THE NEIGHBOUR

WARNING: VERY EXPLICIT CONTENT!

We moved in the place, the winter of 1970. It'd been empty for years. We were gonna raise a family there. Our dream-house.

The wind was screaming like a wraith when we arrived. It rained forever. Very unusual weather.

When the freakish storm subsided one warmer evening I was stood on the stoop. The world was scrubbed clean, the dusty petrichor lingered in the air. It felt like a page had been ripped out of a diary.

I drank my bottle of Coors slowly taking in the new night. It was real quiet. Crime had dropped dramatically in town. In fact crime had fallen everywhere. Really weird.

Not far from us was another wooden place. It was the only neighbour for miles. Someone was sitting on the veranda in the shadows. Smoking. I could see the cigarette's red glow and the tip of a nose. It looked red too. There was a really huge plume of smoke rising up.

"Seen the neighbour Hon. He's a smoker. Looks OK though. Old."

"We'll take him some pumpkin pie tomorrow and say hi" My Missus was always using pie as a social handshake. It seemed to work.

The next day we knocked on the door. It seemed strangely charred round the handle. A crooked elderly male slowly opened up.

"Yes" he said with a sort of lethargic hiss.

"Hi there. We're your new neighbours. We brought you some pumpkin pie seein' as its Halloween tomorrow an' all".

"Thankyou" he hissed again, "Very kind. I'd ask you in only I'm just heating the place up for the day. It's so cold. I hate the damn cold."

He took the pie and closed the door and that was that.

Outside we noticed a rusty old beat-up but ultra-long Lincoln Continental. The Presidential no less! It was knee-high in weeds and the garish custom crimson paint job was flaking off everywhere like scabs.

"Jesus. A Lincoln Presidential! That's kinda ... "

I didn't get to finish as my wife tripped over something.

"A goddam whip! I could have sworn it wrapped round my ankle ... on purpose!"

We inspected the thing and besides being made of long tanned hide it also had a very nasty barb on its tip. Like an arrowhead but rusted to hell.

The next day I busied myself hollowing out pumpkins and the Missus was cooking up a colossal pan of gumbo in the kitchen. We'd invited a few old friends from back North for a Halloween party. A house warming too.

As I was throwing beers into a tub of cold water on the stoop I noticed our neighbour leaning against his Lincoln smoking again.

"Howdi!" I shouted, "fancy a beer?" I held up two bottles.

The old man nodded and shuffled over to our house and sat on the step. He was wearing a woollen hat and a huge overcoat. There were bulges in his hat, which were odd. His trousers were far too long and draped over his ancient boots. These seemed too big as well. Maybe he was sick and had lost weight. His skin was awful tight and sunburnt. He looked scalded. Maybe he'd worked outdoors all his life. He looked like a bum.

"Here ya go!"

I handed him a cold one and I could have sworn it sizzled on the wet glass when he got hold.

My Missus came out from the kitchen and joined us.

"Why Howdi!" she said as I gave her a beer too.

"You lived here long?" she asked the old man.

"Years. Years. I been here years. I think. I lost my way and here I stayed. I've been sick you see" he rasped, "sick and weary. A weary soul you might say. I lost all my faith and fell. Or rose, depending on your view. My friends deserted me. I'm alone now. No more important work. Job done it would seem. Idle and alone now. No flamin' fun. No sexxxx....." he droned and this babbling just faded away as if he were daydreaming.

The wife and I looked at each other. I nodded to her to say something.

"That sounds awfully sad. Tell you what. Why not come round tonight. Were having some guests over for a Halloween party!"

As if a switch had been flicked the old man lifted his sun-dried head and stared at us.

"A Halloween party you say! Is it Halloween today? I used to know it off by heart. Today. Well I'll be damned!" He seemed to chuckle at this and quickly stood.

He stared at my wife and asked in all seriousness, "Will you be there my dear?"

"Yes of course"she said.

"Fancy dress. You got anything to wear?" I asked.

"Fancy dress! Oh yes. I'm all sorted in that department thanks. What time shall I sweep by?" He asked with new enthusiasm.

"8".

He shuffled off but something had clearly put a spring in his step. Maybe it was the thought of a party. He can't have let his hair down in years!

Our friends arrived, after a long drive, suitably attired. They looked like the Monster Squad in their chevvy.

Dracula. Frankenstein. The Witch, his wife.

My wife was a She-Devil complete with pitch-fork and tail and I was Wolfman. Teeth. The lot.

The party started in earnest and we drank cold beers and danced to the Stones. The gumbo went down a storm and a few more beers too. We'd completely forgotten about our neighbour.

He arrived at 11pm. Jagger's line "pleased to meet you, don't you ....." was blurring out of the speakers as he knocked.

"Hello neighbours!" He beamed when I opened the door "I hope I'm not too late. I couldn't find my flamin' horns!"

The old man pointed to his head and I could see he'd come dressed as the devil: horns, red fork and barbed tail an' all. He looked good.

Something was different about him though. He seemed taller. Younger. More agile. His costume was the best devil outfit I'd ever seen. He looked like Old Nick himself!

"Come in, er, Satan!" I laughed.

"I thought you'd never ask!" he hissed. 

The old man wore a swirling red cape and blew into the room like a wind. He howled at the sight of Frankenstein.

"The Baron's bastard child! How adorable! One of my own!"

Dracula brought an even crazier response.

"Ah, the Count, you sly old leach, what mischief, what bloody mayhem! So close to my heart. I think I've got one somewhere!" 

He laughed loudly at his own unintelligible joke and our friends looked bemused by this stranger. Bewildered. Even a little frightened.

"This is our Neighbour everyone!" I declared to the party somewhat half-heartedly. Somehow I felt a little embarrassed.

"What you drinkin'?" my friend Dracula asked the old fella.

"A Bloody Mary my good Count, the bloodier the better eh!"

He really didn't seem like the same jittery old sod I'd met on our stoop earlier in the day. Its as if he'd been cured of whatever ailed him, as if he'd had an infusion!

It was really unnerving and I wondered whether my Missus would agree.

"Ah, devilled eggs! My favourite treat. After all, we should all take a bit of what we fancy" exclaimed the neighbour and popped several half-eggs between his thin red lips, "Exquisite! handy grenades of delicious life, eggs. Don't you think? But where's the cook? I wish to compliment her!"

He twirled his cape wide across the floor and burped loudly as he strode into the kitchen where my wife and her best friend were chatting. The air smelt suddenly goddam terrible and and I felt sick. I noticed with a little fear that my friend's looked sick too.

I clutched my stomach and thankfully staved off vomiting. I wandered towards the kitchen to get some water.

When I stood at the door the scene that confronted me froze my blood with horror and I dropped my beer onto the tile floor with a smash. I couldn't take it in and slapped my face.

