It’s not rocket science

He spotted him immediately.

The jogging bottoms splashed with white paint, not a lot but enough for the doy decorator or the half arsed handyman. The white t-shirt with the gravy stain. The dirty fingernails, the nicotine-stained finger. The spittle collecting in the corner of the mouth and the slippers. That was a nice touch, indoor shoes outside.

It’s the details, everything means something. The underwear would be white, turned grey with holes. You wouldn’t see it, but it’s there. The hairy arse crack when he stretched or bent down. The too loud groan when he did so.

The constant chatter to no one and everyone. The annoyed, harassed tone.

It all adds up.

And here he was, standing at the front of a long queue in this stifling petrol station.

There’s a slight smell of sulfur, mini farts. Yes, he’s letting one seep out every few minutes.

He has a partner somewhere, Jimmy can sense it. He has a quick look around and there they are, it’s obvious to him straight away. A woman, late 50s, early 60s, but looks older. Probably smells of stale cigarettes. Talks but looks right through you, probably coughs without covering her mouth. She’s talking to a customer, but she’s clearly saying something that is annoying them…

He turns his attention back to the queue killer.

This routine is kind of stale; he’s seen it before, but it does have flashes of inspiration. The guy sniffs a lot. Not big sniffs, almost micro, not enough for you to notice normally, but if you are tuned in, they’re enough to drive you insane.

This kind of act is honed to perfection, though. From the moment Jimmy had walked into the building, he could hear the guy with his negative whine. It was vocal but almost like an annoying song. It had a frequency to it that just grated. Jimmy had watched him quietly and then thought that he’d better get to the front of the queue quickly. This place was starting to fill up. Then the fat man burped. Wet and trumpet-like like it had reverberated off the glass that made up the whole of the front of the building.

Jimmy made his way to the tills

He was too late.

“How the fuck did that happen?” he thought.

The fat man had beaten him to it.

And here they both were now, but the queue and built up. Maybe 10 people behind Jimmy. No other tills are working, and the self-help till is broken. The fat man knew what he was doing.

The shop assistant was running the man's items through the scanner. “How the hell did he accumulate so much stuff?” Jimmy wondered, almost impressed.

The guy waited until the scanning was finished.

“Bag”, he said quietly.

“Pardon?” the assistant replied.

“Bag?

A moment passed, and the assistant sussed out what was happening and gave the man a bag.

“Bags are 10p”

The man mumbled, shook his head and started to pack. Slowly.

He dropped items. Bent to pick them up, which gave him the opportunity to give everyone a good look at his hairy arse crack.

That’s when Jimmy heard the first tut. At the back of the queue, he guessed from the volume.

Jimmy knew this act, had seen similar before. There were variants, but essentially the same.

The fat man was a demon. Low-level, bottom-feeder demon who fed on anger and frustration.

People would be raging when they left here, some would be mildly annoyed, some would be furious. Late and flustered, they would go through their days ruining other people's. From petty arguments with loved ones to snidey jibes at co-workers to assault of family members and in some cases, possibly random acts of violence in the street. It all came to the same thing. Disruption, chaos and malevolence.

 

 

 

The sturdy Jack Russell stops. Stands still, goes low, belly to the rough ground and issues a low growl. The man stops as well and sees the oncoming danger. A shambling old man, slack-jawed in a ragged suit. His remaining hair hangs limp on his balding head. His eyes are filmy, glazed, and flies are buzzing around him. He has one shoe missing and is dragging the other leg. His arms hang unnaturally at his sides, and the left arm is sporting a large wound that looks more like a tear. That was the infected bite, the man thinks to himself.

The path he and the dog have been walking has been very quiet so far. This is the first ghoul they have seen in days, maybe a week.

He and dog have been using the paths alongside rivers and canals as a way of avoiding built-up areas. Camping by the side to make good use of the isolation. They only go astray to loot houses and only when he think it’s a calculated risk. The dog is invaluable. He can sniff out danger very quickly. It has a nose for the ghouls, and his built-in protective nature means that the man always has an early warning device.

They’ve been out in the elements for quite some time now. They have supplies, a tent, and sleeping bags. Everything you can think of to successfully survive outside. He knows it’s not enough, though. It’s late summer, and they need to get somewhere safe before winter.

It’s going to take some time, but he already has a place in mind, but to get there will take time and caution.

First though. He needs to take care of Mr Shuffles.

He reaches around his back and pulls the crowbar from the makeshift holster he has dangling from his belt. He knows better than getting too close. tale it easy and let the ghoul do all the work. He scans for any strays before he commits. Don’t want to get caught up in an undead scrum.

He takes a step forward and lets the ghoul get his scent, it sniffs immediately and gathers pace. As much as it can do anyway. It ungainly lumbers forward, and its momentum carries it forward, teeth bared as he side steps and swings the crowbar. It smashes through the soft skull, taking half the creature's brains with the bone and viscera as it passes through. A red wet mist hangs in the air where the head once was, and the once-human crumples to the ground with a dull thud.

