Baron Dunkel's Son

My Father had inherited Dunkel Hall from my Grandmother, Baroness Dunkel, the renowned seer.

I never cared for it, the Hall; a dishevelled crumbling shadowy edifice worrying the eponymous tiny hamlet in the lee of the massive Finster Hills. I always dreaded coming back to it's unlit corridors cloaked in dark fortunes and the place where my beloved mother died.

In short, I detested my Baronial home, its rain-soaked towers gagged with thick choking gothic unease and the atrocious memory of my mother's death.

I kept my distance from it and the vast county of Finsterland, where my family had ruled for centuries, albeit in relative peace and prosperity, where the Dunkels and their subjects, mostly farming folk, were free from the ubiquitous burgeoning unrest sweeping the world and always retired to quiet bedlam with bellies full.

I had been gone a long thirty years, sent away as a child to board school in far Mainz by my father.

Thirty years was indeed long and against my better judgement, to avoid forever the awful humour round that baleful pile that so forcibly kept me away, I now felt oddly summoned to urgently return to Dunkel Hall that Christmas.

Notwithstanding malicious civil feuds breaking out across the nations, exacerbated by a virulent pest, together killing hundreds of thousands, my new life in a modern city was, or certainly had been, entirely to my satisfaction, in which I had procured a handsome position in a bank as a Baron's son and adequate and airy lodgings by the Park. 

And so it was on the occasion of my Father's 80th birthday, after three decades absentia, that I found myself sat on the gloomy steam train from Frankfurt, that ironclad wonder of the age, upon which I was heading home to Dunkel after so long away.

It was a freezing late December Sunday as I left the grand financial metropole caressing the River Mainz, the locomotive's billowing smoke and steam coughing into the frigid blue sky like the thick incense I remember my Grandmother burning incessantly as she read her beloved Tarot to me, often hiding a singular card beneath the table as she foretold the household's doom. 

I handed my ticket to the ancient conductor, at which he peered over his glasses and spoke.

"You travelling to Dunkel Sir?"

"Yes"

"Ah. There's been a very heavy snowfall in those parts. On Finster's slopes. It'll be real hard going once you alight."

"Very kind of you to tell me Conductor. I shall take extra care. In any case, my Father's carriage shall be waiting for me".

"Your Father? I see. Would that be Baron Dunkel?"

"It would. Do you know my Father Sir?"

"I met him once. On this very train. He was travelling with his daughter. A lovely girl".

"His daughter? My Father doesn't have a daughter. I, Sir, am his only issue, of that I'm certain!"

"Ah, well, it's none of my business Sir. He said she was his daughter."

"When was this?"

"Oh, I should say about a year gone. I remember, as he said he'd turned seventy nine that very month and wished to do right by his companion before he reached eighty.  It was at this time of Christmastide and I recall he gave me a most generous monetary gift."

"His companion being ...."

"Yes, his daughter. Awful quiet she was. Pale too. I remember her scratching her hands, which were dreadfully wartsome, her nose was blistered and she appeared malnourished. I thought she might have been ill. Your father wore a large sword as well, which seemed odd, together with the black horse in the animal car, but then again, given the times, perhaps not".

"The times? You're referring to the tensions across the globe I take it?"

"Aye, so many dead already, the Generals stifled by corruption and the pox ravaging herds everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of cows slaughtered and burnt. A disaster for the farmers, all bankrupt, the farms lying empty. Starvation looms across the world."

"Yes. Of course, I felt the impending disaster in Frankfurt too; trouble at every corner and empty shelves in the shops. But there's no struggle in Finsterland I believe."

"That's correct Sir. Not a single outburst of violence or plague as yet. Very, very fortuitous for the farms thereabouts, but also ........ very strange too, Sir". The conductor stared at me for a second and turned away.

"Yes indeed", I whispered as he walked off.

The conductor busied himself elsewhere in the carriages and left me alone. Through the window I could see fires burning in the distance, the ravages of militant skirmishes and the acrid smoke of hundreds of charred cattle fingering it's way into my car, a truly egregious smell and I was glad to cross the border into my home county of the Finster.

For the next two hours I dozed fitfully until at last we reached my stop

"Here we are Sir, Dunkel."

"Thankyou."

I stepped off the train with my case, the steam clouding in the darkness of the tiny station like an apparition.

"Give my regards to your Father and ..hmm, his daughter".

I nodded to the conductor and shuffled up the snowy ramp, to where, indeed, a horse and carriage, where waiting for me.

Dripping candles burnt at either side of the driver's seat, affording the horse and vehicle an eerie funereal glow. 

"Young Baron?" Inquired the elderly coachman.

"Yes. Thank you"

"I'm Krendel, you may remember me. There's an awful nip in the air Sir, it'll be the end of you. Here, let me take your luggage and warm yourself in the cab. There's a flask of brandy and a glass inside"

I gladly drank a shot and braced myself for the rendezvous with my estranged Father, a half hour's ride away through thick snow. Three decades was a lifetime to have been absent from my family home, but the phantoms of the past, those despicable hurts, came slowly and inexorably crawling back.

My beloved mother had died in the Hall's stable in a most heinous fashion, inexplicably kicked fatally by her favourite horse, normally of placid demeanour, but on that tragic morning a malicious beast, which pummelled and mangled her body beyond recognition.

