Nav Logan's Blog, page 6
October 24, 2015
Were
Shackled to the bed like some rabid dog, I snarl and try to bite.
They whisper in the next room, plotting, planning their attack.
I yank at my bindings, howl at the moon.
Together, they enter, these sanctimonious fools with their dog collars.
Mumbling their psalms, lighting candles, sprinkling water.
“Pater noster qui es in coelis …” they chant.
I howl louder, thrashing on the bed, feel my tendons straining. Adrenaline courses through my veins, muscles bulging. I feel the change beginning within.
With a snarl of rage and elation, I break free.
The feeding frenzy is short but sweet.
They whisper in the next room, plotting, planning their attack.
I yank at my bindings, howl at the moon.
Together, they enter, these sanctimonious fools with their dog collars.
Mumbling their psalms, lighting candles, sprinkling water.
“Pater noster qui es in coelis …” they chant.
I howl louder, thrashing on the bed, feel my tendons straining. Adrenaline courses through my veins, muscles bulging. I feel the change beginning within.
With a snarl of rage and elation, I break free.
The feeding frenzy is short but sweet.
October 22, 2015
In Coventry
I’m getting the cold shoulder, again.
I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but I get that vibe. I’m in the dog house.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not sure what I’ve done exactly, but please, forgive me.”
Nothing.
Not a word.
“Come on, say something at least. Shout at me, curse me out, whatever. You’re going to have to say something eventually.”
By this time I’d have been happy with an eye roll or a sigh, anything to let me know I wasn’t talking to myself.
My writer’s block looked at me, disdainfully, and refused to utter a single word.
I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but I get that vibe. I’m in the dog house.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not sure what I’ve done exactly, but please, forgive me.”
Nothing.
Not a word.
“Come on, say something at least. Shout at me, curse me out, whatever. You’re going to have to say something eventually.”
By this time I’d have been happy with an eye roll or a sigh, anything to let me know I wasn’t talking to myself.
My writer’s block looked at me, disdainfully, and refused to utter a single word.
October 21, 2015
On the Run
On the Run
The house was clearly abandoned, the door rotting and slightly ajar, but still I hesitated before entering. Was there someone hiding in the bushes, watching me, waiting for me to enter before phoning 999?
All I could hear was the wind rustling through the trees, stirring the autumn leaves; that and the soft looing of a cow on the far hill.
The moon looked down on me, watching me as I slowly approached the door. The sky was crystal clear, heavily peppered with glowing stars. The temperature was dropping fast, and frost was not far away.
Autumn can be like that, a scorcher of a day, followed by a bitterly cold night and a misty morning. Today was one of those.
The door was fastened in place by a piece of ancient baler twine, the old type that was made from hemp, not plastic. Fumbling in the shadows of the doorway, I teased at the knot with cold hands, and pushed the door wider.
BANG!
My heart skipped a beat.
I heard the noise again and looked up. The sky lit up with a sparkle of colours.
Fireworks.
It must be Halloween.
I’d been so busy these last couple of days that I’d lost track of time.
Pushing the door all the way open, I slipped inside and dropped my rucksack on the concrete floor of the main room of the derelict cottage.
I leaned against the door to close it, while fumbling in my pocket for matches.
The house smelled of mice, or worse still, rats. I hate rats, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Kipping in here was better than roughing it in a hedge. I couldn’t risk lighting a fire. It might attract attention, and that’s the last thing I needed.
I’d rather sleep in a sewer full of rats than wake up in a prison cell. All I needed to do was keep my head down for the next couple of days until the heat had died down a bit, and then slip across the border. Once there, I’d catch a bus to Belfast and be on the next ferry out of Ireland. I’d head for Birmingham and disappear into the shadows; just another Paddy looking for work.
Focusing on the here and now, I shook away the thought and struck a match. Holding it high, I inspected the room.
It wasn’t pretty.
The floor was a mess of rotting clothes, broken furniture, and empty beer bottles. An open fireplace dominated the room, filled with wet ash and more rotting clothes. There was nowhere here to kip down.
Two rooms led off from the main room. Lighting another match, I searched the first one of these.
The stench of rot was stronger here, and the concrete floor was dominated by a large puddle of stagnant water. The ceiling above the puddle was sagging and looked ready to collapse under its own weight at any moment. Dropping the match into the water, I backed warily out of the bedroom and turned to the final room in the cottage.
This room showed more promise.
The floor was wood, a raised platform about six inches above the concrete. The chipboard flooring creaked alarmingly, but held my weight. More junk littered the room; old magazines, children’s toys, another dark pile of ragged clothing dumped in a corner. To my relief, a double mattress dominated the floor, and it didn’t look too far gone.
I found the stub of a fat candle on the window sill and decided to risk lighting it. Hopefully, the guards would be too busy with Halloween celebrators to worry about a bit of candle light in an abandoned house. They’d probably assume it was just some kids playing anyway, telling each other ghost stories.
Setting the candle down on a shelf, I inspected the mattress more closely. It had seen better days. There was a questionable stain on one side of the bed that made me a little queasy to look at, but generally, it would do. It would have to.
I kicked it a few times, hard, hoping to disturb any vermin that might live within. To my relief, nothing came scampering out.
Grabbing my rucksack, I unrolled my sleeping bag, laying it across the clean side of the old mattress.
Leaning over, I inspected the stain on the far side more closely. It was a reddish brown colour and flaky to the touch. It looked a lot like old blood.
I scolded myself.
I was definitely getting paranoid. All this running around and hiding out was doing nothing for my mental stability.
Blood indeed! It was probably just some spilled paint or something. My nerves were getting the better of me after the last few days of mayhem. Blurred recollections of a drunken brawl filled my brain, a young man lying in the street, head bleeding heavily as he lay against the kerb, the sound of sirens in the distance, coming closer … I shuddered, and tried to supress the vision. It had haunted me for days now.
I didn’t even know whether he was dead or not. I’d just fled into the night. I couldn’t take the risk of sticking around to find out, either way.
You see, I knew the lad in my drunken vision. I’d bumped into him once or twice before. It was a small town. You got to know everyone.
Mainly though, I knew him by reputation, or rather, I knew about his family.
Two of his brothers were currently serving time in Mountjoy. They had been caught ram-raiding an off licence one night. They were too drunk already, and when the Garda arrived, the two boyos ended up in a pitch battle.
Their old man had a bad rep, too. My Da once told me that their Da was a bare knuckle fighter, a good one too before the drink got the better of him.
One thing was for sure, the whole family was bad news. I’d been warned to steer well clear of them.
But, somehow, I’d got into a drunken brawl with the youngest of the brothers, and now I was up shit creek without a paddle.
Getting caught by the strong arm of the law was the least of my problems. It would be what happened after I got nicked that really worried me. That family was bound to have connections inside, and could call in favours. I was sure of it.
Whether Johnny McGrath was alive or dead was immaterial. I had a price on my head, which was why I was hiding out in this god-forsaken backwater, sleeping on a manky mattress in a rat-infested hovel.
I took a few moments to nibble on some crackers and cheese before blowing out the candle and settling down to sleep.
It was a long time coming.
My mind kept playing tricks on me.
Did I hear the sound of tiny feet scampering around in the other room? I strained my ears, but couldn’t be sure. I certainly wasn’t going to get up and look. I needed some sleep. I was exhausted and had a long day’s hike ahead of me tomorrow. With any luck I’d make it over the mountain and across the border.
I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the thoughts that had been tormenting my brain.
Eventually, I must have slept.
It was the cold that finally woke me.
I shivered, and snuggled further down into the sleeping bag, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get warm. My feet felt like they were in a freezer and chills ran up and down my spine.
I was going to have to get up and risk lighting a fire after all. I could burn some of the old clothes and furniture that littered the front room to take the chill off the cottage.
It had turned colder than I’d initially anticipated. I’d have to hope that the fire went unnoticed.
I opened my eyes and sat up, shivering violently.
It was then that I sensed that I was not alone.
My breath frosted in a cloud before me in the pale light of the moon that was coming in through the grimy window. The air inside the cottage was bitterly cold; unnaturally cold. I couldn’t see who else was in the room, but I sensed a presence.
“Hello?” I asked. “Is there anyone there?”
No one replied.
A cold hand brushed lightly across my face, and startled, I nearly jumped out of my skin with fright. My cheek felt like it had been branded, so cold was the touch on my flesh.
I fumbled for the box of matches, but in my panic I spilled them all out of the box.
Frantically, I searched around on the mattress, and with a wave of relief found a match. With shaking fingers I struck the match against the side of the box, and then wished that I hadn’t.
As the match flared into life, the hag’s face came into focus. It was a face reserved for the darkest pits of Hades, all wrinkles and razor sharp teeth, but it was the eyes that froze my soul. They were dark pools of obsidian, lifeless, and with the hunger of an ocean. What I had taken as a pile of rags in the corner of the room was in fact something much darker, more sinister. I was looking into the eyes of some demented Ban Sidhe creature, a nightmare come to life on All Hallows Eve.
The match slipped from my nerveless hand as her bony hand grasped me by my hair. With surprising strength she lifted me up and dragged me off the mattress. I could feel the cold of her touch seeping into my bones as she gripped my throat and pinned me against the wall. I sensed my life slipping away.
Terror gave me energy and I fought back, but her hands were like a vice, closing over my windpipe. Pressing me roughly against the wall, she leaned closer. I could smell the rot on her breath, the stench of a thousand wet rats, as she leered at me.
I was dying, and we both knew it, but clearly she liked to toy with her food.
I beat helplessly at her, as the last of the oxygen in my lungs was consumed by my panic stricken heart. Light swam around. Choking and coughing, I slipped into unconsciousness.
I felt my soul float above my body and a drifting sensation enveloped me.
It was then that I noticed a light in the distance. It was bright blue and pulsating like a heartbeat … no, like a lighthouse. It was beckoning me onward.
My spirit felt drawn toward the light.
Thankfully, I no longer felt cold. In fact, I sensed a great heat nearby.
Orange light now competed with the blue for my attention.
Strange, I thought. I’d always expected more from the afterlife than a pretty lightshow.
Angels perhaps or deceased family members approaching through a mist to welcome me home … something.
“So this is death then?” I mumbled.
My lungs filled with air; air so sweet that I felt light-headed. Being dead was pretty trippy. I hadn’t felt this strange since I stopped taking magic mushrooms.
“Just lay there for a minute, lad. You’ll be fine.”
I looked up through bleary eyes at the yellow-headed man who had spoken. Blinking, I struggled to focus.
“You’re lucky someone called that fire in, ya daft bugger. Whatever were you doing in that old house? You could’ve caught your death in there.”
Blinking again, I realised that the man standing over me was wearing a fireman’s helmet. Looking around for the source of heat I saw that the cottage was ablaze.
Somehow, I had survived.
The house was clearly abandoned, the door rotting and slightly ajar, but still I hesitated before entering. Was there someone hiding in the bushes, watching me, waiting for me to enter before phoning 999?
All I could hear was the wind rustling through the trees, stirring the autumn leaves; that and the soft looing of a cow on the far hill.
The moon looked down on me, watching me as I slowly approached the door. The sky was crystal clear, heavily peppered with glowing stars. The temperature was dropping fast, and frost was not far away.
Autumn can be like that, a scorcher of a day, followed by a bitterly cold night and a misty morning. Today was one of those.
The door was fastened in place by a piece of ancient baler twine, the old type that was made from hemp, not plastic. Fumbling in the shadows of the doorway, I teased at the knot with cold hands, and pushed the door wider.
BANG!
My heart skipped a beat.
I heard the noise again and looked up. The sky lit up with a sparkle of colours.
Fireworks.
It must be Halloween.
I’d been so busy these last couple of days that I’d lost track of time.
Pushing the door all the way open, I slipped inside and dropped my rucksack on the concrete floor of the main room of the derelict cottage.
I leaned against the door to close it, while fumbling in my pocket for matches.
The house smelled of mice, or worse still, rats. I hate rats, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Kipping in here was better than roughing it in a hedge. I couldn’t risk lighting a fire. It might attract attention, and that’s the last thing I needed.
I’d rather sleep in a sewer full of rats than wake up in a prison cell. All I needed to do was keep my head down for the next couple of days until the heat had died down a bit, and then slip across the border. Once there, I’d catch a bus to Belfast and be on the next ferry out of Ireland. I’d head for Birmingham and disappear into the shadows; just another Paddy looking for work.
Focusing on the here and now, I shook away the thought and struck a match. Holding it high, I inspected the room.
It wasn’t pretty.
The floor was a mess of rotting clothes, broken furniture, and empty beer bottles. An open fireplace dominated the room, filled with wet ash and more rotting clothes. There was nowhere here to kip down.
Two rooms led off from the main room. Lighting another match, I searched the first one of these.
The stench of rot was stronger here, and the concrete floor was dominated by a large puddle of stagnant water. The ceiling above the puddle was sagging and looked ready to collapse under its own weight at any moment. Dropping the match into the water, I backed warily out of the bedroom and turned to the final room in the cottage.
This room showed more promise.
The floor was wood, a raised platform about six inches above the concrete. The chipboard flooring creaked alarmingly, but held my weight. More junk littered the room; old magazines, children’s toys, another dark pile of ragged clothing dumped in a corner. To my relief, a double mattress dominated the floor, and it didn’t look too far gone.
I found the stub of a fat candle on the window sill and decided to risk lighting it. Hopefully, the guards would be too busy with Halloween celebrators to worry about a bit of candle light in an abandoned house. They’d probably assume it was just some kids playing anyway, telling each other ghost stories.