He kicks it lightly to get a reaction, but it is now quite dead.

The dog is sat off to the side. Calmly wagging its tail, giving the dead thing a good coat of looking at.

“It’s dead”, the man tells the dog. The dog looks at the man, “Yes, I fucking know”, the dog says inside his head.

“What’s going on?” the man asks, looking down at the other man sitting at the desk.

The man at the desk doesn’t look up, just shakes his head, “No this just won’t do” he mutters. To himself, “This will not do at all”.

He turns the letter on the desk over, looks at the blank page and turns it back.

He looks up to the forlorn creature standing before him.

“It seems”, he states, “That there has been an administrative error”. He makes a clicking sound, “Quite the error”

“I don’t”, the other man starts, “I don’t understand”, he looks around and takes the white room in, “Where am I”

The sitting man says nothing, just stares at the piece of paper. He turns it over again and then places both hands on it, looking up.

“It would seem”, he pushes his chair backwards, “That we have a case of mistaken identity”

“I mean”, he continues, “I have never known this to happen before”, he rubs a hand across his smooth chin. “It’s quite the thing really, someone is going to be in trouble”.

“Erm”, the man standing starts again, “I don’t understand, what on earth is happening?”

The sitting man chuckles, “Not on earth, not anymore, that is the nub of the problem really”

The standing man has drifted off, looking around the room; he is taken aback by the unnaturalness of it. White walls meeting white floor, slick, glossy but no obvious join. The ceiling is the same. No windows. And no doors. The table i. front of him seems to be made of the same table and the legs seem to be seamlessly attached to the floor. The man sitting behind the desk is wearing a crisp white three-piece suit with a white shirt and white tie. There’s not a crease or mark in sight. Hi skin his is smooth to the point of being almost doll-like. His hair impeccably styled, rigid and neat but he can’t see any sign of product.

This room is to say the least, weird.

There’s also a weird thrum. Low and almost inaudible, but it’s there nonetheless. He can feel it more than hear it.

Also, why is he wearing this weird white linen get up? Is this some weird hospital? How did he get here?

Tap, Tap, Tap

His reverie is broken by the man at the desk drumming his fingers on the weirdly white desk.

“What we have here”, he says, “Is a quandary”

“What to do?”.

“What”

“To”

“Do”

“I don’t understand”, the man in front of the desk says, “Where am I”

“You’re in processing”, the sitting man replies.

“We seem to have had an administrative hiccup’ he continues.

“You see, you have the same name as another man who was scheduled for erm, processing and the technician went to the wrong house. I mean, you see how it happened, but even s,o it is very shoddy work.”

“There are, sorry, there were two Samuel Blocks in your town. He is 63, you are 36. He lived at 13 Belmont Road, you lived at 31 Beaumont Drive. You can see where the confusion came from”

He shakes his head.

“It’s not very good work at all”

He taps the paper.

“I mean this other Samuel Block is quite the piece of work”, the sitting man seems to roll his tongue around in his mouth, almost as if he had just struggled with the end of the sentence.

“Serial killer, 12 victims so far. Undetected, very good, very discreet. Also a bigamist and fraudster. Your lot were taking too much time catching him, so we had to step in. He was getting carried away”

He looks at the man with a dry smile.

The standing man looks back, “So”

“I’m dead?”

The sitting man nods.

“That’s it, there’s nothing you can do?”, The standing man is trying hard to swallow down the hysteria in his voice. It cracks at the end.

“This is, it’s, I mean. Can I not go back?”

“We can’t send you back. Your girlfriend heard a noise in the middle lf the night, went to wake you and found you unresponsive. She called 999, they sent an ambulance and they pronounced you dead at the scene. A bit of a mess really.”

The two men look each other. Silence seems to swallow the room. The dead man is holding back the urge to cry. He goes to speak but feels the tremble in his voice. He stops. Gathers himself and tries again.

“So what happens now?”

The man behind the desk smiles. A thin, almost tired smile.

“Well, there lies the quandry, you see the reason you have ended up here is because of the other Block’s crimes”, he taps the piece of paper on the desk, “It’s quite the list”

“You only come here for certain reasons; these aren’t petty acts. These are serious. Murder, Rape, Pedophilia, Genocide, Animal Cruelty, Domestic abuse and fraud.”

He continues,

“Stealing and swearing and all that other petty nonsense is religious mumbo jumbo. We don’t care who you love or how you want to live your life. Petty crimes can usually be written off as necessity for some people to survive. We just deal with the heinous stuff. I mean, can you imagine how full this place would be?’ – he chuckles.

He taps the sheet of paper again. “You have nothing here that warrants you being here”

“So I’m in hell?” the dead man asks.

“Hell?”

He holds up his hands and makes quotation marks with his fingers.

“No, we don’t like that word, there is no religion here”

“Hell is a religious construct to impose a set of beliefs and ideas that are morally stupid.”

“Only people who commit the very worst crimes come here.”

“They all come here for processing, and then we send them to their own version of hell.”

