THE MANILA FOLDER

Hendry returned to work after a sudden and serious illness. He had been off for 6 months. While travelling on the steamy bus he passed smoking fields were fires entwined like sinful things.

He arrived at work a stranger. He felt immediately out of place in the office. Being a middle manager Hendry wanted to say hello to his team who had carried on without him. For some odd reason they seemed aloof and distant. He had got on well with them all in the past.

He tried to approach Rigg his deputy but she vanished into another office before he could reach her.

He sat down at his old desk. It stood there like a lost soul. An altar gone sour. He knew he'd once been the shepherd of his flock but it didn't feel like that anymore. The dead flies chided him. Legs up.

He looked at the files on the corner. He pulled out the bottom one, a manila folder. He tried to read it but the lettering seemed shaky and weak. He stared at the shifting words but couldn't make sense of it.

He walked slowly through the office with the manila folder under his arm.

"Price. Hi! I'm back and was wondering what you know about this file?!

He held the folder out towards his junior landscape architect. Price was sat at his desk eating. He stared at the file and immediately stood and backed away. His hand covered his mouth and he began to gag. He quickly spun round and ran towards the toilets.

"Price!"

Hendry shoved the file back under his arm and tutted. Turning he saw the spilled contents of Price's packed lunch. Hendry stared in disbelief. The sandwiches were thick with furry mould and green slime oozed from the filling. An apple moved slightly and a thick maggot fisted its way out of its rotten peel.

Hendry blinked and the lunch was back to normal. Fresh. Succulent. Healthy.

"What is going on here?" He muttered and headed for the coffee machine. He needed a cup.

"Why are you asking about the file Hendry?"

Madeline had crept up without him noticing.

"I'm trying to find out what happened to this client. Do you know?"

"Leave it alone Hendry."

"But why is the client's name not here? Its not on the database either."

"Forget it. You've been ill Hendry. You were lucky. Move onto another project."

But Hendry persisted and opened the folder and showed Madeline a photograph of a row of dried moles strung across a barbed wire fence.

"What's this?"

Madeline flinched and turned green. She was sick in her mouth.

"You're a flibbertigibbet Hendry. A nosy bast .....", she puked into the nearest waste bin.

"For fucks sake. We went there, OK! It was the worst thing I've ever seen. No-one could move like that. He crawled like a cra..", she puked again.

A mist had started to develop round the office and Madeline looked frightened.

"We were scared shitless Hendry! No one will ever go back there. Ever!" she screamed and staggered away for the rooftop stairs.

Hendry looked for Rigg. He saw her, mirage-like in the fret. A fata morgana by the water fountain.

He strolled towards her but she disappeared again.

"Rigg!"

Hendry peered round but saw nothing. He lumbered into the side office where he thought he saw Rigg eating. She had her back to him. He came closer. She wasn't how he remembered her. Her hair was grey and her face creased as if it had been sucked dry. The room quivered.

"Rigg. Hello. Its Hendry. I wanted to ask about this folder. Its not been signed off."

"Go away Hendry. Forget about that file. It should have been burnt!"

"But what's going on? Everyone's so ... coy about it."

"Hendry. Jesus Christ. Why do you have to push it. OK, if you have to know. We'd never seen anything like it. Me, Price and Madeline went with the new drawings. Oh God, in the grounds, crows dying in droves. Foxes fucking rabbits raw. Maggots seething through the trees. Shit everywhere. His servants eating .. each .... other. Oh my God Hendry. They were biting chunks of flesh out of their faces! Blood spurting. And then we saw him. Our "client". He bent his back right over and fingered his way across the filth. Upside down. A spider. Yes. Just like a spider. I remember Price fainting then. Mads ran. I tried to run too but got stuck on barb wire. He crawled up from behind. I never heard him. Hendry, he did things to me. Terrible terrible things and then he hung me up next to his shrieking moles."

"Who in God's name was he Rigg? Have you told the Police?"

"Who? Do you really want to know? It was Ashtero ......"

Rigg collapsed to the carpet, her legs parting.

The mist thickened then in that room. Something malignant had arrived. It moved and jerked closer with a slow twitchy decisive advance.

The man with the manila folder stared in horror.

Rigg screamed.

"Hendreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

WORMCASTS

Does your sandcastle ever quiver? Does its flag shake and disappear?

I live in the sand on the beach. I died here.

That would be me doing those things. I rattle the pearls in oysters as you make love in the dunes. My gas fingers might flick sand in your eyes but I have no knowledge of what you are doing. I died too young at the hands of my witched mother who buried my body on the shore.

When the storm clouds boil I will wail my lament. The rains will make a stage on which I dance, rising at last from the sand, my cell.

The curse I am burdened with is the longing mew of the gulls. The sad pipe of the oystercatcher. The haunted howl of the loon.

Like the sea's flirtation with the land my sentence will remain unceasing. A walker of silt. A singer of glass. A sleeper in razorshells and the marram grass I blow to mimic the winds that go wherever they wish.

There are others here. Dead pirates and scurrillous hands who paid the price of landing on this beach. No fanfare for them. Just the bloody handshake of their swift demise and the sorrowful melody of a new dune.

Not everyone is good. There are dark hearts on this beach. Sable malcontented souls, conniving and clandestine. Evil.

These can harm those who wander above. Those who falter in the darker nooks. Delicate they are not as they scuttle their pulses with dreadful finesse, emerging from caves and slips with mad intent to leave their crypt by jacking those alive.

I slithered off for I cannot watch the mudded gurgling as strays are pulled below the drifts. Like cows they moan and wriggle but soon fill up and join the rest of us damned things trapped with the worms and fleas.

I sometimes hid from the dark ones in wormcasts. My finger touching the toppermost coil. You may have stood on me unawares, your foot momentarily tickled as I turned to dive. I would count your retreating footsteps before I went below.

Beyond the sludge where breathing stops I often ride the lugs as they nudge their way to where the air is salted sweet. Like dolphins of the mud it is my single joy within these walls of grit where I shall live forever.

I may kiss your soles as you amble over my sky of grains and dream of sweet release and salvation.

THE SIX ARCHES OF THE KING

Josef sat alone on the old sofa. 

He liked it down there under the six arches. 

Sometimes he slept there. It was so quiet. So peaceful. Away from the bustle of the world. The rumble of the trains didn't bother him when he slept. There weren't many anyway. Maybe the milk train during the night. He dreamt of the milk sloshing around in its tanks. Its creamy goodness. Essential. Like white blood.