Setting the candle down on a shelf, I inspected the mattress more closely. It had seen better days. There was a questionable stain on one side of the bed that made me a little queasy to look at, but generally, it would do. It would have to.
I kicked it a few times, hard, hoping to disturb any vermin that might live within. To my relief, nothing came scampering out.
Grabbing my rucksack, I unrolled my sleeping bag, laying it across the clean side of the old mattress.
Leaning over, I inspected the stain on the far side more closely. It was a reddish brown colour and flaky to the touch. It looked a lot like old blood.
I scolded myself.
I was definitely getting paranoid. All this running around and hiding out was doing nothing for my mental stability.
Blood indeed! It was probably just some spilled paint or something. My nerves were getting the better of me after the last few days of mayhem. Blurred recollections of a drunken brawl filled my brain, a young man lying in the street, head bleeding heavily as he lay against the kerb, the sound of sirens in the distance, coming closer … I shuddered, and tried to supress the vision. It had haunted me for days now.
I didn’t even know whether he was dead or not. I’d just fled into the night. I couldn’t take the risk of sticking around to find out, either way.
You see, I knew the lad in my drunken vision. I’d bumped into him once or twice before. It was a small town. You got to know everyone.
Mainly though, I knew him by reputation, or rather, I knew about his family.
Two of his brothers were currently serving time in Mountjoy. They had been caught ram-raiding an off licence one night. They were too drunk already, and when the Garda arrived, the two boyos ended up in a pitch battle.
Their old man had a bad rep, too. My Da once told me that their Da was a bare knuckle fighter, a good one too before the drink got the better of him.
One thing was for sure, the whole family was bad news. I’d been warned to steer well clear of them.
But, somehow, I’d got into a drunken brawl with the youngest of the brothers, and now I was up shit creek without a paddle.
Getting caught by the strong arm of the law was the least of my problems. It would be what happened after I got nicked that really worried me. That family was bound to have connections inside, and could call in favours. I was sure of it.
Whether Johnny McGrath was alive or dead was immaterial. I had a price on my head, which was why I was hiding out in this god-forsaken backwater, sleeping on a manky mattress in a rat-infested hovel.
I took a few moments to nibble on some crackers and cheese before blowing out the candle and settling down to sleep.
It was a long time coming.
My mind kept playing tricks on me.
Did I hear the sound of tiny feet scampering around in the other room? I strained my ears, but couldn’t be sure. I certainly wasn’t going to get up and look. I needed some sleep. I was exhausted and had a long day’s hike ahead of me tomorrow. With any luck I’d make it over the mountain and across the border.
I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the thoughts that had been tormenting my brain.
Eventually, I must have slept.
It was the cold that finally woke me.
I shivered, and snuggled further down into the sleeping bag, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get warm. My feet felt like they were in a freezer and chills ran up and down my spine.
I was going to have to get up and risk lighting a fire after all. I could burn some of the old clothes and furniture that littered the front room to take the chill off the cottage.
It had turned colder than I’d initially anticipated. I’d have to hope that the fire went unnoticed.
I opened my eyes and sat up, shivering violently.
It was then that I sensed that I was not alone.
My breath frosted in a cloud before me in the pale light of the moon that was coming in through the grimy window. The air inside the cottage was bitterly cold; unnaturally cold. I couldn’t see who else was in the room, but I sensed a presence.
“Hello?” I asked. “Is there anyone there?”
No one replied.
A cold hand brushed lightly across my face, and startled, I nearly jumped out of my skin with fright. My cheek felt like it had been branded, so cold was the touch on my flesh.
I fumbled for the box of matches, but in my panic I spilled them all out of the box.
Frantically, I searched around on the mattress, and with a wave of relief found a match. With shaking fingers I struck the match against the side of the box, and then wished that I hadn’t.
As the match flared into life, the hag’s face came into focus. It was a face reserved for the darkest pits of Hades, all wrinkles and razor sharp teeth, but it was the eyes that froze my soul. They were dark pools of obsidian, lifeless, and with the hunger of an ocean. What I had taken as a pile of rags in the corner of the room was in fact something much darker, more sinister. I was looking into the eyes of some demented Ban Sidhe creature, a nightmare come to life on All Hallows Eve.
The match slipped from my nerveless hand as her bony hand grasped me by my hair. With surprising strength she lifted me up and dragged me off the mattress. I could feel the cold of her touch seeping into my bones as she gripped my throat and pinned me against the wall. I sensed my life slipping away.
Terror gave me energy and I fought back, but her hands were like a vice, closing over my windpipe. Pressing me roughly against the wall, she leaned closer. I could smell the rot on her breath, the stench of a thousand wet rats, as she leered at me.
I was dying, and we both knew it, but clearly she liked to toy with her food.
I beat helplessly at her, as the last of the oxygen in my lungs was consumed by my panic stricken heart. Light swam around. Choking and coughing, I slipped into unconsciousness.
I felt my soul float above my body and a drifting sensation enveloped me.
It was then that I noticed a light in the distance. It was bright blue and pulsating like a heartbeat … no, like a lighthouse. It was beckoning me onward.
My spirit felt drawn toward the light.
Thankfully, I no longer felt cold. In fact, I sensed a great heat nearby.
Orange light now competed with the blue for my attention.
Strange, I thought. I’d always expected more from the afterlife than a pretty lightshow.
Angels perhaps or deceased family members approaching through a mist to welcome me home … something.
“So this is death then?” I mumbled.
My lungs filled with air; air so sweet that I felt light-headed. Being dead was pretty trippy. I hadn’t felt this strange since I stopped taking magic mushrooms.
“Just lay there for a minute, lad. You’ll be fine.”
I looked up through bleary eyes at the yellow-headed man who had spoken. Blinking, I struggled to focus.
“You’re lucky someone called that fire in, ya daft bugger. Whatever were you doing in that old house? You could’ve caught your death in there.”
Blinking again, I realised that the man standing over me was wearing a fireman’s helmet. Looking around for the source of heat I saw that the cottage was ablaze.
Somehow, I had survived.
October 9, 2015
Juxtaposed Personality
I inhale deeply of the heady scent of nothingness,
Gaze longingly through the window to the place named poverty of my soul.
Loneliness stands beside me,
His presence ever reassuring.
I am not alone.
I will never be alone.
For there is always doubt to keep me company.
I hear a buzzing in my ears,
The pounding of my jaded heart,
And know that I am alive,
Even though Life is beyond my reach.
There is a simple beauty in the reflection of sunlight on razor wire,
Or the cold emptiness of the shallow grave,
If we but seek it out.
I turn and look at my gaoler, asking him why?
He ignores me …
Or did he just ask me the same thing?
It is always folly to expect wisdom from within the mirror.
Gaze longingly through the window to the place named poverty of my soul.
Loneliness stands beside me,
His presence ever reassuring.
I am not alone.
I will never be alone.
For there is always doubt to keep me company.
I hear a buzzing in my ears,
The pounding of my jaded heart,
And know that I am alive,
Even though Life is beyond my reach.
There is a simple beauty in the reflection of sunlight on razor wire,
Or the cold emptiness of the shallow grave,
If we but seek it out.
I turn and look at my gaoler, asking him why?
He ignores me …
Or did he just ask me the same thing?
It is always folly to expect wisdom from within the mirror.
October 8, 2015
The Birds
The Birds
Jeff was walking down the road the first time he was attacked. Busy tweeting to his mates, he didn’t see the seagull until it was on him, flapping its wings in his face and squawking angrily. Seconds later it was gone, as if it had all been a dream.
He was standing on the edge of the pavement, shaking with shock, when a bus driver honked his horn angrily. Idiot, thought Jeff, stepping back onto the curb to allow the bus to pass, before crossing the road. A few minutes later, he texted to his mates, “You’ll never guess what just happened to me….I was attacked by a mad bird!” That got a few smiley emoticons and some witty comments about the blonde he’d been seen tongue-wrestling the previous weekend.
A few days later, he was on his way to the bank when it happened again. He was reading a funny tweet from Jimmy, when a seagull swooped down, shrieking angrily. He tried to fight the bird off, but it was no use. Eventually, he was forced to flee, running home. Only then, did the attack relent.
His phone chirped as he was unlocking his front door, “#Bank Robbery in the High Street. Three people shot dead!” Jeff read the message. For the next hour, the local bank robbery was the hottest tweet topic, before a hot celebrity scandal demoted it
Monday morning and Jeff was on his way to work, driving down the High Street when his phone chirped at him again. Reaching over, he hit the button and glanced down at the message. His mates were always sending him funny shit to read.
BANG!
Jeff dropped his phone and slammed on his brakes, heart beating like a hummingbird. A lorry swerved in front of his car, horn blaring angrily as it drove by.
Jeff’s windscreen had turned into a mosaic of broken glass. Something had hit it with considerable force.
Getting out of his car, he looked at the bloody carcass that lay on his bonnet. It took him a moment to realise what it was. It was a dead seagull. Cursing his luck, he pulled over to the side of the road and called his insurance company.
An old lady pottered over as he was waiting for the recovery vehicle.
“That was a stroke of luck,” she said.
He ignored her. She had probably been adding gin to her tea or something.
“I said, that was a stroke of luck,” she persisted.
“Luck!” he exclaimed, rising to the bait despite his better judgement. “Look at my bleeding windscreen!”
“Didn’t you see? You drove straight through that red light. If the bird hadn’t hit you, that lorry certainly would have. Me, I’d call that luck. That bird saved your life!”
“Whatever,” he muttered. She was obviously barking mad. He was pretty sure the light had been green when he drove through it …wasn’t it?
The old woman walked off, shaking her head.
Jeff took a photo of the dead bird and tweeted it to his friends. #Monday Morning’s. #S.S.D.D!
By the time the repair truck came to replace his windscreen, Jeff was already over an hour late for an important meeting. Getting back into his car, h floored it down the motorway hoping to make up for lost time. He was doing ninety in the outside lane when he heard the cheeping of his phone again.
Later that day, the hottest tweet was about Jeff. #Tragic motorway death.
His guardian angel had saved him three times, even sacrificing its own life in the process, but Jeff had ignored all the warnings. Despite the seagull’s best efforts, the coronary’s verdict still read, #Death by Tweeting.
Jeff was walking down the road the first time he was attacked. Busy tweeting to his mates, he didn’t see the seagull until it was on him, flapping its wings in his face and squawking angrily. Seconds later it was gone, as if it had all been a dream.
He was standing on the edge of the pavement, shaking with shock, when a bus driver honked his horn angrily. Idiot, thought Jeff, stepping back onto the curb to allow the bus to pass, before crossing the road. A few minutes later, he texted to his mates, “You’ll never guess what just happened to me….I was attacked by a mad bird!” That got a few smiley emoticons and some witty comments about the blonde he’d been seen tongue-wrestling the previous weekend.
A few days later, he was on his way to the bank when it happened again. He was reading a funny tweet from Jimmy, when a seagull swooped down, shrieking angrily. He tried to fight the bird off, but it was no use. Eventually, he was forced to flee, running home. Only then, did the attack relent.
His phone chirped as he was unlocking his front door, “#Bank Robbery in the High Street. Three people shot dead!” Jeff read the message. For the next hour, the local bank robbery was the hottest tweet topic, before a hot celebrity scandal demoted it
Monday morning and Jeff was on his way to work, driving down the High Street when his phone chirped at him again. Reaching over, he hit the button and glanced down at the message. His mates were always sending him funny shit to read.
BANG!
Jeff dropped his phone and slammed on his brakes, heart beating like a hummingbird. A lorry swerved in front of his car, horn blaring angrily as it drove by.
Jeff’s windscreen had turned into a mosaic of broken glass. Something had hit it with considerable force.
Getting out of his car, he looked at the bloody carcass that lay on his bonnet. It took him a moment to realise what it was. It was a dead seagull. Cursing his luck, he pulled over to the side of the road and called his insurance company.
An old lady pottered over as he was waiting for the recovery vehicle.
“That was a stroke of luck,” she said.
He ignored her. She had probably been adding gin to her tea or something.
“I said, that was a stroke of luck,” she persisted.
“Luck!” he exclaimed, rising to the bait despite his better judgement. “Look at my bleeding windscreen!”
“Didn’t you see? You drove straight through that red light. If the bird hadn’t hit you, that lorry certainly would have. Me, I’d call that luck. That bird saved your life!”
“Whatever,” he muttered. She was obviously barking mad. He was pretty sure the light had been green when he drove through it …wasn’t it?
The old woman walked off, shaking her head.
Jeff took a photo of the dead bird and tweeted it to his friends. #Monday Morning’s. #S.S.D.D!
By the time the repair truck came to replace his windscreen, Jeff was already over an hour late for an important meeting. Getting back into his car, h floored it down the motorway hoping to make up for lost time. He was doing ninety in the outside lane when he heard the cheeping of his phone again.
Later that day, the hottest tweet was about Jeff. #Tragic motorway death.
His guardian angel had saved him three times, even sacrificing its own life in the process, but Jeff had ignored all the warnings. Despite the seagull’s best efforts, the coronary’s verdict still read, #Death by Tweeting.
October 3, 2015
The Killer Orchard
Over the last few years, the yield from my orchard had been noticeably dropping. I couldn’t understand it. The trees blossomed and budded just fine, the apples grew and ripened with great promise, but when it came around to harvesting the fruit, the crop had diminished.
My first instinct was to blame it on pests; birds’ maybe, or a roaming herd or wild deer. I searched but could find no excess bird droppings, nor any deer spores.
