Palindrome

Palindrome was an unusual citadel. Constant in most factors, it was noticeably unusual in one respect.

Every newborn had to have a name that was the same backwards. A palindrome.

The naming authority wasn't precious about style or authenticity. It was the honest truth of a reversible name that meant all.

A palindromic name allowed full entry into society and all its shining departments. Ada, Edde, Kik, Anna, Iggi, Ululu, Oro, Pertrep. All fully accepted members of the community since birth.

The name's the ticket it said on the mirrors.

So woe betide if anyone disobeyed the decree of the palindrome. The strongest possible sanctions would be applied to the parents, with the harshest of prejudice.  Such parents might be changed, re-written, never to be named again, the child being forced into the care of the citadel forever, relegated to the footnotes for life, stripped of a normal title or worse.

And so it was for Florence, the first child ever to have a non- palindromic name in the city state's history.

Named after the classical city of the Italian state, Florence's parents, being of Italian stock, wanted to celebrate their beloved Grandmother who was graced with the same name. Their love for her knew no bounds.

Florence was a promise and a tribute. It simply had to be. It was her destiny.

The citadel's Father's were swift to act. Aberrations in nomenclature were potential triggers for mass re-namings and could not be tolerated. Consequences were immediate.

Florence's parents were first incarcerated in the city keep atop the Main Hall and then positioned on the Hall's window ledge. A siren blared across all the departments. The girl herself was perched on the Leader's balcony. A huge mirror was erected. 

ONLY PALINDROMES IN PALINDROME!

A large crowd had gathered below the balcony in the square. As Florence quivered on the edge, her parents were reversed in full view of her and all the citizens massed below.

We are not Acronyms nor Acrostics nor Abbreviations. We are Palindromes! Proclaimed the Leader.

They gasped as the reversals took full effect. Nothing like it had ever been seen publicly in the city before.

What about the girl? Someone yelled from the crowd.

I have looked in the mirror and the girl will be placed in ellipses until a suitable name can be found. It is the fault of her misguided parents and not hers! Spoke the Leader into the microphone.

In the meantime I shall be her guardian in the House of Drome, where she can reflect on her future. It is not irreversible as we first thought.

Go home now citizens. Stare in the mirror and be thankful for your names.

Remember. There can only be palindromes in Palindrome!

Pushing Up the Six Foot

It fills you up with gas.
The slow processing, the whims of decay. It's testament the pursuance of glorious slop.
How can we stand or stop its path on which we give our thanks and duly falter.
Death will kill us all.
Derma will alter where fats de-butter the limbs, the sinews stiffening like redundant brass.
It is with great regret that I liquefy,
a decanting mass, a wet stain on an indifferent sun, steaming in a pan like collapsing shanks.
My brains run out of my ass.

OYSTER

The death of men has a new Mother.

Their souls' opening changing them like birth.
When will her hands prize open my own shucked brain,
Releasing all my thoughts and juices
Into the salted earth?
I can feel the rain advancing down my shell as it washes me away into the world,
Diluted, more enriching,
I ossify my existence and become a pearl.

NORMAN'S DEMONS

Norman Winter lived a secluded Yorkshire life. 

He liked it that way. In fact it was fair to say that he lived a life apart, wholly separate from other people.

You see Norman Winter feared one thing above all else.

Chaos.

The world was full of it and Yorkshire was no different.

It was everywhere and according to Norman it was getting worse, a great cacophony of anarchy rising to a fever pitch in God's Own County and just about everywhere on Earth.

He didn't want to have anything to do with it or with the people that created it. He didn't want to have anything to do with anyone at all.

So, he kept to himself always and organised his life so that it stayed that way.

He had plenty of money on his bank account. All his bills were paid electronically. His shopping was delivered to his house in darkness via an external dumbwaiter and he had reduced his mail to zero. Nothing else arrived except water in the taps and power in the cables. Occasionally a rat appeared in his cellar from the bunker next door.

All the usual things left in the sewage, including the rats, dead, of course.

The only real knowledge he had of society was his television and from what he saw society was falling apart. He would eat his tea and shout at the TV.

"You scumbags! Get a job! Earn some money!"

Footage of a listless youth drove him mad. He'd fought in a World War and his youth had been largely erased by the trommel of dictators. He hadn't had a choice but today's lager-guzzling good-for-nothings had.

They had a choice but chose to squander it in pointless violence, thuggery, murder and mayhem out in the streets of the city. Of every city. Carnage ruled with a big V sign at the old world.

Norman hated them all. Those young 'uns. Those workless wastrels. How dare they let their lives fizz away in Godless pursuits, when his entire generation had had to fight for years on end. Countless died and generations were maimed. And for what?

