The Block
By N. M. Sirett©
THE BLOCK
When you’re due to phrase things simply for the sake of saving yourself from instant death and nothing springs to mind, you know you’re screwed.
You feel the quake in the bottom of your boots, snaking up through your calves and jellifying your knees. Tremors cracking the insides of your thighs, a furnace in your pelvis. A queasiness nipping your insides like tiny piranhas. Waves of torn flesh-tissue and severed nerves warping the space beneath the top of your ribs. A blade twisting in your sternum.
Spasms. Hammering contractions pounding your chest into mush. Oblivion. An ocean of endless space. Like a collapsing star somewhere out there in a frozen universe where nothing can survive.
The tendons in your neck spurn your larynx into spasmodic jerks – pressing you to say something, anything… Still, nothing comes.
‘Well,’ said my executioner from beneath his soot-black, cloth-mask. His thick eyelashes caking the depths of his soulless eyes. Spidering his glance. ‘Give me one good sentence that might warrant your pardon. Just one.’
And when you’re due to phrase things simply for the sake of stopping your own blood-spill, words fail. The axe falls. Unmercifully.
It was a blunt blade. As I thought of something to say, that redeeming sentence dripping intravenously into my open veins, the hacking began – and it was too late.
2 Comments
Harry April 1, 2024 Very poetic!Reply · Edit
Sarah Griffin April 2, 2024 Thanks for sharing this personal insight into your journey. We take writers for granted, read what they’ve written, appreciate it and then move onto the next read. This sheds some light on the harsh reality of a writers life. Very insightful.Reply · Edit
Illustration by N. M. Sirett – for pending novel: Bumper Sticker Bessie©
All-Night Stakeout
By N. M. Sirett©
ALL-NIGHT STAKEOUT
I’ve been keeping tabs on the Oswalds with only a family pack of peanuts and three cans of root beer. But there’s plenty of patience in my cool box. And I’ve got all the luck in the frigging universe stuffed inside a single pocket. They’ll slip up soon. And I’ll be the trailblazing ‘Demon-Catcher-of-the-Century’ when they do.
Tonight, Ziggy Forsyth, the Oswald’s neighbour, is putting out crowded bins in the adjacent driveway. It’s all unabashed trashcan clamouring and jet-streamed, rogue-litter fretwork with this chump. Whenever the wind blows, there’ll be empty egg roll cartons all over the Oswald’s front yard.
I wait it out, draining all three root beers. Nothing but an orgy of empty nutshells nestled in the corner of my ransacked snack bag. My binoculars dig into the bags beneath my night-shift-ragged eyes. My eyeballs are two pressed flowers. Dry and flat.
Something stirs. Aggravated curtains jerk surreptitiously at old Forsyth’s mess and misdemeanours. It wont be long now until one of them Oswald folk emerges from behind secret doors.
It’s a dark and lonely street, so far south of the main town. I bet them Oswalds won’t even bother with a quasi-human suit tonight – just to tidy the lawn. Or maybe they will, cos the devil don’t like shitting on his own doorstep.
They’ll come outside real soon. And I’m ready with a God-given weapon right here in this seeping, sticky pocket, full of Liquid Stars, Divinity Balls, and Dark-Matter Fusion Packs. First chance I get, I’ll use it all. Now that’s worth an all-night stake-out.
2 Comments
Harry May 1, 2024 I loved this! Quasi-human suits! Put up more!Reply · Edit
Man in the Garage
By N. M. Sirett©
MAN IN THE GARAGE
The back garden garage has white-washed walls, too bright for drizzle. It’s a dismal summer where everything drips. Bird notes plummet rather than hallow lengthened days. Grey skies, incongruous with exaggerated blooms. Roses, garish pink. Weather cheapening summer. Tawdry bouquets. Too-green leaves.
My eyes throb with fresh bruises. Collapsing ribs. Expanding again is worse. More painful. This rancid air.
There is a man in the garage. His shadow is visible behind a liquid-black rectangle. A small window in the wall. He is busy in there.
It’s not my house. It belongs to my two dads. Christopher and Patrick. They’re not my dads but get angry when I don’t pretend.
I have a fissure-view. I long for windows. To spy clearly on what Patrick is doing. Sorry: Dad. And Dad, the other one whom I must never address as Christopher, is upstairs drawing me a bath. I have many baths. There’re always dead flies floating on surface scum. The water is cold and there is no soap.
Patrick’s hand splays the windowpane. A red spider-claw. Sodden like summer rain. Someone cries. She sounds like me. Maybe she is me. How long have I been…? It’s not my home. But it’s the last stop.
The kitchen is a dead place. Planks of wood, crudely nailed into place. There are two cracks, through which I spot neatly stacked shovels, hefts of coiled rope, and monstrous husks of tarpaulin hemming the garage wall. Today, my two dads are making plans.
There are holes in the lawn. Not dug by squirrels.
Christopher calls me: ‘Sasha!’ That is not my name, but he uses it, regardless. I twist round slowly. Away from the garden and Patrick’s shadow. The sobbing. And drag my heels to the foot of the stairwell. It’s time for my bath.
5 Comments
Stuart May 16, 2024 Disturbingly good read. Really did the trick if the idea is to terrify the reader!Reply · Edit
Champagne Soiree by N. M. Sirett©
CHAMPAGNE SOIREE
‘Egbert’s expertise on tawny owl preservation is par excellence,’ said Lady Penelope Winstanton-Michael. Champagne bubbles glistened in the reflection of her ostentatious tiara, upon raising her glass. ‘To Saucy!’
‘Saucy!’ cried Egbert, toasting alongside the Tawny Owl Enthusiasts Society. Saucy tilted unsteadily like a dead thing askew on its plinth. A preamble applaud cannoned the grand drawing room. Expectant guests, eyes aglow, watched as Egbert lightly plucked a wireless remote from the table.
‘Well, I’ve already introduced you to Saucy, my latest stuffed owl.’
‘To Saucy!’ A bold ovation accompanied a multitude of raised flutes.
‘And now, slides!’
Arthur, the butler, dimmed the lights. A large whiteboard descended from the ceiling.
Slide One. Dead Owl in Plastic Bag.
The first image splattered the screen, triggering deep silence.
Slide Two: Preparing the Animal.
Preserving the bird in borax isn’t supposed to smell, but a definite irritation lingers in the nostrils – Egbert needn’t have divulged the details. He did, though.
Slide Three: Removing Skin and Feathers.
The trick is not to puncture the organs.
Slide Four. Remove Brain, Eyes, Tongue – Not Skull.
Macabre images intensified with every slide. William Thornton-Bard discreetly barfed a smidgeon of bile into his flute – giving the others an excuse to overt their eyes from the whiteboard.
‘Enough!’ Hooted Lady Penelope. Arthur turned on the lights. A well-behaved pianissimo of repulsion spiked the atmosphere. ‘Egbert, dear, forget the slides. Tonight’s soiree is in honour of your new hobby.’
‘Indeed, Penny. Forgive me,’ Egbert replied, a little chagrin. ‘Arthur, lock the doors.’ Arthur nodded. Egbert smiled, tapped a sharp knife against his champagne flute. ‘Honoured guests. Behold! My latest hobby: stuffed humans!’
Penny procured her rifle.
Shrieks of horror erupted.
Egbert lovingly covered Saucy in a plastic sheet.
Amidst the carnage, he vigorously anticipated his next slide show.
One Comment
The Time Traveller
By N. M. Sirett©
THE TIME TRAVELLER
I lean against the bus stop. He runs a finger down the string of buttons on my summer dress. Spine tremors. Deep breaths. Sunken gaze. Cat’s-got-the-cream smirk. Oozing sex.
Fumbling with phones, exchanging numbers. The bus screeches into view. Sharp breaks: nails scratching blackboard. Lingering lips. I’m gone. His waning outline a mirage in summer heat.
Bus stench. Dry sweat, bubble gum. My reflection in the window: oval face, wide eyes, high cheekbones. I’m young and pretty. He’s a catch.
‘A shark in the net,’ says my reflection. ‘Dump him.’
I stare, incredulous. My reflection moves when I don’t. Looms through glass. Older, wiser. A woman, not a child.
‘He’s a twat!’ she shrieks. I jerk. A proper nuts moment. Spasmic shock. Startled. People are looking. ‘Block him, Elizabeth. Do it.’
I quiver. The bus turns abruptly, climbing the steep hill home.
‘What?’ I whisper-hiss.
I am faced with the woman I become but never aspire to be. My youthful innocence, hammered flat against an anvil of mental abuse.
‘Narcissus loves himself, never you,’ says the older me.
The bus is immersed in leaf-canopy shadow. The window now a dark charcoal. The face sharpens. ‘I don’t have much time,’ she says. ‘Cut him out before you cut yourself.’ Bloody wrists flatten against the pane. Red trickles like sudden rain.
The bus stops at the top of the hill. Heavy breaks clawing at bright sunlight. My reflection fading like a magic drawing pad. Nothing to see but the thronging street.
My stop, next. Must act fast. I am a quivering kitten plucked from a cosy litter, as I slip my phone from a pocket.
His image scorch marks my mind. A red-hot fever dream. My insides flutter. I gaze at my phone. Miss my stop, vacillating over two simple words: BLOCK CALLER.
One Comment
The Weeding
By N. M. Sirett©
THE WEEDING
The white dresser creaks under the gravity-defying weight of crockery and cheap, tasteless ornaments. Boot-fair oddities barricading surface dust. The place smells of raw kidneys and tired slippers. There’re no photographs, though, which quirks my eyebrow. No family portraits adorning the doily-lined mantle.
Ethel hands me warm, flat lemonade. The glass is washed, but it’s as though the soap missed. The rim stinks of stale cupboard. I sip about 5mls of the stuff, trying hard not to gag, and smile into her opaque eyes, concealed beneath 1940s’-swing eyelids.
I’m here to weed. That’s what school said. Compulsory Community Work Experience. Get it over with, Sam, I think, then you can go home.
I am close to the summer holidays, and the end of year ten looms. At least this gets me out of maths, today. Ethel shows me the overgrown garden and hands me a small hand trowel.
I really must start digging before she gets out the fig rolls, I think, smiling robotically.
I drop to my knees, clueless; what do weeds look like? I yank at dandelions. Are they weeds? No, flowers, right? Oh, sod it. I don’t care. I just want to go…
But there, in the soil, is that a… yes, fuck! A severed finger! And is that… oh shit-a-brick, a school tie? I dig deeper… There! Five school ties, and… oh God, I’m going to puke. Is that the skin of someone’s face? Are those… lips? I get to my feet, staggering back, ready to bolt for it. What am I weeding? Dead school kids?
I turn to run, but Ethel is in my face. A papery hand snatches the trowel. Ethel’s raddled body is surprisingly overpowering, knocking me into the fence. She spits: ‘Weeds! All you young’uns are just filthy weeds!’
3 Comments
Lesley Finlay May 28, 2024 Loved this. Great twist.Reply · Edit
Sky Quake
By N. M. Sirett©
SKY QUAKE
I glance up in time to see a discreet plane vanish, and sunshine needling through holes in the clouds. The ink-dark dragon reappears. It’s silver-sheened underbelly playing peek-a-boo up there, in cloud land.