After three years of crop failure, the bank was starting to make noises about my overdraft. I explained the situation to them, re-mortgaged the farmhouse, and contacted a local security firm for assistance.
I explained my predicament to them and they gave me a quote for the latest state of the art security system. I nearly died when I saw the quote. I couldn’t afford that, I protested.
“It’s a big area of land to cover,” their salesman pointed out. “That’s a lot of manpower, and reliable security doesn’t come cheap these days.”
“What about an automated system,” I asked.
He totted up the figures and presented me with a new bill. It was worse than the first one.
“You can’t be serious!” I protested.
“This gear is expensive,” the salesman insisted.
“But I only need it for a couple of weeks, just until the harvest comes in,” I pleaded.
After a lot of humming and hawing, he took me aside and in hushed conspiratory tones, he confided, “Listen mate, I know a guy who knows a guy, who could let you have a few things second hand like; enough to sort out your little problem. They’ll be on hire, mind you, so don’t break anything or you’ll be paying the full whack for any replacements. How’s that sound?”
I readily agreed. It was still expensive, but it was a lot less than the original quotes had been.
I would have to find the culprits and solve this problem, once and for all. I couldn’t afford to lose another harvest.
I set up a camp bed in one of the outhouses close to the orchards, and had them feed the CCTV cameras into it. As harvest time drew near, I hid out there every night, cradling my shotgun in the crook of my arm, drinking copious amounts of strong coffee, and watching the monitors for any signs of the pests.
I must have drifted off in the small hours before dawn, but was jolted awake by the blaring of the klaxons I’d had installed. Something must have triggered the infrared sensors I’d placed around the perimeter of the orchard.
The trees were lit up by fluorescent lamps, and in the glare of their bulbs I could make out a large group of shadowy figures running away.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
No flock of early morning crows had been stealing my crops. Nor for that matter were my apple stealers a herd of fleet-footed deer.
They were a bunch of rough looking vagabonds; quit a large group of them from the look of it. What could they possibly want with all my apples? Were they apple raiding each night and hauling their ill-gotten gains off to sell them to supermarkets and greengrocers in the area, or was this something even more sinister? Could they have been hired by one of my competitors, hoping to buy the farm from the bank at less than market value?
Running outside, I shouted curses at the shadowy fleeing figures and fired both barrels of my shotgun into the air, hoping to scare them away.
To my relief, it worked.
They scarpered like rats leaving the Titanic, escaping through my neighbour’s wheat fields and disappearing into the nearby woods.
I called the police, but dawn came and went without the arrival of the rapid response unit. In fact, it was close to midday before a solitary squad car pulled into my yard.
The two officers climbed slowly out of the patrol car and took my statement. They then spent an hour strolling through the orchard, taking further notes and sampling my ripe apples. They seemed more concerned with the fact that a firearm had been discharged than any robbery attempt.
“So nothing was actually stolen,” the senior officer concluded.
“I don’t know. I haven’t counted the apples, have I?”
“But they never actually entered your property …?”
“Well … no … but they were clearly about to! They even dropped some hessian sacks when they ran away. Look, that’s them, over there!” I pointed to the evidence, which I’d left untouched in the field.
They hummed at each other in a decidedly noncommittal manner.
“Aren’t you going to take them away as evidence? There could be fingerprints on them … DNA!”
“Mr Proctor, have you any idea how much DNA testing costs?” asked the senior officer.
“No, I haven’t. Listen, I pay my taxes like everybody else, and I’m entitled to the full rigors of the law.”
“Mr Proctor, we are hardly going to waste valuable police time and money on a simple littering case, are we?”
“Littering! Littering! They’ve stolen my apples; hundreds of pounds worth of apples.”
“But you’ve just told us that you didn’t think they stole anything, sir?”
“Not this time, they didn’t. I’m talking about last year, and the year before…”
“But this is the first time you’ve actually reported a theft, is that correct sir?”
“Well, yes. I thought it might be deer before!”
They both sighed dramatically. “This is how we see it, Mr Proctor. Currently, the only real crime that has been committed here is the unlawful discharging of a firearm. Now, on this occasion, we’re prepared to let the matter slide, given that no one was actually hurt and no one is pressing charges, but I must administer an official warning to you to be more careful in the future.”
“But what about the thieves?” I objected, “I have them on video, for crying out loud!”
“We have watched the CCTV footage, sir, and as far as we’re concerned, we can see no illegal activity. These people could have been out for a harmless stroll …”
“At four thirty in the morning…!”
“Mr Proctor, we live in a democracy. It’s not illegal to go for an early morning ramble.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous! I’ll be speaking to your superiors. I’ll have you know that my cousin is a Chief Inspector!”
That didn’t go down well with them. They left soon after and that was the last I heard on the matter.
I decided to get my harvest picked a little earlier than planned, and arranged for my pickers to arrive the following morning to start collecting the apples. In the meantime I was forced to spend another sleepless night patrolling the orchard for midnight trespassers.
Thankfully, there were none.
I hoped that this would be the end of the matter.
The crop proved to be a bumper one, thanks to an excellent summer. I was relieved and even the bank manager was mollified once the cheques started to come in for my goods.
Nevertheless, I had many sleepless nights during that winter, worrying about what would happen the following autumn. I needed to find a better way to keep the midnight pickers away, one that didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.
One of my tractors broke down in the following January, and I went off in search of a second hand part. I needed to cut costs wherever possible, after all.
It was while I was visiting a local scrap yard, that the idea came to me. I needed a guard dog, a whole pack of them preferably.
A quick search soon led me to a puppy farm and three rather expensive Doberman pups; two bitches and a particularly fiery-tempered male. I spend the next few months erecting fencing around the orchards, ignoring the angry letters from the bank manager, and in my spare time training the dogs.
They shot up over the summer, and by the autumn they were ready to let loose in the orchard. As the apples started to ripen, I brought the dogs out to the orchard and turned them loose within the fenced enclosure. It was time for the dogs to earn their keep.
I slept soundly that night, safe in the knowledge that my apples were in safe hands - or should that be safe paws?
I was rudely awoken in the early hours by the doorbell ringing. Whoever was pressing the button was clearly impatient. They kept their finger firmly attached to the doorbell until I dragged myself out of the bed, found my dressing gown, and staggered down the stairs to answer the front door.
“Hang on! I’m coming.”
As I yanked it open, I could see two shadowy figures blocked the doorway.
“Ah, Mr Proctor,” one of them greeted.
I recognised the voice, though the blue swirling lights that backlit the two men probably helped my sleepy brain to remember. “Officer …? Do you know what time this is?”
“Yes, sir, we’re quite aware of the time …”
“Is it the apple thieves?” I asked enthusiastically “Have you finally caught them?”
“No, sir, we’ve had a number of complaints this evening …”
“Complaints?” I asked. “I’m not surprised, if you keep waking people up in the middle of the night.”
“They’re about your dogs, sir. They have been causing quite a disturbance … sheep have been worried.”
“I’d be worried too,” I joked.
“This is not a laughing matter, sir. A file is being prepared as we speak.”
“Look, you’ve got this all wrong. It can’t be my dogs. It must be someone else’s dogs. Mine are guarding my orchard from the apple stealers I told you about, the ones you should have caught by now.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Apple Picker Gang again!” The officer’s tone hinted at mockery. “I recall the case. So is this why you had your dogs roaming around unmonitored at night?”
“They’re inside a four foot chain link fence!” I protested.
“When we finally apprehended the sheep killers, sir, we had the local vet check them for microchips. All three of them were registered to this address. I presume you have licences for them, and suitable public liability insurance.”
“What! Of course I do.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir. That will make our jobs so much easier. We’ll let the civil courts deal with the minor matters and we can focus on the more important one.”
“Sorry,” I said, “but I think you’ve lost me there. I thought this was to do with some barking and sheep worrying.”
“It was, sir, but in the performance of our duty as keepers of the peace, we tried to apprehend the culprits. In the end, we were successful, but not without some assistance from the local dog wardens. However, three of our officers were seriously bitten during the altercation, Mr Proctor, and therefore, charges will have to be filed for assault.”
“Were my dogs harmed? I hope not. They cost me a small fortune, you know. They are purebreds.”
“Your dogs were put to sleep at the scene of the crime, sir. It was decided that they were too much of a threat to public safety to risk bringing them to the dog pound. Naturally, we will provide you with a receipt so that you can claim their bodies, once the post mortems have been done to gather evidence, but that’ll have to wait for now. You’ll need to accompany us to the station, Mr Proctor, so that we can process the charges.”
“What! I’m not even dressed!”
“We need to process the charges for assault right away, sir.”
“Hang on. You killed my dogs. How are you going to charge them with assault if they’re already dead?”
“We’re not charging the dogs, sir. We’re charging you.”
“But I wasn’t even there! I was asleep in bed. I have an alibi. You can ask my wife.”
“That’s neither here nor there, sir. The dogs were your responsibility, and trained guard dogs are as dangerous as a loaded gun. Now, if you’d like to take a minute to get dressed, we can nip on down to the station and do the required paperwork. You’ll have plenty of time to argue your case during the hearing.”
“This is ridiculous! I’m not going anywhere.”
The two officers straightened slightly, tensing their shoulders, but the senior officer remained calm as he cautioned me, “I wouldn’t make a scene, if I were you, sir. I suggest that you come long quietly. It’s been a long and traumatic night for us, and we don’t need any unpleasantness.”
“I suggest you take a running jump!” I snapped. “I’m calling the Chief Superintendent. I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
As I swung the door shut, a large black boot blocked my way, and a firm hand was placed on my shoulder. “Right! I’ve had enough of your gyp. I’m arresting you on multiple charges of assault to members of Her Majesty’s police force…”
Angrily, I tried to shrug away the hand and close the door.
Somehow, I quickly found myself face down in the garden with my arm twisted painfully behind my back. “… I’m also charging you with resisting arrest,” panted the younger officer. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be taken down, and it may be used against you …”
With excessive force, I was handcuffed, hauled to my feet, and crammed into the back seat of their patrol car.
The next hour was a blur of activity. I was strip-searched for hidden weapons despite my protests. I was fingerprinted and photographs were taken of me holding up a small placard with numbers on it. I was then questioned again and again until my head hurt. Finally, sometime after dawn, they bundled me in a large holding cell while they went off and processed my arrest.
I was not alone in the cell. There were a number of other men in there, an odd looking raggle-taggle bunch of youths with various body piercings, tattoos, and knots in their long greasy hair. Looking at them I was reminded me of the apple picking thieves that had got me into all this trouble in the first place. Was this some practical joke that the police were playing at my expense?
The men looked intimidating, and I shuffled away into a corner as far away as I could from them. Haunting images of multiple gang rapes filled my brain as I watched them nervously.
One of them, bigger and meaner-looking then the others, stood up and strolled towards me. He looked me up and down, assessing my dirt-smeared pyjamas, before reaching into his pocket of his leather jacket.
My life flashed before my eyes as I waited for the knife that would stab me in the guts.
The hand came out again. It was holding a leather pouch. “D’ya wanna smoke, mate?” he offered.
I shook my head, “I- I don’t do drugs,” I replied, backing further into the corner.
“Nah, man. It’s just tobacco. The pigs stole all our weed when we got busted, the bastards!”
He offered me the pouch again.
I’d given up smoking a few years back, but with all the stress I was under, the offer sounded tempting. My hand reached out tentatively and took the pouch. I opened it and looked inside. Inside the pouch was a mutilated packet of cigarette papers and a plastic bag of tobacco.
With a sigh, I handed it back.
“Do you want me to roll it for you?” he asked, with no mockery in his tone.
“Please … that’d be great.”
“No problem, man.” Taking the pouch of tobacco, he squatted down beside me and deftly rolled two thin cigarettes. Offering one of them to me, he dug into his pocket again and produced a lighter.
I inhaled and coughed up a lung full of smoke, before smiling my thanks.
“They call me Spike, by the way.”
“Mike, Mike Proctor.” I responded, nodding in greeting.
“What’ya in for, man?” he asked, as I slid down the wall to sit beside him.
“Assault on some police officers, oh and resisting arrest too,” I mumbled.
“Totally retro, man!” Spike cooed, grinning approval. “You did all that in ya jimjams?”
“Apparently,”
“Dude, you’re one kick-ass mother. Respect to ya, Mike Mike.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“We got hauled in on breach of the peace charges. We were nabbed during the protest last night. The pigs are all paid mercenaries. They are in the pocket of Monsanto, the bastards.”
“What protest?”
“Man! Don’t you listen to da news? There were hundreds of us there.”
“Sorry, I’ve been kind of busy lately. I don’t get to watch TV much.”
“We were all up at Loughbrook Farm, over near Ponton. There’s a big pharmaceutical company that owns some land over there. They are playing at being God, man! They are messing around with some heavy shit … G.M.O’s, ya know?”
“Sorry, I’m lost. What’s a G.M.O’s?”
“Genetically modified organisms. They’ve been doing stuff like putting the genes of a beetle into tomatoes and adding some weird fungi shit too, and then saying that it’s safe to eat their weird shit. Them dudes are bat shit crazy, man.”
“They’re really doing that? It all sounds a bit far-fetched to me”
“Oh, yeah man. They’ve been doing it for years in the U.S. No wonder that country’s fucked up. This sort of shit gets into people’s brains. All the big multinational food companies are using this stuff, MacDouchbags, Killogg’s; you name them. They don’t care. They’re only in it for the big bucks. They don’t care about the rest of us, you dig?”