So these cretins could bully the pensioners and pummel the veterans wheeled along the rotten streets to the falling cenotaphs?

So these morons could slaughter their parents and hang the different from the bloody ladder-leans on the street lamps?

Where were they when the lights went out? Where were they when the skies were flecked with enemy planes, his brothers stopping them in their paths.

Where were they when the glorious ranks of beautiful boys were cut down like poppies. These villains wouldn't know a poppy if it was pinned to their lily livers!

Where were they when the bombs stopped time, a million souls were seared and the sands of the atolls fused like glass?

Oh the injustice, the cruelty, the teeming unavenged dead!

Norman threw his corned beef sandwich at the telly and screamed at the Six-O-Clock News, which was depicting ever-growing destruction in the cities. 

Kicking over his Aspidistra table at the window he bellowed:

"You young wankers!"

"I'll show you!"

Norman Winter had had enough.

He went into the attic and slowly dragged out a thick heavy wooden trunk. He had been saving it as a keepsake for a Grandson that had never come.

Now was the time to use it as it had always meant to be.

"Yes, it's time to remind the world!" he muttered staring at the stamped lettering on the lid.

"D. Core II C/O N. Winter, Holgate, York, England"

Norman had sent it at the end of the War. A memento. An investment. A little payback for the years he'd spent testing. He'd felt spent too, so he sent it in the US Army Mail when no-one was looking during the tests.

He opened the lid and there it was, a pristine metal orb sat in a bed of lead. It was about the size of a fist and could have easily sat in the palm of his hand.

Lifting it up he gently gripped the sphere like a cricket ball and stared at its sheer perfection.

Except, though, it wasn't a cricket ball.

In front of the orb was a nameplate riveted to the metal lining. It read:

"Demon Core II, Manhattan Project, Fissile Hand Missile, Once Removed Detonation in Five Minutes"

"It was so damn secret, they never even knew it was missing!" Norman chuckled

"By the time they realised, I was long gone and my little nest-egg was wending its way to York!"

Norman howled with laughter, the bitter tears of old age turning into sobs as he remembered.

"I lost everything. All my friends gone. An entire generation wiped out."

"Now it's their turn, those idle bastards!"

It some way Norman had known this day might come. His children had produced no issue and as years turned to decades he saw them no more, his door locked tight against the growing bedlam outside. He had stumbled across the underground bunker one day stacking tins of beans on his cellar shelves. Pushing through an irregular air-vent he was able to stand up.

And there it was.

A nuclear bunker!

Of all the twists of fate. He had his own atomic shelter once again!

Having checked it's integrity Norman had concluded long ago that no-one else had access to it and that it was completely hidden from view on the surface, except for a small hatch that looked like a manhole cover. A ladder lead up to it and save for the vent in his cellar, it was the only way in or out and it was sealed from the inside.

For years Norman had been filling the shelter with tinned food and bottled water from his constant deliveries in case the worst ever happened and it was time.

And time it was.

In Norm's mind the clock was ticking already and the countdown had begun behind the vacant look in his eyes. Five minutes was all he needed!

Yes!

Something had snapped.

It was wood on his front door. Splintering wood. 

"What the ....!"

He turned out all the lights and carefully peered from his upstairs window. To his horror he saw a flurry of small steel hatchets hitting his door from top to bottom.

The throwers were a rabble of feral youths hell-bent on wrecking Norm's entrance and getting in.

"Open up you old fucker! We know you've got tons of food and money in there!"

On the ground Norman's delivery man lay crumpled, an axe buried deep in his skull and Norman's groceries strewn across the dark street, mostly tins of beans and corned beef destined for his shelter.

"Open up all we'll smash the place to bits you miserly old twat!"

The door began to falter as more and more hatchets and knives thwacked into its failing grain. 

Then the upstairs window was smashed by a flying brick, which was followed by a hail of fellow bricks from the street. One hit Norman squarely in the face and he winced in pain.

"We're gonna fuckin' kill ya you stingy cunt. That food and dosh is ours now!"

Norman staggered into the living room and saw the headline of the Ten-O-Clock News.

"There is chaos everywhere! Society is crumbling! Marauding Youths are rampaging! Stay in your homes and lock the doors! Law and order has broken down! There is no tomorroooooooow!" screamed the Newsreader as a machete cut his feed short. Wild boys and girls filled the news room and the camera was splattered with blood ending the News for good.

Norman heard the front door give way.

"Oh my ...." stuttered Norman, "I must get to the bunker!"

The old man moved faster than he had ever done in his life and galloping through the cellar he closed the steel vent tight shut behind him.

"Phew!" he said, "That was close!"

