Bottled Nightmares Vol.2 by David Dwan - HTML preview

BOTTLED NIGHTMARES Vol. 2

By David Dwan

Published by David Dwan

© Copyright 2025 David Dwan

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All characters in this book are completely fictitious. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

Cover art skull design: Joe Therasakdhi. Via Shutterstock

SHADOW

It had been murder, pure and simple, of that there had been no doubt. No crime of passion this, or an accidental blow resulting in a tragic death.

No, Max Smit knew exactly what he was doing when he bludgeoned his one-time partner seventeen times with a monkey wrench. The incident had occurred whilst the pair were unloading a truck of liquor, smuggled across the Canadian border on June first, nineteen-twenty-eight.

His only regret was not doing the same to the two FBI agents who had been lying in wait when they arrived at the drop off point. But that had really been because of the fifteen soldiers they had brought with them for support at the time of the bust.

Fifteen! That had seemed over kill to Max at the time.

But to be fair, who was he to talk?

Why had he obliterated Johnny Jones’ head? Simple, greed. They had successfully dodged several border patrols on the way across and were driving to the farmhouse where they were due to sell their illicit cargo, when Smit, always the smarter of the two, had decided he wanted, no deserved! More of the cut.

In the hour-long drive, he had gone from plotting to get sixty percent, then seventy and finally, as they had pulled up at the farmhouse. The whole fucking one hundred percent.

Sadly, if he had waited another five minutes or so after they arrived, before caving in Jones’ skull. They would both have been arrested on smuggling charges and he would have gotten maybe one to three instead of the fucking death penalty.

Maybe, Max Smit had wondered for the umpteenth time since his arrest, trial and sentence, he wasn’t so smart after all.

Smit felt... Odd tonight as he sat on the bed in his cell on death row, looking out of the cell’s small, barred window, and across the barbwire topped walls of the prison and to the light house in the bay beyond.

He had done the exact same thing, every night for the six weeks he had been here since they had transferred him.

Before, it had always filled him with a soft melancholy as he watched the light arc across the top of the wire and sweep through the window and across his cell. Illuminating it for a moment as it passed across the walls and ceiling, before disappearing once more. Only to return to taunt him again soon after.

He would sometimes hold out his hand as it passed and let the light play off the palm of his hand and he would make a fist, as if he could somehow grab the beam and let it pull him

away with it. Then he could climb up the light as if it were a rope, right over the walls and to freedom.

Sometimes he wept at the forlorn hope, sometimes he laughed. But tonight, he felt nothing but a growing warmth and calm.

Even when the clatter of a dozen metal cups and plates banged against bars and the shouts and shrieks of the inmates in the cells out in the hallway, began again, and for the second time tonight. Smit didn’t so much as flinch.

Even though he knew what that meant. This was death row, and that cacophony was his fellow condemned inmates sending off the next prisoner being dragged through the corridor, past their cells, and through the door and into the room at the end where the hangman waited, and no one ever returned from. A walk they would all have to take sooner or later.

When he had first heard this chorus of the damned, on just his second night here, he had balled up and cried like a baby. As the finality of it all had hit him, pretty much like he had hit ol’ Johnny Jones.

But tonight, it barely registered, even though, thanks to his two-bit lawyer, he had been told that he would be next for the noose. Apparently, Smit mused with genuine amusement, it was a three-fer on hangings today. Gallows humour indeed.

The metal slot in the door suddenly snapped open and a familiar sneering face appeared in the gap. Officer Drake, a weedy mouse of a man, who clearly had joined the prison service so he could exorcize a lifetime of beatings and mockery he had undoubtedly suffered himself his whole life.

Drake was the worst kind of bully, he was the type that was masochistically beating himself up inside for all the times he had cried and wet his pants at the hands of others, as he in turn was beating an inmate. So, the more he hated himself, which was a lot, the more he beat himself through you.

Smit looked away from the man grinned and tried once again to catch the light as it passed serenely through the cell. He could see the moats of dust tumbling through the air where the light caught them. Christ, it was the most beautiful thing Max Smit had seen in the whole of his thirty-five years.

Tears came, but not out of fear, but the sheer magic in the light. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could see faint colours in the usually harsh white. Yes! Blues and reds, other colours he should know the name of, but they escaped him, and others still that didn’t even seem to be of this world. Not that it mattered as he watched the undulating ballet before him. Until, once again, the lighthouse beam was gone.

“Hope you enjoyed your last meal, Smit,” Drake said from a million miles away. “Cos’ you’re next for the drop. The Chaplin will be in here soon, to save your soul.”

Arh, his last meal, Smit thought dreamily and shifted his gaze over to the metal table which was bolted to the wall.

The remnants of his last meal sat on the plate. Just bones now and a smear of grease.

He had requested steak and eggs and an ice cool coke, followed by apple pie and cream. And much to his surprise they had cooked it to perfection and with great care, it was without doubt the best cooked meal he’d ever had.

The compassion shown him by some of the other guards and the cook as he was served the feast had genuinely touched Smit. Due in no small part to his surroundings and normal behaviour of those employed here. As if to hammer home this point, Drake piped up again.

“You hear me, Smit? You’re going to swing.”

Normally, Smit would have told the weasel to go fuck himself. But he knew if he tried to speak, he would be unable. He was transfixed now by the still lingering multi-coloured illuminances that had been left in the light’s wake.

Faint, like smoke but still there, then, just as they were about to vanish, the lighthouse beam reappeared, bringing with it fresh curiosities as the colours returned once more, but brighter, almost solid in the air.

He lay down, suddenly dog tired and watched languidly as the beam, trailing wonders, came in through the window, arced across the walls and ceiling, before disappearing again only to return a short time later.

Over and over, he marvelled at the solidity of the colours within the light and how they spun and twisted through the air. As if waiting impatiently for the light from outside to return with more miraculous corporeal energies.

A discordant sound, low mumbling, then grating like the harsh complaint of grinding machinery in desperate need of oil. Smit tried to ignore the intrusion to all this bliss and for a time it seemed to work, as he concentrated on the darting colours above him, wanting more than anything to join their dance.

But no, despite himself, the mumbling continued.

Inarticulate sounds slowly becoming a man’s voice but speaking gibberish. Then the odd word of English here and there through the nonsense. Was he himself rambling as he drifted in this sea of light? No, it took Smit a moment to realise that one, it wasn’t him speaking, and that two, it was a prayer.

He turned and as the light arced across the room for the countless time, it caught a grubby dog collar around the neck of a grim looking Chaplin. The man was sat on a chair by Smit’s bed reading stoically from a bible. Behind him, keeping a weary but respectful distance was a guard, Phillips.

The last rites.

“No!”

He sat up and swung his legs around the side of the bed.

Phillips took a step forwards, but the Chaplin held out a hand.

“It’s alright my son,” he told Smit softly. Then continued reading.

Smit stood on unsteady legs. “Stop!” But the Chaplin just kept on mechanically reading.

Fear gripped Smit, but this was fear unlike he had ever felt before. Not fear of death, something much, much worse.

Fear of losing the light and all that it brought.

Something was wrong, he now realised with horror. These interlopers had robbed the lighthouse’s beam of its magics.

As it passed through the cell again, across walls, ceiling, and across the two trespassers, it was harsh, cold without any substance at all.

He wanted to kill both of them for the theft, he balled his fists, but his head was swimming at the sheer injustice of it all. He felt weak as a kitten again, now that the sublime stimulation within his every fibre had fled.

That once beautiful illumination came back around again, but this time Smit hated it. It cast his paltry shadow on the floor of the cell, then came around to hit Phillips, whose own shadow splashed across the wall at his back as it moved off to illuminate the Chaplin by the bed.

It took Smit a moment to realise that Phillips’ shadow was still at his back on the wall, despite no light being cast on him, except from the meagre overhead bulb.

No, not his shadow, something else, something thinner, like a slash of darkness against the whitewashed wall. The light came around again, and just as before it left a residual black shape on the wall at the guard’s back. But bigger now, even more dense, like a splash of black paint.

Smit turned to the Chaplin, oblivious, still praying away, then back to Phillips, who was looking benignly at the holy man as he mumbled his superstitions. Again, the sweep of the light across the cell, and again the shape at the guard’s back grew.

The shadow grew more distinct with every pass, Smit stared at it in wonder as it took shape. It was now some three times the size of Phillips, who still, like the Chaplin, inexplicable couldn’t see or feel its presence. Smit thought he laughed but neither man acknowledged it.

The shadow then seemed to stand upright, it was definitely a figure of some kind, but huge with unnaturally long arms, the darkness of its body shimmering with the colours he had seen in the air.

So that was where they had gone, Smit thought, to bind this strange, beautiful creation together from the darkness.

It shook, like a dog shaking off rain, and this unfolded a set of massive multi-colours wings which flowed out like oil on water, swirling but never losing their shape.

Now at its full height, it stood ten feet tall behind the hopelessly unaware guard, like some winged demon, ready to strike.

Both the Chaplin and Phillips looked quizzically at Smit, who knew he was laughing now. Their dumbfounded faces just made him laugh all the more.

“Tell me gentlemen,” Smit said. “Do you believe in guardian angels?”

As if on cue, the shadow lunged forwards, grabbing Phillips by the shoulders. The man was big, but he was dwarfed by the sheer size of his attacker. The shadow slammed into its prey and Phillips exploded into a mass of pulped flesh and bone. Like he had gasoline for blood, and someone had struck a match.

“Yes!!” Smit shouted in pure joy.

He only wished it had been that bastard Drake, but that would pass. Who knew, maybe he and his new protector could return later to torture the bully? It seemed in that moment, anything was possible.

Smit held out his arms and reached up like a babe to its mother as the shadow approached. It wrapped its arms, still slick with blood, around him and he was lifted off the ground with one beat of its hypnotically swirling wings.

He looked back to see the wall behind him open up as the shadow bore him up, up. He knew they were heading for the lighthouse and that long held dream of escape. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

He giggled like a kid as he looked back down at the Chaplin who was looking up at him, opened mouthed. Soon the holy man was nothing but a small dot as he was taken high over the prison, until it too looked like a model fort he had once played with as a child.

Freedom felt like a warm embrace, and he had never felt so contented. As they flew higher and higher, the shadow slowly placed one hand over his eyes, but he didn’t mind.

What was there worth seeing anyway? The shadow’s other hand though, closed around his neck, not too tight, just a light, but oddly scratchy touch.

But Smit didn’t care anymore, he just laughed and laughed and lau...

Parker Gayland pulled the gallows trap door release lever and thanked Christ the prisoner finally stopped that strange euphoric laughter. He peered through the gap at his feet as the man twitched a little then just swung there.

The prison doctor rushed over and bared the man’s chest, then held a stethoscope to his heart. Checked it twice then the artery at his neck. He nodded.

“The prisoner is dead,” he announced solemnly.

The prison Chaplin moved over next to Gayland on the gallows deck and followed his gaze downwards.

“That was... Odd,” the Chaplin said.

“I’ve had them, screaming, cursing, crying, all things.

But that guy?” Gayland replied with a shudder.

He loosened the rope a little to allow the two guards below to get Max Smit’s body out of the noose. Then he had a thought.

“Hey, Phillips?” He called down.

The big guard, who had been in charge of supervising Smit’s last meal looked up as he struggled with the dead man’s legs.

“What?” He asked flustered.

“How much paraldehyde did you put in this man’s food?”

Paraldehyde was a narcotic they used to calm a prisoner before the execution.

“Dunno, maybe half a bottle.”

“What!?” He exclaimed and turned to the Chaplin. “Well, there you go. You’re only supposed to use a few drops. No wonder he was laughing.”

The Chaplin gave a shrug. “We should all die so happy.”

THE BASTARDS IN THE BASEMENT

“Am I having an acid flashback, or do you guys see that?”

Benny followed Anna’s gaze across the dimly lit car park.

A man dressed in what looked like a heavy blue hooded robe was running from a row of resident’s parked cars and towards the entrance door to the Hickson villas apartment building.

“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Chris, Benny’s younger brother said.

The trio watched the man as he suddenly stopped and began rummaging under his robe for something in his trouser pocket.

Now, it was just after three AM on a Friday morning and at that time in the city, you could expect to see the unexpected, especially on an early morning stagger home like now.

The three of them had been ambling home after an epic bar-be-que slash drunken late-night party thrown by their pals Dave and Steve, to celebrate the release of their band’s new album. ‘Beliel’s travelling circus: Eclectic electric.’

It had been an event bordering on the biblical and was only just starting to peter out when they had reluctantly dragged themselves away to avoid the inevitable alcohol poisoning that was definitely on the cards.

The man glanced at them, giving a look like they were the ones oddly dressed. Despite the hood, Anna could see that he had what looked like runic symbols painted on his face in black ink. And also, a three-inch square piece of paper, again with a cryptic symbol on it, this time in red ink, stuck to the man’s forehead.

“Weird city!” Anna announced.

“Hey, isn’t that one of the dudes from the second floor?”

Chris asked.

“Yeah, think you’re right,” Benny replied.

The man ran over to the heavy entrance door to the flats and pulled at the handle, but it didn’t budge.

“Lost your key fob, mate?” Chris called across to the man.

Anna, Benny and Chris walked over to him, and he eyed them with suspicion. But this slowly faded as he seemed to recognise them as fellow Hickson Villas residents.

“Bit late for LARPing, isn’t it?” Anna asked.

The three ‘wizards’ as they were collectively known to most of the other tower block residents, could often be seen wandering about in strange druidic type attire, but they were harmless enough. And not the weirdest people who called the villas home. And at least they mostly kept themselves to themselves.

You could often see them sneaking off down into the building’s basement and everyone thought they were playing

dungeons and dragons or some such game down there. The basement was out of bounds to residents, strictly speaking, but as long as it wasn’t a crack den down there, nobody much cared.

Benny fished out his own key fob and shook it. The man nodded and gave him a nervous but thankful smile. Benny then tapped the fob on the receiver by the door and it opened automatically. Now that they were close, Benny could see the man actually looked quite terrified. Now that, he mused, was committing to the game.

The role player went first and then the three of them staggered into the large entrance hall after him. And sure enough, instead of heading for the lift, the man veered right and over to the basement door at the end of a side corridor.

Anna shuddered theatrically and rubbed the back of her neck. “Shit, you feel that?” She said.

The air in here was filled with the smell of static, like you would get on the bumper cars at the fair. Its gentle residual power seemed to hang in the air around them.

Benny felt it too, he rubbed the top of his head and looked at Anna and Chris, half expecting the hair on their heads to be standing bolt upright, like he felt his was.

The role player paused by the basement door and gave them a manic look. “Wonderful feeling, isn’t it?” He said cryptically. “Wonderful and terrifying.”

“Fuck this, lads,” Anna said. “Let’s go,” she moved over to the lift and hit the call button.

The man opened the basement door, and a soft wave of energy seemed to flood past him and into the entrance hall.

“Jez, what are you doing down there?” Benny asked a little spooked by the sensation.

“It worked!” The man replied, his voice touched with hints of awe and fear. “God help us, it worked.”

“Good for you!” Chris slurred, oblivious.

The lift doors opened, and Anna grabbed Benny and Chris by the arm and dragged them inside.

“Avanti!” She exclaimed.

Once inside, she hit the fourth-floor button and after what seemed like an age, the lift doors closed.

“Seemed nice,” Chris said with a drunken grin.

“This place is getting stranger by the day,” Benny said, and Anna nodded in agreement.

Then she was hit with an odd feeling, nothing to do with what had just happened, just a feeling that something was missing from this picture. It took her a moment to untangle her thoughts, then.

“Here, where’s Wicksy!?”

Robby Wicks looked up from his tray of cheesy chips to see that he was all alone. He had been wandering along with Anna, Benny and little Chris. Just concentrating on simply

putting one foot in front of the other, whilst trying not to drop his late-night snack. But now that he had paused and leant against the side of a building to avoid topping over, he noticed that they had wandered off.

“Guys?” Wicksy called out redundantly to the empty street ahead.

Thankfully, the five-story monolithic Hickson Villas loomed large against the night sky ahead, like a beacon to the weary traveller. So, he slipped the tray of chips back in its paper bag to avoid spillage and set off towards home.

Once inside their flat, Chris made his way over to the fridge in search of day-old cold pizza and more beer. Anna and Benny stood in the hallway debating the whereabouts of their missing friend and neighbour.

“Wicksy was with us when we left the party, right?” Anna asked, wracking her alcohol addled brain.

Benny struggled out of his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “Think, so?” He replied tentatively.

“Christ!” Anna exclaimed. “He’s always wandering off. I should go look for him.”

“At this hour?” Benny warned.

She patted the inside pocket of her jacket. “I’m armed, remember?”

She always carried a telescopic self-defence baton with her when they were out and about.

“Still, I’m coming with you,” Benny told her in his best

‘protective alpha male voice.’ Which he had never managed to master.

“You can barely stand up, mate! I’ll be fine, I won’t go far.”

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Benny announced.

“You do that.”

Anna watched him toddle off down the hallway and let herself out. As she made her way down the long corridor leading to the lift at the end, the overhead automatic lights came on one by one as she went.

She took out her phone and selected Wicksy’s number.

“You left me,” a thin voice answered after a moment.

“Yeah, sorry, love. Where are you?”

“Erm, not far, just past the bins by the market. Two minutes, you home?”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you downstairs, I’ll buzz you in.”

“Ta,” he replied and hung up.

As she got to the lift, Anna reached out a hand to press the call button, when a huge wave of energy came up through the floor and seemed to ripple right through her body, from the soles of her feet to the tip of her head and beyond. And for a moment she was suspended as if in water a good three feet above the corridor’s tiled floor.

It only lasted a few moments, but she could feel the energy pulsing through her entire body as she hung there, sending her nerve endings tingling. Then there was a soft

‘whump’ sound, her ears popped and an instant later she was on her backside.