“And they’re doing this here now?”
“Yeah man, they own a farm, out in Ponton, where they’re doing shit to fruit trees; some crazy fucked up shit, I kid you not! This shit was all supposed to be top secret, but we found out about it. Some of our crew were up there stealing apples for a little venture we have, making bootleg scrumpy cider, when one of the dudes got a finger bit clean off. They’ve been cloning apple trees up there, with wolf genes or something freaky, dude. Some of those apples have teeth as long as my pinkie, and the damned trees howl when it’s a full moon. Man, it’s trippy to hear, but scary too, you dig? So we organised a protest march and even got some news crews down, and everything. There was a big hoo-hah as this shit wasn’t supposed to be allowed here. They supposedly banned G.M.O’s a few years ago, but someone has obviously been greasing the palms of government, and suddenly the shit has hit the fan. They are denying any knowledge, of course, but the shits all over their faces.”
I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but the cogs were turning in my head. I had found a plan to save my farm.
“So, what do you do, Mike Mike?” he asked
“I’m a farmer,” I replied. “I own an orchard.”
“Cool, dude.”
A few minutes later my solicitor arrived, and I was quickly released on bail, pending a court hearing in three weeks.
I was advised to plead guilty, which I did. It was, after all, an open and shut case. The dogs were clearly mine, and they’d been caught red handed in my neighbour’s sheep flock. As this was my first offence, I was bound over to keep the peace, and given a hefty fine. Thankfully, another bumper harvest came and went, and the bank manager only threw a small hissing fit when the fine had to be paid.
Once the protests had died down in Ponton, I arranged a little midnight visit, pruning shears in hand. It was a wet miserable winter’s night, so there was no one about when I climbed the fence and made my way into the orchard. Ten minutes later, I was back in the jeep, heading home, with a boot load of branches. I would have a busy winter of grafting ahead of me, but it would be worth it. My problems were over.
As the first blossoms appeared, I knew that the grafting was a success. The mutant blossoms had a deeper red to them, like droplets of blood, and they quickly pollinated and grew into apples. My own apples were a russet colour, so it was easy to distinguish then modified ones. They were deep red, even at an early stage in their development.
At first, they seemed like normal apples, but as I strolled through the orchard, I started to see an unusual number of feathers beneath the trees. I thought nothing of it until one day when something unusual happened. I was listening to a songbird singing, when suddenly, the song stopped with a loud squawk of protest and a strange crunching sound. It sounded like little bones being chewed vigorously. I looked around for the bird and saw some feathers floating down from a nearby tree. The crunching was coming from one of my mutant apples.
They were carnivorous.
I shrugged and thought nothing more about it. Why would I be concerned? They were perfect for my plan. Any would-be apple thief would soon regret stealing from my orchard.
I hadn’t, however, planned for the difficulties from my own hired hands. As the mutant apples grew, they became bolder and more ravenous. By the time it got around to harvest season, it wasn’t safe to enter the orchard. Some of the bright red apples had developed quicker than my normal apples. They had sprouted little legs and were stalking through the trees, hunting for mice, rats, or anything else that they could eat. I barely made it out alive, and would be facing a number of law suits from my pickers for minor bites. Word got out and I couldn’t find anyone brave enough to harvest my crop.
In the end, I was forced to stand outside of the fence and watch helplessly as my apples rotted away in the orchard. Thankfully, the fence I had erected kept the wolf-apples from escaping and terrorising the neighbourhood.
Eventually, as winter set in, the last of the mutant apples died of starvation and it was safe to enter the orchard again.
Chainsaw in hand, I started cutting down my apple trees. I had resigned myself to bankruptcy, and was expecting a letter from the bank any day, notifying me of their repossession. I would soon be homeless. The least I could do was stop the mutant apples from growing again next year. My prized orchard soon became a bonfire.
Thankfully, Spike and his mates had done me a deal on a cheap campervan. They’d also offered me a share in their scrumpy-making venture, given that I had so much experience with apples.
I’d already got my first piecing, and my hair was getting longer every day. I’d soon have a nice set of dreadlocks and would fit right in. The only thing I was missing was a tattoo.
My first instinct was to blame it on pests; birds’ maybe, or a roaming herd or wild deer. I searched but could find no excess bird droppings, nor any deer spores.
After three years of crop failure, the bank was starting to make noises about my overdraft. I explained the situation to them, re-mortgaged the farmhouse, and contacted a local security firm for assistance.
I explained my predicament to them and they gave me a quote for the latest state of the art security system. I nearly died when I saw the quote. I couldn’t afford that, I protested.
“It’s a big area of land to cover,” their salesman pointed out. “That’s a lot of manpower, and reliable security doesn’t come cheap these days.”
“What about an automated system,” I asked.
He totted up the figures and presented me with a new bill. It was worse than the first one.
“You can’t be serious!” I protested.
“This gear is expensive,” the salesman insisted.
“But I only need it for a couple of weeks, just until the harvest comes in,” I pleaded.
After a lot of humming and hawing, he took me aside and in hushed conspiratory tones, he confided, “Listen mate, I know a guy who knows a guy, who could let you have a few things second hand like; enough to sort out your little problem. They’ll be on hire, mind you, so don’t break anything or you’ll be paying the full whack for any replacements. How’s that sound?”
I readily agreed. It was still expensive, but it was a lot less than the original quotes had been.
I would have to find the culprits and solve this problem, once and for all. I couldn’t afford to lose another harvest.
I set up a camp bed in one of the outhouses close to the orchards, and had them feed the CCTV cameras into it. As harvest time drew near, I hid out there every night, cradling my shotgun in the crook of my arm, drinking copious amounts of strong coffee, and watching the monitors for any signs of the pests.
I must have drifted off in the small hours before dawn, but was jolted awake by the blaring of the klaxons I’d had installed. Something must have triggered the infrared sensors I’d placed around the perimeter of the orchard.
The trees were lit up by fluorescent lamps, and in the glare of their bulbs I could make out a large group of shadowy figures running away.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
No flock of early morning crows had been stealing my crops. Nor for that matter were my apple stealers a herd of fleet-footed deer.
They were a bunch of rough looking vagabonds; quit a large group of them from the look of it. What could they possibly want with all my apples? Were they apple raiding each night and hauling their ill-gotten gains off to sell them to supermarkets and greengrocers in the area, or was this something even more sinister? Could they have been hired by one of my competitors, hoping to buy the farm from the bank at less than market value?
Running outside, I shouted curses at the shadowy fleeing figures and fired both barrels of my shotgun into the air, hoping to scare them away.
To my relief, it worked.
They scarpered like rats leaving the Titanic, escaping through my neighbour’s wheat fields and disappearing into the nearby woods.
I called the police, but dawn came and went without the arrival of the rapid response unit. In fact, it was close to midday before a solitary squad car pulled into my yard.
The two officers climbed slowly out of the patrol car and took my statement. They then spent an hour strolling through the orchard, taking further notes and sampling my ripe apples. They seemed more concerned with the fact that a firearm had been discharged than any robbery attempt.
“So nothing was actually stolen,” the senior officer concluded.
“I don’t know. I haven’t counted the apples, have I?”
“But they never actually entered your property …?”
“Well … no … but they were clearly about to! They even dropped some hessian sacks when they ran away. Look, that’s them, over there!” I pointed to the evidence, which I’d left untouched in the field.
They hummed at each other in a decidedly noncommittal manner.
“Aren’t you going to take them away as evidence? There could be fingerprints on them … DNA!”
“Mr Proctor, have you any idea how much DNA testing costs?” asked the senior officer.
“No, I haven’t. Listen, I pay my taxes like everybody else, and I’m entitled to the full rigors of the law.”
“Mr Proctor, we are hardly going to waste valuable police time and money on a simple littering case, are we?”
“Littering! Littering! They’ve stolen my apples; hundreds of pounds worth of apples.”
“But you’ve just told us that you didn’t think they stole anything, sir?”
“Not this time, they didn’t. I’m talking about last year, and the year before…”
“But this is the first time you’ve actually reported a theft, is that correct sir?”
“Well, yes. I thought it might be deer before!”
They both sighed dramatically. “This is how we see it, Mr Proctor. Currently, the only real crime that has been committed here is the unlawful discharging of a firearm. Now, on this occasion, we’re prepared to let the matter slide, given that no one was actually hurt and no one is pressing charges, but I must administer an official warning to you to be more careful in the future.”
“But what about the thieves?” I objected, “I have them on video, for crying out loud!”
“We have watched the CCTV footage, sir, and as far as we’re concerned, we can see no illegal activity. These people could have been out for a harmless stroll …”
“At four thirty in the morning…!”
“Mr Proctor, we live in a democracy. It’s not illegal to go for an early morning ramble.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous! I’ll be speaking to your superiors. I’ll have you know that my cousin is a Chief Inspector!”
That didn’t go down well with them. They left soon after and that was the last I heard on the matter.
I decided to get my harvest picked a little earlier than planned, and arranged for my pickers to arrive the following morning to start collecting the apples. In the meantime I was forced to spend another sleepless night patrolling the orchard for midnight trespassers.
Thankfully, there were none.
I hoped that this would be the end of the matter.
The crop proved to be a bumper one, thanks to an excellent summer. I was relieved and even the bank manager was mollified once the cheques started to come in for my goods.
Nevertheless, I had many sleepless nights during that winter, worrying about what would happen the following autumn. I needed to find a better way to keep the midnight pickers away, one that didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.
One of my tractors broke down in the following January, and I went off in search of a second hand part. I needed to cut costs wherever possible, after all.
It was while I was visiting a local scrap yard, that the idea came to me. I needed a guard dog, a whole pack of them preferably.
A quick search soon led me to a puppy farm and three rather expensive Doberman pups; two bitches and a particularly fiery-tempered male. I spend the next few months erecting fencing around the orchards, ignoring the angry letters from the bank manager, and in my spare time training the dogs.
They shot up over the summer, and by the autumn they were ready to let loose in the orchard. As the apples started to ripen, I brought the dogs out to the orchard and turned them loose within the fenced enclosure. It was time for the dogs to earn their keep.
I slept soundly that night, safe in the knowledge that my apples were in safe hands - or should that be safe paws?
I was rudely awoken in the early hours by the doorbell ringing. Whoever was pressing the button was clearly impatient. They kept their finger firmly attached to the doorbell until I dragged myself out of the bed, found my dressing gown, and staggered down the stairs to answer the front door.
“Hang on! I’m coming.”
As I yanked it open, I could see two shadowy figures blocked the doorway.
“Ah, Mr Proctor,” one of them greeted.
I recognised the voice, though the blue swirling lights that backlit the two men probably helped my sleepy brain to remember. “Officer …? Do you know what time this is?”
“Yes, sir, we’re quite aware of the time …”
“Is it the apple thieves?” I asked enthusiastically “Have you finally caught them?”
“No, sir, we’ve had a number of complaints this evening …”
“Complaints?” I asked. “I’m not surprised, if you keep waking people up in the middle of the night.”
“They’re about your dogs, sir. They have been causing quite a disturbance … sheep have been worried.”
“I’d be worried too,” I joked.
“This is not a laughing matter, sir. A file is being prepared as we speak.”
“Look, you’ve got this all wrong. It can’t be my dogs. It must be someone else’s dogs. Mine are guarding my orchard from the apple stealers I told you about, the ones you should have caught by now.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Apple Picker Gang again!” The officer’s tone hinted at mockery. “I recall the case. So is this why you had your dogs roaming around unmonitored at night?”
“They’re inside a four foot chain link fence!” I protested.
“When we finally apprehended the sheep killers, sir, we had the local vet check them for microchips. All three of them were registered to this address. I presume you have licences for them, and suitable public liability insurance.”
“What! Of course I do.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir. That will make our jobs so much easier. We’ll let the civil courts deal with the minor matters and we can focus on the more important one.”
“Sorry,” I said, “but I think you’ve lost me there. I thought this was to do with some barking and sheep worrying.”
“It was, sir, but in the performance of our duty as keepers of the peace, we tried to apprehend the culprits. In the end, we were successful, but not without some assistance from the local dog wardens. However, three of our officers were seriously bitten during the altercation, Mr Proctor, and therefore, charges will have to be filed for assault.”
“Were my dogs harmed? I hope not. They cost me a small fortune, you know. They are purebreds.”
“Your dogs were put to sleep at the scene of the crime, sir. It was decided that they were too much of a threat to public safety to risk bringing them to the dog pound. Naturally, we will provide you with a receipt so that you can claim their bodies, once the post mortems have been done to gather evidence, but that’ll have to wait for now. You’ll need to accompany us to the station, Mr Proctor, so that we can process the charges.”
“What! I’m not even dressed!”
“We need to process the charges for assault right away, sir.”
“Hang on. You killed my dogs. How are you going to charge them with assault if they’re already dead?”
“We’re not charging the dogs, sir. We’re charging you.”
“But I wasn’t even there! I was asleep in bed. I have an alibi. You can ask my wife.”
“That’s neither here nor there, sir. The dogs were your responsibility, and trained guard dogs are as dangerous as a loaded gun. Now, if you’d like to take a minute to get dressed, we can nip on down to the station and do the required paperwork. You’ll have plenty of time to argue your case during the hearing.”
“This is ridiculous! I’m not going anywhere.”
The two officers straightened slightly, tensing their shoulders, but the senior officer remained calm as he cautioned me, “I wouldn’t make a scene, if I were you, sir. I suggest that you come long quietly. It’s been a long and traumatic night for us, and we don’t need any unpleasantness.”