My Father had run into the vile building, where he smote the giant mare such a terrible blow with the huge Baronial blade that he cleaved the animal clean in half, it's two sides opening like a gored book. My Father then cursed the scene with unworldly incantations and scattered foul-smelling liquid from a phial across the creature and my mother. Still muttering strange utterances, he finished his raging by thrusting his sword deep into the stable's  crimson earth, directly through my mother's skull, upon which a baleful growl erupted as if some fell leviathan had been spurned. 

Although I never entered the hateful stable again, I sensed that the sword through my mother's skull remained there, erect and terrible, until the day I left. The only thing in the universe I wished not to die, if I could jolt the gears of heaven and smite the angels to undo it I would.

Upon reaching Dunkel Hall I was suddenly aware of otherworldly shadows scurrying in the darkness, which, as my spirit waned, I fancied them to be imps, sprites and boggarts here to welcome me back to my own personal Hell.

I felt no love for my Father nor any semblance of affection normally associated between Father and Son. My parental bond lay impaled and bloodied in the decrepit shed. 

And so it was that when finally meeting my Baron Father in the vestibule, no warmth nor emotion ensued between us, save a strange reaction my Father displayed at my return.

"It is upon us Klaus!" He said solemnly and grasped my shoulders tightly.

"I have returned to see you Father, nothing more. After thirty long years, I want for nothing else but to see you".

"Thirty years! Is it really that long. No matter, it is time now. It feels but a single day has passed since that terrible morning in the horse shed. I have been so numbingly alone since that day and so dreadfully exhausted by my constant vigil since".

My Father looked broken, a husk of his once regal self, a shadow in his own terrible Hall. Yet a flicker of something else, something otherworldly ignited in his eyes as he stared at me.

"Come, Klaus, let us remove from this dank  threshold and warm ourselves by the study's fire, a glass of schnapps perhaps".

I followed my Father's shambling figure draped in his tattered greatcoat until we entered the toasted air of the study, where a large open fire blazed in the grate, projecting fantastical swirls and flicks of light around the mahogany walls.

Krendel, the familial butler and coachman for nearly a century, furnished us with two glasses of weinbrandt and a tray of small crackers, caviar and tartar with diced onions.

I had not realised just how ravenous I had become, having abstained from food all day on the long train journey across the South.

A second tray of entrees was supplied, after which I sat back and enjoyed the fiery tang of the brandy and the orange warmth of the blaze, a pleasant but albeit fleeting sense of arrival coming over me. 

"So, how is the City Klaus? I trust you have prospered among its vaults of gold and the corrosive violence of our time has not harmed you?"

"I have Father and now enjoy, at the age of forty, a generous stipend from the mercantile bank and a kindly life for now in Frankfurt, despite the growing mayhem of civil disobedience".

"I am glad to hear it I am, after such awfulness in your tender years, that tragic accident, that mad horse, the loss of your mother at such a fragile age. I remain truly sorry. I hope you have escaped further anguish my Son. Tell me, do you still suffer from uncontrollable bouts of murderous fury, to which you were born?"

"Sorry Father, I don't understand. I have never suffered from such a malady. It is you I recall raging in the house, battling my Grandmother's claim of looming armageddon."

"Ah, you do not remember do you. It is to be expected in such a young mind that wanted so much to shut down. I forget that I sent you away almost immediately. It was you who stormed into the stable that hateful day and rent the berserk horse in two, alas too late, your helpless Mother dead. You raged  and in your grief, impaled your mother's head with the family blade, growling all the while like a devil."

"Me?"

"Yes, you my son. I arranged schooling in Frankfurt to avoid any scandal and to keep you safe until the time was right for you to return to take your rightful place at my side as the time approaches."

"I'm sorry Father, I don't know what your talking about. My rightful place? I have returned simply for Christmastide. I do not plan to stay beyond that."

"You will. Once you meet your sister. You will."

"My sister?"

"Yes, Klaus, you have an older sister. Monika. Also sent away at an early age like you, before you were born. But now she is also returned to her home, rested and restored, to become what she must."

Despite some foreknowledge of this from the conductor, in which in all honesty I had placed very little stock, my head reeled from my Father's revelations. For thirty years I had believed that it was he who dealt the fatal blow to my Mother and that I, Klaus Dunkel, was his only child. The two firm pillars of my existence came crashing down and left me bereft of sense or feeling.

At this juncture, Monika, my unknown sibling, glided into the study and hugged me.

"Brother, it is truly a joy to meet you after these decades of secrecy. I cannot wait to ride with you by our Father's side in glorious splendour!"

It was too much. How can it be that my life was such a brazen lie. I staggered and swooned, whereupon my newly appointed Sister caught me and helped me to my bed upstairs.

I slept fitfully dreaming of artillery and carnage; amidst the tumult I visited my Mother's skull pinned to the ground and grasped the hilt of the sword, whereupon my Mother spoke:

"Do not be afraid my Son, I may have lost my way, gone too soon and replaced by Krendel, but I shall ride with you in spirit as you cut a swathe in the fields of limbs and lead the four to the dusk of Time!"

I awoke, sat upright and shuddering, sodden from feverish perspiration.

I looked out of my window and saw fires and shelling exploding in the distance, the moonlight illuminating the clouds of smoke like collosal and terrible titans. The civil battles were raging and the gunfire was so much closer as the pox now drove even Finsterland's ordinary subjects to madness and murder. It seemed like it would erupt into monumental catastrophe any minute.