He was safe. He had enough food and water to last for years. The bunker would be his new home from home.

He smiled widely and help up a vigorous V sign at the ceiling.

"Fuck you you cretins!"

He stared at the clock. It said 22:04. It had taken Norman exactly four minutes to get into his shelter and shut the vent. He sat and waited for the blast outside.

It was only then that he realised that he held something in his hand.

He stared in utter terror and realised that he was still gripping the Demon Core grenade!

"Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

The clock struck five past and melted.

A shudder deep underground was felt by the rioting youths ransacking Norman's larders, but it only momentarily stopped them as they greedily opened tins of his corned beef and beans.

"I wonder where the old bastard went?" they mused!

He Who Cannot Be Named

Slowly men fell.

Cut deep, He sleeps in their fissures.

Where is our Hell when Heaven's lost all sense of itself?

Gently, woodlice drum His entrance.

Grand like petrichor, the smell of rain, a deluge,

Their carapaces splitting like young mens' helmets,

the toying surge flooding our brains

with seductive visions of waterfalls and swell.

so He who cannot be Named can skip,

a cape draped in blood a thousand years in length slides over the dying

and shuts there eyes.

Dreadful are the boned limbs which end us from Night's night, 

the bottom nothing, the bleeding hood of entropy in the sack of our days.

As centipedes grip my eyelids I see the Jester blink and stop.

Stooped, He smiles, a lottery of fangs inside a bag of chances,

and I stand up to watch Him hop.

THE VACANT VICAR

It was the year of our lord 1697. Wild beasts stalked the fields but knew better than to raid the crops of Bloat.

Bloat was an oasis of peace, piety and plenty. The soil was rich, a thick holy loam tended with loving care by the vigilant farmers of the parish and blessed by a generous God.

At its heart was the ancient church, a towering keep, resolute, reliable and righteous, planted in the middle of the village like a sacred brain fanning out it's harsh tidings of rural toil and Christ's protection.

The church was run by the Vicar. He was a trustworthy man, a pillar of Bloat's structure. But the Vicar had fallen from grace, a secret he battled with in the confines of the midnight chapel. He had taken to wine and to the sins of the mortal flesh, frenziedly bedding both plump curates and lonely farming wives and imbibing endless chalices of the holy claret as he impaled them on the altar.

The villagers talked and the talk grew thunderous, eventually pounding on the Vicar's oak door that Christmas, driving him out in a drunken state, half-dressed, his cassock wide open, his dripping member still engorged and the nude wife of the Squire running out of the vestibule yelling:

"To Hell with you all cock-lickers!"

A pack of hounds was sent forth to drive the Vicar to some distant parish and the Squire banished his wife to the dark frigid hills beyond the light, where she fell further and further into the wild embrace of the cruel winter.

Bloat appeared to prosper in the New Year. For a while at least. The barns were full of fecundity and the village-folk enjoyed fitful dreams wet and sweated. The Squire took to a new wife, a beautiful visitor with red hair. She was regal, lusty and of fierce temperament. He adored her but at the height of his carnal fires she left abruptly and did not return. He was desperate to be sated.

Meanwhile Bloat was still without a vicar. A barren basket, it was the first year in a hundred where the fruitful mass was missing from rustic life. The sacred heart had furred and the old faith of the people grew limp as the barned seed began to fester.

As the sun sank on Bloat that March the rutting hares stopped and stared at the stranger striding along the cinder path toward the village. At turns voluptuous, curvaceous, hideous and feral, the vague form solidified into a long-haired man wearing a course habit and carrying a long pronged pole to aid his awkward gait.

The man pounded on the thick door of the Squire's hall, where he was shown in by a full-chested housemaid. She bid him welcome and in the darkness of the hallway kissed him voraciously.

"Do I know you Father? You look vaguely familiar," said the Squire ramming the embers with a fire dog as the guest appeared.

"I can't imagine it my Lord. I have come by here but once before and I do not recall your penetrating figure."

"Penetrating eh! I have been known to enter my subjects with noble cause!" slapping the stranger hard on the shoulder from where the merest wisp of inky smoke arose.

The Squire chuckled at his own banter, as did his guest, who raised his bushy monobrow and smiled from ear to ear like an oyster.

"Come my fellow. Sit. Drink. Of what can I do for you?"

"Thankyou good Squire. I wish to be erected as Vicar in this vacant seat. Bloat needs a new masseur of souls I wager. My own God has guided me to you like a hungry drone in need of honey."

The stranger placed his hand on the Squire's thigh, grinned and squeezed. The noble felt inexplicably aroused and his bulging codpiece strained.

"You appear fulsome Squire. Let my humble digits assist!"

