They said you can’t feel it but, you can. “Such a tiny thing released into your ear. You won’t even notice.” I noticed. It made me cough and gag. And I feel it now, hooking itself onto my brain. Gradually seizing control. Our tiny new overlords from another world.
Creak
The creak on the stair wakes me every night. Footsteps follow. Faint at first, gathering volume as they make their way downstairs. A murder happened here but not here. Not really. They tore the place down. Where once stood a house, now stands a bungalow. My home. Haunted.
The Man from Oz
He’d have called himself a larrikin. Came to visit with family but, thought he’d rip a few people off along the way and then scarper back to the other side of the world. Got caught with his hands in the till, though, didn’t he? He’s never going home.
Frozen
That old chest freezer sure came in handy. Funny how things work. He’s in there freezing, while I’m out here awaiting a thaw. When Spring comes and the earth softens, I’ll move him. It’ll be worth the wait so when he’s buried, I can piss on his grave.
Some would-be killers is dumb. Come into my store and buy all their BTK copycat shit in one haul. No legal reason to stop ‘em. I make a copy of their ID. Say it’s store policy. Keep the receipts and ID in a file. For when the cops come calling.
Something ain’t right in Boone Town
No children seen. Elderly adults run Boone Town. The sound of children, though. Not laughter, not talking, grunts of an infant note. Clear as day. From the school. It ain’t no school. It’s a farm. Dentures by day hide sharpened teeth by night. The hunger for young flesh transcends all.
Duck
A slightly sun faded blue plastic duck, won at a fair, sits on my desk. It stares silently and happily into space. It has a smile on its yellow moulded beak. Until today. The eyes stare at me. Into me. The beak snarls downwards. It is angry. It wants blood.
The Visitors
The explosion rocked the street. Windows shattered, car and house alarms rang out. Neighbours streamed out of houses in puzzlement and wonder. Eyes drawn to the night sky. The brightly lit craft loomed large. Landing vehicles exited from its core and swooped to the ground. Destroying everything in their sights.
The priests work in shifts. Holed up in my room. Chanting monotonous prayers. Fighting the good fight to save my soul. Mother brings them coffee and sandwiches. A picture of worry and fright. They don’t know because they didn’t ask. I am a willing host. I asked for the Demon.
Last Christmas
A fingernail scraped at an edge of tape until it started to give, it became a tab that the nail could get under and find purchase to pull and begin unwrapping the present. The box contained pink packing peanuts. Pink from the blood that oozed within. The wet warm heart.
Shock
We never knew what caused it. He just came to school one day, a streak of white through the middle of his hair. When asked, he never answered, he’d just stare off into the distance for minutes until something broke his trance. Kids would tease him to make it happen.
After the Waves
Routine was vital. Routine was good. Tend to the vegetables. Pull water from the river. Stock up the firewood. So much to do each day. Sunup to sunrise. When the first wave came, she stayed put. By the second, she knew no help was coming. She left. Found this place.
Never go to bed on an argument, they say. We slept in separate beds last night. I heard her in the morning but, didn’t get up to see her. The house was empty when I awoke. I’m not sure why I went to that particular drawer. Her passport was gone.
Hooch 13
Marvin Gaye, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Aretha Franklin, James Brown. Mortars, bullets, tracers, mines, agent orange, napalm. Marijuana, Opium, Heroin, Speed, Alcohol. A perfect fusion of survivors’ instinct and survivors’ guilt. Bodies caked in mud, blood, sweat, and tears. Eight thousand miles from home, with a thousand-yard stare.
Alone Again Or
In the cottage Bryan woke with a start. Not sitting upright and sweating: this isn’t a movie. His eyes blinked open, wide, adjusting to the dark, straining for a light source. None to be found. Secluded island. No electricity. Bryan, the only inhabitant. Then who’s that knocking at the door?
Minxy’s Garage
Jump leads will do. Hook them up to a car battery. Plenty of them around in Minxy’s garage. Minxy’s a facilitator for the firm. The guy in the hotseat is Monroe. He’s in the firm. Or was. He talks to cops. Now he’s going to talk to me. And scream.
My hand was shaking so much, I’m not sure how I even managed to hit the target. He looked just as surprised. It’s not like the movies. He passed out, voided his bowels, and died silently in his own blood and excrement. No poignant last words. Just death.
Time’s Up
Long shadows on the driveway in the morning alerted me to their presence. I’d had a good run. Two years it took them to find me. I’d heard of others who’d been found in two weeks. I prayed I’d endure the inevitable torture. If I can’t have it, they can’t.
A Stroll
The park was bathed in golden early morning sunshine. The pathway was muddy after torrential rain. I found my way easily. The location engrained in my brain. I could find my way in the dark and had before. I was right to be concerned. A finger had been exposed.
Breakdown
A flat and no spare. Rain lashing down. Cheryl slapped her hands on the steering wheel over and over again and screamed. Blue lights flashed behind her. Relax and compose yourself, she thought, they can help you. Just don’t let them look in the boot. She put on a smile.
The recently widowed Clara Vonderheist walked down the curving staircase, pulling her billowing black hem to just above the ankle to avoid tripping, and into the hallway of the brand-new brownstone she had shared with her husband in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The Vonderheists had only been married fourteen days when Mr. Raymond Vonderheist retired to his study and blew his brains out with a small calibre pistol he kept in his desk drawer. A messily scribbled letter, left on his desk, splattered with blood and brain, rambled about demons beyond the walls. Although peculiar, Clara had thought Raymond was of sound mind and was surprised and heartbroken at his suicide.
