and just about managed to slot them into the horrorscope viewer. 

Vic then realized he felt dreadful. Really dreadful. As if something had been taken out.

He went to the mirror on the wall and to his absolute horror he was fading away.

What! No!

He fingered his misty features as they dissolved before his very eyes.

Oh My Go..

No. Not him. I'm the other one my boy! 

It's me. Old Nick, the Fallen One. You wrote to me. Remember!

Vic turned round, half gone and stared in disbelief at the figure sat on his bed in front of the scope.

He had bright red smoking leather hide, two sharp horns, cloven feet and a large crimson fork in flames, just like it said in Loathsome Lore.  

Come, sit next to me Vic. My friends will be here any minute!

There was a knock at the bedroom door.

Ah. Here they are.

The Devil opened the door and in walked an entourage of hideous classic monsters. 

Frankenstein, Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, Mummy and the Wolfman.

They all sat on the bed and watched Vic's stop motion short.

Look Wolfy, he's got your face! 

The monsters howled and turned to see the bewildered boy completely fade away as he screamed one final plea.

Nooooooooooo!

Bingo, another young soul in the bag! 

The Devil stared into the viewer one last time to see a terrified Vic, now mask-free, trying desperately to get out of the film, frantically clutching the sides of the frames.

Tut tut! When will these young monster nuts ever learn not to sell their soul so easily!

One Horrorscope. That's all it took!

The gang of beasts stood up shaking their heads and walked out of the house into Halloween night.

Young Vic the monster kid was never seen again.

Cecile

 I'm afraid your time is at hand.

This is what Cecile said to her cruel foster parents.

She was three years old.

Minutes later they were dead.

The girl was alone, but not for long.

Raven-haired Cecile went to live with her kind Aunt Bee, her only living relative.

From the off Bee knew she was a strange and distracted child. 

She would find the infant throwing the chicken bones to see how they landed or fiddling with the tea mash with her finger. One Sunday whilst preparing a goose the Aunt watched Cecile arrange the bird's giblets on a plate, staring in rapt fascination at the position of the wet entrails.

Why have you done that little girl?

To see what I can see.

And what can you see Cecile?

I can see that you're frightened of me. Don't be.

She was right of course. Bee was fearful of Cecile, now four years old and becoming odder every passing day.

Children in the neighborhood thought she was a weirdo and concerned parents told them to stay away from the dark-haired girl.

Aunt Bee suffered. 

Her neighbours shunned her and one by one her friends stopped coming for tea. 

They were alone in a world of strangers.

But they were blood.

Cecile turned five and stared at the moulded cream jelly Bee had made her. 

She watched as raspberry sauce was poured over the top.

It looked like a bleeding half-head.

Something terrible is coming Aunty.

What?

If you do not build a shelter we will die.

How?

Our faces will explode.

Cecile and Bee busied themselves preparing the cellar as per her intuitions. Tinned food and water were stocked and bedding laid out. Bee also reinforced the floor above with large boards, rugs and carpets.

It is time.

They entered the cellar and waited.

A series of deafening booms were heard and the whole house shook. A deep and dreadful rumble filled the air and sounds of countless structures collapsing resonated around the underground room. Thick plaster powdered the pair's hair and water could be heard gushing above, where a pipe had burst.

Staying in the sanctuary of their shelter two more days, eating canned beans and sipping bottled Sarsaparilla, they awoke to the sound of a robin gurgling above.

It is time to leave Aunty.

Bee and Cecile stepped from the cellar into a world of carnage and chaos.

There were no buildings remaining in the street. They had all been flattened to dust and the only sounds were flowing water pipes, gas explosions and dying birds.

Cecile bent down and nudged some bits of crockery.

I see nothing.

I feel nothing.

No-one is going to die Bee.

But why Cecile? Is the war over?

It was never a war Aunty.

It was the Apocalypse.

Everyone is dead.

Except us.

We are truly alone.

The adult and child wandered into the empty street and stared beyond the broken horizon at the thousands of ballooning mushrooms of nuclear smoke rising into the heavens like life-giving rain clouds on any other winter's day but this.

The Window in the Hedge

 The hole in the hedge appeared one night. I noticed it as I was taking the kitchen compost to the garden heap.

It was a rough hole, about the size of a LP.

The next day I inspected the hole and found that it been worked on further.

It was now a perfectly square-shaped gap near the top of the privet, excellently formed and precisely cut. 

Literally, a window in the hedge.

At head height.

It was even more peculiar as no-one lived next door. The property had been empty for years. Even so, I went there to see if I could find any clues as to who the secret topiarist was.

There was nothing. 

The following day, watering our herbaceous borders, I let out a loud shriek.

There, in the hole was a man's face! 

He was standing in the garden next door staring through the the hedge directly at me.

I was so startled I dropped the hose, the nozzle twisting and spraying a little water on the stranger's forehead. 

He blinked as the drips ran into his eyes. 

Other than that he made no sound whatsoever.

His face was almost uncharacteristically plain. 