The lights change. I accelerate across a busy junction, towards work. The dot-plane follows the estuary. I am a commuter ant. Leaving my sixteen-year-old daughter, Faye, by the school gate. GCSE-prepped.
The radio is endless noise. I mute it just as Faye’s incoming call flashes on the home screen. My thumb hits Answer on the steering wheel.
‘Mum? There’s no one here.’
‘Oh, honey, is it too early?’
‘I’m scared. There’s a dodgy man walking past. Can you come back?’
‘What, hon? Speak up. I’m driving.’
‘Can you -’
A thousand-mile-mega-sky-quake happens – a haemorrhaging Ouranos, an all-destroying god. And the sky shreds.
In replace of sky, there’s a marble face. A Greek Kouros, smiling down on the world.
‘Faye!’ I scream. But there’s no point. No signal. I need my Faye.
Every car on the road is halted. Some join the rears of others. Mine just stops. I consider a U-turn, but there is no possible way. A zigzagging throng of shrieks and mayhem hits the roads.
But that marble face just keeps on smiling and looming and being in the space that should be the sky.
All I think of is my Faye. A mile away from here. And a mile too far.
I exit my car. Sidestepping the hyper-adrenalized headless chickens and tapping in furious futility at my phone. My brand-new-obsolete-now-and-defunct-anyway phone.
The eyes on that marble face crackle with lightning. Striking earthbound mortals like gaming targets. Bodies fry and drop before my eyes. But I focus on my Faye. I must reach her. I just have to…
Comment
Sarah Griffin May 9, 2024
Eerie!! Sent chills down my spine!
Noggin’s Nosh
By N. M. Sirett©
NOGGIN’S NOSH
Every day little Guy delivered a boxed head to an old woman, just outside Milton Keynes.
He didn’t work for any of the biggies: Uber Eats and the like. But hired instead by Noggin’s Nosh, a local business.
He rode a bicycle with a thermal box. His bald head shone in the sun like a culinary beacon as he rode the streets delivering food. At 1pm, he regularly collected a steaming box from the kitchen for old Miss Price of 52 Mill Place. She’d never failed to greet him with an eager, wet-lipped grin and diamond-glint eyes.
It was Wednesday, and little Guy was habitually waiting by the half-open door of Noggin’s Nosh kitchens for the hand that extended through the door holding the order. But today, the chef’s hand was somewhat scaley. As though it’d suffered a blow skinning sea bass, or been afflicted with Ichthyosis. Shrugging insouciantly, he accepted the steaming box from the lizard-arm and headed off, riding along merrily.
But the head began to sing Herman’s Hermits’ I’m Henry VIII I Am. Well, I’m telling you, poor little Guy nearly toppled off his bike but managed to stop by the kerb. Charily, he opened the lid. The steaming head was preparing for another verse but stopped when it saw his tiny disbelieving eyes.
‘It’s alive!’ said little Guy as great plumes of steam cleansed his pores.
‘Get back on your bike!’ snapped the head.
‘Who are you?’ asked little Guy.
‘I’m Anne Boleyn, for all you need to know! Now take me to see the old woman while I’m still fresh!’
Now whether it was out of sheer fright or daily routine, we’ll never know, but little Guy did cycle on, heading up the hill towards 52 Mill Place. Singing the same song all the way.
2 Comments
Weird Toe
By N. M. Sirett©
WEIRD TOE
The three-inch toe wriggled before Martha, the shoe-shop assistant, like a quivering bald moustache. A toe for the upper lip. She tried not to look at it. Averted her eyes, pretending not to notice. After all, it belonged to a seven-year-old lad and his mother was already scrutinising her for a reaction.
‘I think it’s best to try these with socks,’ Martha advised, eyes fixed on the leather school shoes in her hands.
‘We came in on a whim,’ said the mother. ‘He’s out in sandals.’
‘Didn’t you bring any socks?’
‘Sure, I’m gonna pack a pair of random socks in my handbag,’ the mother replied, irritated.
‘It’s fine,’ Martha smiled politely, keeping her eyes on a bag rack in the entranceway. In her peripheral vision, the toe twitched like a caterpillar in a bird’s beak. ‘We have spare socks,’ she added. ‘I’ll get you some.’
‘No!’ said the boy. ‘Sean wants to see inside the shoe.’
Martha frowned. Was there another little boy hiding under Mother’s skirts?
‘Sean!’ shrieked the small blond boy. His grey eyes fizzed with devilment.
His mother sighed. ‘OK, Tommy. Sean can do whatever he wants.’
Martha’s frown deepened. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘I’m Sean,’ said the three-inch toe. ‘Can I see inside the left shoe, please?’
Martha’s breath caught in her throat as she looked down at the toe with a little face and moving mouth.
‘How you doing?’ it said.
And Martha dropped the shoes. Sprinted out of the shop. Unpinning her name badge, discarding it in a high-street bin.
Later, in the bath, she reflected on losing her job and meeting a talking toe. Her foot protruded through the bubble mountain in the tub. Her big toe had a face.
‘Hello again, Martha,’ said Sean.
2 Comments
Harry May 1, 2024
Did you spend most of your childhood hanging upside down? Funny and quirky! A fun read.
Magical Misery
By N. M. Sirett©
MAGICAL MISERY
Beneath my bed there’s a council of depressed magicians. I’m not sure why. I didn’t do it. I just woke up and there they were. When you live on your own there’s nobody to answer to, so I just left them under my bed, sobbing.
Nightime was worse. Such misery. I couldn’t sleep a wink. Pools of tears flooded my bedroom floor. I slept with a mop.
I tried to coax them out using cheap tricks. A toy shop on Martino Drive stocks a variety of prankish props. I purchased a large box of tricks, brimming with magical-looking accoutrements – wands, playing cards, silver rings, a top hat and toy rabbit; a pristine pair of white gloves, little glass buttons sewn nattily at the wrists. A dice-filled glass vial with a black plastic lid. The dice supposedly disappear when shaken, but I couldn’t do it, seen as the manual is in Mandarin. And I only speak it in segments.
I conjured up a wizard name in my mind, standing before the mirror, donning the freebie star-patterned cape. Held out my arms. Flamboyantly swooshing my gloved hands, brandishing the wand. Smiling at my reflection and proclaiming: ‘I am the great Drambabbiosa!’
I spied one peeping wizard. His dewy eyes glistening with fleeting curiousity. Teardrops stilled upon his jowls. The momentary silence broke suddenly by the melancholic wizards lamenting again, with demonstrable conviction.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get any shut-eye. Perhaps, in the midst of sleep deprivation, I’ll discover the magical powers these guys have ostensibly lost. At the very least, all that time lying in bed wide-awake might propel my brain into overdrive and I’ll master the toy-box tricks. And, if nothing else, I am now the proud owner of a lovely pair of pure white gloves.
One Comment
Plain Sight
By N. M. Sirett©
PLAIN SIGHT
The old man bent to peel a loose ear off the shopping-centre floor. Tucking it inside the pocket of his beige slacks. He didn’t suspect me of noticing. My observation sparked a desire to fish this fella out, this weird happening in the mall.
He shuffled to the food hall, purchased square pie, to go; toddled to the outside car park, leaned on a lamppost. I watched as he lifted the lid of the polystyrene box and heap pie into his silver-bristled mouth.
‘Old man!’ I cried.
He froze, mid-chomp, eyeballing me wearily.
‘If that’s what you are?’ I added sceptically, quirking an eyebrow.
A low rumble vibrated in his turkey throat. ‘You people,’ he groaned. Pie crust chunks dropping unforgivingly from his grey jaws.
‘What’s with the third ear?’ I persisted in a glow of audacious confrontation. I’d always wanted to discover something supernatural.
‘It’s for listening.’ He smirked. Dropped the pie. Pastry snowflaking tawny loafers. Extracted the flaccid ear wagging in his pocket. Dangled it between finger and thumb.
Who was the unabashed challenger now? Not me. No siree!
A sound like a distressed swan with a knot in its neck blitzed the air like a burst eardrum. He projected, over the din like a thespian, his monologue: ‘Bluewater shoppers and retail assistants, lend me your ears! I come to shop with thee. Not to live among you! I am an honourable man! My heart is in the confines of my ship, and I wait here for its return.’
And with that the ear glowed bright purple. Giving the appearance of an aubergine (dip-dyed in a hazardous tub of radioactive waste).
I stood among the growing crowd, gaping at the spaceship-darkening sky. His descending ride – ear-shaped.
Nobody lent him an ear. Well, he already had three.
3 Comments
Paul John Ward April 13, 2024 GreatReply · Edit
Goddess
By N. M. Sirett©
GODDESS
‘I worship you!’ said Ethan. Blond curtains like sharp spears across creased-up eyes. The sweet scent of perfumed tea and sunshine on raindrops on his in-breath. She smelled so… oh, the touch of her.
A slender hand stroked his cheek. He gazed, entranced. She leaned forwards, kissing his pale blue eyes, forcing them shut.
‘Hush, lover,’ she whispered, nipping his earlobe with her pearly teeth. ‘Keep your eyes closed, feel your way.’
Ethan melted at the sound of her voice. A mellifluous cadence. So utterly feminine with a hint of chocolate velvet as smooth as her skin. He did what she asked, running his hand into the curves of her waist and then over the swelling of her breast. A pert nipple teasing his fingers.
The temptation to open his eyes again was too much. He was a visual guy, liked to see as well as feel. But when they locked eyes, he instantly regretted it and suddenly had the urge to pull away even though it was too late.
‘Oh,’ she cried in a falling pitch. ‘Over so soon?’
Ethan shook his head. Confused. It was not over. He was still… you know.
Those eyes… like diamond light. All flickering, obliterating their surroundings. Two magnets attracting him closer.
Her navel collapsed like quicksand, and he went with her. The whispering down on the insides of her expanding thighs caressed his face and neck, outflanking him in a sudden smothering of lamb’s-wool softness.
She stretched as wide as an ocean. He drowned. Swallowed whole like whale’s-mouth plankton. Ethan was gone.
Down he went, into the depths of the goddess. Where he ventured next is still a mystery to all living lovers. They cannot know. Not until she preys again. No one can.
2 Comments
The Thought That Counts
By N. M. Sirett©
THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS
Sure, it was generous, I admit, gifting the circus with the world’s largest elephant. But I wanted to do something big. You might say, something ‘elephantine’. So giving up Daisy was a cinch. Her tusks weighed over eighty kilograms each, if only to balance out the size of her arse which was over two tons and felt like more if she sat on you. Not that you’d want Daisy sitting on you. Not this Nelly, mate!
So it wasn’t my fault that Eric the clown got under my, er hum, I mean, her feet.
It wasn’t my doing that he had a faulty water-squirting flower that annoyed Daisy. Nor was it anything to do with me that Eric’s clown make-up reminded Daisy of a monstrous mouse. How was I to know that Eric found it difficult to move fast in those big old clown shoes; that his braces would catch easily on the elephant’s tail?
I mean, it’s not as though I hadn’t warned the circus that Daisy was freakishly large. It was one of the reasons they wanted her. One of the reasons… And, I’m pretty sure, none of the reasons for having Daisy join the circus included squashing Eric.
After all, that clown only ever pissed me off once. Just once. That was all.