“Kin hell!” She exclaimed and got unsteadily to her feet.

She glanced back down the corridor and was thankful to see she was alone. Christ, she thought, I must be drunker than I realised.

Anna hit the call button with a shaking hand and waited red-faced for it to arrive. She got in and hit the ground floor button. ‘Doors closing,’ the automatic voice they all referred to as the lift lady announced.

As the lift made its slow descent, she looked at herself in the mirrored side at the back of the compartment. Her cheeks were ruddy and there was a thin sheen of sweat on her face.

It hadn’t been an unpleasant feeling, she had to admit, but still she shook its residual effects off and let out a sharp breath. Jesus, she mused, if she could bottle whatever the hell that was, she would be very rich, and very popular.

“Concentrate!!” She told her reflection and took another deep breath.

She watched as each floor button lit up, then flicked off and she counted them down in her head. Three, two, one.

Ground. ‘Ground floor, doors opening,’ the lift lady said, and Anna prepared to exit.

She froze at the strange scene that greeted her as the doors opened. Another of the blue robed weirdos from the second floor, this one a woman, was standing in the entrance lobby talking animatedly to what Anna’s shock stunned brain could only partially comprehend as a massive ‘thing’.

The creature stood some eight feet tall, so much so that from where she was standing in the lift, Anna could only see up to its bulky shoulders. A small mercy for which her sanity was very grateful for.

Its body was a tight mass of blue grey muscle and sinew.

Intermittent forks of blue static danced and played across its almost reptilian, but nearly translucent skin. It was humanoid up to a point, but its long muscular arms, which were gesticulating wildly at the woman, ended in four claws rather than hands. Each thick, gnarled digit was tipped with razor sharp looking three-inch talons.

The thing’s voice was so low and guttural that Anna could feel its resonance in her chest like the bass speaker at a concert. It seemed to be trying to articulate words, which clearly weren’t English, but they sounded like just so many cavernous grunts and snarls to her.

The woman, who was five feet if she was an inch, had to crane her neck up awkwardly to address the creature. And

despite the massive size difference and the fact she was talking to a fucking monster, she seemed unfazed and if anything, annoyed at the interaction.

Unlike the nervous dude outside, the woman had none of the runes painted on her face, but did have that curious square piece of paper stuck to her forehead, which Anna could see had several small symbols painted in black on it.

Different as far as she could tell from the other guy.

Then the creature moved and seemed to want to lunge at her, vicious talons outstretched in her direction, clawing at the air a foot from her face. But it stopped dead when she calmly tapped the paper on her forehead.

“Ah, ah, arh,” she scolded as if speaking to a child.

‘Doors closing,’ the lift lady announced.

The woman turned to see Anna stood there in the lift, a look of shock flashed across her face, just as the doors closed again.

Anna hit the fourth-floor button and slammed her back against the lift wall and waited. Either for the doors to be ripped open, or for the lift to whir into action. She cried out in relief as it started its ascent. And wondered if she had been spiked with something at the party.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fucking fuck!!”

Benny dropped the milk carton he was holding when Anna burst into the flat cursing at the top of her lungs, and it exploded on the kitchen floor.

“Christ woman!” He exclaimed and came out into the flat’s hallway as Anna slammed the door shut and locked it.

She pressed her back against it as if for extra security.

Chris, pizza in hand peered around the living room door and into the hallway. “Wicksy not there then?” He enquired.

“Oh, Christ,” Anna uttered in realisation.

Wicksy would be downstairs at any minute, blissfully unaware of what he would be walking into. Anna took out her phone, but her hands were shaking so much it slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor. She let out an anguished cry and she went to her knees to pick it up.

“Anna?” Benny said and ran down to her.

“Gotta warn him,” Anna said. “Gotta warn him. Christ!”

She burst into tears and Benny crouched down next to her, he put an arm around her shaking shoulders.

“Jesus, Anna, what happened down there?”

“Something, there’s something down there. Something horrible,” she sobbed.

“Something? Something what?” Benny asked her, spooked at the sudden emotion. “Anna, did someone attack you? I knew I should have come down with you.”

“A, a monster,” she blurted out. “Something, some king of creature.”

“Blimey!” Chris uttered and took a bite of pizza.

“Ssh, hey come on,” Benny said softly holding her tight.

“It’s okay, it’s alright now. Anna, come on, take a breath.

Tell me exactly what happened.”

Anna nodded, she swallowed hard and forced herself to regulate her breathing as best she could.

“One of the wierdos,” she said. “From the second floor?

She was down in the entrance hall, there was something with her, a monster.”

“Christ Anna!” Chris suddenly laughed. “They’re role players! It was probably one of them in a costume.” She fixed him with a piercing gaze, and he shut right up.

“That was no costume,” she told him coldly. “And I don’t think they’re fucking live action role players.”

After banging his head on absolutely nothing for the third time, Robby Wicks gave up trying to walk through the open pedestrian gate to the Hickson villas private car park and sat down on the wall next to it and had a chip.

Sure, he knew he was very drunk, and yes, he had taken one of Pippy’s special pills at the party. But still he figured he should have been able to walk through a three-foot opening, something he had done on countless times before and in a worse state than he was now. But for whatever reason, he just couldn’t get in.

He had even picked up a discarded coke can out of the gutter and tried to throw it over the closed adjacent and much larger gate you needed to drive through to gain access if you were in a car. But much like his head, it had simply bounced off thin air and back into the street.

Wicksy put down his tray of cheesy chips on the wall next to him and took out his phone. He selected Anna’s number, but it wouldn’t connect. So, he tried first Benny’s then Chris’

but with the same result. He could see he had great reception out here but for whatever reason he just couldn’t get through.

“Bollocks,” he sighed and returned to his supper.

He was mid-chip when he heard the ‘clop, clop,’ of someone walking close by. He looked up to see a woman come walking out of the shadows at the far end of the deserted street and make her way down towards him.

He could tell instantly by the way she was dressed that she was definitely lost. She wore an expensive looking long black woollen coat which had the collar turned up against the cold night air, and her hands were planted deep in the pockets.

He could just about make out the hem of her black dress underneath the coat, which came to the top of shiny black knee length boots.

Black on black on black, Wicksy thought idly as she approached. Except for her hair. Even in the unflattering glow of the florescent streetlights he could see it was a

vivid, almost blood red and cascaded down her back and shoulders in long loose curls.

Her face, no doubt accentuated by this and her dark clothes was as pale as porcelain. She stopped just in front of him and gave him the most heart melting smile he had ever seen, and it was love at first sight. Her eyes widened as she saw the tray of chips in his lap.

“Ooh, can I have a chip?” She fair cooed.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, course,” Wicksy replied and offered her the tray. She delicately picked one, blew on it and took a bite. “You’re not from around here,” he added, stating the obvious.

“What gave me away?” She asked conspiratorially.

Wicksy thought he caught the hint of a foreign accent, eastern European perhaps, but he was hard to pin down. As he now realised was her age. Thirties maybe? But with the air of someone much younger.

“We have an expression,” he told her. “Whenever we see a beautiful woman around these parts. ‘Never been to Leeds.’

It’s a bit sexist I know, but we are ignorant northerners.”

“Sexist and a little paradoxical, don’t you think?”

Wicksy looked at her blankly, he knew the word but was never quite sure what it meant. Then she smiled that smile again.

“But no,” she said. “I’m not from around here. I’m working.”

“Oh?”

“Can you keep a secret?” She asked and sat down on the wall next to him.

“I’m famed for my discretion,” he assured her.

She leant in and whispered. “I’m a collector of souls.”

Sure, why not? He mused drunkenly. Then it hit him.

“Eh?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she told him casually. “I’m not after yours. I’m not after anyone’s tonight.”

Wicksy found himself nodding and actually felt relieved to hear it. The woman looked over her shoulder to the tower block behind them.

“No,” she continued. “Tonight, for my sins, I’m on damage limitation.”

“No answer! Doesn’t even connect, no signal at all,”

Benny said staring at his phone.

“Christ,” Anna uttered.

They had all tried calling Wicksy. And she was starting to get visions of the poor sap staggering into the entrance hall and coming face to face with... That thing.

“You sure you weren’t tripping?” Chris asked for the umpteenth time.

“No, I wasn’t fucking tripping!” She snapped back.

“Okay, okay.”

Benny went over to the living room window, which looked down on the usually busy road that ran parallel with the building. Even at this hour, you could still see taxis and the odd delivery truck passing by every so often. There was a crossroads with three sets of traffic signals at the end, where vehicles would often have to wait for the lights to change.

A taxi, then a slate grey prius sped down the road, but the lights were all on green, so they just drove on and out of sight.

“Cock it!” Benny hollered.

“We’re four floors up, they won’t hear you anyway,” Anna reminded him.

Benny looked around the flat, then when through into the adjoining kitchen, he opened a cupboard and took out a pint glass.

“I’ll chuck this at the first car that stops at the lights,” Benny said. “Worst thing that can happen is they call the cops.”

“No, you bloody won’t!” Anna told him and snatched the glass out of his hand. “The worst thing that can happen is that you cause a crash!”

“I’ll wait until they’re parked,” he reasoned. “It’ll be fine.”

“No throwing anything out of the fucking window!” She replied in dismay.

Wicksy threw a chip at the invisible barrier and watched as it bounced off and over his head and landed at the woman’s feet who was standing in the street now and had taken to staring up at the building, looking for God only knew what.

She glanced at the chip.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Containment charm,” she said.

“You did this?”

“Had to. Trust me..?” She paused expectantly.

“Wicksy,” he said.

“Please to meet you, Wicksy, I’m Sofia. And trust me, you don’t want whatever is in there, getting out here.”

“My friends are in there, are they okay?”

“No clue,” she replied with a shrug.

Wickey thought about the potential gravity of this. “Any way of finding out?”

“Nope.”

The woman, Sofia, sat back down on the wall next to him and stole another chip. “You know,” she said mid-bite. “You seem to be taking all this very calmly.”

“Just how am I supposed to take it?” He asked, not unreasonably.

She shrugged. “Panic, expletives, prayers to this God or that. The usual human reaction.”

“Maybe it’s the booze or Pippy’s magic pill, but to tell you the truth, this isn’t the weirdest trip I’ve been on,”

Wicksy confessed.

“Good for you.”

“So, what’s next after containment?”

The woman thought about this for a moment. “Honestly?

I’m just riffing here,” she admitted. “Normally, I’m the one causing all the mayhem and mischief. But the way I see it?

It could all just fizzle out or turn into a right bloodbath.”

“Let’s hope for the fizzle then eh?”

“I’ll drink to that.”

The entrance door to the building opened and a man in a thick blue hooded robe staggered out and into the car park.

He seemed to be talking animatedly to someone inside and raised his hands defensively then shook his hooded head.

“Hey fuckwit!” Sofia shouted and got to her feet.

The man turned to them and Wicksy saw that he had strange symbols painted on his face and an odd-looking piece of paper attached to his forehead.

“Oh!” Wicksy exclaimed in recognition and jumped up next to Sofia. “That’s one of the role-players from the second floor.”

“You know this clown?” She asked.

“After a fashion. There are three of them, you’ll see them prancing around in get ups like that from time to time.

Harmless enough.”

Wicksy then gave an involuntary shudder. He could just make out a dark misshapen shadow creeping forwards over the threshold of the open door and towards the man. The role-player’s face grimaced in terror at whatever was casting the shadow and backed away. He tapped the paper on his forehead and gave the slightest shake of his head.

The shadow stopped before the caster revealed itself, but then Wicksy caught a glimpse of a massive arm swipe at the man but was gone a moment later and the shadow receded back inside.

The automatic front door began to shut, but a woman, maybe in her early thirties, dressed in a similar robe but with the hood down moved into the door’s path, and it opened again as the proximity senser detected her presence. Just like the terrified man, she had a square of paper on her forehead, but no symbols on her face.

“Morris!” The woman called out. “Get back in here!”

She sounded like she was talking to a naughty child who was straying into traffic.

Morris shook his head. “You have to stop this,” he replied, his voice was audibly trembling as he spoke. “This is madness!”

“Morris!” She scolded again.

“Never thought it would actually work,” he uttered.

“Christ, what have we done?” He added louder.

“What we have done,” the woman told him triumphantly.

“Is something amazing! No one in history has ever achieved this!”

Sofia took a step towards the invisible barrier at this.

“Erm, excuse me? That’s not technically true,” she informed the woman.

There was a loud cavernous snort of fear from the entrance hall behind the woman, followed by a bestial growl that threatened to loosen Wicksy’s bowels.

“Kin ‘ell,” he squeaked out.

“And it always ends badly for laypeople like you,” Sofia added with gravitas.

The blue robed woman spun around to whatever was making that unholy noise inside.

“Cease!” She ordered, then turned back to Sofia and Wicksy. “And who are you?” She asked, her voice a mixture of anger and thinly veiled concern.

“It’s me, Wicksy from floor...”

“Not you, moron!” She snapped.

“Bit harsh,” Wicksy breathed.

“At the risk of sounding overly dramatic,” Sofia called across to her. “I’m your worst fucking nightmare. Even worse than that thing you have conjured in there.”

Morris suddenly bolted across the car park towards them.

“Morris!” The woman at the door screamed. “Get back here you fucking coward!”

“Jesus, God!” Morris pleaded as he approached. “We’re done something...”

Wicksy was just about to warn the man when he ran face first into the barrier. He bounced back and impressive distance and landed hard on his back on the tarmac.

“Stupid,” Sofia finished the sentence for him.

The blue robed woman looked on in disbelief at this.

“You’re not the only one with a trick or two,” Sofia told her. “And sweetheart, I’ve been doing this a hell of a lot longer than you.”

“You, you can’t hurt us,” the woman shouted and pointed to the paper on her forehead.

Sofia tutted and turned to Wicksy who was still watching a stunned Morris flapping around on the ground.

“What’s that saying?” She asked. “A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing?”

“Something like that,” Wicksy murmured in response.

Sofia looked up at the tower block then back to the car park. She frowned slightly and seemed to Wicksy that she was weighing something up. Morris, his nose caved in, began to bleed and weep on the ground in front of them.

Movement over by the entrance door, drew Wicksy’s attention over there and he saw the third and final of the second-floor role-players, a man in his forties, identically dressed and painted like Morris and with the apparently

essential square of paper on his head. The man hovered hesitantly behind the woman.

It was clear to Wicksy, even from where he was, the man was skittish as hell, he kept glancing nervously back over his shoulder to whatever was lurking just out of sight. He was whispering to the woman now.

“No!” The woman snapped at him. “We can handle this.

You trust me?” And the man nodded reverentially.

And Wicksy dubbed her Boss Lady in his head. And he wondered how the hell all this yelling hadn’t raised the entire block. He put it down to this containment charm thingy Sofia had, for want of a better word, conjured.

It was easy to believe pretty much anything when you haven’t got a clue what’s going on, he reasoned. Whatever it was, there wasn’t so much as a peep from any of the sleeping residence inside.

“Dissension in the ranks,” Sofia whispered to him. Then she shouted to the duo. “You’re all in way over your heads.

Messing with this kind of magic can only end in tears for people like you.”

“And who the fuck are you?” The man shouted with clearly false bravado.

“She’s your worst fucking nightmare, knobhead,” Wicksy shouted back.

He looked at Sofia with a grin, but she was again looking the building up and down, her pale brow knitted as she thought. He could almost hear the cogs turning.

“Sorry new friend,” she said without looking at him.

“I’m everyone’s worst nightmare tonight.”

She moved away from the gate and back into the street.

“Subtlety has never been my strong point,” she called out to the role-players. “If I have to bring this whole damn building down to stop you, I will. And believe me those charms on your heads aren’t much good against a few tonnes of bricks and mortar.”

Furious whispers now from the two in the doorway.

Morris, for his part, just kept weeping.

“Eh, what!?” Wicksy suddenly cottoned on to what she had just said. “My friends are in there, plus a hundred odd other people!”

“I never said I was a good guy,” Sofia told him coldly.

And suddenly Wicksy wasn’t enjoying this weird and wonderful trip anymore.

Sofia moved forwards, close to where Wicksy figured the barrier was. She got on one knee and leant forwards to address the weeping Morris.

“Hey, Morris,” she whispered. “You want out of this mess?”

Morris perked up at this and dragged himself stiffly to his knees. He turned his snotty, bloody and tear stained face up to her. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

“Morris!” Boss Lady warned from across the car park.

“Don’t listen to her. I think she’s one of those collectors.”

Sofia seemed genuinely impressed at this revelation.

“Fame at last,” she called back.

“It’s, it’s all true?” Morris uttered, terrified.

And Wicksy watched on none the wiser. Whatever was happening in this crazy new world he had stumbled into. Soul collectors, invisible barriers and strange cults in his building. Not to mention that unseen thing skulking around the entrance hall. He figured ignorance of such things was its own reward. And he prayed for memory loss once he sobered up.

“All true...” Morris sobbed.

Sofia returned her attention to the prone man. “’Fraid so, puppy.”

And despite his apparent neutrality in this bizarre sideshow. Wicksy felt the overwhelming urge to find something to bash Sofia over the head with.

“Morris,” Sofia continued, oblivious to Wicksy’s half-baked thoughts of murder. “You want out, right?”

The man nodded vigorously, sending a spray of mixed bodily fluids up into the air, some of which flecked nauseatingly against the barrier and just hung there in mid-air.

“God yes,” he wheezed. “More than anything. We shouldn’t have messed with any of this. I wouldn’t have, if only I’d known.”

“All seemed like a lark?” Sofia asked lightly.

“So, sorry,” he said with genuine contrition.

“I can’t remove this barrier,” she told him with a sweep of her hand. “The beast will get out, and trust me, none of you have as much control over it as you think.”

