The Old Horns

"C'mon Cecil. We'll be late!"

"Ok my love. I just need to find the big umbrella. It's in the shed."

"Well hurry up. The carol service starts at seven and we're both reading."

"I know sweetness. I'll be two minutes."

Cecil wandered into the outside shed through the rain. He turned on the weak light and in the murk fumbled for the brolly on the hook. A large spider looked at him with irritation.

The light was so bad he groped in semi-darkness and got hold of something else by mistake.

"Cecil. What are you doing?" Ada shouted from the back door.

"Coming dear!"

He unhooked whatever it was and brought it under the lightbulb. Even in the gloom he could see what they were.

A pair of old horns held together by a bit of skull.

"Well I never! How did you get there!"

Sensing a long-forgotten union, Cecil held the ancient object and remembered how he had come by them on the moor above the house after ploughing the top field. That was fifty years ago!

His daughter had the farm now. He thought of her and her family safe and snug this Christmas. He was glad the horns weren't on the farm.

Still clutching them he was sure he'd thrown out the horns years before. In the bin. He'd forgotten. Somehow they had been here all along.

"Cecil!"

"Coming darling!"

For some strange reason, which he couldn't explain, the old man placed the horns on top of his head and balanced them there for a time. They scratched his temples, inflaming old scars.

He shut his eyes, swallowed and opened them again. He found his shaking hand gripping a large pitchfork leaning by the wall. He felt terrible.

He rehung the horns and wiped his face with his hanky. He stared silently into the black night beyond the shed door.

"I couldn't find the brolly darling."

"We'll have to take the car. It's not going to stop."

Cecil reversed out of the yard and the couple drove to church in rain which seemed to grow stronger with every mile. It flayed the car like a lash and the wind groaned in the trees.

Cecil was unusually silent as he drove slowly along the five mile lane with the wipers thrashing at the water.

Ada didn't really notice. She was thinking over her Christmas reading about the hot breath of animals warming the Christ child in the byre. She wanted to make an impression at the lecturn.

The car pulled up and with coat collars high the elderly pair hurried into church. Cecil hesitated at the threshold. He stared intently at the sacred space beyond. Tentatively he entered.

"We're at the front dear."

"Don't you think I know!"

"You'll need a kneeling cushion."

"For God's sake woman, stop your damn fussing!"

Ada looked at Cecil. He'd never scalded her before. Not since the farm. He must be getting a chill she thought and ambled up the aisle to the first pew. She smiled at the Priest who smiled back.

Cecil stomped over and sat down next to his wife. The Priest nodded to him. Cecil simply stared past him toward the statue of Christ above the altar. He glared at it.

The carol service began and the congregation started to sing. In the Bleak Midwinter and Silent Night. The Priest joined in, his vestments sparkling in the tallows of the altar.

An air of candled peace descended upon the assembly and Ada felt settled for the first time since they arrived.

She looked at Cecil but he wasn't settled.

Not at all. 

He was rubbing his temples, scratching the spots where the old horns had rested. He turned to face her and his eyes flashed with pain and ..... something else ....

Malevolence!

Ada winced but she had to stand up to recite her reading. Nervously she spoke of the coming of the Lord in the dead of night that first Christmas.

When done it was Cecil's turn. She passed him the bible, which he snatched, grunted something and shambled the few feet to the dias.

Gripping the lectern Cecil began to shudder. The wooden pedestal quivered and he raised his head toward the people, frantically scratching at his temples all the while.

Suddenly, he blurted out his first words with such a rasp that the candle by his book went out.

He looked ahead and his eyes burned crimson.

The audience gasped.

Cecil raised the holy book aloft and howled.

"The horns. The old horns. I've missed them so!"

He threw the Bible high into the air and a silence fell upon the company as it arced slowly towards the door.

The Priest stared at the bible as it fell to the floor.

Someone whispered,

"He's here!"

At once there was a cacophonous pounding on the wooden doors of the biulding. They blew open and a gust of frigid sulphuric air swept across the space like a tidal wave of bat wings, extinguishing all the candle-flames and plunging the church into total darkness.

Except for one.

The lecturn candle had re-ignited.

It illuminated a scene which froze the stilling blood of those believers that infernal December night.

