Black soul rose by John Jones... - HTML preview

Kieran

Kieran was back in the cell. He had assaulted another officer just to make sure he would be spending time here, and was currently hunched in the corner, muttering to himself as if he wasn’t in a police cell at all, but an asylum.

The desk sergeant on duty brought him a Styrofoam cup of tea, but when he looked through the hatch he changed his mind. He didn’t want to disturb him.

Kieran was in his own little world, as if he didn’t know where he was.

Replacing the hatch, he went back to his station to drink it himself.

Kieran had time to mull everything over, but all he could think about was his parents, and the smiling face of Brett. They occupied his mind in clarity as if their ghosts were trying to tell him something telepathically. Perhaps asking him to find justice.

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Memories flooded like the tide at a seashore. In comes one memory, then it recedes. In comes another.

However, the policeman who was about to drink Kieran’s tea did not know what he was uttering.

He had shed no tears since their deaths, and this troubled him.

“Why can’t I grieve?...why can’t I grieve?...why can’t I grieve?” he whispered.

In the back of his mind he thought he knew the answer.

The perpetrators. Their murderers had not been brought to justice. Had not been punished.

Perhaps when, not if, he thought, they are, maybe then the tears would come.

He was also worried that if they answer for their crimes, that they wouldn’t.

What if I can’t cry?

He leaned his head against the wall, as their images came in from the shore again.

In the morning, Dorothy was looking down at Glenn who was still caked in horse blood, lying on the sofa in a foetus position.

“Morning,” she said, “you know you can take a bath”.

“Maybe later,” he muttered. He was more disappointed in himself for snapping and murdering the student, for putting them all in danger.

Sometimes it didn’t matter what outside punishment there was, the inner disappointment and anguish at failure was more than enough castigation for the conscience to rip through the mind.

“I fucked up,” he muttered.

“Yes, we know,” she said. Then there was a knock on the door.

A knock. Dorothy looked at the door like a rabbit looking at an oncoming car, and Glenn sat up straight.

“The others would just let themselves in,” he said. Dorothy waved her hand towards the bathroom.

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“Go and clean yourself up,” she said quietly. Glenn did, and Dorothy answered the door to find the young girl whom she had met in the reception area recently.

“Hello, yes, what do you want? Can’t you read the sign on the gate that says closed?”.

“Who are you?” the girl asked, “I’m here for work on reception, where’s Bill?”

“Everyone’s left, sold us the horse sanctuary, and we closed it, so sorry, find another job”. Dorothy was about to close the door when she remembered that Glenn needed another body, and needed it now.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “of course, you’re girl from the shop. Forgive me. Old age and all that. Do come in, we need to discuss the terms of your new employment”. She opened the door wide, but the girl just stood there curious for a few moments.

However, she slowly stepped inside, and Dorothy closed the door.

“Glenn,” she shouted.

“What? I’m just getting a bath”.

“I don’t care, get out here,” The girl looked on edge, but not enough to head for the exit.

A few moments later Glenn appeared wearing a bathrobe. He had wiped away most of the horse blood, and looked at the girl with curiosity.

“How d’you fancy being a teenage girl?” Dorothy said, and gripped her hair and yanked it back. She yelled and Glenn laughed. Her throat was grabbed also and squeezed so her mouth opened but she could not scream. Her eyes looked at the elderly lady with fear.

“Yes, okay,” he said, and stepped across to a three-drawer unit where on one side was a small door with a protruding key which he opened. Besides two bottles of vintage wine and small cognac, was the flask of black rose seeds. He unscrewed the top and removed two, looking at them in his palm like they were precious jewels.

Choking sounds came from the girl, although she could breathe. He stepped across and smiled at Dorothy.

“Alright…goodbye Glenn,” he said. Dorothy smiled.

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“Farewell”. He stuffed a seed deep into her mouth so she could do nothing but swallow. Dorothy and Glenn stepped back and watched her. Glenn also swallowed a seed.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the girl yelled, taking one step towards the door. “I’m telling the pol…” she collapsed to the floor. Glenn stepped back further, gave Dorothy and wave, and collapsed also.

Dorothy stepped across to the unit and put the lid back on the flask, and held onto it whilst watching Glenn and the girl.

It took a few minutes. Always a precarious time in the soul transferal. It had worked every time, but there was always that worry that this time it wouldn’t.

However…

The girl slowly moved, opened her eyes, lifted her head and looked at Dorothy and smiled. She tentatively got to her feet and stretched.