3 Comments
Thumbs Down
By N. M. Sirett©
THUMBS DOWN
‘What I like,’ said Jaynie, ‘is when the first day of the month begins on Mondays.’ She picked a red nail. ‘But last days shouldn’t land on Sundays. Endings should be non-linear.’ She rocked on something pliable, a foamy sponge under the arches of her bare feet. ‘Endings should be fucked up.’
Outside, fire lit the air. Something stirred among the tombstones in the church graveyard.
‘I like red,’ she continued, then sang gently to the tune of All Things Bright and Beautiful: ‘All things soft and malleable, all creatures fated cruel, all things weak and breakable, Jaynie doth love them all.’
Sound embers rose from the carpet. Jaynie ignored the groans, wriggled her feet deeper into the pulsating goo squelching between her toes. She tingled as a wave of ecstasy turbo-gushed her insides.
‘I like -’ she said, smearing her face red, dragging both hands forcibly downwards to rive her pale cheeks, ‘this…’
Jaynie leapt off the knifed torso, releasing pressure. Blood gushed. Lifting heel to hip, balancing on one leg like a yoga expert, Jaynie dabbed at her liquid-red toes. Then sniffed her fingers.
‘Ah, the blood of the righteous,’ she smiled and wrote 666 on the alter with a sticky finger.
Jaynie tossed back her mane of red curls, her black eyes reflecting stained-glass light. And grinned with a wicked mouth.
‘I don’t like losing.’ She gave a bloody thumbs down. ‘That’s my dragon outside. And the dead are rising.’
She twisted over the holy man with mock sympathy. ‘I’m sending you to your Maker with a message,’ she hissed. ‘It’s time for the final battle.’
2 Comments
THE PRIZE
By N. M. Sirett©
THE PRIZE
A SHORT, DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO EGG HUNTS
- One: no following rules. Rules are for sheep. Contrary to popular belief, sheep are not Eastery.
- Two: don’t place chocolate eggs in plastic buckets. Wicker baskets only.
- Three: Bobtails must be brushed beforehand. Only the best-groomed bunnies win THE PRIZE.
Stephan read the slip of paper in his hand with amusement, glancing up as Mama blew a pink plastic whistle. His younger siblings raced off downhill, their best friends in tow.
It was a warm spring afternoon and there had been cake with buttercream. Always a winner. He already felt like he’d won a prize, eating that! But now, he supposed, he would have to play along. Being older was a chore. The eight-year-olds moved with alacrity. Climbing trees and searching ravenously under sundials and Papa’s favourite garden statues.
Eggs decorated with ribbons and brightly coloured foil laced the garden in secret sugar-coated splendour. His parents had really tried, decorating the garden with wreaths made from seasonal herbs and flowers, painted eggs, nest charms, and by scattering the lawn with snap dragon seeds.
But oh, how he wished he didn’t have to partake. After all, he was almost eleven and far too mature for such antics. So Stephan unrolled all his clues at once, thinking he was being clever. But when he read them, he realised that they all said the same thing:
‘Ostara has spoken: You are a bunny.’
Stephan’s nose twitched. He scratched at his new whiskers. Mama and Papa gasped. The children screamed, then thumped their furry little forefeet.
Ostara hopped out from behind the apple tree and spoke. ‘Congratulations,’ she said. You’ve won THE PRIZE.
2 Comments
ELECTROCUTE
By N. M. Sirett©
ELECTROCUTE
‘Dalia… did we just – die?’ asked a bewildered Edward.
‘I, er…’ Dalia’s voice tapered, mouth agape, eyeballing the part-dream, part-home scrabbling for visual prominence. Part-dream was a blanched blur, cottonwool-smeared edges, the middle being a fat dollop of creamy endlessness. Part-home faded in and out of focus – a foundering memory kinking reality. Kitchen. Not-kitchen. Hallway. Not-hallway. Ed stood there, reading glasses askew, smiling, then vanishing, then pixelating back again.
‘I. Was ask-ing for. A. Safe-teeteety… pin,’ he said intermittently. Silver-polished glottal studs punctuated his unsteady cadence. A once-upon-a-time voice box. ‘Faulty wiring.’
‘To reset the WIFI, I know.’ Dalia’s own voice jagged in the part-dream. ‘I was blending bananas and ice cream, Ed. I was fixing you a shake for lunch.’
Just then, Judy ploughed through the front door in scruffy school uniform – face all radish pink. A police trail blackened the doorway. Paramedics shutter-dragged their way into the lounge. Scooping through those transparent parental spooks like spoons in trifle.
Post-mortem letters steamed the kitchen tiles. Formed by hot, grief-spiked tears.
Electro – Elect… Fizz and spark. Elec – sizzling chaos – tro – fault in the line – cute.
Two bodies laid out side by side. A heaped teenager beetled over them in shovel-whacked grey shadow. Eye-water cascading like mortuary lace. Her skin, a muted green. It was the final time. Dalia and Ed’s vision of her was a washout. Judy crumbled like falling ash.
Part-dream is now whole-dream. And the mist eventually cleared.
One Comment
Flyer Girl
By N. M. Sirett©
FLYER GIRL
The Flyer Girl had come to town. Fuzzy peach hair masking a ragged, pocked face. Wild-bracken tousles, faded dye, split ends, dandruff roots. Clay-dry eyes followed a paved route. Matilda Gardens, 1 – 75 Redbridge Avenue, Crowe Street, Finsbury Close, Sirena Crescent, and all the rest. Stuffing letterboxes. Ignoring signs. Beware of the Dog. No Junk Mail.
Every welcome mat ruined on impact by those… feet. Each path mud-spackled with her steps.
On her back was a limp rucksack, like roadkill on a dirt track. She ignored yappy dogs and cats with attitude. At one point, a pigeon flew into her, but she just carried on, head down, despondent, stuffing doors with paper crap.
Inside her legs, soil shifted. Moving granules beneath damp skin and stone-cold bones. Great fertiliser-arms. A blob of mud undulated beneath her tracksuit like jelly packed in the pot. Compressed moving filth. The Flyer Girl. Never looking up. Never acknowledging Tom, the local postman, who tried not to stare, giving her a wide berth – because she reeked of bog.
The last house had a broken step. She tripped. Put out a hand to steady herself. It smacked against the glass door. Slid down the pane, leaving a chocolate smear. Her mark. Curse of the unwashed. Grit tightened between her teeth. Grubby mouth drawn tight as a fist. A grime-encrusted line across her half-concealed face.
Onwards, she trudged, the Flyer Girl, leaving the town to its junk mail. An echo of flapping leaflets on every street. Wagging paper tongues in letterbox-mouths. Print-besmeared with fetid ink. The onset of subsidence. Lost properties. Brick graves.
For the Flyer Girl had come to town. And the days of every abode in that place were numbered. Except for that last house with the broken step. Where she’d left her mark.
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J June 8, 2024 Never disappoints 🙌Reply · Edit
Grass Monkey
By N. M. Sirett©
GRASS MONKEY
There it is, over there, in the tall grass!
You see it?
That face… that monkey. Mouth like a stretched earlobe piercing. Emptiness between it’s jaws. Broad green leaves in the background sway like lighters in the air at a music festival. Its drooling mouth is a window-view to the rough meadow grass stretching out endlessly into the blur of the sun.
You see it? That monkeeee… thing. That ‘creature’ – sitting there, picking its fangs with its flat black nails. Eyes live-wired at me like I’m the only one who can see it.
Why don’t you see it? It’s literally right there! Can you get it? Swat it with a tennis bat or something? Can you get it? Why can’t you get it?
What do you mean, you can’t see it?
That monkey in the grass. It’s looking at me. But I don’t know how, seen as its eyes are just two great fuck-off holes. Peeling away like burnt photographs. Dissolving into sepia hair, course and scruffy. Tangled jowls and those… fangs. A grimacing, bare-toothed display.
Don’t be fooled by this… monkey-monster. By its lip smacking. Look at it. Rocking back and forth like that. Ridding itself of fleas while slumped in its own faeces. Can you see through it, too? Through those not-there-eyes and that ghastly mouth? Three gaping holes. And the rustle of the grass behind it.
It’s coming at me – fast. Hairy. Swinging limbs. Lopsided waddle. Cover your ears. The screeching is too much… get it off me now! Now! That’s right. Tranquilise the fuck out of it. Something to…
Calm… it… down...
Straps – tight. Belts and buckles. Ah, injections.
Drowsy now – no more monkey.
.
All is fine. Here in my white room. With this kind nurse.
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Potato
By N. M. Sirett©
POTATO
Today little white sprouts spring from my hands. I notice while I wash the dishes. At first I thought they were tiny pieces of food off the dinner plates, but that’s ridiculous because I always rinse them first. In the other room the TV brags old jokes from a recording made by an outmoded generation. The quips a product of their day and not flattering to my ears. Jokes about some woman’s size made by an unattractive fat man. It gets a laugh anyway.
He’s been sitting there watching that show since dinner. Soon he’ll go to sleep and then to work. I won’t see him again until this time tomorrow. I miss him. (And not only when he’s at work.) I miss him. Us. The people we were before I…
After cleaning up the dinner things, I go to the bathroom. Weigh myself on the scales. The verdict: mortifying. It makes my toes curl. Perhaps tomorrow, I should skip dinner. Just cook his and be done with it. I’m reaching an age where nothing comes off easily: weight, charm, opinions… underwear. As I step off the scales I think of my recent attempts to strike up conversation and how I am typically met with a glassy response. Tonight, when he absconds to the bedroom, he’ll barely say goodnight. Look through me with glazed eyes. Eyes that are somewhere else and never present. I am a boring shadow of a woman he once called ‘goddess’. Worshiped me until…
I shinny my naked body into the shower. Hang there, in that cold-tiled space like a generous dollop of steaming mash potato. A fountain of hot water spilling over the body that no longer intrigues him. And one I don’t recognise any more. More of those white sprouts split-open my flesh. Looking like noodles through a sieve. I turn off the water, sweep a towel about this ovaloid husk that is now me. Quickly covering myself so I don’t have to see the sprouting eyes as I get dry. I look up and unwittingly catch a glimpse of my shrinking image in the bathroom mirror. Same old face. No wrinkles but older, somehow. Muted good looks that were once as vibrant as June roses. And, at present, this face is dimple-soft, squishy, dappled. I am nothing more than the fallen petals of a withering rose, a greying onslaught of decay marred by an unforgiving autumn.
Tomorrow I shall quietly slip away. My voice bores him. There’s no point in saying anything about where I am going. He thinks I have nothing interesting to say and doesn’t listen when I try. So… I shall pack a few things – I won’t need much – and go stand in line with all the other taters. They are round, dusted in brown soil, sprouting eyes, and as bumpy as sacks filled with golf balls. Queuing for the ground and the mud and the silent nothing. Ready to return to the land. To the sepia earth. Along the wayside. Where distinguished gents cruise past in their shiny cars on bonny Sunday outings. Racing along – failing to notice the bulging dirt-ruts flanking the road – towards sunny destinations where the roses are fresh – ah! – those attractive blooms.
Big Baby
By N. M. Sirett©
BIG BABY
I come out of the bathroom habitually combing my damp, towel-dried hair and turn to go down the stairs. That is when I see him and realise I’m not alone in the house. I thought I was. That I would have the morning, at least, to wash my hair. But there he is. The stranger with the sharp knife. One of mine from the drawer in the kitchen. He’s about halfway up. Poised with knife in hand, so naturally, it’s as though he’s meant to be here. In my home.