“I suggest you take a running jump!” I snapped. “I’m calling the Chief Superintendent. I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
As I swung the door shut, a large black boot blocked my way, and a firm hand was placed on my shoulder. “Right! I’ve had enough of your gyp. I’m arresting you on multiple charges of assault to members of Her Majesty’s police force…”
Angrily, I tried to shrug away the hand and close the door.
Somehow, I quickly found myself face down in the garden with my arm twisted painfully behind my back. “… I’m also charging you with resisting arrest,” panted the younger officer. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be taken down, and it may be used against you …”
With excessive force, I was handcuffed, hauled to my feet, and crammed into the back seat of their patrol car.
The next hour was a blur of activity. I was strip-searched for hidden weapons despite my protests. I was fingerprinted and photographs were taken of me holding up a small placard with numbers on it. I was then questioned again and again until my head hurt. Finally, sometime after dawn, they bundled me in a large holding cell while they went off and processed my arrest.
I was not alone in the cell. There were a number of other men in there, an odd looking raggle-taggle bunch of youths with various body piercings, tattoos, and knots in their long greasy hair. Looking at them I was reminded me of the apple picking thieves that had got me into all this trouble in the first place. Was this some practical joke that the police were playing at my expense?
The men looked intimidating, and I shuffled away into a corner as far away as I could from them. Haunting images of multiple gang rapes filled my brain as I watched them nervously.
One of them, bigger and meaner-looking then the others, stood up and strolled towards me. He looked me up and down, assessing my dirt-smeared pyjamas, before reaching into his pocket of his leather jacket.
My life flashed before my eyes as I waited for the knife that would stab me in the guts.
The hand came out again. It was holding a leather pouch. “D’ya wanna smoke, mate?” he offered.
I shook my head, “I- I don’t do drugs,” I replied, backing further into the corner.
“Nah, man. It’s just tobacco. The pigs stole all our weed when we got busted, the bastards!”
He offered me the pouch again.
I’d given up smoking a few years back, but with all the stress I was under, the offer sounded tempting. My hand reached out tentatively and took the pouch. I opened it and looked inside. Inside the pouch was a mutilated packet of cigarette papers and a plastic bag of tobacco.
With a sigh, I handed it back.
“Do you want me to roll it for you?” he asked, with no mockery in his tone.
“Please … that’d be great.”
“No problem, man.” Taking the pouch of tobacco, he squatted down beside me and deftly rolled two thin cigarettes. Offering one of them to me, he dug into his pocket again and produced a lighter.
I inhaled and coughed up a lung full of smoke, before smiling my thanks.
“They call me Spike, by the way.”
“Mike, Mike Proctor.” I responded, nodding in greeting.
“What’ya in for, man?” he asked, as I slid down the wall to sit beside him.
“Assault on some police officers, oh and resisting arrest too,” I mumbled.
“Totally retro, man!” Spike cooed, grinning approval. “You did all that in ya jimjams?”
“Apparently,”
“Dude, you’re one kick-ass mother. Respect to ya, Mike Mike.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“We got hauled in on breach of the peace charges. We were nabbed during the protest last night. The pigs are all paid mercenaries. They are in the pocket of Monsanto, the bastards.”
“What protest?”
“Man! Don’t you listen to da news? There were hundreds of us there.”
“Sorry, I’ve been kind of busy lately. I don’t get to watch TV much.”
“We were all up at Loughbrook Farm, over near Ponton. There’s a big pharmaceutical company that owns some land over there. They are playing at being God, man! They are messing around with some heavy shit … G.M.O’s, ya know?”
“Sorry, I’m lost. What’s a G.M.O’s?”
“Genetically modified organisms. They’ve been doing stuff like putting the genes of a beetle into tomatoes and adding some weird fungi shit too, and then saying that it’s safe to eat their weird shit. Them dudes are bat shit crazy, man.”
“They’re really doing that? It all sounds a bit far-fetched to me”
“Oh, yeah man. They’ve been doing it for years in the U.S. No wonder that country’s fucked up. This sort of shit gets into people’s brains. All the big multinational food companies are using this stuff, MacDouchbags, Killogg’s; you name them. They don’t care. They’re only in it for the big bucks. They don’t care about the rest of us, you dig?”
“And they’re doing this here now?”
“Yeah man, they own a farm, out in Ponton, where they’re doing shit to fruit trees; some crazy fucked up shit, I kid you not! This shit was all supposed to be top secret, but we found out about it. Some of our crew were up there stealing apples for a little venture we have, making bootleg scrumpy cider, when one of the dudes got a finger bit clean off. They’ve been cloning apple trees up there, with wolf genes or something freaky, dude. Some of those apples have teeth as long as my pinkie, and the damned trees howl when it’s a full moon. Man, it’s trippy to hear, but scary too, you dig? So we organised a protest march and even got some news crews down, and everything. There was a big hoo-hah as this shit wasn’t supposed to be allowed here. They supposedly banned G.M.O’s a few years ago, but someone has obviously been greasing the palms of government, and suddenly the shit has hit the fan. They are denying any knowledge, of course, but the shits all over their faces.”
I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but the cogs were turning in my head. I had found a plan to save my farm.
“So, what do you do, Mike Mike?” he asked
“I’m a farmer,” I replied. “I own an orchard.”
“Cool, dude.”
A few minutes later my solicitor arrived, and I was quickly released on bail, pending a court hearing in three weeks.
I was advised to plead guilty, which I did. It was, after all, an open and shut case. The dogs were clearly mine, and they’d been caught red handed in my neighbour’s sheep flock. As this was my first offence, I was bound over to keep the peace, and given a hefty fine. Thankfully, another bumper harvest came and went, and the bank manager only threw a small hissing fit when the fine had to be paid.
Once the protests had died down in Ponton, I arranged a little midnight visit, pruning shears in hand. It was a wet miserable winter’s night, so there was no one about when I climbed the fence and made my way into the orchard. Ten minutes later, I was back in the jeep, heading home, with a boot load of branches. I would have a busy winter of grafting ahead of me, but it would be worth it. My problems were over.
As the first blossoms appeared, I knew that the grafting was a success. The mutant blossoms had a deeper red to them, like droplets of blood, and they quickly pollinated and grew into apples. My own apples were a russet colour, so it was easy to distinguish then modified ones. They were deep red, even at an early stage in their development.
At first, they seemed like normal apples, but as I strolled through the orchard, I started to see an unusual number of feathers beneath the trees. I thought nothing of it until one day when something unusual happened. I was listening to a songbird singing, when suddenly, the song stopped with a loud squawk of protest and a strange crunching sound. It sounded like little bones being chewed vigorously. I looked around for the bird and saw some feathers floating down from a nearby tree. The crunching was coming from one of my mutant apples.
They were carnivorous.
I shrugged and thought nothing more about it. Why would I be concerned? They were perfect for my plan. Any would-be apple thief would soon regret stealing from my orchard.
I hadn’t, however, planned for the difficulties from my own hired hands. As the mutant apples grew, they became bolder and more ravenous. By the time it got around to harvest season, it wasn’t safe to enter the orchard. Some of the bright red apples had developed quicker than my normal apples. They had sprouted little legs and were stalking through the trees, hunting for mice, rats, or anything else that they could eat. I barely made it out alive, and would be facing a number of law suits from my pickers for minor bites. Word got out and I couldn’t find anyone brave enough to harvest my crop.
In the end, I was forced to stand outside of the fence and watch helplessly as my apples rotted away in the orchard. Thankfully, the fence I had erected kept the wolf-apples from escaping and terrorising the neighbourhood.
Eventually, as winter set in, the last of the mutant apples died of starvation and it was safe to enter the orchard again.
Chainsaw in hand, I started cutting down my apple trees. I had resigned myself to bankruptcy, and was expecting a letter from the bank any day, notifying me of their repossession. I would soon be homeless. The least I could do was stop the mutant apples from growing again next year. My prized orchard soon became a bonfire.
Thankfully, Spike and his mates had done me a deal on a cheap campervan. They’d also offered me a share in their scrumpy-making venture, given that I had so much experience with apples.
I’d already got my first piecing, and my hair was getting longer every day. I’d soon have a nice set of dreadlocks and would fit right in. The only thing I was missing was a tattoo.
The Killer Orchard
Over the last few years, the yield from my orchard had been noticeably dropping. I couldn’t understand it. The trees blossomed and budded just fine, the apples grew and ripened with great promise, but when it came around to harvesting the fruit, the crop had diminished.
My first instinct was to blame it on pests; birds’ maybe, or a roaming herd or wild deer. I searched but could find no excess bird droppings, nor any deer spores.
After three years of crop failure, the bank was starting to make noises about my overdraft. I explained the situation to them, re-mortgaged the farmhouse, and contacted a local security firm for assistance.
I explained my predicament to them and they gave me a quote for the latest state of the art security system. I nearly died when I saw the quote. I couldn’t afford that, I protested.
“It’s a big area of land to cover,” their salesman pointed out. “That’s a lot of manpower, and reliable security doesn’t come cheap these days.”
“What about an automated system,” I asked.
He totted up the figures and presented me with a new bill. It was worse than the first one.
“You can’t be serious!” I protested.
“This gear is expensive,” the salesman insisted.
“But I only need it for a couple of weeks, just until the harvest comes in,” I pleaded.
After a lot of humming and hawing, he took me aside and in hushed conspiratory tones, he confided, “Listen mate, I know a guy who knows a guy, who could let you have a few things second hand like; enough to sort out your little problem. They’ll be on hire, mind you, so don’t break anything or you’ll be paying the full whack for any replacements. How’s that sound?”
I readily agreed. It was still expensive, but it was a lot less than the original quotes had been.
I would have to find the culprits and solve this problem, once and for all. I couldn’t afford to lose another harvest.
I set up a camp bed in one of the outhouses close to the orchards, and had them feed the CCTV cameras into it. As harvest time drew near, I hid out there every night, cradling my shotgun in the crook of my arm, drinking copious amounts of strong coffee, and watching the monitors for any signs of the pests.
I must have drifted off in the small hours before dawn, but was jolted awake by the blaring of the klaxons I’d had installed. Something must have triggered the infrared sensors I’d placed around the perimeter of the orchard.
The trees were lit up by fluorescent lamps, and in the glare of their bulbs I could make out a large group of shadowy figures running away.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
No flock of early morning crows had been stealing my crops. Nor for that matter were my apple stealers a herd of fleet-footed deer.
They were a bunch of rough looking vagabonds; quit a large group of them from the look of it. What could they possibly want with all my apples? Were they apple raiding each night and hauling their ill-gotten gains off to sell them to supermarkets and greengrocers in the area, or was this something even more sinister? Could they have been hired by one of my competitors, hoping to buy the farm from the bank at less than market value?
Running outside, I shouted curses at the shadowy fleeing figures and fired both barrels of my shotgun into the air, hoping to scare them away.
To my relief, it worked.
They scarpered like rats leaving the Titanic, escaping through my neighbour’s wheat fields and disappearing into the nearby woods.
I called the police, but dawn came and went without the arrival of the rapid response unit. In fact, it was close to midday before a solitary squad car pulled into my yard.
The two officers climbed slowly out of the patrol car and took my statement. They then spent an hour strolling through the orchard, taking further notes and sampling my ripe apples. They seemed more concerned with the fact that a firearm had been discharged than any robbery attempt.
“So nothing was actually stolen,” the senior officer concluded.
“I don’t know. I haven’t counted the apples, have I?”
“But they never actually entered your property …?”
“Well … no … but they were clearly about to! They even dropped some hessian sacks when they ran away. Look, that’s them, over there!” I pointed to the evidence, which I’d left untouched in the field.
They hummed at each other in a decidedly noncommittal manner.
“Aren’t you going to take them away as evidence? There could be fingerprints on them … DNA!”
“Mr Proctor, have you any idea how much DNA testing costs?” asked the senior officer.
“No, I haven’t. Listen, I pay my taxes like everybody else, and I’m entitled to the full rigors of the law.”
“Mr Proctor, we are hardly going to waste valuable police time and money on a simple littering case, are we?”
“Littering! Littering! They’ve stolen my apples; hundreds of pounds worth of apples.”
“But you’ve just told us that you didn’t think they stole anything, sir?”
“Not this time, they didn’t. I’m talking about last year, and the year before…”
“But this is the first time you’ve actually reported a theft, is that correct sir?”
“Well, yes. I thought it might be deer before!”
They both sighed dramatically. “This is how we see it, Mr Proctor. Currently, the only real crime that has been committed here is the unlawful discharging of a firearm. Now, on this occasion, we’re prepared to let the matter slide, given that no one was actually hurt and no one is pressing charges, but I must administer an official warning to you to be more careful in the future.”
“But what about the thieves?” I objected, “I have them on video, for crying out loud!”
“We have watched the CCTV footage, sir, and as far as we’re concerned, we can see no illegal activity. These people could have been out for a harmless stroll …”
“At four thirty in the morning…!”
“Mr Proctor, we live in a democracy. It’s not illegal to go for an early morning ramble.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous! I’ll be speaking to your superiors. I’ll have you know that my cousin is a Chief Inspector!”
That didn’t go down well with them. They left soon after and that was the last I heard on the matter.
I decided to get my harvest picked a little earlier than planned, and arranged for my pickers to arrive the following morning to start collecting the apples. In the meantime I was forced to spend another sleepless night patrolling the orchard for midnight trespassers.
Thankfully, there were none.
I hoped that this would be the end of the matter.