“Well fuck,” she said, moving around as if warming up for exercise. “I’m a young girl,” Dorothy nodded.

“Yes you certainly are, now go out the back and have some fun with the others.

They don’t know”.

The white horse ate some of the hay that Herbie was giving to it over the wall.

“Oi, stop that Herbie, I’m calling the police, I’ve heard you’ve been possessed by an 18th century convict”. Herbie’s brain, before he turned and looked went into sudden alarm mode, and in a split second he thought: what the fuck? I don’t recognise that voice, and how do they know..?

It didn’t help when he did turn around to see a teenage girl heading towards him, pointing an accusing finger.

“Now turn yourself in I’m onto you”.

One of those fucking students found me out, Herbie thought.

“Only joking,” the girl said with a smile, “It’s me, Glenn,” she stopped and gestured to her figure. “I’m a young girl”. A few of the others were further out in the yard, and had stopped and stared, but when the girl and Herbie waved them over, they understood she was one of them.

“Fuck,” said Sam, “that was quick. Well, now you’re a girl, and you were Glenn, now you can be Glenda”. Glenda nodded.

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“Pleased to make your acquaintance everyone,” The others, except Sam went back to what they were doing, which wasn’t too much. Yard maintenance or lounging around.

“I’ve got a job for you young lady, follow me”. Sam walked towards the stables, and pushed open the wooden half-door.

“This place looks familiar,” Glenda said, and both of them were unaware of the stench wafting over them from the ravaged horse taking up most of the middle.

Its fleshy innards were strewn around and bones protruded around flaps of skin.

Blood had soaked into the hay. The only dry place left was around the sides.

The other two stables were similar. The edible parts of the horses had been eaten or stored in freezers beside the bungalow.

They came to the sanctuary owner at the rear, who had been unchained and stripped naked, all of his back and arms glued to the wall. His wide eyes pleaded with them and muted sounds came through his sewn-up lips.

“Do us a favour,” said Sam, pointing at the horse, “cut off the horse’s cock”.

“What? I may be a young girl, but I’m not touching horse dick”.

“Well, grab some of those tongs that they use to shoe horses and a knife. You don’t have to touch it”.

“And the reason you can’t do it is because..?”

“Well I don’t want to touch a horses dick do I? and we all need something to do round here, so go get a load of tools and bring in Dorothy with her sewing kit or whatever it is”.

When she had gone, Sam stood by the helpless man and prodded his belly.

“Feasting on horse meat yourself. You’ve not been fed for days, and yet you still have this belly”. The man tried to yell, but Dorothy had done a thorough job of sewing his mouth.

“Sorry what was that? Oh yes, don’t care”. Sam stepped into the viscera and picked up the horses intestines and brought them over to rub onto his face.

“Hungry? Oh you can’t eat can you?”

“Sam what are you doing?” said Dorothy, walking in with Glenda, both carrying several tools.

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After a few moments, Glenda was kneeling in the flesh with a paring knife, slicing away at the base of the horses penis. Meanwhile, Sam gripped a bow-saw and stepped across to the man.

“Close your eyes,” he said with a grin, “this is going to hurt,” and he placed the vicious blade under the man’s testicles so they were resting against the steel.

He didn’t stop there, and began to saw upwards, ripping through the skin. The man screamed and screamed as best he could, one thread in his mouth snapping, his eyes watering as the blade tore up through the base of his genitals, which then fell to the floor, blood pouring from the ragged, gaping wound.

Glenda had brought in a sharp steak knife from the kitchen and stepped through the horse flesh to stand before him. She pressed the tip of the knife to the bloody wound and slid it in about five inches, then quickly withdrew it. More blood pumped out.

“Oh look,” she said, “he’s got a pussy now,” They all laughed. Dorothy stood up with the horse’s penis in the tongs.

“Okay, now sew it onto him,” said Sam, “I want to see if the blood flows into it”.

“You want to see if he gets a horsey boner?” said Dorothy.

“I know he won’t get erect, but I want to see if blood flows into it”. Dorothy set to work, sewing the penis onto the man’s wound. The man was almost fainting, but Sam punched him awake.

“Come on now wakey-wakey, don’t you want to see your transformation?”

They watched for a while as the base of the horse penis was sewn onto the man’s crotch, and soon Dorothy stood back, admiring her work.

“Well isn’t he a big boy?” said Glenda.

“Glenda, go get the others,” said Sam, so she did.

