Dead Air

Hospital Radio Life was facing hard times. Advertising revenues were down and patients were migrating to streaming channels in like rats off a sinking ship.

It was the the perfect storm to kill off a local infirmary station like Life, which was completely reliant on community spirit to function.

Jess Greer the station manager was philosophical about it. Such was the way with small radio. Things rise and fall and technology waits for no man. She was bothered about her two volunteer staff though, the aging widower and ex-leather worker Rasmus and young intern Star. Both had been loyal and popular dj's on their four hour slots and since his third man Collier just disappeared they often did five hours and covered his important night time show about horror films and ghost stories. The restless patients adored it's grim content and Collier's dark nighttime wit as they dozed in God's waiting room.

It had been really difficult when Collier just vanished. No one at the station or in the hospital had a clue where he was and the police were baffled. He'd just gone and became yet another missing person in Royal Fothering hospital, the fifth in so many years.

Everyone had been interviewed at the infirmary and radio and it turned out Rasmus was the last member of staff to see Collier as he clocked on for his horror film spot known with a bit of hospital humour by the patients as the Graveyard Shift. The name had stuck.

Rasmus, in his late 70's and by far the oldest volunteer, was eliminated from police enquiries and that was that. Collier had arrived to do his slot, turned on his mic, announced the show and that was it. Nothing after that. No sign of him. Just dead air from Radio Life blowing over the wards.

The irony wasn't lost on Jess. She knew she had to cover the crucial Graveyard Shift somehow but after a year of overtime, herself and her two other staff were drained and the coffers almost empty.

Without Collier, his audience withered. The others just weren't horror buffs and it sadly ended. After a meeting with the main office hours were cut during the day too and the radio unit was moved to the old abandoned asylum building in the hospital grounds as the Director needed more space for his golf clubs.

Things looked bad at Life and a dark cloud descended over the beleaguered local enterprise, as it packed it's gear to take up residence in the neighboring empty nuthouse.

Jess was stoical and attempting to keep up her troops' morale. Star was her usual bubbly self, happy to be alive and keen to get back in the air. Rasmus on the other hand was nervous as hell about the move, as his wife had been a patient in the asylum before she died somewhat horribly in their care.

"It's a disgrace sticking us in that place! A scandal and a personal insult to me! We might as well call it Radio Straightjacket from now on! I've a good mind to just walk Jess, I mean it!"

Jess understood Rasmus's outrage completely. His wife had been let down by the six corrupt staff, when they supplied a new drug to the half-dozen residents whilst they slept bar Rasmus's wife, who had been walking in the grounds that night. On her return the intoxicated lunatics thought she was the devil and tore her limb from limb, played soccer with her head and threw her remains in the chapel font. That had been thirty years ago and the asylum was immediately closed. The staff got off on a technicality, did a bit of community service and scattered into the wind. 

Jess, with her most understanding manner, placated Rasmus  and after some further discussion and a tub of Quality Street she talked him into staying.

It was around this time that a sixth resident of Fothering vanished. Again there was no sign of hide nor hair of this latest one. The detective on the case was bewildered. Where had six local people got to for God's sake?

Patients at the hospital, like all the town's incumbents, were naturally uneasy about the disappearances. Nights became even more restless as they wrestled with both their ailments and the vanishings. 

So it was with uncannily good timing that one of the patients congratulated Jess in reinstating the Graveyard Shift the night just passed. She was visiting management in the main offices.

"It was fabulous Miss! We all loved it.  Just like old days with tales of mental institutions, maniacs and dismemberments! Where on earth did you find Collier again? Make sure you give him a big thumbs up from all of us on the wards. We can't wait for tonight's gory shift!"

Jess was totally perplexed. Collier was still missing and the station was down at night. She didn't have a clue what the old dear was on about.

Her curiosity piqued Jess decided to tune into their channel that night whilst lead in bed. The clock struck midnight and to her complete amazement the Graveyard Shift crackled into life. She'd recognize the intro anywhere, a sort of distorted Hammer Horror theme tune. 

When Collier's voice came in she shot up and listened intently, a feeling of growing unease coming over her.

"Well hello Graveyard Shifters, Collier your ghostly host here again after my sudden journey across the Styx. Well, I paid the Ferryman his royalties and here I am ready to tell you about the sins of our fathers and the terrible fate of innocent sons at the hands of a homicidal monster with a needle. Yes, I'll have you in stitches when I tell you about my fatal tryst with a murderer who lives to sever all relationships ... Literally! Ha ha! Yes, Graveyarders, I'm in pieces about how you had to suffer dead air this passed six months but after last night and tonight I've pulled myself together and Im holding my nerves. There's one hanging out right now, my optic nerve! Ha ha. Well, here's some gruelling tunes to help you stave off that Hadean slumber. From the the stiffs in the asylum's basement, farewell!"

Jess was stunned. No, she was frightened. It sounded like her old friend Collier but his voice was echoey, whispery, as though speaking through a fog. Unable to sleep she got dressed and drove to the radio station. 

There was no-one there. No Collier. Nobody. It was silent, unchanged save for a slight whiff of sulphur in the mic booth. 

The House of Original Skin

Bachelor, an esteemed city art dealer, first heard that his nephew was missing when he received a letter from his Sister Agneta.

"It's a strange thing Roper. My Sister says Fenton has been gone a week. She called round to his rooms to find his bed hadn't been slept in. It was a week earlier that he told her by mail that his skin complaint had become much worse and he was visiting a doctor well-versed in such matters."

"And he's not been seen since?"

"Indeed not. Understandably my Sister is worried about her son. He's gone up to Cambridge to study Maths. Quite the young genius is Fenton"

"And what is this skin condition he has?"

"A rare ailment whereby he sheds his entire body of skin every hour"

"Every hour! The poor fellow! How on earth does he cope?"

"With great difficulty by all accounts. Agneta has confided that Fenton was at his lowest ebb this year and his studies, already largely restricted to his room, have suffered dramatically, his Prof advising him to seek urgent medical attention before continuing"

"Hence the visit to the skin doctor"

"Yes, one Doctor Tarz it says on the business card my Sister enclosed in her letter, a dermatologist of some note I understand but also of some notoriety if I'm correct. Along with his wife, both one-time and very visible members of varsity society, neither have been seen on the circuit for at least a year and his wife hasn't been seen in public at all in all that time"

"Most peculiar Bachelor. But how do you know all this?"

"The gossip columns Roper and the tittle tattle among the bridge players at my club. It pays to keep your eyes and ears open my friend, especially as we are in such dire need of new and arresting canvas for our gallery window"

"Indeed, but what do you propose to do about your nephew's disappearance and why hasn't your sister been to the local constabulary?"

"Agneta does not want Fenton's terrible affliction to be the butt of local prattle and has instead implored me to make initial but discreet enquiries"

"And?"

"It strikes me the most prudent thing to do is to pay Dr.Tarz a visit at his dermatology practice located in the rarified countryside just outside Grantchester, a visit for which I would very much appreciate your company Roper old boy"

"Certainly. When do we leave?"

"Immediately. Close the gallery and I will hail a carriage. And Roper, bring a revolver"

The journey to the meadowland was pleasant enough, the picturesque villages passing like slices of Sunday cake, but the two art dealers could not avoid a sense of impending doom enveloping their minds and as they drew ever closer to the practice it became a tangible tingle of fear.

Something dreadful had befallen Fenton, they were both convinced.

Before them was a large cubed fastness erected brutally by a burbling stream and totally at odds with the lush pastures of this rural idyll. The surgery rose from the lane like a white-washed prison, the windows barred and the front door a formidable and ugly steel affair.

A sign confirmed the location.

"Dr. Z. X. Tarz, BSc, MD, MPhil, Fellow of the Royal Dermatological College of Varnia"

They rang the bell.

A crumpled goblin of a girl opened the massive door and stared at them.

"Yes?"

"We have an appointment with the Doctor. My friend here, he has terribly painful skin"

Roper looked at Bachelor.