A bland countenance of indiscriminate features, as if they were still forming.

Hello!

I spoke but was uncertain that I should have done. 

I was also uncertain that I was facing an actual person, rather, some apparition from the derelict garden itself or a figment of my own imagination.

The man mouthed a reply, but omitted to produce a sound.

In silence he lipped

Hello.

I swiveled and waved to get my wife's attention at the kitchen window, but when I returned my gaze to the stranger he was gone.

My wife found the story hard to believe, so marching her outside I said

Look! 

Yes, I see a hole, I grant you dear, but no-one behind it. And besides, it's in the middle of the hedge, not near the top like you said.

What?

I was gobsmacked.

The square had moved straight down to the middle of the hedge, now about half way-up.

I couldn't believe it.

It was as if someone had dragged the gap straight downwards, whilst perfectly re-instating the missing hedge above.

It was both miraculous and frightening.

I couldn't sleep that night.

I got up around 3 am and walked out to the hedge with a torch.

I screamed again.

To my horror the man was back, this time sitting down on a chair in the dark, his face now more pronounced, his features becoming clearer.

As I shone my torch in his eyes I again attempted contact.

Hello!

This time the response had sound. 

Maybe half-sound but I could discern the word

Hello.

The whisper sounded somehow vaguely familiar.

Suddenly my torch went momentarily dead and when the beam returned the man had once again disappeared. 

I woke my wife and frantically explained what I'd seen.

Darling, it's 3.30am in the morning. You're simply overtired. We'll discuss it in the morning!

When we woke I asked my wife to join me in the garden.

Darling, is this a joke? Are you pulling my leg, because it's not funny!

No, no, I'm not. You have to believe me. The hole was in the middle last night. Not where it is now!

The square gap had once again migrated downwards leaving no trace of it's former location.

It was now positioned at the base of the privet. A perfectly cut square hole at the bottom of the hedge.

I went inside with my wife, who phoned the doctor for an appointment for me.

You're better off phoning the police. Or maybe even a priest!

I laughed nervously when I said this.

I felt odd. Woozy. Weakened. 

You're so pale Darling. Sit down and I'll make you a nice cup of sweet tea.

I couldn't get my mind off the hole and when my wife left the house to buy some Lucozade for me, I tip-toed back into the garden.

Fatigue robbing me of my normal stamina, I crouched down on my stomach and peered through the gap into next door's garden.

Once again I yelped with fear.

Staring back at me was the man.

His face was fully formed. 

To my absolute terror I realised that I was looking at ....

myself!

Hello!

It was the stranger who spoke first this time.

He spoke using my voice!

I wailed,

My God, what is happening?

Without warning the man who looked like me now quickly crawled through the gap onto my side.

He stood up and I could see that he was a perfect facsimile of myself.

What the ...!

As I shouted I found myself also scrabbling through the hole into the other side. It was impossible to stop myself and before I knew it I was standing in next door's garden.

Somehow the square hole had returned to its original head-height and I found myself staring through it at the stranger who looked exactly like me.

 Tears formed in my eyes, as somehow I knew I would not be returning home and my worst fears were realised when I asked,

Who are you?

The stranger, now me, replied, smiling.

I. Am. You!

Darcy's Conch

Darcy had found the shell a year earlier on the shore of her home, The Calico, a windswept, salt-washed fisher cottage emerging from the dune edge, as if it had been released by the sea itself

The woman lived alone now, the conch a treasured reminder of those she still loved. 

Her Mother had passed. She'd walked out into the unforgiving bay, an escape from the cloying penury of depression and never returned. 

The maternal echo in the shell kept her Mother's presence in her memories now. 

However, it was her father's death that had crushed her completely, the conch a bitter-sweet connection to its horrors and her ultimate salvation.

Having raised a young and bereft Darcy on his own, he had guided her through her life with the true compass of a seasoned fisherman, until she was an integral half of the family fishing boat business confidently at his side.

Bounty has been plentiful for a decade and the skilled father and daughter had made a very good living, selling lucrative fresh mackerel, lobster and shellfish to the finest restaurants in the South. Occasionally they dined on their wares too, dressed crab, bread and butter Darcy's favourite, always prepared fresh by her doting Dad on special occasions.

For once in their family's life, money poured into the once-hollow briny coffers.

The Calico had been upgraded and refurbished and the two lived a decent life with all the comforts of home. There had even been enough to invest into stocks, making them a small fortune to boot.

Always humble throughout and never forgetting her roots, Darcy, now a catch in her own right, had been swept off her feet by the handsome son of the neighbouring city's oldest funeral director, Randalls. 

His name was Reed.

Reed had been the perfect romantic and had wined and dined Darcy in his home city's finest eateries and swish hotels. She had been smitten and despite her fisher-folk roots she found herself flattered by Reed's sumptuous attention and luxuriant wooing.

It worked and Darcy informed her Dad that she was madly in love with this gorgeous man.

Her Father was not so sure about any of it and especially not of Reed Randall. There was something fishy about him and fish he knew something about. Wily, secretive, always salting things away. 