A few minutes later they were all in there, standing oblivious amongst the horse viscera, pointing and laughing at the man as though he was the victim of a school bully.

“Nearly as big as mine,” said Jordan, rambler man. They all laughed again.

“So, what exactly is the experiment?” said Boyd, the teenage boy. Sam was standing next to the man and pointed at the penis.

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“Well this is just part of it. I wanted to see…hang on, here we go”. The man was moaning, his screaming having exhausted his lungs for now.

Out of the tip of the penis, blood began to drip as though a tap had not been turned off properly.

“Yay…” he said, “nice work Dorothy,” She smiled sheepishly.

“Okay, now below the knees I want to remove his legs and replace them with the horses”. Sam knelt down and began using the bow-saw just below the kneecap. Meanwhile Herbie set about removing the back lower legs of the animal.

The horse outside in the field opposite could hear muffled screaming and bones being sawn. It picked up on the negative atmosphere around the place since the new owners had moved in, and its instinct was to escape, to want an exit. There was none however. Not for this horse, and it wandered around, alone, helpless.

At one point it even contemplated leaping over the fence, but it was too old and in no shape to do that. The days of leaping over things was long behind it, so it mulled around its field, a field even the previous owners had not taken it out of since it was ‘retired’ three years ago. Yet it didn’t care. It would probably live out its days here, but at present, it longed for the fields beyond.

The glue on the man’s back and arms kept him attached to the wall as his lower legs came away.

Dorothy was soon back to work sewing on the lower horse legs. Sam also smeared some of the glue which was nearby to reinforce the join.

The man was threatening to fall unconscious again but Glenda slapped him awake and the hooves slammed on the floor.

They all stood back and watched as he writhed, his ‘feet’ loudly clopping and clopping on the concrete. No hay there to muffle the sound.

“Alright,” said Sam, pleased with himself. “Our horse man. Glenda, go and grab a towel please”.

“A towel, why?” but she wasn’t answered, and went and retrieved one anyway.

“Herbie, cut away some of the horse skin, about the size of this guys belly and chest”. Herbie went to work.

Amongst the tools brought in was a Stanley-knife, and Sam picked it up, stepped across to Bill and raised it to his collar-bone, drawing it lightly across, slicing away skin. Again he tried to scream as the skin of his chest and stomach 193

was gradually peeled away, Sam careful not to cut too deep so his innards spilled out.

Glenda came back in with the towel as he was slicing above the horse penis.

The others were standing watching, like medical students studying a dissection.

He cut away the last part of the stomach and threw it into the horse viscera.

There was glistening red muscle, and the ribs pushed against the thin fragile membrane, just keeping it from ripping. There wasn’t too much bleeding.

“Okay Glenda, wipe him down, and wipe down the horse skin. I want them both dry”. While she did that, Sam picked up and readied the rest of the delo-monopox glue still in the tin.

He poured it over the man’s stomach and chest.

“Okay, Herbie, give this man his skin back”. Herbie pressed the horse skin to the man which looked like a thin rug. He put it on as best he could, and they all stood back, admiring their horseman.

“I think the answer to whether or not you can turn a man into a horse, is a resounding no,” said rambler man Jordan.

They just watched the struggling man for a few moments.

“Okay let’s take him down. Jordan, Dorothy, grab a hand each. Kat, grab a clavicle”. Sam and Kat gripped his collar-bones, and the others took a forearm each.

“On the count of three we pull”, The man still tried to scream, his eyes in tears.

“3-2-1 pull”.

They pulled.

The man was torn from the wall with ripping and cracking, some of his spine and ribs remaining, and part of his hip-bone with patches of flesh, blood splashing to the concrete. He landed amongst the horse flesh and bones.

They stood around, looking down at him. His eyes bulging and something straining from his sewn-up mouth.

“Is he still alive?” said Glenda. She stepped across and grabbed an axe they had brought in. She chopped and chopped at his neck until his head was almost severed. Just a piece of skin remained attached, but then she chopped that too, his head amongst horse lungs.

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Boyd the teenage boy went into the reception area and sat down on the swivel chair, stretching. There was a blank laptop in front of him, and next to that, a telephone.

A telephone which rang.

He just stared at it as though he didn’t know what it was or what to do, so stood up and grabbed it, ripping the contraption away and throwing it at the wall, then sat back down again.

He didn’t have time to rest however, when he heard a voice from outside.

“Hello…anybody there?” a voice which didn’t sound like any of the others. He sighed and stood up, opening the reception/shop door and looking out at the gate where a man and woman stood looking concerned.