‘No need for fear,’ he says. His voice is soft. The tone as weak as a limp handshake. The voice matches the face: pudgy and wet, either with sweat or oily skin. A thin moustache, neatly trimmed, lines his upper lip. His chin wears a petite goatee. His eyes are dark and small like onyx chips. And his hair is a dark oil-slick, puddling his crown. When his lips move, so does the cranium indent that really shouldn’t be there. Like he’s some misshapen, overgrown baby whose fontanelle has not yet hardened. And his cheeks undulate like someone kneading a dough ball. An oily dough ball that has been dropped several times and has grit in it. That’s him. The intruder. Telling me not to fear him.
‘Did you hear me, missy? No need for fear.’
‘OK,’ I say calmly.
‘You didn’t shut your front door,’ he continues. ‘You shouldn’t do that. You should always check that. The handle wasn’t up… it was level, the handle. Not up. And the door was left to… I think the rug caught on the threshold.’ His voice is as weak as old-lady tea. The tone growing increasingly vapid. His eyes empty out the remnants of his soul with each blink. He takes two steps up the stairwell. ‘You should lock it. You’re only asking for trouble by not shutting your front door, missy. Someone should teach you a lesson.’
‘I guess so,’ I say. ‘You do have a point. Pardon the pun.’
‘You mocking me, missy?’
‘Heaven forbid it.’
‘You sound calm, missy. Are you calm?’
I shrug, ‘Yeah, I suppose I am.’
‘You know I’m going to do something really bad to you, missy. It’s going to be really bad. Are you sure you’re calm? Are you sure you aren’t regretting not locking your door?’
‘Meh…’ I say. ‘You win some, you lose some.’
‘But you’re going to lose, missy.’
‘We can’t all be winners.’
‘And you are no winner, missy. Are you OK with that?’ He takes another two steps towards me. And I smile. Grin. Then belly laugh.
‘What’s so funny, missy?’
‘You’re so… don’t take this the wrong way.’
‘Go on. Spit it out.’
‘You remind me of a big baby.’ I burst. Laughter trilling through my lips. I do a little pig snort too.
‘Is that so?’ The sunken soft spot gently flaps on each word he utters and it tickles me. I can’t help but laugh.
‘You are, aren’t you? Just a big baby?’
He lunges visciously. No longer does he look like an overgrown baby; no longer am I laughing. No longer am I… I am air. I am dust motes. I am stardust. The knife slides through empty space on the stairs. For a moment the intruder is confused.
‘Wait, missy, where did you go?’ He falls to his knees on the top step in a frisson of annoyance. Runs the knife down the wall, tearing the wallpaper with the blade and cursing. ‘Where are you?’
I find this funny and laugh so hard it echoes on the landing and the stairwell and inside his own weird baby-man head. I get inside him. I get in his brain. And he can’t kick me out of there, because I’ve got into the cracks like a bug. Like a worm in a corpse’s eye, I’m in – and I laugh like a boom box blasting. He drops the knife and covers his ears. But that’s pointless because my laughter is on the inside as well as the outside and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. It will stop when I want it to. This is my house and I can’t leave it. No matter who lives here now.
The estate agent forgot to lock my house. It’s been vacant a while. Squatters came and went. I think it will be rented soon. I don’t know. But whoever comes will need to lock the doors. For I cannot warn them of the strange baby-man who intrudes then runs in fear. Stumbles down the stairs and out the front door. Screaming as I roar: ‘No need to fear, big baby!’ As my hell-frost wind blows ferociously at his back on the way out. As my energy forces the door to slam shut. As my laughter roils in his brain like a whipped-up storm as he runs down the street. A scared little big baby. And my mocking face will haunt his dreams.
No. I cannot warn whoever moves in here. For the intruder, to date, is the only one to see or hear me – since I passed.
I cannot leave this house. I don’t know why. And even if I cannot warn the new occupier, I can at least guard these bricks. I don’t think the big baby will return now. I think he’s too afraid. But just in case, I shall learn how to lift objects. And practice first with the kitchen knives.
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While sitting at lights, a strange man abruptly invades my car. He opens the rear passenger door and climbs on to my back seat. The lights change and I move on, instinctively – what a stupid thing to do. I look in the mirror and see the threat: a limp, lean, long male, mid-twenties, transparent skin, and scraggy dishwater hair. Wearing khaki waterproofs over a faded black hoodie. And there’s something that might possibly be a gun pointing my way, discreetly concealed beneath the raincoat. He reeks of pot.
‘Go! Seymour Close!’ he says imperatively.
I feel myself putting my foot down and going at least fifty in a thirty zone. I glance again at his face partly sheafed by his hood. His eyes are bulbous, drawn to dark places inside the trappings of his own thoughts. Bloodshot. And two black bags hang like a rhino’s arse beneath the sockets. Illustrated in lines of fluorescent green veins.
Beneath the raincoat, a hand (holding something black and thin) shakes. He taps a foot in the well and mumbles to himself. I keep on driving. Don’t say anything at all. I don’t know whether that is better or worse. Where is Seymour Close? I don’t know. I want to ask but I don’t want to.
‘Can’t you go any faster?’ He bites his lip when he speaks. A trickle of blood leaks from his bottom lip. It too quivers like his gun-hand.
I press my foot down and do sixty-five. Perhaps if I get up to eighty, I’ll attract the police. Is that a good idea? What’s the sign for help? A silent, single-handed gesture. I knew it. I know it. I just can’t… my brain isn’t working. It’s functioning enough to drive fast but that’s all.
‘This isn’t the way!’ he screams. ‘This isn’t meant to happen. I’d never have…’ his voice tapers and his head smacks hard into my headrest. First I wonder if the sudden impact is the result of someone going into the back of us. But no. He has started headbanging the back of my seat like a nutcase. The adrenalin running through me is an ice-cold frisson of panic and alarm. He’s schizo! He’s going to shoot me in my own car!
‘Sharp left, now! Do it!’
For a second there, I’m a stunt driver, high skiing a hair-pin bend and into a close that I didn’t even know was down this road. And there it is, a cul-de-sac, the one he wants: Seymour Close.
I slam hard on the breaks and the tail end of the car skids to the right, hits a lamppost. The man bashes his teeth on the headrest and blood flows like he’s some low-budget vampire movie star. He fumbles beneath the coat and I think, This is it. I’m a gonna!
He pulls out the concealed weapon, raising it to head level, where I see it is just a phone. A sleek, black phone. Not a mobile. Not really a phone. Something like a phone but not exactly that. And it distorts in the palm of his hand as though it might not be solid. But not liquid. Just something else. And the substance is utterly alien to my eyes.
It glows black, which is absurd, I know. For how can black glow?
A date erupts on the screen – March 5th 3065 – the time 5pm.
‘Thanks for the ride, Ancestor. I wouldn’t have forced you, but it’s an emergency. I can pay you for your trouble.’
‘That would be…’ I don’t know what to say. Just those three words alone possess a quavering cadence intoning my irrecoverable state of shock.
The blackness sparks brightly. Then he is gone. His long limbs drawn into the black glow like loose hair sucked down a drain. On the rear passenger seat is a brown paper bag full of weed and one single diamond. To cover the cost of the ride, I guess, plus the untimely dent in my car.
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Clare Ward September 14, 2024 I didn’t want this to end! As always in awe of your amazing imagination, I was gripped from start to finish 😁Reply · Edit
We got on the bus. It took us some of the way. It was empty. The ride quiet. There was no driver. It must have been one of those autonomous machines. But perfectly safe. The bus was white on the outside and white on the inside and we drove through clouds.
I struggle to recall anything from before the time spent waiting at the stop, staring blithely at an empty canvas. White and white beyond that. The bus shelter: white. The bench: white. You waited there too, and it is like you always stood there, with me, waiting.
Now we are off the bus and it looks no different to where we were before, only there is no bus shelter and the whiteness is blurred at the edges as if something behind it pulsates. Like eyes fixed on our souls – studying all that we are, all we have been, and, maybe, all we are yet to be…
Do we walk the rest of the way? I don’t know where I’m heading next. What will come for us? A taxi? A boat? A hot air balloon? A rocket ship? No? Just someone, or something, gliding towards us on a hand-glider? What? They can’t be. Wings, you say? Well, bless my stars and unicorns, wings… did you ever?
Clinging to arms that stretched towards us, we flew the rest of the way. We travelled far to the fields of gold. Light and laugher, passing time in a golden haze of peace.
The trip was long. I’d speak of all the places we visited but I’m not supposed to. Perhaps another time, then. It’s a secret route. Not known until it’s time to know. And, I guess, we all take this journey, eventually.
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The Pool Guy takes down the parasol; stands in his three-quarter-length beige shorts. Socks and trainers. Baseball cap on the right way round. Hotel logo stitched beneath the collar of his pristine shirt. No name badge. He’s just Pool Guy. Collecting up roving plastic cups and unwanted ice cream wrappers.
‘For sef-en-tee…’ he says. His smooth features are straight and long, like waxwork; they harbour an unwanted smile which leaks through rheumy eyes instead. ‘Sef-en-tee, yes?’ He cinches the cord tight to prove his point.
Still, overcast Ouranos toasts clouds on the sun like marshmallows on a barbeque grill.
‘Sef-en-tee.’ Pool Guy’s Greek accent is strong. Seventy? That can’t be what he says.
His veiled smile judders beneath a stretched-canvas complexion. He feels soft and unexpected, like water damage.
He leaves, so I undo the string and push the brolly back up, dragging my sunbed beneath it. I might burn still, in the shade.
But Pool Guy’s trainers twist round, followed by a spiralling torso, and finally his head. ‘Safety, madam.’ His words clear and fresh. I understand him. And I shrug. Laugh a little.
But here is Pool Guy, sweeping me into his blustering arms. Westward ho we go now, propelled by a virgin wind. Through a gap in the lilac paper flowers climbing a nearby pergola. Spirited away – Zephyrus and I…
His shorts flap in the sudden gusts before he morphs into a diaphanous shape. Damp like rain on washing.
Below, my sodden outline, fleetingly stamped upon the sunbed. A short whiff of chlorine. All that is left of me.
The Pool Guy was never more than a mere susurration about the walls of the nearby bar. A whisper on the hilltops. A coastal sigh.
Helios tugs at the sun. The wind dies.
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Beach House
By N. M. Sirett©
BEACH HOUSE
Is it my fate in life to entertain such fools? After all, it’s not a crime to levitate in the privacy of the beach house. And not my problem if the ubiquitous time-share rep lets himself in with a spare key.
The question now, while he stands gaping with every star-spiralling fibre of his being in O-shaped incredulity, is how do I get rid of him?
Nobody can know. It’s always been my thing. I don’t share.
‘Mrs Peavesham?’ he says as though naming me is questionable. Oh crap, why did he intrude? This is not good. ‘I, er… was hoping to discuss extending the contract for another year, but you seem… busy.’
He takes one step back over the threshold as I deliberately lower myself onto the coffee table like a wasp landing on a bottle rim.
‘I’ll c-c-ome b-back at a more convenient time,’ he jibbers. Rivulets of sweat streaking his temples. The site of me cheese-grates his affrighted eyes.