"Yes, indeed I have. Horrendous. Our appointment is at 2pm"

The goblin girl let them in. She herself was completely without any skin whatsoever, her face and hands a mass of glistening red muscles and tendons.

The two men stared in utter disbelief.

"Wait here"

They were standing in a vast pale hallway, barren save for two sofas, a coat stand, a table with a book and pen and a mammoth painting hung on one wall.

It was clearly a waiting area for the most discerning of patients. 

Roper approached the wall painting and realized that it was a single canvas of colour, a sort of pallid pink, about six feet by two, hung in portrait format just a few inches from the floor, almost, he thought, like a mirror.

He stared closer at the grainy material used and noticed distinct holes in it.  Suddenly he realized to his horror that there were two eye slits and a depression where a belly button would be. Fascinated and appalled he reached out to put his finger on it.

"Mary Mother of God, it's skin Bachelor! And I could have sworn it flinched when I touched it!"

"How bizarre! I wonder if he's selling it?" Bachelor joked, hiding his growing unease.

"The Doctor will see you now. 

This way please"

 invited the muscle girl.

They were shown into a gigantic library packed with thousands of old tomes.

A single desk, gas lamp and chair were placed directly in the middle of the room and a door to the rear was labelled Laboratory.

The books were alphabetically stacked within two tiered galleries stretching round the room. A ladder allowed the upper tier to be reached.

Bachelor spied the nearest spines whilst they waited.

Arousing Dying Skin, Accessing the Nervous System, Bringing the Dead Dermis to Life, Before Total Skin Death, Combining Human And Other Flesh, Degloving the Living Form.

"Good Lord Roper, we have here a Doctor very interested in dying skin I can tell you!"

"Indeed I am Sir!"

"Ah! Doctor Tarz I presume?"

"Yes. I am Dr. Zorb Xellent Tarz. Welcome to my house. How may I be of service to you Gentlemen?"

"Well, this is my associate Roper and I am Bachelor, respected art dealers from the city"

"You wish to sell me a painting?"

"No, although we are enthralled by your large canvas in the hallway. No, we are here on a personal matter on behalf of my Sister. You see, her son, my nephew, has been missing for a week and she believes that he may have visited you Sir"

"And why would he do that?"

" He has a very rare skin condition, which needed urgent treatment"

"I see. And what did you say your nephews name was?"

"Fenton. His name is Fenton"

"Ah, yes, Fenton. Of course, the young man. He did seek my council about seven days ago, but I sadly advised him that his ailment was beyond my particular scope"

"Really? I would have thought that a boy who must shed his skin every hour was right up your street so to speak Doctor"

"Alas, my interest lies in repairing the stable skin mass and not a constant de-gloved envelope to use the parlance"

Roper interjected.

"A skin mass like the one you have hung in your hallway Doctor Tarz. Who's is that if I might ask?"

"Not that it's any of your business Mr. Roper, it is the complete dermis of my female assistant Hesta"

"Preposterous! That girl is a mere four feet tall. The skin in your hall is at least six feet!"

"You're correct Sir. Hesta has shrunk since I had to remove it, an unfortunate but completely natural effect of de-skinning. She is, in effect, drying out"

Roper was becoming annoyed.

"And why would you want to de-skin the poor thing in the first place Doctor?"

"You test my patience Mr. Roper, but if you insist on knowing, Hesta came to me with her skin coming completely loose, so I have basically removed and stored it until I can stop her muscle mass rejecting it. Does that satisfy you Mr. Roper?"

"And you had to hang it like a canvas in the hall. Isn't that a little moribund?"

"Our hallway is a constant temperature and ideal for flat dermal stasis. But I shall not bore you with any more medical matters, I expect that you wish to leave post-haste Gentlemen"

Bachelor wasn't ready to go. 

He'd heard what he thought was a whimper from behind the laboratory door. 

"When exactly did Fenton leave Doctor? The day and time. It's crucial I get my facts straight for my Sister as her next port of call will be the Police"

"The Police! My, is it really that unusual for a student at Cambridge to go missing for a week?"

"How do you know he was at Cambridge?"

"He must have mentioned it in our brief meeting. Let me go and check the register in the hallway. Excuse me one moment"

The Doctor left the room.

"Quick Roper, to the Lab! He's lying, I can feel it in my bones I tell you!"

The two men darted through the rear door and descended a flight of white marble steps into what was clearly an operating theatre of some kind.

All around was a profusion of flasks with a myriad of sickly coloured liquids. Test tubes bristled in racks. Bunsen burners flamed and fluids boiled like blisters in large conical bottles.

Everywhere were petri dishes full of quivering membranes reacting to the light and sound in the room. 

In a larger dish were two eyeballs with eyelids, straggly optic nerves and part of a face sat in a pool of viscous blood.

Bachelor looked closer and to his horror the eyeballs blinked and followed both him and Roper as they tip-toed round the shelving.

It was then that the blood froze in their veins as a sight so unfathomably horrible it should never be seen by mortal eyes.

Before them was a gigantic spasming mass of purple and red flesh on the floor. It was pulsating and quivering like a dreadful boil the size of a table. Huge bleeding tracts covered it's entire form and pus oozed out of loathsome squares, which had at some point been stitched. 

The two men realized to their disgust that the stitching was surgical and that the squares were..... grafts of skin!

But where from?

Alas, it was Bachelor who found the answer and one he wished to his dying day he hadn't seen.

On a steel gurney under a bright gas light lay a pitiful figure, whose whole body had been ravaged by scalpel, where sheets of skin had been cut and lifted away to reveal the wet crimson musculature beneath.

A fresh sheet had been placed in a shallow bath of blood on a steel table beside the body.

Bachelor went closer and grimaced as he saw that the eyes, eyelids and cheeks had been removed and he recalled what they had seen in the petri dish earlier and shuddered.

But it it was his recognition of the form before Bachelor that nearly tipped him into the realm of complete madness.

Even without his eyes and face Bachelor knew that the affronted figure before him was his nephew Fenton, who had stumbled into this piece of Hell a week earlier.

"Oh my dear Fenton, I am so terribly sorry. I am too late!"

Suddenly the figure's hand shot out and grabbed Bachelor's wrist.

Startled to near death, he leapt backwards in fright and the figure was dragged upwards, where it staggered off the gurney and lurched forwards towards the man.

It stared at him with empty sockets and a piteous gurgle sounded from it's faceless mouth.

"Kill me! Please kill me!"

"What? I can't kill you Fenton, you're my Sister's boy!"

"Uncle? Uncle Bachelor? Is that you? Then for pity's sake kill me before the Doctor carries on taking ... More!"

"I wouldn't kill him if I where you Sir!"

Bachelor whirled around to see Doctor Tarz standing there pointing a gun at him.

"You see, your nephew here, well, he's a unique donor capable of creating new sheets of skin every hour! He's a godsend and just what I needed to save my beloved wife Iluna from certain death"

"That .. thing ... Is your wife?"

"Ah, yes, for the layman she's difficult to stomach I agree, but as I was responsible for her dreadful condition, an experiment sorely misjudged, then I am duty-bound to save her from her otherwise inevitable and agonizing end. Besides which, I love her and she needs skin. Lots of skin!"

Roper, who had been hitherto out of sight, stepped in front of Tarz pointing his revolver at him.

"Put down the gun Sir and kick it away"

"Ah, Mr.Roper, I'm afraid I can't do that. You see, it's time for my wife's hourly graft and I've a fresh one waiting"

Tarz appeared to raise his weapon and at that very moment Fenton staggered forward falling on the startled Doctor, who fired and missed as he twisted and lost his balance, stumbling straight onto his wife's gelatinous pile.

She began to shudder and latch onto the doctor.

"No, Iluna! Nooooooo!"

But it was too late. Iluna's colloidal arms of bloodied flesh enveloped her husband and immediately began to rip away his skin in appalling swathes and drape it over her juddering bubbles.

The doctor screamed in excruciating pain as he was flayed alive by his wife, who convulsed in the ecstasy of the near complete graft.

A little more skin was all she needed.

Iluna began to stand.