Boyd walked slowly across, cautiously, and when he reached them saw that behind the closed gate with the closed sign over it was a girl of about six holding the woman’s hand.

“What’s happened? where’s Bill? why is it closed?” she asked.

“We bought and closed it,” said Boyd, “sorry but you’ll just have to go,” and he pointed to the sign.

“See, we’re closed”.

“This is Janice,” the man said, looking at the little girl and back again. “We adopted a horse and it’s kept here. Once a week she comes to visit and ride it.

We’re here to do that”.

“The horses,” Boyd said, the gears in his mind turning fast. Herbie emerged from the side of the archway leading out to the back-yard on his way to the haybarn with a spade, looking across with curiosity and suspicion.

“All our horses just ran away,” he said.

“Ran away?” the man said with a frown.

“We took them out into the field for a bit of a run around, and they just ran away,”

The family looked at each other, midway between believing and not.

“Mummy, where’s Jakesy?”

“Jakesy has gone running into the countryside with the others, so you’ll find him out there. If you find it, don’t bother bringing it back, keep it.” Then he 195

turned and walked away, thinking perhaps he should offer them some horse meat from the freezer, but decided against it. When he reached the doorway to the reception/shop, he looked back and they were still there. However, they gradually moved away and wandered back down the path.

As he watched them fade from view, another person emerged, heading to the gate. An elderly woman who walked rather slowly as though shy. Boyd sighed and walked back across.

He pointed at the sign across the gate.

“See that sign,” he said loudly, “says closed”.

“Sorry, young man, but you don’t happen to know…” Herbie emerged from the barn and walked back across to the archway.

“Herbie!” shouted the woman, and Herbie looked up, surprised, and realised it was his mother.

“How the fuck..?” muttered Boyd. Herbie had no choice but to walk across.

“Hello…mum,” he said.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Boyd said, walking away.

“Herbie love, what are you doing here? Come home”.

“I can’t mother, this is my new...” but then thought, perhaps to help remain hidden, to divert attention away from the sanctuary, he could perhaps go along with his mother and see what the family situation is like. He guessed it was just the both of them, and if it was, then when he got there he could murder her and claim another free house.

It could be a place to lure Kieran if he emerged to kill him. Another option where they wouldn’t be seen.

Plus she would maybe keep fussing, and coming to the sanctuary to persuade him. She may bring others, and if she thinks there’s something wrong with him psychologically then she may be the type to bring in a doctor, or psychologist.

So to appease and dissuade her, it would probably best to go along.

He nodded solemnly. “Okay mother, I’ve just been having some mental issues lately because I was so traumatised by those children, but I think I’m better now, just let me go and tell the others. I’ll be two minutes”.

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Out in the back, by the stables, the stench of rotting flesh pouring over them unnoticed, they had gathered around.

“Look folks, my mother is here and she wants me to go home, and I’m going.

I’ll see what the score is because I may get a free house out of it. I’ll kill her so she doesn’t poke her nose into our business, and I’ll be back later”. They all nodded in agreement, except rambler woman Sam.

“Just remember what happened last time. You were ambushed by some others.

Including your mother, so invite her in here and we’ll kill her now”.

“A free house though,” said Glenda. “It’s another base from which we could maybe kill Kieran”.

“That’s what I thought,” said Herbie, “if I am ambushed it’ll only be by those who believe in the paranormal, still wanting to know if I’m possessed, or by that other fat fucker Bean-head. But they’ve got nothing to go on. It won’t be the police to arrest me because they’ve got nothing to go on either, unless the silly bint has reported me missing, but whatever it is I can handle it. We’ll still be hidden and have a new free house”.

“Alright,” sighed Sam, “be back as soon as you can.”

A few moments later Herbie was walking along the sloping path with his

‘mother’.

“Oh it’s so good to have you back, I’ve missed you you know son,” she said hugging his arm as they walked.

Although he knew he was going to kill her, along the way back she made it more difficult for him, because she was just one of those people who were consistently ‘nice’. There didn’t seem to be a hostile bone in her body. Nor did it ever seem like there was ever one. She would see the positive in everybody.

The harshness of reality and life’s challenges seemed to bypass her somehow, and she could be totally oblivious to it all living her life in a nice little bubble. A small woman who always wore dowdy clothing, large glasses and a knitted hat.

Who walked through life in seemingly only ever two moods. Happy or worried.