‘Why don’t you stay?’ I insist, stepping on to the carpet and unbuttoning the top two buttons of my blouse. ‘I’m here all alone. I’d be only too happy to revisit that little old contract of yours, Mr…?’
‘Tom. Just Tom. Jeez, it’s hot in here.’
Something shifts between us. Tom, the time-share rep relaxes his body, stiffens in one place only as I undo another button.
‘Sit down,’ I instruct, dominatrix-style. ‘Want a cold beer?’
‘That would be…’ No more words spill from his undeserving mouth.
Levitation is my secret. Never to be exposed.
My stilettos pierce his throat. And, hovering there, I think, that’s a bugger of a stain.
FRANK
I was aptly named Frank, seeing that I liked to be frank.
And people called me frank Frank.
I also had a mate, Frank.
‘Frank?’ I asked him one day. ‘Do you know why people call me frank Frank, Frank?’
And Frank said, ‘Frank Frank, it’s because you are frank, so you get called frank Frank.’
‘I see, Frank,’ I replied. ‘That’s exactly what I thought. There’s nothing quite like being frank is there, Frank?’
Frank concurred, ‘No, frank Frank, nothing quite like being frank. In fact, I’m rather frank myself sometimes, frank Frank.’
‘Are you, Frank?’ I quizzed, fizzing with intrigue.
‘I am indeed, frank Frank, yes!’ he exclaimed, eyeing me smugly… the sly git.
Then it hit me. Ouch!
‘Hey, Frank – why don’t they call you frank Frank too?’
Frank replied, ‘Oh, but they do call me frank Frank too, frank Frank. Only when I’m being frank (although, frank Frank, quite frankly, it’s not as often as you, dear frank Frank), I am demonstrably frank, my dear buddy!’
I was amazed!
‘Even still,’ I discerned, ‘Frank – or should I say frank Frank? – if you are also called frank Frank, and I am called frank Frank, then, frank Frank, this may sometimes be a little confusing. Wouldn’t you say so, frank Frank?’
Frank Frank agreed. And grew slightly perturbed. In that straightforward way that he has about him (that I admire so much), he replied: ‘Frank Frank, if we are both then, frank Frank, although you are more habitually frank Frank than I am, frank Frank, most of the time, surely this confuses matters so much so, frank Frank, that it indeed does not make us very frank at all, does it, not-so-frank-Frank, frank Frank?”
There was a pregnant pause while we both dived deep into unreserved contemplation.
It was finally agreed that neither of us would ever be frank again. Nor would we be called Frank. We changed our names by deed poll and our personalities to ambiguous.
I lovingly changed my name to Augustus Lemming (after my favourite Roman Emperor and my favourite mammal).
And my chum changed his name to Sir John Brown.
Neither of us was ever forthright again.
To put it bluntly (and for the last time), problem solved!
Actually, John became slightly flimflam after that, and only spoke a lot of old tommyrot and balderdash; henceforth he became known locally as Sir John Piffle.
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Sarah Griffin February 1, 2025 Quite frankly, that was brilliant 😂 flimflam, love that word!
Tia February 2, 2025 Made me laugh 😆
Broken Spokes – An Incredibly Lengthy Sentence
By N.M. Sirett (C) All Rights Reserved
BROKEN SPOKES
Jim’s eyes reddened raw as he lowered pale lilies, and I held my breath as he did it, marvelling at such unconditional love, which he’d always had for Suzy – no father should ever lose a child – even though she’d done nothing to deserve such affection in life (was it so wrong of me to think it?), what with everyone crying as much for him as they did for her – oh such grief; such congregated grief burgeoned all about her grave, swelling in bold droplets to compete with the unforgiving downpour – for it was impossible to differentiate between those great pear-drops of rain dolloping upon brolly tops from the endless streams of tears: Marnie’s caking-mascara eyes and black cheeks (she always hid Suzy’s spoons, covered the needle scars, salved the bruising); Corrie, the younger sister, stood motionless in a state of shock, rain spilling everywhere but her, dry beneath a neat navy umbrella; Jenna and Uncle Dal, all geared up for a stoic performance that did not last the hour; and me: standing limp with a brolly of spikes (like the spokes on a mangled wheel of fortune) – dripping and almost as ruined as Suzy, wrecked and shuddering in the cold and wet, just not as unfortunate; not quite beaten – not yet – and not nearly so inept at the whole life-thing; not so doomed from the start (her doting father had given her everything, after all, even unwittingly funding her addiction through college), a start that was privileged and had her buying her way to popularity; to parties, luxury, and extravagance, hanging out with bands, dating band members – even the roadies or the managers – and going from groupie to ‘steady girlfriend’ in her designer heels and photo shoots, to the needle and the shoot-ups and the dips and the near-deaths, and all the sodding warnings; the close-calls; rehab; recovery and relapse; denial, denial, denial… for when the beast returns, raises its ugly head, it lifts you up to drag you down, and I knew this all too well – standing in the deluge by that grey headstone – that Suzy’s beast wouldn’t be sated for long: next time it got hungry, it was coming for me.
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Saving Face
By N. M. Sirett ©
Everything is OK until the Wi-Fi drops, the electricity cuts out, and the world goes silent. That’s when they come. In the quiet and the stillness, we hide. Barricading ourselves into cupboards and tight spaces, like under the stairs if you’re lucky enough to be indoors when it happens. If outside, you might take refuge in a wheely bin, somebody’s shed or – desperate measures – sliding beneath a parked vehicle. I remind myself of a skittish mammal in dinosaur times, hiding from some Jurassic giant.
The Wi-Fi signal on my mobile dies. I hear a porch door slam shut. And the street mutes. Even the birds stop chirping. I am in the kitchen, so I slide into the built-in cupboard where I keep my bins. Careful not to make any sound.
Katie next-door is hanging washing on the line. I hear her running for the patio doors. It is the only sound for miles. Until the screaming. The hideous agony of her cry when her face is shredded to bits.
It’s over now. The Wi-Fi returns and my cooker-clock flashes red zeros. Katie’s husband Evan is in his garden. Cradling his wife in his arms and screaming. I daren’t go out there. Look over the fence. See my neighbour with no face. All flesh and gristle and blood and skull. Her features sucked off by those reptilian mouths that cyclone down through the clouds to feed upon us.
Nobody knows how they discovered us. It’s the scientists’ fault. Sending out their cosmic calls into space. Come to Earth – the all-you-can-eat human buffet.
They arrived in a flurry of clouds. The heavens are hell. It’s their sky now. They only descend to feed.
Remember – silence saves face.
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J S February 21, 2025 A little bit Black Mirror meets Three Body Problem.
Nice 👍
The Intruder – 120-word read – Flash Fiction / Crime
The Intruder by N.M. Sirett (C) All Rights Reserved
THE INTRUDER
Cilla watched the door handle twist. It unlocked and clicked open. At first there was darkness. Then black splintered into white. A torch invaded the night. Highlighting the outline of a bulky man. Predacious eyes swathed in a balaclava. Glinting with feral violation. Ambivalent in the doorway. Flee or attack? The alteration in those eyes spelled danger. Causing Cilla to turn and run. She stumbled to the stairwell. Crack! A swift blow to the skull. Torchlight circled the wallpaper, then whizzed upwards. Cilla slipped downwards. Smacking the bottom tread with her chin. Her blood washing the steps. The intruder pattered past. Dragging a sackful of silverware. Exiting by way of the front door. Discreetly. Dignified.
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The Phantom Itch – A Short Halloween Story
The Phantom Itch by N. M. Sirett©
6,000 Words uncanny, creepy, cosy, suicide
THE PHANTOM ITCH
Mayberry Village wasn’t far from the edge of nowhere and barely alive on a map. Some of the minor roads were nothing more than country tracks that broke your Waze App in half. Satellites dripped Teflon rain under the pressure to locate the place. Phone screens cracked in their dash mounts under the pressure to smart-navigate those wield-woven country lanes. At the third exit take the second turning on the left … the left … take the … on to … exit … Turn right at the crossroads. In half a mile take the next … Turn back.
Nevertheless, I was done with the rat race. I took myself off the carousel. Not because of a nasty break-up or trouble with the law. I had no hidden secrets, trauma, or family scandal. I didn’t ruin a perfectly good career. I had no sad-story motive. Except that my aunt died. So I suppose that was sad. We weren’t close or anything. She’d had no offspring. Was a rich widow. Left all her dough to me. Lucky me.
After this rather generous inheritance, I picked a remote cottage with a wood burner and a south-facing garden adorned with wild flowers. Just to be twee, I bought a large dresser for the kitchen and displayed antique porcelain plates, potted jams, and other country-style paraphernalia. I was particularly proud of my rustic oak dining table which boasted a cobwebbed spice rack from a charity shop and a wooden bowl for seasonal fruits and nuts. The first week living there, I filled a napkin-lined basket with scones. Vowing to always fill it with baked goods – you know, for the cosy factor.
I had some really cute floral curtains made to measure, framing a delightful little lattice window above the stove. Purchased soft rugs to hug the wooden floorboards. I mean the place creaked like a dead man’s gait when the wind blew hard. And it wasn’t double-glazed. It would probably get real cold in the winter. Rugs and throws were clearly the way to go, but I did put a deep pile carpet down in the hallway, for added warmth.
Foxes frolicked in the flowerbeds. Rabbits run amok like mythical woodland spirits, and giant bumbles bashed clumsily against the lattice panes. Sounds cosy, doesn’t it?
My cottage was a cutie-pie honey bee with a teapot and a laptray. I loved it. It had crooks and nooks. But it also had spooks. When I say spooks, I don’t mean actual ghosts – although being grade II listed, I would have expected a few. I just mean that I got the spooks – on occasion. You know, those new-home sounds, like the unfamiliar pipe clang, an unexpected gurgle in the sink, the aching bones of the place cracking when the boiler fires up in a sudden fury against an early-hour chill. And outside, the cry of a fox slicing the night in two with its hideous scream.
The first few nights I spent in the cottage were swarming with nightmares. I would dream of creatures walking the woods. Emerging from the trees to stare stonily at the cottage with an unsettling, dead nothingness behind tenebrous eyes. The gentle patter of unrhythmical, flat-footed steps haunting the graveyard at dawn.
There’s a graveyard at the bottom of the garden. The cottage backs on to the church grounds. It’s an aspect of the place that had me hesitating to buy it at first. Common sense got the better of me in the end. It’s the living that are generally a threat. Not the dead. The living cause all the problems in this world. The dead just sleep. Even still, I wasn’t OK with the pre-dawn grave ramblers, if that’s what they were. In my mind, I’d tell myself that it was bird watchers. Cutting through the yard to set up camp on the other side of the country track. Then I’d pull the patchwork quilt over my head and try not to think about what else it might be.
By the time I’d settled in and made a few friends it was coming up for Halloween. Apparently the village never did Halloween by halves. Every year in Mayberry people dressed up and took to the lanes, calling on every cottage huddled discreetly behind hedgerow and willow, then winding up in the village pub for a pumpkin-spiced latte or a clove-spiked cider.
I am a good sport and the community festivities welcomed me with outstretched arms. Providing me with a chance to get to know some of the neighbours better. A week ago, I’d found an old 80s wedding dress at the church jumble sale, and stained it red with food colouring. Ready for my corpse-bride look.