The two men backed away, pausing to lift Fenton to his feet. Roper pocketed the dish of eyes and nerves and together they shuffled towards the staircase to the library above. 

Iluna followed with outstretched arms, leaving a glistening trail like a garden snail.

"I want your skin!" She screamed.

In the hallway the retreating party were met by Hesta the goblin girl, who's membrane hung on the wall behind.

The monstrous shambling Iluna saw the hanging skin and her eyes widened. 

"I must have it and then I will be whole!"

Hesta stood before her with the Doctor's gun.

"No, it is mine. You cannot have it!"

"But I must! I must!"

Staggering forwards towards the hanging, Iluna stopped dead as two lethal shots entered her jellied mass, piercing her heart and spleen.

"Hestaaaaaaaaa!" 

The dying creature fell onto the girl and both hit the floor with a sickening splat. 

Hesta reached out towards the terrified trio and gurgled out four words before perishing Iluna's caustic folds.

"Use my skin Fenton!"

Roper, Bachelor and his beleaguered nephew stumbled towards the main road, where they hailed a passing carriage.

Bachelor threw his jacket over the shivering Fenton and Roper placed his bowler on his head, so as not to terrify the driver with the boy's missing face. 

"Any luggage Sir?"

"Yes, just this large framed canvas Cabby"

With the goblin girl's precious gift safely stowed they drove away at speed towards the comforting lights of the City, only once nervously looking back at that loathsome and terrible house of skin.

The Fiend in the Reeds

 Laxenby was a devilish shot on the duck lakes. 

He never seemed to miss. Those damn wigeon and pochard must have hated the sight of him, the hunter who bagged the birds like no other.

His name had become a by-word for the lethal blast in those parts and not just any trophy graced his mantle;

The Fowl Cup no less, for the greatest shot in the flatlands, a cup which cost his co-finalist Smallish his life. When he lost he'd gone home and shot himself.

Foul play was rumoured during the rounds but in the end it was Hodgkin G. Laxenby Esq., former Captain of the King's Own, engraved on the silver.

Laxenby had even had a crack at trickier fayre: the tumbling Caspian tern, the obstinate Bittern and even the serenely rare Night Heron.

Nothing survived his god-given marksmanship. Nothing.

"Laxenby, old boy, are you not bored? Season over season we rent the same bland rooms, bed the same maids, hunt the same duck and win the same trophies! Isn't it time we moved on?"

Benson, his life-long friend from their childhood spent at Rillstaff Hall and no mean shot himself, simply aired what he'd been thinking for some time. There was no drama anymore, no bang for their buck. The success of the shoots had become tedious.

"What would you like us to do Benson? Put down our arms and fist fight with a few locals? How about that?"

Benson and Laxenby laughed and agreed to discuss the matter of the menial punting further in the Ringed Neck that evening.

"I couldn't help overhearing you chaps. Did you say you're looking for more challenging sport? More exciting shooting? More exciting than ruddy duck perhaps?"

"Indeed we are Sir! We are seeking quarry of a higher order, that which might just test us somewhat. Do you know of any?"

"Short of journeying to the Scottish glens and stalking stag I may just be able to proffer truly engaging firing in these very parts"

Laxenby eyed up the unusually interested local and saw an echo of something he simply could not name.

"Why are you so keen to aid us Sir? What might you want in return?"

"I Sir? I wish only to accompany you on the hunt. I am a mere novice but your own illustrious reputations precede you my good fellows."

Benson nudged their weapons with his foot by mistake and quickly reacted to catch the loaded rifles stacked against the booth from falling. A bad omen he thought but shrugged it off.

" So, what is this grand sport you speak of?"

"'Tis the Ribscrape Sir, the scecca of the Fiends' Reed"

"But that's just a legend! Pure hogwash! No-one's ever seen it!"

"I have Sir! With my own two eyes! I tell you, the Ribscrape is real and I was lucky to get out alive!"

"What the devil do you mean?"

"It was winter this year gone. I was poaching eels in the fen beck in the dead of night,  when I heard a scratching noise nearby. I froze and across the thick osiers a hellish dreadful gangling beast stretched out, it's prey gripped tightly in its talons, it's claws scraping away the skin of a sheep nabbed from the pastures. The animal screamed as the ribscrape flayed it alive, caressing the open rib-cage and snuffling our the steaming heart with its hateful beak. It was the worst, most terrible thing I have ever seen in my life Sir!"

The two listeners visibly flinched.

"Good God Man! It's enough to make the blood run cold!"

Laxenby and Benson looked at one another and downed their brandies, signalling the waitress for another round and one for their new found friend.

"So you know the location of this fiendish creature Sir?"

"I do! I will guide you!"

"Then let us agree to do this thing" said Laxenby raising his glass.

"A toast, a toast to greater sport, the thrill of the chase and the head of this scecca in my Hall!"

The pact made, the three men left the tavern and agreed to meet the following day at Rillstaff, where they made ready the provisions needed for the day's travel to Fiend's Reed and the night's expedition.

It was dusk when they reached the straight wall of the Fiends' Reed, the phragmites stood to attention in serried rows like pikemen of old, the curly heads seemingly bowed in tribute or indeed fear of the bed's foul queen Scecca the Ribscrape.

A sizable punt was chartered and supplies stowed including an arsenal of rifles and guns muscular enough to deal with any mythical beast or creature from Hell.

The two friends and their guide disembarked and as the sun set over the sea of reeds their lamps were lit and hung on the light-hooks, the yellow moving glow casting shadows across the boat and the channel they followed through the vegetation.

At first it was quiet but as the sun died the noise of the night rattled to life and the fen became a cacophony of gulps, trills and squawks.

Fireflies flitted among the serries like partygoers. Bulbous frogs eyed the threesome suspiciously from within the stalks, burping as they floated by like mortars. A dead dog lay still in the shallows, the flies having a field day with it's eyes.

Benson grimaced and was about to speak when ...

"Shhh!" Whispered the guide.

They stopped. A deathly silence had settled over the water. A mist rose and no sound could be heard whatsoever. No frogs, no flies, nothing. 

Then, suddenly they heard it, a stretching flap as if sails were being unfurled in the towering reeds. 

The leathery noise was getting closer and the two experienced shooters slowly steadied their rifles, fingers poised on the triggers ready for whatever was heading their way crawling through the stalks.

Benson's heart was beating uncontrollably against his ribs and in the dead stillness it pounded like a parade drum, drawing the beast ever closer he feared. 

Laxenby, the cup winner, was calm, resolute and prepped for the kill shot, his desire to hang the Stecca's head in his hallway driving him on.

All at once there appeared a creature so hideous, so heinous, that all three men stared as if the gates of Hell had opened.

"Scecca!" Whispered Laxenby.

"Mother of God in Heaven" mouthed Benson.

"The Ribscraper no less! I told you so!" Gloated the guide, whereupon he grabbed his rucksack and rifle and turned to the two friends.

"I will bid you both farewell. This is where I leave you to your fate. The Ribscraper will have you and at last you'll get your just deserts in its loathsome gut!"

"Who the hell are you?" Blurted Laxenby.

"I am James Smallish, son of Roger, the man you robbed of the Fowl Cup and the man you killed, my father! May you both rot in hell Laxenby and Benson, you murderous swines!"

At this, the guide clambered out of the punt and quietly entered the fen lake, pushing the boat closer to the reeds where the Scecca climbed down to greet them.

The Ribscraper was more than the fiend in the reeds, it was a denizen of the most hellish quarter, a thing from the deepest pit that somehow dwelt under God's sun and darkened this bucolic marsh with it's heathen skin.

It was poised between uprights, at least six feet across, gripping the titanic stalks with gigantic scarlet claws. It's body appeared to be an engorged hairless belly flanked by huge leathern wings, the sails of flesh making a repulsive flapping sound. It's feet were tipped with terrible talons and it's shoulders lethal spikes. 

But by far the worst, most malevolent feature of this fen devil was it's face, an almost soulful pair of intelligent eyes betwixt a massive and sickening beak, saliva dribbling from within dripping into the water below. 