Our old neighbour was penetrating my wife pneumatically from the rear with a huge engorged red dick, his hands behind his horned head as if modelling for some damn glamour magazine. Our friend, the Witch, was stark naked and licking the old man's scarlet ass, writhing in ecstasy like some fuckin' python on the floor.

"Ah, Come in Wolfie! Join the fun! I'm not greedy! For some devilish reason I'm just irresistible to women! I say though, your wife make's a damn fine She-Devil cock pocket! ha ha ha ha!" the old bastard laughed.

"What the fuck are ya doin' to my wife you cocksucking fuckin' hobo!" I screamed.

"Why, I'm fuckin' her senseless of course Wolfie! And my dear chap, I'll think you'll find that the Witch has been doin' all the cocksuckin!" he replied with mock indignation, his forked tail whipping round like a dog on heat.

It was then I noticed that his boots had been thrown off and his feet were ... weren't ..... oh, fuck me, they're not feet, they're hooves! Oh my dear God in fuckin' Heaven.

"Oh Him, he's a big party pooper. You didn't invite him too did you! I'm having so much fun again! Next I'll take Dracula, Frankie and then you my dear chap!" roared the neighbour.

I staggered out into the lounge blinking away tears and felt my knees giving way. My two friends came to help me.

"What's wrong?"

"He's fuckin' my wife and your's is fuckin' next!" I shrieked, my face contorting into a maniacal laugh.

"What? For God's sake who are you talking about?" they yelled.

"Our neighbour, the fuckin' Devil. He's really the fuckin' Devil!" I screamed at the top of my voice and knew something had snapped in my mind. I howled with laughter and fell to the carpet as my friends ran to the kitchen.

In my stupor I heard yelps, grunts, slaps, snorts, slits, moans, pain, agony and whimpers until all I heard was silence.

"Exquisite Wolfie my friend, quite delightful. I hope you don't mind, I helped myself to a big plate of ... well, everyone. I forked the whole lot! The best party I've ruined in years!" he sniggered.

As his crimson fork pierced my back with an audible pop, he cackled his thanks for being invited. 

"Great house warming!"

My final view was of the Devil himself walking into the street where goblins and imps were surging over each other's wet convulsing bodies in a sea of flames.

"I'm back!" our neighbour shouted.

"I'm back!"

THE BOY BY THE HEADSTONE

I entered the graveyard as I always do through the iron gate at night. It soothes me to take the air of an evening after the fuss and clamour of the working day. As the village mortician I don't mind the dead and feel at home.

And so it was that I crossed the main pathway where the gaslight of the gravediggers' office still cast its pale clarity over the headstones. Sweep Teelins. Little Rath. Corporal Unbekant. They were all there. Once my work. Now my nocturnal acquaintances, dreaming in beds of earth and flowers.

My pipesmoke curled in the chill as I turned down the farthest path heading for the new field where the recent dead were buried. Some had yet to get headstones. Their serried ranks in perfect lines suggested orderly demises, but I knew only too well, having met them on the slab, that it was by accident, chance and grim tragedy that snatched most souls from this bustling world. And yet, despite this glum lottery and the sad inscriptions, the departed achieved a sort of stillness beyond the shrill whir of the living.

It was with such comforting philosophy that I rounded the field to the row's end. I hesitated. The night seemed suddenly colder here and I plumped my scarf as I felt the pinch of tomorrow's frost in the air. I reached the final grave and froze.

Crouched beside the headstone was a young boy staring at me in the darkness. Only the red embers of my tobacco afforded me any light and it was through this weak crimson glow that I saw the child or so I thought.

He was thin and naked and clutching the stone as if not wishing to let go. His drawn face seemed anguished and turned from side to side as if he were hiding from something I couldn't see.

I called out.

"Hey you there. Young boy. Don't be afraid. Are you hurt? What are you doing out here at night in the freezing cold?"

The boy stopped moving, stared in my direction with wide eyes, gasped and proceeded to do such a thing as I hope never to witness again in all my life. He stood bolt upright, sprang into air and jumped onto the grave, whereupon the child vanished into the earth entirely and was gone.

I stood still for a long while. My pipe burned out. I was gripped with abject fear from the craven scene I had just observed. My mind reeled. Had I really seen the boy enter the ground like some human mole? How was such a thing possible? And then there was a much less substantial explanation, one which I was unwilling to countenance until I was once more warming in front of my fire. Shivering, I decided that I would inspect the grave for any ingress but to do this the following day in the full light of the sun.

I took one more look at the startling plot and headed for home with a pace much brisker than when I came.

The next morning I revisited the grave. All was in order and I could see no entrance, hole or fissure through which the mysterious boy could have left. What I could see, however, was his name now I was in daylight. The inscription, albeit very short, read:

ALBERT MILK. 1880-1889. ROOKERY HOME FOR WAYWARD BOYS.

So this was the grave of Albert Milk, who at the tender age of 9 died far too young this very year. When he should have been climbing trees with his chums he was instead in the care of the Almighty Father. I felt so sad for Albert, plucked from this life so soon and felt guilty for my own rude health and longevity. I had certainly not worked on him in the mortuary.

But who was the poor boy by the graveside? His grieving brother? A fellow guest of the Rookery Home? I didn't know but my curiosity was deeply stirred. I took off my hat and paid my respects to the young Milk resting before me and pledged to afford him a few flowers at least, as nobody else had clearly not left any on this new burial.

Under the broadcast of a full moon I returned to the graveyard that night in the hope of seeing the strange child from the evening before. I had come bearing gifts, both for the living and the departed; a handful of fresh narcissi in a bottle of water out of respect for Albert and another corked bottle filled with milk from my own pitcher, a simple gesture toward the dead boy but also an offering of nourishment for his visitor. Next to this I lay a loaf of fresh bread.

Sitting at the bench at the pathside I pulled down my hat and bracing against the nocturnal chill I waited longer than the previous day. I may have fallen asleep a while but it was the sound of the milk bottle clinking against the headstone that woke me. I stared intently ar the grave in the hope of seeing who or what had knocked it over. And it was then that I saw him again.

The young mourner had returned. He was, as the night before, crouched and shivering at the edge of the sandstone slab, his eyes darting from side to side. The milk bottle lay flat now and its contents, I suspected, had seeped into the freshly turned soil as one small patch appeared to glisten. The boy paid no heed to me nor the bottle nor the bread. His dishevelled head flitted this way and that and suddenly he leapt up and hid against the stone facing me, cowering as if some malevolent force was at work. He was clutching a roughly-made wooden doll.

I stood and again called to him, beckoning with my gloved hand:

"Come here child, I mean you no harm. Let us leave here together for hot food and warmth nearby."

I stepped forward.

The village clock sounded eleven down the way and in that very instant the wooden doll was ripped from his hands and torn apart in mid-air. The boy screamed.