Exactly fourteen more days had passed, and Clara had overseen Raymond’s funeral (a closed casket due to the fragmentation of his face from the close quarter gun blast) a wake, and a will reading where, thankfully for Clara, Raymond’s last will and testament had been updated on the afternoon of their marriage. Perhaps, wondered Clara, he knew of his own desperate intentions before they wed.
Today, Clara was intending to go to lunch with Raymond’s sister, Catherine. Catherine was the closest thing to a friend Clara had in New York City, having moved, and left behind her friends in her family hometown of Laramie.
In the hallway was a gold-gilded circular convex mirror which gave the image a fish-eye appearance with, beneath it, a portrait photograph of her late husband. Clara approached the mirror to set her hair, hat, and ensure her black net veil was just right. Looking at her image, Clara was overcome by a sense of déjà vu. The uneasiness overtook her, she felt a little light-headed, and almost swooned on the spot. She leaned on the ornate table in front of the mirror, her laced gloves scratched against her knuckles as they whitened.
Clara looked closer into her image in the mirror. She zoned in on her irises, staring intently as her pupils shrank slightly, adjusting to the intensity of the stare. A movement in her peripheral vision broke the spell. She felt something, someone, had moved behind her and she turned sharply, knowing herself to be alone in the house, startled.
The hallway was empty. She held her breath, listening intently for a noise, goosebumps on her forearms, she clenched her hands into fists in anticipation of further movement, of someone in the house. Nothing.
Like a strange interpretation of a playground game, Clara returned to her position, leaning on the table, and gazing into the mirror, replicating the same situation to see if the movement might occur once more. She gazed into her own eyes.
There! A shadow! An outline of a figure right behind her, looking over her shoulder. No discernible features, just the silhouette of a woman, cascading tight curls, shoulder length. Clara turned quickly and saw, again, the hall was empty.
She resumed her position and tried again.
++++++++++++
Colette Washington was running later, and her mom was on her case again. She zoned out the loud mutterings of her mom emanating from the kitchen and put in her EarPods. Jay-Z. Old school. Classic NYC hip-hop. Colette’s classmates at High School, where she was a Senior often teased her for her old-fashioned taste but, Colette didn’t care. She was one of those lucky people who knew exactly who she was, and liked it, from a very early age.
No longer able to hear her mom, no doubt still moaning about tardiness, Colette was calmer and grabbed her keys from the table in the hallway. Ready to leave, she thought she’d give herself one last look in the mirror to make sure she looked good.
The ornate gold-gilded circular convex mirror was, in Colette’s opinion, ugly. But it came with the house, and her mom had cleaned it up and cherished it as a piece of history from when these Brownstones were the latest houses on the block. Colette leaned in and looked at herself in the fish-eye reflection. Her curly hair was the longest it had been for years. Touching her shoulders. It had a lovely volume to it and framed her face perfectly with ringlets. She twisted hair in her fingers as she looked at her image in the mirror.
Colette felt a presence behind her and turned to face her mom who must have entered the hallway from the kitchen having received no affirmative replies. But the hallway was empty. Colette looked back into the mirror. A faint shadow flickered behind her. A trick of the light. She grabbed her keys and left, calling out a quick “Bye! Love you!” to her mom.
++++++++++++
Clara could stay no longer. She’d be late. She gathered herself together, straightened her dress, wiping clammy hands, and left the house.
Bright, startling sunlight enveloped her, and he squinted into the light, trying to shield her eyes from the glare.
++++++++++++
The recently widowed Clara Vonderheist walked down the curving staircase, pulling her billowing black hem to just above the ankle to avoid tripping, and into the hallway of the brand-new brownstone she shared with her husband in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
She paused, part way down the staircase and stared into the hallway at the gold-gilded circular convex mirror hanging on the wall above an ornate table.
A bright clear moon illuminated the rolling hills. The sheep reflected the glow of the moon like luminescent clouds. In bunches and at a distance, they appeared as dry ice vapours, stock-still in the cold night air. Collective breath rose from the huddle. An occasional low bleat emanated from the group.
“Christmas Eve, and we are out here in the middle of nowhere. My mates are at the Wheatsheaf. There’s a party. You could have done this without me.” Ramsey Hanson, a typical teenager, was railing against his father’s demands made upon him. He was muttering under his breath; his father was stood around fifty yards away. He thought he’d get this off his chest out of earshot of his father. The audible sigh that returned from his father’s direction proved to him he’d been unsuccessful. Noise carries in the valleys.
On his part, Jed Hanson, was equally disgruntled. He hadn’t planned on babysitting the flock either. It wasn’t something he relished or had ever had to do before but, after the attacks on neighbouring flocks, he knew he couldn’t rest easy at home and have his only course of action be hopes and prayers.
The land went dark. Almost pitch-black. Father and son looked toward each other. The darkness enveloped them, and each faded from view like a ghost disappearing into the ether.
A large cloud had drifted across the face of the moon, casting a shadow across the whole field. Jed and Ramsey each looked toward the lighter patches outside of the shadow. Human nature, to look toward the light, unwilling to linger in the dark.