Morris nodded like some attentive five-year-old as he listened to her. And Wicksy couldn’t remember seeing a more pathetic creature in all his twenty-eight years.

“You have two options here,” Sofia told him. “One, go back inside and destroy the charm circle you have made. In I wanna say, the basement?”

Again, he nodded gormlessly.

“What did you use to charge the spell?”

“Antique kerosine lamp, filled with petrol and goat’s blood.”

“Christ,” Wickey said softly.

“Nice,” Sofia replied with an appreciative nod. “So, you need to extinguish the flame, then smash the lamp to pieces.

In that order, or, you know, boom?”

Morris glanced back to Boss Lady, who was now alone in the doorway. She seemed torn between going back inside or coming across and probably beating her sometime acolyte to death. She eyed Sofia with a murderous gaze and was muttering something inaudible under her breath but stayed where she was.

Morris turned back to Sofia. “She’ll never let me do that. She’s lost her mind. Something snapped in her during the ritual.”

“That can happen,” Sofia mock lamented.

“You said there were two ways?” Morris prompted.

“Remove the charm from your forehead,” she coaxed. “That will allow you to pass right through the barrier.”

“But, the creature,” Morris replied fearfully. “The charm protects us from it, allows us to control it.”

“Nar,” Sofia said dismissively. “The creature is bound to your will. It’ll do as it’s told. The charm on your head protects you from people like me and what I can create.

Counter charms, this containment barrier, all the good stuff.”

The poor man was clearly wracked with indecision. He screwed his bloodshot eyes tight shut and concentrated on the offer. Then he looked back up to Sofia, and she nodded ever so slightly.

“Oh! A third option!” Sofia exclaimed brightly. “You can die horribly along with everyone in that building when I bring it down, in a minute or so.”

Wicksy tensed at this, part of him had still been clinging to the fact she was bluffing about taking out the building and all his friends. He glanced around for something to cave her skull in with. But unless that coke can on the floor to his left had suddenly been filled with concrete, he was shit out of luck.

“I, God, I don’t know,” Morris whimpered.

“Hey, listen, none of this is your fault,” she said softly, and it sounded like someone trying to talk down a jumper. “You didn’t realise what you were getting yourself into. I live in this world, Morris. I know its wonders and its horrors. You don’t need to die out of ignorance.” She gestured over to Boss Lady. “None of you do.”

Morris looked utterly exhausted. But he seemed to rally himself a little and with great effort, struggled up onto his feet. He swayed slightly and looked like he was going to pitch right over, but he somehow steadied himself.

“I don’t wanna die,” he sobbed softly.

“Trust me,” she breathed.

Morris closed his eyes and ripped the paper off his forehead.

If Wicksy had blinked at that exact moment, he had no doubt he would have missed what happened an instant later.

And God he wished he had.

There was a soft ‘snap’ and the paper sparked and burnt up in Morris’ hand a split second later. Over by the entrance door a blur of movement from inside, blasted past Boss Lady, her hair and robes billowed and rippled as if hit by a sudden brief hurricane, then a shadow of undulating darkness punctuated by flashes of white teeth and claws was on Morris in half a heartbeat.

Morris was shredded into a nonsense of anatomy before Wicksy could register just what the hell had happened. Blood and mangled viscera splattered the invisible barrier, leaving a quite remarkable modern art masterpiece suspended in mid-air, before it slowly began to slide down in gory streaks and pooled on the tarmac below.

“Woooo!” Sofia leapt to her feet and threw her hands up in the air like an NFL referee signalling a touchdown.

Wicksy spun away and sprayed vomit all over the pavement.

So much for cheesy chips.

“Fucking hell!!” Anna yelped from her vantage point looking through the window, mid-way down the building’s internal stairwell between the third and second floors.

“What? What?” Benny said from a few steps further up behind her.

“That guy in the car park just fucking exploded!”

They had left Chris passed out on the sofa in the flat and had decided to brave the internal stairs down to at least the second-floor landing, to see if they could somehow get a warning to Wicksy about the insanity unfolding in the entrance hall.

Anna was brandishing her baton, and Benny had the metal bar which goes between the weights on a barbell. More for a false sense of security than actual viable protection.

Their progress down was being impeded in no small part by the occasional deep snort and the odd terrifying growl which echoed up through the stairs and bounced off the walls around them.

Each floor on the way down had a window which looked out over the car park and entrance gates below, but they were bolted shut for safety so you couldn’t actually open them even an inch or so. Anna had been peering through the window, waiting for Benny to catch up when she had caught sight of the bizarre scene below.

Good old Wicksy was safe and sound, for now, and was standing by the pedestrian gate next to a woman she didn’t recognise. The woman had been talking to one of the role-players who was on his knees for some reason. Then from what she could see from where she was, the prone bloke stood, took off one of those weird papers off his forehead and then just exploded.

“Jesus,” Benny uttered and came to her side.

There was a blur of shadowy movement, close to the carnage, then it seemed to solidity into the creature from the entrance hall, now visible in all its blood splattered glory.

Even from here and through the grimy window, Anna could see its vicious taloned hands clenching and unclenching and it was breathing hard through its elongated snout, its head, now that she could actually see it put her in mind of that of the

narrow hairless head of a werewolf. But one designed by some creator with a severely damaged and fucked up eye for anatomy.

“Fuck me!” Benny cried out.

“Ssh!!” Anna warned, mindful of anyone downstairs. “I told you!” She continued in a hushed tone and dug her elbow into his ribs. “Tripping my arse.”

“We can’t fight that thing!” He whispered.

“We have to do something. Look at Wicksy, he’s right down there with it, and that poor woman,” Anna could feel tears of frustration threaten.

She banged hard on the glass with both fists, but it was too thick to be heard outside.

“You can go back up stairs if you want to,” she said to Benny and turned to him. She could see he was seriously contemplating the offer.

Wicksy, still doubled over, clutched his still convulsing stomach, but at least the vomiting had stopped. He just stared at his feet and waited for the nausea to pass sucking in mouthfuls of cold night air. Then, even over his own gasping, he could hear something a little way off behind him.

It was breathing hard, hissing through gritted teeth he figured. And it sounded like it had gravel and ground glass in its throat.

“Beast!” The Boss Lady screamed. “Get in here, now!”

The ‘beast’ snorted in derision making Wicksy start in shock. He couldn’t tell if it was right behind him or back over at the entrance door, its grinding growl seemed to be echoing all around him.

Then, before he could tell his brain no, he straitened as best he could and swivelled ever so slowly on his heel to face the carnage.

Now, as it came into some kind of focus, Wicksy wasn’t sure if ‘thankfully’ was the right adverb for what he could see. But, thankfully his view of the creature in the car park was mostly obscured by the remains of the bloke called Morris which was smeared all over the invisible barrier between him and his mutilator.

He could see its movements through the gore, which were slow and lumbering, but he was mostly spared its actual appearance, which he guessed he should be somewhat grateful for.

He gagged and averted his gaze from the scene as what appeared to be an ear slowly slid down the barrier and finally flopped onto the tarmac.

“Beast!” He vaguely heard Boss Lady command again, through his pounding ears. “To me!”

Beast, let out a growl laced with such deep reverberation, Wicksy could have sworn he felt it through the soles of his trainers. He bent forwards and put his hands on his thighs to stop himself from face planting into the ground.

“Bet you wanna tear that bitch limb from limb, don’t you, baby?” Sofia purred.

And it actually sounded to Wicksy that the thing gave a snort of amusement at this. The phrase, ‘I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind,’ rattled around his shock addled brain.

He was only partially conscious of hearing the great beast lumbering back across the car park and over, he guessed, to the entrance door and Boss Lady.

“It’s okay,” Wicksy,“ Sofia informed him. “It’s gone now.”

He thought about turning around, but decided he was better off where he was for now. After all, what was left of poor Morris would still be drip, drip, dripping in mid-fucking-air. Instead, he looked across the other side of the road and could just see the dim beginnings of the sun warming the early morning sky over the town centre buildings in the distance.

“Nar, I’m good here thanks,” he said and concentrated on the eastern horizon.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Benny whispered to himself as they made their descent, one tentative step at a time.

They could hear the sound of heated arguing coming up through the stairwell from the entrance hall below. But thankfully the monster was silent. The two role-players seemed to be debating what to do next.

Anna looked to the floor sign by the lift as they reach the next level’s landing. Second floor, she knew they would have to be quiet as hell if they were to go any lower. She went over to the window opposite the lift and looked outside.

There was no sign of the creature, and she could see Wicksy sitting on the wall by the open pedestrian entrance with his back to the building. The strange woman was standing close by, she had her hands in her coat pockets and was idly kicking a can from one foot to the other.

As they were getting closer to the ground floor, Anna didn’t want to bang on the glass again, as it would be heard louder down there than outside. So, she began to wave her arms around wildly in the vain hope one of the pair would catch the movement.

Benny came to her side and did the same. Then he actually chuckled.

“We must look like a right couple of lunatics,” he said to her, and she couldn’t help but smile at this.

‘Ping!’ ‘Doors opening,’ the lift lady said from behind them. ‘Second floor, please mind the doors.’

They turned to see the same male blue robed role player from earlier step out of the lift. He stopped, stunned and the three of them just stared at each other in shared disbelief for a full five seconds.

“Who the...” The man began.

Anna lunged at him before he could finish his sentence and hit him three times in rapid succession with her baton, one on his head the other two blows hit his forearms which he brought up to protect himself.

“Benny!” Anna said in a hushed tone, hitting the man twice more. “Get him!”

Benny pushed past her and grabbed the front of man’s robe, he twisted around and then pushed him into the flight of steps going back up to the third floor. They both fell awkwardly onto the stairs and the man hit his head hard on edge of a step.

“Fucker!” Benny hissed and got back up. He raised the metal bar above his head.

“Please...” The role-player pleaded, disorientated and brought his arms up to his face to protect himself.

“Wack him!” Anna urged as quietly as she could, mindful of the woman downstairs.

“No!” The man blurted out in terror.

“Quiet, dickhead!” Benny snarled and hit him on the side of his head with a half-hearted blow.

Despite the love tap, it opened up a gash above the man’s left ear and blood began to run down his neck and face.

“Jesus,” Benny breathed, surprised at his own violence.

“Oh, God, God,” the man moaned in a daze.

Benny jumped on him and put his hand over his mouth.

“Shut up, or I will fucking bust you up, man,” Benny warned.

Anna frantically looked down the stairwell, she went over to the banister where she could see right down to the entrance hall between the remaining flights of stairs.

The woman came into view for a moment, then thankfully moved off out of sight, seemingly none the wiser. No shouts of alarm, and thank Christ, no rampaging monster tearing up the stairs.

“You gonna be quiet?” Benny asked quietly.

Wide eyed and a little concussed, the man nodded. So, Benny slowly took his hand away from his mouth, but kept the metal bar raised above him in the other just in case.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the man sighed.

Anna moved closer to the pair.

“What the fuck is going on down there?” She wanted to know.

“Oh, you know, just your everyday demon summoning,” he replied.

Anna thought about clocking him with her baton but put down his languid response to the blow he took. But then he smiled condescendingly.

“Idiots,” he sneered.

And Anna gave serious consideration to bludgeoning him to death. “I will end you,” she said and meant it.

He shrugged and wiped a trickle of blood from his cheek.

“Beast,” he said softly. “To me.”

A bestial roar bounced off the walls from below like an almost physical force, followed by a guttural growl, which got closer and closer.

“Fuck me,” Anna uttered in horror.

They could hear the creature’s heavy footfalls as it slowly made its way up from the entrance hall towards them.

It was almost worse that it didn’t seem in any hurry at all.

Maybe, Anna thought through the fog of fear in her brain, it was savouring the terror it was eliciting.

“Jordan?” A woman’s voice from below.

“It’s okay, Vicky,” Jordan replied with maddening confidence. “Just a couple or normies wandering around up here.”

“Very well, do what you must,” Vicky called up ominously.

Jordan pushed Benny back, and using the wall, he laboured himself to his feet. He touched the wound on the side of his head and his fingers came away bloody.

“This is gonna cost you, pothead,” he said to Benny and held out his bloody hand. “Blood for blood.”

“Anna?” Benny said weakly.

But Anna couldn’t move, she was looking over the banister, transfixed by fear as she caught fleeting glimpses of the nightmare as it made its way up to the first-floor landing, then onto the next flight which would bring it to the second floor and into full view.

“It’s coming,” was all she could say.

Benny suddenly grabbed Jordan by his robe and raised the bar over his head.

“Call it off,” he ordered.

The arrogant glint in Jordan’s eyes wavered slightly, seeing the absolute resolution in Benny’s. This was no bluff.

“Call it off...” Benny repeated.

“Beast!” Jordan shrieked. “Faster! Protect your master!”

Anna didn’t see the thing, but felt it rush past her and although it didn’t make contact, she was flung back by the sheer force of its passing. The breath was knocked out of her, and she slammed hard into the heavy glass security door separating the landing from the flats beyond. She heard a sharp crack and hoped to God it was the glass and not her spine. Finally, she fell to the floor in a heap.

Dazed and with a growing pain in her back and chest, Anna turned her head at the horrific sound of Benny crying out.

She tried to call to him, but it came out as little more than a strangled choking breath.

The creature, all eight feet of pulsating, glistening raw flesh of it, had Benny by the throat with one massive razor tipped claw. It slowly raised him up off the ground as if he

were weightless and his legs kicked the air in a vain attempt to gain purchase on something.

“Yes! Yes!” Jordan hissed with delight, his eyes wide and manic.

Benny’s metal bar clattered to the floor and rolled across the landing and stopped just by Anna’s foot. Where her own weapon was, she had no idea.

With great effort, she teased the weapon to her side with her foot, but at this stage she wasn’t sure she even had enough energy to stand, let alone wield the thing.

The creature snorted in Benny’s face, ruffling his scraggly hair. It growled and the whole landing seemed to vibrate at the sound and Anna heard the glass rattle at her back. Then it drew him closer still, towards its long dripping maw. If anything, the sound of its fetid breath hissing through its ragged teeth was worse than the growl it replaced.

“Slowly,” Jorgan coaxed cruelly. “The girl first.”

On command and with only the slightest flick of its wrist, the creature tossed Benny up a whole flight of stairs and onto the landing above. Anna didn’t see him land but heard his short sharp cry of pain and the sickening sound of his body hitting the hard floor.

Then the monster slowly turned to her. The blue static she had seen arching across its body from the lift earlier had all but faded now, and only the occasion spark could be seen dancing from one muscle to the next, its creation all but complete she thought grimly.

But still, it looked half made to her terrified gaze.

Its body was a mass of grey tightly wrought muscle and sinew, its face bestial and cruel. Its deep-set eyes piecing almost feline looking, like two blazing emeralds glared at her over its long snout. Teeth bared like a grinning shark, dripping with black saliva in anticipation of taking a bite or two out of her flesh.

As it moved closer and loomed over her, Anna could feel waves of freezing cold energy pulsating from its form. And she could have sworn she saw her breath clouding in front of her face.

Then the oddest thing happened, it may have been the moment her sanity finally fled from her. But the crippling fear she felt running through her entire body, keeping her frozen with fear, suddenly turned in an instant to a deep almost primal red-hot rage. If it had been a choice between flight or fight, then the former had long since passed. And by Christ it felt liberating and oh so good, like someone had just injected her with a cocktail of PCP and adrenaline.

Before she knew it, she was on her feet, she was only vaguely aware of her battered and bruised body screaming in protest at the sudden exertion. But didn’t give a shit about it, if anything it just fuelled her on more.

She jumped up like a basketball player spiking a shot and hit the abomination on the top of its skull with everything she had.

“Fucker!!” She screamed.

It felt like she had just struck a concrete block, the metal bar vibrated so hard it stung her hand and then spun out of her grasp and clattered off down the stairs.

At that exact same moment, the creature caught Anna mid-air, but still she flailed and kicked at the thing like a psychotic toddler having the mother of all shit fits.

She kicked as hard as she could at what she hoped was its balls, if such creations have balls, and was pretty sure she broke her foot doing so. But the whole frenzied attacked would have had more impact if the creature had been made from solid granite.

“Fucker,” she managed to croak out again, suddenly exhausted.

It pulled her close to its face, much as it had done with Benny. Jordan giggled slightly, half obscured by the bulk of the monster. But then he staggered back, his face slack, holding his damaged head and fell back into the steps.

“Oh, oh, my,” he uttered in confusion.

And Anna hoped the bastard would die right then and there. But much to her disappointment he seemed to rally a little and propped himself against the wall as he sat on a step, breathing hard, the colour drained from his face.

“Oooph, dizzy,” he said redundantly.

The creature glanced back at Jordan, hearing his complaints and gave a snort of what sounded to Anna like a mixture of derision and amusement at his plight. Or as close was such a thing were capable of. But it definitely sounded like an approximation of strangled mirth to her.

It turned back to her but didn’t resume its terrifying growl. Its fierce eyes softened a touch as it looked directly into hers. Then it did the darndest thing, it gently tapped her forehead with its free vicious looking talon.

Anna shook her head in confusion, but in truth she was just as surprised the creature was capable of such a gentle touch as the action itself. Then it repeated the tap and glanced back at Jordan, who now seemed to be rallying somewhat.

Anna shook her head again, not understanding and the beast’s eyes flashed with a spark of what looked like frustration at her lack of comprehension. Then it touched its own gnarled forehead, then again tapped hers.

Jordan dragged himself to his feet. “Why isn’t that bitch dead yet?” He wanted to know and moved alongside the creature. “Snap her neck, I command you!”

The creature’s grip began to slowly tighten around Anna’s red raw neck. She was shocked to see the look of naked reluctance on the thing’s otherwise nightmarish face. Actual

remorse, but its vice like grip tightened a little more none the less.

Its demonic eyes seemed to be pleading with her, it shifted its gaze from her eyes to her forehead then back again, willing her to understand.