He himself was then pitched violently into the night and then jerked back, his spine arching as he flew against the gravestone. He fell upon it with a terrible and audible snap.

Clearly injured he sobbed and shielded his head but his arms were viciously twisted away and his face was flung from side to side, as if being struck by an unseen hand and I could hear the appalling slaps against his young cheeks vividly. His small figure slumped down upon the soil and lay still.

I was aghast with frozen fear as I witnessed this heinous assault played out before me. I knew in my soul it was not of this world, that it was a phantasm of the dead. I had watched the ghost of the boy in its final moments. And it was those agonised moments that filled me with both pity for this poor wretch's sorrowful plight but also anger towards his grievous assailant.

I closed my eyes and wept as the full act swept over me. I clutched my hat and shakily made the sign of the cross.

But it was not over.

The crumpled child now stood up and with no visible signs of injury walked slowly out of the graveyard in his bare feet, the wooden doll dangling from his hand.

Still in a state of shock and badly shaken I was unable to move. I watched the spirit walk away and my chance to follow the boy was missed. I avowed to return the following night at the same time. It was half past the hour of eleven.

The next night I pursued the figure as I had predicted at the same hour. I walked behind him as he slowly strode into the heart of the village. I realised that late-night revellers could not see him ad I did as they staggered straight through him.

The boy entered an iron gate and into the large grounds of an estate. The winter trees were black and ominous in the pitch night and I could hear the caws of sleepless rooks in the dark crowns. 

The boy stopped some way in and stared up at the twisted sign on a vast dilapidated building, the old manor house long renamed as The Rookery Home for Wayward Boys. He trembled and walked straight through the door and out of sight. I quickly gathered my senses and gently opened the large oak door and I too stepped in.

The hall was without any light, cavernous and utterly deserted and I recalled that I had read in the local Herald that the home had closed suddenly some weeks ago under suspicious circumstances, the koffers emptied of their charitable stipend left by the long dead Lord of the Manor. It felt hollow like the receding edge of all that was good.

The boy climbed the colossal staircase in the centre of the hall and looked tiny on the massive steps, his wooden doll hitting each riser. He turned on the landing and I followed him round the corner onto a long, straight and pictureless corridor bereft of all life. He halted and gazed at a cracked door upon which was pinned a ragged chit of paper. On it was the word Milk crossed through and the word Spilt scrawled below it roughly in crayon with an exclamation mark. He looked at me blankly and walked through the door.

I realised as he looked at me and as I stood in front of that crossed-out name that the ghost I had accompanied from the graveyard was without doubt that of Albert Milk and that some dreadful ill had befallen him in the room before me.

I shuddered and was afraid of what I would see if I opened the door and entered the boy's room. I was sure he had met his shocking end inside.

Bolstering what little courage I had I made my way in. My candle spluttered violently and I struggled to see in the flickering gloom. I heard the voice clearly though, the voice of an angry man:

"You little bastard Milk, you're a fuckin' wastrel, a tearaway and a runt. I'm going to teach you a lesson you won't forget!"

"Please Mister Clay , don't hurt me again! I didn't mean to ..."

Albert Milk didn't get to finish his plea as I heard the man grab the child and wrench his doll from his hand. I raised my candle and saw clearly how its wooden limbs clattered to the floor, pulled apart just as I had witnessed at the boys's grave and I was filled with fear for what cruelty was to come.

The man was muscular and broad, hardened by years of savagery towards his innocent wards hidden behind the respectable pillars of the Rookery. he picked up tiny Albert as if he were an empty sack and, as I knew he would, flung him outwards and then inwards against the wall. Albert groaned in abject torment as the brute proceeded to beat him about the head with his powerful fists, spraying blood across the room. The beast of a man was breathing heavily as his rage peaked with one final bone-crunching blow and Albert made no further sounds as he collapsed to the ground. The man crouched over his body panting, his chest heaving having expended all his limitless fury on a young boy. Gradually he rose and clearly realised he had brutally murdered Albert Milk and like a fading mist the scene dissipated once more into nothing.

I saw all of this. Felt all of this and I was utterly shaken to the core of my being. I was violently sick and staggered out of the room clasping my spitting candle and into the corridor. My outrage turned to apoplexy as I saw that each door along the corridor had a note pinned to it. On each was a name crossed out. The enormity of what I had seen and what I was facing dawned on me and I was overwhelmed. The brute had murdered them all.

It was at that moment that I became aware of the corridor filling with a presence or more precisely presences. I peered into the gloom and through the yellow glow of my candle I saw a hundred or so small figures hobbling out of the rooms and shuffling towards me, broken toys hanging from their swollen hands. They were the ghosts of all the children slaughtered in the home, all hideously battered and misshapen.

I fell back and sat as this entourage of misery slowly shambled over me. I could feel the children's collective pain as they vanished as they passed. The last child to arrive was Albert Milk. He faced me intently and whispered a single word before he too faded to nothing.

"Clay".

I left the Rookery with the name ringing in my ears, growing louder and louder all the time. The crowing of the rooks in the dreadful trees pecked at my mind as each seemed to cough up this name.

"Clay".

Shattered I reached my house. I slept a whole two days, a slumber from which I awoke and knew clearly what I had to do. There was only one way justice could be served correctly for those murdered boys.

Being the town's mortician I made enquiries with my police contacts as to the address of one Mister Clay of the Rookery. As no evidence of fraud at the Home could be proven he had dropped from their sights and was of no longer of interest.

This confirmed my worst fears that Clay would never face any charges for any crime, so I lied and told the Sergeant that he was someone I had to find urgently in order to inform them of a relative's untimely death. His address was given freely to me.

"1 Rag Street".

I planned my excursion for the day after. I knew this to be an unsavoury quarter as I had had mortuary business there. I would have to be on my guard. I arrived in Rag Street early the next morning by carriage and knocked on the door of number 1. I expected trouble from the brute Clay so I readied my revolver under my cape. My hearse carriage was instructed to return in 10 minutes.

"Yeah, What do you want!" he grunted.

"Hello Mr. Clay. I am the village mortician. I have some news about the estate of a dead acquaintance of yours. It seems you are due a substantial windfall. May I come in?"

"Money you say? Hmmm. I suppose you'd best do"

We stood facing each other in the squalid hallway and before he could say another word I shot him twice, once in each leg. He fell to the floor screaming. I placed a mortician's sack over his head and opened the door to the waiting hearse. With the aid of my driver Clay was bundled into the rear and we drove swiftly. To the Rookery Home for Wayward Boys.

The coach rattled along the roads and swept through the open gates into the rook's domain. They jostled and joked in the far-off tops as we sped towards the huge doors of the old mansion.