Cecil was no longer a man. The old horns were fused to his head and his skin was cracking open in huge smoking rents.

With taloned hands he mauled it all off to reveal a red glistening face, smoldering yellow eyes and a mouth bristling with fangs.

Thin blue lips curled into a knowing smile.

"Well hello again!"

KRINGLEFINGER

Kringlefinger stirred the enormous cauldron of Christmas soup with his massive spoon.

Even for an elf he was so short and crooked he had to stand on a stool. All of the other elf folk always laughed and called him terrible names. The big fella upstairs just let it happen.

He could cook though, Kringlefinger. Like a demon. But he was unappreciated by the big red mister. Even worse, he'd treated him like crap as far back as he could remember.

Kringlefinger dipped his hairy hand in the soup and licked the whole thing like a chicken leg.

"Damn. That's tastey. Too good for that old bearded bastard upstairs that's for sure!"

His hand scratched his bollocks, went in again and slurp!

"Time for all the trimmings! Summat really special this time 'cos I'm well and truly hacked off with him booting me up the arse!" he cursed.

Kringlefinger shoved his calloused pinky straight up his gigantic flaring nostril and grappled with a bogey the size of a whelk. He wiped it onto the side of the pot and pushed it into the soup with his spoon.

"Nice! For starters!" He grinned.

After rubbing his buttocks vigorously the old bent cook hawked up a humongous green gobbet of phlegm. It sounded like a towel snap and out it shot, bang into the bubbling broth, where it landed with a loud splat!

"Yum!"

Next he leaned forward on his woodwormy stool, undid his ancient leather codpiece and with both hands took out his gnarled, warty and fantastically large tattooed member. 

Balancing on tiptoes he began to rub with increasing zeal but his glorious release was cut quite short when his Boss bellowed from above.

"Kringlefinger! You stumpy fuckwit, where's my soup!"

"Coming Sire!" he yelled, staring at his flaccid tool, "or maybe not!"

Deprived of his playtime, the cook took aim and heartily peed, stirring the yellow cordial around and around into the swirling holly.

Spooning it out into a decrepit but gargantuan bowl and adding a sprig of nettle, Kringlefinger carried it to the dumbwaiter and hauled on the greasy rope.

"Blasted rotten caribou hugger!" he scowled and turning let rip a long loud fart inside the rising box.

Grumbling, he knew it wouldn't be long before the main dinner was required, so the cook got to it. But this time he'd get some payback. Oh yes!

In the oven was the Boss's very own rotund Chief elf rammed right in and judging by the fat pooling round his knees he was nearly done. 

Kringlefinger put his cheek close to the roast and checked the heat. He tugged on a thick curly nasal hair and the meat came away lovely.

"Far too good for the old twat! Old Chiefy needs doctorin'!"

Just at that moment the cook's wife entered the kitchen dragging a huge writhing sack, which emitted loud braying shrieking sounds.

"Is that our stuffing?"

"It is my dearest but it wasn't fuckin' easy at all! The damn thing just wouldn't get in the bag!" she moaned.

"But you went to his favourite reindeer stables didn't you dear like we discussed?"

"No, this red-nosed brat is from the birth barn. It said Rudolph or something on the sign outside. It also said it was special so I guessed it would be just the job!"

"Ah, a sleigh-born eh! That's even better! Let's hope he's really special and very important! Serves the old sod right for treating us like shit. Get the leggy sprogget in the mincer dear".

"Which one?"

"Use the big mincer this time. It'll come out coarser and the old fucker might choke on a hoof!"

The hunched elf woman smacked the sack with a mallet and went quiet. She tipped the bag into a vast crusty hopper. Something glowed bright red, all the way down to the grinding screw.

The glow stopped abruptly when the handle was turned and a squidgy plopping sound began, punctuated with the occasional yelp and snap.

"Kringlefinger you ugly little fucker! Where's my bastard Christmas dinner?" bellowed the big fella. The oak plank floor was thumped so hard that the cook and his wife both jumped out of their skin.

"That Nickel arse! He'll be the bastard death of us! We'll show him! No more Santa's Little Helpers for us! This year it's got consequences 'cos he's on his own fuckin' naughty list!"