The guest undid the leather thongs at one side holding the Squire's codpiece in place. His turgid phallus sprang out and the stranger began to rub it with increasing vigour.

"The vacancy. I would like to fill it Sir!"

"But are you ordained?"

The stranger flicked his hair aside and took the Squire's cock entirely in his mouth and suckled. The Lord moaned and as he looked down he was sure he saw his errant wife's long red hair and the guest mounting her naked rump. He shook his head.

"The bacancy?" he mumbled with a full maw.

"It's yours. You are most assuredly our new Vicar!" he wailed climactically.

"Thank you Squire. You shall be first to be relieved!"

The stranger patted his flaccid member, rose and left, riding the red-haired housemaid out like a heated nag.

The Squire looked in shock and horror as the figure's cassock burned away revealing a steaming red body with a barbed tail and goat-hoofed legs kicking the filly.

The stranger turned one final time, a horned devil with a shark's smile, atop his bounding witch.

"Thank you for opening up your congregation Squire! Now go to Hell!!"

He clicked his steaming fingers and the screaming knight burst into violent crimson flames and was gone.

The devil laughed as he loped into the ripe streets of Bloat, the naked housemaid, the erstwhile wife, now straddling his scarlet shoulders, ferociously stroking his long horns howling:

"We're coming!"

The Mysterious Case of the Tenter Poles

Bledbottles is a typical village. Nothing special. Nothing new.

Well apart from the new village sign which had been erected on the boundary, where I lived. 

It must have been done at night. I certainly didn't see them putting it in.

It was your typical village sign. Metal. The name in large letters and something famous about the place.

Except Bledbottles wasn't famous for anything. Well, maybe villagers drinking cows' blood with their milk. For good health. Yuk! Disgusting!

I was walking our dog when I first saw the sign. Actually I was stuffing a poo bag in the bin when it caught my eye.

Why did we need a new sign anyway? We already had one. One of those large millstones popular in the Nineties. As if every village was full of millers back in the day. Regular flour magnates. More like millstones round our neck!s!

So, now there were two signs. One in front of the other. I suppose it wasn't so strange. We have two beef farms, two dairies, two schools, two pubs, two off-licences and two graveyards.

Well one graveyard and a cemetery to be exact. A cemetery has no church. I didn't know that until recently. Like the difference between cottage and shepherds pie. One has lamb, the other beef!

I digress. Bledbottles. So good they named it twice! Like the Big Apple. Except it's not. It's more like a big clot. Thick. Wet. To be avoided.

The famous something on the new sign had me intrigued though. Home of the Tenter Poles.

What the hell are those?

I'd heard of tent poles. Surely the signmakers hadn't spelt it wrong. I'd also heard of tenterhooks. Like being on tenterhooks.

I had to look it up. Tenter Poles: poles used for drying skins.

Skins? What kind of skins?

I asked my old Dad. 

Where are some tenter poles round here? 

Oh those things. Near the graveyard. They were dug up and put there.

Dug up? Where from?

The skin factory.

What's a skin factory?

An old tannery. Where they made leather.

Where's leather from?

Cows.

I thought about this.

Cows. 

Who ran the tannery?

The skin masters. The Glovers. A big old family. They brought wealth and health to Bledbottles. Lots of local people were employed by them. There's still Glovers in the village. Very well respected people. They run a massive tannery in Leeds now. Very rich too. They live in the big mansion near the church. Near those Tenter Poles. It's the old tannery slaughterhouse done right up. Like a barn conversion. The Glovers had the poles moved there for posterity. They own half the village but no-one ever sees them. Keep themselves to themselves. 

God! Living in a slaughterhouse! How gross!

I went off and an itch began to bug me. The kind of itch that needs scratching. Yep, I just had to see those tenter poles.

Cycling across the village was easy. The poles were in the shadow of a huge Yew, it's ancient dark a circular night. 

Getting up close I saw that the poles were actually four stone pillars with holes in them. The holes must have been for wooden bars where the skins were draped over. These had obviously rotted away over the last century, what with all that skin juice!

I shuddered at the thought and took a bite of my Mars Bar. All this detective work was making me peckish.

Whilst I was there I thought I'd have a wander round the graveyard. So many ancient souls. Lots of familiar names too. Old village families lying there en masse. But one thing I noticed. There were no Glovers. No Glovers at all.

Odd.

I finished my Mars Bar and was about to cycle off when I noticed activity at the back of the old tannery house. Curiosity getting the better of me I got off my bike and snook round.

Peeking through a crack in the large garden walls I saw something very strange. There where lots of really old people getting out of a minibus and shuffling into the large house. A young woman closed the bus doors and followed them inside.

I decided I'd been there long enough and rode home.

