Steph was so excited she nearly burst a blood vessel about her new job in the brewery.
It was in a place called Sinew. Okay it was a creepy name and a micro beer company that she'd never heard of but they wanted her to develop a new crazy flavour and they paid well.
A room came with it as well, which couldn't be bad. It was an offer she just couldn't refuse.
That was a month ago and her best friend Ruby hadn't heard from her once in all that time.
There was something wrong and Ruby could feel it in her bones.
It just wasn't like Steph to not contact her. Normally it was once a day!
Ruby couldn't decide whether to go to the police or do something directly herself.
She didn't want to rock the boat just when Steph had got a good thing going.
She decided not to make a fuss with the authorities and visit Steph to see what was going on.
Ruby was a reporter on the local rag in town and asked her boss for a week off, which she got no problem. Ruby was good at her job, the red headed truffler had snuffled out tons of great stories for his paper. Her boss liked her and she deserved a holiday.
Shoving some clothes and toiletries in a travel bag, Ruby jumped in her Triumph Herald and headed off up north for the wilds of Northumbria and the remote village of Sinew, where Steph had a job.
It took eight hours to traverse the country from bottom to top. Ruby stopped twice en route, once at some services for a beef paste butty and finally a couple of hours nap by a rustic layby in the shadow of the Cheviots, before attempting the last leg through the eerie hill country in the coming darkness.
Another traveller had had the same idea.
To rest.
He was an old cyclist, touring the North. With his thick black prescription glasses on the end of his nose, he sat on his little camping seat eating a meat sandwich.
"Hi there"
"Hi"
"You on a bike tour?"
"Yep, thought I'd give the dark satanic hills a run for thier money before I seize up. I'm trying to catch up a party of ten other Dales cyclists who headed out yesterday. And you?"
"I'm visiting a friend in a place called Sinew"
" Ah, yes, it's on my route too. I hope to reach it before dark, grab a pint from a brewery I've heard about and camp somewhere in the fields nearby. My name's Gordon by the way"
"Ruby"
"Nice to meet a fellow traveller, there's not that many braving this neck of the woods this Autumn. Would you like a meat sandwich Ruby?"
"Sure. That's kind of you. Thanks"
Ruby took her sarnie and explained that she would be napping for a while before heading out again.
"I'm ready to roll Ruby, so I may see you in Sinew. Take it steady on those hair-pin bends in the dark. Nice to have met you"
"You too Gordon"
He snapped on his bike clips and was off.
Ruby locked her doors, ate and rested her head against a cushion. She slept fitfully, dreaming that Steph was desperately looking for her, lost in an endless liquid, dreadful, cold and wet.
Waking up, Ruby rubbed her eyes and felt awful. Taking a sip of water she consulted the map for the best way into the uplands.
It was dark now and a storm erupted over the shadowy fells, the rain lashing their flesh like a crazed torturer.
Even with its full beams on, the Herald struggled to throw any meaningful light through the driving rain.
It had worsened just as Ruby had set off. The water pounded the car's roof and her wipers swished like lunatics in a window.
It was one o clock in the morning before she finally made out the village sign.
Sinew.
A Clean Cut Village.
Population 101.
The number 101 had actually been changed to 100, with the last 1 crossed out.
Ruby thought this was strange - had someone died? - but she was far too busy surviving the rainstorm battering the crags.
Oddly, it stopped abruptly as she pulled into the village boundary.
Sinew was in total darkness. Not even a street lamp shone. Nothing, as if it wasn't even there.
It was really late by now, so Ruby decided that the best thing would be to bed down in her car for the night and look for Steph in the morning.
A noisy rap on her window woke her up.
Ruby rubbed her face and squinted at whoever was knocking.
A vicar.
The man indicated for Ruby to wind her window down with his large circling hand.