Josef wasn't essential. Not anymore. He was a tramp. A vagabond. A traveler of roads and rummager of bins. He lived on the rim of society and nobody noticed him. He was nothing. Like lint or lather. Existing but disappearing.

He had once been important. He had once commanded men. But he didn't think about that anymore. That was eons ago and now was now.

He tightened the string around his waste and hunkered down into his huge tweed coat given to him years before. It was rank now. Thick with filth but it kept Jo warm on cold nights like this. He took one more swig of stale rum from a half empty bottle he'd found in the fields and closed his eyes.

It was late March and the stars were out in force, punctuating the grand stanzas of the heavens above him. He felt the weight of the arcing sky and dreamt of Atlas holding up the world in his shoulders. Poor bugger. All those worries.

Orion's belt was clear as day and Betelgeuse winked and blinked its red lashes. It would be a hard frost in the morning and Jo drew his knees up in anticipation. He slept. Cold and without sound.

In the morning, despite bright sunshine, the fields near the arches were sugared with rime. Jo eased into a seated position on the split settee and stretched his old limbs, his arms reaching up as he groaned himself awake. He was frozen to the bone and took a cold nip for breakfast. He rolled some shag into a rizla and licked the edge. The thin cigarette was barely flammable but Jo lit it with expert hands and inhaled deeply. Five leaves left Nick Drake had said. Five leaves left.

Whilst Jo was finishing his roll-up he heard a scraping sound. He keened his good ear and sensed something coming through the haystack. Gradually a small dark creature emerged from the hay and walked very slowly toward him on four legs. It had a rounded back and a scaly head. It was clearly a tortoise.

It sat on its hind legs and stared up at Josef.

"You're a bastard to find old man!" The tortoise shouted.

"Pardon, you foul turtle! How did you address me!" Jo replied indignantly.

"I said you're a right bastard to find and I'm not a fuckin' turtle! I'm a tortoise and a herald of the King!"

"Which King are you referring to turtle?"

"THE King, you old fart, the King of the World!"

"Never heard of him!"

"I suppose you've forgotten who you are too you old twat haven't you?"

"I'm Josef Ruhig. A nobody. So please turtle, why don't you go away and leave me alone."

"A nobody! Are you stupid or what? You really have forgotten. The King was right. He said you'd let yourself go and allow the addictive world take over your heart you fuckin' junkie fool."

"I told you. I'm Josef Ruhig. And I'm off the drugs if you must know. I'm just down on my luck at the moment."

"You, my old grizzly friend, are not Josef Ruhig. You are the King's greatest warrior and the Marshall of all his armies. You are the Wizard of Silence!"

"I don't know what you're talking about but I'm nothing of the sort!"

"Oh for fucks sake. Wake up Wizard! I'm going to have to show you. Place me on your head!"

"No!"

"Do it or else I'll follow your stinking carcass forever!"

"Alright reptile. Alright!"

Josef placed the tortoise on his head and immediately stiffened on his sofa. Somehow he saw new things in his mind. Things that seemed vaguely familiar. Things long forgotten he sensed.

Eons melted away to a younger world. A battle raged on a burning plane. Corpses lay everywhere, broken and bloodied. The remaining sides clashed swords and lances as armour was rended open and shafts split. Warriors heaved and gaping wounds bled seas of blood upon the injured earth. It fizzed as lava bubbled over it. At the centre of the fray stood a lone elder, a blue wizard. 

Towering before him stood a huge winged demon, a black angel with vast outstretched wings dripping with blood. In her claws was a head torn from its roots, the head of the King. The King of all the World.

Suddenly the his eyes opened and he spoke.

"Wizard of Silence. The task is yours. I am dead. Your King is dead. Take the sword from my hand. Take Revealer and silence this damned Queen for all time. For if you do not she will kill all the world and eat. She will eat you all forever!"

The Wizard was shaking. He was uncertain if the Queen was witness to the King's last words. He stared at her slavering smile and godless eyes.

"Wizard. You shriveling eunuch. You stink of fear. You stink of defeat. Your bastard King is gone and I, the Queen of Lies, will trample you into dust. Can you not feel the gossamers of your dogpiss world tearing apart. It is the beginning of the end that I am bringing to you all. The reign of lies that will last for always."

The black angel twisted and threw the King's head far across the field and turned to end the sniveling man. This was all the time he needed to take the Revealer from his monarch's stiff hand and bellowing he swung it upwards in a colossal arc toward the demon's skeletal chest. It struck true and sliced through gristle and bone and nicked the fetid chamber of her suspended heart.

The Queen of Lies looked down dumbstruck at the appalling wound. She fell to her knees, black gore puddling. The Wizard swung Revealer once more and her ribs parted like a doorway, her stinking innards falling like wet curtains on the field. She gawped at him.

"Wha..!" Was all she gargled before collapsing in a bath of her blood and smoking pluck.

The wizard cut off her head and fed it to the battle dogs. He cut off her tongue and threw it to the crows. He ripped out her heart and buried it in the blessed soil where the King had fallen. He rammed Revealer across her ribs like a jamb and kicked the ant-hill over her necrotic form.

"Remain here black Queen. Remain here with your bubonic lies for all eternity. Let the Earth keep you in this plagued field until its own time is ended only by the cold ceasing of the heavens".

The wizard turned away from the silent battleground, the only sounds were ants feeding.

In the distance were the six gleaming doorways of the King's palace to which he walked. They would continue to gleam as long as he lived.

Old Joe remembered it all through the occulus of the tortoise. He shook and gently removed the creature off his head.

You saw?

I saw.

Then you see who you really are Joe Ruhig. You are the Wizard of Silence. The wielder of Revealer.

Yes. I see now small creature.

Then you will also see that the world once more hangs on a thread. Its weft is fraying. Its heart is dying. Mankind is at war with itself and it is the Black Queen's doing. Like a child she whips the wasps nest. An evil brat returning from her slumber. Can you feel it Wizard?

I can. I sense her dreadful presence even here and it is to the six doorways she will come. And she will come soon.

They both sat staring at the darkest corner of the cemetery. Where the statue of a black angel stood.

It was the ants they felt first. Thousands of them scurrying around their feet. Her emissaries. Formic heralds. The statue was cracking.

Next came the moles in their hundreds with soiled paws. They had been busy. The Queen's gravediggers. Her corpse was rising.