The crop proved to be a bumper one, thanks to an excellent summer. I was relieved and even the bank manager was mollified once the cheques started to come in for my goods.
Nevertheless, I had many sleepless nights during that winter, worrying about what would happen the following autumn. I needed to find a better way to keep the midnight pickers away, one that didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.
One of my tractors broke down in the following January, and I went off in search of a second hand part. I needed to cut costs wherever possible, after all.
It was while I was visiting a local scrap yard, that the idea came to me. I needed a guard dog, a whole pack of them preferably.
A quick search soon led me to a puppy farm and three rather expensive Doberman pups; two bitches and a particularly fiery-tempered male. I spend the next few months erecting fencing around the orchards, ignoring the angry letters from the bank manager, and in my spare time training the dogs.
They shot up over the summer, and by the autumn they were ready to let loose in the orchard. As the apples started to ripen, I brought the dogs out to the orchard and turned them loose within the fenced enclosure. It was time for the dogs to earn their keep.
I slept soundly that night, safe in the knowledge that my apples were in safe hands - or should that be safe paws?
I was rudely awoken in the early hours by the doorbell ringing. Whoever was pressing the button was clearly impatient. They kept their finger firmly attached to the doorbell until I dragged myself out of the bed, found my dressing gown, and staggered down the stairs to answer the front door.
“Hang on! I’m coming.”
As I yanked it open, I could see two shadowy figures blocked the doorway.
“Ah, Mr Proctor,” one of them greeted.
I recognised the voice, though the blue swirling lights that backlit the two men probably helped my sleepy brain to remember. “Officer …? Do you know what time this is?”
“Yes, sir, we’re quite aware of the time …”
“Is it the apple thieves?” I asked enthusiastically “Have you finally caught them?”
“No, sir, we’ve had a number of complaints this evening …”
“Complaints?” I asked. “I’m not surprised, if you keep waking people up in the middle of the night.”
“They’re about your dogs, sir. They have been causing quite a disturbance … sheep have been worried.”
“I’d be worried too,” I joked.
“This is not a laughing matter, sir. A file is being prepared as we speak.”
“Look, you’ve got this all wrong. It can’t be my dogs. It must be someone else’s dogs. Mine are guarding my orchard from the apple stealers I told you about, the ones you should have caught by now.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Apple Picker Gang again!” The officer’s tone hinted at mockery. “I recall the case. So is this why you had your dogs roaming around unmonitored at night?”
“They’re inside a four foot chain link fence!” I protested.
“When we finally apprehended the sheep killers, sir, we had the local vet check them for microchips. All three of them were registered to this address. I presume you have licences for them, and suitable public liability insurance.”
“What! Of course I do.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir. That will make our jobs so much easier. We’ll let the civil courts deal with the minor matters and we can focus on the more important one.”
“Sorry,” I said, “but I think you’ve lost me there. I thought this was to do with some barking and sheep worrying.”
“It was, sir, but in the performance of our duty as keepers of the peace, we tried to apprehend the culprits. In the end, we were successful, but not without some assistance from the local dog wardens. However, three of our officers were seriously bitten during the altercation, Mr Proctor, and therefore, charges will have to be filed for assault.”
“Were my dogs harmed? I hope not. They cost me a small fortune, you know. They are purebreds.”
“Your dogs were put to sleep at the scene of the crime, sir. It was decided that they were too much of a threat to public safety to risk bringing them to the dog pound. Naturally, we will provide you with a receipt so that you can claim their bodies, once the post mortems have been done to gather evidence, but that’ll have to wait for now. You’ll need to accompany us to the station, Mr Proctor, so that we can process the charges.”
“What! I’m not even dressed!”
“We need to process the charges for assault right away, sir.”
“Hang on. You killed my dogs. How are you going to charge them with assault if they’re already dead?”
“We’re not charging the dogs, sir. We’re charging you.”
“But I wasn’t even there! I was asleep in bed. I have an alibi. You can ask my wife.”
“That’s neither here nor there, sir. The dogs were your responsibility, and trained guard dogs are as dangerous as a loaded gun. Now, if you’d like to take a minute to get dressed, we can nip on down to the station and do the required paperwork. You’ll have plenty of time to argue your case during the hearing.”
“This is ridiculous! I’m not going anywhere.”
The two officers straightened slightly, tensing their shoulders, but the senior officer remained calm as he cautioned me, “I wouldn’t make a scene, if I were you, sir. I suggest that you come long quietly. It’s been a long and traumatic night for us, and we don’t need any unpleasantness.”
“I suggest you take a running jump!” I snapped. “I’m calling the Chief Superintendent. I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
As I swung the door shut, a large black boot blocked my way, and a firm hand was placed on my shoulder. “Right! I’ve had enough of your gyp. I’m arresting you on multiple charges of assault to members of Her Majesty’s police force…”
Angrily, I tried to shrug away the hand and close the door.
Somehow, I quickly found myself face down in the garden with my arm twisted painfully behind my back. “… I’m also charging you with resisting arrest,” panted the younger officer. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be taken down, and it may be used against you …”
With excessive force, I was handcuffed, hauled to my feet, and crammed into the back seat of their patrol car.
The next hour was a blur of activity. I was strip-searched for hidden weapons despite my protests. I was fingerprinted and photographs were taken of me holding up a small placard with numbers on it. I was then questioned again and again until my head hurt. Finally, sometime after dawn, they bundled me in a large holding cell while they went off and processed my arrest.
I was not alone in the cell. There were a number of other men in there, an odd looking raggle-taggle bunch of youths with various body piercings, tattoos, and knots in their long greasy hair. Looking at them I was reminded me of the apple picking thieves that had got me into all this trouble in the first place. Was this some practical joke that the police were playing at my expense?
The men looked intimidating, and I shuffled away into a corner as far away as I could from them. Haunting images of multiple gang rapes filled my brain as I watched them nervously.
One of them, bigger and meaner-looking then the others, stood up and strolled towards me. He looked me up and down, assessing my dirt-smeared pyjamas, before reaching into his pocket of his leather jacket.
My life flashed before my eyes as I waited for the knife that would stab me in the guts.
The hand came out again. It was holding a leather pouch. “D’ya wanna smoke, mate?” he offered.
I shook my head, “I- I don’t do drugs,” I replied, backing further into the corner.
“Nah, man. It’s just tobacco. The pigs stole all our weed when we got busted, the bastards!”
He offered me the pouch again.
I’d given up smoking a few years back, but with all the stress I was under, the offer sounded tempting. My hand reached out tentatively and took the pouch. I opened it and looked inside. Inside the pouch was a mutilated packet of cigarette papers and a plastic bag of tobacco.
With a sigh, I handed it back.
“Do you want me to roll it for you?” he asked, with no mockery in his tone.
“Please … that’d be great.”
“No problem, man.” Taking the pouch of tobacco, he squatted down beside me and deftly rolled two thin cigarettes. Offering one of them to me, he dug into his pocket again and produced a lighter.
I inhaled and coughed up a lung full of smoke, before smiling my thanks.
“They call me Spike, by the way.”
“Mike, Mike Proctor.” I responded, nodding in greeting.
“What’ya in for, man?” he asked, as I slid down the wall to sit beside him.
“Assault on some police officers, oh and resisting arrest too,” I mumbled.
“Totally retro, man!” Spike cooed, grinning approval. “You did all that in ya jimjams?”
“Apparently,”
“Dude, you’re one kick-ass mother. Respect to ya, Mike Mike.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“We got hauled in on breach of the peace charges. We were nabbed during the protest last night. The pigs are all paid mercenaries. They are in the pocket of Mansinto, the bastards.”
“What protest?”
“Man! Don’t you listen to da news? There were hundreds of us there.”
“Sorry, I’ve been kind of busy lately. I don’t get to watch TV much.”
“We were all up at Loughbrook Farm, over near Ponton. There’s a big pharmaceutical company that owns some land over there. They are playing at being God, man! They are messing around with some heavy shit … G.M.O’s, ya know?”
“Sorry, I’m lost. What’s a G.M.O’s?”
“Genetically modified organisms. They’ve been doing stuff like putting the genes of a beetle into tomatoes and adding some weird fungi shit too, and then saying that it’s safe to eat their weird shit. Them dudes are bat shit crazy, man.”
“They’re really doing that? It all sounds a bit far-fetched to me”
“Oh, yeah man. They’ve been doing it for years in the U.S. No wonder that country’s fucked up. This sort of shit gets into people’s brains. All the big multinational food companies are using this stuff, MacDouchbags, Killogg’s; you name them. They don’t care. They’re only in it for the big bucks. They don’t care about the rest of us, you dig?”
“And they’re doing this here now?”
“Yeah man, they own a farm, out in Ponton, where they’re doing shit to fruit trees; some crazy fucked up shit, I kid you not! This shit was all supposed to be top secret, but we found out about it. Some of our crew were up there stealing apples for a little venture we have, making bootleg scrumpy cider, when one of the dudes got a finger bit clean off. They’ve been cloning apple trees up there, with wolf genes or something freaky, dude. Some of those apples have teeth as long as my pinkie, and the damned trees howl when it’s a full moon. Man, it’s trippy to hear, but scary too, you dig? So we organised a protest march and even got some news crews down, and everything. There was a big hoo-hah as this shit wasn’t supposed to be allowed here. They supposedly banned G.M.O’s a few years ago, but someone has obviously been greasing the palms of government, and suddenly the shit has hit the fan. They are denying any knowledge, of course, but the shits all over their faces.”
I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but the cogs were turning in my head. I had found a plan to save my farm.
“So, what do you do, Mike Mike?” he asked
“I’m a farmer,” I replied. “I own an orchard.”
“Cool, dude.”
A few minutes later my solicitor arrived, and I was quickly released on bail, pending a court hearing in three weeks.
I was advised to plead guilty, which I did. It was, after all, an open and shut case. The dogs were clearly mine, and they’d been caught red handed in my neighbour’s sheep flock. As this was my first offence, I was bound over to keep the peace, and given a hefty fine. Thankfully, another bumper harvest came and went, and the bank manager only threw a small hissing fit when the fine had to be paid.
Once the protests had died down in Ponton, I arranged a little midnight visit, pruning shears in hand. It was a wet miserable winter’s night, so there was no one about when I climbed the fence and made my way into the orchard. Ten minutes later, I was back in the jeep, heading home, with a boot load of branches. I would have a busy winter of grafting ahead of me, but it would be worth it. My problems were over.
As the first blossoms appeared, I knew that the grafting was a success. The mutant blossoms had a deeper red to them, like droplets of blood, and they quickly pollinated and grew into apples. My own apples were a russet colour, so it was easy to distinguish then modified ones. They were deep red, even at an early stage in their development.
At first, they seemed like normal apples, but as I strolled through the orchard, I started to see an unusual number of feathers beneath the trees. I thought nothing of it until one day when something unusual happened. I was listening to a songbird singing, when suddenly, the song stopped with a loud squawk of protest and a strange crunching sound. It sounded like little bones being chewed vigorously. I looked around for the bird and saw some feathers floating down from a nearby tree. The crunching was coming from one of my mutant apples.
They were carnivorous.
I shrugged and thought nothing more about it. Why would I be concerned? They were perfect for my plan. Any would-be apple thief would soon regret stealing from my orchard.
I hadn’t, however, planned for the difficulties from my own hired hands. As the mutant apples grew, they became bolder and more ravenous. By the time it got around to harvest season, it wasn’t safe to enter the orchard. Some of the bright red apples had developed quicker than my normal apples. They had sprouted little legs and were stalking through the trees, hunting for mice, rats, or anything else that they could eat. I barely made it out alive, and would be facing a number of law suits from my pickers for minor bites. Word got out and I couldn’t find anyone brave enough to harvest my crop.
In the end, I was forced to stand outside of the fence and watch helplessly as my apples rotted away in the orchard. Thankfully, the fence I had erected kept the wolf-apples from escaping and terrorising the neighbourhood.
Eventually, as winter set in, the last of the mutant apples died of starvation and it was safe to enter the orchard again.
Chainsaw in hand, I started cutting down my apple trees. I had resigned myself to bankruptcy, and was expecting a letter from the bank any day, notifying me of their repossession. I would soon be homeless. The least I could do was stop the mutant apples from growing again next year. My prized orchard soon became a bonfire.
Thankfully, Spike and his mates had done me a deal on a cheap campervan. They’d also offered me a share in their scrumpy-making venture, given that I had so much experience with apples.
I’d already got my first piecing, and my hair was getting longer every day. I’d soon have a nice set of dreadlocks and would fit right in. The only thing I was missing was a tattoo.
My first instinct was to blame it on pests; birds’ maybe, or a roaming herd or wild deer. I searched but could find no excess bird droppings, nor any deer spores.
After three years of crop failure, the bank was starting to make noises about my overdraft. I explained the situation to them, re-mortgaged the farmhouse, and contacted a local security firm for assistance.
I explained my predicament to them and they gave me a quote for the latest state of the art security system. I nearly died when I saw the quote. I couldn’t afford that, I protested.
“It’s a big area of land to cover,” their salesman pointed out. “That’s a lot of manpower, and reliable security doesn’t come cheap these days.”
“What about an automated system,” I asked.
He totted up the figures and presented me with a new bill. It was worse than the first one.
“You can’t be serious!” I protested.
“This gear is expensive,” the salesman insisted.
“But I only need it for a couple of weeks, just until the harvest comes in,” I pleaded.