Her bubble used to include Herbie. Upon whom she doted. A fussy mother who was basically his carer. Wrapped him in cotton-wool, who would give him anything he asked most of the time. Never shouted at or disciplined him. An only child with a father who had made it past all her suspicious defences of men. A man who had worked for a medical charitable organisation, and was sent 197

out to the Phillipines where he caught dysentery and died of complications. So Herbie became her world, even though he kind of was already, to the point where he would have found it difficult to leave the nest. He became a kind of

‘geek’, with flights of fancy about being a detective, a pilot? an archaeologist.

Things that even his subconscious told him were possibilities. He really believed he could be any of these things, and would try and pursue them until the novelty wore off where he would want to be something else. He was a dreamer, not a doer. Well, he used to be, until Herbie died.

They came to the caravan park, and Herbie halted.

“Do we have to go through here?”

“It’s the quickest way back, and I want to do you your favourite soup, and you can tell me all about what happened, why you went off with those people”.

So they went through the caravan park, surprisingly short of students. Herbie realised they were probably in university. There was only one or two milling around, and he hoped he didn’t see Bean-head. The cordon where the student was murdered was still there, as was the tape across the burnt-out caravan, so they took a slight detour.

He didn’t see Bean-head, and left the park with quiet relief.

They walked for around another mile in a south-easterly direction, along quaint little houses that were threatened to be overgrown with bushes and flowers, then across a junction to houses that were still quaint, but probably cost slightly less.

From across the road a neighbour called and waved.

“Glynis, you got him back that’s amazing,” they wandered across, Herbie standing there sheepish.

“What happened?” the neighbour asked, “you’ve been so worried”.

“He got rather…confused when he went looking for those poor lost children,”

“It affected me,” Herbie put in, “I was so traumatised I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. I’ve still got some memory loss”.

“Oh you poor love,” the neighbour said.

“I’m just going in to make his favourite soup”.

“I know what it is,” said the neighbour, “chicken and mushroom”.

“Is it?” Herbie said, “okay”. They walked back across the road into a small abode.

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She turned and looked back across.

“We’ll talk later,” she said loudly, and the neighbour nodded.

No you fucking won’t, Herbie thought, entering the house, clutching the knife in his pocket.

A few minutes later, with the soup simmering on the cooker hob, Herbie was sat at the kitchen table awaiting the food. His mother was at a cupboard, taking out a bowl, a perfect opportunity to kill her.

However, the smell of the soup made him pause a while. Let her make it, I wouldn’t mind a bowl of chicken and mushroom, then I can kill her.

“So tell me how it happened,” she said, putting a plate beneath the bowl and getting a spoon.

“Well, I was in the field, searching for the missing children, and I was overcome by a sense that I was born in 1720. I grew up in some backstreets in London.

You know, most kids back then grew up in poverty, but I made good, pulled myself up out of there, and did well in a shitty school I went to”.

“Herbie! language”.

“See, I’m still affected. Anyway, I actually did well at school, so I ended up studying anatomy at university, where I met those other people. They came up the same way. Found their way in however. Anyway, we would work on cadavers you know, but none of us were satisfied. We were just doing things that had already been done plenty of times before. Open up the chest, take a skin sample, remove the brain, inject formaldehyde.

But we wanted more. Me and the others wanted to experiment on living people.

So we asked our teachers, can we use prisoners before they are executed? And they effectively told us to fuck right off”.

“Herbie!”

“Well we wanted to do our own thing anyway. We needed to experiment, to find things out, to learn, well, experiment is a loose term. For the next two years, we did, on anyone we could capture. How long can someone survive without their skin? Not very long as it happens. We removed someone’s head and replaced it with that of a dog to see if the eyes blinked. No, is the answer. We wanted to know if a live brain is touched, do they die? No, not straight away. Not until I 199

stuck a knife in it. We would also do live dissections. Nail someone down on a wooden floor and slowly slice them open. Very informative, I miss doing that.

And methods of execution. Could we throw someone with a noose around their neck from a great height, and see if their heads came off. Yes, it did. Could we kill someone if we sewed a rat inside them? Well, we don’t actually know on that one, as the fucker managed to run away and get help. That’s how we were caught and locked away in prison”.

His mother was staring at him, as if not looking at her son at all, but an imposter.

“Herbie…are you…you know…alright? I know you’ve had trauma, but I think you should see a doctor, or a psychiatrist”.