Then came the crows. Silent. Tongueless. They had donated to their Lady. Her lies were growing in her mouth again.

The black Queen stood in her ancient ditch, an accursed bed soiled over untold  millennia. Acolytes eager to please had made the plot a modern grave graced with an effigy .

Time had freed her. The seas of time. Revealer, the immortal sword pinning the Queen to the spot like an insect, slackened

She grabbed the hilt and pulled the blade slowly from her chest, where it stood fused through her sternum. She raised it aloft and whispered its name.

"Revealer!"

Gripping it she stepped from her obliterated grave and exclaimed her freedom to an unknowing world, an appalling yell from the dungeons of the dark from which she'd crawled.

"I AM HERE!"

The ground shook and gravestones toppled. The bell on the tower peeled once and cracked. The sky darkened and the sun turned black, the clouds melting like floss. Grindings and rumblings were heard as the earth buckled. Thunder clapped her dreadful bow.

The Queen of Lies sauntered across the cemetery dragging her sword's tip along the asphalt path. Sparks flew and cavorted on the tattered hem of her sable robe. She plucked cut flowers from vases and ate them and licked the hot wax of burning candles with her purple tongue.

As she walked terrible hands came up from the graves like repulsive flowers. They fingered the air and rook the strain, heaving their hosts out of the ground. The dead were rising.

More and more of the graves' residents joined the throng falling in behind the dark lady. They stared at one another and pushed and shoved, earth falling off their rotting husks.

"Come my pretties!" The Queen beckoned.

"We shall make the whole world a grave. Come with me to Hell."

Joe rose from his derelict sofa under the arch. He hid the tortoise in his knapsack and knelt on one knee ad a runner would. He fling off his dilapidated coat and stared straight ahead at the Queen.

"I am Josef, Wizard of Silence and guardian of the Six Arches. You will go no further evil one!"

Some unseen hand swept away the old man's age and Josef began to run as he had on the battle-fields when the world was young and he was the champion of the truth.

The black Queen crouched, Revealer tight in her grip. Her rotting vassals surged forward in a sea of decay.

Josef roared through them, sending them spinning and tearing. All the beasts of the land and air followed and smothered the Wizard in a blanket of teeth and fur.

But he prevailed and shook them off. He glared at his old adversary and knew the fate of the world lay in Revealer silencing the Queen again as it had eons ago. This time the lies must be stilled forever.

Josef hurtled towards the dark monarch and leapt high above her head reaching for Revealer as he did. He clasped the hilt and the Queen's grip slackened. Her lips frowned and she looked into the deep wells of her enemies eyes

"Josef!" She whispered, "I love you! I always have!"

Momentarily confused by this admission Josef slowed but realised too late the true mission of her lie.

She grabbed his neck and pulled Josef down with so much force that the  sword went through him completely and it emerged still in her reptilian hand.

"Be silent Wizard. Be silent for me!".

The Queen tore out his tongue and threw it to the baying herd. His heart she ate like an apple and sucked on the gossamer of his dying soul. The King and his Wizard were gone.

The fell monarch marched with the dead towards the darkening gates of Hell. They passed through all six arches and she took her place in the court of flies.

Without its King or his Wizard, the world turned in on itself and went black as a plague of deceit raged across it lands forever.

BOUNCY CASTLES

Dickmann was down on his luck. 

His bouncy castle business wasn't doing very well at all and his wife was on his back. 

He  just wanted a quiet life. So what if the kids were bored with his castle. He could while away the hours reading trashy horror in his favourite deckchair.

"You look like a beached whale Dickmann! You'll be dead if you move any less! You'll be fatter than your bouncy castle one day soon!"

All day long his wife chided him. Unfairly he thought too. Was it his fault the competition had bigger and better castles bristling with towers and separated floors? Was it his fault they pumped in special mixtures of air and oxygen and God knows what else?

He'd tried his best and it hadn't worked. Well the truth be known he couldn't be arsed with it any more. As long as he got fed and somewhere to sit and read next to his deflated heap he didn't mind if only one or two kids came by these days.

"You lazy arse Dickmann! I'm going out. Your cold gammon's in the fridge, where you should be. Yes, cold gammon, that's you!"

His wife shambled off chuckling at her carnivorous wit.

Dickmann watched her leave the castle yard. She was a looker his Missus. Slim. Curvy. Well-dressed. A thoroughly fashionable filly he'd loved to ride when they were first wed but those days were long gone now. 

He disgusted his svelte wife and she never came near him any more.

It was true, he had let himself go a bit and put on the pounds. At 25 stone he was a little rounder than he'd hoped. What the hell does she expect! He has to sit here all day grafting and tending to customers wanting a bounce whilst she was out in her high heels and seamed tights with her fancy friends.

That was his hard earned dosh she was wasting. Spending it like the stale air escaping from his business. In the good time's he'd saved his pennies. A layer of winter fat he'd called it. Back then he was Mister Dickmann with the tumbliest, rumbliest castles around. Children flocked to leap on their pillowy canvases and spring off those curvaceous walls. 

His wife, inflated with pride for her hard-working husband, would willingly lower her drawbridge to welcome his glistening knight. His muscular hands would kneed her ample breasts like dough. Yes, he'd filled his wife and castle with equal gusto and everybody loved him, Dickmann the bouncing King.

"Ere mister! You. Dickmann. You open or what?" A squeaky voice rasped from somewhere near the ground. "I wanna bounce!"

Dickmann left his reverie and leaned forward, peering over his corpulent gut. A small urchin of a boy was staring up at him clutching a penny.

He put his horror novel down and took the coin.

Its a bit deflated today but it'll have to do he thought. The penny clattered into an empty tin and the boy clambered up onto the half-sagged mound.

"Ere mister. This is shite this. Its going flat. I cant bounce on a flat castle. I want my penny back!" shouted the boy.

"Fuck off you little runt! No refunds today!"

Dickmann got out of his chair and booted the lad up the arse as he was climbing off the castle.

"You fat turd! My mum was right. You're a fat old shite!" cursed the boy.

He grabbed the tin with his penny in and scampered away, the thrill of victory in his eyes as he cast off one final crucial offence.

"You lard-arsed gammon! That's what yer missus calls you. Its no wonder yer missus is shaggin' the doctor next door!"

Dickmann threw his book at him, Schlubb!

"That fuckin' bitch I knew it! Dressed up like a tart every day. And that doctor. I'll show that stuck-up fuck-quack some proper gammon when I shove my hairy arm up his arsehole and pull out his fuckin' posh tongue!"