Outside in the Hall's yard I could see figures in the darkness busying themselves around the old stables in the shadows beyond the moon's grasp: my Father, Monika and Krendel. I was certain I could see them on horseback, the three beasts' breath billowing in the frosted dark as a fourth riderless horse reared. The night seemed to envelope it like a curse. 

It was midnight on Christmas Eve when I stepped outside into the freezing yard, the air stinking of gunpowder and cordite, the sky bruised by canons and shelling, as if Gehenna itself had opened it's gates.

And then I realised, it had.

Waiting for me at the snow-caked steps were the three horse riders. The mares: massive, winged, fire-strewn, snorting: the enormous figures brandished colossal swords, their helmets aflame above eyes blazing like the pyres of Hades. 

Rearing up, the central rider spoke with a voice that shook the very earth and boomed like thunder above the encroaching militias and the guns.

"The end is truly nigh, for we are three of the chosen Horsemen: Krendel Conquest, your Sister Famine and I am War."

My Father War raised his lordly blade up high, whereupon in chorus the fell beings three beckoned to me and roared: 

"We bid you join us and make us four, oh Mighty Death, Lord of Destruction, the Desolate One!"

"It is nigh!"

At once my city clothes fell away in flames sizzling on the icy ground. I grew in stature, my sinewy arms lengthening like vines, my face stretching on its contorting hooded skull and I was garbed in an ancient black sail and armed with a scythe forged for a titan.

It was thus that I alighted a huge dark steed, it's nostrils flaring with the fires of Hell as we, the four Horsemen, rode yelling into the desperate carnage of all-out global war and insanity.

And so it was that I became the Great Leveller and together with the three, as was foretold, we destroyed the living and brought all existence to a deafening close and ceased the gyres of the Earth until nothing in this world remained but the ...

Final Apocalypse.

Lip Service

Carly heard it on Duk Duk first. She was a dedicated Duk Duk fan and especially of Sharlene's show, Body Rob.

Body Rob was one of those modern Gen Z beauty specials, where Sharlene gave her avid followers all the top tips, new trends and hot goss about having a glamorous body.

Yes, Sharlene was influential and her spot attracted thousands of watchers, both girls and boys, all hoping for that one secret that will propel them into a world full of gorgeous people with drop dead bodies. Sharlene did it all with aplomb, conviction and the odd bit of comedy thrown into the vanity bag too.

But there were rules: her sponsors had insisted on full exposure, not just lip service, with just a few clear red lines to protect them from the nutters, to save face and save all their precious skins should it all go tits up.

Sharlene, on account of these top sponsors, stuck to these edicts fastidiously. She promoted her sponsorships without fail and stayed well clear of the more outlandish styling methods surfacing now on the crazier vlogs like botox baths, acid enemas, eyeball washing and re-bleeding. 

No, a bit of exclusive nail varnish, a smattering of prestigious Hollywood mascara, a soupçon of the very finest foundation and the latest hip hair styles on the choicest Manhattan streets were what Sharlene offered: these were the reliable, safe and reassuringly dear bread and butter of Body Rob, in which ' You too Can have that Face and Body!'.

Carly lapped it up and sat entranced on her phone as Sharlene heralded ever-newer paths to corporeal perfection and facial nirvana.

It was Carly's face she was especially concerned about. No amount of the dearest concoctions could satisfy her, no thickness of the most expensive filler could make her feel that she'd reached that glorious zenith she felt Sharlene was instructing her to attain. 

A particular irritant was her bulbous mouth. Carly had spent a small fortune on her pearly whites in an attempt to emulate the rarified dentistry seen on Body Rob.  Sharlene had an angelic mouth forged in Heaven itself, her magnificent teeth the crisp silky curtains to a marvellous world of rude health within.

Carly wanted the same.

It was the morning of April 1st when the show first aired the idea on Duk Duk. Sharlene, sat in her usual position, behind a table piled high with fresh products for immaculate beings sent from her sponsors.

She picked up a pair of boxed scissors sent in by newcomer Jess Ter Fashions.

"Well body robbers, what have we here? I'll unwrap them and read you the blurb ....

"Lip Snippers! the Precise Tool for thinning your grin and routing your pout. When your mouth goes south use Lip Snippers!"

"So, there you are followers, I'll certainly be trying this myself tonight and I can't wait to show you the results on tomorrow's Body Rob. I've got just one more pair of the Jess Ster Lip Snippers to give away today and once it's gone, it's gone. First come, first served!"

And that was it, the gorgeous Sharlene, with a big wide smile, gave a little wink to the camera and moved onto some new paper socks from Micky Take Solutions.

Carly was visibly moved.

 This was it! 

Those new scissors were the answer she'd been waiting for and she was certain that Sharlene meant that wink to be for her, a personal nod to her number one fan to get in straight away and claim those fabulous snippers.

Bingo!

She got them! 

Carly was indeed first to call and the utensils arrived by courier that afternoon with compliments from Sharlene herself and today's show sponsor Jess Ter.

That evening Carly stood in front of her bathroom mirror with her minty new product in her hand. She'd read the instructions several times over and was now totally ready to reveal so very much more of her beautiful teeth, just like Sharlene would be doing too.

Having applied a generous rubbing of numbing agent she'd had in the cupboard and tentatively holding out her top lip, Carly began to cut it off. 

It was surprisingly easy with the large and ultra-sharp Lip Snippers and felt like she was cutting up a chunk of stewing steak.

The whole upper lip came away and she dropped it in the sink. Blood poured out of the curved wound in gushes and her teeth swam in hot ferrous gore.