They both felt the wind shift. The cloud moved on and the field was illuminated once again. In the period of darkness, all the sheep had huddled together, save for one out on her own at the edge of the field, attending to an itch by rubbing against the drystone wall. The darkness of the woods beyond loomed large. Moonlight did not penetrate the thick canopy of entwined branches.
Jed pulled at his sleeve and the cuff of his glove to read the time. Midnight. He waved to Ramsey and watched as the sullen teenager, shoulders slumped, trudged slowly towards him. As he did so, Jed slid the rucksack from his back and placed it on the ground unzipping it to retrieve the blanket, the wrapped sandwiches, and the flask of soup. He looked up in time for Ramsey to appear next to him. He passed the blanket up to Ramsey to spread out. Better they sit for a while on a dry blanket than suffer the damp grass. They were cold and miserable enough.
Jed watched as his son methodically ate one side of his sandwich, ensuring that what was left of it was narrow enough to fit into the neck of his flask and be dipped into the hot soup. Jed smiled to himself and gently shook his head. Going on nineteen years of age, yet still immature in some respects. He raised his own flask to his lips.
It was more of a scream than a bleat. Ramsey and Jed looked across the field. The flock huddled closer together, squeezing in tightly. The sheep on the periphery moved and adjusted to get themselves into the thick of the flock and seek protection.
Jed stood and looked over at Ramsey to find he was also standing. Except Ramsey was pointing too, open mouthed toward the drystone wall next to the woods.
The solitary sheep was gone, save for some rough chunks of wool left on the ground. Ramsey looked back to his father.
“Stay here, I’ll go”, Jed said quietly but firmly. Ramsey nodded in acquiescence.
Ramsey stood motionless while Jed unsheathed his rifle from its scabbard. The gun was mostly used for rabbits, although, in that moment, Jed couldn’t think of the last time he’d used it. He quietly pulled the bolt back and released a bullet into the chamber. It was a small calibre rifle but, would injure or at least scare, any predator. Jed reconsidered that view; the sheep was gone. Seemingly plucked into thin air. No mean feat given an adult sheep weighs over one hundred pounds. Jed swallowed hard and glanced briefly over to Ramsey, still immobile, watching his father intently.
Jed pulled the rifle up to his shoulder and started walking.
The ground was soft and uneven underfoot. Jed had raised the rifle to his shoulder, ready to aim and fire but, he didn’t want to lose his balance and slip or stumble, accidentally discharging the rifle, so he brought the gun back down and held it across the stock in one hand as he trudged closer to the perimeter wall and the black abyss, he knew to be the woods.
Jed was closer to the wall now, twenty metres away from the spot that the sheep was taken. He turned back and looked up the hill at his son. They hesitantly waved to each other.
The wind picked up and rattled the bare branches in the thick woodland, causing them to clatter together and squeak and groan in their matted tangle.
The flock, spooked by the sudden wind and noise, began to run, their hooves drumming on the muddy earth, as they sped towards Ramsey. Jed watched on, worried his son may try to stop or divert them and be trampled but, he remained in place and the flock swerved in unison in a wide arc around him and disappeared over the brow of the hill.
Jed turned his attention back to the wall, the woods, and the empty pocket of ground where the lone sheep once stood. He crept up on the area, ears straining to filter out the creaking of the woodland and the whistling of the wind around his ears.
Upon reaching the wall, less than a metre to its face, Jed crooked one leg, and knelt, placing the rifle on the grass beside him. He immediately felt the wetness of the ground seep through his trouser at the knee. He looked upon the ground and could see sheep droppings, wool, and blood splatters on the ground. He picked up a chunk of wool. Finding it heavy, he turned it in his hand and saw that the wool was still attached to the skin and flesh of the sheep. It had been ripped from the sheep by brute force, leaving a jagged torn edge of epidermis and sinew.
Jed reached for the rifle as he stood. He pulled the rifle up into a firing position and made the small step toward the wall. He leaned on the top of the drystone and scanned the woods as best he could, seeing only by the scant shafts of moonlight that penetrated gaps in the thick canopy.
The voice was low in volume but clear in enunciation. It spoke in English with no discernible accent.
“Season’s greetings, farmer. I bid you no ill. I am but a hungry traveller. Spare me a meal and I will bid you farewell and be on my way.”
Jed moved the rifle sight back and forth, searching for the source of the voice. He summoned what courage he had to speak, although he felt a fear and dread in his heart like no other.
“You’ve had a sheep. Let that be your meal. Be gone.”
A rasping, throaty laugh rose through the trees.
“A mere morsel, farmer. An appetiser if you will. ‘Tis Christmas, sir. I desire something more bountiful in this season of goodwill.”
“I only have sheep to offer…” as Jed spoke, he knew. He turned quickly to look back at Ramsey.
Silhouetted against the moonlight was the sum of all parents’ fears. Your child in mortal danger. Ramsey was hanging upside down. He was struggling against gravity but, Jed knew, were Ramsey to break free he’d drop several feet onto his head and break his neck. Jed’s voice caught in his throat at the first attempt, he shouted better the second, but his voice carried with it a sound of desperation and terror in an almost guttural cry.
“Don’t struggle Ramsey, stay still, lad, for god’s sake!”
Ramsey hung limply; his sobbing carried easily down the slope to his father’s ears.