He sat in his deck chair cursing for another hour as the sun ran out of steam and dropped off. His face bright red, Dickmann rose shaking with rage and staggered across the road to the doctor's garden. 

Hiding in the darkness behind the doc's BMW, Dickmann stared up at the bedroom window through the trees. He could clearly see the outline of his buxom wife being ravished by the suave white-coated bastard. It was true. He glared with an unquantifiable anger as the two forms stood writhing like mating snakes swallowing each other whole.

"The fuckin cheatin bitch! Right under my nose! I'll Show her who's boss once and for all!"

Dickmann slid over the street like a slug and peered at the plaque on the garden gate-post.

Doctor Fissure. Lipidologist. Lipo-suction registered.

"Doctor fuckin fissure eh. I know which fissure I'm going to doctor of yours you bastard wife-stealer!"

Dickmann slithered away chortling at the thought of Fissure's final puffs before he sealed his fate good and proper! Ah yes, he would be king of his castle once again. He could feel it in the air.

When his wife came home, flushed and sweaty, Dickmann feigned sleep and she retired to her room. The next day he sat next to the sagging canvas early to watch her leave. She'd gone all-out today. Thick red lip-stick, bullet bra and a tight dress. A hussy. Her perfume wafted across the yard like a pheromone.

Dickmann waited patiently for dusk. He entered the doctor's house and tip-toed up the stairs. He had no real plan but felt sure one would pop out when the time came. And it did come. Or rather his Missus and the doctor did, just as Dickmann burst into the treatment room!

As the clandestine lovers squelched in ecstasy like two thudding snails on the clinic's couch, Dickmann gave his inflating fury full vent.

"You lousy bitch and you! You fuckin' cradlesnatcher! I'll fuckin' show you how to get fucked!" he bellowed.

With no idea what he was truly doing Dickmann suddenly grabbed two large needle-tipped siphons and with jilt-driven strength rammed them far up his wife's and doctor's behinds and slammed down the ON button to the max. 

It said SUCK and TURBO in large letters.

At once the room was filled with a dreadful gargling, a terrible slurping and a heinous suckling as the siphons went to work. The two lovers shook.

His wife looked on in horror as her perfect tits caved in as her meagre fat was piped out of her gorgeous body. She screamed and stared in terror as Doctor Fissure's blood-thickened cock, balls-deep inside her, retracted like a burst balloon slapping on his belly as his own fat decanted out. Plup! The Doctor shrieked in agony as he was fully vacuumed.

Dickmann was overjoyed. He could never have planned it any better. His glee knew no limits and he skipped like a bullfrog round the vanishing pair.

"Hee hee. Never mind getting fucked, you got well and truly sucked!" He croaked grinning at the flopping forms.

The two lovers quickly hollowed out as ,first their fat layers disappeared and then their entire innards, jerking their way down the engorged pipes into huge glass demi-johns on the tiled floor.

It was done. Dickmann gawped at the two sacks of skin draped over each other. He smiled. 

He then stared at the two massive glass bottles full to the brim with white and red fat and guts and smiled even more.

He chucked the skin and bones into the medical waste bin and humped the demi-johns into the lift and onto a cart in the foyer. In the cover of night he trundled his booty the short way to his yard whistling like a dwarf the whole way.

Dickmann sat in his chair and caressed the cool curves of the bottles and pondered what to do with their contents. The toilet was a waste. He scratched his wet chin and caught sight of the bouncy castle. He'd had his idea!

The next morning he opened up with a spring in his step and a brand new paint-splattered sign.

"Bouncy Castle. Super New filling. The Bounciest! You'll not be disappointed!"

His first customer for the 'new filling' was the little kid that had nicked his money tin. He brought it back with a few new shiny coins by way of apology and asked if he could try the new bounce. Dickmann, still triumphant, agreed and after seeing how much the little sod whelped and yelled with pleasure began to hatch a plan.

He knew he'd need more filling if he was to regain his crown in the town. With a whole handful of shiny pennies and the promise of much more he enlisted the boy to help him keep the liposuction clinic 'open for business'.

He figured the doc had loads more appointments booked with the pudgy townsfolk and that meant loads more precious blubber. All he had to do was call them upstairs and hold on whilst the kid shoved the pipe in.

It worked like a dream and the castle swelled with fresh wet fat. The queues and money swelled too and so, inevitably, did Dickmann's ego. 

He began to get cocky and mean with the kid, especially in front of his new customers, kicking him around, farting in his face and clipping him round the ear to make him graft even harder, whilst Dickmann found a nice spot on his comfy deckchair and stroked his heavy money tin.

Annoyingly, there was just one part of the castle that never filled up properly.

It was a built-in seat at the front, a chair which Dickmann had had specially sewn-on for himself when business had boomed back in the day. It was even meant to look like his face with a crown on top. The Bouncy Castle King! 

Alas, it always sagged and there was just never enough fresh fluid. Now things were on the rise he wanted to sit on his comfy bouncy throne again.

"Where's my wages you old bastard?" The boy suddenly insisted.

"You cheeky little shit! You eat my food and sleep in my castle and you want more money? Work harder you little ingrate. Get me more filling!" raved Dickmann.

That night the boy took him to intercept a new booking. 

"It'll be worth it" he said to Dickmann. "I've seen him. He's a right plump twat. He'll fill the throne no messin' mister!"

Dickmann slapped the boy hard for swearing in front of him and shuffled into the treatment room to look at the diary.

'There's no fuckin' bookin' tonight. Its blank!" he yelled.

"Oh yes there is!" roared the boy, "He's a right fat old bastard and he's stood right here!"

Dickmann swirled round from the desk to see the boy leaping at him with the needle-pointed suction hose. He tried to block him but it was too late, the boy was raging and slammed the sharp nozzle deep into Dickmann's open mouth, where it slid steadily down his throat and lodged itself in his enlarged stomach bag. Shhlump!

The boy laughed, stepped back and hovered his hand just a little over the turbo suction button to tease Dickmann, who's wide eyes were imploring the boy to stop. He attempted to say "no" through his full mouth. It came out as "go".

"Go you say!" cheered the boy "OK!" and flicked the switch with a huge grin.

The loud gurgling and chugging went on all night until Dickmann was no more. The boy had rigged up a special pipe direct to the yard too. Progress!

"I don't even need to carry the old twat's giblets!" he laughed. "Sorted!"