The weary chef impaled the cooked Chief elf with a rusty halberd and pumping abnormally muscular arms, he hefted the whole thing onto a battered platter in a single swing. Plump!

"K R I N G E L F U C K I N F I N G E R!"

The Sire's shriek was so loud that the cook slipped on a slick of elf lard and his scabby head shot straight up into the Chief's seared arse.

Pulling it out with a schwupp, Kringlefinger cursed.

"That chuffin-well does it! Let's give the old cock-head something to really fuckin' moan about dear! Let's give him the treatment!"

Kringlefinger took down his stiff little breeches and clambered onto the elf roast. Gripping its charred belt buckle he rubbed his bare crack all over the elf meat leaving a trail of glistening brown smears.

"Ha ha!"

His wife removed her bloomers and balanced on the lip of the big mincer, where she let loose her swollen bladder. The hot piss steamed where it pooled on the top of the special reindeer-mince.

"Oh shit!" she wailed.

"What's up?"

"I've squeezed too hard and let one go!"

"Don't fret! Let the whole lot out dearest!"

The old woman shat into the mix as hard as she could.

Bluuuuuurpp!

With tears in her eyes she got down, turned the handle and out poured the raw stuffing, which was caught in a huge tin basin.

The Chief, stuffed with Rudolph, was sent upstairs in the dumb waiter with the reindeer's glowing nose as garnish just to rub it in.

The old couple waited silently peering up at the cracked oak ceiling.

Surely this would piss him off.

"What's this! What's thiiiiiiiis!" came the roar as Rudolph's red nose came bouncing down the stairs.

The cook and his wife looked at each other.

"This is fuckin' .........

D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!" Bellowed Santa.

The cook and his wife visibly wilted.

"Bollocks!" moaned Kringlefinger and he slumped to the floor.

Rudolph's red nose landed on his head.

SALTERSGATE

After the place was abandoned in the Nineties, the flame went out at Saltersgate Inn. It was a bad omen on the moors.

Long had it been said should the flame expire then the Devil would have his day.

The tabloids picked up on the story. Garish headlines with pictures of the Inn in its heyday, an important watering hole for man and horse on the lonely moors between Whitby and York. It was also a smugglers snug where fish was salted away from prying government eyes.

Those days were long gone and demolition began shortly after all the brief fuss. It was a flash in the redtop pan.

Local contractors quickly smashed the ancient white Inn to bits and hauled it off in wagons to the yard in Staithes.

After a month, all that remained was the flag floor.

Legend had it that it was here that fish was squirreled away by smugglers beneath the Inn. Carted over from Robins Hood and brined in the cellar vats far from the beaks of the Excise men.

Demolition men began hammering the flags. Soon they were through and a small digger made short work of the rest. 

Suddenly, a set of stone steps appeared in the murk, terribly worn and calcified white over the centuries. 

The men descended and crunched across the cellar floor, now exposed to the daylight for the first time since the fifteenth century.

As the mortar and dust settled the men saw a wooden arched door at the far end of the ruined space. It wasn't on the plan they had, even the older chart the gaffer held.

"What's that boss?" Said the team's apprentice.

"Dunno Runswick. Damn old plans. Let's get it open then lad!"

Runswick nervously pushed the old handle and the door creaked loudly. 

"Here, give Runswick a torch!"

The teenage worker stared at his gaffer and took the torch. He looked at his older workmates who all gawped at him.

"Go on Runs! 'Bout time you did summat useful!"

He went in and the torch had to fight hard to find purchase in that treacled dark, which seemed to cling to him like his own enveloping fear.

Canker festooned the low curved ceiling. Runswick removed his hard hat. Oozing fluid tickled and dripped onto his face.

"Ugh!"

He wiped it off and swung the torch round the room frantically. He wanted to get out of there as fast as he could.

The weak beam picked out details of an ancient place. A row of decrepit wooden chairs. A small dais in front and at the rear a recess in the crystalline stone wall. 

Runswick inches closer. Slowly. He stumbled over a chair and steadied himself on the timber dais. It was draped in a moth-eaten cloth bearing the symbol of a fish. 

Staring forward and targeting the cut recess he realized that there was a light flickering within it.  

He rubbed his eyes and moved his bulk nearer. 