She smiled widely with scarlet molars but wasn't finished yet.

Pinching her bottom lip with her fingers she snipped it away in a single piece too, again, letting it fall into the blood-soaked sink.

Carly put down the scissors and admired her handiwork. 

Where once her lips had been was now a huge bleeding ragged hole, her teeth and gums completely exposed. 

She smiled again and her new lipless slit stretched open across her visible jaw.

"Beautiful!" She whispered, "Truly Gorgeous!"

The next day, after drinking a pint of numbing fluid and wiping away a mass of coagulated blood from her new mouth-hole, she waited patiently for today's Body Rob show. She was shaking with anticipation over how Sharlene would look.

The show began and Carly's earlier anticipation very quickly turned to bewilderment.

Sharlene looked the same! 

Full lips, normal mouth, nothing cut away!

" You haven't done it like you said you would!"

Carly shot up off the bed and stormed round her room sweeping away all the Body Rob products from her dressing table top.

She was incensed!

How could Sharlene lie like that!

Cleaning her teeth of a thick layer of dried-up blood, she washed her red gash mouth, got dressed and headed out.

To Sharlene's house, where she filmed her show.

Carly found her outside chain-smoking several cigarettes by the door.

Carly stared at the fag butts on the ground and confused looked up at her idol.

Sharlene jolted and when she saw Carly's terrible parody of a mouth she screamed.

"You liar Sharlene! I trusted you! I always have! But you haven't used the Lip Snippers like you said you would! How could you do that to me, you're biggest fan!"

Sharlene gathered herself and backed inside her kitchen, where she secretly reached for a weapon of any kind.

"You stupid fuckin cow, it was a joke! The Lip Snippers were an April's Fool! C'mon, you must have known that for fucks sake! Or are you a complete fuckin' moron!" Mocked Sharlene, trying not to look at the atrocity that was Carly's dreadful mouth.

Carly stuttered.

"I didn't know that Sharlene! I didn't know it was a joke! I believe what comes out of your mouth. I always have but not anymore. Your mouth isn't to be trusted is it really. Your fans need to know that underneath all that phoney glamour you're really just a big-mouthed liar and I'm going to show them!"

"You fuckin' what! You're a total fuckin' nutjob! You should have taken more of your butt-ugly face off, then I wouldn't have to look at it!"

"Ah, now that's a good idea Sharlene. Let's get you up to your studio for part 2 of the show. It's going to be a live special, a practical demonstration of using Jess Ters Lip Snippers for the complete treatment!"

Injected with a sedative and pushed upstairs at scissor-point by an increasingly excited and violent Carly,  Sharlene sat terrified in front of the camera for the second half of her show.

Wholly incapacitated with the drug, Sharlene was motionless as Carly proceeded to cut away her entire face, which she dropped onto the table liked a popped balloon.

"Blootiful!" Blurted Carly to the live audience and howling insanely walked out of the house.

With blood seeping in gouts from her flayed features, Sharlene began to laugh uncontrollably too, with her new lipless maw, as her sponsors' show rules came into her head.

Her entire jaw visible through the gaping mess, Sharlene slowly mouthed them over and over to the camera until she stopped mouthing anything at all.

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

"Give us full exposure and not just lip service Sharlene."

"Those red lines will save face and save our skins!"

"Ha ha ha ha ha!"

"Not just lip service!"

The End

It blew in from the North. 

An Arctic wind.

No-one really noticed.

But this was it.

The End.

In the pristine frozen wastes it had been awoken, a calculus of doom, a formula of nothing, an unending sum of collapse.

For Millennia it has slept, locked in the ice, trapped deep in the strata, a sediment of entropy sewn into the veins between epochs, the interstitial marshall, the tyrant from the crevasse, the mad berg.

No particular thing stirred it into life. It was just time that's all. Enough clocks had stopped for a reappearance. A comeback of sorts. Like Elvis the Destroyer. This time there'd been films too. A nervous prescience. Comets, storms, earthquakes, floods, even numbers and raptures about God.

But it wasn't Hollywood. No big neon sign here. Simply an undoing, an arresting, a stoppage of all that was alive, an erasure done without cameras or crowds or opening nights. A finish.

This was the end once again. A stutter in time, a spring clean, a full wash, a big scrub. Like last time. And the time before.

For all life on Earth.

It's here.

Extinction.

I Sit in the Tree and Wait

I've been sat in your tree all week. I've been before. I went away last time. This Christmas I need to stay I think. 

You're so busy too. It's confusing. You're so incredibly alive. I expect with Christmas on the way you would be. The birth of Jesus. A God no less. Wow. Maybe that's it. Hanging on like a shining star in spite of what the medics say 

Yep, so active. I can see you in the loft through the dormer. It's that big box of Christmas decorations you lugged up there last year. Oh dear! Time to get it down again. Up and down the creaky ladder. A cycle of gracious work. An eternal determined toil. A bit like mine really. 

What about the tree? Ah yes, you buy a real one don't you. I remember. I would too. It's that resinous piney smell. Hypnotic. The very essence of the season. An ancient perfume wafting back in time, an echo of the wild wood when your world was younger and so was I.

It's dark now and I see the kids arrive from school. They throw their satchels on the settee. Jumping, cheering, laughing like you all do when your overjoyed. It must be their last day at school. Schools out! Oh! what a day. You all cuddle and you you can't let go.

Hot chocolate and ginger biscuits now and some music. It's getting better already. The full fathom of family life, it's glorious infectious reach. I for one am hooked.