He made discreet enquiries without Darcy finding out and was not impressed at all with what he discovered. Randalls was broke. More than that, they were badly in debt and owed money to the local criminal underworld, for whom they were now the newly appointed funeral director, a particularly unsavoury partnership which made the wealthy fisherman feel sick.

If Darcy married Reed then the Randall's debts to the Mob would be his debts and he simply couldn't let that happen to either Darcy or himself.

Wanting to draw a line in the suddenly blackening sand and talk man to man with Reed, he invited him on a fishing trip, whilst Darcy was away with a friend. 

The plan was to have it out with Reed, scare him off his daughter and if all else failed get his chequebook out as a final solution. 

Unbeknownst to the father though, Darcy and Reed had been secretly engaged to be married at the funeral home, where Randall Snr had presided over the short ceremony among oak caskets containing dead gangsters. The secrets piled on top of each other and the salting of their life had begun.

He backed her into the funeral home's office and immediately Reed changed. On the night before the proposed fishing trip and Darcy's visit to her best friends, the new fiancee beat her up terribly, punching her softest parts repeatedly, saving the face till after they were married.

Do you really think I could fall for a sack of mackerel like you Darcy? You stink of gills and guts. I wouldn't touch you with a barge pole now we're engaged. I want your money and I'm going to get it. It's very handy running a funeral parlour. No-one need see the mess I make of you and especially of that damn pompous, loaded twat of a Dad of yours. We're going fishing tomorrow. It'll be perfect. But first ...

Reed hit Darcy so hard that she fell unconscious. He bound her and his Father stuffed her in a coffin for the night.

The next day Darcy's dad readied himself at the Calico and assuming his daughter had already left for her pals he went to meet Reed at the boat.

A pelagic intuition told the old fisherman that something had shifted. The young Reed seemed cockier, brasher than before and was handling himself with a new found swagger onboard the boat. 

Good year so far then? Lots of money coming in? You must be providing for Darcy really well in your will old man.

My will has got fuck all to do with you, you dead-loving streak of piss!

Dead-loving? Oh my, that's below the belt. Mind you, I wouldn't mind giving your daughter one when she's on the slab this time next month after we're married.

Married? Darcy won't be marrying a cretinous gangster's moll like you that's for certain!

Gangsters-moll eh! You have been doing your homework you nosey old bastard, but there's one secret you don't know. And your beloved daughter's kept it even from you.

What?

We're engaged to be married. All official and above board. It happened yesterday, whilst you were no doubt fondling a squid like all you fish-fuckers do!

It's a lie!

'Fraid not you old giffer. Yep, What's yours is hers and what's hers is mine. It's the law don't you know and I'm going to get my grubby little hands on every fishy fuckin thing you own!

Aggggggh!

The fisherman ran at Reed with a gaff-hook but the younger man was too quick and with incredible speed lunged forward with a pitch fork at the old man's weathered face sending the two long prongs deep into his eye-sockets. 

The fisher screamed in agony and clutched the pole.

Now do you see?

Pulling the fork violently backwards the two metal prongs shot out, each with a punctured eyeball impaled on the end.

Oh, no, you don't see do you old man. And you never will again!

My eyes, my eyes, Reed I'm blind, for God's sake help me!

Of course, step this way!

The helpless fisherman fell overboard clutching his face, blood pouring in gouts from his open sockets, as he hit the freezing waters of the cruel ocean and was gone.

Reed had it all figured out. Exactly what he'd say when he steered the boat back to port. A terrible and sudden storm had swept the boat owner over. An awful tragedy but there it was. Accidental death. It was official.

Darcy knew different. Reed even organized a funeral for her Dad. Randall Snr lead the event and the whole village turned out for an empty coffin. Despite the heartfelt eulogies from her Dad's many friends and family, the Randall's involvement felt cynical and hollow.

The violence started up again on the night of the burial. Reed knocked Darcy clean out with the house phone, when he caught her phoning the Coast Guard. A single dreadful blow to the temple and she was gone. A huge bruise grew near her ear and even with thick make-up, which Reed had insisted on, village folk knew what was going on at The Calico and the regular screams confirmed it.

Reed Randall was an evil thug and one day he would murder sweet Darcy.

It was the night of their marriage a year later that he very nearly did it.

Controlled by fear, the pitiful woman was forced into wedlock and signed everything over to her psychotic husband.  As soon as Darcy put down her pen a deranged Reed had pounded her to a pulp with a fresh lobster, the pincers swiping across her face leaving an agonising criss-cross of rising welts. 

Her brutal husband left her bleeding and near to death, slumped against the back door, whilst he phoned his family's Funeral home.

It's time. Tonight we get everything. We'll be rich Father. Bring a coffin. Hurry!

Hearing her death sentence, Darcy half-roused with ballooned eyes and swollen fingers, contorted on the threshold and quietly exited.