Jed gazed upon the creature that held his son. It was the devil of books and fairy tales. Hooved feet, stood in the mud, with shaggy, matted long-haired furry legs, powerful and muscled led to a hulking torso heaving with every cold misty breath. The creature’s arms were equally robust. Ramsey dangled by one hand, held aloft. The beast stood at over fifteen feet tall. Upon muscular shoulders and thick neck was the head, a simile of a goats. The long snout had peeled back lips with bared jagged teeth, a whisp of a beard hung from its chin. Its eyes, even in such darkness and distance blazed in fiery amber, the vertical, slit-shaped pupils were a deep and soulless black. Atop its head the long fur began again in cascading locks encircling two enormous, curled horns that reached back behind its head, glistening in the moonlight.
“I have eaten sheep for many a night and, now I require a different sustenance, human flesh is my hunger. Your boy will suffice me this year. I shall return to this farm every year and you will sustain me or feel the force of my wrath.”
The creature lifted Ramsey high and towards his gnashing and drooling mouth.
Jed hastily raised the rifle but, he knew there was a risk he could hit his son. He was no marksman.
“Wait! Wait!” he yelled as he dashed up the hill.
The creature paused; a long bead of saliva hung from its beard. Eyeing Jed as he came within a few feet.
“I hunger. Do not delay me further, farmer!”
Jed took his chance; he raised the rifle. The shot rang out with a large crack. Missing its target by some distance, the beast had stepped forward and swotted the rifle from Jed’s grasp, breaking it in two with ferocity. Ramsey was being dragged by his ankle, face down in the mud, he’d lost consciousness. The creature roared in ear-splitting displeasure at the audacity and disrespect shown by the puny farmer.
“I’ll take great pleasure in eating the boy afore your very eyes, farmer. You displease me with your impudence.” The hulking arm raised Ramsey once again and Jed panicked.
“Take me!”
That stopped the creature in its tracks. Its eyes widened in surprise. Would this human really sacrifice itself for its kin? A bizarre turn of events for sure that gave the beast a moment of amusement. A feeling he had thought he would never again experience and was unable to remember the last time, his vicious mouth had curled at the edges to form a smile.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ramsey sat anxiously at the farmhouse table. It was a year to the day. He looked out the window at the rolling fields. Dusk was upon them; it would soon be night.
There was a soft knock at the door. Ramsey called across the room to say it was open and a young man, no more than seventeen, stepped into the farmhouse. It was Clayton.
“Evening, Mr Hanson, sorry I’m a bit late. You said to get here before dark.”
“Don’t worry Clayton, and remember, you’re to call me Ramsey.” Ramsey walked over to Clayton and put his arm across his shoulder, guiding him to sit at the table. “I know this is only your second day, so I’ll let you off but, no more of this ‘Mr Hanson’ stuff, ok? I’ve made us sandwiches and soup to take up to the top field with us. And you’re sure you’re ok working over Christmas Eve?”
“Oh yes, Mr…Ramsey, yes, yes. At the boys’ home we’d never get a Christmas Eve supper, we’d never really get a Christmas at all. This is all great.”
“Good stuff, Clayton. Let’s make a move, shall we? I want to make sure we get up there before midnight. We don’t want to keep him waiting.”
“Him?”
“Them, Clayton, them, the sheep. Sorry, slip of the tongue.”
Ramsey ushered Clayton out of the door first and said a silent prayer, asking for forgiveness, before he followed, closing, and bolting the door behind him. They made their way to the field of sheep.
“The pressure’s on now, Davy Boy!!” the whiny nasal voice grates into David’s ear, as he sits at the opulent table alone, save for his companion, the Djinn Genie. Short, near naked except for a grubby, once white, robe, the Djinn Genie must stand on a footstool to be at David’s ear and, even then, he stands on tiptoes, angling his head upwards to bring his mouth nearer.
The Djinn Genie’s foul breath is something, in all these years, David had never grown accustomed to. Manure, rotting vegetables, and putrid meat combines to make a dizzying and asphyxiating aroma of absolute revulsion.
The Djinn Genie, literally, walked into David’s life, a few days before his 10th birthday, 37 years ago. David was staying at his grandparents’ house, a small semi-detached coal board-built house in a grey street of a grim mining town. David would visit them in the summer holidays, and, on this occasion, he was in his room, casually leafing through one of his uncle’s old Fantastic Four comics, when the Djinn Genie casually walked out of the wardrobe.
“Ah! Davy Boy!” he cheerfully greeted the astonished David, “Just the soul I wished to see on this fine day.”
“What the-“ was all David could barely stutter before being interrupted by the Djinn Genie, whom David would soon learn, loved the sound of his own voice.
“I know all about you, Davy Boy. Almost 10 years old and yet, so lonely, and unhappy in your life. You have the inner misery of someone four times your age. I’m the Djinn Genie and I’m here to change all of that for you. If you want it”
Although dumbfounded by the figure before him, standing at less than a foot tall, bearded, tanned, and wiry, with a robe hanging loosely around him, like a swami David had seen in a Beatles documentary. The Djinn Genie spoke the truth and, as sad and lonely as David felt, with no true friends to speak of and a family who he largely felt disconnected to, his curiosity was piqued.