After a lot of humming and hawing, he took me aside and in hushed conspiratory tones, he confided, “Listen mate, I know a guy who knows a guy, who could let you have a few things second hand like; enough to sort out your little problem. They’ll be on hire, mind you, so don’t break anything or you’ll be paying the full whack for any replacements. How’s that sound?”
I readily agreed. It was still expensive, but it was a lot less than the original quotes had been.
I would have to find the culprits and solve this problem, once and for all. I couldn’t afford to lose another harvest.
I set up a camp bed in one of the outhouses close to the orchards, and had them feed the CCTV cameras into it. As harvest time drew near, I hid out there every night, cradling my shotgun in the crook of my arm, drinking copious amounts of strong coffee, and watching the monitors for any signs of the pests.
I must have drifted off in the small hours before dawn, but was jolted awake by the blaring of the klaxons I’d had installed. Something must have triggered the infrared sensors I’d placed around the perimeter of the orchard.
The trees were lit up by fluorescent lamps, and in the glare of their bulbs I could make out a large group of shadowy figures running away.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
No flock of early morning crows had been stealing my crops. Nor for that matter were my apple stealers a herd of fleet-footed deer.
They were a bunch of rough looking vagabonds; quit a large group of them from the look of it. What could they possibly want with all my apples? Were they apple raiding each night and hauling their ill-gotten gains off to sell them to supermarkets and greengrocers in the area, or was this something even more sinister? Could they have been hired by one of my competitors, hoping to buy the farm from the bank at less than market value?
Running outside, I shouted curses at the shadowy fleeing figures and fired both barrels of my shotgun into the air, hoping to scare them away.
To my relief, it worked.
They scarpered like rats leaving the Titanic, escaping through my neighbour’s wheat fields and disappearing into the nearby woods.
I called the police, but dawn came and went without the arrival of the rapid response unit. In fact, it was close to midday before a solitary squad car pulled into my yard.
The two officers climbed slowly out of the patrol car and took my statement. They then spent an hour strolling through the orchard, taking further notes and sampling my ripe apples. They seemed more concerned with the fact that a firearm had been discharged than any robbery attempt.
“So nothing was actually stolen,” the senior officer concluded.
“I don’t know. I haven’t counted the apples, have I?”
“But they never actually entered your property …?”
“Well … no … but they were clearly about to! They even dropped some hessian sacks when they ran away. Look, that’s them, over there!” I pointed to the evidence, which I’d left untouched in the field.
They hummed at each other in a decidedly noncommittal manner.
“Aren’t you going to take them away as evidence? There could be fingerprints on them … DNA!”
“Mr Proctor, have you any idea how much DNA testing costs?” asked the senior officer.
“No, I haven’t. Listen, I pay my taxes like everybody else, and I’m entitled to the full rigors of the law.”
“Mr Proctor, we are hardly going to waste valuable police time and money on a simple littering case, are we?”
“Littering! Littering! They’ve stolen my apples; hundreds of pounds worth of apples.”
“But you’ve just told us that you didn’t think they stole anything, sir?”
“Not this time, they didn’t. I’m talking about last year, and the year before…”
“But this is the first time you’ve actually reported a theft, is that correct sir?”
“Well, yes. I thought it might be deer before!”
They both sighed dramatically. “This is how we see it, Mr Proctor. Currently, the only real crime that has been committed here is the unlawful discharging of a firearm. Now, on this occasion, we’re prepared to let the matter slide, given that no one was actually hurt and no one is pressing charges, but I must administer an official warning to you to be more careful in the future.”
“But what about the thieves?” I objected, “I have them on video, for crying out loud!”
“We have watched the CCTV footage, sir, and as far as we’re concerned, we can see no illegal activity. These people could have been out for a harmless stroll …”
“At four thirty in the morning…!”
“Mr Proctor, we live in a democracy. It’s not illegal to go for an early morning ramble.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous! I’ll be speaking to your superiors. I’ll have you know that my cousin is a Chief Inspector!”
That didn’t go down well with them. They left soon after and that was the last I heard on the matter.
I decided to get my harvest picked a little earlier than planned, and arranged for my pickers to arrive the following morning to start collecting the apples. In the meantime I was forced to spend another sleepless night patrolling the orchard for midnight trespassers.
Thankfully, there were none.
I hoped that this would be the end of the matter.
The crop proved to be a bumper one, thanks to an excellent summer. I was relieved and even the bank manager was mollified once the cheques started to come in for my goods.
Nevertheless, I had many sleepless nights during that winter, worrying about what would happen the following autumn. I needed to find a better way to keep the midnight pickers away, one that didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.
One of my tractors broke down in the following January, and I went off in search of a second hand part. I needed to cut costs wherever possible, after all.
It was while I was visiting a local scrap yard, that the idea came to me. I needed a guard dog, a whole pack of them preferably.
A quick search soon led me to a puppy farm and three rather expensive Doberman pups; two bitches and a particularly fiery-tempered male. I spend the next few months erecting fencing around the orchards, ignoring the angry letters from the bank manager, and in my spare time training the dogs.
They shot up over the summer, and by the autumn they were ready to let loose in the orchard. As the apples started to ripen, I brought the dogs out to the orchard and turned them loose within the fenced enclosure. It was time for the dogs to earn their keep.
I slept soundly that night, safe in the knowledge that my apples were in safe hands - or should that be safe paws?
I was rudely awoken in the early hours by the doorbell ringing. Whoever was pressing the button was clearly impatient. They kept their finger firmly attached to the doorbell until I dragged myself out of the bed, found my dressing gown, and staggered down the stairs to answer the front door.
“Hang on! I’m coming.”
As I yanked it open, I could see two shadowy figures blocked the doorway.
“Ah, Mr Proctor,” one of them greeted.
I recognised the voice, though the blue swirling lights that backlit the two men probably helped my sleepy brain to remember. “Officer …? Do you know what time this is?”
“Yes, sir, we’re quite aware of the time …”
“Is it the apple thieves?” I asked enthusiastically “Have you finally caught them?”
“No, sir, we’ve had a number of complaints this evening …”
“Complaints?” I asked. “I’m not surprised, if you keep waking people up in the middle of the night.”
“They’re about your dogs, sir. They have been causing quite a disturbance … sheep have been worried.”
“I’d be worried too,” I joked.
“This is not a laughing matter, sir. A file is being prepared as we speak.”
“Look, you’ve got this all wrong. It can’t be my dogs. It must be someone else’s dogs. Mine are guarding my orchard from the apple stealers I told you about, the ones you should have caught by now.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Apple Picker Gang again!” The officer’s tone hinted at mockery. “I recall the case. So is this why you had your dogs roaming around unmonitored at night?”
“They’re inside a four foot chain link fence!” I protested.
“When we finally apprehended the sheep killers, sir, we had the local vet check them for microchips. All three of them were registered to this address. I presume you have licences for them, and suitable public liability insurance.”
“What! Of course I do.”
“I’m glad to hear that, sir. That will make our jobs so much easier. We’ll let the civil courts deal with the minor matters and we can focus on the more important one.”
“Sorry,” I said, “but I think you’ve lost me there. I thought this was to do with some barking and sheep worrying.”
“It was, sir, but in the performance of our duty as keepers of the peace, we tried to apprehend the culprits. In the end, we were successful, but not without some assistance from the local dog wardens. However, three of our officers were seriously bitten during the altercation, Mr Proctor, and therefore, charges will have to be filed for assault.”
“Were my dogs harmed? I hope not. They cost me a small fortune, you know. They are purebreds.”
“Your dogs were put to sleep at the scene of the crime, sir. It was decided that they were too much of a threat to public safety to risk bringing them to the dog pound. Naturally, we will provide you with a receipt so that you can claim their bodies, once the post mortems have been done to gather evidence, but that’ll have to wait for now. You’ll need to accompany us to the station, Mr Proctor, so that we can process the charges.”
“What! I’m not even dressed!”
“We need to process the charges for assault right away, sir.”
“Hang on. You killed my dogs. How are you going to charge them with assault if they’re already dead?”
“We’re not charging the dogs, sir. We’re charging you.”
“But I wasn’t even there! I was asleep in bed. I have an alibi. You can ask my wife.”
“That’s neither here nor there, sir. The dogs were your responsibility, and trained guard dogs are as dangerous as a loaded gun. Now, if you’d like to take a minute to get dressed, we can nip on down to the station and do the required paperwork. You’ll have plenty of time to argue your case during the hearing.”
“This is ridiculous! I’m not going anywhere.”
The two officers straightened slightly, tensing their shoulders, but the senior officer remained calm as he cautioned me, “I wouldn’t make a scene, if I were you, sir. I suggest that you come long quietly. It’s been a long and traumatic night for us, and we don’t need any unpleasantness.”
“I suggest you take a running jump!” I snapped. “I’m calling the Chief Superintendent. I’ve never heard such nonsense.”
As I swung the door shut, a large black boot blocked my way, and a firm hand was placed on my shoulder. “Right! I’ve had enough of your gyp. I’m arresting you on multiple charges of assault to members of Her Majesty’s police force…”
Angrily, I tried to shrug away the hand and close the door.
Somehow, I quickly found myself face down in the garden with my arm twisted painfully behind my back. “… I’m also charging you with resisting arrest,” panted the younger officer. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be taken down, and it may be used against you …”
With excessive force, I was handcuffed, hauled to my feet, and crammed into the back seat of their patrol car.
The next hour was a blur of activity. I was strip-searched for hidden weapons despite my protests. I was fingerprinted and photographs were taken of me holding up a small placard with numbers on it. I was then questioned again and again until my head hurt. Finally, sometime after dawn, they bundled me in a large holding cell while they went off and processed my arrest.
I was not alone in the cell. There were a number of other men in there, an odd looking raggle-taggle bunch of youths with various body piercings, tattoos, and knots in their long greasy hair. Looking at them I was reminded me of the apple picking thieves that had got me into all this trouble in the first place. Was this some practical joke that the police were playing at my expense?
The men looked intimidating, and I shuffled away into a corner as far away as I could from them. Haunting images of multiple gang rapes filled my brain as I watched them nervously.
One of them, bigger and meaner-looking then the others, stood up and strolled towards me. He looked me up and down, assessing my dirt-smeared pyjamas, before reaching into his pocket of his leather jacket.
My life flashed before my eyes as I waited for the knife that would stab me in the guts.
The hand came out again. It was holding a leather pouch. “D’ya wanna smoke, mate?” he offered.
I shook my head, “I- I don’t do drugs,” I replied, backing further into the corner.
“Nah, man. It’s just tobacco. The pigs stole all our weed when we got busted, the bastards!”
He offered me the pouch again.
I’d given up smoking a few years back, but with all the stress I was under, the offer sounded tempting. My hand reached out tentatively and took the pouch. I opened it and looked inside. Inside the pouch was a mutilated packet of cigarette papers and a plastic bag of tobacco.
With a sigh, I handed it back.
“Do you want me to roll it for you?” he asked, with no mockery in his tone.
“Please … that’d be great.”
“No problem, man.” Taking the pouch of tobacco, he squatted down beside me and deftly rolled two thin cigarettes. Offering one of them to me, he dug into his pocket again and produced a lighter.
I inhaled and coughed up a lung full of smoke, before smiling my thanks.
“They call me Spike, by the way.”
“Mike, Mike Proctor.” I responded, nodding in greeting.
“What’ya in for, man?” he asked, as I slid down the wall to sit beside him.
“Assault on some police officers, oh and resisting arrest too,” I mumbled.
“Totally retro, man!” Spike cooed, grinning approval. “You did all that in ya jimjams?”
“Apparently,”
“Dude, you’re one kick-ass mother. Respect to ya, Mike Mike.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“We got hauled in on breach of the peace charges. We were nabbed during the protest last night. The pigs are all paid mercenaries. They are in the pocket of Mansinto, the bastards.”
“What protest?”
“Man! Don’t you listen to da news? There were hundreds of us there.”
“Sorry, I’ve been kind of busy lately. I don’t get to watch TV much.”
“We were all up at Loughbrook Farm, over near Ponton. There’s a big pharmaceutical company that owns some land over there. They are playing at being God, man! They are messing around with some heavy shit … G.M.O’s, ya know?”
“Sorry, I’m lost. What’s a G.M.O’s?”
“Genetically modified organisms. They’ve been doing stuff like putting the genes of a beetle into tomatoes and adding some weird fungi shit too, and then saying that it’s safe to eat their weird shit. Them dudes are bat shit crazy, man.”
“They’re really doing that? It all sounds a bit far-fetched to me”
“Oh, yeah man. They’ve been doing it for years in the U.S. No wonder that country’s fucked up. This sort of shit gets into people’s brains. All the big multinational food companies are using this stuff, MacDouchbags, Killogg’s; you name them. They don’t care. They’re only in it for the big bucks. They don’t care about the rest of us, you dig?”
“And they’re doing this here now?”
“Yeah man, they own a farm, out in Ponton, where they’re doing shit to fruit trees; some crazy fucked up shit, I kid you not! This shit was all supposed to be top secret, but we found out about it. Some of our crew were up there stealing apples for a little venture we have, making bootleg scrumpy cider, when one of the dudes got a finger bit clean off. They’ve been cloning apple trees up there, with wolf genes or something freaky, dude. Some of those apples have teeth as long as my pinkie, and the damned trees howl when it’s a full moon. Man, it’s trippy to hear, but scary too, you dig? So we organised a protest march and even got some news crews down, and everything. There was a big hoo-hah as this shit wasn’t supposed to be allowed here. They supposedly banned G.M.O’s a few years ago, but someone has obviously been greasing the palms of government, and suddenly the shit has hit the fan. They are denying any knowledge, of course, but the shits all over their faces.”
I didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but the cogs were turning in my head. I had found a plan to save my farm.
“So, what do you do, Mike Mike?” he asked
“I’m a farmer,” I replied. “I own an orchard.”
“Cool, dude.”
A few minutes later my solicitor arrived, and I was quickly released on bail, pending a court hearing in three weeks.
I was advised to plead guilty, which I did. It was, after all, an open and shut case. The dogs were clearly mine, and they’d been caught red handed in my neighbour’s sheep flock. As this was my first offence, I was bound over to keep the peace, and given a hefty fine. Thankfully, another bumper harvest came and went, and the bank manager only threw a small hissing fit when the fine had to be paid.
Once the protests had died down in Ponton, I arranged a little midnight visit, pruning shears in hand. It was a wet miserable winter’s night, so there was no one about when I climbed the fence and made my way into the orchard. Ten minutes later, I was back in the jeep, heading home, with a boot load of branches. I would have a busy winter of grafting ahead of me, but it would be worth it. My problems were over.
As the first blossoms appeared, I knew that the grafting was a success. The mutant blossoms had a deeper red to them, like droplets of blood, and they quickly pollinated and grew into apples. My own apples were a russet colour, so it was easy to distinguish then modified ones. They were deep red, even at an early stage in their development.
At first, they seemed like normal apples, but as I strolled through the orchard, I started to see an unusual number of feathers beneath the trees. I thought nothing of it until one day when something unusual happened. I was listening to a songbird singing, when suddenly, the song stopped with a loud squawk of protest and a strange crunching sound. It sounded like little bones being chewed vigorously. I looked around for the bird and saw some feathers floating down from a nearby tree. The crunching was coming from one of my mutant apples.
They were carnivorous.
I shrugged and thought nothing more about it. Why would I be concerned? They were perfect for my plan. Any would-be apple thief would soon regret stealing from my orchard.
I hadn’t, however, planned for the difficulties from my own hired hands. As the mutant apples grew, they became bolder and more ravenous. By the time it got around to harvest season, it wasn’t safe to enter the orchard. Some of the bright red apples had developed quicker than my normal apples. They had sprouted little legs and were stalking through the trees, hunting for mice, rats, or anything else that they could eat. I barely made it out alive, and would be facing a number of law suits from my pickers for minor bites. Word got out and I couldn’t find anyone brave enough to harvest my crop.
In the end, I was forced to stand outside of the fence and watch helplessly as my apples rotted away in the orchard. Thankfully, the fence I had erected kept the wolf-apples from escaping and terrorising the neighbourhood.
Eventually, as winter set in, the last of the mutant apples died of starvation and it was safe to enter the orchard again.
Chainsaw in hand, I started cutting down my apple trees. I had resigned myself to bankruptcy, and was expecting a letter from the bank any day, notifying me of their repossession. I would soon be homeless. The least I could do was stop the mutant apples from growing again next year. My prized orchard soon became a bonfire.
Thankfully, Spike and his mates had done me a deal on a cheap campervan. They’d also offered me a share in their scrumpy-making venture, given that I had so much experience with apples.
I’d already got my first piecing, and my hair was getting longer every day. I’d soon have a nice set of dreadlocks and would fit right in. The only thing I was missing was a tattoo.
October 2, 2015
The Klan
They wait until sunset before they venture out, dressed up in their white sheets. They call themselves the Klan, but we know them for what they are; a bunch of tearaways.
It all starts with a bonfire in the town square, announcing their presence to the neighbourhood.
We turn off all the lights and hide, peeking out of our shutters as they get ever closer, watching their torch-lit procession.
It doesn’t take them long to reach our house.
“Shhh,” whispers my wife, hugging our children. “Don’t answer it, Luther!”
I can’t ignore them. They know we’re here.
“Trick or treat!”
It all starts with a bonfire in the town square, announcing their presence to the neighbourhood.
We turn off all the lights and hide, peeking out of our shutters as they get ever closer, watching their torch-lit procession.
It doesn’t take them long to reach our house.
“Shhh,” whispers my wife, hugging our children. “Don’t answer it, Luther!”
I can’t ignore them. They know we’re here.
“Trick or treat!”
September 30, 2015
The Touch of Steel on Flesh
Cold hard steel.
Sharper than a witch’s stare.
Deadlier than nightshade.
The cutthroat razor pauses a fraction away from the tender skin.
Tiny downy hairs rise up as if drawn to the edge of the blade by a static charge.
The knife is held confidently.
No shaking, no tremor as it waits … poised … ready to slice deeply.
Placing the edge of the blade again the soft pink flesh before plunging deep within. Juice erupts, splattering the walls and running down the blade’s handle to stain the delicate white tablecloth.
With a sharp twist of the wrist, the peach is decapitated.
Sharper than a witch’s stare.
Deadlier than nightshade.
The cutthroat razor pauses a fraction away from the tender skin.
Tiny downy hairs rise up as if drawn to the edge of the blade by a static charge.
The knife is held confidently.
No shaking, no tremor as it waits … poised … ready to slice deeply.
Placing the edge of the blade again the soft pink flesh before plunging deep within. Juice erupts, splattering the walls and running down the blade’s handle to stain the delicate white tablecloth.
With a sharp twist of the wrist, the peach is decapitated.
September 29, 2015
Hidden in the Attic
My wife had been nagging me for weeks to clean out the loft. Personally, I couldn’t see the point. There was nothing up there but a pile of old junk, some mouse droppings, and a plague of spiders. There really were some huge spider’s webs up there, which was one of the many reasons I’d been putting the job off, but the main reason was the sense of unease I got every time I looked up at the attic door. Call it a premonition if you will, but I sensed that something really bad was lurking up there, waiting for me.
Finally, I couldn’t put the task off any longer. My wife had decided that we needed the large suitcase for an upcoming family holiday and it was up there, along with the rest of the flotsam of our lives. I would have to overcome my irrational fears and dig out the stepladder. It was time to face my demons. I promised my wife that I’d go up there and fetch the case tomorrow, as soon as I got home from work. I’d need my flashlight for the job, and it was in my locker at work.
She looked at me sceptically, eyes rolling as if to say, ‘I’ve heard that before.’
When I came home the next day, there was no getting out of it. She had the ladder propped up and ready for me as I came in the door. Even I could take the hint.
With torch in hand, I prised open the attic door. It creaked ominously and strands of cobweb pulled apart like candyfloss as I pushed the flap open and peered into the darkness beyond. I flicked on my torch. The beam of light cut through the darkness, picking out the myriad dust particles which languidly through the still air. It was cooler up there, too. The heat of the house blocked out by the thick fiberglass insulation. The thick layer of webs probably didn’t help either.
The stale air had a whiff of decay that assaulted my nostrils as I pushed the doorway farther open and climbed the last few rungs of the ladder. I stepped carefully onto the ceiling joists, and orientated myself, trying to remember where I had last put the suitcase. The sooner I was out of there, the better I would feel. For the last few weeks I’d been suffering from dizziness, and occasional memory loss, and the prescription that my wife had picked up for me from the chemist didn’t seem to be alleviating the problem. It could even be making it worse. I would have to go and visit the local G.P myself and get a check-up, and I hated doctors, but first things first, I had to find the damned suitcase, and get my wife off my back.
Swiping cobwebs aside with the torch I ventured further into the dark tomb of the loft, following the thin rafters toward the distant header tank. My heart was beating rapidly in my chest, but I couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, or spiders for that matter; though some of the specimens that lurked in the dark were large enough to give anyone pause.
I scanned the darkness in the dim light of the torch beam.
The torchlight reflected back at me from the brass corners that protected the leather suitcase, and I smiled with relief. My premonition had been paranoia, after all. All I had to do was grab the luggage and leave my overactive imagination behind me, along with the rest of the junk that I’d left up here over the years. It’s a shame I couldn’t leave the missus up here too. Life would be a lot easier.
Grabbing the handle of the case, I pulled it clear of the other detritus that lay around and prepared to leave.
It was then that I heard a clunking sound from within.
I paused.
There was something inside the suitcase. What could it be? Had my wife stashed Christmas decorations in there, or a box of old photos? .... Or was it something more sinister?
A dark image of the neighbour’s missing dog flittered through my brain, wrapped up in brown paper and stuffed into the suitcase.
I laughed nervously at my own morbid joke.
Resting the suitcase on an old armchair that I’d been intending to re-flock for years but had never gotten around to, I fumbled with the latches. My fingers trembled as I clicked the mechanisms and prised open the lid.
Within, I found an unmarked DVD case with a disk inside. Attached to the top of it was a post-it.
Tucking the flashlight under my arm, I lifted up the note. I recognised the handwriting immediately. It was my own.
Strange! I couldn’t recall seeing the DVD case before, or writing the note.
The note said: If you are reading this then it’s probably already too late!
I barely had time to register the creak of wood behind me, or to feel the sharp blow as it struck.
As I slipped into unconsciousness, I finally remembered why I’d hid the DVD up in the attic. My wife was scared of spiders, and wouldn’t have been caught dead up there.
The DVD had been given to me by a private investigator I’d hired. It contained enough damning evidence of my wife’s infidelity to ensure a quick divorce, and no alimony.
Realisation hit me, nearly as hard as the hammer to my skull.
Somehow, my wife must have learned about it, and she’d taken steps to eliminate the problem. Clearly, my cheating wife’s latest fling had no aversion to creepy crawlies, or for that matter, murder if the price was right.
Now I understood why the scheming harlot had insisted on me renewing my life insurance policy, and why she had insisted on going to the chemist for me to pick up my prescription.
Finally, I couldn’t put the task off any longer. My wife had decided that we needed the large suitcase for an upcoming family holiday and it was up there, along with the rest of the flotsam of our lives. I would have to overcome my irrational fears and dig out the stepladder. It was time to face my demons. I promised my wife that I’d go up there and fetch the case tomorrow, as soon as I got home from work. I’d need my flashlight for the job, and it was in my locker at work.
She looked at me sceptically, eyes rolling as if to say, ‘I’ve heard that before.’
When I came home the next day, there was no getting out of it. She had the ladder propped up and ready for me as I came in the door. Even I could take the hint.
With torch in hand, I prised open the attic door. It creaked ominously and strands of cobweb pulled apart like candyfloss as I pushed the flap open and peered into the darkness beyond. I flicked on my torch. The beam of light cut through the darkness, picking out the myriad dust particles which languidly through the still air. It was cooler up there, too. The heat of the house blocked out by the thick fiberglass insulation. The thick layer of webs probably didn’t help either.
The stale air had a whiff of decay that assaulted my nostrils as I pushed the doorway farther open and climbed the last few rungs of the ladder. I stepped carefully onto the ceiling joists, and orientated myself, trying to remember where I had last put the suitcase. The sooner I was out of there, the better I would feel. For the last few weeks I’d been suffering from dizziness, and occasional memory loss, and the prescription that my wife had picked up for me from the chemist didn’t seem to be alleviating the problem. It could even be making it worse. I would have to go and visit the local G.P myself and get a check-up, and I hated doctors, but first things first, I had to find the damned suitcase, and get my wife off my back.
Swiping cobwebs aside with the torch I ventured further into the dark tomb of the loft, following the thin rafters toward the distant header tank. My heart was beating rapidly in my chest, but I couldn’t understand why. I wasn’t afraid of the dark, or spiders for that matter; though some of the specimens that lurked in the dark were large enough to give anyone pause.
I scanned the darkness in the dim light of the torch beam.
The torchlight reflected back at me from the brass corners that protected the leather suitcase, and I smiled with relief. My premonition had been paranoia, after all. All I had to do was grab the luggage and leave my overactive imagination behind me, along with the rest of the junk that I’d left up here over the years. It’s a shame I couldn’t leave the missus up here too. Life would be a lot easier.
Grabbing the handle of the case, I pulled it clear of the other detritus that lay around and prepared to leave.
It was then that I heard a clunking sound from within.
I paused.
There was something inside the suitcase. What could it be? Had my wife stashed Christmas decorations in there, or a box of old photos? .... Or was it something more sinister?
A dark image of the neighbour’s missing dog flittered through my brain, wrapped up in brown paper and stuffed into the suitcase.
I laughed nervously at my own morbid joke.
Resting the suitcase on an old armchair that I’d been intending to re-flock for years but had never gotten around to, I fumbled with the latches. My fingers trembled as I clicked the mechanisms and prised open the lid.
Within, I found an unmarked DVD case with a disk inside. Attached to the top of it was a post-it.
Tucking the flashlight under my arm, I lifted up the note. I recognised the handwriting immediately. It was my own.
Strange! I couldn’t recall seeing the DVD case before, or writing the note.
The note said: If you are reading this then it’s probably already too late!
I barely had time to register the creak of wood behind me, or to feel the sharp blow as it struck.
As I slipped into unconsciousness, I finally remembered why I’d hid the DVD up in the attic. My wife was scared of spiders, and wouldn’t have been caught dead up there.
The DVD had been given to me by a private investigator I’d hired. It contained enough damning evidence of my wife’s infidelity to ensure a quick divorce, and no alimony.
Realisation hit me, nearly as hard as the hammer to my skull.
Somehow, my wife must have learned about it, and she’d taken steps to eliminate the problem. Clearly, my cheating wife’s latest fling had no aversion to creepy crawlies, or for that matter, murder if the price was right.
Now I understood why the scheming harlot had insisted on me renewing my life insurance policy, and why she had insisted on going to the chemist for me to pick up my prescription.