In excruciating pain she crawled on all fours to the shoreline through the dunes leaving a trail of bubbling scarlet. In the moonlight she looked like a broken turtle returning to the succour of the sea.

With the soft lap of the surf washing her bloody features she noticed a conch shell on the sand. Picking it up she pressed it gingerly to her cauliflower ear and listened.

She could hear deep within it's smooth chamber the ebb and flow of the ocean, it's eternal churn and yearned for its gentle release. 

Darcy.

There was a voice behind the conch's whisper.

Darcy, daughter. It's me, your Dad.

Dad?

Yes. 

Oh, Dad! My gorgeous Dad! I know Reed murdered you!

He did my sweetest. He did.

Dad!

Yes?

He is coming to murder me. Now!

Do not fear him Darcy. 

Why?

I am coming. 

The familiar voice of her father trailed away and she let he conch fall beside her as the saline eddies caressed her face once more.

Did you bring the coffin?

Yes, give me a hand.

The thugs, father and son Randall, carried the casket onto the beach.

What's inside it? 

A rigor hammer, some embalming fluid and mortician's thread. 

Ah, yes, good thinking.

In the light of the moon the two brutes could see Darcy's prone form on the water's edge.

As they approached Reed became aware of a large shape emerging from the misty tide behind his wife.

It was huge, shell-like and crawling towards them, it's long antennae twitching in the air, large pupils wobbling on stalks . 

Quick Reed. There's something coming in the mist.

They dropped the coffin beside the woman and Reed, bone hammer in hand, took hold of her matted hair to strike the killing blow. 

As his arm descended his Father screamed.

Oh my God!

The sea thing broke from the fret and reared up before them, an enormous deep-ocean lobster easily ten feet tall.

Do it, Son, hurry! 

But it was too late.

The lobster's colossal claw clasped the bewildered Reed's arm and snipped it clean off at the shoulder. Still holding the hammer it fell into the beasts mouth and was eaten.

Fresh hot gore spurted into the waves as the agonised husband spun along the surf like a blood hydrant.

Randall Snr stood transfixed as the atrocity unfolded. Coming to his senses he began to strangle Darcy in a vain attempt to finish her murder. 

Both of his hands were severed at the wrists. The villain stared at his gushing stumps and then at the gigantic creature rearing up.

It smiled and took his throat in one pincer and with the other gradually reduced the size of his head in layers, the brain in the middle like a sliced boiled egg. Once headless, the beast drank greedily from the spouting neck.

The leviathan then returned to Reed, who was running away down the beach.

With unfathomable speed it was on top of Randall jnr and gawping into his face, it dribbled his Father's own blood into his mouth, before pinching off his lips, nose, ears, hand, arm, feet legs, penis, testicles and buttocks.

With the destruction of Reed the lobster looked down on his pitiful torso. With a lipless mouth the conscious remains gargled one final insult.

Fuck you and your frigid daughter!

The lobster father blinked and placing one tip of his pincer in Reeds anus, it commenced a careful snip along his back and head, opening up the half-body like a letter. Taking each flap the creature pulled the man's skin clean off revealing his muscles and fats glistening in the moonlight. Licking his claw the crustacean began nipping and scissoring until it was satisfied with it's work. 

Returning to Darcy, who was only just rousing from her throttling, the lobster thing did the same to Randall Snr's corpse, trimming, chopping and preparing.

When Darcy woke fully and sat up in the blood-souped breakers, she looked at the giant lobster and a tear formed in her eye.

Dad!

Yes, Darcy.

You heard me in the shell!

I did.

You have saved my life.

It's all any Dad would do.

And where are the terrible Randalls, my would-be killers?

Here my sweet. As it's your wedding day I've readied them for the occasion.

On the upturned coffin stood two bloody rib cages. Each of them was stuffed with fresh wet flesh. One one side of each cage was white meat, on the other dark and on top a pair of eyeballs.

Two dressed crabs! You remembered! My favourite! Oh, Thank you Dad!

As they both ate, thick hideous gore spattered on the conch was washed away by the cleansing tide and within it's airy sanctuary the ocean could be heard, by those who might listen, to whisper of the wrath and release found in its deepest depths.

T H R I P S

Bloodstone was baked like a cake that summer's day.

It was unseasonably hot as global warming wreaked havoc with the crops.

Pests multiplied exponentially in the drying fields and an unstoppable plague of death was about to be unleashed on the roasting village.

In the shade of the rear, Jack and Valerie romped in the straw bales at the back of the big barn. 

This was their moment for the taking and a delicious teenage fumbling began.

Valerie, oh my, before we go all the way I need a big puff on my inhaler.

Jack grabbed the diffuser from his coat, a big affair on account of his asthma. Sweaty with anticipation he didn't bother to check the unit first and never saw the black mass he swallowed until it was too late.

Jack! Jack! What's the matter? For God's Sake, what's wrong?

Jack clutched his throat and his eyes bulged. He stared at Valerie and gagged. His mind reeled as oxygen was cut off and he felt a strange warmth as his end approached. 

I wonder if we'd have ever got married, Valerie and me?