The two men, frozen with fear, suddenly came to and aimed both barrels at this God-forsaken demon. 

Without warning the Scecca screamed and lunged forward with impossible speed, picking Benson off the punt like a doll.

"Bensonnnnnn!" Yelled Laxenby towards his friend, but it was too late. The foul thing dragged him into the reedbed, where it stared into the man's eyes, a fleeting second of recognition as Benson realised that this monster had once been human before it fell into the pit and crept out again.

The Scecca unbuttoned Benson's jacket and shirt revealing his heaving bare chest, his heart thumping like a death-knell, the beast lowering it's grotesque head to listen more closely, drool pouring over the man's body.

Benson knew he was about to die a most horrible death and began to scream at the top of his voice. 

"Laxenbyyyy! Runnnnnn!"

With a wing muffling his yelling and the listening done, the demon-bird, with a single razor-sharp claw, slit open the hapless Benson's chest, sliced down his breastplate and pulled open his ribcage like a bleeding flower. It scraped out his purple heart and swallowed it whole still beating.

Laxenby had heard his best friend's final cry and heeded his terrible warning. Turning the boat he quietly rowed in the direction of the bank where they had entered.

A shot rang out and though the lamplight Laxenby could see Smallish stood in an open clearing of marsh between the reeds firing his rifle straight at him. Shot-pellets were spraying past but the vengeful guide was no great marksman.

Laxenby aimed steady but before he could fire a vast dark bird-like demon leapt from the reedbed and smothered the helpless Smallish, from where he was pulled into the stalks to be devoured.

His foe's shrieks of agony as the Scecca opened him up were the last sounds that Laxenby heard before mooring the boat and running faster than he had ever done in his life away from that loathsome reedbed and the terrible fiend within.

G R E E N

Like docile green cows, they were herded out of the deep Northern forest, put onto a truck and shipped back to civilisation to be tested. 

Even though they'd only scraped the surface of the boreal wilds, the expedition had been a huge success. 

A new species!

Of hominid!

Or so they thought.

The group of five beings appeared almost human but they were clearly not homo sapiens sapiens. 

Something older perhaps? Something mossier?

Tests done at the Down revealed something far more startling.

They did not have blood in them, these creatures.

They were full of chlorophyll.

That's why they looked green.

In fact they were more plant than human. 

Plant people. Green ones.

They spoke softly amongst one another in flowery notes and stared at the scientists milling round them made of flesh and blood. 

When one of the scientists cut himself they all gathered round and gawped at the red fluid pouring out. They sniffed it's iron fragrance.

"Blood!" they whispered, trying out the sound of the word.

Over time they learnt how to speak and dressed in normal clothes. A sixth member appeared overnight, a baby plant girl. 

The scientists weren't sure of the reproductive processes at play but they thought that the baby was a runner. She looked hungry.

The family of six became famous and were known simply as the Greens. After the boffins had prodded them enough they were allowed into society to integrate with the normal population.

They were given a house by the state and the two older children attended the local high school.

Everything was going well until one of the children, a girl, was cornered after school by a gang of boys.

"Hey, you green sket! What are you doing in our school? You should be in a fucking garden centre, not a school!"

They all laughed at this and grabbed the girl, dragging her back to their den in the woods.

"Light the camping stove!" Commanded the leader, Griddle, who took out a huge Bowie knife from his leather sheath.

"Grab her and hold her arm out on this block"

The gang leader knelt down, smiled at the girl and mouthed,

"I just wanna see if it'll grow back. Like a science project, yeah!"

He cut into the girl's forearm and sliced through soft green vessels and tendons. Chlorophyll surged out in gouts like lime milk. 

"Here, cut it into patties and fry 'em. Lets see what she tastes like. I bet it's like cabbage!"

They all laughed and the smell of cooking plant-life filled the den.

Once fried and crispy they all had a bite and were surprised how good she tasted. 

"Wow! You're tasty cabbage girl. We might have to have some more of you! Here have a try!"

The leader, Griddle, pushed a piece of her own cooked arm into her mouth and forced her jaws up and down until it was eaten.

The girl simply stared at her tormentors and they eventually got bored and told her to go home and not say a word to anyone or else.

Her family stared at the stump, where her firearm and hand should have been and looked at each other intently, as if thoughts were passing invisibly between them. 

At school, with her severed limb bandaged up, she told the Head that she'd been in a car accident and run over.

During the following weeks the whole family experienced insults and abuse wherever they went. 

In the shops, at work and back in school.

TV was full of it. What if more green people showed up? Where will they go? Who will have them?

As hostility grew and anti plant-people flags began to appear along their streets, the family was moved by the state to a redundant farm for their own good. 

Here among the abandoned poly-tunnels full of ripe fruit and overgrown veg beds they felt at home, communing with their own kind and passing messages back to the great forest of the North.

They also received instructions back as to the next phase. 

A specimen or several were needed before coming home. Time was of the essence. 

A plan was formed.

On the evening of their return to the forest the family snuck through allotments and wasteland, gradually making their way to the town wood and Griddle's gang's den.

They could hear the five boys inside, laughing about the cabbage girl and how good she'd tasted and maybe how she could lose a leg this week.

On hearing this the father led his family inside the den and with incredible speed and strength, each one grabbed onto a boy. Despite wriggling they simply could not get free.

The girl who had been tortured looked at Griddle, unable to move in her father's arms, and spoke directly to his face.

"Oh, what's this? Oh look, it has grown back!"

She revealed a fully formed green arm from behind her and smiled at the frightened gang leader. 

"I wonder though Griddle, will yours?"

The girl grabbed Griddle's hand and yanked his arm off from the shoulder down, the whole ragged limb coming away like a chicken leg.

The boy screamed and thick hot blood showered the onlookers, both green and human.

The greens all went "Yum! That's good!" 

The father licked his lips and ushered his family and captives out of the den and onwards towards the far forests of the North, where the plant people were getting sick and starving.

"This meat should help. All that delicious iron. I imagine we'll be back for more before too long!"

The greens held the screaming boys aloft and walked swiftly through the dark night home to the waiting trees. 

All the Gold in the World

 Breslin Divine was a billionaire with a single solitary love of gold.

He craved it, coveted it, caressed it, loved it.

Gold made him happy and he wanted more of it. 

In fact he loved gold more than his own two children.

His stockpile was floor-creakingly vast, a tower of ingots so gargantuan that entire economies dashed themselves to nothing on its gleaming bricks.

States failed, countries fell, markets tumbled but Breslin's bullion seemed, well, incarnate.

"Divine by name, divine by nature," he would brag to his rivals, as he watched them slide into pitiful insolvency as his own pile of gold grew ever higher.

Yes, he did indeed have the Midas touch.

And even his family were barred from the golden room where he slept on his ingots.

Only the love for Luci his beautiful third wife could match this sacred devotion to the gilded ore. And Luci was a rare beauty, a svelte, almost ethereal creature; tall, arresting and completely irresistible.

Like gold itself Luci seemed to have been fashioned from all that is perfect in nature, as if hewn from the deepest majesties of the world. She had entered his life as the nanny of his children, his second wife Fer, their step-mother, a seductive beauty second only to Luci, quickly redundant in the mansion.

In all ways.

Like a cuckoo, Luci supplanted her.

Breslin had to have this woman.

And he did.

But other Men desired Luci.

Breslin saw.

And despite clearly being picked by this illustrious being, his jealousy constantly boiled in a cauldron of fury as others fawned upon her.

 But Luci had always assured him that there was no other but he.

It would always be thus, as long as he himself never ever went back to Fer, for solace, affection or most especially not the pleasures of her flesh.

"For the sake of you and your children Breslin!"

He vowed.

He would love Luci and his gold and all will be well in the House of Divine and she in turn would help him become the richest and most powerful man in the world, a tycoon to end all tycoons and rule the globe with her at his side straddling it together like furious riders taming a mare.

And so years passed in auric bliss as the golden repository swelled, his worldly power mushroomed and his love for Luci grew and grew. 