Dickmann's blubber and guts slipped and nudged easily down the pipe and before you could say curette, the sagging throne was plump and swollen with its crown nestling on top. It really did look like Dickmann!

The boy sat on the throne and laughed. Squeezing the arm he felt something lumpy.

"Hmm. Your eyeball! You fat fuck! Keeping an eye on me eh! Well watch this!"

The boy wriggled his arse deeper into Dickmann's 'face' and let out a huge wet fart, which ricocheted round the whole castle like trapped wind.

Dickmann's eyeball shot off twirling into the grue.

The boy sat smiling and waited for his first new customer. In one hand he held his money tin. In the other a big needle-tipped pipe!

The bouncy castle king was back!

THE OTHER THINGS

Pitt sat with an old newsreel on. She had always wondered what Kennedy meant by the other things. Well go to the moon and do the other things he'd said.

It was a strange turn of phrase. Vague yet prescient. It bothered her that it was so endearingly imprecise.

Anyway, it was 2035 now and Kennedy and the first moon shot were long long gone. The famous astronauts from '69 had been dead for years. Space was in the hands of billionaires now. Men of iron and money. She should know. She was Lieutenant Pitt of the Private Satellite Corp, Pisco, owned by one.

Yep. The moguls had got us all paying through our teeth. As soon as you breathed you had to pay. They owned the air already. They were big shots in space too. The big Four: Epsilon, Big River, Hail and The Forty Thieves.

They were rivals in everything. They owned the world, its air, its land, its seas and its peoples. They had divided it into four parts and ruled everything in them. They were the Kings of omnipotence. Governments were mere vassals. Sub-contractors baying for crumbs at the table of Lords.

But the Big Four had never set foot on the Moon. The space tycoons were too busy netting the Earth. Its atmosphere, the blue arena of their competing games. Everyone was hooked on their games. You had to be. It was required. OK, you got free global internet as long as you played their games and they weren't free. In fact they cost you everything you ever had or will have.

We were all slaves to the whims of the Four. Grist. Fodder. A funeral of mites.

All this monopoly, this industrial greed had heated our world. It was roasting like a spud and the seas were rising fast. But fresh water was scarce. There was a worldwide drought. The quartet had sucked us dry. The Earth was really dying.

Water was the new frontier. Fresh water. We all needed it. Thirst, the universal mint. We would all pay for it. And space was the place to get it.

The Moon to be exact. Ice had been found in its vast poles and the plan was to thaw it and ship it back. The Big Four raced like maniacs to be the first. To reach the moon and rule its waves. Whoever pushed their flag in those giant icecaps would be the one set the price, the one who reaped the rewards and the be one who ruled the moon.

Pitt was sick to the stomach. Pisco was part of Big River and Big River had big plans for our lunar neighbour.

"Dammit. Can't believe I'm being sent up there. We've screwed up the Earth so lets just screw the moon why don't we!" she fumed.

But it was no use. Big River had been secretly shipping substrate up to the surface for years. It wanted to farm the regolith and sow the seeds of clouds. Money would pour from the sky and collect in vast silver lakes of revenue making them top dog in the Big Four.

You can't keep a good idea secret for ling though, especially when grown on greed. The Forty Thieves had cottoned on to Big River almost immediately. In fact all of its three rivals had. Their spies were everywhere. Like a mist of gnats swarming in the desert.

All four had fed the moon. All four had sent up soil packed with aminos and all four had heated the ice. The baby bio, as it was called, had begun, stirring the craters like giant cauldrons filling with water.

A date was set for Big River's rocket. A whole colony would go to tend the water. Pitt's Pisco were chosen to escort.

The launch went well and Moon River sailed towards the stars followed by Pitt's space jet Pisco.

It landed safely in the Ocean of Storms. Camp was established and a reconnaissance team was dispatched in a rover bus to the baby bio crater.

Pitt's Pisco swooped by and all was AOK. She gave the bus pilot the thumbs up.

The vast crater had started. Started to terra-form. Plants were everywhere creating a huge bubble of mist like a gassy dome. The reccies got out and explored the ground. It was soft and mossy. Ferns soared into the sky and horsetails rose like plumes. Dew sparkled in the daylight and it looked to the crew like a garden of Eden. Water pooled everywhere. Lakes of dividends. The Big River project had worked.

Suddenly the radio crackled.

"Mayday. Mayday. This is the Forty Thieves flagship. We have been attacked. Everyone's dead. Ship obliterated. Epsilon gone. Hail too. Big River, they're coming for you. Forget the water, get out!" The radio stopped.

Everyone at Baby Bio looked at each other confused and frightened.

"We must return to the ship!," instructed the rover leader.

Turning to leave, they all heard a terrible smashing and trampling of vegetation as if something large was coming. It was. They were.

Huge glistening worm-like creatures broke through the forest and stared at the crew. Disgusting suckers shot out of where a mouth should be and retreated back in. They were writhing with hunger and quickly ran towards the astronauts.

The first one was slurped up into the massive sucker and the spaceman screamed as his skin was de-gloved from his agonised body, which was promptly ejected out and landed at the feet of the leader like damp washing.

"They suck off the skin!" He cringed. "Oh my God! They suck off our ski .."

The leader was swept up twenty feet into the air as a giant puckering beast hoovered him up. It only took seconds for his entire dermis to be peeled off like a plum and his red body to be exhaled onto the mossy ground still twitching and fully conscious.

His crew gawped at his damp scarlet muscles and his lipless mouth opening and closing. His discarded space suit followed swiftly and hit them in a shower of mucus and slime.

It wasn't long before they joined their leader and landed on his corpse with a loud sickening splat, jerking in their death-throes like a heap of hooked cod.

One got away and drove the rover like a mad man back to the ship. He shrieked when he saw the creatures following him in a long shambling line. He crashed into the rocket leg and sent a shudder up its structure towering one hundred feet in the new foggy air.

The Moon River crew felt the impact and peering through the portals were terrified to see a group of creatures in single file outside the ship like a queue of maggots. To their horror the biggest one at the head took the rover driver into its mouth!

With a nod from the monster the gathering beasts fingered the ship looking for a way in. The main bay doors buckled under the strain and the creatures slid inside.

Pitt and her crew watched in abject terror from their patrolling space jet. They had strafed a couple of the monsters with flybys but the Pisco wasn't weaponised. All they could do was watch as the pale giants crawled into Moon River and listen to the dreadful screaming and slurping on the comm.

"The other things!" she whispered.