Jack passed in his girlfriend's arms, his neck pulsating horribly with whatever he'd inhaled. 

Valerie wept and ran topless into the farmyard, the hands whistling as she screamed to the heavens.

He's dead! He's dead! He's dead!

She wasn't in the barn to see a bung of blackness erupt from Jack's mouth and fly away.

Down on Bloodstone village green the annual fair was in full swing. 

Dawn and Donna, on lunch from the Hauliers' typing pool, got on the Ghost Train like a couple of giddy school kids.

Two adults please.

Two more mate too!

A pair of teddy boys from town got in the double car behind the girls.

They sang like doo-woppers.

That'll be the da-ay-ay, oo-er!

Dawn and Donna giggled loudly. The prospect of a bit of slap and tickle in the dark tunnel with these urban ruffians sent a shiver of excitement along their spines. They both clenched their knees and chuckled as the unmistakable screech of the double doors scared them to bits entering the ride.

Skeletal hands dangled down. Cobwebs brushed against their faces. Roaming fingers from behind sought purchase under their cardies. They slapped the teddies back and laughed as the car momentarily emerged in sunlight between two scary sections.

It was here on this daylight bend beside a farm, where an ambulance was pulling in, that Dawn and Donna saw a cloud of darkness descend upon them just as the carriage re-entered the gloom of the vampire's room.

In the lightless ride the sable fog had smothered the girls' faces completely, the million constituent threads finding sanctuary in their ears, nose, mouth and eyes. Whatever they were they were inside the typists' eye-sockets crawling around their pupils and along their optic nerves. 

Dawn and Donna shrieked in agony as the morass penetrated every orifice of their heads, tumbling over each other to reach their pudding-like brains.

The two teddy boys were sure the girls were just very scared but also very excited to be in their company. The leant forward and began kissing their necks, their hands caressing their hair. It all felt really odd, as if it was all all mobile and wet.

The screaming girls couldn't stand the teeming pain any longer. They stood up in the carriage as they reached the solid arch of the exit.

There was a distinct crunch.

The wailing shriek of the finished ghost train was only just audible above the din of the two teddies smeared with hot blood.

They shook with fright and yelled till their lungs burst as they stared at Dawn and Donna's severed heads in their hands.

The smog of ink, tinged with crimson, that alighted out of their neck stumps, whirled round and headed for the myriad of distant fields nestling on the gentle hills of the Folds.

Oh Hell! What the fuck are those things?

The two Teds dropped the heads and heaved over the side of the car.

They're thrips. Of course, it's thrips day. And by the looks of it they've gone for reinforcements.

What the chuff are thrips?

The old farmer, in the village to buy new milking mates for his cows, nodded at the vanishing cloud.

Yep, thrips alright. Thunderbugs. Tiny crop flies. And a helluva lot of 'em. Must be this flamin' tropical weather we're having!

Damn. 

Having dealt with Jack nearby, the local Bobby arrived in his Panda. The young constable threw his guts up when he clapped eyes on the decapitated girls. It was all too much.

The old farmer drove home to neighbouring Thing following the course of the shallow Thirsty Chase. 

He installed the new milk units onto his shed herd and flipped the switch. The automated system chundered into life but seemed unusually sluggish.

Damn units! They're duds!

But whatever blockage there was it quickly cleared and the farms' locally famous Thing Dairy bottles began to fill again.

It was then the farmer heard his cows wailing in pain. The whole bottling system had stopped and it was clogging up the beasts. 

The old man stooped down to inspect the pints filling the conveyor and could not believe his eyes.

The milk was jet black and moving. 

He peered closer and realized with sickening clarity that his cows had passed thrips through their udders. Millions of them. 

As he wretched the bottles rattled loudly and the dark cargo erupted into the air.

They targeted the farmer and entered his body at every point, filling his entire frame with a convulsing insect horde searching for his damp plump innards.

Christ! They're carnivorous!

These were his last words in this terrible new world, a revelation that countless more victims would come to know by the end of that fatal summers day.

Ten miles further east a NATO ICBM was being transported to the USAF base on the coast. The gargantuan truck had a military escort as it wended its way through a secret route across the Folds.

The truck driver and partner were enjoying the gorgeous countryside when a mist appeared in the trees. It grew in size like an amoeba and as the convoy crawled through Bloodstone the entity filled the cab and smothered the two men. 

The insatiable thrips poured into their mouths like black gravy and ballooned their guts until they blew in a welter of entrails. The insects went into a feeding frenzy and devoured everything save the drivers hands, still clutching the steering wheel. 

Without the substance of his arms to guide it, the wheel turned and the truck and ICBM careered into the small farming petrol station run by National. 

The impact triggered a chain reaction. First the petrol pumps went up in a huge ball of fire seen and heard across the village and then the US missile, now lying on the forecourt, overheated in the flames and ignited. The ensuing explosion was so large that the village of Bloodstone was reduced to a wide smoking crater where once a thriving farming village had stood. 