Clay moaned under his sack and blood had slicked in the footwell. The driver and I nearly slipped dragging his bulk into the house and up the stairs. We wrestled him into one of the rooms, removed the sack and left him there crippled. It was the room marked on the door as Milk. I sensed the teeming throng of dead boys waiting for us to leave.

As the driver and I ran from the house we heard Clay's terrible screams peeling through the night. They grew and grew in intensity and I could not imagine the fearful wrath he suffered at the hands of the children from the home.

When at last his awful howling stopped the rooks ascended from the trees and I suspect they left that craven place forever.

Several days later, after resting my tired form, I revisited the graveyard and sat at the bench where I had been that fateful night. I had once again brought gifts but this time only for the peaceful dead.

I knelt and removed any debris and gently placed four items by the headstone: a fresh bouquet of narcissi, a simple wooden doll, a loaf of bread and a small bottle of milk.

I sat down and waited. I waited for an hour in the cold but thankfully there was no sign of the ghostly apparition from a few nights ago. I rose to go and in the corner of my eye I imagined I saw a healthy little boy heartily guzzling the cream from the glass bottle but when I looked again nothing had been touched.

I smiled and left.

As I walked away I whispered:

"Goodnight and God bless Albert Milk, you can rest in peace now".

A YORKIST RAIDING PARTY

The autumn descended gradually that year. As gently as a rusted sword sliding slowly into bare ground. 

The brown leaves of the English oaks were heavy with dew, the branches quivering in the morning light. The air was chilled but not cold, sunshine casting the forest in gold for the final swaggers of the calendar.

The soldier, Gwynplaine, was fatigued. He had been lumbering his pack over wide grasslands before he'd reached that wood. His sabre jostled as he trudged through the mud, its basket hilt banging against his belt.

A toad licked the leather of his boot.

He had been with his York company on a raiding party before losing his way.

The men had become weary of battle and sought shelter in one of the many grand houses garnishing the Pennine estates. Here they could eat, sleep, release their load and perhaps wash away the blackened blood of Lancaster's men. They would also commandeer new weapons and mint for the imminent fray at Towdon.

But somewhere, in the dense Bowland forest,  Gwynplaine had been detached from this band and never reached the house.

After staggering wildly through scrub and brush he knew he was hopelessly lost.

His best plan now was to carry straight on through the trees in the hope of finding a river or trail which he could follow out of the endless woods.

The morning turned to midday. Shortly he came upon a grassy pool. Appearing clear and fresh, weighed down by army pack and halberd strapped to his back, the soldier loosened his dented cuirass and dipped his neck tie into the silver water to wash his hands and nape. He placed his helmet on the grass and dipped his face and long hair into the pool, at once cooling and soothing his chafed skin. He drank deeply and savoured the cold water rushing over his parched lips as he slaked his immense thirst. His throat felt unnaturally dry, as dry as bonemeal, as he drank.

Crows hopped across the bank sods.

In the distant marches his company, now resigned to him missing, had settled on a large regal house to sack. 

The owner, Lord Pendule, terrified of what they might do to his wife, bade her escape via the ginnel to the marsh. But she refused and only when he implored her for the sake of their unborn child did she relent and sobbing, turned with coin, water, pot and food through the sequestered snicket just out of sight.

But it was too late. A scouting pikeman, keen for a kill, came upon her and pushed his iron-tipped lance deep into her belly. She looked down at the impossible timber and moaned louder and louder until the soldier let go. Lady Pendule fell to her knees clutching the unwanted thing impaling the new life within her; gouts of their blood reddening the ground. 

With this she fell, full-poled and crawled into the yard. She grasped for Pendule, out of reach and watched as her beloved, unaware of her plight, tried to buy their guaranteed safety. 

He placed a gold coin in each of the Yorkists' pockets. He nodded as he did so, in deference, but also affirming the hoped-for meaning of his gift.

When all were proffered the warriors also nodded and suddenly, cruelly turned on the Earl.

They hurled him to the ground and laughing, each soldier took his turn to pierce Pendule's soft body with halberd, pike and sabre. He screamed in agony and stared in disbelief at their barbarism.

His faithful chimp, Fairsnape, dressed as his knave, was appalled and attacked several of the soldiers, flinging them aside. 

It tried bravely to protect its master, ripping off the white rose flag from a crumpling Yorkist. But despite its size and strength Fairsnape was savagely skewered through the ribs by the company's bitter captain, Ravenscar.

Fairsnape's almost-human eyes sought his master's forgiveness as the soldiers hurled its bleeding bulk against a tree where it fell into the undergrowth. Horribly injured and dazed, it waited and slowly crawled away into the forest scrub leaving a thick trail of blood where a wet flag dragged along the ground.

Profoundly gored and crying, the Lord Pendule gasped, as he now saw his crassly wounded wife just visible by the wall. He stretched  out an arm from his mangled frame and forged his departing spirit into one final wailing testament of "I LOOOOOOVE YOOOOOU!", before a billhook impaled his breast and with a sickening gargle he was gone.

Lady Pendule stared incredulously at the butchery of her husband and close to insanity she screamed an oath so chilling and plain that all those bloody curs of York froze still.


"I swear by the life of my Lord and of our broken child, so terribly metalled in my gut, that you Yorkists shall be braddled and poured by a hand of this Lancashire house before Autumn has fell. This is my curse on you all".

Fairsnape heard the Lady's aching words and saw his master so cruelly hooked by these grievous wolves. It wept into its palms and felt nothing but hatred for the the white rose they all carried. 

"M-a-s-t-e-r ugh oo", choked Fairsnape and as it banged its head upon the ground it began to imagine the Lady's terrible vengeance they so richly deserved.

Secreting into the shadows of the pines, the monkey made for the cover of the deep forest and after some hours had found a safe and hidden thicket where it sobbed till its simian heart broke like a bird's skull. Heaven took it but it was only sleep and dreams made it shake, damned dreams of human kindness, untold agony, gold and bloody reckoning.

Beyond the chase Gwynplaine slept in the autumn sunshine, small flies boozing on the blood dried-up upon his halberd. He dreamt of running through the crouchbacks with his razor bill, dispatching them in fine arcs and severing their handiness in the field. His face was showered with roses red-thick with blood and as they dripped into his cracked mouth he awoke panting, his shirt soaked with sweat, steaming in the cold evening air.

Rooks screamed in the oak tops.

He set out once more and shambled through sharp briars and thorn, slicing wildly with his sword and shredding his hands. Spots of blood flecked his cuffs, ruff and face and he panted and puffed, becoming increasingly anguished in the clasp of the agonising tangle. A large rose-thorn slit his cheek clean open and his cuirass was drenched in red. He screamed and cursed the land that irked him. His white rose banner was stained red.

Gwynplaine shuffled into a distant clearing like the battle-torn, a blood-soaked sack of cassock and steel. He only half-noticed a man on all-fours before he fell down like a bag of guts. 