"These are the other things Kennedy was on about! He was warning us! The early space race sent up all sorts of stuff besides people.....seeds, plants, sounds, people's ashes and ......"

Pitt trailed off.

"Tardigrades!" someone else said.

"They're giant tardigrades. I remember some crash landed decades ago. They've thrived on baby bio!"

"But now they want more. Our skins! They're carnivorous and they want to grow bigger!" finished Pitt.

Suddenly the enormous rocket fired its engines and flames bucketed from its nacelles.

"Oh my God! Someone's launching!" she yelled.

"Going back to .... Earth!"

Pitt stared at her crew. A vision of giant sucking tardigrades skinning everyone back home as they sat playing games hit them as one.

"You know what we must do."

It was agreed without speaking. Pisco jetted off at full speed and tailed after Moon River ascending out of the lunar mist.

Pitt and her crew saw massive eyes peering at them through the portals.

They were still watching those lidless eyes when they flew Pisco straight into the rocket's main thrusters.

Moon River exploded at once and everything in it was obliterated. The last of the colonists, Pitt and her crew and .... 

Thank God, the other things too!

BEYOND THE SHOALS

The blue lights blinked like coins in the sea. I could see them. On the high street near the bridge. An emergency but nothing to do with me.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and walked away. It was a cold misty Winter's day in early November. The final breath of normality before the Christmas Season blurted out its neon-tinseled casino.

I sat in a cafe and drank hot coffee. The windows were steamed up and I felt like I was in a submersible diving to the bottom of my cup. People sat hunched over steaming drinks or full breakfasts. No-one was speaking. Everyone was busy with their own lives. Nothing to do with me though. Winter made the world selfish and harsh. No-one cared about each other. There was simply too much to do before the ice settled on your bones and Jack Frost took your chips away.

The street was half-empty. I looked around for someone I knew.

A young Mum and and her bawling daughter were bustling through the decaying precinct on their way to the old cinema. I followed them in. I'd been here as a kid many times years ago. I'd been mesmerised by the vast iridescent screen speckled with swashbuckling pirates and dangerous spies. I stared at it now and it seemed like a portal into another time, a fogged film covering haunted mouths trying to speak. I couldn't understand them anymore. I shuffled past the mother and child shovelling popcorn in the wide gobs and left.

Outside it was raining. It was that fine rain that seems to soak everything even wetter than normal rain. I put my coat collar up and wandered down the high street getting slowly drenched.

There was a queue at the butchers. Dewbursts. High Class. I never understood that. High Class Butchers. I used to say to my Wife that no-one wants a low class one so why even bother putting it!

"Still," she said "it was better than the awful shop-sign Family Butchers!" We laughed at her black humour, which she kept till the very end. It helped us through the darkest days of her illness, which no light could penetrate. I would sit by her bed and brush her hair gently singing Smiths songs. She loved The Smiths. Always had since college. She said there really was light that never went out somewhere in the world. Morrissey and her were both wrong.

I gazed through the shop window. It was damp on the inside. Condensation ran down it like tears and mixed with the blood of the kidneys at the bottom of the inclined window display. A fly gulped it like a cocktail and I felt sick. "High Class my arse!" I tutted and meandered away.

In the park I saw kids running round a lake. They were feeding the fish. 

I shambled over and gawped at the maelstrom the large goldfish were making whilst the children threw in bread excitedly. The surface of the lake was boiling and I stooped down fascinated. The fish were really big and shining like bullion. I peered closer when one of my eyes fell out straight into the mouth of one of the fish. For a moment my eyeball stared at me before it was swallowed whole, plup! and sailed beyond the shoals.

I was distraught and covered my empty eye socket with my hand. The children didn't seem to notice so I loped away clutching my face. I realised my hand felt lighter and to my horror I saw that several fingers had dropped off. I could see them, pink and sausage-like, in the grass near the lake edge.

Frantic I ran to the town centre but I fell before I got there. When I looked down one of my feet had come away, trapped in the iron gutter, near the butchers of all places. A choice cut I joked without wanting to as I dropped to my knees. It was still drizzling a fine mist like the vapona fly spray I used at home.

Home. God, I need to get home. I'd better get back in the car and make my way.

The blue flashing lights were still spinning round, daubing the shops in aquamarine. Maybe they would never go out.

I crawled to where my car was and as I went my other foot tore off near the shoe shop. It'll only need one I laughed without wishing to.

Soaked to the skin I craned my neck to admire the whirling blue lamps of the police cars. I wanted to speak but my teeth clattered to the pavement like dice. I mouthed something to the officer like a carp in the lake and wrestled my body onto the front seat of the car.

For some strange reason the whole front end was crushed in and I struggled to jam myself behind the steering wheel, which was jutting upwards like a TV aerial. I wondered if there was anything good on the telly.

Sat behind the crumpled dash plastered with blood and glass I stared at the wall which my car was folded up against.

Strange that. The things people do. I better get home now. My wife will be waiting for me. I hope she's left a light on.

I fingered the wheel but suddenly felt terribly tired. I may have lost my teeth but best not lose any sleep I chuckled without wanting to.

With the turquoise strobes caressing my face I stretched my gums in a huge red yawn and slowly closed my remaining eye.

THE GLASS JAR

My Dad was a traveller. 

He travelled around and sold stuff door to door. Hoover parts and shit like that stuffed in a suitcase.

He was also a complete bastard.

After a bad day he'd make sure Mum and me had a bad evening, usually involving one of the hoover parts from his piss-poor case.

It was worse when his customers couldn't pay. Times were hard and people coughed up grudgingly.

Some had cash, some sweaty cheques and some good old fashioned barter.

Barter was Dad's bane and he ended up bringing home more shit than he'd set off with.

This bartering usually lead to an argument with Mum and her and me getting a beating.

"I go out to graft all day long and all I get from you two is lip!" he'd shout whilst belting us both on the kitchen floor.

One day he was given a "weird bit of crap" as he called it and flung it disgustedly into the swing-bin.

"Fuckin' shite!" he bellowed.

For some reason he looked back over his shoulder as he walked away. Something about that crap he'd just chucked had bothered him.

Mum and me were bracing ourselves for a leathering but it never came, which was unusual in itself. The old bastard must be ill or .... it's something else.

When he was settled in his favourite armchair like a big fat toad watching telly I sneaked over to the bin and reached in for the object he'd thrown away.