"Good morning Missy, I saw you parked by the graveyard and came over to see if everything was alright"
"Er, yes, yes, Father, everything is alright. It was so late so I slept in the car. I'd no idea it was the graveyard I'd pulled up at. There were no lights on"
"Ah, yes, of course, our preference for darkness here takes many visitors by surprise. Are you just passing through Missy?"
"Er, no, actually, I'm here to see a friend of mine. I'll be staying a few days I imagine"
"And who may I ask is your friend in Sinew?"
"Steph Bowland. She got a job at the brewery here"
"I see, I see. Steph Bowland you say. Hmmm, it's not a name I know but then again she may not have visited the church. Was she a believer?"
"A believer? I don't think so. She just wanted to earn some money for a year and then go travelling"
"Of course, oh to be young and free. Still, a little belief in older things goes a long way, as well as a good pint of ale and a thick tasty meat sandwich! Wouldn't you agree Missy?"
"Er, I suppose so"
"Why the One Great Lord demands it, eat, drink and love thy neighbour to bits!"
"Yes. Well, if you could point me in the direction of the brewery I'd be most grateful"
Getting directions from the old vicar, Ruby drove the short distance into the heart of the village and saw the brewery and bar.
"Sinews Beers. Full Bodied Brews!"
read the sign on the wall.
Ruby walked into the back office.
"Hello, I wondered if you might help me, I'm looking for my friend, Steph Bowland. She started working here a month ago"
"Steph Bowland you say. Well, it doesn't ring a bell. Let me check the staff register.....No, no-one by that name works here, sorry"
"But Steph got a job here. You phoned her up to confirm. She got a room with the work too!"
Ruby was starting to feel agitated. How could they not have heard of Steph!
"I can assure Miss, there has been nobody with that name employed here and no room has been offered"
"I don't understand. I just don't. Can I speak to the manager"
"You are. That's me. Can I suggest you go down to the post office and ask in there. Rosemary knows everything that goes on in Sinew"
Ruby went to see Rosemary, who equally as flummoxed and suggested placing a poster in the post office window asking for any information about Steph. In the meantime she could get a room for the night near the glue factory.
Parking up the Triumph, Ruby was exasperated. Where in earth was Steph and why had no-one heard of her? It just didn't make sense for Gods sake.
The guest house was pretty and compact and the bedroom comfortable. She got out her notebooks and a box of pencils. She spent ten minutes sharpening them to a pin-sharp point, whilst she thought.
Ruby looked out of the window over to the distant murky peaks of Northumbria and then settled her eyes on the small glue factory next door to the rear. She pulled up the sash and it was then she first noticed the smell, a rancid, sickly sweet stench that crawled up her nose and down her throat. She gagged and closed the window quickly.
In the middle of the factory yard was a huge circular vat suspended over a massive pile of burning embers. That vat had a giant mechanised spoon stirring it continuously. The contents seemed thick, crimson, steaming and lumpy and she was sure she glimpsed metal rings sticking out and for some strange reason her mind said to her bike clips.
It was then she noticed the bicycles. All stacked up together in a shed. The doors were wide open and Ruby could see them clearly. And count them.
There were five. Five Dales bikes!
"Oh Christ! But where are the other five?" She muttered to herself.
A short fat woman wearing a leather apron was staring up at her watching the place and angrily slammed shut the shed doors, before trudging off into a small cottage to the side.
"Oh yes, Sinew Render is used throughout the village and the neighbouring hamlet, Tendon my dear, a fabulously sticky glue made in the old ways with fresh ingredients"
"Like what?"
"Oh, rogues in the hills dear, strays in the fields, the Great Lord's windfalls you might say"
Dizzy with unease and a growing hunger, Ruby then asked the well-fed landlady if there was anything she could get to eat in Sinew and she replied the butchery, where good prime cuts were available on tasty bread rolls.