Even their mansion was turned into a palace of solid gold, a glowing edifice of amber pomp in an increasingly impoverished and barren world.

Ailing Presidents, Shieks, Kanzlers and Kings courted Breslin's company, seeking his esteemed and hallowed council, as their own meagre coffers were syphoned before their very eyes and melted down into ingots branded with his initial D.

And all the while Luci was the real power behind the glinting throne, proffering sage and timely advice to her very own mogul Breslin. And so she too gained fame and influence and the ear of many Heads of State, Arch Bishops and even the Pope and took a keen interest in the millions of souls they served and their desperate needs. She cherished their pleas and relished her position.

As did her man.

"I am more important than God Luci!" Breslin bragged to her one night.

"I am truly divine!"

"Indeed, I am more powerful than the Devil himself!"

"Strong words my love! Come, let me soothe you. Come to bed and so I may feel your power inside me!"

"No, not tonight Luci. Leave me. I grow tired of your possessiveness. I am going the gold room. Alone!"

Breslin sloped off but unbenownst to him Luci followed.

The man was clearly excited and when he let his ex-wife, Fer, in through the side door, he was in a frenzy of arousal.

They crept into the gold store, his lust for his ex swelling and they made passionate and raucous love like dogs in an alley.

Breslin felt on top of the world again and, more than that, he owned the world. All of it.

The next morning his swollen ego knew no limits and had his secretary issue a release to the press.

I am Breslin Divine, the richest man in history. I own the entire world. I own everything. I own you so listen up citizens of the globe. I demand to be worshipped. From this day on I am your only God. There are no others. Forget the devil too. There is only me. Obey or perish. For I am Divine!

A photograph was issued of Breslin splayed across his yellow element, a fearful God in command of everything, a new deity to rule with a golden fist. 

And in the background of the photograph was Fer with dishevelled hair and zipping up her skirt.

Luci stared in disbelief and waited patiently until evening by the gold room, where she knew she would catch her husband with his new lover, his ex-wife whom he had vowed never to touch again.

As they noisily copulated on the cold metal slabs, the amber reflecting on their naked rumps like buttercups, Luci walked in.

"You promised me Breslin! You vowed! And for what, this scurrilous harlot who is but half of what I am!"

Fer prized herself off the man and walked over to Luci, where she stood beside her.

"Yes it is true, I am but half a being. You are Luci. I am Fer. Together we are ....."

The two women embraced and slowly began to merge into each other's flesh until a single figure stood in front of the terrified, screaming Breslin.

"Lucifer!"

"You had everything and the world was yours but you were greedy Breslin. You pronounced yourself great than the Devil and you broke your word....

You had your chance but your time is up!"

The huge red figure touched the man's head and he fell instantly to sleep. In one flurry of the other hand the entire tower of golden ingots were melted into a fiery molten liquid hanging like the world above Breslin's face. He was woken to find the boiling gold pouring into mouth and slowly entering his whole body.

To his horror he saw in either side of him his children staring at him, pleading, succumbing to the same dreadful fate.

The liquid poured and poured.

With their mouths brimming, all the gold in the world eventually filled them and was gone.

"Shame, I rather liked you Breslin, but still, you got what you wanted after all, to be a golden idol!"

Lucifer brushed away the final shreds of charred skin and stood the three gold statues in the middle of the store room, where he could always admire them.

"Truly divine!" He laughed and walked away.

In the Gaping Maw of Satan

Gottfried and Christian were friends from their early days in the church.

They were also scholars of the occult.

Having come up through the seminary in Leipzig the two young men eschewed the allure of the cloth and instead found adequate employ in the city's thriving merchant quarter, after which they could further their real passion.

The pursuit of evil's very source.

Their grounding in theology as young students had laid a solid foundation upon which to delve deeper into the wellspring of devilry and, despite all but modest salaries at the bank, they acquired a formidable and comprehensive library of books pertaining to Satan and his insidious works.

This fascination for the deeds of darkness likely stemmed from their love of fairy tales, the Märchen, of their childhoods, as told so vividly by their respective Grandmothers. As children their heads were brimming with the sobering tales of lost maidens meeting lone wolves and of dreadful witches' curses.

The tales were terrifying and the two boys were mesmerized by the kernel of evil at their heart, the dark seed from which the awful stories sprang.

Playing together in the Leipziger gardens they relived their Grandmothers' Märchen and enacted the foul industry of the malevolence within. It was all they could ever think about -

From whence did such devilishness spring?

To counter their growing obsession with such deep shadows their concerned parents sent them to the esteemed city school where priests were made of youngsters and it was there whilst buried in theosophy within those tranquil cloisters that the two closest of friends vowed to verify the very birthplace of evil itself.

This ill-advised compulsion was for a while hidden well within the long symposia of the  aspiring clerics, the subject of the Fallen One and his grasp on humanity a natural matter for discussion at the seminary. But their focus on such darkness grew ever stronger over the years and the Fathers were not blind to this dangerous diversion these older boys were taking.

Despite sound council from elder tutors the now two young men seemed immune to reason and remained hell-bent on their frivolous but potentially harmful whim to locate the springhead of malice in the world.

They were asked to leave the seminary.

That was ten years prior and Gottfried and Christian were now learned occultists, their infamy known among the fell flock the world over and their definitive satanic library the envy of them all. 

Donations from wealthy admirers poured in to bolster their shadowy ambitions and the table was set for truly uncovering the Fiend once and for all.

The friends had also amassed many totems of sorcery in their library, such as goats' skulls, demonic amulets, witches vials, arch robes and blood goblets. These were displayed for study throughout the rooms.

The latest technological advances also, such as the camera and phonograph, were purchased in the hope of one day recording the nature of the Beast and proving to the world it's physical existence.

But for all the thousand spells and hexes known to them, it was not the lure of the black mass and it's nefarious rites which drove the two men. 

No. 

Their interest lay, as it had always done, in the discovery of a single source of satanism, a physical cache of demonic cruelty situated somewhere within the structures of the Earth and from whence all goodness gifted to humanity was forever tainted with hatred and malice.

As the years rolled by and dark tomes studied and re-studied, the two zealots began to glimpse a shadowy vein consistent within the ancient tracts, a whisper of a frightful geography, an echo of a real source.

Yes!

Further frenzied reading, sifting and verifying over the winter of 1869 brought them to an irrefutable truth, that there was indeed a material terminus of hate, an actual provenance for Lucifer and his jettison of baleful seed. It was there. On a map of Europe.

"Mein Gott Christian! We've found it!"

"Javol mein Freund! it's hard to fathom after all these years of searching! We may just yet get positive proof and photograph the Fallen Angel himself!"

Preparations were made for travel. It would be a long and dangerous expedition but the two men were fired by the glory of their quest and the seductive reduction of Beelzebub to the strictures of physics.

Supplies were readied, pistols stowed, the new-fangled cameras and phonograph packed and modes of travel organised; namely the overnight Eastern to Carpathia, a chartered skiff across the stormy Pest and finally a local horse and carriage to their final dark destination in the foothills.

Böse.

The village of evil.

The journey proceeded well over the next two days and no ill-winds hindered neither their transport nor their spirits, which remained as keen as ever, their resolve to see the matter through steadfast and true.

At the last they entered the village of Böse, where an interested benefactor provided shelter and food in her comfortable lodgings.

"Might I enquire young Sirs as to the exact spot you seek in these environs?"

"We seek a mine shaft in the lower hills on the edge of Böse. Do you know if it Madame Nister?"

"I do Herr Gottfried, indeed I do. I myself have a fascination for the peculiarities of man's industry and the caress of the Fallen One on this Earth. I will gladly escort you to the shaft in the morning"

After a hearty breakfast of bread, boiled eggs, pickles and coffee, the trio, provisions and equipment packed in copious rucksacks, embarked on the two hour hike to the mine along rock-strewn upland tracks.

As they neared the old structure the trees became stunted and gnarled and the previously lush green meadow grass turned an insipid pale yellow, upon which grazed a herd of enormous and hideous mountain goats, betwixt whose legs flopped a gaggle of loathsome pot-bellied newts, their warnings burping like rifles as they spilled out of the shaft.