Sometimes ghosts stop by but not today. They're travellers who knew the place or the people. Curious and mesmerized, I'm glad they can't see me. They're still linked to life a little and that's not my business. Life. That's the other lot, the creators, our industrious mirrors, the flip.

You pop outside for the metal tree-stand in the shed and brush off those pesky cobwebs. Your breath testifies in the cold. 

"Help me decorate the tree soon kids! Dads on his way home with one from the farm".

I would too, really, decorate the tree, if I could, but that's your job I'm afraid. Once given life to create a world; to guide the disparate bright lights together and make a happy whole. And what a great job you've done. One that'll last I think. I hope.

Dad's home. I see him drag the fir from the car and take it over the threshold like a bride. The marriage of myth and a modern family. A really pleasant moment and I'm glad to be here.

Trees up, garlands are on, more mythical beings conjured: the fairy lights, the angel on top, the primeval forest spirit dressed in red, sons of Gods. All old. But not as old as me, nor as certain. They may fade but I won't.

The worst bit is having to touch you. It's mandatory. It's how it works. For all of us everywhere. It's the same. Touching you is crucial to make things happen. I know, I know, it's a bit gross but that's the rules. Wars are the worst. Plagues too. They're messy and sad. So many at once. 

For me though, families like yours are even worse, especially the sudden dispatch where there's love in the home. I sense the grief, the loss, the outpouring of pain like a rip in time. It's dreadful to be honest, but once I'm sent in it's irrefutable. All the love in the cosmos couldn't stop it.

I personally try to avoid too many seeing it happen. We're all different. Have our own house style. I really try to keep it away from the kids if I can. Usually it's a sorrowful act that spreads in intensity round the living and kids don't understand. How can they. For the chosen themselves, when it finally comes, the decision, when I touch them, it's quick, a fast full stop, a date stamp.

I see you coming out of the house for a cigarette. You stand right in front of me, in front of the tree where I'm sat. My legs are swinging just above your head. I could touch you now and get it done here in the garden with nobody around except you and me. We have some leeway though, a few minutes, and when necessary, sometimes hours either side, so doctors can work or those you love can gather or farewells whispered and mouthed and tender promises vowed.  But I don't want you out here alone in the cold. It's not the cigarettes either. You've other problems that can't be solved. Your husband knows but not the children, which is a shame, it will be such a shock to them, but even if they never comprehend, I understand.

I see your husband in the kitchen making tea. The kids are upstairs. This is it. The moment. I get down from the tree and follow you in. You both hug in the mellow light and wish each other a merry Christmas.

You smile.

It's time. I have to I'm afraid. 

I reach out and touch your hand, whisper 'don't be afraid' in your ear, watch you fall, bow my head and quickly leave.

Ladybirds

It was bright weather. Tons of Light. Shining rays. Odd for the season of goodwill. Global warming. A phantom winter.

The shadow behind the sun never left though. She could feel it in her shattered bones. She did every year. The slow awakening of Jack Frost in his sweaty over-stuffed featherbed. Creaking, stretching, yawning, slippy Jack. For months a heap of buttons, now he's back like the clown that you were scared of as kid with the rock hard snowballs, the icy trips, your Grandma's broken hip and much much worse.

Brrrrr was his work song. She'd sing too. But something else; a hymn. For Advent. He's got more dreadful work to do. Terrible clowning up and down. She's just got to get through today again.

Humming Nat King Cole she put on her tattered dressing gown and pretended to cook some sausages and eggs and ate like a hedge-wren, the broken shells placed in the little composting bin by the sink.

It was right to return stuff to the ground. She knew. To give back what nature made. It felt correct and she wondered what it would be like to be inside an egg. To be something else. To believe in what was to come. Oh God, to be reborn, yes! 

They'd been so like Larkin's arrows and she thought of him. A wreck in the garden compost heap beneath the turkey carcass. She'd put him in that Christmas. That's how she remembered it anyway. Things got mixed up. A new beginning after so much pain. Too much for anyone. The slow dissolution, the glacial decay: the gift to her broken man twenty years past. Her beautiful moraine.

Not really feeling part of the world anymore she held up her wedding ring and peered through the golden circle at the life beyond this day, the 24th. Everything was done. The decorations hung but she'd no idea when she'd managed that, their box of annual hope shoved behind the couch, open and empty like a coffin, in the bottom the fairy left behind.

Outside a blackbird pecked furiously at an old apple she had thrown out the day before. She liked feeding the blackbirds, their furious belief that all's well and always will be, driving their sable beauty like FBI sedans.  Their best life as the telly adverts said. Just eat and be happy. The Simple corvid creed. No need for grief.

Washing up she heard a rattle in the mailbox. Just junk no doubt but maybe check. Your next best life might be waiting. A Christmas card from Jesus Or news that he'd come back and so could she.

On her way gliding down the old cobwebbed hall she stopped.

What was that on the far wall?

In the corner by the door. A blob. A blob of sorts.

She approached and stared up into the corner at the curious thing. It was certainly a blob, a little pile, more of a small heap. A heaplet she thought.

But what of?

She got a torch from his old work bag and craned her neck. 

"Well I never, Ladybirds! How wonderful!"

She took down an encyclopedia and flicked to L. 

Ladybirds like to overwinter in homes but it can be too warm and bright. Consider moving them outside somewhere safe and dry. 

"Oh!"

She stared and stared at the tiny gorgeous mound of lives and giggled when the top bug moved in it's sleep, annoying the spotty one underneath. 