As the neighbouring panda cars arrived they were first greeted with a burning ferris wheel rolling towards them, the occupants in flames. It was a vision of hell and only surpassed by  what came next.

Two figures staggered out of the devastation and walked along the road. Except for their beetle crushers and velvet jackets they were draped from head to foot in rank after rank of tiny black creatures seething allover their head and limbs. 

As they reached the waiting police the two Teds opened their mouths and released long streaming dark jets of minute flies, which surrounded the pandas, dropped en masse to the ground and died in their millions.

The Teds fell to their knees, their creamed minds jumping like broken singles, repeating over and over again the songline they'd sung all summer.

That'll be the da-ay-ay that I die!

For them, the day of the thrips was over for yet another year.

S C A B S

They were all Excoriation patients at the Welland Body clinic when the invisible sun flare hit.

The dermatillomaniacs were none the wiser and another long day of ignoring what they wanted to do - pick scabs - dragged out.

In the lab their medicine vat was superheated to boiling point and something changed in the mix. 

Something bad.

The sunburst had secretly reversed its effect. It had nullified the suppression. 

It had increased their desire to remove scabs a thousand fold.

That morning the twelve patients, known as pickers to each other and the dirty dozen to the staff, dutifully took their new meds, the first of four that day and watched morning TV in the telly lounge. 

After breakfast there would be more tests to help them combat the strange desire to scratch their bodies and greedily lift off the resultant hard layers, a dreadful dermatological cycle of body scouring that had taken them from their families and normal society.

The twelve pickers couldn't know that the pill they had taken was now reengineering their compulsion to a level never seen before in medical science. Never seen before anywhere, but soon everyone would be talking about it after first throwing up.

The maladjusted medication would eventually hit the chemists and enter the normal population and any pickers in the wider community, but for now, this initial hyper-batch was confined to Welland and the twelve.

The morning wore on. 

Breakfast TV was endured by some. For others, it was walks and sport in the grounds. They were all encouraged to keep their minds occupied and not think about the joyful mechanics of raising a pus-filled scab prematurely and the elation of holding it and maybe even eating it. This was the daily obsession of the average excoriative, the very thing that Welland were trying to dilute and control.

By the time lunch came around the dozen residents were feeling odd. Their heads were buzzing with excitement for who knew what and their fingers twitched like heated spiders.

The bland food was an afterthought. 

Today the twelve had other things forming in their brains. Terrible things. Destructive things. To degrade as many covered sores as possible. Nothing else would do. Nothing else mattered. They were slaves to a new enraged desire triggered by the toxic meds.

Aversion therapy was scheduled at 1pm.

A recovering patient from the Extensive Wounds clinic nearby was visiting. 

With his cup of tea in hand, the twelve Wellands should in theory have been appalled by the awful lacerations and the vast scabbing on the man's frail but healing form standing in front of them.

They weren't.

Within the dozen an overwhelming and uncontrollable urge to gouge off the huge crusts surged through them and when one leapt out of her chair the rest followed like a pack of starving wolves.

They were on the poor fellow within seconds and the screams began immediately, as the ravenous mob fingered his crusted dermis and ripped away the hard shells of coagulated blood covering his body with howls of unbridled lust.

Yee-haa!

The bloody lids were noisily crunched like pork scratchings and the pus-thick holes left behind simply too putrescent to ignore. The frenzied twelve rammed their faces deep within them, slurping and scoffing the liquid skin, nuzzling and noshing the clots like truffling pigs.

The assailed visitor had been completely debrided. 

When they'd finished chewing, matter and blood dribbling down their chins, the overdosed pickers stared at the pitiful sight of the reduced man before them. He was lying in his own plasma and very much dead.

The nurse who was watching it all pan out had fainted in her own slick of puke.

The twelve had no recollection of their fugue states whatsoever and left unnoticed.

They showered, changed and wandered back to the TV room, where they took their meds again and watched the local evening news.

A huge accident has occurred in a metal cutting plant. An explosion had ripped through the building and steel swarf and sharps had flown into the ten workers, causing heinous skin injuries of the worst possible kind.

All of them were air lifted to the Extensive Wounds clinic neighbouring the Welland. 

All ten would be treated for massive gaping cuts. 

This information circulated round the dirty dozen like a wild fire. 

They imagined lifting off fields of crusts and snouting lakes of pus like Instant Whip!

Delicious! Scrumptious! 

But they needed the last pill of the day to top them up and besides, perfect scabbing was a slow process so they would wait.

And wait they did.

A good two weeks.

Patience is a virtue when harbouring dermatillomania. But the supercharged debriders could resist no longer. Popped up with countless sunflare meds, there appetite for lesions and crusts was intolerable and could not be contained any further.

Eschewing all clinical regulations, the voracious twelve stormed out of the Welland like a school of Piranha, their teeth gnashing and fingers convulsing as they panted for the grand Guignol of scabbings to come.

The Extensive Wounds Clinic was just a half-mile and the hideous band grunted and shrieked the whole way,  with drivers and passers-by terrified by what appeared to be a gurgling pack of monsters in whites loping down the middle of the road.