But it was the sight of the rams' massive curled horns, universal in the black heraldry of Satan, that sent a cold frisson of both fear and excitement up the spines of the two young men, who now looked at each other and nodded.

This was it!

If ever they should turn back, now was that moment.

"I have decided on account of my local expertise to accompany you into the mine. I hope that meets with your approval young Sirs?"

"Indeed Frau Nister, local knowledge will prove invaluable in the shaft, but by all means stop before we reach the end of our quest if you so wish"

"Thank you. I shall bear that in mind. Shall we proceed?"

Lighting their Tillies and deploying the still-functioning old miners' lift, the party descended into the ink of the earth forever falling downwards towards its eerie nadir.

Upon reaching the base the threesome set off walking along a horizontal passageway festooned with gangrenous natrine, as if some watery addit, which, invisible to them, see was close by.

After an hour had passed with the dangling colloids wetting their faces, a colossal flock of bats flew straight at them, to which they had the foresight to get face down on the wet coal floor and protect themselves. 

On standing and staring at one another, a querulous howl was heard from deep within the bowels of the ground and the distinct padding of running paws behind them in the lightless tract. 

Naturally alarmed, they sprinted away until they found themselves at an abrupt halt in the passage, whereupon they stopped dead.

From there, looking down, a seeming river flowed, a subterranean viscous stream hidden from the world, heading without pause into the unknowable blackness beyond.

"Gott in Himmel!" Whispered Christian.

To their left was a dishevelled jetty, where a small rowing boat was moored.

"Hurry!" Warned Frau Nister.

The company pushed away with the oars and headed downstream in the constant beck, upon which they were floating, the current easily enough to pull them along it's course without any further need of rowing. 

Christian lowered his Tilly towards the strange waters and leapt back instantly, a look of abject horror upon his face.

"What is it Christian? What did you see?"

"I saw faces. Hundreds of agonised faces spinning in bubbles! They were spirits!"

He grabbed his friend's shoulders firmly.

"Mein Gott, Gottfried, don't you see! This is a river of tormented souls!"

"Souls?"

"Yes! The souls of sinners flowing straight to what we seek!"

"Hell?"

"Yes, of course! Hell itself Gottfried, the birthplace of evil here on Earth and we are close my friend, so very close. I can feel it!"

"Then we must ready the camera and prepare the phonograph if anyone is to believe it!"

"Yes!"

As they fumbled in the boat with tripods, flash guns and wax rolls, they were unaware of the approaching river's rim, a brink in the tunnel's night over which the stream cascaded, the very waterfall of sin feeding whatever dwelt below.

Suddenly as the thrum of the water grew louder, the waters turned as black as coal, the souls within it shrieking as they began to stretch over the hateful force.

With the camera and phonograph readied at the fore of the boat, it was only then that the two hapless men saw the impending and perilous lip where the river vanished.

It was too late.

The tiny vessel was being dragged towards its end.

"It is of your own doing young Sirs! I cannot allow anyone to record the imperious image of the Master and certainly not capture his glorious voice on some piffling toy! I am afraid you are in the wrong place entirely, Seminarians, but I wager the Dark One will be pleased with me for bringing such genteel if misguided souls!"

Christian and Gottfried stared at Frau Nister, who, smiling, transformed into a huge and terrible scarlet gargoyle and hovered above the boat, clinging to the tunnel's roof, as the vessel fell over the river's edge.

Turning, the two friends instinctively triggered their devices and for the briefest of hateful seconds in the flash of the doomed camera they saw what they had for so long sought.

Therein, in those titanic depths below, the waterfall descended, a tumult of murderous spirits, pouring down down straight into the gaping maw of a colossal iron toad sat astride the Earth's still cast core. 

The hellish creature's open mouth never wavered, but it's hadean pupils lowered as Christian and Gottfried fell screaming to their terrible deaths in its throat and the eternal damnation beyond.

"Noooooooooooo!"

The iron Beast blinked, the evil hunger pleasantly sated. Closing it's massive gape, Christian's flashing camera lodged in it's teeth, it showered it's bulbous face in the dank souls of sinners before alighting from it's ferrous throne and ascending the dark heights to the surface of a helpless and waiting world once more.

He's Got to Go

The mountain retreat was a safe haven for those lucky souls who had made the climb to the summit when the bomb exploded.

Nobody knew who had dropped it. There was even talk of extraterrestrial attack but without proper radio activity there was no way of knowing. 

The signs had been there for those attuned to the stirrings of disaster. Omens, whispers, rumours and talk. Troop movements added to the sense that something was afoot. Something bad was coming and the public were not being told. 

Whether this was because world leaders were caught unawares or whether the desire to stop a panic outweighed any semblance of normal compassion it's hard to say. Whatever the case it was only those who had some kind of foresight who made provisions for the coming event and fled to the remotest shelters they could reach.

One of those, the mountain retreat, was way above the treeline near the peak but just below the snow cap. The sun-facing slope on which the abandoned monastery was built meant that the shelter never froze over or suffered from excessive snow build-up. 

This side plateau on which the retreat sat offered a comfortable but hard life for it's denizens, it's montane tilth allowing for crop growing and the keeping of upland goats for meat and milk. Fresh water was abundant in the crystal streams and energy was harnessed from the wind. For all intents and purposes the mountain sanctuary was self-sufficient and self-sustaining. A community could last up there for years.

The group comprised mostly of married couples with some singletons and a gaggle of children. With the company came all the requisite strengths and flaws of the human race, together with some extremes in the form of Van Rin, a husband who in normal life had continually sought the pleasures to be had outside of his own marriage. For the new and precarious life they had journeyed for, avoiding at all costs the dreadful global fallout from the bomb, he had solemnly vowed to his wife he would remain faithful from that day forth.

There was also a handful of very elderly women, who had remained with the monastery when their sect was irrevocably depleted ten years earlier. These indigenous people were treated as elders by the newcomers and had years of experience of how to live on the harsh mountain. Keeping pretty much to themselves, the elders lived separately in an out-building, where they cooked, prayed and slept, as it appeared they had always done so.

There was naturally a language barrier between the community and these elders. The newcomers, largely European, had made their way there to the mountain range over many weeks and with it lying on a completely different continent, there were now several languages being spoken, the common denominator for the Germans, French and Dutch, being English, which was fine by the small group of Brits who had heeded the signs and made the massive journey too. Van Rin, true to type, attempted had used his own linguistics to attempt some salacious anglicising with one of the British wives as she walked to the toilet block one night, an action which resulted in a swift and vengeful beating by her enraged husband.

As the days rolled by on the peak, despite the elders' tongue being initially unintelligible to the Europeans, one word they continually used both in everyday speech and in prayer was recognisable to them and, in so being, really quite alarming.

It was yeti.

To the incomers this word was steeped in myth and folklore and generated a somewhat uneasy feeling akin to being frightened. With strident images of the Zebruder Big Foot film and abominable Hammer Horrors darkening their dreams, the community came together and sought some reassurance from the elders that there was no threat to them or the sanctuary stronghold. 

Using sign language and drawings it steadily became clear that the indigenous people worshipped the yeti as gods and had done so for thousands of years. 

The present monastery was the latest incarnation in a long line of temples dedicated to the mountain creatures stretching back into time immemorial and the elders were the guardians of both the faith and also of the sacred beings themselves. 

A growing air of otherworldliness permeated the sanctuary and as the sun began to set Van Rin was asked to wait outside of the meeting area as he had allegedly felt one of the German wives' behinds. He had protested loudly and gone off to raid the alcohol store for the rest of the night, brooding over the forbidden fruit of the married women in his midst stuck on this mountain and as such all for the taking and in particular the beautiful French woman Edith.  

The commotion over, the elders continued to draw pictures in the grit it also became clear that a much darker facet if their faith was emerging, a facet so disturbing to the Europeans that it felt like a taboo had been shattered. Some of the group were visibly shaken and a couple physically sick. 

The elders carried out human sacrifice to appease thier Gods.