"Oh my God! They're so beautiful!" She whispered.

"Like fairy lights!"

Her mind raced.

She really didn't want to move them but felt that maybe she had to after all 'cos after all her house really was warm and bright and after all they deserved to be outside where nature lived but Jack  mustn't know, oh no, don't tell Jack, he'll roll over them like a glacier on wheels after all They've been through.

She resigned herself To a transplant and taking a deep breath began to pick them off the wall with old cocktail Sticks from the packet he'd bought that last Christmas.

"C'mon my tiny sausages!" She cooed as the bugs reluctantly shuffled onto the tips; creaking, stretching, yawning all the way.

She remembered he'd Asked for tooth picks in the Corner shop. For After the turkey dinner; Roasties, bread sauce, cranberries.

We don't have any tooth picks mister sorry but we do sell cocktail sticks. 

They'd laughed all the way home and she remembered he'd lit a fire and they both curled up that Sunday before Christmas as snug as bug in a fireman's rug.

She placed the Cranberries carefully on her face One by one on her eyebrows. It was soft and safe and And out of the way and It Wouldn't take long he'd said. I'll bring My saw ANd well cut down a little Fir. A tiny one.

Yes, she'd take them to the old dark woods, where they can sleep and dream and believe their best life is coming.

She drove his ancient red Beetle, still a sweet wreck, along freezing streets, where no-one paid her any heed. She was invisible. 

The clouds sailed by like ghosts searching for heaven and she tried not to blink in case sHe lost her passengers.

She pulled up at a traffic light and stared at the young girl in the new red VW next to her, her first time driving with her husband sat besidE, a little nervous with his Saw On his lap. She smiled as did she and was sure she saw her freckles move like ladybirds.

The haunted sky filled Up with tears full of faces and they drove off.

The old fir wood was Colder than town and bandaged up in mist. The humus floor steamed like compost and the needles scrunched under her bare feet like Tooth picks. It was always Christmas Dinner here.

"We need a Memorable tree little bugs, where you can go to sleep and imagine Spring, your best ever Spring next year."

The fir she chose by the forest road was thick and crusty. She saw the huge rent ripped from the bark, the paint still visible, nodded and knelt down.

"This will do My darling."

She blinked and all the little bugs fell into her hands like fairy lights.

She sobbed and the last few bugs leapt into her tears and landed on top of the others in her palm. She spoke to them softly.

"we just wanted a little tree you see and I drove out here with him that Christmas Eve, never having really driven in the winter but he said I'd do fine and I believed in him and everything to follow but Jack Frost got the wheel and sped us up on the ice like racing on a glacier, his clown suit buttons popping off and we crashed. Oh God, We crashed and I was at the wheel not Jack at all. I just couldn't stop you see, my darling, as We were squashed like bugS against this Tree that Christmas eve when we both so believed in our best lives yet to come. 

The firemen got you out And laid You On thE Tooth picks Like baby Jesus That Christmas Night, their warm breath fanning you, a future yet to be.

But it wasn't

To be. They couldn't get me out. 

You lasted longer but I was already gone.

And I'm so dreadfully dreadfully sorry.

She Gently placed the ladybirds next to each other on the bark like teeth And Curled up by the fir At his feet.

She slept and all her ladybIrdS and more descended and enveloped her whole body and joined her in her dreams, where they freed her from the wreckage and the firemen, heads down, sang Christmas hymns as she flew to the clouds, a ladybird, racing to get to heaven.

To wait for her beautiful man once again like every Christmas Eve.

Operation Wolfpack

Joe 'Red' Digger had seen most things. As a time-served officer around the rocket base he'd tackled some pretty wild shit over the years. 

Drunken pilot brawls, affairs, domestics, spoilt kid fights, amorous politicians in too deep, burglary, car theft, extortion and even homicide.

But that dark night, when the moon reigned in a cloudless sky, what went down in that alleyway was something new.

Something grotesque.

He needed a drink. A stiff drink and maybe more than one. A whole goddam bottle might just do it. He was off duty so who gives a damn.

The bar was rammed with late night revellers looking for a good time after the working week. Let's face it, unless you're in NASA, work round here ain't what it's cracked up to be and a skinful on a Friday night is what the good doctor ordered here around the base, especially now the space programme was winding down. Times were tough and the rockets were staying home. It was the final flight that week, delivering the first supplies to the brand new space colony on the lunar surface. Women, children, men, astronauts all, a thousand of them, their beating hearts pulsing together, chancing a heroic but precarious life under a glass dome, a dome which had cost a trillion and paid for by super-rich tycoons. Then it was up to them, the colonists, to bring fresh new blood to the moon and eventually spill out onto Mars.

With the last mission leaving soon, people were increasingly tetchy round town, the future as unwelcome as a sheep in wolf's clothing.

The cops like Joe Digger were one of the targets for all the frustration and anger welling up like poison in the place.

Officer Digger or just Red, as he was known at the station, was no rocket scientist, but he was a keen scholar of human nature and what he'd seen tonight was in no way natural.

It was an abomination.

His right hand was shaking, which he steadied with the other and got hold of the glass. The liquor tasted bitter but was having the desired effect of taking the grislier edges off his memory. A little more and he might just be able to face going back outside and walking home. He was off duty and wanted to drink.

He stared at his tumbler of gold and tried to make sense of it all.