He awoke violently to the cold slap of skin across his scabbed face. He opened his crusty wet eyes to half-see the fogged outline of a man stood erect over him.

"Ugh!" the man demanded, its face hidden in slit sunlight.

The soldier gripped the hilt of his sabre and began to draw. Quicker of hand, the man swirled a palm down onto his head and clamped it tight.

"Be still Sir, be still, I mean you no ill", flustered Gwynplaine, sensing the jittery grip of this hairy knave.

"I am Gwynplaine, soldier. And to whom do I speak?"

"Ugh Ugh," grunted Fairsnape still grasping his head.

Gwynplaine squinting, held up his empty hands as a sign of goodwill.

The man standing in blinding sunlight very slowly released his scalp.

"May I rise Sir?"

Fairsnape stepped back and lowered his arms to the ground but all the while staring at the soldier.

Gwynplaine stood and saw for the first time that the man was really a large monkey, an animal-man he'd heard whispers of in the loud bars of Whitby docks.

He noticed fully how drenched the monkey was in blood. He also noticed the white rose flag hanging ragged from his pocket and immediately relaxed. This was a Yorkist ape-man. One of his own, no doubt the mascot of a raiding company and like himself lost.

Fairsnape grinned alarmingly and scratched his hairy chin. He trusted not any man other than his master now dead. He eyed however the reddened rose banner draped on his sack and knew this soldier to be of his Master's pack and therefore his own.

Fairsnape pursed his mouth and grinned again, this time with no malice.

The soldier sighed and moved to release his sack. He realised that he was starving and sought make food before he collapsed.

"Sit awhile Sir Ape" Gwynplaine gestured kindly. "I am to make broth, which I fear we both need after much toil".

Fairsnape scratched his nose.

Gwynnplaine lit a fire and readied a pot from his supplies.

"Yes my friend, we are greatly fatigued from bloody cuts and would welcome a hot cup I wager," reasoned the soldier.

Gwynplaine busied himself with fruits, herbs, garlic, roots and stream-water from nearby and nimbly stirred them together. The pot was set upon a small fire of brash. Smoke rose like a dead man's soul and soon spooned the steaming soup into wooden beakers.

He passed one to the monkey, who having positioned himself on a large boulder, sat and held it like the Host,  clasped with both of his leathery hands to warm them in the evening chill. Like the man he blew the broth and drank. The meal was completed with bread from the soldier.

Both full, Gwynplaine brought out a large flask of rum and offeted it to Fairsnape. The chimpanzee gulped heartily and burped.

The soldier did the same and they both laughed and drank some more.

When the flask was empty Fairsnape was quite drunk and lolling round the clearing, dragging his hands on the scrub and slapping the trees. 

Holding a hide of water Gwynplaine flicked some at Fairsnape laughing  loudly at his antics. Before long both were emptying beakers of water over each other causing both to roll around with laughter.

With one final cup each they guffawed and threw the last of water at one another. Their waistcoats were soaked.

Bracing each other and howling, it was then that Fairsnape noticed the soldier's hanging flag. It was drenched and as the blood washed off it, the red rose had turned white.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh," moaned the ape as it pointed at the flag.

Gwynplaine looked down and saw too. The ape grimaced with menace and beat his chest.

Gwynplaine drew his sword and held it out towards the chimp.

"Stay back Ape Man! So you don't like the white rose eh! You must be Lancastrian scum after all! And to think I had you down as Yorkshire like me!"

Thinking of the men who had slain his master and lady Fairsnape leapt. With flailing arms he pounced on the soldier, who despite gashing the ape's cheek, was knocked unconscious to the ground.

When he awoke Gwynplaine found himself pinned down by large rocks on his hands and feet. He was spreadeagled and naked.

Fairsnape took the soldier's sword and to Gwynplaine's horror, drew it slowly down his forehead and his face in a central line, along his throat and down his torso.

The soldier screamed and tried to free himself but the rocks were too great to budge. Blood welled from the slit along his body and panting heavily he begged the ape to stop.

Fairsnape, eyes burning with hatred, panted back and kneeling over the man's abdomen, pushed his fingers deep into the cut and into Gwynplaine's body.

The soldier shrieked in pain but to no avail. The ape tensed his great muscles and drew his hands apart. The soldier's ribcage began to split and gradually fan outwards. With one final bloody heave it fell open like a cupboard.

Gwynplaine bellowed in agony as Fairsnape took hold of his guts. Staring in disbelief he watched as his own innards were pulled out and slung next to him steaming. It was the last thing he ever saw as death took him away.

Fairsnape continued to gut the body, bone it and eventually de-glove it. Finally and bathed in blood, the ape held up a perfect suit of Gwynplaine's skin.

"Ugh, ugh," he nodded.

The suit of skin was placed flat on the ground. Fairsnape removed all his knave's clothing and made them into a neat pile behind a bush. He folded out the skin so that it was open. He then laid down with his back on top of the skin. He gently eased his arms into the skin arms and then his legs as if putting on a pair of trousers. Lastly, Fairsnape pulled the hair and head bag over his own head and peered through the eye holes that had once been Gwynplaine's.

It was a tight fit as the Yorkist had not been a large man but the ape was able to move around quite well in his new 'suit'. He dressed in Gwynplaine's bloodied clothes and for all intents and purposes looked like him.

Gathering the soldier's sack and weapons the ape-man strolled off through the forest grinning. A toad leapt off his sleeve as he did so. "Ribbit!"

Jackdaws coughed in the canopy above.

It was dark when Fairsnape reached the House of Pendule. Flaming braziers stood at either side of the gateway, where a Yorkist sentry sat on watch. The fires cast shadows all round him and he blew into hands to keep warm.

When he saw Fairsnape approach he stood and stared.

"Gwynplaine, where the fuck have you been? Jesus Lord, you look like you've seen some action. The Captain thought you'd deserted. Christ, he was mad!"

The ape-man patted the sentry on his back, grunted and shrugged and without pausing for breath grabbed his head and shoved it face down into one of the burning braziers. The sentry screamed but Fairsnape pushed harder until the whole head was alight. There was no more sound coming from it.

He continued down the path to the house flinging some smoking scalp into the long grass. He removed his bag and chattels and left them behind a pedestal.

He opened the great doors gently as he had always done and steeped in darkness crept silently into his home. He moaned at the loss he felt for his beloved master and his lady. He had never felt pain like it and only the thought of revenge could salve the wound.


Fairsnape headed for the kitchen downstairs. All the servants had either been slain or escaped. He re-kindled the large fire and hung a cauldron above it. Next he repaired to the counting house nearby and dragged in sack after sack of gold and silver, the master's tithe from his tenant farmers.

The ape laboured and toiled in the kitchen into the small hours as he tipped the coins into the cauldron. He kept the fire stocked and the flames danced under his supervision. He stirred the melting metal until it was molten and nodded his satisfaction.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh," he approved.