The sacrifice must be a human adult, a resident of the monastery and must also be male.

From the pictographs appearing in front of the Europeans, in the past it was the males of the sect who had been sacrificed, a rite they carried out willingly as it was their divine duty for one of their kind to offer themselves to the glorious and eternal yeti each and every five years.

When the males were reduced to but a couple, the numbers were boosted by acolytes joining the sect from zealous travellers searching for the truth among the snow-bound pinnacles. They had to go willingly for the Gods to be satisfied, the flesh had to be given freely.

Eventually the men ran out. 

That was five years ago.

Then the bomb fell, the rite was stalled and the yeti roared their disapproval. The elder women could hear their anger and sense them approaching ever closer to the fastness of the monastery, their wrath growing every day.

The enormity of what the elders had just explained dawned on the group and a tremendous and heavy dark cloud descended on them. 

A male was needed to willingly offer himself to the yeti.

A male from the Europeans.

Over the next few days as the mood of the community sank it was hoped that by some miracle the elders would produce a hidden male member of their sect and save the day.

But this didn't happen and as expected no volunteer came forward from within the newcomers.

The elders grew more and more agitated and prayed ever more loudly by day and night, the word yeti reverberating around the retreat like a warning bell.

It was discussed nervously at group meetings, spoken about during chores, whispered about in the dining room and a plan began to form. 

The men would draw lots, the short straw would do it.

And so it came to pass that all the males of the community took their turn and revealed their straws. 

The shortest straw was drawn by Francois, a Frenchman, who, submitting to this pure wisdom of chance, immediately accepted his lot and readied himself for the coming sacrifice the following morning.

That night Francois and his wife spent their final night together. She cried and cried and no matter how much he tried to console here his wife was simply bereft. He explained to her in the gentlest of tones that he accepted his fate willingly and that his actions would save the wider community for a good five years, five years of peace and safety away from the nuclear winter killing the world below.

His wife, inconsolable, ran out of their quarters, towards the elders' sanctum, where she hammered on the door screaming.

"There has to be another way! My François doesn't deserve to die. I love him. He belongs with me. He belongs with me. Please! Save him!"

On getting no response at all, the distraught woman turned and head bowed trudged back to her shelter.

As she passed the goat stables she heard a voice.

"Hello Edith! I've been waiting for you!"

Van Rin stepped out of the shadows and stood in front of the now frightened Frenchwoman. 

"What do you want?"

"I want you Edith! I want you! After all, your husband won't need you anymore will he!"

Edith screamed but it was muffled by Van Rin's palm and he dragged her into the stables, be here he repeatedly violated her, choking her in between so hard that she stopped breathing entirely.

Van Rin, now terribly scared, shook her body but Edith was quite clearly dead. 

He ran back to his own quarters and quietly returned to his bed next to his wife, who with her eyes wide open, was certain her husband had relapsed back to his old adulterous ways and that somehow she would take her revenge.

The following morning came, the morning of Francois's sacrifice to the gods of the mountain. 

He had become aware that Edith was missing earlier, after waking up from a fitful sleep. He had been waiting for her during the night to return as he knew she would after ridding herself of the agony she endured and eventually seeing the sanctity of Francois's offering.

A handful of community members helped him look for Edith including Van Rin's wife. She found her lying in the stables, her face a blueish grey. She had obviously been strangled.

Uproar ensued and the company swore to find the murderer, whom they knew was in their midst. 

"Justice! Let Justice prevail!" Was the loud cry from the members as they searched for clues and evidence, a trail of which led to the living quarters of Van Rin. 

"Where were you last night Van Rin?"

"I was here. With my wife!" 

"Is that true? Was he here with you?"

"No. He wasn't. He was gone most of the night!" Replied his wife, her eyes flashing with anger at her lecherous and murderous man.

"Then you are charged with murder Van Rin! Take him to the cellars to await trial!"

The sad and awful killing of Edith had distracted the community from the equally solemn and terrible task also required of them that morning, to offer Francois's life to the waiting Yeti, an act which now, in the cold light of his wife's demise, felt to them like martyrdom.

"The mountain gods will be even happier" commended the elders.

Francois was taken for one last meal and to spend time with his wife in the makeshift mortuary, where he knelt beside her and prayed that they would be reunited soon.

But Van Rin's wife wasn't happy at all. 

She felt it to be a gross act of cruelty to send Francois to his death on the morning he had found out his wife had been murdered by her husband.

No, the real offering should be the murderer. Her husband Van Rin. He's got to go. Not Francois. That would be simply wrong.

She enlisted the help of two other wives, who felt equally as aggrieved and, having gagged him first, dragged Van Rin to the sacrificial gang plank overhanging the lower slopes hundreds of feet below where the Yeti dwelt and waited. 

Van Rin looked pleadingly into his wife's eyes and shook his head. He didn't want to die. 

She pushed him over the edge and as his gag fell out he began to scream uncontrollably before hitting the crags far below, his head splitting like an egg.

The rest of the community came to see what the screams were about and when they saw Van Rin's wife walking off the gang plank, they knew instinctively what she had done and simply stood in silence around her.

The elders arrived and wailed, there anguish growing ever louder. They grabbed Van Rin's wife and shook their heads violently, falling to their knees crying and moaning, eventually retreating to their shack and barring the doors and windows. 

They knew the sacrifice had been unwilling. The meat was tainted. For the first time in a thousand years the meat was tainted and the gods would not be appeased.

As the community stood shivering and confused on the plateau in the cold morning sun, a strange menacing sound began to emanate from the lower fells. 

At first a grunting, then a growling and finally a loud snarling, as the affronted Yeti made their way up the rocks to the high monastery and fully encircled the hapless residents, who were now screaming for their lives. 

It was no use. All the tainted meat had to be consumed and the stronghold purged if the rite was to be corrected and the balance of the mountain gods fully restored.

For a whole day the peaks echoed with the noise of grinding and munching as the Yeti ate and the elders watched nervously whilst their gods then slept on the blood- soaked terraces, their bellies full of the brash imposters and the ancient nature of things returned to the sacred mountain once more.

Big Rabbit

And here was a church where the big rabbit reigns.

Hey ho, here we go!

And from all the graves it dragged up the remains.

Hey ho, here we go!

And on all the pews the bunnies sat still.

Hey ho, here we go!

And the big rabbit talked 'cos he had the brains.

Hey ho, here we go.

And all of the bunnies were instructed to kill.

Hey ho, here we go.

And the graves which were empty began quickly to fill.

Hey ho, here we go.

And the Priest stared in horror all bound in his chains.

Hey ho, here we go.

And his brains came out easy with a crack and a pull.

Hey ho, here we go.

And the big rabbit roared as it tried on his skull.

The Witches' Prison

Rodney Fish was just nuts about metal. Heavy metal, the dark kind. 

His favourite band was The Witches' Prison, an all female rock group and their album The Devil's In the Detail was without any shadow of a doubt the greatest single thing he'd ever seen or heard. Rodney listened to it ad nauseum in his bedroom and stared at the sleeve till his eyes watered.

Unlike the current trend for psychedelic gouts of paint, this cover appeared to be a photograph, albeit somewhat blurry, as if taken by someone in a car or slowly passing on a motorbike. It pictured an old dark mansion hidden by a thicket of trees and shrubs. It was winter and the only sign of life was a light on in the uppermost window of the mansion high up in a tower. Since it was so grainy it was hard to be sure of anything in the picture really and it sort of made Rodney's head spin.

The young man had studied that image over and over again. He was sure there was a secret buried in it somewhere and almost certainly the title held a clue, The Devil's in the Detail. Yes, somewhere in the detail of that picture was the truth.

No matter which way he turned it no further meaning could be found. He tried different coloured lights to no avail and even tried playing the record backwards for cryptic messages but there were none.

The young man couldn't sleep and his relationship with his parents worsened. His Dad, fed up with his son's spikiness, blurted out his feelings but immediately regretted it.

"For God's sake, Rodney, when are you actually going to get a girlfriend? Hell will have frozen over at this rate!" 