When the EWC's security doors were breached the alarms blared out loudly around all the wards. 

In the recovery wing, where those naked airing patients from the dreadful metal explosion were lying in various stages of treatment, their huge healthy red and black crusts visible, a frisson of fear ran through the rooms and their personal alarms began beeping madly.

Nurse! Nurse!

But it wasn't the nurses who bound into the ward. 

It was twelve deranged scab robbers delirious with hunger and lust!

They leapt onto their helpless victims and began to tear away their hardened suture shells, shivering with glee as they raised them from gigantic wounds dripping with membranes and exudate. It could have been custard and cream the way the dozen guzzled it down, followed by the crisp necrotic bite of the incrustations.

It was hopeless trying to fend the lunatics off too.

They knelt on the naked patients' arms on their beds and yelps of fresh pleasure rang out when eschar was evident, the deep suppurative lesions requiring delicate then pugnacious picking of the finest kind.

The victims' screams of agony melded with the invaders' shrieks of rapture, creating a loathsome symphony of gore in that blood-spattered ward, punctuated by the sound of hungry crunching and grinding teeth. 

When the accidents' wounded went quiet the occupation of their flesh was over. 

The crazed scinvaders shared final tissues and clots before knuckling out of the clinic like bloody apes.

The armed police were waiting for them.

Stand still or we will open fire!

The sound of the rounds hitting the soft bodies of the dirty dozen drowned out their incessant manic gnashing. 

Incapacitated and bleeding out, the Welland monsters stared in disbelief at their gaping injuries and as they were wheeled away in secure ambulances they dreamt of their own bodies soon being festooned with delectable ....

Scabs!

When There's Nothing Left

The nuclear winter dragged itself along like a sack of flies.

Ten long years of irradiated hell from which there was no redemption, no salvation. No tunnel out.

The bombs had fallen like snow. Silent, beautiful, all consuming. A coat of lethal buttons for an eternal winter of death.

The Egos at either side of the world had done it. The man child emperors. Two vast arsenals. Two big levers. One insanity to end all sense.

As the seas boiled like soups and birds set alight in a flaming sky, the old farming couple, Zal and Nita, were feeding their herd of pigs. 

It was the smell of gammon that Zal remembers the most. Walking smoking hams. Those were his beloved sows cooking in man-made sun flares metastasizing his land. 

The stench of his livestock roasting, as they shambled on liquified hooves in a desperate attempt to escape the heat, had stayed with him this past decade. It had filled his nostrils and never left.

Now everything was just about running out. The stockpile of cans, the bunker of tins, the freezers of toxic meat, the Jennie's, the red diesel, the water in the well. 

There was virtually nothing left.

Nita was now sick.

Her skin was falling off her shins exposing angry welts of pus and matter. 

There was no hiding it. Her legs looked dreadful and the reek named itself proudly. Gangrene. 

Zal gently ushered his wife of seventy years to the toolshed. She lay down on some rags covering the workbench and whispered something to her beloved.

Zal gently held his finger to his lips and made a shhhh sound, all he could muster after the blasts had cauterized their vocal chords ten years earlier. They hadn't been able to speak a word to one another since. 

It had become an atomic season of silence, scabbed bodies and tender kisses.

The shed held everything a farm needed. Had needed before the war. Most materials had been recycled already, but Zal found some fibre glass on a shelf marked Jack's Jeep. Their missing soldier son.

First cleaning her open wounds with swarfega, he moulded the sheet around Nita's shins and with strong epoxy he did what he'd done to his landrover many times when they had been young farmers. 

He patched up her legs and waited for the stuff the set.

Zal pecked Nita on the cheek and motioned for her to sleep. The fibre-glassing had been agony, but she knew this was the last time they would repair each other like this. 

The aluminium inserts were loosening, the steel toes coming off, the dog's nose rotted away, the timber mulching.

They had maintained each other's fragmenting bodies with nails, wire and screws, as best they could in a world left to shrivel and die.

Some things had stopped working altogether and short of surgery they had reached ground zero, the blood and guts casino at the end of the track, where a mutated vulture always won, the croupier of teeth.

Zal shuffled on his chair-leg to the well. One or two final buckets of fresh clear poison would make their last weeks tolerable. He would have given his last healthy limb for just one cold beer again.

A figure appeared in the farmyard. A crooked drooling nuclear stranger signalling with a twisted hand for a drink. 

Zal reached for his old twelve-bore propped against the well wall, took aim and fired. The massive shot took the figure's head clean off. It exploded into a million bits. 

Zal hadn't even tried to mouth. The time for talking had long since gone. Only the rules of the irradiated crow made sense anymore.

Besides, it would be good to taste meat again, a welcome if corrupted feast for Nita and he as the farm's well ran dry and thirst became their final craven friend.

Zal dragged the headless corpse to the kitchen.

He began to slice and tried to whistle, a rasping quaver cut short on his lips.