Grease monkeys, cops and the odd crew member were out in the bars, making the most of the good times while they lasted. Red had been slowly ambling down the street on his way to the pool hall to meet up with Deek his Station buddy, when he'd heard a loud scream in the alley. 

Despite being a moonlit night, the cloud cover was thick and it was dark and there were no real lights down there, save for some dismal lamplight coming from a tenement window high up on the top floor.

Another scream and Red was riveted to the spot. It sounded like a woman in big trouble. He'd decided to go in and see what's what and maybe help, off duty or not.

"Who's there?" He yelled.

Silence.

"Everything OK?" He yelled again.

Nothing at first but then suddenly, out came the most terrifying scream of all, a scream so blood curdlingly chilling that Red felt goosebumps break out all the way up his forearms.

"Hello? Police!" He bawled, walking slowly into the black alleyway, his own personal snub-nose drawn.

It was a growl that came next; a hideous growl, as if some wild animal was holed up down there. 

"What the ...!" Gasped Red.

Then came terrible sounds of chewing and slurping as if something was feeding. Something very large.

The screams had given way to an agonised moaning and then as the bone-cracking started there were no more sounds from who Red was now sure was a woman.

Shuddering, he entered the darkest part of the alley, where no light existed with the moon hiding behind dense clouds.

His gun drawn, Red took small steady steps passed rank bins and crap piled up on both sides.

Behind one of the bigger piles he saw it.

Moonlight broke in and there it was, illuminated in the pallid rays, a hideous collosal snarling thing hunched over what was left of the poor woman, blood pouring out of massive wounds.

The creature turned to face Red, it's huge mouth bristling with blood-soaked fangs. It growled with such malevolence that the policeman froze to the spot fearing for his life.

His hands gripped his pistol and shaking uncontrollably he pointed it as straight as he could at the fell beast crouched before him. 

It was then that it stood. At it's full height it must have been at least 8 feet tall, powerfully muscled, the hands, feet and face covered in thick gore-matted fur. And what a dreadful face, the drooling mouth curled with insatiable malice, the small nose flaring and the scarlet eyes glaring with pure evil. It spat out a glob of tattered flesh and skirt and stooped, it's lethal-looking claws poised and an awful snarl growing louder in its throat.

Red knew instinctively the beast was going to pounce and he made the sign of the cross before pumping it with an entire round of bullets.

The beast didn't die but it was distracted enough by the shots to hesitate and as the moon vanished behind fat veins of cloud again, so too the creature suddenly disappeared down the alley, loping on all fours and clearing the wire fence at the end with ease and off into the night with a final frustrated growl.

Red was considering all this, the whisky clutched tightly in his quivering hand, but it was one particular thing that he just couldn't get out of his head, a fact that was as mind-numbingly astonishing as the vile fiend itself. 

It had been wearing an astronaut suit!

.... an astronaut suit from the Base, with the name Graff on the shoulder, a suit ripped and torn like bandages.

Deek walked into the bar looking for Red, who had by now missed the pool match. 

"So this is where you ended up eh!"

"Oh, hi Deek, yep, I must have forgot the time" 

"Jesus, Red, you look like you've seen a god-damm ghost!"

"Oh, no worries. I reckon I'm coming down with something, one of those winter bugs."

Red raised his whisky glass.

"Old Johnny Walker is helping a lot."

"God dammit, you're shaking my friend. C'mon, let's get you home. You've got the lurgy for sure!"

After a nightcap Deek went home himself and left Red tucked up in bed.

The moonlight pierced the blackness in his room like tattered veils and he fell into a fitful sleep, his nightmares terrible and tense as a despicable giant dog stalked him across the Base and up the gantry of a rocket, where the dog tore off its space suit and then it's pelt to reveal a man underneath. Graff. Chester Graff, the astronaut. Leaping into the air and clutching a screaming Red, they both fell from a great height into the shrieking sable night below, the man growling into Red's face "For your own sake copper, forget you ever saw me!"

Red woke up drenched in perspiration and clutched his sodden sheets tight.

"Jesus Christ! He's a fucking werewolf!" He yelled, sweat pouring off his brow.

The policeman was in work that day, hardly capable of doing a normal job but grateful it was mostly shuffling papers round his desk, mostly missing person cases.

He drank coffee after coffee from the corner percolator and kept staring out of the window throughout the day.

Near shift change, Deek came up to him.

"What you looking at partner?" Staring through the murky glass as well.

"Oh nothin'. Just wondering if it's another full moon tonight that's all. Makes 'em all crazy, right!"

"Sure does, those tricksy pale rays sends the perps wappy!"

"C'mon, let's finish up here and go down to Linda's and grab us a steak. Waddaya say Red?"

"Yeah, sure. Some food sounds good."

Linda's was packed with the usual crowd of hungry folks; cops off and on duty, office staff, NASA boffins and in the far corner the crew of the next mission including ....

Commander Chester Graff.

Red froze and tried not to gawp at the man from his dream.

Deek and Red, the two friends, sat down and picked up the beers they'd ordered and toasted their health.

Clinking his glass far harder than he'd meant to, Red's Coors slopped out onto the checked tablecloth.

"Best watch it Officer, you're going to drown your friend!"

Red looked up and to his horror saw Chester Graff stood right beside him.

Red shuddered.

"Why Officer, you're shaking! I'd say you've had one too many already!" Laughed Graff.

Linda came up with menus but Deek simply ordered two house steak specials.

"Howdya like 'em boys? Your steaks?"