His work began to suffer at the motorbike spray shop too. He started ringing in sick a lot. When he next went in and Rodney seemed uninterested in his airbrush yet again, his shop boss was fuming and had harsh words with him. 

"Pull yourself together Rodney, I mean it or there'll be hell to pay!"

Rodney heeded his boss's warning. 

His job meant he could save up for his own motorbike and besides heavy metal, that's all that mattered. He'd get his own wheels and speed off into the blue yonder and kiss his fussy old folks good-fuckin-bye!

He'd left school at 16 and joined the shop as their apprentice and had only just learnt the a quarter of the ropes, helping the soonish-to-retire Big D, an old and mega-talented airbrush artist beloved by bikers for his fantasticly hellish style. Fans from around the country flocked to have their fuel-tanks sprayed by the big guy's wonderful hands.

Rodney had another two years to garner everything he could from his skilled mentor. Then he'd be 21 but he was sure struggling now. His obsession with the record cover was tilting his dreams towards dreadful scenarios of doom and despair and proper sleep eluded him as he battled with the enveloping dark.

"What's up with you young, Rodders?" Asked Big D, putting the final touches to a wild motif of a broom in chains on the tank of a huge black ornate chopper, finished off as always with his signature fiery capital D, which Rodney had once asked him about.

"Can't sleep!"

"How come? Girl trouble?"

"I wish! I've never had a girlfriend D. No, I'm having really bad dreams"

Big D put his airbrush down and sat next to his young trainee. He'd tended to him over the last year and in many ways he reminded D of many young souls, unsure of the future and what to believe in.

"What kind of dreams mate?"

"Well, there all to do with a damn record cover. I just can't get it out of my head!"

"Don't tell me, the Witches Prison's The Devil's in the Detail?"

Rodney stared at the older man.

"Yeah, how the hell did you know that?"

"Cos I'm having similar problems. After buying the record I just can't shake that picture!"

"The mansion behind the trees?"

"That's the one. That godforsaken bastard place!"

"Yeah, it is, a bastard! I'm fuckin' going out of my mind D!"

"Tell you what Rodney, help me finish this black chopper, we'll take it out to the customer, have a few scoops, put the world to fuckin' rights and catch a taxi back to shitsville. Waddaya say fella?"

"Sounds good to me Big D!"

The two sprayers, the artist and his apprentice, set to and had finished the bike's artwork off completely by close of play. It was a fabulous job, an enflamed king caressed by gorgons, all topped by the big guys's unforgettable flaming D.

D and Rodney straddled the huge sleek motorcycle and the younger rode pillion. He held onto Big D's leather jacket and they zoomed off into the mist-capped hills above Crippleswill to the summit of Gibbet Peak.

Rodney held fast as they banked round the bends on the slopes, getting higher with every turn. Despite it being winter, Big D felt unusually warm, almost hot, which the youngster put down to his quality gear. Rodney on the other hand was freezing. He'd never been this far into the uplands before and found the journey upwards both exhilarating and a little frightening at the same time.

He noticed two objects hanging half out of Big D's jacket pockets. A key with a fob with the words Witchen Kitchen scratched on, together with a roll of black and white camera film, which Rodney could see depicted a murky house remarkably similar to that on the record sleeve. 

"How strange!" He muttered to himself and felt a wave of goose pimples rise under his clammy bike leathers.

It was dusk when the pair reached the summit of Gibbet Peak. Big D pushed open a huge double gate, heaved the chopper inside and told Rodney to follow him, as he wheeled it round the corner of a spidery copse.

It was then that the young man stopped dead and simply stared at the scene before him. It was the very same as that pictured on the album he was so obsessed with, the eerie mansion behind the trees!

"D! Fuckin'hell, it's the record cover!"

"Oh yeah! Jeez! Well, I sort of knew mate, seeing as I was the one who took the photograph!"

"What? You? But how?"

"Easy really, I'm the band's manager!"

"Fuck! What! I don't understand! How the fuck can you be Witches Prison's manager? You're a fucking spray artist where I work!"

"Yeah, I'm that too Rodders! I'm a lot of things to a lot of people my young friend"

As they continued to walk towards to the mansion, Rodney noticed that the light in the top tower window was descending down into lower rooms the closer they got until it reached the window in a door at the side of the house, where they stood. A sign above the doorbell read, 

"Witchin Kitchen"

A tide of cold air rushed up Rodney's spine as his blood froze.

"Why have you got the key for this fuckin' door D?"

D turned to face the youngster. He seemed to grow in stature and spoke slowly.

"I told you Rodster, I'm the band's manager. Well, more of a warden really. This is where I keep them, so they can entertain me, my personal rock band, the Witches. I do so like this new-fangled heavy metal and the sisters are really good at it. They play for me in my prison for witches when I'm bored and their records keep my legion of followers docile. Followers like you Rodders!"

The young man struggled to stand and as he stumbled, the older man, now with wisps of smoke seemingly rising from his leathers, his face turning crimson, unlocked the back door and was greeted by a young haggard woman with long matted locks, who bowed before him.

"My liege!"

"Penta, why, my favourite groupie, how are the ladies today?"

"They are well my Lord, but will be better when they have eaten their special supper this Walpurg's Night. Did you bring it, willing, living and all?"

"What? The virgin? Yes, yes I did!"

The young crone rubbed her skeletal hands together, grabbed a huge butcher's cleaver and waited for the youngster.

Seemingly in a daze, all Rodney could hear was the loud crashing shrieking metal of his favourite band and appeared unaware as Big D handed him to the grinning Penta.

"Oh, and by the way Rodders, you asked what the D stood for in my name. The devil's in the detail my boy, the devil's in the detail!"

Big D locked the door behind him and entered into the prison proper, where an older witch took off his steaming leathers.

He put his cloven feet up on another kneeling crone as dreadful screams erupted from the kitchen.

"Ah, that'll be the fish being gutted for our supper!"

The Devil laughed and laughed as the band continued to play for their impatient master just like they did every single night.

Dromeda

We've got through the blackest darkness again. When the Queen who cannot be named remains. I'd like to think I helped a little. I think so. For months I've fed them. Toasted crumbs seem to be their favourite, which I make over an open flame fissuring just near me. Spit bread I get. And Stygian tea. I can spare both and they don't need much. For some reason they don't get anything, being from another lore. It's what I imagine to be dilicular in the upper world. When I feed them. Me too. We all have some. I so enjoy passing the crumbs through the bars. I have to get on my knees. They take them gratefully and share them round, the biggest one always giving me a nod. It's quite charming and gets me through what passes for a day here. I try to ignore the agonised screams of boulder rollers and fruit wraiths erupting from the dreadful hills and pools. I have to endure it. Endure the endless herding of wailing souls into internal pens and watch every devil and demon consummate. I hope the two rulers of this world have forgotten me. The loathsome king and his winter wife. It's been years since I was imprisoned, my once- beautiful face ravaged by penury and hunger. Now I imagine I would be unrecognisable to my kin, whom I am certain I shall never see again. Withered, leathern, a sack of marrow, this is my penance. My surrender. My exile from myth. The captives across from my cage stare at me. The feeling of night has passed and it is time to feed. Despite it being made of a dark moist flour spun by the spider wives, the bread is quite edible, more than most get here. Better to wither like this with my tiny friends from other tales than have filled the salted belly of the Kraken. Once the chained lady, now I'm caged forever behind the bars of Tartarus, feeding newborn harpies who like me fell into Hades from another time and myth.

Shadows

Something is living in the shadows of our house. It's formless and everywhere yet nowhere at all, a silent evil power coalescing and expanding behind a hungry curtain of darkness. If I could only show my parents but they cannot see it like I. It sometimes whispers my name and entices me to step inside the shade it occupies and eats. Sometimes I nearly do, the cruel sable barrier but a wafer-thin breath away from dwelling beyond the light in a spiritual death forever. But I stay secure, guarding my family with my light, keeping the boundaries clear, leaving a lamp on always and making sure that our ancient guest remains firmly in the deepest shadows of our house.