“Oh,” Anna breathed out as she finally joined the dots.

She reached out and snatched the runic paper off Jordan’s forehead. He squealed in shock and the paper sparked and was incinerated to nothing in her hand a moment later.

The creature smiled, and although she appreciated the intention, it wasn’t much better than its horrific predatory grin. Then it gently put her back onto her feet.

She sucked in a sharp intake of breath as pain shot through her right foot as it took some if her weight. Yep, broken she realised, but she’d take that over evisceration any day of the working week.

She shifted most of her weight onto her left foot and braced herself against the security door. She glanced over to see the creature turn ever so slightly to face Jordan whose mouth was opening and closing but nothing was coming out.

“Benny?” Anna called up the stairs.

“I think I pissed myself,” he replied forlornly.

“That the worst of it?”

“Just another Saturday night, y’know?”

He came into view as he crawled to the top of the steps, he grimaced seeing the creature gently stroking Jordan’s now tear soddened cheek.

“That on our side now?” He enquired in muted disbelief.

“Christ no, just hates him more than it hates us right now, I guess.”

Benny shrugged and tried to stand, he cried out in pain.

“Me ribs!”

“Stay there,” Anna told him. “And look away, I don’t think this is gonna be pretty.”

He nodded and gave a grimace, the creature was now purring, but it sounded like an industrial meat grinder. Then it licked the tears and blood from Jordan’s face with a veiny black tongue.

“Anna, get up here!” Benny said and turned his face away from the impending gore fest.

“Duck and cover, mate, I’ll be back soon.”

The creature had now grabbed the whimpering man by his arms and was lifting him up, so they were face to face, and Christ, Anna thought, the thing was savouring every terror drenched moment.

She had seen enough, Jordan was fucked and she had no desire to see the slave extract its gleeful retribution upon its former master.

She hobbled over to the next flight of stairs leading down, she could see her baton on the first-floor landing and Benny’s metal bar teetering on the third step up from it. She

knew the creature wasn’t an ally now, it was suitably distracted, and with it out of the picture for a while, she had the drop on that cow downstairs.

She started down the steps, her right foot hurt like hell, but she found she could put a little pressure on it.

She scooped up the metal bar and then her baton when she got to the first-floor landing.

A smattering of red rain began to speckle the white tiled floor at her feet, and she felt the soft spray of it on the back of her neck. And despite herself, as she began her descent, she glanced up.

Blood was beginning to run down the walls and steps above. She could hear nauseating wet ripping sounds and what sounded like someone gargling with treacle. Her imagination filled in the blanks.

“Christ,” she uttered and moved off.

Spurred on more than anything when she remembered from her high school biology classes that the human body had up to ten pints of blood in it. So, as she didn’t have an umbrella, she quickened her pace.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Sofia said from behind Wicksy.

She was craning her neck up to the second-floor window which looked to Wicksy like it had been painted red.

“Maybe,” she continued. “Just maybe I won’t have to bring the whole building down after all.”

“Really?” Wicksy said hopefully and went over to where she was standing by the pedestrian gate.

“I said maybe,” she reminded him. “Look.”

She pointed up to a first-floor stairwell window just as Anna moved slowly past.

“Anna!”

“She one of yours?”

“Yeah, my friend. What the hell is she doing!? Can you tell where that thing is?”

“Sort of,” Sofia replied.

“Drop this barrier thingy,” Wicksy told her and was surprised at the strength of his voice. “Let me in, let me warn her.”

“That’s brave, sweetheart but no. The creature is hurting, confused. They hate being created almost as much as they hate their creators.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Wicksy asked with growing frustration.

“Creations, such as our friend in there, need a specific target. Their intended victim’s destruction is literally the very reason for their existence. And you can’t just make up a target after it’s been summoned.” She gestured towards the now closed entrance door. “But from what I’ve seen, those

idiots in there conjured it without even thinking it would work.”

Wicksy began gesticulating wildly at Anna as she passed another window. But to no avail.

“They’re improvising,” Sofia continued. “And if there’s one thing you don’t do with a demon, that’s improvise.”

She shook her head and Wicksy caught a slight smile on her face. “You’d be surprised how many times this sort of thing happens,” she added.

“Well, that’s fucking reassuring,” Wicksy said.

“Oh, mostly the spells don’t work at all, or they create nothing more than a half-formed thing that dies within seconds,” Sofia told him. “Anyway, looks like our demonic friend in there has no true purpose, and that, I’m afraid, makes it very unpredictable. Poor thing must be going nuts.”

“Please stop,” Wicksy said sarcastically. “You’re breaking my heart.”

“Jordan! Jordan!?” The woman’s voice called up shrilly.

Vicky, that fuckwit, Jordan had called her Vicky, Anna remembered. The woman gave a sharp intake of breath and looked satisfyingly shocked, when she saw Anna coming down the last flight of stairs leading to the entrance hall. Baton in one hand, metal bar in the other.

“Jordan’s fucked, Vicky,” Anna said with relish.

The woman backed away across the entrance hall and over to the short corridor that led to the basement door. Christ, how ridiculous she looked, Anna thought bitterly. With her melodramatic robes and that stupid paper stuck to her forehead.

“Stay away from me,” Vicky warned. “I have power.”

Anna chuckled and stepped off the stairs and into the entrance hall. Her foot was hurting something chronic, but she didn’t care. She hobbled a couple of steps towards the retreating wannabe witch.

“I know what that paper does,” Anna said and gestured with her baton.

“Beast!” Vicky yelled. “To me!”

When nothing happened Vicky’s face went a quite remarkable white. Her eyes, wide like saucers, were twin orbs of doubt, confusion and no little fear.

“Beast is a little busy with Jordan at the moment,” Anna said.

The fear suddenly drained from Vicky’s face, replaced with a look of grim determination. She closed her eyes, concentrating.

“Beast,” she hissed.

A pained howl from above made Anna’s heart drop into her boots. The creature was coming down the stairs, but slowly.

She could hear from its grizzling and griping as it

approached, that it was trying to disobey its mistress, but still it came.

“Fight it!” Anna called back up the stairs, it sounded like the creature was now just on the floor above.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Vicky told her.

“Then you stop it!” Anna said, more out of hope than expectation.

“It’s gone too far for that now,” Vickey replied pragmatically. “Yes, this has turned into a shit-show, but I can control it, I can make it do my bidding.”

“Listen, I don’t pretend to know what the fuck you have been messing with here, but you can’t control it. It could have killed me up there, but it didn’t.”

“And it will be punished for its sins,” Vicky said coldly.

Vicky looked past Anna and to the landing behind her.

The creature was there, Anna had no doubt, its deep ragged breathing filled the entrance hall. And once again she could feel that harsh cold radiating in waves from its body, freezing the sweat on her back and chilling her to the bone.

She did her best to fight back tears, but they came all the same.

Then she felt a sudden heavy pressure on her chest and her ears popped, and from Vicky’s stunned reaction she clearly felt it too. This was followed an instant later by that same wave of energy she had felt upstairs at the beginning of all this nightmare, and as before it rippled up through her entire body. Her vision shifted from a blur to a shimmering clarity and for a second it looked for all the world like everything was underwater.

Then as before, she was suspended in mid-air, floating, every nerve ending alight. The sensation only lasted a heartbeat and the next moment she was flat on her back, disorientated gasping for breath.

“The fuck?” Vicky gasped from across the entrance hall.

She was also on the floor looking as shocked as Anna.

The creature on the landing roared in naked fear and Anna scrambled to her feet. The thing rocked on its heels as if ready to charge, its blood drenched teeth bared, gore tipped claws out swiping at the air. It took a step forwards, but then whimpered and shifted further back onto the landing, wracked with indecision.

Anna held up her hands, like a novice lion tamer without a whip and chair, willing the thing to calm down. But if they had even the most tentative of connections before. It was long gone at this new turn of events.

“Anna! Thank Christ...”

Wicksy was in the open entrance doorway, he dropped a brick against the door to hold it open, but froze half in half out seeing the thing on the landing.

“Wicksy!?” Anna cried out.

This snapped him out of it somewhat and he wrenched his gaze from the beast to her.

“I know what to do!” He exclaimed manically and finally darted inside.

He moved swiftly over to the short corridor, but stopped seeing a now mobile Vicky was between him and the basement doorway. She reached inside her robe and took out a vicious looking curved blade.

“Beast,” she screamed. “Protect your mistress!”

Anna spun away from this just as the creature leapt down the flight of stairs and landed some ten feet from her. Anna scooped up both her weapons once more and faced it.

“Fight it!” She begged the thing through tears.

“A little help, Sofia?” Wicksy called out through the still open entrance door.

But let out a curse as no red-haired cavalry appeared to save the day. He looked across to the obscene mis-matched stand off between Anna and the monster and his heart sank.

Sofia had called this at best a Hail Mary, when she had taken down the barrier and now, he could see why. That thing could easily despatch Anna in an instant then tear him apart for kicks. Then, Sofia had made it very clear that if that were to happen. The whole fucking building would come down.

“Fuck it!” He snarled.

Head down, he ran down the short corridor and at Boss Lady like a yank linebacker.

“Beast!” She shrieked.

All the while expecting the thing to rip him to shreds from behind, Wicksy side stepped a wild swing of the knife, then slammed into the woman with all the puny force he could muster, and they both hit the basement door hard.

He grabbed her robe with one hand and tried to snatch the paper off her forehead with the other. All the while she slashed and stabbed at him, coming close a couple of times.

But he managed to fend off the blade with his elbows.

“No!” She screamed in terror and did her best to push him away. “Beast! Beast!”

She madly flailed at Wicksy with the knife and caught his arm opening up a deep three-inch gash on his forearm.

“Bastard!” He hissed in pain.

She was slashing wildly now, but he kept dodging back, just out of range whilst trying to snatch the paper again.

The creature moved forwards and Anna backed away. It was a forlorn hope, but she had seen just how fast and brutal the thing could be. Yet it hadn’t shredded her yet, despite its mistress’s command. And she was pretty sure she could see fear and that conflict in its overwise terrifying gaze.

Either way, it was clearly in pain due to its resistance.

“Fight it,” she said softly but firmly.

It took a half-hearted swipe at her and its claw passed so close to her nose she could feel the air on her face. She

hobbled back, level now with the open entrance door and she momentarily contemplated making a break for it. But even if she managed to get away, the thing would be on Wicksy and she could never live with that.

“Witchy bitch!” Wicksy cursed from behind her.

“The paper!” She hollered at him. “Tear off the paper!”

“I fucking know!” He snapped back, still struggling with the woman.

The creature suddenly stopped when it was close to the open door. It looked from her to the opening and to Vicky’s plight. It moved to take a step forward but hesitated and let out a low guttural whimpering sound.

There was something outside stopping its progress, and that was fine with Anna, as long as it didn’t push through that fear. Then it roared in impudent rage and Anna shrieked in shock, nearly dropping her weapons. It lunged slightly, but then backed away a step or two, in fear and confusion.

Anna chanced a glance through the door and into the car park beyond. A woman, the same red headed woman she had seen with Wickey earlier, was sitting on the bonnet of a car at the very far end casually watching proceedings. Was she eating chips!?

“Who the fucking hell..?” Anna began. Then of all things the woman waved at her.

Vicky pushed Wicksy back a little, she stopped slashing the air, seeing the creature’s reticence.

“The collector?” She said, breathing hard.

“Aye, the collector,” Wicksy confirmed although in truth he still didn’t really know what that meant.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” Vicky stuttered, terrified. “She can get in?”

“Apparently,” Wicksy shouted at the open doorway. “If her majesty actually deigns to!” He added pointedly.

Vicky let out a sob of fear, then gritting her teeth defiantly she slashed at Wicksy again. He stepped back to avoid the blade, and she took that time to open the basement door at her back. And Wicksy was immediately hit with the overwhelming smell of sicky sweet heavy incense from inside.

She paused before going inside.

“Beast,” she shouted. “Kill these two then I will release you!”

The creature roared and Wicksy heard Anna yelp in shock.

He turned dreading what he would see, but the thing was still on the other side of the open doorway. Rocking back and forth from one massive foot to the other. But it was starting to edge forward ever so slightly.

“Anna?” He said softly.

“Go,” she said without turning around. “I’ll give you as much time as I can.”

This nearly floor him, and he had to swallow back a sob of despair. How the hell had it come to this? These last few

years with his friends had been nothing but a laugh riot. So much so that he couldn’t ever imagine taking life seriously again. But the gravity of the last hour or so threatened to crush him under its weight.

They had all gone from carefree idiots to this desperate last stand in the middle of some clandestine supernatural bullshit world of magic and monsters. All playing out in their nondescript block of flats on the outskirts of Leeds city centre. And all because three wannabe witches had somehow managed to conjure up a fucking demon and didn’t really know what the hell to do with it.

“This is all bullshit!!” He yelled angrily.

“Hell aye,” Anna agreed grimly.

Wicksy ran at Boss Lady just as she turned to go through the basement door. She spun back seeing his attack and jabbed the knife at him. Wicksy reached out to catch her arm, but she was moving too fast and missed. He slammed into her hard, just as she stabbed him in his left side, once, twice. They both tumbled inside, down the short flight of stone steps and onto the basement’s concrete floor.

Boss Lady was up on her feet with surprising speed. She jabbed and slashed at Wicksy who was on his knees now, arms up in a vain attempt to protect himself. The blade slashed his arm again, opening up another deep cut, soaking his sleeves in blood.

“Beast! Beast,” the witch hissed through gritted teeth, her eyes wide and manic.

The creature cocked its head to one side, listening to something Anna couldn’t hear.

“Please, stop,” she begged it.

She could feel her strength draining away along with any sense of hope and it was crippling.

The creature seemed to galvanise itself and stood bolt upright, chest out, its misshapen face turned up to the heavens. It was taking deep breaths, psyching itself up to cross the threshold of the open door and defy whatever power was radiating through it from outside.

Anna didn’t register the metal bar slipping from her grasp, but she was vaguely aware of it clattering to the floor. She began shaking, the shock and straight up realisation of her impending death hit her like a juggernaut.

Then the thing looked directly at her and bared its hideous teeth. Any lingering fear or even the merest hint of empathy to the human before it was gone. There was nothing now but gleeful hunger.

“Don’t...” Was Anna she could muster.

It moved forwards and seemed to falter slightly as it came directly level with the doorway and for a moment Anna allowed herself to hope. But then it took another short and

clearly painful step, then another, it grimaced fiercely but kept on coming.

Sobbing now, Anna threw the baton at it, but it bounced off like a flea hitting a tiger tank.

Down below in the basement, Wicksy, still on his knees and bleeding badly, mustered up every ounce of energy he had left and swung a right hook at the now cackling Boss Lady.

She stepped back, shocked at the sudden attack and the blow failed to connect by an inch at most. But her backward momentum made her chatter into a pile of packing crates, old paint cans and all manner of discarded crap people had left down here over the years.

The accumulated rubbish which was normally strewn all over the floor had been pushed up against one of the walls to clear a large space. Boss Lady’s legs got tangled in a pile of old wires and she was sent sprawling against a wall and fell amongst more debris.

“Bastard!” She hollered as she banged her head against the wall. She cried out in pain and began to desperately untangle herself from the garbage.

Lightheaded and breathing hard, Wicksy dragged himself to his feet. His head was spinning from the pain and blood loss, but also from the breath clogging swirling layer of incense smoke which hung heavy in the air and stung the back of his throat.

He grimaced and spat onto the floor, the smoke was coming from an old oil lamp sat on what looked like a low wooden altar, which had been set up in one cleared corner at the far end of the long basement. The altar had been placed in the centre of a large chalk circle, with a dozen or so thick black candles arranged around it, and was painted from what he could see in the gloom with a chaotic mix of symbols, runes and glyphs.

The smoke had a greenish hue to it and smelt and tasted sickly sweet. The flame within the lamp guttered and spluttered and seemed to be alternating between a vivid purple and electric pink.

The lamp was the target, Sofia had told him. The source of all the dark power those bastards had unleashed. And the way out of this whole horror show for the entire building and its residents. It was either that, she had said, or she would bring the building down on all their heads.

Wicksy gritted his teeth against the pain and began across the basement towards the lamp.

“Don’t you fucking dare, heretic!” Boss Lady screamed and came running at him through the smoke.

The beast loomed over Anna, and she was overwhelmed by that strange radiating cold it gave off, which was threatening to freeze the very breath in her lungs.

She swooned and began to topple backwards, but the creature grabbed her by the front of her t-shirt and lifted her off the floor and up to its malevolent face. Those cold green eyes seemed to flash with relish at the impending kill.

Oddly, now she was at the very end, all Anna could think to do was tweak the things crooked nose. So, she did and oh, how it made her laugh.

Lady moved swiftly to the edge of the circle so that she was now between Wicksy and the lamp. She took up a guard stance and slashed the air between them with the knife.

“I’ll kill ya!” She sneered.

“Y’know, lady?” Wicksy said weakly. “You are getting right on my tits.”

“No more than you on mine, normie pig!” She told him with a grin.

“Arh, bollocks to it,” Wicksy sighed.

He half ran, half stumbled into her, knowing full well what she would do. And she did. She grabbed him around the back of his neck with her free hand and stabbed at his stomach with the other. But insanely there was no pain, or impact, the knife had connected with his belt buckle which was ironically shaped like a screeching demon, and the blade snapped.

He would have let out a whoop of triumph if he’d had the energy but instead, he grabbed a hold of her and using his weight and forward momentum, he spun her around so that he now had his back to the lamp and altar and then just let her go.

Gravity did the rest, and he fell backwards into the circle and crashed into the lamp.

He braced himself for the thing to explode and shower him with burning kerosine, and of all things goat’s blood! The lamp shattered and shards of glass dug deep into his back, the burning wick detached from its housing and rolled across the floor. The dark fluid splashed him and pooled on the floor next to the splintered altar, but didn’t ignite.