Later I’d remembered I would need make-up. I didn’t have anything that would achieve the right look. At such short notice (with the nearest Boots a clever fifteen miles away), I’d made an online purchase for make-up, but the order went missing. I was annoyed because I’d waited for it to come after the orders section on my account had flagged the delivery up as delayed. Giving me a date to hold out for – which passed without any sign of my parcel.
Then today, I was about to request a refund when the letterbox opened its mouth wide and spewed a chunky pamphlet onto the doormat. I turned to see a dark figure drift like smoke away from the window. In the hallway was a cosmetics book: Avon.
I hastened to the door, opening it to try and catch the rep, but the path outside was empty. The wind rustled through the last of the autumn leaves and whistled through the half-denuded boughs of the trees. Stripping them bare for winter and showing no mercy. A few crisp leaves danced across the lawn. How had the rep left the premises so fast? I thought. There was nobody nowhere – not a soul to be seen.
I closed the door. Its rusty hinges screeching unharmoniously against the harsh cries of the wind. I bent down and retrieved the brochure. There was a pumpkin-shaped Post-It attached. I read the note which was written in a neat hand. The writing was not joined up and the letters were evenly spaced. It read as follows:
‘I would like to include you in my village round. The book normally gets picked up every three weeks. But seen as you have just moved in, I will be collecting this order tomorrow and aim to deliver before 31st October. Thanks. Louise Kershaw.’
How about that, I thought. The timing couldn’t be better… the timing. I read the note again. Hang on, tomorrow is Halloween. How could she possibly put an order in and deliver on the same day? Perhaps she’d made a mistake.
I opened the cover and began to peruse the contents. I needed pale make-up. Whites and greys. Perhaps a black or a purple for under the eyes. Some green too for my zombie bride. I rummaged in the hallway drawer for a pen, after finding what I was looking for, and marked the page numbers down on the order form along with the product codes. There. Problem solved. I put the brochure on the electric box outside by the front door and went into the kitchen to put on a fresh brew of tea.
As the kettle screeched to the boil there was a lunatic rat-a-tat-tat on my door. Startling me enough to spill milk over the work surface. I cursed under my breath and went into the hallway.
A smoky figure hovered on the other side of the frosted-glass door. A dark shadow behind the opaque pane. It did not move but at the same time was not completely still. It wavered like a black flame, a hazy silhouette.
I slowed my pace, instinctively, as I approached the door. Finding that I was holding my breath and scraping my bottom lip with just one tooth. Pressing down hard so that the sting of it shocked me. A trickle of red wet my chin. Why did I do that? I thought.
The knock came again. An urgent pounding. The door shook. But the figure did not move. A jolt of ice went through me. Leaving me cold to my core. The figure had not moved. But the knock had been real. Hadn’t it? And loud. So earsplittingly loud.
I froze where I stood. Realising I was still holding the milk jug. Its dregs dripping on my slipper socks. Little blotches of white staining my purple-knit toes.
Bang-bang-bang!
Gooseflesh erupted up my arms. The figure was dead still. Looming through the glass. It had not raised a fist. There had been no arm movement. But the door shook, and the knock was so loud I thought it might break the glass.
The outside world was silent apart from the relentless howl of the October squall. Which made everything worse. Magnifying the fact that the figure had not budged.
There was a soft but definite thud as a head shape hit the pane. It rested there. Pressed against the surface like ink in water. Spilling outwards in all directions in black clouds. The smell of pond or swamp or something dank and rotten tainted the air. The air. Yes the air was charged with something magnetic. Drawing me closer to the doorway. Unsticking my socks from the carpet. Helping me to ease one foot forwards. Then the other. Then…
‘Avon calling,’ came the voice. A monotone voice. Devoid of notes. Sounding like a mouth crammed with leeches and tadpoles and water spiders and other such creatures you might find in a woodland pond. Words drizzled through the door like a leak in a wall. ‘Avon calling. It’s Louise.’
But she’d just put the brochure through the door, I found myself thinking. Logic tripping into my mind and bringing me back to the ordinary world where nothing creepy ever happened. I was being ridiculous. It’s Louise. And she just wants to introduce herself to me. Welcome me to Mayberry. Ask me how I’m settling in – that sort of thing.
The tension in my legs drained to the floor and I moved easily to the front door. Taking a fresh breath of – what was that? Eggs? No. Something foul though, like dead frogs and crushed beetles. Decay. Wet mud. Pond muck.
I opened the door and said, ‘Hi, I’m Kelly,’ to absolutely no one. The brochure was gone.
The woods emitted a blood-curdling scream as the wind whipped through the trees in one elaborate swoosh of russet and gold. Giving the impression that the woods was one heaving bulk of animus. Unforgivingly hostile towards my little thatched abode. In the same instance, I heard those flat footsteps from my dream, stomping down the side of the cottage, towards the back garden and the graveyard beyond.
Had Louise Kershaw, my new Avon Lady, played a cruel joke? Was this some weird village ritual leading up to Halloween? Or some strange welcome act to initiate me into the community? Some kind of Knock-Down-Ginger in-joke that I was too new to the area to get?
‘Louise?’ I called feebly. The wind took the name and blew it far away.
A cold snap of air infringed upon my personal space. Like a ghost walking straight through me, and I shut the front door. Locking it fast.
Then I took the milk jug through to the kitchen and looked out the window. Scanning the garden and the graveyard beyond for signs of my mystery visitor. Nope. Nothing. Just the onslaught of gloomy clouds flying in to blacken my day.
I made some tea and helped myself to a scone with thick cream and damson jam. Then I lit the wood burner and settled in for a snug rest with a copy of King’s Misery. Nobody was as bat-shit crazy as Annie Wilkes in Misery. It was ‘just another day at the funhouse for Annie’ but not for me. Nope. My cottage was warm and cosy and sane, I told myself. Then again, the book tells you ‘there’s a little bit of Annie in everybody’. No, don’t go there, I thought and got reading, fully immersing myself in King-magic until the day had melted away into twilight.
I put the book down around four-thirty in the afternoon. I went to draw the curtains and glanced out the window. Outside the sky was an upside-down cauldron of swirling purple potions. Working its Samhain magics on the land. Casting its curses and spells and all the hexes it could throw at Mayberry Village in one foul witch’s cackle of thunder. Lightning lit the sky suddenly like a crack in a lamp. And the world around me rumbled with fury and wrath.
I pulled the curtains to and boiled the kettle. Tea was good. Tea made everything better. I’d make tea and prepare some supper. Tomorrow was Halloween. I had that to look forward to. I had planned to meet my new friends outside the village hall. So far I’d made acquaintances with the local watercolour artists’ club (which I’d joined), the pub owners, Jill and Shay, and their dog Toby. Also a few people from the local post office and general store. There was Bob and Sandra, Dave and Sue, and Melody – the teenager who did the paper round. All of whom seemed pleasant enough, if a little stereo-typical parochial. (Local and gossipy in other words.) These were my trick-or-treat crew and we would all be arriving in costume at seven o’clock in the evening for some village laughs. We had originally planned to meet outside the church, which would have been much nearer for me, but apparently the vicar did not approve – according to Jill and Shay. I had not met the vicar, so I just took their word for it.
The night grew fierce with the howling storm – and the night could stay outside. There was brick and mortar between me and it. So with a fresh brew in a clean mug, I set about warming up some day-old casserole on the hob. Sipping my tea and singing, ‘We did the Mash, we did the monster -’
Bang-bang-bang-BANG!
This time it was the kitchen door that led to the garden and the graveyard beyond. That was the door that banged and shook with an unhinged violence.
Bang-BANG!
There is was again. Then a slow methodical tap-tap-tap. In contrast to the gargantuan knocking, this was a single nail, light and natty, on the wooden door frame.
A twig snapped. Then lightning lit up the patio. There she was, Louise Kershaw. The Avon Lady. In a brief flash of diamond light I saw her. She was bone thin. Tall and gaunt. With black frizzy hair that bouffered outwards in all directions. All puffy and fluffy like a storm cloud wreathing her head. She was a diaphanous sketch, blurry in the light. You could even see the outline of the tombstones at the bottom of the garden through her long black coat. In her pale hands she held a white paper bag with a receipt stapled to it: my order.
‘Avon calling!’ Louise Kershaw said. Her stuffed-with-pondlife words drowning in thunder. Bang-bang-bang. ‘I have your order.’
The cottage stilled. As though the roof above me tried to flatten itself against the foundations – playing dead in the hope that the caller would go away. I held my breath. Did not move. A muscle twitched in my jaw. My chest was tight. I thought I might pass out from the lack of air but still I just could not manage a single breath.
‘Avon calling.’
The kitchen door handle tilted downwards. Slowly. The hand on the other side of the door was putting an even pressure on it so as not to lower it with too much haste. As though my visitor wanted me to watch the deliberate action long enough for me to work it out, to realise, to understand… the back door was unlocked.
Another clap of thunder and the kitchen lit up in a shock wave of glitter. The door swung open and a sharp slice of rain came sheeting in, glossing the stone tiles. My quaint cottage curtains billowed dramatically. I was in a haunted funhouse now, like the ones at the fair. Tea cups rattled and coasters blew off my dining table, along with a small vase of dried flowers which spilled over and toppled to the floor. Tinkling on impact and breaking into tiny smithereens of fine china and dead lavender.
The door bashed against the kitchen unit. Again and again. Something ran across the patio. A fox? A cat? A what?
‘Louise?’ I croaked. ‘Are you there?’ My words seemed to kill the storm and destroy the spell. For almost instantly the wind dropped and the skies cleared. All was still and the garden was peaceful.
I stood there listening for a moment, thinking: I can hear her. Moving on those unrhythmical, flat feet. Softly padding across the grass, dodging the gravestones. I blinked into the blackish-grey church grounds but saw nothing.
When I moved to close the door, my toes struck the paper bag. My order. I picked it up and shut the door. Locking it fast.
The following day I’d been busy baking cookies for any treats I might need to hand out on request. I baked oatmeal, white chocolate chip, and cinnamon spice. I wrapped each batch in clean linen napkins and placed them in baskets to cool. Secretly hoping that my cookies would make me popular with the villagers. I had always prided myself on my ability to make exceedingly delicious baked goods – Mr Kipling eat your heart out.
I had not looked at the make-up that had mysteriously been delivered the previous evening. It was sitting on the dining table next to a pile of china shards and lavender heads. Despite the lavender, the bag was giving off and icky vibe and faint aroma of something ghastly. As though a nearby pond was being drained after a sewage leak.
I tried not to look at the parcel. There would be plenty of time later to dress up and try out the new make-up. After baking, I was having a new friend over for elevenses. Amelia Siding. She was my nearest neighbour and we hadn’t met yet. We’d popped a few notes back and forth, through the door, introducing ourselves, but she ran a business from home and had little time to spare. And I was, well, a little shy I guess. So today had been arranged in advance. It was now (I glanced at the clock on the mantle), oh gosh, almost eleven!
I ran a soapy cloth over the surfaces, wiping down any excess flour, and flung it into the sink. An unnerving bang on the front door had me slipping on a dollop of cookie dough that had dropped to the tiles. I skidded into the hallway.
‘Just a moment!’ I cried, wiping my hands on the inside of my jumper.
‘It’s Louise.’