Like a wraith he carried the pot to the pulley, where he turned the huge iron handle. The cauldron rose slowly through the ceiling hatch beyond the kitchens, the halls and up into the barracks where the Yorkists were certainly resting. The pot stopped in the nook behind the fire and swung gently on its hook.

Fairsnape bound up the grand stairs taking four steps at a time and nearing the end gate-vaulted over the balustrades until he was facing the barracks door. He eased it open and slid in.

He grabbed the pot of molten gold and silver and swung it over the fire to re-heat it. Some of the sleeping men moaned and shifted in their plump Lancastrian beds. Fairsnape stopped and looked, twitching his nose. When quiet again he unhooked a huge ladle from the fire wall and once stirred his golden pool.

The barracks were rigged with a ceiling pulley for the cauldron for feeding hungry troops. Fairsnape pulled the large smoking pot into the centre of the room, where it was lowered and wavered just above the stone floor.

The ape took the ladle and drew a full measure of red-hot metal. He loped over to the first of the sleeping Yorkists, their foul Captain Ravenscar and gingerly opening his mouth, poured the ladle's contents in. The gold sizzled as it entered the soldier's mouth and throat and his eyes shot open in shock, but no scream could be heard as the metal instantly burnt away his vocal chords. As it traveled further and slid into his stomach, it evaporated the acids and formed a bowl of gold, where it cooled and set. Some leaked out at the bottom but just a drop. The Captain choked to death, twitching as the gold set and then, completely still, smoke rising from his open mouth, nose and eyes.

Fairsnape repeated this procedure ten more times until every soldier who had rid him of his master was repaid so. These were their wages, the wages of wrath. The eleven invaders lay dead, their hands transfixed into rigid claws.

The ape stood and stared at his handiwork, the large ladle in his thick hand, metal dripping from it like amber broth.

He ripped off Gwynplaine's skin and threw it in the fire. Next he brought a set of sharp knives from the kitchen and set about his final task.

He butchered the bodies in the way he had seen the cook carve pigs, slicing, boning, removing. Gradually he found the gold again. 

Taking the cooled metal from each of the Yorkists he stared in wonder at them. He lined the metal up on the large table. Eleven golden ladles with long handles and deep bowls, where the metal had settled.

They gleamed in the firelight.

Fairsnape polished the ladles with rags and hung one on the wall above each of the mangled bodies.

The ape scratched his face and trotted downstairs into the kitchen to look for some fruit. He wondered if he would ever need to make any more golden ladles for his house again.

MY NEW BOOK: TOY BUNNIES ON PLASTIC SCOOTERS

I've published my new book!

Toy Bunnies on Plastic Scooters!

Yay!

Its been 8 years in the making! I started it after publishing my last effort, The Art of SWORD.

It was fun to research and I'm glad its published now.

It's published and available through online self-publishing outlet Blurb

Here's just three of the 40 pages.

Our own Bill B took some of the photo's.

Its more expensive than I would have liked but that's Blurb publishing.

I've reduced the page number by half since i got my proof copy last month, so its now a slimmer coffee table book and as a result a bit less pricey.

If any of you should wish to check my book out further on Blurb then here's the link:

https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/9738228-toy-bunnies-on-plastic-scooters-vintage-sixties-pl

Should anyone actually want to purchase this book after you see Blurb's prices then don't forget to use Blurb's current offer promo code, 
so keep an eye out!

By all means ask me anything you want about how this thing came about or what it covers.

FINDHORN

We went north that summer in our late Seventies.

Touring along the A1.

It was 2029 on the radio.

Our memories were as long as our hair had been. Patchouli whispered to our tie-dyed thoughts and we smiled as the miles fell away.

The car, a bright red Traveller, was old like us but well maintained. Oil topped up. Water filled. No-one really saw us I don't think.

The roads zoomed past like our lives unspooling. Soon we were in Scotland.

Findhorn was not too far away.

Driving driving. North.

We spoke of youthful dreams. Of communal hopes. Of koinonian peace. Of the beautiful Seventies, when we were young and in love and beautiful too.

The lobster fishing villages crawled by, the little trawlers bobbing on the blue, the east coast zagging like an arrow pointing to ...

Findhorn.

We arrived at the Bay, a silver pool salt-kissing the roots of handsome pines. Seagulls shrieked a welcome as we glided by. It looked like Canada we said even though we'd never been.

We sauntered hand in hand around the town, past holidaymakers who didn't notice and meandered out to the commune, copies of Undercurrents blowing past us dated '79, "new members welcomed" it read underlined.

I turned to my lovely Wife and said "We're here baby, we've arrived at last!"

"Yes. Can you believe it my love. Findhorn. After all." she whispered back.

Each picking up a large shell we listened to the sound of the seven seas. It spoke of homecomings, of eternal love and unending sweeps of time and space.

We lay on the beach clutching those shells to our ears, microphones for things beyond our lives in Heaven. We tried to reach....

"Will we ever come back?"

"I hope so dear."

No-one saw us lying there on the shingle that night. We were driftwood snagged in the eddies. We vanished along with the day's castles like skinks of light.

Far away in Yorkshire our children lit two candles on our graves.

They illuminated the words they'd carefully chosen ten years before when we'd crashed in Scotland to the day.

"Mum and Dad, our beloved, hand in hand in far-off Heaven.

    May you get to find your Findhorn along the way"

REEK

It was an odd morning. I caught a bus into town. I had a job interview and nerves were getting the better of me. I shuffled in my seat, my fellow passenger moving to one side to avoid any awkward physical contact. He stunk like a dead slug so I was glad he moved over.

The windows were steamed up with rank morning breath and I could just see outside that the sky was overcast and somehow darkening. It looked apprehensive, dug-in, like a worried wolverine. I felt the same way as we trundled into the bus station.

The job interview was with a large new factory in town. I was one of a several hundred poor sods stood around, hands stuffed in our pockets, tightly wound as if waiting to be gutted on a slab.

I'd heard on the grapevine this brand new meat processing outfit had interviewed thousands of people across the country but no-one had started yet. A new boss was coming from miles away and then everyone would be set on they said.

It was important for me this job. My wife expected me to get it and we needed the money. I'd been made redundent from my last one - a cheese factory - but that was months ago and the pay-out had dried up. Bills were reddening, irksome heralds of something worse.

I tried to look attentive when the interviewer called me in.

"Mr.Strils?"

I shook her hand with feigned gusto and I think she sensed my desperation. She could have offered to lobotomise me and I would have still said yes to the position.

"I'm Miss. Tritus," she rasped and signalled for me to sit down.

She smelt odd though, with a strange and very unpleasant tangy niff, as if an old stinking fridge had been pried open for the first time in years. There was a very discernible whiff of corruption, of infected wounds and bottled pee. It put me  completely off, that sickening fragrance and I didn't hear her ask me a question.