My hand clasped around cold glass and I pulled it out quietly. It wasn't just cold glass, it was freezing and I very nearly dropped the damn thing.

I took it gingerly to my room and got under the bed-covers. I didn't want Dad to find me with it.

I grabbed my bedside torch and looked at what I was holding.

It was a glass pickling jar with something rammed in it. I turned the jar round. It had the word Kilner on the glass.

I noticed bulges, stitching and furry mounds inside.

And then I saw it, a face.

It was the face of a teddy bear!

A teddy had been crammed into a pickling jar. Why on earth would anyone do that I wondered!

I stared at the bear's face and realised that it had a sort of grimace. This could have been because it was all scrunched-up but I got the feeling it wasn't. It looked mean.

"You're one fuckin' grim teddy aren't you mate!" I whispered in the torchlight.

For some reason I was loathe to take the bear out of its jar. Something niggled me about it. Maybe that was what had bothered my Dad when he looked back at the bin. A niggling feeling about this freezing jar.

But if it bothered the old bastard then it had to be good, so I put my fears aside and unscrewed the tin lid.

I could have sworn I heard a grunt as the lid slid out of my hand.

"Must have been stiffer than I thought that lid," I consoled myself.

Resting the torch on a pillow I'd dragged in I reached into the jar with my free hand. I gripped the thing. It felt cold as hell but holding on tight I started to pull it out.

Plup! It popped out like a whelk!

It felt like a frog fresh from a ditch, slimy and wet. Maybe they'd really pickled the fucker. I held it closer and yes, vinegar. Yuk! Some sad twat had actually pickled this teddy!

As I was debating this puzzle the scrunchiness of the bear started to smoothen and it began to get ... bigger!

I jumped and yelled. Fortunately my mouth was muffled by the blankets but unfortunately the torch rolled out and fell onto the wooden floor.

Bang!

"Stop making a racket up there and get to bed you little wastrel!" my Dad screamed.

I heard Mum say he's only a boy and I heard the familiar slap like a fleshy full stop ring out.

"Don't fuckin argue with me!" Warned Dad. No doubt his hand raised for a little more punctuation.

"Bollocks!" I muttered. I'd got Mum hit. Again! I reached for the offending torch and shook it.

"You twat torch!"

I shone its beam at the bear. During the 'interval' the teddy had doubled in size! It was just finishing unfolding as I looked. God damn! it seemed as if it was stretching after a long sleep!

I shivered! This was some right bastard monkey business as Dad would say. Well, this was more like bear business and I was bricking myself under that blanket I don't mind admitting.

The ted stared at me with its dark grave-yard eyes. It reeked of Sarsons Malt but the cold was fading. It was warming up under my cover.

"I reckon I'm going to keep you bear. You'll need a name though. I can't just call you bear."

I shone the light onto the pickling jar and noticed again the brand.

"Thats it! Kilner. Kilner the pickled teddy!"

I was quite chuffed with myself and almost sensed the same in that plush minger facing me.

"Just don't let Dad find you or he'll have my balls on a plate!"

We curled up like badgers in our den and fell fast asleep the whole night through. I dreamed of wide open spaces where we dined on pickled onions.

The next day I rushed home from school to talk to Kilner my new buddy. He always listened and never gave me any grief.

Dad was home early and had sent Mum for fish and chips. She looked upset. I could see the wetness under puffy eyes.

"Did you remember the fuckin' bottle of vinegar like I asked you you fuckin' tramp?" Dad roared from the head of the table, knife and fork erect in his fists like a demented butcher.

Mum placed the brown bottle on the table next to the Daddy's sauce.

"Good bastard job too or I'd ...."

She crept away like a shrew in the grass, though she managed a thin smile as I passed her to sit down for tea. I smiled back and knew she couldn't survive much more of this.

Clearly Dad had had a really "shit" day.

We ate in silence and at the end I snook a chip butty upstairs for midnight munchies.

As I closed my door I heard Dad mutter, "this fuckin family will be the death of me. Workin' every hour God sends and what does he send me. You fuckin' two. I'm going to have to sort you out once and for all!"

I'd heard Dad's threats before, usually said to his mirror shaving. But this was different. A bad omen. He sounded serious.

I got under the covers and stroked Kilner my new best pal. It seemed to purr but I'm sure I just imagined it. I was already hungry again and bit into my chip sarny. Kilner eyed me up enviously, or so I thought, smiling.

"So what does a jar ted like you eat anyways Kiln?" I asked, half expecting the toy to say pickled onions and pie! I chuckled but my merriment was cut short by a shout at the foot of the stairs.

"You little streak of piss! Have you been using my vinegar! You've left the cap off! What have I told you about leaving the lids off my food. I work for that food. Not you or your fuckin' slut mother. Meeeeee!" Dad howled like a rabid wolf.

"But he's only a b..." Mum squeaked.

I heard the thump from under my covers and dropped my sandwich. The shrew was taking a real beating and she fell silent except for faint whimpers of pain as Dad's fists pummelled her like dough.

He climbed up the stairs in three strides ....

.... and smashed open my door.

"Look what you made me do you little fucker! Your Mum's all upset because of you and your lazy fuckin' ways!"

Dad strode in and ripped my cover away.

He saw the chip butty all over my sheet and then he saw the jar and Kilner. His eyes blazed.

"What the fuck! You unruly scrote. You've hidden food up here. Food I pay for. Look at the bed. Looook!" Dad bellowed as he rubbed my face in the fries, tomato sauce and buttered bread. I came up looking like a car crash victim.

"And what's this?" He yelled as he picked up the jar, "I threw this in the bin!"

He stepped back and hurled the glass jar at my head, where it clonked me with a sickening thrump! As a huge welt appeared on my forehead the last thing I recall was Dad taking off his studded belt and blurting:

"A fuckin' tip rat! That's what you are. Well, if you want to live like a rat then I'll treat you like one!".

I'd more or less passed out as the first stud hit my cheek but I could have sworn I also heard another voice in the room.

It growled "Don't!".

Hours later, in fact the following day, I opened my eyes and felt the tender lump spanning my brow. I felt groggy and thankful I wasn't dead. I thought of Mum and staggered out of bed on shaky red-lashed legs.

What I saw in front of me froze me to the bone and I screamed like I'd never screamed before.

Kilner was eating my Dad!

At least I thought it was Dad. The bear's woolly chops were munching on the very last of his fingers. I recognised the cheapo ring someone had palmed him off with. There was thick blood all over Kilner's paws and he sucked the finger like a chicken bone.