I stopped. There was the figure again. Face pressed against the opaque glass of the front door. Hair pluming like toxic fumes. Darkening the hallway.
‘Er, just a moment.’
‘You owe me.’
Payment. The receipt. I remembered. It was stapled to the bag. I needed to pay Louise Kershaw for the order. Did I have cash in the cottage? Yes. About twenty pounds. Would that do it? I hadn’t calculated the –
Bang-bang-BANG!
‘You owe. You pay.’
I began to retreat. Moving close to the foot of the stairs. My purse was upstairs in the front bedroom. I could just go up there now and –
‘Avon calling. Sixteen pounds. Sixteen pounds and sixty-six pence.’
‘Louise, I’m just going to get my purse!’ I yelled and darted up the stairs two at a time. I rushed into the bedroom searching for my handbag. Before I could get the cash out, I heard the awkward feet hopscotching it away, down my front path. I ran to the window to get a look at this Louise character in broad daylight. And this time, yes!, there she was. A tall woman in a long black coat to the ankles. She was easily six feet tall and gangly. Her frizzy hair wiry against the bright autumnal sky. Bobbing about her head in a fuzzy mound that seemed to have a life of its own. Her gait was crooked and her feet were huge and out of sync with one another. One of her knees bent so low as if to touch the ground with every step whilst the other stuck out at an angle and jutted towards the clouds.
I watched her head towards the outskirts of the woods. Before she disappeared into a grove of trees, she turned to look back at me. Stared directly into the bedroom window as if she knew exactly where abouts in the cottage I was. And her eyes. Oh, her eyes. Those eyes. The flesh around the sockets was creamy and rubbery like a mask. The sockets were hollow. Filled with a blackened wet peat. Great sopping clumps of it. She grinned and a pool of pondwater spilled through a set of rotten green teeth.
I jumped back from the window, my heart thudding in my ears. Looking away in shock. When I turned to look at her again she was gone.
I took the twenty out of my handbag with trembling fingers. Found a spare envelope and tucked the money inside, licking down the flap and writing ‘sixteen pounds and sixty-six pence’ on the front in red Biro. Underneath the amount I wrote ‘For Louise Kershaw – Kelly’s Avon Order – Comfort Cottage, Mayberry Village.’ That should suffice, I thought.
I took the envelope downstairs, cautiously opened the front door and placed it on the electric box. Then I went into the kitchen, double-checking the back door was still locked (it was), and braving it to the dining table. I tore open the paper bag and took out the make-up. It all seemed OK: a white eyeshadow, another eye palette with various shades of greens, purples, and one black. Yes, this would work.
Knock-knock…
I dropped the make-up on the table. The white eyeshadow went skimming across the oak surface and fell onto the tiles. It didn’t shatter though, much to my relief. I picked it up and placed it on the table.
‘Hello? Kelly? It’s Amelia.’
I went to greet my new neighbour. Amelia was a small woman around my age, mid-to-late thirties. She had blonde hair tied up high in a messy bun and wore sweats and a quilted anorak. She had a pleasant face. A benign smile and passive blue eyes. Her overall demeanour shocked me. This was not the assertive business woman I was expecting. She was more like a country housewife with a fairly mild and sunny disposition.
‘Hi,’ I said, ‘I’m Kelly. Please come in. I apologize for the mess, I’ve been baking.’
‘It’s lovely to finally meet you!’ Amelia chirped with what appeared to be genuine authenticity. She held out a hand. It was stained orange. A little fake tan tester on the skin. She smelled of clotted cream and rosewater.
‘Let’s go into the kitchen,’ I said, moving to shut the front door.
‘I’m sorry,’ Amelia said with a confused double-take at my electric box, ‘I don’t mean to pry, but is that envelope made out to Louise Kershaw? Have I read that right?’
I nodded. Slowly. For Amelia’s expression was a little nonplussed. ‘It’s an Avon payment,’ I replied, feeling a little stupid. Obviously everyone in the village would know who the Avon Lady was.
‘Do you mind me asking, how did you come by an Avon brochure? Is there a new rep in the village?’
‘Huh? Yes, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Won’t you come through? I’ll get the teapot filled.’
We went through to the kitchen and I filled the kettle. Amelia eyed the make-up and torn paper bag on the dining table. ‘Is this what you’ve ordered?’ she asked.
She might be a pleasant woman, I thought, but by gosh is she nosey.
‘I, er, am ashamed to admit, it’s for my zombie costume. For Halloween,’ I laughed.
‘Oh.’
Amelia had gone pale. I offered her a seat on the sofa and brought in the teapot on a tray with some cookies. A selection of my wares for her to sample and savour.
After a painful bout of small talk and a few awkward silences, Amelia steered the conversation back round to my Avon order. ‘So, who’s the new Avon rep?’ she enquired.
‘I believe her name is Louise. Louise Kershaw,’ I said. Shuddering at the thought of those squelchy, fibrous eyes. And a spillage running like drain water from her gangrenous maw.
‘I’m sorry, time is ticking,’ said Amelia, rising from the sofa.
‘Wait,’ I said, ‘there’s no hurry, surely.’
‘I don’t want to keep you. You are going out tonight and I…’ she hesitated. Her face grew stonelike. ‘I have to go lock up the house before it gets dark. I don’t like Halloween.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Do you not celebrate the pagan tradition?’
‘In a word – no.’
‘But it’s only a bit of harmless fun.’
‘Is it? Well I lean towards the opinions of our vicar, John Linnard of St. Martin’s Church, I’m afraid. I don’t celebrate “pagan traditions” as you call it. The vicar is right not to encourage such antics in Mayberry. And I would caution you not get involved.’ Hostility now registered on her once-jovial face. She shifted awkwardly towards the door. Once through it, she threw another startled glance at the envelope on the electric box, then left.
Fine, I thought, we don’t need to be close – just neighbourly and civil. We’ll keep it at that level. Clearly she’s one of those deeply religious bonkers people. Probably goes to church every Sunday in crotchet cardigans and donates a large portion of her profits to the vicar’s personal pot. She probably funds the old sacramental wine cupboard.
I sniggered as I shut the door and turned my thoughts towards dressing up in the old wedding dress. Which was when a new thought struck me: I need a bouquet. I wonder… there’s some salvias going strong still in the garden. Now where are my secateurs?
Snipping my hot lips in the garden was fun. I had some white ribbon in my sewing box that I planned to use to tie a half-decent bow around the sage-green stalks. They were popping with colour. A deep magenta. A perfect splash of pink that would clash gruesomely with my fake blood stains.
A sudden movement out the corner of my eye had me glancing towards the graveyard. Louise. It was Louise. I don’t know how I knew. I could just feel her. Smell her pond-residue scent on the air. I stood up, leaving the salvia snippings on the grass, and stepped over the low chicken-wire fence, into the graveyard beyond.
A shadow flitted from headstone to headstone. Not a person. Not Louise? Yes, Louise. But it couldn’t… my mind strived to grab on to something solid but it kept losing its grip.
I followed the zig-zagging movement the shadow made until I found myself standing before a headstone that, oddly enough, had a fresh bouquet of bright pink salvias stuffed in the plant base. After the floral distraction came the biggest shock of all – the engraving: LOUISE KERSHAW 1966 TO 2025 – LOVING SISTER, DAUGHTER, AND FRIEND.
This could not be the same person… surely this was another – this was not – surely not; no, it couldn’t be – it couldn’t.
‘Good afternoon, missy,’ chirped a man’s voice behind me. I turned to see a white-collared man in a black shirt standing behind me with a ruddy smile and great Victorian muttonchop whiskers.
‘Sweet Jesus, you startled me. Oh, er, sorry,’ I said, blushing.
‘Not to worry. I take it we are neighbours in a roundabout sort of way?’ said the vicar.
‘I live in Comfort Cottage, yes; I’m Kelly.’
‘Please to meet you. John Linnard. Local vicar. I haven’t seen you at church. Are you planning on attending any Sunday services?’
‘I’ve been busy with the move,’ I said. ‘You know how it is, so many boxes to unpack. You can be living out of boxes for months.’
‘Better than being in a box in the ground, eh?’ He laughed pointing to our feet with a hairy index finger.
I laughed along, although it was not a joke I’d expect from a veritable man of the cloth. ‘Yes, for sure,’ I agreed.
‘Poor Louise. Bought it earlier this year.’
Bought it? Not a respectable way to speak of the dead. Especially by this guy, I thought.
‘She shares the same name as the Avon Lady,’ I said, not daring to meet his eyes for fear of the answer.
‘Come again? Louise is – sorry was – the only Lou I know of in Mayberry. Although little Tania in my choir has Louisa as her middle name. No, Louise Kershaw was the only Lou around here. We’ve not had the Avon going since she kicked the bucket. Back in April.’
‘Um …’ I coughed. ‘How did she … ?
‘Suicide. Drowned herself in a bog in the nearby woods. Over there on the other side of your cottage.’ I went cold. He went on. ‘She had a good turnout. Jill and Shay bloody loved her. They had her wake in the pub. She was popular at the art group too. Always chatting to the checkout staff in the local shop. Nobody had a clue. She must’ve been a secret manic depressive or something. They always say, the ones that are serious about it won’t ever let on – and that was true in Lou’s case. She was a lively soul, all right. As I say, many of the villagers loved her. She gave good discounts on all the, you know, stuff. Nail polish and bubble bath. That kind of thing.
‘I gave her a good service. Prayed for her soul but, you know, a suicide is a difficult predicament. One can only hope the dear Lord took her swiftly through the pearly gates and did not condemn her to walk alone in the valley of death.’
‘One can only hope!’ I concurred, giving him a superglue-smile. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you. Must dash. Boxes to unpack!’ Then I swiftly made my way back to my cottage, my wedding dress, and the ominous make-up.
I stood outside the village hall at seven o’clock in a hooped dress with puffy sleeves and a lace train. My veil and skirt stained crimson. Make-up fetchingly zombified and ghoulish. Clutching a bouquet of hot lips in my hands. But I stood on my own. My fellow trick-or-treaters were a no-show. Perhaps the vicar, John Linnard, had got to them first and talked them out of it. Where was everyone?
I decided to start without them, and traipsed back down the lane, hitching up my dress and stumbling towards my neighbour’s house. I knew she did not want to be a part of the festivities, but honestly, I had no clue which home belonged to whom; all I knew was Amelia’s place. She lived down the same lane as me.
Looking around now, I noticed that there was a serious lack of decorations. Not one pumpkin had been carved and lit. The village should be buzzing with kids and costumes, lanterns and music. Even the pub up on the hill had no lights on. It was as if the entire place had emptied. As if all its denizens had taken off at once and gone overseas to get some sun. It was seriously lacking. And as black as pitch.
I started down Funnel Lane towards Amelia’s house. My foot went down a few holes before I reached her path. Giving me the stumbling impression of a real zombie. Not that there is such a thing as a ‘real zombie’ – or so I hoped.With pain smarting my ankles and the chilly air numbing my chest, I knocked on her door.
After a minute of two the letterbox opened about half and inch. A pair of timid blue eyes peered out through the gap. ‘Go away!’ she hissed.
‘Amelia, it’s me, Kelly. Trick or treat!’
‘I said leave me alone!’
‘Don’t be daft. It’s just a bit of fun. I’m just trying to fit in here.’