"Sorry, could you repeat that Miss" I blustered desperately reaching for the glass of water on the table. I was suddenly thirsty as hell as bile rose in my throat. I really wished I didn't have my hyper-sensitive sense of smell at that moment. I needed to focus.

"We are looking for people with a strong stomach, less than average eyesight and a weak sense of smell."

"Oh. Right!" I gulped.

"I think I have all of those," I lied.

I lied specifically about my sense of smell. It had been a pain since I'd first smelt my brother's wet bed when we were kids.

It was as pushy as an iron my smell ability and I had an over-active sense of every pong going. It drove my wife crazy. I was suffering unusually today too as my interviewer really stank the place out.

"And I see you have worked with meat before. Did you handle a lot of flesh?"

"I was more on the admin side really. Buying and selling choice cuts for the mincing machines."

"Excellent Strils. We'll need plenty of mince when the ships arrive."

"Ships?"

"Did I say ships? Silly me. I meant chips! We shall be selling mince pies and chips as a new line in our outlets. New management are on their way. They"ll land tomorrow. They're brimming with new ideas and very hungry for success. Its an exciting ....."

The woman cut herself short as if she'd been told something secret and terrible like a death in her family.

"Already?" She mumbled.

"Pardon?" I said.

Before she had chance to say more an alarm sounded across the factory. My interviewer looked annoyed.

"The interview's over young man. Youv'e got what we're looking for I think. We'll be coming for you Strils ... sooner than I thought."

Her voice faded as she jostled me out of her office, her foul sceptic musk nearly overpowering me. As I left she patted my shoulder. I felt as though I'd been marked by a rabid fox.

The alarm was louder in the corridors and people, mostly countless interviewees, shambled along looking for the exit like lambs in a pen.

Outside there was an eerie quiet as the alarm trailed off. We stood in the street like refugees, unsure of what was happening. We trailed out of the gates rubbing our noses. It really had stunk like nothing on Earth.

I grabbed a coffee and caught the 485 home. My wife and I lived by the edge of town on the heathland, in a small cottage I'd inherited from my Aunt. It was a lovely spot, surrounded by heather and pheasants. Our Baskerville Hall we joked. Minus the hound. I was glad to smell country air again.

Alighting the bus I noticed the frogs hopping across the road, seemingly in a hurry. The heather pool was now strangely silent. What on earth had spooked them I wondered? Looking up I did notice how odd the clouds were. Pierced as if knives had passed through them. The distant meat plant glowed.

My family had left that day to visit relatives in Borth. I was alone in the house waiting to hear about the plant job.

No word. Evening came like an unwelcome visitor: vast, smokey and ominous. I could sense the petrichor before the rain turned up. It drenched the heath and battered the roof of the cottage. It was other-worldly.

I used the toilet and lit a match as my parents had. The smell. I went to bed and listened to the storm fuming outside. I could sense its unusual size and muscle as it lashed the moor like something landing, something vast and ghastly.

My curtains were open and the window ajar as I stared apprehensively out of the window into the raging squalls. I dozed off reluctantly around 10pm.

I awoke sneezing and sensed it immediately, something foul approaching across the heath.

I could smell it, a billious reek of necrotic meat and weeks-old piss and I recognised it immediately.

It was Miss. Tritus!

Coming to offer me a job? At this hour?

I could hardly think straight as that familiar stench enveloped my nose and got stronger and stronger.

She was near the house now, at the gate. I was suddenly frightened and I leapt out of bed, ran downstairs in the dark and grabbed the axe next to the fire as a precaution. I got back into bed and waited.

Maybe I didn't get the job after all.

Before she could tell me Miss. Tritus sloughed off her skin and entered the house as a monster-sized snail, slurping along the floor in undulations, leaving a slick trail of scum and slobber.

Her probosci fingered up the wall of the stairs as she homed in on her mark from the factory.

She knew her quarry was near. She was ravenous and had been since emerging from the cosmic spawn carried across the galaxy, which had settled on Earth a month ago. She and her kind were used to blending in and taking on the local form. It was a hard slog but as long as they were fed it was worth it. One of these meaty people would fill her for a year. They didn't smell her coming.

The stink ballooned as she slid towards the bed. Her wet antennae felt for the head and her oozing maw opened as they gripped the hair. In a watery sigh of excitement she whispered "Strils!"

"Wait!" he commanded himself as he hefted the axe under the quilt.

As Miss. Tritus began to drag him in he leapt up, threw back the bedclothes and swung the blade hard on her neck.

"You can smell me! You lied Strils!" She gargled in shock.

A huge rupture appeared on her throat and a terrible slime poured from the wound. The creature's face drooped and the whole thing went limp at his feet, its head detaching with its probosci still gripping his wet hair.

I wrestled it off like a football and feeling spent but elated I staggered downstairs for the whisky bottle on the side.

I raised the cut glass to my lips but to my horror heard a slithering sound on the landing.

I turned to see the monster staring at me through the ballustrades.

"Strils, that hurt! You shouldn't have lied to me!"

Miss. Tritus had grown a brand new head!

I fainted and awoke just as my body was dissapearing down her throat.

It reeked to high heaven that alien gullet, worse than any other niff I'd known and just my luck, it was the last thing I ever smelled.

I didn't get the job after all.

In I went .....

Schlupp!

THE BIG MOUTHS

It began with dogs. Selective breeding that is. Breeding them for looks.

It wouldn't be long before we did it to humans. And we did.

Call it eugenics, bio-engineering or designer people, all still selective breeding.

The leaders in the field were Genuflect, a secretive company run by the maniacal Dr. Altar.

First it was breeding thinner noses, rounder backsides and plumper breasts. Then came bigger eyes, taller legs and whiter teeth. Any of these could be mixed too. A bigger breasted bigger eyed wife with longer legs and a taller musclebound husband were the biggest hits. It was called genuflection.

But it was the wider mouths programme which caused all the trouble.

Widening mouths for men, women and children had been a popular breeding area until eventually fine wide mouths were readily available on prospective husbands and wives.

They seemed so appealing, a little extra mouth at each corner created a fuller broader smile and a more confident redolent voice in people.

But the breeding went too far and some mouths became so wide that citizens found them hideous and above all frightening.

But the project couldn't just stop. It had investors,  buyers and customers who had all said yes to a much bigger mouth.

It was a mistake. That became clear. No-one is quite sure who to blame now but the problem was simply that a huge broad open mouth of large white teeth sent some people screaming from shops and cinemas or wherever else they turned up.

Panic began to break out as the so-called big mouths were everywhere grinning and leering at tax-paying citizens. Violence towards them became the norm. Dentists were their only allies.

'You freak mouthed fuckers! Stop smiling and go back to the lab!' went the cry.