"Officer ...," Graff looked at Red's badge, "Digger here would like his meat rare Linda, the bloodier the better I'd say, wouldn't you Officer Digger? You're lacking the right stuff! Iron probably. Take it from me, you needs lots of iron!"

Red just stared at Graff who was smiling widely, showing off perfect Commander teeth lined up like stiffs. He nodded at Deek and then walked back to his crew.

"Do you know that guy Red?" Whispered Deek.

"No. Do you?"

" We've shot pool a few times but I don't know him well," said Deek, fiddling with his knife and fork.

"Mighty strange him coming over though," he concluded as Linda's buxom daughter Betty arrived with the steaks.

"Need anything with these boys?" Said Betty wiping a tear from her eye.

"Why Betty, what's the matter?"

" Oh, Officer Deek, well, my sister Honey never came home last night. Me and Mama are worried sick!" explained Betty.

"Have you told the Police?"

"Yeah, tonight. It's been 24 hours now. We filed a Missing Persons".

"Well that's good. Our colleagues on the night shift will get right to it and that's for sure Betty," said Deek standing up, his hand over-zealously rubbing the waitress's back, where her bra-strap was under her uniform and a tiny drip of saliva forming on his lower lip.

Commander Graff and his crew got up to leave and walked past Betty, as she was staring at Deek.

"Couldn't help overhearing you young lady. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about and your Sister's hanging out somewhere. She's probably gone to watch our last flight and got a good spot on the bleachers.  Now if you'll excuse us, we've a rocket to steer so I bid you good night and see you when we get back."

Graff tipped his cap at the two cops, a wry grin on his face

"Officers."

Having finished up their bloody steaks they stepped out into the foggy night. It was as black as thick molasses round the Base.

"No full moon!" Exclaimed Red.

"No, there is Red, it's just covered up with all this Goddamn fog and test smoke," offered his partner.

"How do you know that? I can't see anything in this pea-souper!"

"Oh, I just feel it buddy. Born and bred up in hill country you get a sense for stuff like that," explained Red's partner.

"I need to tell you something Deek. I need to tell you something that's bugging the hell outta me."

"OK."

"And when I'm telling ya you need to promise me that you'll keep yer hillbilly trap shut and let me finish!"

"Oh,OK!"

Red described what he'd seen the night before and Deek kept schtumm until the end.

" And I'm telling you Deek, Graff's a fucking wolfman and he fuckin' well ate Honey right in front me last night!"

Deek was silent at first but then looked Red squarely in the eye.

"Fuck me Red, have you heard yourself! werewolves, astronauts, Honey slaughtered! It's bullshit and you know it!" Quipped Deek.

"Bullshit you reckon eh, well why don't we check out the alley and then you'll fuckin believe me .... Partner!" Riled Red.

They reached the alleyway in the car and there was no sign of any foul play, no trace of Honey or anything.

"I don't understand it, she was gutted right here. It should be slick with blood!" Roared Red kicking over a metal bin.

"What the ...?"

Red picked up a torn white suit thick with gore. It'd been shoved in with the rest of the trash: a tattered astronaut's suit with Graff stitched on the shoulder!

"You fuckin believe me now Deek!" Yelled Red holding up what was left of the clothing.

It was then he noticed the other shoulder badge. 

"What's this?"

He showed it his partner who was looking up and getting more agitated by the minute.

"It's the name of the final mission. Jesus Christ, don't you read your emails Red!"

"What, you telling me the final mission is called .....

..... Operation fuckin' Wolfpack!"

"Yeah, that's what it's called. So fuckin' what Red!"

"So fuckin what? Don't you get it! It's not just Graff who's one, the whole bastard crew are werewolves!"

Deek just stared.

"What time's the launch?"

"In an hour."

"An hour! For fucks sake! Deek we have got to get to that launchpad and stop that flight!"

"Why?"

"Because there's a Wolfpack flying up to the moon where a thousand fuckin' people are penned in like sheep! Kapish!"

"Kapish!"

They drove like bullets and reached the pad as T minus 30 minutes clicked on the counter and the crew bus careered toward them.

"What now Red! That fuckin' bus stuffed full of werewolves is coming straight at us!"

 "I've been thinking Deek, what if it's OK? What if they can't change up there? After all, they can't fuckin see it once they're stood on it. What if no there's no fuckin werewolfin' on the moon?"

Officer Digger stood there scratching his chin, whilst he thought about it further.

"But they do Red, they do change!" Replied his partner in an unusually snarly way from behind the patrol car; it's flashing crimson light making it hard for Red to see him.

"They turn into the biggest bastard werewolves that ever existed; fuckin' mega moon wolves!" Growled Deek.

"Deek! What the fuck!" Winced Red 

"And your right Red, you nosey cunt, there's an awful lot of sweet sweet honey up there just drippin' from that big fat hive!"

At that moment the full bright moon appeared within a break in the fog. Deek leapt over the bonnet gnashing loudly, a fully grown wolfman.

"Nooooooooooooooo!" Screamed Red.

"And then we'll just come back and eat the rest of the fuckin' world Officer Digger!"

Red spun round to face Commander Graff or his now massive wolf-self, as the Deek-wolf bit deeply into his soft neck.

"You really are red Red!" He laughed as thick hot blood gushed down his hungry throat.

The entire crew had now changed too and after devouring Red like rabid bears the Wolfpack howled at the full moon and it's colony, which come tomorrow, they'd be ravaging and really filling their bellies with tons of sweet sweet honey! 

Fuck yeah!