"I saw some odd stuff today Mum. At the Glovers."

"The Glovers? What were you doing there?"

"Oh, just following up on a local history project. Dad knows about it. Anyways, do you remember any of the Glovers' funerals?"

"Funerals? Well now that you mention it, no. But then again I haven't lived here all my life. They will have been whilst I was away."

"Oh, right. Yes."

Mum hadn't been away that long. Four years at Uni. That was years ago. It didn't explain how there were no graves. There must have been some deaths in the family over the last hundred years.

The next day I visited the register of deaths and births in our small Museum. I was right. No deaths of any Glovers in the ledger.

Impossible!

They must be hiding deaths and burying the dead elsewhere for God knows what reason.

I biked to the mansion that night. Dressed in black and keeping my dynamo off, I didn't want to be seen.

I snuck to the rear of the big house again when a security light flooded the walls with light. I froze and dipped into shadow. The light snapped off and I moved slower than ever to reach the top of the wall.

From there I could see a row of new tenter poles with masses of hides hooked onto the lines. Some of the hides were pale and some dark.

I could also see into a large annexe, which was brightly illuminated. Inside the same old people I saw earlier where covering themselves in what looked like lotion. They were slowly rubbing it all over their faces and arms and some their entire bodies.

In the middle of the room was a table on which an elderly lady was laid. The young woman I'd seen before, together with a young man, we're doing something to her. They looked like they were stitching her clothes. No. That's not right. They were stitching her .. face!

I gasped and nearly fell over my bike. 

What the hell were they stitching?

I peered again and the elderly woman on the table stood up. She was naked for God's sake. Her whole body was old, saggy, browny and dull. There was stitching everywhere. Like a teddy bear. As if she'd been stitched together. She was ancient, except her face. That was young! They'd stitched on a new face!

Jeeeeesus! This time I did fall over my bike before cycling off as fast as I could. 

What the hell had I just seen? New faces being transplanted by the Glovers? 

I had to tell my Mum and Dad.

Dad was showering. I waited for him at the door, which was ajar.

"Dad. You're just not going to believe what I've seen over at that mansion!"

"Which mansion Son?"

He stepped out of the shower and I saw his shoulders in the mirror. They were all leathery and saggy and I could see ... Stitching!

Oh my God! My Dad too! Christ!

"So what did you see Son?"

"Oh nothing much Dad. It's such a massive house isn't it. I just.. just couldn't believe the size of it!" 

I had had to make something up really fast and make my excuses. I had to check something out. My Mum!

She was in the garden forking spuds She bent down to loosen some weeds. And there it was. A leather patch on her lower back. Clear as day. Stitch marks and all!

My Mum and Dad. I bet the whole village was in on it!

Leather. Patches. Stitches. Skin. What was going on in Bledbottles!

In desperation I went to the police station. A house really. Near the stream. Just a single copper in a small building. 

I walked into the foyer. Gathering my thoughts before ringing the bell I noticed a poster for a missing girl. Staring at it I realized with horror that it was the same girl I saw at the mansion. At least her face was. Being grafted onto that old woman! 

Jesus Christ! Is there no end!

"For God's Sake, tell me you know about this!" I screamed at the policeman behind the desk brandishing the poster of the missing girl.

"Of course, she's been missing a month"

"But the Glovers. The leather parts. The face grafts. She's there. The girl's there!" I blundered, not able to get out of my mouth what I was thinking.

"Now take it easy. Sit down young fella. Here, have some blood and milk."

I sat and actually drank the local brew with tears rolling into the glass.

Immediately I felt sick and dizzy and the last thing I remember was the policeman reaching out.

I woke up in a vaguely familiar place.

On a table!

I still felt groggy. That policeman must have sedated me the old sod.

Next to me there was activity. 

A man was lying on another table. A young girl was sorting metal instruments next to him. He was talking to her.

"Oh hi Son! You awake!"

"Dad?"

"Yes Son! It's Dad. I've come in for my mid-life upgrade!"

"What?"

"You know! I'm getting a new face. A younger model! Yours!"

"Mine! What! No! Dad! No, please!"

I tried to get up but I was strapped to the table.

"I'm getting your shoulder skin too. Mine's been leather for a year. Gets it ready you see. Prepares the ground you might say."

"But Dad! Mum will find out!  I'm her son!"

Mum stepped out from the shadows and stood next to my Dad smiling.

"Hi Son! So glad Dad gets you!"

"I am. So glad. It's special. Mum's getting hers next year. And her back too. She's so excited. It'll be your older Sister's. We'll go on a cruise once we're both done! Our village is famous round here for its fresh looks in old age. Outsiders think it's the blood and milk but we know better don't we son, now you've scratched the surface you little Sherlock you!"