Starving, she walked up the high street just as the butcher's latest delivery truck had pulled up. The driver opened the two back doors and a column of pink carcasses hung on hooks. The burly butcher, his arms as thick as logs, came out, greeted the driver and pointed to the first carcass nodding as he hefted the whole thing over his massive shoulder and carried it into the shop, where he slapped it down on a gargantuan wooden block stained scarlet.
Ruby had a very uneasy feeling about that hunk of flesh. It just didn't look right. Yes, it was trussed up but it didn't look like a pig or a cow. She went inside. Asking for a meat roll she took the opportunity to look more closely at the thing on the block, whilst the butcher made her sandwich at the rear.
The carcass, which was headless, was bound together with taut string and any appendages were neatly tucked in. It had been hewn open down the middle and the guts cleaned out no doubt, as there was a gigantic cut from top to bottom. The skin was hairless and pink. Maybe it was a pig after all, a really long pig!
But it was what was snagged under the string at the side that made Ruby catch her breath and her blood run cold.
It was Gordon's black pair of prescription glasses caked in gore!
"Oh my God!"
Ruby gasped and covered her mouth as the butcher handed her her meat roll with crimson fingers.
"You look as though you've seen a ghost Missy!" The butcher laughed and continued to chuckle as Ruby quickly left the butchers, her mouth filling with sick.
She threw the bloody sandwich behind a hedge and headed for the brewery again, where she noticed the other five Dales bicycles chained up at the side and one thrown on the ground.
"Oh Jesus!"
Walking into the bar the few drinkers fell completely silent when Ruby appeared and their gaze followed her to the counter.
"I need a beer quickly please" said Ruby panting, planning to have a skinful.
The barmaid nodded and proudly gestured to the wide local beer assortment brewed on site.
"We've got Scumbag Junkies, Stinking Tramps, Bastard Teens, Lost Tourists, Village Embryos, Five Twat Cyclists and our brand new draught, So Sorry Stephanie"
Ruby froze.
"Stephanie?"
"Yes, a totally new and freshly brewed scarlet ale made from hard-working willing but ultimately petrified tissues, giving it a unique innocence pleading to be released"
Ruby gagged and ran from the bar sobbing.
"Oh God!" She screamed and ran back to the guesthouse to desperately make a phonecall to her boss.
Speaking frantically, Ruby described the sinister goings-on in Sinew, her words falling over each other like the corpses piling up in this village of gore.
Suddenly a finger pressed down the phone receiver and cut the call off.
Ruby shivered and slowly turned to face whoever was stood next to her.
The vicar.
It was the vicar she had met the day before. Behind him stood the barmaid, the butcher, the landlady, the glue maker, the postmistress and the entire population of Sinew, all staring intently at Ruby, their blood-lust palpable in the air
"Now Missy, you've been so rude, sticking your nose in our private business so let's not be too hasty casting any aspersions at these diligent folks, who simply wish to follow the arcane ways and the one true religion. Our sacrifices to the Dark Lord ensure a plentiful larder all year round and we never grow old. We don't need children and we certainly don't need prying strangers like you!"
"And Steph?"
"Ah, dear Stephanie, she was our annual offering, coming of her own free will, her flesh all the sweeter for it. At the end she begged for mercy and called out your name. We knew you would come. We've been waiting for you!"
Suddenly a hundred pairs of hands violently grabbed Ruby ripping the clothes from her body.
She screamed for her life.
The baying mob then frenziedly pushed her sharpened pencils brutally into her soft armpits and ankles and dragged her out of the house bleeding profusely and moaning in agony.
"Where to my sweet Congregation?"
"The brewery, High Priest! The brewery!" They yelled in unison.
"Ah yes, the two blended friends on offer to us side by side, a splendid idea!"
The following day a new beer was available at the Sinew brewery, made from Ruby's notebooks and her raw minced meat, giving it a papery, mushy chug and a reddened head.
They'd called it 'Nosey Fucking Parker' and each red glassful came free with a sharpened pencil for carefully stirring the pulpy shreds of Ruby's notes.
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