Pushing aside the bizarre circumstances that brought the Djinn Genie into his life, David accepted his visitor was real, and listened as the diminutive fellow with the bright blue eyes and expressive movements and facial expressions explained:
“I am the Djinn Genie, I am a spirit from another realm, one that is far, far away but, also close. It is beyond the walls, the doors, and floors, yet another universe beyond any reach of interstellar craft. I am, as my name suggests, a genie. And, yes, I do grant wishes but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet, Davy Boy. There are terms and conditions to the deal that I am offering.
I do have limited powers, I must admit. The genies you have read about are pure fantasy. The wishes I grant you can only be granted if they are things which are, within reason, something that you could well achieve. I just use the wish to give you a little shove in the right direction. I’m a helper and an enabler if you will.
Say, if you wanted to fly like Superman, I’d have to say No. Not possible, I’m afraid. However, if you wanted to be an astronaut, that is certainly achievable, with the right grades and opportunities. That’s where I fit in.
Now, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, Davy Boy. I’m sure, even at your tender years, you know this. For me to grant you wishes, you must provide me with something in return. I won’t beat about the bush, in return for the wishes, you only need to give me access to and ownership of your soul. What! No! Devil!! I hear your mind’s internal voice cry! Well, before you make the sign of the cross and try to banish this poor demon before you, let me explain what your soul looks like.
It’s a ball of stardust, no bigger than a peanut. You, as do all humankind, originate from stardust and your soul, is that originating small bundle of dust in a tiny pocket of gas. It is of no use to you now and it is certainly of no use to you once you are dead. However, it is of use to me.
The more souls I have, the better life I live in my realm. I’m a mere genie now but, one day, I hope to retire and become a custodian of souls. For, in my realm, souls, or stardust, is a powerful fuel that enables us to survive and thrive within our dominion.
So, you see, it’s a simple thing to give up for you, by no means anymore than giving up your appendix, an equally meaningless fragment of your being. And I’m honest enough to give you the reason that I’d like to harvest it when you sadly reach the end of your life.”
David sat cross-legged and thought it over. If what the Djinn Genie said was true, then David would have little or nothing to lose.
The Djinn Genie went on, “Now, you seem to be considering it, and that’s a good thing. But you also need to be made aware of the wishes. Now, now, don’t get ahead of yourself, I can see in your eyes you are already making a list of wishes. Let’s not be hasty. A wish is a powerful thing and, one thing the genie stories you have read does get right, is that they can have grave consequences if made in haste and without foresight. To ensure your wishes are used responsibly, they are granted once per year. The upside of this, and contrary to the stories, is that you are not limited to a meagre three wishes. You can have one wish per year for the rest of your life! Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
David’s mouth dropped open, but no words formed.
“There are terms and conditions to the wishes, Davy Boy. They are granted on your birthday and only when you blow the candles out on your birthday cake.
Now there’s a tradition that came from the genies of old but, over time, everyone has forgotten where, when or why this originated yet, almost every person who celebrates a birthday makes a wish when they blow out the candles. They all fall flat; no genie listens to or acts upon their wishes. But I, the Djinn Genie, will listen to your wishes and act upon them every single year.
There’s a catch and it’s a small one: all you must do is make sure you have the correct number of candles on your cake and that you blow them all out in one breath. You’re almost 10, so, blow out 10 candles on your birthday and you get your first wish. Easy!”
“What happens if I don’t blow out all the candles in one breath?”
“Good question. Very good. Astute thinking, I like that from you, Davy Boy. If you fail to blow out all the candles in one breath, then you forfeit your soul immediately.”
“I die?”
“Technically, yes. But a strong and healthy boy like you, I wouldn’t worry about that just yet.”
David sat back, leaning his back against the wall and considered the Djinn Genie’s proposal. A wish per year sounded amazing. There were many things he’d like to change about his life and the chance to do that was very tempting. Blowing out candles hardly seemed a big challenge and, by the time he reached an old age and couldn’t blow that hard, he’d be ok with dying anyway. Such was his age, even forty seemed ancient.
The Djinn Genie saw the thought that David was putting into it, “All you have to do is say: Yes, Djinn Genie”.
David closed his eyes, took a deep breath and said ”Yes, Djinn Genie”.
Here, David sits on his 47th birthday. Now a prolific and successful author. In his Manhattan penthouse apartment. His parents and siblings long dead (following a disastrous 16th birthday party). Two failed marriages behind him that he wished himself into and out of. Three estranged children that he felt no love for. Addicted to prescription painkillers. A functioning alcoholic.
David and the Djinn Genie have been through a lot together. The Djinn Genie has been the only constant in his life. His only…friend.
David recognises that he has made some regretful choices with his wishes. Perhaps they have done more harm than good. Is he any happier than he was 37 years ago? Debateable.
The luxurious cake sits on the table in front of him. Tiered and styled to look like a stack of books. Each spine has the title of one of his bestsellers. 47 candles sit atop. Burning bright and aflame.
The Djinn Genie hums Happy Birthday. David takes deep breaths. Getting ready. All or nothing. He knows his wish.
“Ready?” asks the Djinn Genie.
“Ready”.
A deep breath.
The candles extinguished by David’s breath. One by one. A steady and constant stream of air.
5 candles to go.
4.
3.
2.
1. David sits back and exhales the rest of his breath high into the room and away from the candle.
The single candle. Number 47 remains lit.
David smiles.
The Djinn Genie looks shocked. But he understands.
It was supposed to be another straightforward job. I’d done a few of them before. After taking risks and doing time in urban neighbourhoods, I’d found my niche.