I screamed and wrestled with the straps. Turning I saw the tenter poles through the window. A hide face was draped over one, dripping blood into a bowl. It had eyes, nose. But no mouth! Oh no! No mouth!

"Ah yes Son. I forgot to say. You'll get your mouth back when your older. Much older. We can't have you blabbing now can we! You have to face up your responsibilities!"

Everyone laughed at Dad's quip. Mum. The Policeman. The neighbours. My sister. The whole village had turned out!

My Dad was prepared. Then the old young Mrs. Glover approached me with a scalpel.

"Now hold still. Its going to hurt ... A lot!"

As the tip entered my skin I could hear the whole room howling with laughter, which got louder and louder when they peeled off my face and placed it on my Dad's raw muscles.

"Keep it in the family. That's what we always say! A little stretching and it'll fit like a glove!"

The Wood by the Wheat

It was a glorious late summer's day that day. The far corona blessed the World in orange heat and we skipped in its fabulous promise.

It was as if it had been designed just for us, we the four best friends and my five year old sister tagging along.

Our knapsacks were bulging with jam butties and clinking bottles of creamy milk for our picnic. We'd brought a tatty chequered blanket too for laying in our favourite wheat-field.

So we set off, a warm breeze ruffling our hair.

First we had to ford the brook and pass the church. The old graveyard made us slow right down as we were scared of upsetting the residents by running. It's headstones seemed to turn gradually as we walked by. Millipedes halted on the inscriptions and changed them.

Then we ran and laughed and laughed, uncorking a mixture of joyousness and fright.

Things brightened as soon as we took the corner. Somewhere a cockerel crowed and the faint tinge of manure flavoured the summer air. There were farms close by. Plump cows brimming with cream moo'd from the byres and dogs barked at invisible foes in the yards.

The land opened out like a rug, plush and flat until it began to crease. Then a dry slope rose.

We stopped to stare at the small memorial to the dead girl. She'd lost her life some fifty years before to the day, running down the hill and hurtling into a barb-wire fence. She'd been scalped. She'd managed to crawl all the way to the wood where her brother was but lost so much blood from her open head that she died there. We shuddered and kicked the sandy ground not knowing what else to do. This was no way for children to go.

Hands stuffed in pockets we strolled, then hopped, then ran full-pelt uphill towards the crest of the climb.

We stopped still at the top completely out of puff and heaved our chests as fresh air swelled our angry lungs. We could see the golden ears of the wheat fields glinting in the sun about half a mile away.

But first we had to get through the woods.

The outer row of thick full trees stood a little distance down the back of the hill. They waited like a gang of leaves and beyond them lay the sable void where summer wasn't allowed.

Slowly, we descended the barren lee and in a ragged line we gawped up at the tops where the canopy soared and peered squinting into the soupy gloom for any clues of what lay within.

We had visited the wood many times before and each time was a little worse than the last, like a scraped knee that just wouldn't heal.

Crows hopped off when they saw us coming. Corvid spies the lot!

Despite our nerves we always made the most of the half mile through the wood. We kicked and threw the thick leaves at each other, we jumped over the dry streams, we chucked sticks as far as we could into the rising brambles and we played hide and seek without ever straying too far from the seeker or the sought.

But on this particular day we felt different for some reason. Some unfathomable logic made us play louder, wilder, freer than ever before. Perhaps it was the bright rays of the sun penetrating the gloom more than we could ever remember. It slit the dark like  claws and we basked in the light and the warmth of our star shimmering between the trees.

Without a care in the world we bellowed across the wood, yelling like baboons and cartwheeling over the swirling leaves. We carved our names into the oaks with pen-knives and broke branches off saplings to fence one other. The trunks echoed to the sound of stones we viciously threw at them. The bark bottoms were darkened by our hot pee. We laughed at the growing stains.

It was a fabulous feeling of freedom we enjoyed that day. A wild liberty in those woods. Euphoric, loud and ragged.

As the afternoon tattered the light began to falter in that old place.

Wedged between the belly-laughs we snarled on all-fours. Spitting at each other we growled like foxes and split our sides laughing.

Our growls became howls as we loped and leapt. Scuffles broke out and noses were bloodied.

But blood was the least we could offer. No-one could have known the price we would pay on that terrible day. The price for being part of that ancient place.

A wren zoomed across the brush cursing the whole time. Our screams were disturbing his sylvan watch. Wood ants teemed over their needled nest hurrying to get something finished. They seemed to pause as we shoved past, ten thousand antennae tapping the air, arousing the sleeping spirits.

"Let's play kick the bastard!" someone raged getting up from the floor.