That the big mouths paid taxes too was moot. Society was ruffled. The selective breeding facility was meant to placate its members and not perturb them. The anomalies in the mouth project were an embarrassment and a serious threat to civil order. They had to be dealt with before lawlessness erupted.

On the night of May first at midnight all so-called 'big mouths' were rounded-up and interred in camps away from normal society. This happened worldwide and by May 2nd none were to be found outside the barbed fences of these camps.

Genuflect camps.

They were prisons. Global authorities passed laws that meant having a big mouth was a seditious act and punishable by death. Genuflect handed over all the names and Dr. Altar personally pacified the taller specimens in his lab on Camp 1.

The general population applauded this swift action and quickly resumed its obsession with the perfect designer body just not nips around the lips anymore.

To further garner public admiration the authorities had some of the more vocal big mouths 'quietened down'. For good. Altar took charge of personally tranquilising the taller women in his camp office. For the public this was just deserts and a huge vote winner but for the internees it was the trigger to fight back.

Riots flared up across the world led by the natural leaders of the prisoners, those that had been bred for longer legs. So men, women and children who were taller and larger mouthed arose to spearhead the uprisings in the camps. They were a fearsome sight charging across the compounds like stilted clowns with gaping mouths.

Guards were attacked, sentries trampled and wardens thrown from their quarters and killed. Dr. Altar escaped.

Retribution by Genuflect and global powers was swift and thousands of the big mouths were machine gunned as they began to storm the fences. Bodies piled up like new walls and the tall ones retreated with the rest into the safer shadows of the camps' interiors.

Deeming further contact too dangerous Genuflect strengthened the fences, doubled the sentries but removed all supplies from the internees. No water, food or clothing. Ever again.

It took time for the remaining mouths to realise what was happening.  The taller leaders spelled it out to them. They had been abandoned now and must work out how to survive for themselves. Besieging the fences wouldn't work. They were now massive. Besides, hidden machine guns flecked the land beyond like sleeping hornets.

No. They had to bide their time. Take stock. Grow stronger. Bigger. More frightening. Sacrifices would have to be made but all agreed that it was worth it. They would selectively breed themselves and create an army of monsters.

The message went worldwide via social media still working in the camps and that was that. The next more immediate problem, food, was solved by the walls of flesh piled at the fences.

By eating the dead and fucking the living the big mouths began to hold fast. They selected only the tallest and widest mouthed for inter-breeding. The offspring were treated like idols, leggy and toothy and lesser internees were happy to be fed to them.

Over decades the Genuflect camps were forgotten. Like the long rank grass grown over the rusted guns, old politicians had gone to seed and new ones had newer problems.

Thirty years after internment the army of monsters was ready everywhere.

On May first they sacked the fences, took up the guns and ran naked screaming and drooling towards the cities, their mouths so wide their heads seemed hinged.

First contact with civilisation was in the streets were their forebears had been rounded up. Through continued gene cleansing the towns' people now seemed dull and indolent, moping around tedious metropoles sedated with toothless banter. They were like cows when the monsters showed up.

Some big mouths simply ate their quarry. Some chased them out of their minds. But it was the bosses that ought to pay. But first, scared.

Colossa, the tallest of the big mouths entered a clothes shop and, with the staff fleeing as she roared at them, took her time getting dressed for a business meeting. A very important meeting with the ageing head of what was left of Genuflect, the loathed Dr. Altar.

Colossa had been told by her mother that the Doctor, a tall man himself, had a weak spot for tall women.

She slapped on some mascara and smoothed out her mouth slits leaving just a normal set of lips. To these she applied thick rouge stick. A puff of perfume in all the right places and Colossa was done.

She strode briskly in her trouser suit like a secretary bird and reached Genuflect in no time. She licked her lips and stooping under the doorway took the lift to level 13, his private surgery.

She knocked softly on the door and the Doctor bade her in.

"So, Miss ....."

"Colossa"

"Miss Colossa, how can I help you?"

"I have heard a lot about your excellent results Doctor. I would like to be shortened."

"Ah, shortening. Its a physical procedure, which involves laser amputation and hyper-healing techniques. Basically I would remove a section of your legs. Very simple and painless and very popular among the grandly heightened lady like yourself. I take it that you are descended from the long legs and not the big mouths?"

"That's right Doctor." Colossa made sure that just her normal lips moved. Her mascara was holding up well. She sat down in a large comfy chair one long leg over the other. The Doctor stood before her, his long wispy white hair over his shoulders and his hands in his pockets.

"That's good, we don't want any hideously wide smiles round here thank you. What a mistake I made with that batch!" said Altar jovially as if he were describing broken eggs. He eyed the long-legged woman with rising interest and suddenly felt greatly attracted to her. He shuddered under his ageing white coat and stretched his gnarled fingers.

Colossa gave him a flirtish look and let one of her high heels drop.

They went into the small operating thearte at the rear and were joined by a petite nurse. Colossa was lead down and the nurse began the sedation.

The old Altar drew dotted lines on Colossa's legs, his eyes widening with excitement and explained to her that he would remove at least 24 inches from them. But first he would have to examine her thoroughly. She nodded and gave a little smile.

The sedative worked very slowly on mega humans like Colossa.

"Miss, are you drifting off? Give me a little smile," asked the nurse jovially. The Doctor was busying himself with rubber gloves and lasers in the annexe.

Colossa looked at the jolly nurse and began a small smile. It widened a little and engaged the cracks at either side of her mouth. The nurse stopped smiling and froze.

Colossa's smile was now as wide as her entire head and her vast array of teeth, usually hidden, were rowed like a grand piano. It was a heinous smile; massive, curved, red lipped and frightening as hell.

"Hello!" Colossa said and grabbed hold of the nurse's head. She screamed but it was cut short when her head went inside Colossa's.

The Big Mouth bit hard and decapitated the nurse in one go. Her headless body stumbled for a second round the surgery spraying fresh blood everywhere like a hose.

The Doctor, alerted by the scream, dropped his laser. It spun on the floor and arced through his ankle removing his foot in one clean beam.

He shrieked and fell screaming, "You're a .. a .. Big Mouth! Oh God!"

Colossa, still wearing her op drapes and covered in black dotted lines, picked up the Doctor, his rubber gloves caked in his own blood, and inspected his severed ankle.

"Excellent! Saves me some work that Doc!"

She smiled widely close-up to his trembling face and he screamed.

It was two hours later in the afternoon when Colossa walked out of the building. It was a sunny day and she was wearing her power suit again, complete with heels and bag.

She also had a brand new accessory like the fashionable ladies in the city.

It waddled behind her on a studded lead and blinked at the sun.

A human head with long thin white hair and just two feet sewn onto its neck. 

Colossa smiled.

"Come along Doc!" she chuckled, "my kids are dying to play with you!"