His furry belly was completely distended and I knew why.

It was then I heard Mum. She was laughing like a lunatic. A trail of blood running along the floor lead under my bed covers. I peeled them away and saw what Mum was holding. It was lit up by my torch.

The glass jar.

Something had been stuffed into it!

I peered in and saw it was ....... Dad's head!

His face was all scrunched-up like a little bloody pillow. 

I began to laugh loudly as well and when Kilner hobbled up and poured Dad's precious vinegar over his squashed head we all howled uncontrollably and rolled around the bed happier than we'd ever ever been.

Me, Mum, Kilner and Dad's jarred head.

BROUGHT UP BY SPIDERS

When I was a newborn I fell into a well.

I may have been dropped. I'm unsure. I was barely out of the womb.

I fell many hundreds of feet into the pitch dark of night and cried my lungs to rags.

At the bottom my descent was suddenly softened by gentle sheets of thread.

A papoose of webbing cradled me and I lay still in the cushion at the base of the world.

I stopped crying and cooed as rustling began in the thick of the blackness.

A large shadow stepped forward, tentatively, and then another.

The shadows trotted towards me across the threads and stared with lots of bulging eyes.

I gurgled.

The walking shadows nibbled the vernix from my body. They lapped at its cheesy taste.

Then they spun a blanket of silk that draped my little form and made me warm. 

I cooed.

The biggest shadow came closer and felt my face with something soft and furry.

It palped my cheek and forehead and slowly drew an invisible line around my skull, tapping my thin fontanelle.

I felt drool drip onto my mouth and I instinctively drank.

It was good and I puckered my mouth wanting more.

The big shadow lowered her maxilla and I suckled. The thing stiffened, then relaxed.

I could hear the feeder's book lungs slapping as I gorged my eager stomach with fluid.

When I was full the shadow rose and I smiled into the darkness warm and contented. 

My wardens both trilled, touched tarsi and padded away into the night gently clicking.

I slept soundly in their web and when I awoke they were both there like attentive maids.

Feeling the tender maxilla once more I suckled on something thicker than the last. A gloopier, more nourishing liquid with lumps. I gobbled it up from both shadows this time.

When their sucking stomachs ceased pumping I lowered my head and fell back onto the gossamer.

Day after day they fed me twice and I was growing.

Occasionally they re-wrapped me in a fresh cocoon as ice bloomed on the darkness around me and I felt cold flakes touch my face.

Every now and then the biggest shadow once more traced a line across my skull and morsed the tightening fontanelle, my brain twitching just below.

Every now and then I was pricked very gently and sensed something hot flow into my arm. It hurt the first time but after many many jabs I enjoyed its warm venomous tingle.

Several years passed and I had grown too big for the shadow web. My guardians, who had both tended me with care and affection, stared at my glistening eyes, their nightly coat of film intact since dawn. They cocked their heads and I sensed some agreement had been reluctantly reached.

Snipping away the bedding my parents positioned themselves beneath me and they climbed onto the darkness.

Piggybacked I rose with them as they ascended the night until eventually a circle was cut out of the dark.

They clambered on until they reached this circle. It was a cold pool of brightness that stung my pupils terribly.

My parents hauled me into it and I lay on the edge of something hard, my head still facing them in the safety of the black well. 

They cooed and clicked and stroked my face lovingly and I knew that something was about to change. I felt my book lungs empty and my throat tighten as tears sprang from my string of eyes. 

I caressed them both and gently, steadily they pushed me over the hard rim into the bright stuff.

I landed on my feet and looked up at the round wall from which I'd fallen. I scrambled to get back in but lacked the skill to climb the vertical stone.

I scoped all around me, my face wet with uncontrollable sadness and I was sure I heard my parents tapping in the darkness as they climbed home.

I remembered my mother tracing a line around my skull and rubbing my closing fontanelle and I felt my brain tighten. She was telling me to use it in this strange bright plain.

In the distance I saw a tumble of buildings and sensed food and warmth. I heard a baby crying.

Excited, my ring of legs quickly carried me there.

KNOCKOFF

I always had a feeling that I was a fake, a bootleg.

I first heard of it when my parents had me checked over for weak joints.

"He's got weak joints I'm afraid," said our GP.

"He's always been a fragile boy," explained my mother.

"He's not fragile. He's poorly made. Johnny lacks articulation. He's cheap," replied the doctor, "Give him vitamins every day and fish oil."

My mother bought 6lbs of fresh cod liver at the fish market as I stood there staring at a jar of real fish eyes blinking back at me.

My Dad ground those livers with his bare hands and wiped his face, smearing the stuff allover it. He ground his teeth and flexed his massive biceps as the offal perished in his grip. He was more like two men than one. I was half a boy.

They ladled the liver oil down my throat as my weak arms flailed like cooked cotton.

"Uuuurgh" I cried with non-patented lungs and filled up with fish juice like a small jug.

"Now you can run around and be a stallion like me Johnny" my Dad roared pounding his bare chest with his tattooed fists.

My Mum smiled as I got up stiffly off the kitchen table and flopped to the slippery lino.

"Black pudding for tea. Get some blood in you boy," she smiled dropping thick puds in boiling water. They looked like nooses being sterilized.

I ate the puddings awkwardly with a knife and fork in my rigid hands. I sat at the kitchen table. My Dad shook a storm of salt and pepper over me.

"Put hairs on your chest that will!" He declared rifling his fingers through his own.

"I don't have any hair Dad. I don't have any at all. It fell out after a few months remember." I whimpered.

He stared at me and shook his big head.

"What did we do wrong Son? Why are you so cheaply made?"

I dressed in second hand clothes and knotty woolen socks an Aunt had knitted. Nothing fitted right and my boots were too big. My toy rifle didn't work and my helmet was cracked, the chin strap dangling. It was shoddy, the whole damn thing. My unfinished face scrunched as I tried to cry but there just wasn't enough detail to do it.

I crawled into my plastic bag and lay flat with my clumsy rifle at my side. My Mum had put a medal in there to cheer me up but the pins were blunt and it wouldn't stick to my army jacket.

Staring out from the open cupboard I saw my parents phoning the agency. They wanted a real one they said. Not a knockoff. They wanted full articulation, flocked hair and proper hands. Oh and a facial scar. That was important. The neighbour's small man had a facial scar.

I smiled without lips and tried to imagine a scar. I slowly closed my already closed eyes and turned.

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!"