Another frenziedly booted the ball through the wood and we all scarpered the other way bellowing, hiding behind fat looming oaks and hazel brooms.

"Coming ready or not you fuckin' scrotes!" They yelled once they'd found the ball.

Hunkered down in our shadows we waited. Shaking. Panting. Changing.

One by one we were discovered.

All except my little sister. We'd separated and gone in different directions.

She was found by all of us trapped behind a cage of jagged branches leant against the biggest oak.

"Get me out!" She screamed

We gazed at her, anguished, frantic, helpless and smiled.

It was then a hole appeared behind her at the base of the trunk.

She turned, saw it and yelled for us to save her.

"Pleeeeaase!"

The hole widened, strangled horns wailed in the abyss and darkening fingers reached out for her hair.

She fell.

"Help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

She descended into the lightless void shouldering our two worlds apart. There was a sickening peeling sound. Her screams grew fainter and fainter and she was gone. Her wet toy doll, spat out with it's scalp missing, hit one of us in the face.

We all stood, shuffled awkwardly, rubbed our eyes and shook ourselves as if waking from a dreadful dream.

Altered, we looked at each other.

Dismissed by the closing rift we turned and cursed, slowly headed down to the wheat fields by the woods just a breath away, where two small girls with fleshless scalps, my sister and a stranger, sat with us, as we laid out our picnic in the pitch dark.

The Sun Don't Shine

Drowning. Falling. Stroked. Swallowed by the world. A miasma. A dreg. Bitten in two. One half dead. The other shit-thick like a dry fuck.

I will flay you. Just you watch. Lifeboats be ready. It's gonna be turgid. Scrambled. Candy-flossed skin. I'll take it all like cling film. You won't need no dermis in the death of days. You won't feel a thing. I am the King and Queen of necrosis. The brass hat of flagrant wounds. The dismal seed.

Sweeping over contours like a kestrel I can smash and grab the guts, the hearts, the souls wherever I go. A nerve bandit. A burglar in your brain, forcing the lobes apart to bag the id. To heave the swag. To leave a calling card on the grey foundation as it gives way. It says "No-one's home. Not today".

Nobody's safe. I am a furious drape as dark as plague. A nimbus of hate. It will gather you all in its dreadful billows from which you shall be siphoned. An ichor. A milk. You will be rent, the bones soft- sucked, your warm marrow brooking on my tongue. It is your fate to pool inside me.

The storm of judgement shall debride you. The vortex of an only mind. A tempest of injured limbs, a cyclone of blood-blistered despair. I am here.

It is to nothing we voyage. To the kernel of night. A quasar of misery cursing the light you humans emit. Batteries for babies. That's all. Well to hell with you all. Let me net your flailing carapace and shove my gulping forceps where your soul collapses. Watch me proper stuff you where the sun don't shine.

Showtime!

Judy stood first. Punch followed. It was party time. The night was young. As young as new blood. They had time to kill.

The streets were dark. Darker than a dead show. People were thronging beneath the only lights outside the public houses swilling beer. Laughing like apes. 

Tussling. Pushing and shoving.


Judy stepped into a back street. Pitch black it was. She smoothed out her smock and whistled.


"Hello little lady!"


A rough voice grated the air. A large man appeared in front of Judy.


"You with anyone? You fancy a drink?"


He placed his hand on her arm.


"What the .....!"


Punch slit his throat with a quick, precise swoosh of his razor.


"That's the way to do it!" he trilled.


The man fell between bins. It made a racket. But the revellers didn't hear. They were too busy revelling.


Judy bent down and stared at the man's eyes. Blood welled up like a cherry cup. She reddened her lips with a few drops and batted her eyelids at Punch.


"Oh nooooo you don't!"


"Oh yes I do!"


"Oh noooo ...."


Judy was on him. He fell backwards stiffening. They groped, unbuckled. With guiding hands they mated furiously between the bins and screamed like cats.


"Well done Punchy!"


"Fits like a glove!"


"Let's have some fun. C'mon!"


They staggered off into the tent of darkness. Hideous to look at, night owls queuing for kebabs turned away when they saw Punch's massive chin and nose and Judy's blood red cheeks and smeared mouth.


Punch ran at them with his club, swinging it wildly.


"What ya goin to do when I'm not here no more Jude?"


"Why? Where ya going babes?"


"Nowhere! It's just that the show won't last forever will it. I'm getting old darlin! They retired the ghost!"


"The ghost was dead! You're not old. You're as young as that horny dog who's always after me!"


"That damn dog! I'm going to feed it to the croc!"


"You'll need some sausages to get the dog Punchinello!"


"Don't call me that Jude!"


"Punchinello, Punchinello!"