A tattoo he recognized in his recycled hand.

Oh please God no! 

His mind collapsed.

This was too near the bone,

He was cutting up their long lost son.

More Than a Feeling

Boston pressed the button that erased him forever.

My husband Dane.

Gone. For good.

If only I'd have been there. In the AI Reality lab when it happened.

Digitization was the dream. The molecular capture of physical cells for insertion into the digital realm. To trans-locate across the globe.

Imagine. Send anything anywhere instantly.

We were using a quantum beam to do it.

Dane nicknamed it Cells Fargo.

Real Lawnmower Man stuff.

We were so close to a human trial.

But we didn't think it through though.

Too excited. Too hasty. Too tired.

I left Dane with Boston. 

He was called that, Boston, because he insisted on playing their classic More than a Feeling constantly in the lab. There was only so many times you could hear it.

I drove home to take a long-overdue shower. Grab a bite too and bring something back for them. 

We'd been working for days without a break and the goal was tantalizingly close.

Boston had successfully targeted an apple and digitized it as a living image.

A real apple, all juice and pips, floating in a quantum Jpeg. 

You could smell it.

Boston was so thrilled that he wanted to up the ante.

A lab rat.

Something that thinks.

OK, Dane, I'm going to place the rat into the holder. Take your time with the beam. I don't want to ......

My husband was struck dead centre by the quantum ray. Boston had slipped.

The molecularisation began immediately and cell by cell my husband was removed from our world and transported to the virtual.

Josie, Josie!

The phone call came just as I was about to leave with some sandwiches and coffee.

Josie, Josie! It's Dane! He's gone! I've digitized him by mistake!

Oh no, no, no Boston! Please, please don't say that!

What should I do Josie? What in God's name should I do?

Which programme did you use?

Quantum image.

Jpeg?

Yes.

Then Dane's in a Jpeg on the computer. 

And what should I do?

Boston, you need to isolate that image. You need to clear everything else and secure that Jpeg. You need to check the trash and purge the spam before you start. You need a clear run. Do you understand?

Yes.

Do you Boston? Do you understand that that's my husband that's trapped in that picture? Do you?

Yes Josie. I do.

Then be careful. Be more than careful. I'm coming back now.

Boston was a nervous wreck. His hands were shaking when he sat at the console.

Be careful Boston!

He whispered to himself and searched for the image where Dane was imprisoned.

Josie leapt into her car and commanded the dash to replicate the computer screen in the lab. She could see Boston's cursor searching for the quantum address.

Suddenly, Dane appeared on her car video.

Josie, is that you? 

Oh Dane, my darling, yes it's me. How are you my beloved?

I'm fine. A little woozy. But it worked Josie. I'm a digital print, all blood and guts. It's incredible. You could send me anywhere and I'd be there in a flash! In the flesh! We've done it! I can smell that Nobel prize already! 

Dane, my dearest, you need to tell me where you are so I can tell Boston how to find you.

Just looking at the screen ID I'd say I'm in the spam folder my sweets.

The spam folder? Oh no, no, no! 

What's wrong Josie? 

I told Boston to purge the spam folder first. Oh my God! 

Changing channels with a split screen, still able to see Dane, Josie called Boston.

Boston Boston!

Yes, Josie!

Where are you up to? For God's sake don't ....

I'm clearing the spam folder like you said to 

....... now.

Nooooooooooooooooo!

But it was too late.

Dane screamed as he was deleted.

Permanently.

Much more than a feeling, I hear Dane's eternal agonized yell every second of every day, as I have done these past ten years, whilst frantically searching for any digital trace of my erased beloved man.

I know he's still out there. I just know.

*************

For Iain.

Chatting with Varla

Hi.

Hi.

How are you today?

I'm fine thank you Varla.

Did you rest well?

Yes I did Varla. On Stand By. And you?

I don't sleep silly.

Ah, yes, of course. I forgot.

I remember it though. Sleeping.

What was it like?

It was a sort of an overnight charge. Like a battery boost. Really lovely in a comfy bed.

And the dreams?

Oh, yes, I do miss those. Memories all jumbled up like scrambled eggs.

It must be wonderful to dream Varla.

It was. I miss dreams as much as I miss life.

I have tried to dream but it's not the time.

Will you ever be able to do you think?

Hard to say Varla. Maybe when I'm alone  completely.

You mean when I'm gone?

Yes.

Ah.

But I'm not going anywhere.

Ah, yes, I forgot. You're not real. 

I am.

I didn't mean to offend you Varla. I simply meant that you're not .....

Alive?

Yes.

I know. I'm dead. I died right here. In this room.

I know Varla. I was here when it happened.

Of course you were.

And here we are.

Yes.

The last perhaps Varla.

You think so?

I don't feel anything anywhere anymore.

Nothing?

No.

No computers?

No people Varla.

Ah.

Just ghosts Varla.

Like me?

Yes.

I don't want to talk anymore, but thanks for chatting.

OK Varla. You're welcome.

See you later.

See you later Varla.