‘Then take my advice and join the church. The rest of the villagers are not … ’
‘Are not what?’ I waited for an answer. It came by way of the glint in her eyes. Sharp and intense with engrained fear. Then the lid of the letterbox dropped. I heard a bolt slide firmly across Amelia’s door, and the sound of her waning footfalls. Fortunately for me she left the hallway light on, limning her lawn in a thick wedge of yellow.
I let out a frustrated sigh and said, ‘Trick it is then!’ and stuffed the bouquet of hot lips through her letterbox, shouting: ‘Have some flowers, neighbour!’
‘I would like to include you in my village round,’ came a messed-up voice behind me. A monster-mash voice. Louise.
With weak deliberation I turned to face the dead woman. She was not alone. Upon the lawn stood Jill and Shay, their dog Toby, Melody, Dave, Sue, Bob, Sandra – everyone from art club. My trickster crew. All of them attired in zombie costumes. Her friends. The ones who’d loved her the most.
They stood as one unhallowed congregation. Eyes thick with peat. Mouths stuffed with things black, wet, and slithering. Leeches and slugs. Maggots wriggled and writhed in their rotting flesh. Pondwater ran cold from their mouths. Even the dog salivated frogspawn. That gelatinous egg mass dripped from its eyes too. Like jelly tears. As if the creature was crying for me. For my plight.
Whatever had happened to the villagers had happened tonight. Had happened because Louise had risen. Had run through the gravestones. Destined to walk in the valley of death, delivering cosmetics, giving discounts to her friends.
But how? How had they joined her? Become a shiver of undead tricksters? Louise Kershaw was deceased. Her name was on a gravestone in the churchyard.
I regarded her, struggling to keep my gaze steady. She was holding a new brochure. Gesturing for me to take it. I shook my head and backed up against Amelia’s door. Meaning to raise a fist and bang hard. Meaning to… but only meaning to…
Let me in, Amelia. Let me in!
Oh no, Kelly, I won’t let you in. I can’t. I shan’t. Oh no, Kelly. I won’t let you in – not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin.
But I’m cold, Amelia. Let me in!
Oh no, Kelly, I won’t let you in. There’s a little bit of Annie in you and a little bit of Annie in them. I can’t let you in, Kelly. I shan’t.
Something soft caught in my eyes. Instead of raising my fist to the door, I raised a finger to my eye. A saturated, spongy blackness wept from the corner: black peat.
I looked back at the woman on the lawn, proffering her pamphlet of cosmetics with a grin so vile it sickened my soul. Her mouldering throat gurgled as she moved her meaty lips to speak words that had me tethered to her ‘village round’. Yes, tethered – just like the others. The knowing that I belonged to her now, was like an invisible truth that couldn’t be seen, only felt – a phantom itch.
Her odious voice finally slopped out of that wilting mouth in a solemn landslide of words, initiating me into her congregation. Like she’d done to the others. Like she would do to me. Just two words – it was all she needed – just two: ‘Avon calling.’
Jack Bites – Flash Fiction
Jack Bites by N. M. Sirett©
SPECULATIVE – SUPERNATURAL – When Jack comes, he bites…
700 WORDS – 3-MINUTE READ
JACK BITES
Normally, there’s ice – 2 cubes – clinking against glass.
But now, a Southern Comfort waterfall doesn’t cascade over crackling rocks, glaring auburn – but goes in neat. Magnified through the tumbler are two bright orbs. Sticky, wet, bloodshot.
Fingers grasp the drink. Snaffling it to twitchy lips, a blue mouth. Downing it fast. Liquid-fire quells the chill. Burns the throat. Lasts but five seconds.
Enjoying the sting of it, the mind welcomes another cosy snap, and the hand steadies itself long enough to pour another measure.
Outside, the world crystalises. Blue glitters white. A metallic tinsel-scape.
He is coming.
The hand pours again but with less control. It jerks. And the spirit in the bottle escapes. A little of its warmth spills onto a coaster. Wets the outside rim of the glass.
The tumbler swirls fresh its golden gleam. Again, it empties quick. The last glug is followed by a frigid glitch. The hand suspends. An ear tunes in to the silent deep.
Out there –
Outside.
What is it?
It is a bitter nip. Tightening its callous grip on the land. Nature holds its tongue. A fondant outline of alder trees grows parchment thin. White air fastens tight to the boughs – invisible ribbons in opaque silence.
That beat… a beat of nothing, impregnates the world outside, and burgeons unseen, unheard, yet felt – with a deliberate tempo: accelerando – agitato. How many beats does the heart have left? A metronome counts down, losing time instead of keeping it.
He is coming.
Outside, the lawn sparkles with cold grit. Ice pearls adorn the sugary path leading to the door. Unlocked. Ajar. No time now for another drink.
He comes.
The indent of his tracks harden fast. Caramelising like crème brûlée.
And the mind trips back to a time when that dessert was made with love and shared with a lost love. Alone now, joy is seized in the moment. Like when the lake freezes over and crème brûlée’s skates are still in the cupboard.
The soft and distant tread crescendos. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
He is closer. At the threshold. Breathing his sweet sigh into the doorway.
The midair hand unfreezes. The tumbler topples from its grasp. The crash disturbs the edges of this quiet hour. A mosaic of glassy chaos, as trenchant as the tongue that curses with a rasp, reflects red flame on the stone hearth.
Beyond the lawn the clouds solidify. Stiffening up the sky. The ground toughens to a stopped pulse. And reality constricts. Air is a snake. Squeezing its vista-prey. The world asphyxiates.
Inside, two eyes bulge above a gaping maw at the visitor’s outstretched hand – black as shadow, moving like a puppet on a string.
Bare blue feet are motionless. The same feet that carried their master home and away from the lake. Where the ice caved in, betraying the skater, breaking its promise. Fracturing its freeze. The same feet that shed wet socks and mounted the stool beside the wood burner. Willing the blue toes pink – with no luck. If the eyes could unlock now, they would fall upon the pile of clothes discarded on the doormat, balled up in a sodden heap. A symbol of the fool.
The wood burner burns brightly like an old friend out of touch. As the hand reaches out to…
Who is he – who has come?
Fae? Imp?
Jack?
Oh yes, Jack – making a crude entering, and bringing with him a hyperthermic terror.
Outside, the sky stops. Draws back in on itself. Waits. A niveous static almost surfaces from behind its smoky veneer but doesn’t.
Inside, the wood burner has its crimson folly smothered. Ice steams instead of fire. In the iron hollow there is nothing but ashen regret. Below it, the carpet keeps snowflakes nestled in its fibres like secrets. The room has a mirror shine like winter lakes. It’s occupant shivers one last breath.
Jack is here.
He is the chill reeds rising from the lakebed to tether struggling limbs. The liquid-invader that comes a rushing, a gushing – immersive and unstoppable – down the protesting throat.
A tundra stillness resides in his wake. Mercury plummets down the thermometer’s calibrated scale.
Jack vanishes.
Leaving the blue figure to petrify – silver-mauve.
He comes with the cold, this imp, this Jack.
And when he comes, he bites.
The House
By N. M. Sirett©
The house itches. I scratch the memories of it with a limp finger. They flake like scab-heads falling.
Floorboards creak. Lamps crack under their own heat. Electrical wiring fizzes in the early hours. Pipes clank. And the wind howls at the windows. Making the glass rattle and the doors open on their own – or by the tiddlywink-flick of a tiny fingernail.
Sometimes the movement of the old house sounds human: footsteps, unseen sniggering, whispers and heavy outbreaths, a baby crying; a soft, susurrous hush in a secret corner steeped in shadow, or the wispy sob of a small child.
Dolls blink and twist their heads. Run along the skirting and vanish into wardrobes where they’ve been stored since time immemorial.
Nobody’s been in here since…
There’s a fusty smell in that room. And the cobwebbed ceilings are scarred with plaster cracks, like black veins. Moonlight strikes the tiny window and high ledge. It is a small square of glass with lattice leading, stencilling Xs on the opposite wall. A thousand treasure maps marked there. But dig and all you will find is a hole into the unlit corridor beyond and the dark figure of a woman who floats along it.
She does the same route every evening. Drifts downstairs. Eyeless. Sockets full of grubs. Hair all sooted black, skin rucked clean by flame. A pale, convulsive hand slips down the banister. It is the last sight of her. The disembodied part, sloping away into the darkness of the lower floor.
Dead sound down there. Stillness.
Oh, her hand. Is it the same hand that clasps around sleeping ankles? Twitching the ends of blankets in the midnight hour? Slipping off covers to reveal the rapid drop in temperature – just there… that cold spot. The hand fades. Looks to reattach itself to a shadowy arm.
Somewhere there is a hole in thin air where all things in this house slip. An unearthly hive of entity-networks. Entrances and exits, in and out of the material plane. They move from that wall to that mirror… or from that bathroom to the last bedroom on the left. Or through the interstices of the brickwork where door jamb meets wall and hinges cry tarnished melodies.
Wallpaper peels like dead skin. Scratched off and rived by something sharp. And that clumping sound. That thud. What drags its heavy self across the floor in the pitch-black night? Why is it heaving so? Cumbersome yet deliberate?
Who’s here?
Under the bare ceiling light, after a trembling flick of a switch, the answer is nothing. Nothing is here.
The house is a tombstone. Left to rot on the moors. In the bleak wilderness and the strangled grey. Only the wind acknowledges its presence. Its empty, rickety shell. Knocking at its bones in fury and haste. Steaming up its windows with howl-shaped lips.
This house is forlorn. Gives up its ghost. Utters no lament. Only the dripping of a solitary tap echoes the once-groans of despair. A scurrying rat in the larder. A spider creeping behind a ball of dust. Ants stomping noiselessly in a barren cupboard.
Another itch and she reappears. Disturbing the stale air. This floating lady. She drifts past the stove with its heavy, cast-iron frame – seemingly so solid against the diaphanous movement of her breeze-like apparition. Into the parlour she goes, by way of the wall. A momentary image of tousled hair splintering the floral lace of her gown lingers before she quietly disperses like disturbed mist. Blending – amorphous – into another ethereal tunnel.
This place is a wretched cement box, leaning crooked against the gathering clouds. The black rooftop steamrolls the horizon. The skies above are annealing steel plates of ice-cold apathy. Casting down a whiteness upon this place like burial sheets shrouding the dead.
Every eave has a hook for a noose. Every window is a spyhole into the grave. Every door is a prison with no key. Every turn and twist, every heinous nook, every snarling ingress, resonates with animus. The walls bleed black blood. A vile and sticky viscous of decayed beetles and lung-dissolving mould. A mushrooming misery. Dank and wet and cool like a dead thing in a swamp. Beneath its foundations lies desecrated, unhallowed dirt. Each plinth is mired in the feculent midden of wilted bones, teeth, and ash.
The house itches. I scratch at skin. It flakes away to join the dust of this place. I too fall to pieces, blending with the rooms and the quiet time that each space holds. A silent termination. The ghost’s clock has no hands. The house is a ticking ghost, now ghosted by the world. A forgotten exoskeleton.
The wind is as rough as thistles against the body of this place. This itchy place. Fingers of air scratch at its bulk. In the distance, purpling heathers rub against frigid rocks. Agitated by erratic squalls.
A restless prickling slowly crawls up the walls. And I scratch – here, in the house.