"Damn you Jude! I'm going to get somethin' better than sausages!"


With a quicksliver flash of his razor Punch opened him up. He slid his hand inside and yanked out a splashing coil of fresh guts, colon and all.


Punch hauled them up steaming in the night air like a trophy.


"Here doggy, here doggy doggy!"


The horny dog panted, licked Judy's red lips and leapt to grab the hot giblets and gobbled them all up.


"You've done us in Punch!"


"I did it for you Jude. No more dogs, no more crocs, no more babies."


"But I liked them really."


The pair fell over the tent's sill showered with blood. Their hands went limp. Punch and Judy lay upside down.


They stared at the man's ashen face flopped in the opening between them.


Through bubbling lips he spluttered in a high-pitched voice:


"That's the way to do it!"

SORE LOSER

Gustav hadn't seen Martin for 25 years, not since they had been bitter rivals in the World Chess Championships. 

Gustav had heard from a a mutual acquaintance that Martin was dying in hospital. Apparently Martin had asked to see him for old time's sake. 

So on a damp Sunday afternoon shortly before Easter, Gustav decided to visit his old foe and pay his last respects.

They had last met in 1955. Gustav had won the World Chess Championship and taken the long-held title from Martin in a gruelling round of hostile matches.

Martin had reacted to losing very badly indeed and completely retreated from public view and was largely forgotten. Gustav had remained Grandmaster until he retired 10 years ago.

The hospital was positioned on the far side of the City in an old corner almost lost to time, a gothic heap needling with towers and minarets. 

Rooks cackled in its murky heights and one landed square at Gustav's feet. It turned as he moved forward towards the gates.

"This hospital is more like a damn witch's castle!" Gustav grumbled.

The weather was terrible. Dark skies were chequered with pied clouds and distant thunder fumed far away. 

It was raining stair-rods. Gustav pulled up the collar of his long coat and adjusted his hat to keep the wet out as he trudged through the shadows towards the other side.

An ageing carbuncled nurse met him in the gloomy reception and after mumbling about the rain Gustav asked for Martin's room. 

"Down the long corridor, the End of Life Ward,  bed 13.  Would you like me to let him know that you're on your way? I can call the duty nurse."

"No thank you. I think I'll surprise him."

Gustav pushed along the dim corridor to where the world ended for some. He wondered if he had made a mistake in coming.  After all, they had never been friends. It was their dreadful rivalry that had always brought them together in a loveless arena of Kings and Queens.

"We were just pawns ourselves!" he mused.

Reaching the End of Life Ward Gustav felt the lights grow dimmer. The temperature fell and the clock seemed to stop. 

He wavered on the threshold and questioned his next move. Gustav went in.

A wizened nurse hunched beside a dripping candle gave Gustav a knowing nod and he walked slowly towards bed 13.

He took off his hat.  

"Hello Martin. It's Gustav."

Gustav noticed that Martin could hardly open his eyes. They were covered in scabs. In fact his entire bald head, face and neck were covered in large weeping bed sores, which looked truly agonising.  

"I've brought you some grapes Martin."

Gustav placed the grapes in a cracked bowl at the side of the bed. A single wooden chess piece stood erect next to it. An old black queen, that had seen better days.

"How have you been Martin?"

Gustav couldn't help gawping at the open sticky rents on his rival's ancient body. He shivered.

"It's been a long time Martin. I'm sorry to see you like this. I wanted to see you, for old time's sake and just say goodbye. No hard feelings." 

Gustav put his hat back on, nodded and turned to leave, when Martin raised his right hand. 

Reluctantly Gustav took it and gently shook hands. He could feel the moist moldering blebs against his skin and grimaced. He drew his wet hand away and left.

Gustav hastened from the ward and went to the nearest bathroom, where he vigorously washed his hands. 

He tripped past the old nurse at reception who simply stared at him as he left. 

Hurrying through the hospital grounds the rooks seemed to laugh at Gustav. As he got further away his pace slowed. Somehow he felt weaker. His skin became parched and itchy and as he walked he could not help clawing at his face and neck. 

As he got nearer to his house adjacent to the Royal statue, Gustav began to stagger. He was burning up. Resting against the pedestal of the King the Old Monarch seemed to be looking down at him in disgust. 

Gustav fell into his home and crawled towards the mirror in the tiled hallway. What he saw horrified him to his very core and he began to scream. 

His entire face, head and neck were erupting with noxious red and yellow seeping bed sores all sopping-wet and blood-flecked.

"Martiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!" he shrieked as he slumped to the floor.

In bed number 13 Martin left this life with a hideous smile across his face. 

On his bed-side cabinet the black queen lay flat.

One word was scrawled in blood and pus.

Checkmate.