A remote farmhouse in the countryside. Easy to view from far away through my binoculars, and easy to suss out whether the farmer was mostly alone or had farmhands or family in and out of the house throughout the day. Most of the time, they at least had a family.
I’d stay away from the larger farms, as they were sure to have teams of workers. I factored in the condition of the house. I’d look for somewhere a bit run down, as though the farm would tumble into disrepair in the next few years. It took a lot of time and research but, it was worth it. Because, occasionally, I’d hit the jackpot. An aging farmer working his farm in solitude. An easy mark.
I’d been watching Plainfield Farm for a few days. I was camped in a coppice less than a kilometre away from the house. Close enough to see and yet far enough away to remain out of sight from the farmer.
I could see that he was in his sixties. He had a bow-legged gate, a pot belly, and a shock of white hair. It looked like he wore the same clothes every day and I saw him receive no visitors except for post delivered mid to late afternoon.
If this guy was anything like the others, he’d be the strictly cash sort and an old school distrustful of banks sort. I.e., he’d have wads of cash secreted in the house somewhere. And, as these sorts of marks go, they’re usually unimaginative enough to keep their stash in a shoebox under the bed. I could be in and out of there in a few minutes and long gone soon after. This guy wouldn’t even know he’d been robbed till the next time he went to retrieve some money from his stash. I could be as lucky for that to be days from now.
The Plainfield Farmer would generally stick to the same routine: he was always up before dawn and, with the kitchen light making the net curtains transparent, I watched him make porridge for breakfast, and prepare a lunch to take out into the fields with him. I’d followed him the day before and could see he had a fair bit of fence repairing to do, so I figured this would be his routine for the foreseeable. He’d return to the house at dusk, make himself something to eat and, after what looked like a couple of hours of television, he’d head upstairs before lights out around 10pm.
I had a huge window of opportunity throughout the day, and I fully intended to use it that very next morning.
I awoke before dawn and watched on as the Plainfield Farmer began his morning routine. He was out of the door around 6:30am, and I waited. Patience is a virtue in this game. I steadily packed my tent and supplies up and placed them in my car a few hundred yards beyond the coppice.
And I waited some more. It had taken the Plainfield Farmer an hour to get to the broken fence. I allowed a little more than that just in case he’d forgotten something and returned to the house.
I took my empty rucksack, placed it loosely over my shoulders and began my leisurely stroll back through the coppice and made straight for the house. It was of no matter to me that I was cutting straight across the fields ahead. I doubted the police, when they were eventually called, would send experienced trackers out this way.
Upon reaching the house, I looked for a way in. Maybe he’d left a window open or, better yet not even bothered to lock the door – Bingo! I opened the unlocked door and entered the hallway. I kept my discipline and stalked quietly through the house.
Everywhere was grimy and untidy. The Plainfield Farmer may be meticulous in his farming but, he was haphazard in his interior design and general hygiene.
Unwashed pots lined the worktop next to the sink. Several mugs of half-drunk tea in varying states of decay and mould growth. I spent little time in the kitchen, the putrid smell almost put me off the purpose of my visit. I regained my composure in the lounge, where a sunken sofa that may once have been green, was now, like everything else, soiled with smoke and ash from the fireplace in which sat the remnants of a few burned out logs, papers and, what looked like scraps of food. I made a perfunctory search of the cabinets, only finding the sort of general bric-a-brac someone can collect over the years.
I creaked my way up the stairs and happened upon the Plainfield Farmer’s bedroom at the first attempt.
A wrought iron bed was centred on the far wall, with a singular bedside table next to it, piled high with books: Stephen King, Newton Thornburg, Larry McMurtry: an eclectic mix. There was a dresser, complete with mottled and cracked mirror sat atop at an angle. And a large wardrobe, ornate and yet ugly, dominated the wall behind me next to the door.
I noticed, on top of the wardrobe, the edge of a shoebox, only just visible from my viewpoint. I reached up to retrieve. Such was the height of the wardrobe, I had to use the tips of my fingers to gain purchase under the lip of the shoebox lid and deftly manoeuvre the box closer and closer to the edge until, eventually, it fell from its place and clattered down onto me, spilling its contents.
In that moment, I truly thought I had hit the jackpot. I thought the paper cascading onto me and fluttering all around was a shower of money. It wasn’t. Once the box had fallen to the floor and the contents had stopped falling, I noticed that these were photographs. They were polaroids. And they contained images that I had not expected nor would ever wish to see.
I could only assume that these were the handiwork of the Plainfield Farmer and that he’d also constructed the grizzly scenes that were depicted in each. I felt bile rise in my throat but, forced it down, as I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself.
I made sure to put almost all of them back in the box and return it to the top of the wardrobe. I kept 6 photos where the faces of the boys could be seen. I would be sure to make an anonymous delivery to Scotland Yard when I returned to the city and allowed the dust to settle on my break-in.
I took another moment. To remember why I was there. To accomplish what I set out to do. And glad that I could get this sick pervert put way soon after.
I knelt by the bed and then lay flat on the floor peering into the darkness beneath the bed. I could make out the silhouette of something under there, so I leaned further under, stretching my hand out to grasp it.
I heard the metallic clang but, I didn’t quite realise what had happened until I pulled my arm back from under the bed and saw the space where my hand should be. I felt no pain, only confusion. Total incomprehension of what was occurring. Blood oozed out of my wrist where a jagged line showed the exact place my hand had been severed.