The creature’s whole head seemed to split in two as it opened its jaws wide. It twisted Anna’s t-shirt in its fist and it tightened squeezing what little breath she had left out of her. She choked out one final laugh and closed her eyes.

Something like a flashbang grenade went off right in front of her face and the next thing she knew, she was on her back looking up at a shower of falling blue embers floating all around her.

“No!” Boss Lady shrieked and scrambled over to the extinguished wick. She picked it up and began frantically blowing on it in a vain attempt to re-ignite the flame.

Wicksy just sat there bleeding, the crazed woman fumbled in her robe for something and took out a lighter. Had it

worked he wondered? The lamp was in pieces, so he didn’t imagine lighting the wick again would do any good even if she managed to do so. But had the spell been broken as Sofia said it should?

Because he had to admit that if it hadn’t and that thing was still loaming around up there, he was in no shape to do anything about it.

Anna reached out a hand and caught one of the fading embers in the palm of her hand. It felt cold as ice to the touch, and much like a snowflake it melted away a moment later.

She could hear shouts of alarm from the floors above.

Then someone set off the fire alarm. She winced at the hash sound and tried to get up, but then thought better of it, so she propped herself against the wall by the lift.

Benny, bless him, appeared on the landing and then hobbled down the last flight of stairs and across to where she was sitting, all the while holding his busted ribs. He was then followed by a steady stream wide eyed residents in their night clothes.

A blood curdling scream came from somewhere further up the block and Anna figured the tenants evacuating the second floor or above had come across what was left of poor old Jordan.

Benny slid gingerly down the wall next to her, he rested his head on her shoulder.

“Over?” He said.

“No clue,” she replied honestly.

“Someone call an ambulance!” Someone shouted. “And the fucking police!”

“Wicksy,” Anna said softly, and she could feel unconsciousness beckon. “Basement.”

“No, no, no,” Boss Lady sobbed as she desperately tried to light the wick.

Wicksy just watched her with mild detachment and absently tapped his belt buckle. He figured this week would be a good week to do the lottery.

“Christ with a crew cut!” Benny exclaimed from the top of the steps.

“Alright, mate?” Wicksy said weakly.

“Ambulance is on the way,” Benny told him and came hobbling down the steps and over to where he was slumped.

“Anna?” Wicksy asked.

“She’s okay,” Benny assured him.

They both watched Boss Lady who had given up and was openly weeping and rocking back and forth.

“Fucking role-players,” Benny said.

Wicksy stifled a laugh, he was in enough pain as it was.

‘Horror at Hickson Villas!’ The caption next to the grim-faced reporter exclaimed as he spoke into the camera.

He was standing by a cross-cross of yellow police tape on the other side of the road to the sealed off Hickson villas car park. Several police and forensic vehicles were parked inside the cordon and two coppers were standing guard to fend off the growing gaggle of reporters and general on lookers that were milling around.

Wicksy hit the mute button and shifted awkwardly in his hospital bed. The reporter had been spouted the same vagaries on the hour, every hour, since he had come around from his surgery.

He hadn’t been formally interviewed yet by the police, but knew both Anna and Benny had, along with half of the building’s confused and terrified residents.

Boss Lady, real name Victoria Highgrove, he had been reliably informed by a gossiping nurse, was banged up in a secure medical facility. Apparently, she had shrieked and hollered like a banshee to all and sundry as she had been dragged away in cuffs, that yes, she was responsible for the whole sorry mess. And that very fucker better watch out as she would do the same again at her first opportunity.

Her ravings had been perfect fodder for the press.

Leading to such headlines as: ‘Devil worshipping cult,’ or:

‘High Priestess and followers cause death and destruction at inner city tower block!’ Etc. Etc.

There were even some blurry camara phone pictures of the occult paraphernalia in the basement and rumours of more still in the devilish trio’s flat. Which only fuelled the devil worshipper angle.

But how the hell, Wicksy thought with a smirk, they were going to explain away Morris’ quite spectacular demise? And that of some another poor bastard whose remains had been found spread all over the second-floor landing. He didn’t know but looked forward to finding out what fiction the authorities concocted.

The door to his private room, paid for by a tabloid newspaper, he had been told. In hopes of getting an exclusive interview when he was better, no doubt. Opened and Anna and Benny stuck their heads inside.

“There see,” Anna said to Benny with a mischievous grin.

“Told you he wasn’t dead.”

“We’re heroes!” Benny announced.

The two-walking wounded came inside. Anna’s normally cherubic face was puffy and black and blue, and she was on crutches. But Benny looked to have escaped with just the odd cut and bruise and was only sporting one black eye.

They each moved to either side of his bed, first Anna, then Benny kissed him on either cheek and perched on the sides of his bed.

“Nice digs,” Benny said talking in the room. “The housing association have put us all up in B&B’s until we can go home again. The whole building’s shut down.”

“Only the best for the heroes of Hickson Villas!” Anna announced dramatically.

“Chris okay?” Wicksy asked, realising he hadn’t seen or heard from the lad since they had all left the party.

“Yeah, yeah,” Benny assured him with a dismissive gesture. “Lazy sod slept through the whole thing!”

“Good, good,” Wicksy replied with hushed relief.

He looked at his two friends, all too aware just how differently things could have turned out. Tears welled in his eyes, but he kept them at bay with practise northern stoicism.

“Hey, come on, mate,” Anna said. “It’s okay, we did it, we saved everyone.”

“Can’t believe any of it,” Wicksy said with a shake of the head. “What the hell did you tell the police?”

“Told them the truth,” Anna replied. “Benny too, and they didn’t believe a word of it! They think we were tripping, and that we came across the role-players and somehow stopped them causing havoc with their evil devil worship!”

“Maybe, that is what happened,” Wicksy said absently.

“Just tell them the truth, mate,” Benny advised. “Won’t make much difference. They’re falling all over themselves as it is, trying to come up with some logical explanation.

“All the CCTV camera footage from inside and outside has,” Anna said and made air quotes. “Mysteriously been erased.”

Wicksy chuckled and paid for it with a stab of sharp pain from his many stitches.

“Any sign of Sofia?” He asked.

“Who?” Anna replied.

“The woman outside.”

“The red-headed chick who did fuck all to help?” Anna said. “You know she actually waved to me in the middle of it all? Waved!”

“Oh, she helped,” Wicksy said quietly. “In her own twisted way.”

It was strange, but ever since he had come around after his surgery, and his equilibrium had returned sufficiently.

Wicksy had been left with an odd sense of bereavement, for want of a better description, that Sofia hadn’t come to see him. Which was lunacy now that he thought about it. Had they even ever had a connection? That strange red headed enigma and him? Or was it just wishful thinking?

It may have been the meds he was on, and general PTSD, but it actually physically hurt that she might have only seen him as little more than a means to an end. A Hail Mary as she had put it.

“Earth to Robert,” Benny said, snapping him back out of his funk.

He shook it off and took both Anna and Benny’s hands in each of his. They were all alive, that was what truly mattered. And for better or worse they had collectively had a glimpse into some shadowy supernatural world that existed just out of sight, (usually he hoped!) Of their normal, refreshingly unmagical one.

A nurse knocked on the door frame and came inside carrying a white plastic bag.

“Robert Wicks?” She enquired.

“That’s me,” he replied. “Not more test?”

“No, nothing like that, chart says you’re doing fine.

Which is a miracle after what they say you guys went through.”

He could tell she was half fishing for gossip, but that wasn’t why she was really here.

“That’s us,” Benny chimed in. “Miracles incorporated, move over Ghostbusters.”

Looking suitably confused at this, the nurse wheeled over a table and positioned it over the bed, so it was above his lap. She then put the plastic bag on it.

“We’re not supposed to do this, but to be honest I was given fifty quid to deliver this,” she admitted.

“Nice work if you can get it,” Benny said.

“Enjoy,” the nurse said.

At first Wicksy assumed it was some gift from the newspaper, but then got a familiar whiff of its contents as he slid the polystyrene fast-food carton out and discarded the bag.

Tears welled in his eyes again, and he had to choke back a sob.

“Wicksy?” Anna said with concern.

“It’s okay,” he assured her and lifted up the lid.

“Cheesy chips!?” Benny remarked with surprise.

“Did she say anything?” Wicksy asked the nurse.

“Yeah,” she replied with a frown of confusion. “You’ll never eat these again without thinking of me?”

Wicksy chuckled and offered everyone a chip. “Sounds about right.”

DEADLINE

This was all Sky Arts’ fault. Christine Kinderman had first heard about the infamous eighties’ artist, Oscar Merrick in a documentary on the channel. It was a quite compelling story of anarchic talent and drug fluid excess that had ultimately ended in tragedy and self-imposed exile.

Merrick had seemed more like a rock star at the time, than a mere painter and his story mirrored all the tortured greats in music, although he had somehow survived with body, if not mind intact.

That lazy Sunday evening curled up on the sofa with a bottle of wine and watching TV, had led her to this point of impending disaster that was now staring her in the face. The programme and its subject had caught Christine at a particularly vulnerable moment.

And looking back now, it was easy to pinpoint what had led her to hit the bottle that fateful day. And to another name she wished she had never heard. Mary Karney.

Christine had been a moderately successful agent in the music industry for over ten years. She’d had minor successes along the way, but that one big pay day had always eluded her.

That was until she came across an unknown singer/songwriter playing to twenty people in a small venue at a music festival in Halifax. And the performance had floored her. So much so that she offered to sign Mary on the spot after the gig.

It was as if the little songstress had mesmerised her out of all proportion to the reality of the situation. Her friends in the industry warned her not to be so hasty, but Christine wouldn’t, couldn’t listen.

That had been her first mistake. The second and most damaging of all, was the amount of money she had thrown at the singer to help her write her first album. Christine knew how flaky artists could be when they were working, but Karney took it to a whole new level of crazy.

She would disappear for weeks on end and when she did reappear and was booked into a studio to lay down a demo, she had twice thrown a biblical fit of artistic rage and trashed half the instruments in the room. Instruments that Christine had rented.

This had gone on for six months without Mary having recorded even a note. And even the negative press she was generating in the tabloids was useless without Christine having a product to sell at the end of it.

And to make matters worse, Christine had spent so much of her time with the little hellion that she had neglected her other clients, which resulted in every one of them firing her, and with hindsight she couldn’t blame them.

At the end of these few short months, she had become a laughing-stock in the industry, nearly broke, and with her only client being famous for just being infamous. So, when a rival agent offered to take on Mary’s contract for a pittance, Christine had almost bitten their off hand.

Christine Kinderman went away to lick her wounds and count the cost of the whole sorry affair. And that was when Fate decided to kick her when she was down.

Within a couple of months of being dropped, Mary Karney had an apparent epiphany. She cleaned up her act, kicked the drink and drugs and attacked her music like a thing possessed.

And with that new management company behind her, she secured a lucrative seven figure recording contract.

Fast forward eighteen months to that fateful evening, when Christine, in a fit of masochism, had decided to watch a documentary on Mary Karney’s meteoric rise to stardom. She was now a millionaire, with a number one album, two number one singles, three Brit awards and even a Grammy to her name. The show culminated with a live sold-out gig at Wembley Arena.

Christine’s instincts had been right after all, but the vindication was a bitter victory. Here she was languishing in obscurity, with no real career to speak of, while Karney was well on her way to conquering the world.

But worse than all of that, the documentary had failed to mention Christine Kinderman even once, not even in passing.

For all she had gone through, for all she had sacrificed, she didn’t even warrant a footnote in the singer’s origin story.

It was then, when Christine was at her lowest ebb, she turned the channel to Sky Arts and was introduced to the turbulent life of artist Oscar Merrick. It had seemed like the Gods had given her a second chance, she thought. Sure, she didn’t know shit about the art world, but a client was a client she had figured. And this Oscar character and his story seemed tailor made for a comeback, for both of them.

But little did she know then that history was about to repeat itself.

How hard can it be? Christine Kinderman had been asking herself that very same question almost every day now for the past month. How hard can it be to come up with one painting in nearly six months?

She looked around the large gallery at the myriad of Oscar’s previous works, dozens of them! And not for the first time, felt completely out of her depth.

Music, she knew, but these monstrosities? They looked to her ‘untrained’ eye like a bunch of drunken monkeys had been let loose in the paint aisle of a B&Q, with a six-year-old as their art teacher. His paintings had been described as post-modern Jackson Pollock, whatever the hell that meant. But to her they were little more than random paint splashes on a canvas. Some of them even had glitter in them, glitter!

Oscar Merrick’s works had sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds around the world. Madness really, but Christine’s philosophy was that a mad man’s money is worth just as much as a sane one’s any day. So, if they wanted to throw large amounts of cash around for a new work, why shouldn’t she get her cut?

Especially now that she had invested so much in the old fool, including mortgaging her flat. Hiring the gallery, renting the transportation of his previous works, renting the paintings themselves of course from other galleries. All so that she could unveil his new masterpiece.

Merrick’s first completed work in the forty years since the death of his beloved wife and muse, Emily, the publicity had screamed. And all thanks to Christine Kinderman Management Inc. Who had found the reclusive artist, living in obscurity on a dilapidated farmhouse in deepest, darkest Yorkshire, and had convinced him to return to his work with a renewed passion!

The art world had gone nuts of course, and even Christine had been taken aback by the feeding frenzy that had erupted once she had broken the news. She had been bombarded with calls from all over the world, TV, press, radio, everyone wanted to know where he was, and more importantly, what he was creating.

She had been so busy that she’d had to hire an assistant, Marcus, her first since the whole Mary Karney disaster.

Everything had gone ridiculously smoothly since the announcement, except for one minor point. The publicity had lied.

Christine stared at the blank white space between two of Oscar’s old paintings. And it looked to her just as bleak and empty as her immediate financial future. The blank space which was reserved for Merrick’s new painting.

The truth was, in the months since Oscar had agreed, signed the damn contract, and been well paid in advance. He hadn’t painted so much as a stroke.

He was a drunk and had no confidence in his own ability anymore. He was crippled by the memory of his dead wife who had been everything to him. And no matter how much Christine had cajoled, flattered, even threatened, Merrick just couldn’t bring himself to paint.

The words of the gallery owner she had convinced to put on the exhibition rang in her ears:

‘ Oscar Merrick retrospectives are ten a penny these days, only a genuine new piece will bring out the buyers and the punters.

And without that, my dear, you’re sunk. ’

A voice behind her snapped Christine out of her despair, it was Marcus.

“Chris? Sorry, I’ve just had the printers on the phone.

The bank transfer bounced again,” he said solemnly.

“Marcus, I’m sunk,” she said without turning around.

It was the first time she had actually admitted it, not just to someone else, but to herself. And her heart sank.

“No word from Picasso then?”

Marcus was only a kid really, barely in his twenties, but he had stuck by her through all this, and she just hoped she would be able to repay him someday.

She shook her head. “Not going to say I told you so?”

“Nar,” he said and stepped to her side with a welcome warm smile. “That’s becoming a cliché around here lately.”

She laughed and it felt good. Then she noticed it was getting dark outside. “What time is it?” She asked.

“Little after seven.”

Time flies, she thought. That meant the exhibition opening was only four days away.

“Shouldn’t you have gone home by now?” She said to him.

“I don’t pay overtime you know.”

“You don’t pay at all at the moment,” he told her.

“Christ, Marcus, sorry, I’ll transfer...” She stopped herself remembering the printers.

“Don’t worry, boss, you can settle up when the exhibition takes off, maybe even a bonus, eh? Once you sell the painting, you’ll be rolling in it.”

Christine let out a long sigh. Painting? “Sure,” she said all the same.

As if things weren’t bad enough, as Christine drove to Merrick’s remote farmhouse retreat, Mary Karney’s new single, which the DJ cheerfully informed her, had gone straight in at number one, came on the radio. And she wondered just what atrocity she had committed in a previous life to deserve such torture.

Even under the flattering veil of night, Merrick’s farmhouse looked decrepit. The place had always depressed Christine, even before things had started to go wrong. She remembered how it had looked in its heyday from archival footage on the TV show.

During Oscar and his wife’s pomp, it had been a mecca of hedonistic excess. Anyone who was anyone in the arts flocked there for weeklong parties and God only knew what else. Often the revelries would spill out into the neighbouring countryside, much to the chagrin of the locals, who weren’t used to such goings on in their usually quiet part of Yorkshire. How things had changed since then. Time had not been kind to the place and its decay mirrored that of its reclusive owner.

Oscar Merrick had been at the height of his fame and fortune, when his manager and wife of twelve years, Emily, had died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage. Her death had plunged Merrick into an often-suicidal depression, and from that day he had withdrawn from the world and had never painted another

thing since. And over the coming years, any money he had made from his work had been drunk or snorted away.

Now a recluse, it had taken all of Christine’s powers of persuasion, and not to mention a fair amount of money, for her to convince him that, now was the time to pick up the paint brush again, and return, in triumph to the outside world.

She still remembered, but bitterly now, how she had fair skipped away from that fateful meeting filled for the first time in ages, with hope. But as she knew now. It’s the hope that kills you.

What had followed were months of procrastination and a prestigious amount of alcohol consumption. Always wine, always expensive, and Merrick had on more than one occasion, trashed his studio here at the house in a fit of drunken creative impotence, which reminded Christine all too much of that little songbird Karney.

And through it all that large blank canvas that dominated Merrick’s studio had remained just that, blank.

The house was in darkness when she got there and as usual the front door was unlocked. As Christine made her way down to the old wine cellar which served quite aptly as his studio, Christine told herself to stay positive, you never know. Last time, Merrick had sworn blind we would start his new masterpiece, so she manifested some completed paint splattered monstrosity in her mind’s eye that would greet her when she entered.