The standing man starts to feel a change in the room. The walls seem to be coming in. No that’s not right. There’s more furniture. Filing cabinets jave appeared. They line every wall. On top of each one are stacks and stacks of ledgers balanced precariously. There’s also a chair now, wooden and uncomfortable-looking.

The air in the room has changed as well. The sterile air-conditioned ambience has been replaced by a muggy heat. He feels a bead of sweat drip down from between his shoulder blades to the bottom of his back. There’s also an odour. A combination of dry books, stale cigarette smoke and sweaty socks.

The desk in front of him has changed as well.

It is now covered in files and bits of paper. There’s an overflowing astray that was probably stolen from a pub sometime in the 1970s. There’s barely room for anything. A long disregarded cup with a lid circle of mould sits amongst the leafed debris. The man behind the desk has transformed as well. It’s still the same man but his skin is sallow, his eyes gaunt and drawn. His hair is greasy and dragged back with flecks of dandruff. His pristine three-piece suit has been replaced with a bleak-looking polyester grey suit with an overwashed grey once white shirt. His tie has Bugs Bunny on it.

Pinned to the suit is a badge.

It says, Administrator.

“Maybe your version of hell is a Kafkaesque nightmare of mismanagement bureaucracy and incompetence?”

He smiles, gestures.

“Take a seat, this may take some time”

You don’t always see it

Sometimes, on the landing when the light flickers on, you see a shadow, a memory?

Sometimes when I walk from the bedroom to the bathroom, I glance downstairs and I think I see a shape move swiftly…you doubt yourself…mind playing tricks!

 

There’s a ghost in my house…

 

That’s how it started. Just small interruptions, but then things started moving. One moment, my keys would be by the door and then they’d be gone, only for me to find them in the trash.

The TV would come on in the middle of the night.

 

There’d be a knock-knock-knock knocking somewhere in the house.

Breathing in my ear when I was sleeping.

The toilet flushing.

Cupboards slamming.

 

I know I’m not going mad now.

 

It’s worse now.

Each night, they come and sit by my bed.

They whisper in my ear.

‘M’ ‘Muh’ Muh’

Tonight I’ll ask them what they want.

 

I feel the air go cold.

A wind moved the curtain.

A shadow on the wall.

They are there.

 

‘M’ ‘muh’ ‘mmmuh’

They say. Cold as ice.

‘M’ ‘muh’ ‘mmmmuh’

I open my eyes and turn to my side.

I look into her eyes.

What do you want to say?

Muh’ mmmuh murder she says

I ask her again, What do you want?

Muh, mmmmuh murderer my dead wife says….

Joanne

As a kid, I used to babysit for a family friend. They lived in an old terraced cottage. The road on which the house sat only had houses on one side. To the back they had a garden that disappeared into a sloping decline, which led to what we used to call, as kids, a dell.

The house itself was old-fashioned even then; they hadn’t painted, so the walls still had old white paint, and there were exposed beams painted black with a tar-like substance.

On the walls, there was one of those pictures of a woman that you used to get in the early 80s. On either side, there were these brass trinkets. Something to do with horses, I think. Just that really.

At some point, they’d had a picture of a boy, a creepy thing it was. They got rid of it when a rumour went around that anywhere housing such a thing had burnt down.

I would always be dropped off by my parents, and at the end of a night, the parents of the children would pay me and for a taxi to take me home. It was a good gig. There was always food, and they gave me cigarettes as well.

 

 

… First, I heard a voice, faint, shaky….’ Mark?’ too distant sounding to be real, too thin… I heard a creak on the stairs, unnerved, I looked at the door. The handle started to move, slowly. Then the door swung open, and there stood William, 6 years old, fully clothed.

 

‘William, ’ I said, ‘Are you ok?’

He looked at me and pointed up the stairs,

‘Joanna’, he said quietly.

 

I got up from the couch and walked over to where he stood.

I looked up the stairs and saw nothing, and then came Joanna, she walked to the top of the stairs, looked down at me and held 1 finger to her lips.

 

‘Shh’ she was telling me, and then she was gone, disappeared by a shadow.

 

I tried to run up the stairs, but my legs betrayed me. My knees buckled. I turned to William and said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute, William. You stay there’

I then started to make my way up the stairs.

I then felt the cold; I saw my breath in the air before me. A chill ran down my spine. This isn’t real, I thought.

 

It felt like a lifetime walking up those stairs. I finally got to the top and opened Joanna’s bedroom door, and there she was, in bed, soundly asleep. Relieved, I breathed out and turned around. I waved at William at the bottom of the stairs to say all is fine when I heard a voice, ‘Mark?’ I turned to the source and saw William in his pyjamas, rubbing his eyes, standing in his bedroom doorway.

 

Panicked, I turned my head to the bottom of the stairs.

N,o William, just a silhouette of a man fading to shadow.

 

All drums and instruments other than guitars created with the CAsio MT-52

Effects used:

Pedals: Gronkulator, MVave Mini Universe, Behringer Phaser

VST: Moog Phaser,