In a daze, I scrambled around to the other side of the bed and retrieved my hand. It had ben removed by some sort of animal trap. I clasped it in my left hand and stumbled out of the room. My severed hand still felt warm.
Pain was flowing as much as the blood now and my vision clouded, and spots flashed before my eyes. I staggered down the hallway, smearing blood across the wall as I tried to keep myself upright.
In my confusion, I had gone the wrong way. I found myself in another bedroom. This one was full of videotapes. Wall to wall and stacked upon shelves, labelled, and dated in marker pen: “Adam Oct ‘99”, “Henry Apr ‘15”, there were hundreds of them.
I turned and vomited. I knew the shock was hitting me and that I had to get out of there. I clambered down the stairs and to the door. I fumbled at the latch. It wouldn’t open. I tried to be calm and concentrate but, the door was locked. How could it be?
I weaved back down the hall to the back of the house and scrabbled at the handle relieved to find the door opened and I rushed out into the bright sunlight that soon surged into bright white light.
****************
I opened my eyes and groggily blinked and squinted. It was night, that much I could tell. I felt a numbing warmth all over my body. I knew that feeling. I’d been drugged.
I was laid flat on the ground, in thick mud. I tried to right myself, only to find I was pinned to the floor. My arms and legs were tightly wound with wire and the wire was, in turn, connected to iron spikes pegged deep into the ground. I squirmed as best I could in the boggy mud, hoping to move them, but they held fast.
In the darkness, I could see that I was slick with mud, and I could smell animal excrement. I was sheltered, as though in a barn but there was little to no light, and I strained at the neck to lift my head to see further.
A security light clicked on and blinded me with a shaft of light. I closed my eyes tightly from the glare. I opened them slowly as I heard someone shuffling along the outer wall and a bolted gate being slid open. I looked to see the Plainfield Farmer looking back at me, hands on hips.
“Well, well, you’re awake. I wasn’t sure you’d survive the blood loss to be honest.” He stepped confidently through the mud and stood beside me, he squatted slowly down to look at me.
I opened my mouth to speak but, stopped as he shushed me with a finger held up to his lips.
“Now, now, you’ll have plenty of time to speak,” his eyes brightened, and his eyebrows raised, “to scream and holler all you want.” He grinned.
“I, I can go, just let me go, I won’t come back, I’ll go and forget I ever came here, I will just go, please let me go,” I pleaded.
The Plainfield Farmer, dug into his pocket and pulled out the polaroids I had taken from him and fanned them at me. “I don’t think that was your plan, son. You’re a thief. You’re scum and yet you are taking the moral high ground over me. No sir.” He raised himself back up and let me have an almighty kick to the ribs. I felt and heard a crack.
“I was going to tell you about why I do what I do. About my childhood and the wrongs, I suffered at the hands of others but, well, that just isn’t the whole truth of it. I enjoy it, plain and simple. And had you been a little younger, I’d have had some fun with you too but, I don’t like that you’ve seen the photographs and I don’t like that you’re a thief. There’s no innocence in that. So, I’m going to let my girls have fun with you instead. I’ll go get them.” And with that he raised his head, turned, and walked away.
“Mister…mister…m-“ he ignored my shouts.
“Here we go my lovelies, you’re going to like this fella, yes you will, you’ll have a lot of fun with this young man. “he baby-talked to his girls.
That was when I heard the grunting and squealing. His girls were pigs and, by the sound of it, he had plenty of them. I heard him release a bolt towards the bottom of the barn. I heard the grunts and the clattering of the pigs hauling themselves through the opening and into where I laid. I realised I was in a pig pen.
The smell of mud and excrement filled my lungs as I first inhaled and then I let out the loudest and last scream of my life. The pigs were upon me, gnashing and tearing at my flesh.
There was no way in hell that I was going to meet Savoy Monro without a gun.
Minxy Edwards had loaned me his on account of him being in arrears to me for covering for him with his missus. She’d popped into the Bellevue club after her sixth sense, coupled with Minxy stumbling in smelling of expensive scotch and cheap perfume for three Fridays running, had tingled, and told her to drop into the club unannounced, and catch him with his bit on the side.
If she’d rocked up a few minutes later, she would have. As I was sat there, his bird, the ironically named Jezebel, had just whispered a sweet something into Minxy’s ear that had got him speed walking to the bogs to get jonnies, whilst trying to hide his excitement. Come to think of it, he owed me the change I’d lent him for that too. Fucking Liberty.
As Minxy’d re-entered the bar all red faced and sopping sweaty, no doubt drooling over re-entering Jezebel later, he nearly tripped over his jaw. This was after it dropped swiftly down to the shag pile at the sight of Glenda, Minxy’s missus.
I’d clocked Glenda coming in and sized up the situation in quick time. I’m sharp like that. I let Minxy sweat and watched his eyeballs tick back and forth between the two women for a few beats. Then I took Jezebel by the hand and led her out the club, being sure to pointedly offer salutations to Minxy and his dear wife on the way out. Jezebel went along with it all the way back to my place where she lived up to her name a few times.
Maybe Minxy isn’t in debt to me after all the poor sap.