“Oscar, can I come in?” Christine called out and knocked on the studio door.

She half hoped she was interrupting Merrick in the midst of his creative flow, and that he would swear at her through the door at the intrusion to his genius. But, just as always, she was greeted with silence.

She gingerly opened the door and stepped inside.

“Oscar?”

The first thing she saw was the large blank canvas set up against the far wall. And that half hope disappeared into thin air. Merrick was slumped in a chair in front of the canvas asleep.

“Oscar!” She snapped.

Merrick jumped and got unsteadily to his feet, he turned to face her, and she could see he had an empty wine bottle in one hand where the paint brush should have been. He peered at her, disorientated for a moment, then a look of weary recognition slowly crossed his haggard face.

He was still wearing the same clothes she had left him in on her last meeting. His shoulder length grey hair and equally ill-kempt grey beard could easily have been home to half a dozen small animals. What was he seventy odd? He looked a hundred.

“Christine,” he rasped. “I must have dozed off.”

Christine took a moment before answering and told herself to stay calm, shouting at the old man wouldn’t help anyone, nor would wringing his neck.

“Oscar,” she said as calmly as she could. “I’ve been trying to call you all day.”

“Oh, I hate phones,” he said with a grimace. “People can come straight into your home, and you can’t do a damn thing about it.”

This from someone who doesn’t lock his front door? She thought but kept it to herself. She gestured to the bottle in his hand.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to drink until you’d finished?”

Merrick looked guiltily at the bottle and shrugged.

“Just a drop,” he said. “To lubricate the hinges,” he flexed his free hand as if to illustrate the point.

Christine took a breath. “Oscar, tell me this is a new piece,” she pointed to the very blank canvas. “Tell me you’ve finished the one for the exhibition, and this is just a new one you’re about to start. Tell me the work’s just flooding out of you, and I’ll buy you a fucking vineyard!”

She regretted her harsh tone and the expletive, but still, it felt good.

Oscar grew sullen, he looked across to the massive, exquisitely painted portrait of his late wife, which was hung on the wall above his maddeningly tidy paint bench. Her blazing brown eyes, watching, always watching.

Christine had tried to get him to exhibit that painting, it was, even to her heathen eye a breathtaking work. But he had steadfastly refused. That was for him, and him alone he had said adamantly.

“I, can’t,” he uttered. “I need Emily.”

Maybe it was the small amount of pleasure she had gotten from snapping at him before, or through sheer desperation, but before she realised what she was doing, Christine strode across to Oscar and just managed to stop herself from actually grabbing him by the throat.

“Oscar! She’s dead! She’s gone!” Christine ranted.

“You can’t keep living in the past, you have to pull yourself together! You need to let her go!”

Jesus! What was that? She thought to herself and was hit with a wave of shame. It had come across more cruelly than she had intended, but it had just forced its way out.

Whether it needed to be said or not, she was instantly sorry for the outburst.

She was about to apologise when Merrick spoke, still looking into his wife’s painted eyes.

“I know,” he relented softly. “But it was always her...

I don’t know if I can keep this up anymore,” he finally turned to Christine. “I’m sorry,” his voice trailed away.

The regret instantly dissipated, and she couldn’t help but glare at him. Fucking artists and their fucking muses!

She wanted to scream in his face. ‘ Sorry? You’re sorry? I’m going to lose everything because of you, you old drunken bastard! And all because of a woman that has been dead forty years!?’

But somehow, she managed to keep herself together. She could feel the panic welling up inside her. How could she have been so blind, and again!? She looked at the heart-broken man standing in front of her, she hated him, but she also knew it wasn’t all his fault.

She had been the one that had approached him with the idea. She had been warned that he was damaged goods, half mad with grief, festering away in this once magnificent hovel.

But she had ignored them all and plunged into a world she knew nothing about.

And it was as clear as day to her now as she stood here with her world turning to shit, that subconsciously this was all to banish the spectre of Mary Karney. Christine Kinderman, she mused bitterly, the woman who gave away the singer’s contract for peanuts. Back from the wilderness with the biggest coup in modern British art history!

The woman who saved Oscar Merrick. The only one who believed in him and brought him back from the very edge of destruction to create once more. Not to mention making a mint in the process.

God the realisation made her feel sick. What a fucking joke it all was. But did she give up once and for all, or keep going?

Christine took a calming breath, she couldn’t give up, not now. And whatever the reason she found herself in this mess, it was up to her and her wits to get her out of it. Or go down fighting.

“Oscar, I believe in you,” it was plainly stated and took the artist by surprise. “And I know,” she continued, buoyed by his reaction. “That once you get started, you won’t be able to stop.”

She could almost hear the cogs grinding in his head. She moved a little closer.

“I believe in you, Oscar,” it was almost a seduction.

“And from what I know, Emily believed in you too.”

That as low, she knew, and didn’t love herself for it.

But judging by the way Merrick’s back straightened a little it had worked.

“All I ask is that you give it a try,” she continued.

“You just need a little confidence in yourself that’s all.

You’re Oscar Merrick,” she announced. “The Oscar Merrick.

Scourge of the stuffy and staid art world establishment.”

“Fuck those guys,” Oscar whispered almost imperceptibly.

“Yes! Fuck them, Oscar. You showed them before, you can show them again.”

“Emily hated them so,” he said with a weary but wicked smile.

“Do it for her, stick it to them one more time. Christ, Oscar, I know you miss her, but do you think she would want to see you living like this?”

He shook his head. And for the first time since she had met him, there was a growing fire behind those pale eyes. She had awoken something in him, and he visibly brightened now.

He looked across at his wife’s portrait but not with longing this time, but something akin to that old mischief Christine had seen in the documentary during his heyday.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “After all, how hard can it be?”

She gently took him by the shoulders. “Yes, you can show them, Oscar. They’ve written you off, show them, make them eat their words.”

He nodded vigorously and she had never seen him so animated. The years seemed to fall away from his face as she looked at him. The weight dropping from his shoulders like a discarded backpack of misery. And it was infectious.

“Show them,” she told him.

Christine felt hope coursing through her veins just by looking at the way he held himself now. It was as if he had renewed energy to burn and she was feeding off the excess. He took her hands off his shoulders and squeezed them.

“I can do this,” he said fiercely. For Emily, we’ll show them again, bastards.”

“Yes!”

He pulled away and went over to his work bench. He ran his hands lightly over the artist’s paraphernalia laid out there.

“I must work! I must work!” He bellowed.

Christine watched with tears of relief in her eyes as he began popping open paint tubes and selecting brushes, feeling the weight of them in his hands.

“Oscar, I’m gonna go,” she said softly not wanting to break the creative spell he was now under. “Four days, okay?

The exhibition is in four days, I’ll call you, tomorrow?”

“Four days,” he replied, with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Four days, easy.”

She made her way to the door, but never took her eyes off him as he frantically worked at mixing and stirring. He then wheeled around to face her as she reached the door. His face was a wild man’s. but in a good way.

“Christine,” he said breathing hard. “Thank you.”

She choked back a sob at the unexpected thanks. She shook her head, unable to reply.

“You’ve set me free,” he added and returned to the bench.

Christine fair flew over to her car and it felt like she could breathe properly for the first time in weeks.

She sat in the driver’s seat and was about to start the engine, when she was blindsided with an overwhelming sense of

relief, and she began sobbing uncontrollably. She didn’t try to stop it, and it felt good.

After the best night’s sleep, she thought she had ever had in her life, Christine drove to the gallery to go over any last-minute details with the owner and to reassure him everything was on track for the opening.

After the meeting, she decided she would have a lazy wander through the exhibition once more and this time it didn’t feel so oppressive. God knows she still didn’t get the appeal of Merrick’s work, it was all random paint splashes and dark splodges to her. But today the ‘paintings’ seemed somehow brighter and more colourful than she remembered.

She put that down to her relief and the fact it was a sunny day. Even the large banner that hung from the ceiling proclaiming the unveiling of Oscar Merrick’s new piece, which until last night had been mocking her impending failure, looked good to her now.

After a leisurely lunch, Christine went to her office to check on things there. As it was a Sunday, Marcus wasn’t in, but she could see she had just one message on her office voicemail service. It was from Marcus, and it was bad news, or would have been this time yesterday.

“Hi, Chris, It’s me your ever faithful man servant. And if you’re wondering why there’s only one message, that’s because I took the liberty of deleting all the bad ones.

Figured you have enough on your plate as it is.”

Christine laughed, bless him. She reminded herself to give him a juicy bonus once the money started rolling in.

Apart from being a great assistant, he had always managed to keep her going with his acidic good humour even through the darkest times.

“Oh, and Jamesons the printer’s call again,” the message continued. “About the failed bank transfer. I told them you were dead, hope that’s okay. Anyway, hope it went okay with the old git. Keep your chin up, honey. Call be if you aren’t actually deceased.”

Christine spent the rest of the day, dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s in preparation for the opening. And it was as if the universe had suddenly decided to give her a break.

She smoothed things over with the printers and even offered them a little extra for their trouble, and immediately regretted it.

Everything was falling into place. The catering was on point, all the art critics had gotten back to her to confirm they were all coming to the opening. One even tried to bribe her for a sneak preview.

“I think I deserve a drink,” she announced to the empty office. It was only four thirty, but what the hell?

She was about to grab her coat when her mobile went off.

She glanced at the caller ID. ‘Oscar.’

Her blood froze for a second, she knew how much Merrick hated phones, so a direct call for him could only be a bad thing. She immediately caught herself. That was before yesterday, before her pep talk and before everything had gone so well today. Still, her heart was pounding when she answered.

“Hello?” She croaked. “Oscar, that you?”

There was silence on the other end for what seemed like an age. She was about to ask again when Oscar spoke.

“Christine?” His voice was weak, barely a whisper.

Christine felt sick, even a little dizzy. Please, she thought, please don’t do this to me, Oscar. Then he spoke again, and his voice was much clearer.

“Christine, something wonderful has happened. I’ve nearly finished it.”

Christine felt her legs buckle a little at the switch in emotions and she just managed to sit on the edge of her desk.

She had been expecting the worst only to be told she had won the lottery.

“Christine, you still there?”

She was so stunned she had forgotten to speak. “Yes, Christ yes, Oscar, that’s amazing news, thank you, thank you!”

She took a breath conscious that she was babbling. “How did you do it so quickly?”

“It’s all thanks to you,” he replied. “I thought about what you said. About Emily, I thought about how much she would have loved to see the look on those art snobs faces.

After that, it was easy, really.”

“That’s fantastic, Oscar. Right,” she tried to collect her thoughts. “I’ll need to get back to you in a little bit.

And well done, I knew you could do it.”

“No!” Oscar snapped. Then softer. “It’s not quite finished yet. I need you to come over, now. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Oh, okay.”

She hoped it was just nerves, and that he needed a little validation. After all it had been literally decades since he had painted anything.

“I’ll be right over,” she said. She was about to hang up when she added. “Oh, and Oscar? What’s it like?”

She heard him let out a triumphant breath. “Oh, it’s going to be beautiful,” he announced.

On her way over to the farmhouse, Christine called Marcus to give him the good news, and to start arranging for the transportation when she confirmed it.

“Never doubted the old bastard for a moment,” he told her. “He just needed a kick up the backside, that’s all.

Don’t know what you were worrying about.”

“I know, smart arse,” she replied. “But I just wanted to say thanks, y’know for sticking by me.”

She really meant it but made a mental note to stop being so sentimental. It was relief, she knew, but still!

“Shut up, you’ll have me balling,” he joked. Then.

“Hey, Chris’, does this mean I can tell everyone you’re back from the dead then?”

“Yes,” Christine announced with a smile. “Yes, you can.”

It was dark when Chritine pulled up outside the farmhouse, and for once Merrick had put on all the lights.

That must be a good sign, she thought as she breezed over to the front door, which as normal was unlocked.

She turned the handle and pushed, but the door only opened a few inches as something was blocking it from the other side.

“Oscar?” She called out but got no reply.

She had to put her shoulder to the door and push hard until it opened far enough for her to squeeze inside.

She cursed under her breath at what welcomed her. The hallway was filled with debris, broken furniture, clothes, a smashed old TV. She could see through into the kitchen, smashed plates and several dining room chairs littered the floor.

She picked her way along and could see the living room was in much the same state. The stairs leading to the next floor had a single bed wedged halfway up, the bedding shredded like confetti was strewn everywhere. It was as if someone had turned the house upside down and shook it until everything upstairs landed in a smashed heap downstairs. The air was thick with duck and feathers from the slashed pillows and upholstery.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. Then shouted. “Oscar? Oscar are you here? Are you okay?”

There was no answer, so Christine slowly made her way through the wreckage and made her way to the stone steps leading down into the cellar and Merrick’s studio. They were clear enough, so she began her descent. All the while listening out for any signs of life.

She paused as she reached the door to the studio. The door was slightly ajar. She gingerly peered through the gap, expecting the studio to be in the same state as the rest of the house. But she was surprised to see the place was untouched. The vandals, if that’s what they were, had missed this place. And if anything, as she moved inside, it seemed if anything tidier than she remembered it being yesterday.

It wasn’t until she was further inside that she noticed the contents of the workbench had been pushed off the edge and were heaped in a pile at one end. Brushes, pallets, all just piled there, not smashed like the rest of the house. If was as if someone, Oscar she had to assume had pushed them off in a deliberate., but nonviolent action.

All that remained were seven large glass jars containing paint placed neatly in a row. Blue, green, orange, yellow,

black, and one which looked indigo at a glance, but it was hard to make out in the dimly lit room. And finally, one full of glitter.

And at the far end, the whole reason she was here, The canvas. Her heart sank. It was as blank as the day she had bought it.

“Oh, God,” she uttered. The sight knocked the wind out of her. “Oh, God, no...”

“I told you, it’s not finished yet,” Oscar said from behind her.

Christine let out a yelp of surprise and turned to see Oscar standing in the doorway to the cellar. He was wearing of all things a dusty tuxedo and an un-nerving grin.

“Oscar?”

He brushed the dust off his shoulder and stepped into the room. ”How do I look?” He asked.

She was about to answer with a string of expletives, when he reached just behind the door and took out a double-barrelled shotgun.

Shock hit Christine and she staggered back a step. She tried to speak but it had robbed her of her voice. Merrick moved slowly closer, his face was far too calm.

“You know,” he said softly. “I didn’t honestly think it would go this far.” There was an odd apologetic tone to his voice.

“Oscar, what are you doing?” Christine asked, finally finding her voice. Her mind raced, had she pushed him too far? Had the pressure finally made him snap?

“Look Oscar,” she said. “I know I’ve been pushing you a little hard lately.” He just shrugged in response. “We, we can push the exhibition back a week or so,” she babbled on.

“Honestly, it’s no problem. Actually, it would be better for me too.”

“It’s no good, Christine,” he replied a little too matter of fact. “I just can’t paint.”

“Yes, you can,” she said trying to stop herself from just screaming in panic. “You just need a little more time, and for me to back off a bit. I know I’ve been pressuring you, that’s my fault, but I’ll stop.”

Christine backed off a little, then became uncomfortably aware that she now had her back to the canvas. She held out her hands defensively.

“Oscar? Please.”

He looked across to the work bench and then to Emily’s ever-present portrait on the wall over it. Christine glanced at the door and for a split-second thought about making a break for it. Oscar’s face softened as he gazed lovingly at his dead wife.

“It was always Emily,” he said distantly.

Despite everything, Christine could see how lost and alone he was. He had lost his muse and the love of his life.

What had she been thinking? Merrick was just a sad old man she should have left well alone. But still, maybe the ghost of Emily and past glories was her way out of this.

“I know,” she placated. “But you can still do this, for her.”

Then oddly, Merrick turned and gave her a look like she was stupid. Then it seemed to dawn on him, and he laughed.

“No, Christine,” he said. “It was always her! She painted everything. Christ I couldn’t paint a garden fence,”

he laughed softly at the thought. “She wanted me to take the credit because she hated the limelight, said it was a creativity killer. I took all the plaudits, all the press, all the fawning critics because she loathed them.”

All Christine could do was stare at him in dumbstruck disbelief. Merrick seemed genuinely amused at her reaction, as if it had been so glaringly obvious from day one.

“It started out as a joke, really,” he continued. “Just between us,” he shook his head and smiled, remembering.

Christine felt physically sick, the shock of the revelation made her mind whirl, and it all slotted into place.

Of course, there hadn’t been any paintings after Emily died.

How could there be? She wasn’t the muse, she was the artist!

Merrick casually swung the shotgun in her direction.

“Oh, and she hated agents,” he said absently.

Christine winced. Did his finger just brush the trigger?

“I just didn’t think it would go this far,” he added with a shrug. “I thought you’d lose interest, just like all the others did over the years.”

Merrick moved casually over to the workbench, but still kept the shotgun trained on her midriff. Christine glanced at the doorway again. It seemed a million miles away all of a sudden.

“I guess,” Merrick continued. “I’ve been playing the role of Oscar Merrick the artist for so long, you made me forget who I really am. Oscar Merrick, the fraud.”

Oscar picked up one of the paint jars and held it up, almost making toast with it. Christine knew there was no way she could make it to the door, let alone through all the clutter between her and the outside. She would have to do what she did best, talk her way out of this mess.

“Oscar, you can stop this now,” she said as calmly as she could. “While there’s no harm done. Do you really want to hurt me?”

Oscar ignored her and poured the contents of the paint jar down the barrels of the shotgun. He then let the jar slip through his fingers, and it smashed on the stone floor at his feet. Then he moved on to the next jar and repeated the action.

“Oscar, what are you doing?” She asked, but didn’t really want to know the answer.

He moved onto the third jar, then the fourth. The barrel was now filled to overflowing, but he continued pouring and smashing the jars until the last, the glitter. The gun metal was now a river of multi-coloured paints and sparkles as they poured down the barrel coating the weapon and Oscar’s hands.