“I know, it just gets in my head what happened to those poor kids. Anyway where was I? We were put in prison for life and that was that. We did some experiments on other prisoners, which was perfect for us. A ready supply of people, but this new mayor at the time was such a do-gooder, and wanted to be seen as a pillar of society, well, do you know what the daft fucker thought he could do? Thought he could change us. Stop us killing other prisoners. To be honest there’s only so many experiments you can do to a person in prison, so we sometimes killed to alleviate the boredom of being locked up. Well, this silly cunt…”

“Herbie!” she shouted, putting her hand over her mouth, “language”.

“Sorry mother, trauma and all that, and what I’ve been thinking about is that these prisoners were transferred to a new unit to try and rehabilitate them, let them see the error of their ways. Change them, so that maybe, they could be released.

Back then there were no vehicles, only horses and carriages, and it was about three miles to this place, and they only gave us two guards for seven of us, because they didn’t want us to be intimidated. Well we killed those and escaped easily enough, and do you know what, we weren’t even wanted. No posters of us, nothing. Forgotten. Prisoners escaped more back then.

So we kind of stuck together, experimenting on people, or just plainly satisfying bloodlust. Doesn’t matter. So they kind of over the next few years not so much drifted apart, because they still came together to, well, you know, experiment, but we saw each other less and less. Maybe once a month, so we would catch up, and one of us was quite the adventurous type, and, well…he ensured we would stick together for a very, very, long time. If people knew what he brought 200

back, then this world would soon be fucked. So we are in fact, doing this world a favour by keeping it to ourselves. Anyway, where’s my soup?”

His mother stood looking at him.

“They said you were possessed,” she said, “are you? Are you my Herbie?”

“Of course I am mother, I’ve just been through a traumatic time. Could you call a psychiatrist in the morning, I think I could do with some help,” he said sarcastically, unnoticed by Glynis.

“Of course I will my dear, anything you want. Your soup’s ready”. She set about pouring it out and placing the steaming bowl and spoon in front of him.

That smells lovely, he thought.

“Can I have some bread with it?” he asked.

“Bread? You never usually have bread with your soup”.

“Really? Who doesn’t have bread with soup? Fucking weirdos that’s who”.

“Oh Herbie,” she looked genuinely upset, and went to the bread-bin. Herbie stood up, took out his knife and stepped across to her and pulled her hair back, sending the knife into her throat, over and over again. She fell back against him and he let her fall to the ground, eyes wide and choking, blood spraying.

He knelt down and continued stabbing her neck until he stood up and looked down at her as she stared pleading at him, her mouth opening and closing.

“Herb…Herbi…He”. Blood spouted from her mouth. He thought she would die quickly and looked away from her for a few moments. There was no satisfaction here. No enjoyment in murder. He looked back and she was still wide-eyed.

“Fucks sake,” he muttered, and knelt down, sending the knife into her left eye.

It easily smashed through her spectacle lens, sending shards of glass into her eye which punctured even easier. The blade tore through into her brain, and he let go of the knife then stood up. She was dead.

“Go to Herbie,” he said quietly, then stepped back and sat back down. The aroma of soup took his mind off his mother, but he saw a few spots of blood in the bowl, but didn’t care, and began to spoon it, although he had to get up to get the bread, then tucked in.

It wasn’t long before he was walking around the house. There were photographs of Herbie at different ages, and pictures of flowers, and real flowers in vases.

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The place was homely, cosy, small. Perfect for a ‘nanny’, which she kind of was. A place without much that could be called modern. Even the wallpaper dated back to the sixties. He eventually found his small room, with some posters of TV and film detectives. It looked like the bedroom of a child. There were even toy figures on the window sill, and in one corner, a radio-controlled buggy, and stickers of cartoon characters around the place.

He wound his way back to the hallway, looked in the obligatory front room which was neat and tidy, but barely used. There was nothing of interest in there.

He found the house keys in his mothers coat and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Wind was picking up slightly, and there were a few spots of rain, and he walked quickly away, back towards the caravan park. He didn’t know any other route to the sanctuary, so cut through. Again, there was no Bean-head, but one girl said:

“Hi Herbie,” and he smiled slightly and continued.

Nobody else batted an eyelid as he made his way back. He found the others out by the stables and garage, talking, working, because even though they had taken over the sanctuary, there were still things to do. They approached him and he smiled as he took out the keys and jangled them.

“We have a free house,” he said, and they were all pleased.

“Excellent,” said Sam, “we can maybe get closer to Kieran that way”.