His shooter was a snub nose .32 revolver. Minxy liked his cop shows and he’d sought one out especially, even though there was little use for a gun, even in our line of work. It was generally still seen as an unseemly thing to do. Why shoot someone dead, when you could stab someone and let them live to tell the tale…and bear the scars? A .32 is a loud and pretty poor gun for killing someone, unless you empty all the chambers into your target at close range. That was something to ponder.
Savoy Monro and I had a past, a present, and an immediate future that was looking more and more like Gunfight at the Ok Corral. We’d possibly scrapped many a time when we went to opposing schools on opposite sides of the rail tracks in Bearswood. And our burgeoning careers in crime had intertwined occasionally as each of us freelanced across the gangland landscape of the city. However, we had never found ourselves in immediate hostility. Sure, we had a mutual dislike but, kept out of each other’s way and reviled from afar. That was until Old French.
Over the course of my adolescent years, the broader gangland empires had settled into two main factions controlling the city:
There’s my lot, the Hamptons – working out of the Freeman district and run by Arty Hampton – nightclub impresario by night, pimp, dealer, and protection racketeer…also by night. He was virtually nocturnal, old Arty. Arty the Owl we called him. Not to his face, mind, he was Mr. Hampton, unless you were, like me, part of his inner circle.
Then over near Rondon, there’s Savoy’s mob: The Crowley’s. Raymond and Montague Crowley. A couple, in every sense, who operated in similar business ventures. There was a lot to like about Raymond and Montague. They were much more professional and were working on legitimising most of their business. They, unlike Arty the Owl, moved with the times. In a parallel universe, I’d be working for them and quite happily turn from gangster to businessman, in due course.
But, as luck would have it, I was a Hampton lad and Savoy was a Crowley boy. We disliked each other professionally and personally from afar until we inadvertently found ourselves partners in Old French. Old French was a thoroughbred greyhound. A deep grey bitch with a bloodline tracing back to some aristocratic racing hound in the Loire valley sometime before the French Revolution.
I had zero interest in greyhounds and even less interest in owning one. But, in an after-hours poker game over at the Bellevue Club, where I was playing hands from inside a bottle of scotch, I’d allowed Peachy Milburn (Peachy on account of the soft fuzz covering his balding bonce) to put in his half of Old French in the pot to see my four of a kind, that beat his full house. Had I known the other 50% stake of Old French was in Savoy Harris’s name, I’d have folded and lost the monkey, instead of gaining half a dog.
In the few weeks since, Old French had won a few races and won each of us a healthy return on our investments. All of that should have made for us becoming great chums but as is Savoy Harris’s wont, he became an even greater pain in the arse than even I thought he was capable of. And I had great faith in Savoy Harris’s capacity to be a cunt.
The way I heard it was Savoy Monro had been out and around town showing off the prize-winning mutt and, had left Old French in his car while he’d gone to sleep it off. The fact it was an abnormally hot day is no excuse. Savoy Monro returned to find a baked Old French prone on the backseat.
I’m no animal lover but, that’s beyond the pale for me. I could only imagine what the poor pooch had been through trying to scratch and claw its way out of his motor.
Savoy Monro had, no doubt, got wind of me looking for him and, he’d made the requisite calls to arrange to meet me. Of course, it was on his own turf, in a room above the Rondon Snooker Hall. And midnight would have to make do, as neither of us would be awake before high noon.
The .32 was tucked into my waistband. I’d made a few practise draws to check I could get the gun out swiftly, as, and when needed, and I knew it was unlikely I’d get searched given that shooters are a rare commodity. I was fifteen minutes early, on the off chance he might not be prepared for me but, of course, he was already there and waiting.
Savoy Monro was bolshy enough to have his back to me, as I walked into the apex room. It was dimly lit but, I could see well enough. Blue smoke hung in the air, and I followed its trail to the source between Savoy Harris’s pudgy fingers. He took a final drag, exhaled slowly, and stubbed out the smoke on a wooden crate as he turned to face me.
“Now then, Ted, how funny that we’ve been business partners for the best part of a month, and this is the first time we have a business meeting. To dissolve our partnership as it were.”
“Cut the crap, Savoy. You killed my dog, you stupid git. I’d loathed to be in any partnership with you but, as long as it was winning and earning, I was willing to tolerate it.”
“Okay, okay, Ted. Let’s all relax shall we. I want to make amends, I really do. I have your original stake here for starters”.
Savoy Monro gave me his best shit-eating snidey grin, as he turned back away from me. He returned to face me with a large bin bag in his hand. I’m not the sharpest but, I’m not dim either. As Savoy Monro dropped the bag on the table in front of me, I knew that it did not contain the £500 I was owed from Peachy’s bet. I prised open the black bag and found the remnants of Old French staring back at me. That disgusting bastard had only gone and cut the fucking thing in half.
Rage enveloped me. I pulled the shooter from my waistband and strode around the table to a no longer laughing Savoy Harris. I put the gun barrel up to his eye and was about to blow what little brains he had out of the back of his head and across the wall. Instead, I picked up the bag of half an Old French and covered his head with it. I gripped the bag tightly at his neck as he retched and squirmed, pissing himself, as I used my other hand to dig the gun into his guts. I shot him twice in the stomach and once in the head as he slumped in the corner, defecating himself with his last dying breath.
I walked from the snooker hall and smiled to myself. Savoy Monro was an itch I’d been wanting to scratch for years.
Writer on the Storm 