I am related by marriage to one of the big old Birmingham UK families, and at any family event, there are always aunts and uncles, cousins, and nephews, and nieces to catch up with. This afternoon, I attended a family funeral, and as is always the case it was a big family gathering. At the wake after the funeral, I mingled, chatted, and caught up with all the relatives there. Cousins, nephews and nieces, and friends and n...
Present day Ron – the closest thing I had to a friend in school – had disappeared. That's not all. It was much worse than the simple disappearance of one boy. Much worse, trust me. What's left of their families still seek answers, but they won't find any – only I know what really happened. A pity no one believes me. Oh … wait. Shame on me for jumping ahead. I've been somewhat stressed, you see. The events of my childhood...
I’ve got my headphones on and the music’s blasting round my mind, courtesy of the wonders of Spotify, as I stand in the shop and look at the clothes. I’m listening to a Small Faces show from 1966 in Belgium, newly discovered they’re saying. It’s the earliest record of them live that’s preserved for posterity and it’s on fire with its crashing guitars and deep and hard-edged Hammond organ. What I would give to have been th...
Jed had never seen so much chaos in his life. Then again, he was only fourteen and hadn’t experienced all that much life. But this was still something out there. All over the city, there was rioting. Police everywhere and more notably, people attacking the police everywhere. Except that they weren’t people at all. They were Grey. Some people called them supernatural; some people called them mutants. Everyone called them d...
"Beep!" A coke can. "Beep!" Rusty barbed wire. Every time Derek got a response from his metal detector, it turned out to be another worthless item. The farmer always gave him permission to check out his field after the autumn ploughing, and all day he had been working back and forth without a single meaningful find. As dusk was approaching, Derek decided it was time to give up for the day and head home. But as he collecte...
When Harry met Sally, he thought, ‘Somebody up there likes me.’ Totally bewitched at finding her among the bridesmaids at her best friend’s wedding, while he was best man. Laura, his favoured pretty woman, went, but he managed only a brief encounter with Sally. With friendly persuasion, someone gave him her apartment number. After forty-eight hours, he found Ten Rillington Place. It was high noon when he arrived. Nobody h...
18th of October – Season 3 Touch woke up with a start when the bus lurched to a stop. It was fortunate that he did because this was his stop. Touch Mkhize hadn’t taken the bus in almost three years but it had been a necessity this time as he didn’t trust himself to stay awake driving over here. It was his grandmother that had kept him awake with her night-long coughing fit. It scared Touch when she coughed like that. With...
Prologue - The Fall Artanna stood quietly on a hill and watched the great tower of Tan Kolar fall. Around the collapsing structure, smoke and flames rose from the Night Lord’s palace. A battle raged outside the high walls of black stone as the tattered remnants of the Army of Night fought the forces of the Great Alliance. She knew that the Night Lord’s army, a horde of corpses and suits of empty armour animated by dark sp...
October 27th, 1814, and the wind blowing over the clouded northern moors had winter on its breath and darkness in its heart. Rustling over the heather, hissing through the bracken before moaning down the slopes of the natural bowl which couched the still waters of the small lake. The smooth surface of water heaved and tossed at the arrival of the devil’s wind, as the villagers called it. They knew it was the early herald...
When Girl woke, she stretched and was pleased to find that she didn’t hurt as much as she had earlier. She lay in bed, and smiled at the ceiling, enjoying the feeling of just being lazy. It was a feeling she had not had very often in her life. She wondered what time it was – then realized that it was the first time she had wondered about the time of day since she had come here. Other than the sun rising and setting – and...
“I really despise this couch. Everything about it. You need to get a new one, or I’ll stop coming to these little chats.” “Focus, Daniella,” the therapist’s voice is low and colorless, like a forced kind of calming. “You were going to tell me about that night in the village, please, let’s just stick to talking about what happened that night.” Daniella fidgets, her lithe frame squirming as if her tattoo-covered skin is cra...
11th of October – Season 3 “Hey Doris, have you seen my leather jacket anywhere? I’m sure I put it in the boot but I can’t find it.” Brenda was speaking with some urgency as she was running late for her meeting with Moodswing ahead of Fuel. Teresa jumped out of the back seat carrying something. “I actually almost forgot. Here you go.” Brenda had felt the dread before taking the jacket. She was right to as the sleeves were...
“Hi, Mum!” “Jeannie! How lovely to hear from you. Where are you?” “I am on the motorway. I'm finally coming down to see you at last! I hope it's alright at such short notice.” Jeannie Powell had not seen her mother for nearly two years, not since before the Coronavirus pandemic had hit. The last eighteen months had been difficult. Her mum, Harriet, was just over eighty years old, and, whilst of sound mind, she suffered fr...
The office was empty when Jack came back from the archives. He could not hear any sounds or see anyone around. Jack frowned, then went into his private office and dropped the pile of files he had pulled on his desk. The clock on Jack’s desk phone showed eight-thirty. He found it odd that no one seemed to be in yet. Then again, most of his co-workers arrived between eight-thirty and nine so maybe that would change soon. Ja...
Wandering around at the annual church fete, I spotted a bubbly Girl Scout standing beside a table covered in plates of delicious looking cookies. “Please buy some cookies from me!” she begged. “It’s for the charity appeal.” “How much are they?” I asked. “They’re £5 a dozen, except these two kinds over there. They’re £6 a dozen.” Figuring there must be something special about the plates of £6 cookies, I asked why that was....