Now standing directly in front of it he could see that it was a small flame stuttering in the gloom. Barely visible in the darkness it appeared to come directly from something sticking up through the ledge. He peered at it.

"What the....!"

Runswick shuddered. In the light of his torch he could see clearly that the thing sticking up was a finger. A leathery ancient taloned finger. The talon and the tip were lit like a candle and it was from this that the small red flame flickered.

"Jesus!" He screamed and began to stagger towards the door.

Before he got there his Gaffer and workmates trudged in.

"Boss! Boss! There's a flame! In the wall! It's a burning f - finger!" Runswick spluttered.

"It's OK Runsy. It's OK" reassured the gaffer.

"Just sit here and tell us what you've seen"

Runswick sat on a chair at the side of the dais.

"Look for yourselves! It's right here!"

The gaffer stood next to the flame 

"What. This?"

He blew as hard as he could and the flame went out.

"Nothing there Runsy!"

Runswick glared at his old plump boss. 

"You blew it out! But, the legend!"

"Oh yes we know the legend. That's why we're here!

His workmates all took off their hard hats and put up their sweatshirt hoods. They then sat in the chairs in front of the dais. In the arcane dark they looked like monks.

"You see Runsy. We are the devil's men. Each generation has them and it's our turn. We've been praying for this day, the day we could enter the Saltersgate cellar"

"What are you on about!"

The old man nodded to the one hooded worker not sat down.

He stepped forward and brought out a pick axe from behind him.

"Where was I? Oh yes. Look at the finger now Runsy."

The young man turned to face the recess. To his utter horror the wizened finger was clawing at the ancient mortar holding it in place. 

"Soon the whole hand will be free Runsy. The devil's whole left hand. He was bricked up centuries ago by the salters. It wasn't just fish they were salting in these grounds. They salted the devil too! Yes, ha ha. The whole damn thing and buried him in this chapel wall."

"What. You mean the devil's behind there?" He stammered, not really believing what he was hearing.

"Yep. He's in there alright and he's waiting for us to free him. But there's just one thing we need to do before."

"W-whats that?" Whispered Runsy.

"Slay a virgin .....

That'd be you Runsy!"

Runswick stiffened and as he turned his head to find the door he saw his workmate lift up the pick-axe and bring it swiftly down on his skull.

"Noooooooooooo!"

Runswick's scream ended with an abrupt gargle as the pick entered his head.

"Runsy. Runsy. At last you're doing something useful! Ha ha"

The young man's body was dragged onto the stone dais and the gaffer positioned his head so that the brains ran out onto a mouldy mound at the base of the wall.

The hooded men chanted with their heads bowed, a black mass in the filthy salters cellar.

Almost imperceptibly the ancient wall began to crack. The finger in the ledge became a whole clawed hand and pushed the crumbling sill away.

Suddenly the edifice gave way and out of the rubble and motes a figure began to emerge.

"Lucifer!" The men whispered "we are your servants!"

The figure stood. It shook of it's salted crust. It's skin was leathered and burned. Scars mapped it's limbs and its long tail was broken. Huge patches of skin hung loose like cloth and it was glistening with what remained of the salt grains.

"We bid you welcome Our Lord!"

The Devil glowered at the souls before him. He was desolate with a century's hunger and thirst.

"We have brought you a sacrifice Master. A virgin boy."

The creature nodded and devoured the corpse of Runswick greedily, splashing the congregation with thick blood.

The Devil licked his lips.

"You have done well men".

"Thank you Our Lord."

"Centuries of this accursed salted cell have left me ravenous. I need much more meat to eat, the hot meat of humankind!"

"We can help you oh great Lucifer," the gaffer offered.

"Indeed you can. My thirst is the problem. Brine has burned my very being. I need the sustainence of true believers to quench this intolerable ache."

"Yes Master. We can find them"

"But they are already found," hissed the Devil.

"Any believers will do. It matters not"

"Who Dark Lord?"

"Why you of course! Nice local meat and willing souls! Delicious!"

There was no-one to hear the muffled shrieks of the doomed demolition men as the Fallen one fed.

When it had finished it stood atop the fetid pile that had once been his prison and with outstretched crimson wings rose into the pitch night towards the glowing and seductive lights of Whitby Town and it's ten thousand sleeping souls.

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.