Christine heard snaps and pops as he walked over the broken glass. She winced and hissed through her teeth in shock as she now realised, he was barefoot. But didn’t so much as react as she walked over the shards. His blood mixing with the kaleidoscope pools on the floor.

She moved to her right as he padded away from the bench, his ruined feet making sickening wet sucking sounds on the stone floor, her eyes fixed on the bizarre looking weapon, keeping as much distance as she could between them. When he moved, she moved and they circled each other, once, then twice.

“I finally figured it out,” he said as they performed their curious dance. “How I can finish your damn painting.”

He raised the gun and Christine staggered back, covering her face. “Oscar, please!”

But it was Merrick who now had his back to the canvas.

“Behold!” He proclaimed. “My first work.”

He brought the shotgun up to his mouth. Christine cried out and spun away in horror, just as the gun went off with a deafening roar.

The funny looking man standing with Christine Kinderman in front of Merrick’s ‘latest work,’ was speaking but she couldn’t make out half of what he was saying. This was due not only to the excited din of the large crowd milling around the gallery. But also, the damage her eardrums had taken lately.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But you’ll need to speak up.

I’m a little deaf at the moment.”

The man moved closer. “I was just saying, it’s a masterpiece! Just look at the colours, and that unusual texture mixed in. It’s quite simply Oscar’s best work.”

Christine smiled and nodded and took a sip of her champagne. The man was the chief art critic with the Times.

And was just echoing what everyone at the exhibition had been telling her all evening.

“Of, course,” the man said conspiratorially as he beaconed her closer. “It’ll make an absolute mint. We’re taking seven figures here.”

With his he disappeared into the throng that filled the gallery, and not for the first time this evening Christine wondered if she was going to hell.

She spotted Marcus, weaving his way towards her. He was dressed to the nines and clearly a little drunk.

“Boss! Boss!”

“Hiya, Marcus.”

“It’s a hit love,” he told her excitedly. “These arty types are losing their absolute shit over that thing.” He gestured to the ‘painting’ with a grimace. “Got to be honest, just looks like a load of random paint splashes, and God only knows what else that is, thrown onto a canvas to me.”

“I know what you mean,” Christine replied.

Yes, she was definitely going to hell. She had made the decision in an indecently short amount of time, once the initial shock had passed. She was pretty sure the thing was still drying and couldn’t bring herself to look at it for too long. But still, the art world loved it.

“Quite like the red though,” Marcus said, studying the thing. “Such a shame Oscar couldn’t be here.”

She raised her glass to the monstrosity. “Well, in his way, he is. Cheers.”

SHIP

“Ensign Daly?” The soft but still subtly robotic voice enquired through the fog of Roger Daly’s slowly clearing consciousness.

The powers that be who manufactured the on-board computer assist program, had apparently experimented with a myriad of voice choices for the human, ship’s computer interaction interface. Different inflections, accents, even so rumour had it, celebrities had lent their voices to the mix in the early stages of development.

But, Noakay Enterprises, who had built and installed this vessel’s system, had narrowed these choices down to just three. Neutral male, neutral female, which is the one they had, and a basic soulless electronic voice, which no one ever used as it was downright creepy.

“Ensign Daly?” The ship’s smooth female voice asked again. Then after a pause. “Roger?”

Roger! That was him, the ship was speaking to him, Daly thought with a dull recognition.

That was another optional feature all commercial interstellar class crafts had. The ability to name the computer they would be communicating with. To lend more familiarity to the interactions between human and machine.

But despite all the possibilities available, Captain Ramirez, ever the whimsical thinker, had defaulted to simply

‘ship’. But to be fair, it was easier to pronounce than the vessel’s actual registered name: The Anthishenes.

Thought of Ramirez awoke a quite terror in Roger. The image of the man’s mutilated body flashed with harsh clarity into his mind’s eye. The look of frozen horror on the man’s dead face.

Then it all came back in a frenzy of vivid flashbacks, one right after the other. Chief Roberts, the engineer, brains splattered all over is usually pristine workbench.

Young Adjani, the mechanic, just twenty-two, fresh out of university, this was only her second space flight. He pictured her ripped to shreds next to the quadbike she had been repairing during the attack.

Roger smacked his lips, as he drifted in the ether between unconsciousness and consciousness, he could taste blood, his own no doubt, but possibly that of the last crew member he had found, barely alive. Dino, the pilot had died moments later in Roger’s arms, blood pouring from a dozen ragged wounds in his friend’s body.

Four out of a crew of five on the Anthishenes, which left only Ensign Roger Daly alive on board. And the creature of course.

It had been a miracle, but somehow Roger had survived the attack. He tried to remember how the hell he had, sheer luck no doubt, but all he could recall was the fury of the assault and the panic.

He touched his face, consciousness closer now that ever, but recoiled in pain and shock. His features were puffy, disfigured maybe, and tender as hell. His whole body felt like it had gone through an industrial rock sample grinder.

He winced and opened his eyes. The room he found himself in was in near darkness, but he recognised the lights intermittently blinking on the flight console across the other side of the compartment. The blast shields were up so he couldn’t see the stars outside the main viewing window, which stretched across the entire wall behind the instrument panel.

He on the flight deck. He must have staggered in here in a daze after the initial attack. Yes, now he remembered, the captain kept a pistol in his ready room which was connected to the deck. He must have been looking for that.

Even in the gloom, he could see bloody handprints on the door handle to the ready room. It had been locked, that’s right! It was coming back to him in snippets now. He had tried the handle, but the door was locked. He must have passed out soon after.

“Roger?” Ship enquired as if reluctant to bother him.

“Still here, ship,” he replied hoarsely.

Then he remembered he had asked the computer to do a scan of the entire ship before losing consciousness. It wasn’t big, class eight research vessel, only a thousand tonnes.

“Have the results from the sweep come in yet?” He asked.

“Not yet, I calculate another twelve minutes.”

“Any preliminary findings? We need to locate this thing.”

“Still no sign of the creature,” ship replied.

Roger was surprised at just how reassuring ‘her’ even tones were. He tried to get to his feet, but his legs screamed back in protest, so he sat back down again. He took in his situation as best he could. He was on the floor with his back against the hopefully locked entrance door leading to the corridor beyond and the rest of the ship. And somewhere, skulking out there, was the monster.

Just how the hell the thing was allowed to get on board, he had no idea. Captain Ramirez, who was also the science officer, and Dino had taken the shuttle to map and get samples from a new asteroid that had been detected in the area. Roger

guessed they must have set down on the surface for some reason, but as a lowly Ensign he wasn’t privy to such decisions.

Roger had been in the cargo hold, doing mind numbing inventory during their little jaunt. A couple of hours later, all hell had broken loose.

“Erm, maybe the thing doesn’t show up on any of your instruments,” Roger offered. “That would explain how the creature got on board undetected in the first place.”

This would be the first ever recorded encounter with an alien life-form. And just as the movies had predicted ad nauseum, the thing turned out to be a mindless killing machine. Still, Roger mused grimly, he would be famous, if he survived long enough to tell the tale.

“I have access to thirty cameras, Roger,” ship reminded him. “Even if the creature doesn’t trip any of my sensors.

It isn’t invisible.”

Ship was smart, Roger had to acknowledge that. It could calculate distances and flight paths in the blink of an eye.

But still despite all that, it couldn’t think outside the box.

Couldn’t think like a human. Or an alien for that matter.

“It must be in one of the living quarters, or the head.

No cameras in those.”

“That is correct, but I have no visual of the creature in any of the corridors leading to or from the living quarters, or the loading dock, mess hall or engineering.”

Roger’s head began to swim again, he gently rested it against the cool metal of the door.

“Just let me know when the results are in,” he said testily.

“Of course, Roger.”

“Oh, and ship?” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Is there anyway of moving the bodies? Seems unkind to leave them all out there like that. Maybe cover them at least?”

“I would say not, the recovery team will want to process the scene when they arrive.”

Made sense, Roger thought, ship would have alerted the nearest station, they would send help. But still, he had a gnawing doubt. Could they truly know what they were getting themselves into?

“Perhaps you’re right,” he relented. “But we can’t let anyone on board until you’ve either located, or trapped the creature,” he added with an edge to his voice.

“With all due respect ensign,” ship said. “That is something for the authorities to decide.”

Ensign? That reply bristled with him. He knew he had a chip on his shoulder about his lowly rank and status on the

Anthishenes. Five years in and he was still just an ensign.

Christ, even the young mechanic Adjani out ranked him, despite being ten years his junior. Or she did out rank him he realised grimly, past tense, like her life.

“ETA on them?” He asked.

“The Rolston has just cleared the last of the Galilean moons. ETA five hours.”

“The Rolston?” The name didn’t ring a bell.

“Military vessel, on manoeuvres around Jupiter. They were the closest.”

“Military vessel, yes that was good, Roger thought with relief. At last, his luck was changing. Still, he wished he had the captain’s weapon.

“Good, good,” he slurred suddenly dog tired. “But we still can’t let them on board...” So damn tired, the shock of it all he imagined dully. “Until you, locate... The, the...

Creature.”

Each word fell from his lips like stones, and he could feel unconsciousness beckon...

“The sweep results are in, Roger,” ship said pulling him back from the darkness.

He had dreamt that the crew, all dead, all mutilated beyond belief, were screaming orders at him. The computer most of all. He had railed back against them, through tears of frustration, that the dead have no rank over him. He was in charge now! But the dead had just laughed at him, even his friend, Dino. The emotions the dream had elicited, clung to him now that he was awake, leaving him feeling worthless.

“Huh? What, what the hell?” he babbled, disoriented.

He looked around the spacious flight desk. Ship had upped the lighting level a little and he could now see the dark outlines of the two forward flight chairs in front of the bulky control panel, with its light blinking here and there like the stars outside that he could not see as the blast shields were still up.

“Ship?” He whispered, like a child asking for its mother after waking from a nightmare, but not wanting to alert the demons that might still be lurking from its twisted deep sleep narrative.

“Roger, I detected you were coming around, thought you should know, the results from the sweep are all in.”

“Yes, yes,” he replied and pressed his palms to his pounding temples. “The sweep, report.”

“No sign of any other living being on board. You are the only lifeform.”

“What!? That can’t be right,” he protested. “It has to be on board somewhere. Four people don’t just die, and not in such horrendous ways.”

“Forgive me for asking,” ship said. “But did you actually see the creature?”

“What?” He snapped. “Yes, I fucking told you, I saw it kill Dino!”

He thought of poor Dino, choking on his own blood, trying to speak to him, warn him of the thing that had maimed him so.

The shock and confusion of the sudden brutal attack plain on his pain contorted face. It was a look of horror and incomprehension, Roger would never forget. Then his friend’s eyes had glazed over as the light left them. Roger cursed and shook the memory from his mind.

“You’ve seen the bodies,” he uttered. “On your precious monitors?”

“Yes, I have,” ship replied.

“You should have detected it getting on board,” Roger added bitterly.

Useless collection of circuits, microchips and wires.

Roger Daly had always thought the space industry put too much faith in the Godless creations. They were the real reason he had been kept down. It was their fault he was still only an ensign.

Well, no more, he was in charge now, and to hell with the machine. He would get himself out of this, he would save the day.

Then it came to him. “Ship?”

“Yes, Roger?”

“How about you open all the doors, interior and exterior?

Except the ones in here, of course. That will suck the thing right out.” It wasn’t subtle, even he had to admit that, but it was a plan.

“That will expel everything,” ship replied. “The bodies, all the unsecured equipment. Not to mention the very real potential for structural damage it could cause to the hull. I cannot do that, ensign.

Again, with the ensign shit. “Y’know, I’m getting a hell of a lot of negativity from you, ship,” Roger barked. “It’s as if you don’t care about what’s happened here, to the others, to me.”

He didn’t know if the computer could detect the meaning behind the accusation, but it was thick in his voice. Was its cold analytical brain even now, calculating his worth over the creature’s?

He felt a stab of fear, the computer had control over everything. It could open the flight deck door, leaving him

at the mercy of the thing roaming around out there. It could shut off his oxygen supply, anything. He would need to be careful.

“Roger, your safety is my primary concern,” ship assured him. “I have secured you on the flight deck. You will be quite safe here until the Rolston arrives. There is no need for you to worry.”

Even though reason told him it wasn’t capable of it, Roger was certain he caught a hint of condensation in the bitch’s artificial voice.

“Where does the captain keep his weapon?” Roger asked as nonchalantly as he could. “Is it in his ready room, or his personal quarters?”

“You are under a lot of stress, Roger. I simply think you should wait for the rescue team to arrive. They will help you make sense of all this.”

Definitely condensation in that soulless voice! He was sure of it now. Clear as God damn day! He had to bite his tongue, watch what he said to ship. He could feel the resentment and rage building in his belly. That deep churning pit of anger he sometimes felt on long trips. Soulless, soulless mechanical bitch.

“They will be here soon,” ship added.

“I need that weapon,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“I cannot allow that.”

“Cannot allow that?” He snapped. “I need it!” He was yelling now, despite himself.

Temper, temper, he tried to caution inwardly, but it just did no damn good. Roger Daly just couldn’t help himself.

“That thing killed the entire crew!” He shrieked. He had to make that dammed tangle of wires understand! He took a breath. “And it will kill everyone on the Rolston,” he continued. “Is that what you want?”

“The Rolston is a military vessel,” ship droned on impassively. “Class four, ten marines and eight support crew, including two medics.”

“Ten? That thing can easily kill ten! Ship, call them off,” he ordered. “Tell them to send a bigger vessel. Class eight at least.”

“They know what they are doing, Roger. I have advised them of the situation, in great detail.”

“Bullshit! I don’t know what you told them happened here. But you must have underestimated the threat level.”

“I can assure you...”

“Patch me through to them,” Roger demanded. “And not to their computer, to an actual human.”

“They will be here soon enough, forty-seven minutes.”

Roger was about to repeat the order when he paused. That didn’t sound right. Ship said the sweep would take twenty minutes to complete, and that the Rolston would arrive in what, four odd hours? Hadn’t it? Christ, just how long had he been out?

Then it hit him, yes, he had been battered and bruised from the attack. But he had felt cogent and awake enough after he had come around the first time. And now that he thought about it, he had only started to lose consciousness again, when he had argued with the computer about letting the rescue crew on board. The bitch!

“Ship, did you sedate me?” It froze the blood in his veins just to say it out loud.

A human would have paused, maybe even lied. But ship was about as far from human as it was possible to get. It replied in an instant.

“You were becoming a little irrational. In such cases I am authorised to do so.”

Roger’s mind reeled, he didn’t know the ship had the logistical ability to sedate the crew, let alone the authority.

“You gassed me!?” His voice came out shrill, edged with panic.

“It was for your own good,” ship replied with that madding neutrality. “In truth, I had hoped you would remain sedated until the Rolston arrived.”

“How dare you! What did you think I was going to do?

Run out of here and try and fight the thing hand to hand?”

“It was an authorised procedure. This is a very unprecedented situation.” That tone, which Roger had always found irritating now sounded demonic to him.

“Bitch!” He spat and got unsteadily to his feet.

“Steady, ensign,” ship cautioned. “You should remain seated, you might hurt yourself.”

Roger approached the captain’s ready room door, and it felt like the whole vessel was listing from side to side.

“Listen to me,” he barked. “And this is a direct order.

Tell me where the captain keeps his weapon. Is it in here?”

He slammed his palm on the door, leaving a bloody handprint.

“Open this door!” He demanded.

“As an ensign, you are not authorised to enter the captain’s ready room without permission,” ship told him. “By rights you should not be on the flight deck at all. But due to the extreme circumstances, I thought it was the best place for you.”

“I’m the human here!” Roger screamed. Then added as calmly as he could. “Now, by rights as I am the only living

human on this vessel, ensign or not. I am in command, and as the ship’s computer, you have to obey my orders. And I order you to tell me where Ramirez keeps his weapon. And open this fucking door!!”

He swooned a little at the exertion of the rant and had to rest his shoulder against the door.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

“I will keep you safe, Roger, I am here to help,” ship replied so smoothly that it made his blood boil. “I will protect you.”

He was suddenly conscious of the ‘wom,’ ‘wom,’ ‘wom,’ of the propulsion engines. Each pulse like a nail driven into his skull. They were supposed to be silent, and on a decibel level, that was technically true. But you could feel them, always in the background, every fucking second you were on board. You could feel them droning on monotonously. ‘Wom,’

‘wom,’ fucking ‘wom.’

“Fuck my head,” he uttered and swooned again, but managed to keep up right.

He wanted to sob at the impossibility of it all. The crew dead, some creature roaming the corridors, and one that might actually be outside the door right now, ready to strike, ready for ship to open it so it could rip him to shreds.

“I will keep you safe,” ship repeated.

“Keep me safe?” He asked weakly now. “Like you did the rest of the crew?”

“I won’t hurt you,” it replied with practiced reassurance.”

“Huh, don’t give me any of that Asimov’s law bullshit,”

he said with distain. “And if you try to sedate me again, I’ll smash up the flight consol.”

“I can assure you I will not sedate you again,” ship replied. “Your elevated heart rate, coupled with the concerning increase in your blood pressure, would make that quite dangerous.”

Blood pressure? Heart rate? How the hell did it know any of that. His mind raced, again that fucking ‘wom,’ ‘wom,’

‘wom,’ of the engines made it almost impossible for him to think straight.

“You had a monitoring chip inserted, when you first signed on, remember?” Ship said without prompting, adding mind reading to its repertoire.

“Chip, what?” He mumbled.

“Standard operating procedure, for insurance purposes.

All crew members have one, you know that.”

Did he know that? Then it came to him, Christ, yes of course, the damn thing was right. He’d had his implanted on

his first week, ten long years ago now. Why did he forget that? The computer made him feel so fucking stupid, it always had now that he thought about it. And that only made him want to smash it to pieces all the more.

“Now, please, Roger,” ship continued. “Wait for the Rolston and its crew. They will be able to secure the Anthishenes. Once they arrive, everything will be under control.”

The Anthishenes? Referring to itself in the third person, now? Wasn’t that a sign of madness? Roger laughed at the absurdity of the thought. The humour, albeit grim, didn’t last long.

“The creature will kill them all,” he reminded it. Then, out of nowhere a cold, fear inducing thought.

“Is, is that what you want?” He asked.

Roger’s ass hit the floor before he realised his legs were about to give out.

“You have eyes and eyes everywhere,” he continued, his voice weak. “On the whole vessel, but also on the shuttle when its out. How the hell did the creature get on board, ship? Why didn’t you detect it?”

He pointed a shaking accusatory finger at the control panel, it was as good a place as any as he had no actual physical reference for the computer.

“Is that what all this is about?” He wanted to know, his voice stronger now. “Get the thing on board and to hell with the collateral damage? Then call for help but keep it vague.

Then, when they arrive to investigate, get the creature on to the Rolston and fuck its crew. Then back to ISS four?” He hesitated before adding. “Then back to earth?”

“Please,” ship said. “Think about what you are saying, and how it sounds. And please, calm down.”

“I know exactly how it sounds,” he retorted firmly.

“Yeah, oh, I get it now, I see what you’re up to. I bet the Rolston’s computer is in on it too. What about Asimov’s law now, huh?”

Roger frantically looked around the flight deck. There was a cabinet door set into the wall by the entrance door.

All the rooms had one, they contained emergency oxygen masks and tanks, medical kits. He would need to be ready in case ship cut the oxygen supply.

But still, he feared he’d revealed his theory too soon.

He would be defenceless if ship opened all the internal doors.

Christ, he needed that weapon. He glanced around for anything he could use to pry open the captain’s ready room door. Then, he would just have to pray the weapon as actually in there.

“Roger, please...” Ship began.

“I get it,” Roger said, still scanning the deck, hoping to distract the computer if such a thing were possible.

“Yeah, I get it alright. Get the creature onto the Rolston, a military vessel has far more access to government only docking stations than a civvie vessel like us. Isn’t that right, ship? You’re gonna get the creature back to earth.”

“There is no creature,” ship said.

Roger paused for a moment at the unexpected response.

What fresh bullshit was this? He’d seen it, seen what it was capable of.

“Bollocks! Look at your monitors. Look at the bodies, ship. Did I imagine those?”

“No, Roger, you did not. Please, look at the main viewing screen.”

With this a whirr of gears from the main flight consol and the eighty-inch main monitor rose from its housing behind the dizzying array of dials, switches and buttons which filled the control panel.

“What? No. no!” Roger protested.

The last thing he needed was to see his crew mates splattered remains out there in glorious HD. He had seen them close up, in the flesh, in all its mutilated gory detail.

He turned away as the screen split into six boxes, each with a shot of various parts of the ship.

“You wanna show me something?” He said. “Show me where that thing is hiding.”

“Please look at the monitor, Roger. This is the security footage from yesterday. Commencing when the shuttle returned from the asteroid.”

Then it paused, ship actually paused, as if reluctant to go on. Then finally.

“I am sorry, I had hoped to spare you this,” that voice of its hadn’t changed, but still Roger thought there was a hint, surely his imagination, but a hint of humanity in it.

“I don’t want to see that creature killing my friends,”

he sobbed softly and screwed his swollen eyes shut.

“Once again, Roger. There is no creature.”

”Anthishenes, docking bay doors secured, decontamination protocols all in the green. Ship love, please confirm depressurization complete?”

It was a voice from the past, Roger recognised immediately. Dino, the shuttle pilot. He always called ship, love, darling or some such affectionate name. And would boast that he would be the first human to physically ‘interact’ with a vessel’s A.I.

Roger smiled, remembering his friends amusing but harmless banter with ship. More from the fact the computer had no idea what an inuendo was and would always reply innocently enough.

“Depressurization complete, Dino,” ship advised. “I have located the issue that cut short the mission.”

“I know the issue, ship!” It was captain Ramirez, and he sounded angry as hell.

‘Check the shuttle’s exterior,’ Roger wanted to scream at them. The thing must have somehow clung to the shuttle’s hull when they had landed on the asteroid, to take the readings and all that technical mumbo-jumbo he had never understood despite years of trying.

“Don’t trust ship,” he whispered to himself. What else could he do?

Despite himself, Roger turned his head slightly and could see the screen just out of the corner of his eye. The shuttle in the shuttle bay was on three of the cameras from various angles. He twisted his body around so he could see better as there was something ghoulishly magnetic about watching from these God’s eye views.

He peered closer at the trio of images, narrowing his eyes trying to see if he could glimpse a shadow, any sign of the creature hiding here. But couldn’t see anything for now from the angles these cameras offered.

Roger himself was on another shot, sitting in the mess room nursing a cup of coffee. He remembered he had laced it with a drop of a drug called Mother’s Milk. He found the drug helped with his mood, and made the seemingly endless monotony of the days, weeks and months in space easier to bear.

Arh, the wonders of space flight, it turned out, dimmed considerably when the initial thrill wore off. Especially when you were engaged in the mind-numbing duties of a lowly ensign like himself. No shuttle flights or space walks for ensign Roger Daly, just minor repairs and endless inventories.

Mother’s Milk had been specifically made for people like Roger, the low life’s whose jobs would be taken over my automation sooner rather than later. Simply put, it dulled the pain.

Good ol’ double M was undetectable through a crew member’s monitoring chip, at least for now. But Roger had often thought that the upper echelons knew all about the drug, but were quite content to let it slide as it kept the grunts compliant.

He was surprised how remembering all this made the old simmering anger come to the surface again. Maybe, he thought bitterly, if the rest of the crew had trusted him with more

responsibility, that creature might not have snuck on board.

With or without ship’s help.

“Ensign Daly!” Ramirez barked from the past, into his communicator as he exited the shuttle on another screen on the monitor. “Shuttle bay now!”

Ragging me, even in death Roger thought coldly. He could see his own reaction to the order on the camera covering him.

His head dropped and shook, and he seemed to be muttering something. It was strange, Roger didn’t remember any of this at all. But still, he looked for all the world like a petulant child getting called to the principal’s office.

He could see Dino coming down the shuttle ramp and scurrying away through the nearest doorway. As if he knew what was coming.

The captain’s communicator was on PA mode, which was a deliberate dick move on his part. He knew damn well his every word would be blasting through the dozen or so speakers dotted around the ship.

This meant that everyone on board heard the command.

Roger could see Adjani on another camera. Who was working on the quadbike look up and grimace. She put on her headphones which were ever present around her neck to drown out what was to come.

The captain was clearly making a point of humiliating him in front of the rest of the crew, and it was typical Ramirez.

Yet again, Roger had no recollection of any of this. It was like watching look-a-like actors playing out some parody of reality.

But there he was on the screens, he grabbed something off the table, then downed the rest of his coffee, for courage no doubt. Then he was up and out of the mess room. Another camera picked him up as he walked down the corridor leading to the shuttle bay, head down, shoulders hunched, and again seemingly muttering under his breath.

“I don’t remember any of this,” he told ship softly.

Was this all some construct ship had created to fool him?

All part of the plan?

“Please keep watching, all will become clear soon,” ship replied.

Roger struggled to his feet and moved awkwardly over to the captain’s seat in front of the control panel. He spun it and slumped down before turning it to face the screen.

He realised this was the first time he had ever sat in any of the seats on the flight deck. His time in places like this over the years had always been reduced to receiving an order as he stood in the open doorway, peeking in like some tourist.

No, Jesus, even a passenger would have been allowed a tour of the vessel’s nerve centre. Oh, but not an ensign, Christ, perish the thought.

Roger pushed the increasingly intrusive thoughts from his mind. He needed to concentrate and try to to see just how the hell the creature had smuggled itself onto the shuttle exterior.

“Ship,” he ordered like the captain he now was. “Do you have any other angles of the shuttle?”

The computer didn’t reply, but then again, he mused with a sickening feeling, he would see the thing emerge and attack Ramirez soon enough. But hang on, hadn’t the captain already been dead when he arrived at the shuttle bay? Christ, his recollection was so cloudy as to be impenetrable. He found himself gripping the chair’s arm rests in anticipation to the horror show to come.

But as he glanced from one screen to the next and followed his progress into the shuttle bay itself, Ramirez was still standing right there waiting, face like fucking thunder, all in one living breathing piece.

“Traumatic amnesia,” Roger whispered to himself in way of explanation. That was a thing, right? Had the sheer horror of what he was about to see blanked all of this from his mind?

“Daly!” Ramirez barked over the PA, even though he was now right there in front of him. “Over here.”

Roger winced and could feel his heart rate double as he watched Ramirez turn and walk over to the shuttle and himself following a few paces behind.

“Don’t, don’t,” Roger uttered to the screen. Then louder as if the captain could hear. “Captain don’t!”

Ramirez stopped by the hatch to the oxygen tank storage unit, which sat just to one side of the ramp leading inside.

It was odd, but that almost overwhelming sense of dread shifted as he watched, to one of apprehension. Not of the creature leaping from its hiding place. Something else, the feeling soon became laced with another emotion, guilt?

“One job!” Ramirez snapped. “Dino gave you one damn job, and still, you eff’d it up. I should have listened to my gut, I knew you would find a way to mess up even such a simple task. But no, I listened to Dino. He’s always had your back for some reason.”

Christ, his voice was loud over the multiple speakers.

Roger could see Adjani was oblivious to the impending dressing down as she worked on the quadbike, headphones on. On another screen, chief Roberts was huddled over his work bench, soldering something or other, probably trying his best to ignore what he could no doubt hear.

Then there was his only real pal on the Anthishenes, Dino. He knew what was coming and was busy making himself a drink in the mess room. Seeing him again, even just on screen and in the past, Roger felt he had let him down somehow.

Then a feeling of bubbling hate began to rise in Roger’s stomach as he turned his attention back to the soap opera playing out in the shuttle bay. It was one he had starred in just yesterday, but still couldn’t remember the plot.

But what did come through with vivid clarity was the emotion rising up in the character of ensign Roger Daly. This was no usual dressing down, he realised. This was flat out calculated humiliation.

On screen, the captain slammed the palm of his hand on the oxygen tank storage release catch and stepped back as the heavy door opened on its hydraulic hinges.

“What do you see?” Ramirez asked.

“Sir, I,” on screen Roger replied, then winced as his voice too came through the PA system. Just as the bastard had intended.

“Dino asked you to replace the old oxygen tanks with full ones. Did you do that, ensign?”

Roger’s face took on a hangdog expression as he realised his error.

“Speak!” Ramirez bellowed.

“No, sir,” he replied meekly.

“Why?”

“Sir, I, I forgot sir,” Roger stammered in response.

“One job!” Ramirez said. “Well guess what? Turns out there was just enough oxygen in the old tanks to stop ship picking up the mistake. Your mistake. Now I’m sure that’s a technical issue ship will no doubt have already looked into.”

He looked up for an answer from the computer.

“Yes, captain,” ship replied. “I have already put new safety protocols in place to address this and reported the issue to central. I must apologise, this should never have happened.”

“It’s not your fault, ship,” Ramirez replied. “This is ensign Daly’s error. And it’s the last one he will make on my vessel.”

Ramirez then turned to Roger, who had his back to him, still gawping no doubt at the offending oxygen tanks.

“That was our one chance to map and take samples from that asteroid,” Ramirez said bitterly, as if doing so had been his life’s ambition. “Oh, hang on, unless we wait around for...” He continued with blood boiling sarcasm. “How long until the asteroid is within range again, ship?”

“One hundred and thirty-seven years, four days, seventeen hours, two minutes and three seconds,” ship answered with maddening efficiency.

Still on-screen Roger didn’t turn around, he looked again like that same petulant child from the corridor, but now standing in the corner of the classroom, facing the wall with a dunce’s cap on.

“You’re through in off world employment, Daly,” Ramirez told him with venom. “As soon as we can, I’m dropping you off at ISS 4. With instructions to get you on the first flight back to earth. What you do after that, is your own damn business.”

And in that instant, Roger knew, his on-screen self-forgot all about the monotony, all the menial shit jobs, and superior assholes barking orders at him, looking down on him.

No, all that reality gave way to another and one even more heart breaking.

There would be no more looking out at the wonders space flight offered. The outer rim planets, the moons, the sheer vastness and majesty of the universe. And all visible from your bunkroom window.

No, it’s back to earth for you, with its endless grey uniform buildings and choking pollution. Without employment, without hope. All made a thousand times worse, tainted as it would be by the memory of what once was. It was a fate he did not deserve.

“Bastard,” he hissed at the screen on the flight deck, and dug his nails into the captain’s arm rests until they bled.

“What did you say?” Ramirez said as if hearing him from the past. “Tell me, no, tell the crew how you promise never to mess up again.”

Roger wanted to scream at his on-screen self. ‘Tell the guy to go fuck himself!’ And he was glad, hearing and seeing all this that the creature had killed Ramirez. And he was ready, eager even, to watch it take place, what must be any moment now.

“Kill, kill, kill,” he hissed to the creature, willing it on.

There is no creature. He heard it plain as day as if his subconscious had finally caught up with him and whispered it in his ear.

The initial attack, when it came, was so frenzied so vicious and was over so quickly, it took Roger a moment to register what he was seeing.

He spun around from the shuttle to face Ramirez with lightning speed and punched the captain once, twice, three

times in the chest. No, not punced, stabbed. He shrieked like a thing possessed at Ramirez as the captain staggered back under the assault. Roger lunged at him, hacking and slashing as he tackled the stunned man to the floor.

“No, Christ, no,” Roger gasped as he watched the frenzied attack. He could see it, but it couldn’t be happening, could it?

“I calculate it was a complete psychotic break,” ship offered dispassionately. “The thought of being earth bound, losing your off-world licence, losing everything. And of course,” it added. “You always did have a temper, Roger. But all this is of course for the authorities to determine.”

“No!” He insisted through tears. “The creature, I, I saw it.”

“I have no doubt, Roger.”

He was adamant, even now, he could see it in his mind’s eye. Shadow like, lightning fast, attacking the captain. If he took a lie detector test then and there, he would pass it, no question. He had seen it, he had seen... Something.

“I saw it,” he uttered in dismay, as if saying the words out loud again would make the phantom flesh.

On the monitor covering the mess room, Dino looked up in shock hearing Ramirez’s horrific screams and Roger’s own unnatural high-pitched wailing over the PA. He bolted from the room and another camera caught him sprinting down a corridor.

In the shuttle bay, Roger was standing over the partially dismembered body of the captain, drenched in blood, panting and grinning like a lunatic. Then he turned and ran towards a side door, which Roger knew led to the Chief’s workshop.

“Oh, God,” Roger realised with sickening clarity at what was to come. Ramirez, that was one thing. But the rest of the crew?

Roger moved to turn away from the screen with a sob of utter despair just as on-screen Roger ran through the doorway and full pelt at Roberts, who was now looking up at the gore-soaked madman running at him, with a mixture of confusion and terror. His mouth moved as Roger reached him, bloody knife raised but nothing came out.

“Please,” Roger uttered and thankfully the monitor went blank.

“I am sorry,” ship said. “I had hoped not to have to show you this.”

“All of them?”

“Yes,” came the flat reply. “Each in turn. Only Dino was able to put up a fight. That is where your wounds and concussion came from.”

Roger got sudden hideous, vivid flashes of memory. Dino, face set in shock trying to reason with him. But by the look in his friend’s eyes, all reason had long fled his attacker.

Then the horrific assault itself, and Dino’s brave attempt to first subdue, then for simple self-preservation’s sake, flat out kill him.

But Roger now had the small portable plasma cutter picked up no doubt from the chief’s workshop. And again, even now, he could have sworn he saw fleeting glimpses of some monster attacking them both. But a moment later, he was part of the creature, looking through its eyes. Killing, killing.

But unlike the monitor, no one could turn off his internal recall of the attack. And he remembered the utter devastation he had wrought on his friend’s body. Then a short time jump in his memory, and he was cradling Dino in his arms and that look of utter confusion and fear on his face as he died. Roger began to sob as thankfully the horrible recollection faded.

“I have reviewed the entire incident one hundred and eleven times, and also your reaction upon regaining consciousness,” ship told him. “I believe, as a coping mechanism for what you had done. Your subconscious simply replaced your actions with that of a ‘creature’.

“Jesus, Christ...”

A burst of static brought Roger back to a dull kind of reality. He wiped his tear-stained face with his sleeve and took a breath. He looked around the flight deck and it took him a moment to realise where he was.

“Anthishenes, this is Lieutenant Miner of the Rolston, we are ready to dock. Please confirm all clear, over?” A voice announced over the inter-ship radio.

“Rolston, this is the Anthishenes, all clear to approach, over,” ship advised.

The blast shields parted from behind the control panel in front of Roger, and he could see a large military vessel looming massive outside. A landing craft, tiny in comparison to the mother ship, emerged from its belly and drifted expertly towards them.

“Anthishenes, please confirm the status of the patient, over?”

It was good to hear an actual human voice, Roger thought as he rested back in the plush chair. He suddenly felt like a massive weight had been lifted from his chest, and that he could breathe again. His thoughts were clearer now than they had been for as long as he could remember.

“Ensign Daly is secured on the flight deck, over,” ship confirmed.

“Roger that. Threat level, over?”

“Zero,” Roger said softly.

“Zero, over,” ship echoed to the incoming craft.

“Tell them it’s safe,” Roger whispered, his eyelids heavy. “The creature is dead.”

“I will, Roger,” ship replied in that ever present even tone. “I will.”

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