The 14^th (from Castle Heights)

Tony Sands

“What you doin’? It’s about to start,” said Frank, munching on a crisp. On the TV, the opening bell rang to signal the start of the big fight, Nichols Vs Hammer. Frank had been very excited about it for days. Graham ‘Sledge’ Hammer was the overwhelming favourite, but Frank was a Nichols fan and, although he wasn’t the most optimistic of people, he had hope that Nichols would pull off an upset win. Finally, the night was here and he was nestled comfortably on a sofa in front of a 65 inch OLED TV.

“I thought I heard something,” said Fred, stepping back from the wall and joining Frank on the sofa. He plucked a crisp from the bowl on the table in front of them.

“You did, the opening bell,” smiled Frank.

“No, something else, like…I dunno, just something.” Fred ate his crisp and reached for another as they watched the fight.

“You’re always hearing things,” replied Frank.

On the TV Nichols and Hammer exchanged a couple of jabs.

“I have very acute hearing,” explained Fred.

“You have very bad nerves,” said Frank.

“Unlike you?”

“I have nerves of steel.”

“My arse,” muttered Fred, he sipped his bottle of beer and looked down at the table. “What happened to the pizza?”

“Gone.”

“Really? I had about two slices.”

“Three. Each. What a rip off. Lucky we bought so many crisps,” Frank said.

“Last time we get a pizza from a place named Dingo’s. You know the guy who delivered it was called Meryl? Meryl! ‘Don’t take my baby,’ I said to him. Nothing. Just looked at me blankly.”

“A Cry in the Dark.”

“Exactly,” said Fred.

“Great film,” they stated in unison, then found themselves leaning forward as the round neared its nervy end. Suddenly, Nichols on the canvas having been caught by a fierce right.

“Told you he wouldn’t last long,” Fred pointed at the screen.

Frank sighed at the thought of listening to ‘I told you so’ all week, but Nichols got to his feet, the count stopped at eight and the bell signalling the end of the round came soon after.

“He’s finished,” chimed Fred, digging once more into the crisps. “Do we have any cheese and onion?”

“I just tipped everything into the bowl,” said Frank.

A dull thump resonated from the wall behind them, startling both.

“See, I told you I heard something!” Fred said as they looked at the wall.

“Noisy neighbours,” said Frank returning his attention to the fight. “Maybe they’re watching this too.”

“Maybe,” Fred wasn’t as convinced.

The second round soon took their mind off any worries though as Hammer almost went down under a barrage of blows from Nichols. Frank punched the air as Hammer walked unsteadily back to his corner.

“I think Tommy might actually have a chance here,” Frank said excitedly.

Fred stood up and walked to the wall. The bell for the next round rang and the fighters came out. Fred smiled to himself, “it’s just noisy neighbours.”

“Eh?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Fred. Frank was right, his nerves were bad, but then, all things considered, it was no real surprise. As much as he tried to forget what happened in ‘that house’ four years ago, it wasn’t easy. His mind drifted back to that awful night…

“Holy shit!” yelled Frank, leaping from his seat.

On the TV, Hammer dropped to the canvas.

“Oh my, I didn’t see that coming!” the commentator trilled.

“Hammer certainly didn’t,” came the pithy reply from his cohort who Fred assumed was some former fighter.

The referee started the count, “one!”

“Holy shit!’ Frank yelled again.

“Two!”

“Did ya see that?” called Frank.

“Three!”

And then everything went black.

Frank and Fred stood in silence for a couple of seconds before the accusation came.

“What did you do?” cried Frank.

“Nothin’, I didn’t do a thing. I was just stood here,” Fred said, his Liverpudlian accent crackling.

“What the fuck happened then?” Frank squeaked. “Was he counted out? Did he get up? And I hate the dark.”

“I thought you had nerves of steel.”

“Shut up, Freddy!” snapped Frank. He took his mobile phone out of his pocket and activated the flashlight. Fred did likewise.

“Don’t act like you’re okay with the dark,” Frank continued.

“I never said I was, but then I never claimed I had nerves of steel.”

A thump on the front door silenced them.

“Who do you think that is?” Frank aimed his light at the apartment entrance.

“Hopefully, an electrician.”

***

They opened the door to a tall, gangly man with wiry hair and dark rimmed spectacles. He was in his late forties, around the same age, perhaps a little younger than Frank and Fred and was clutching a small, windup torch. He was surprised to see them.

“Hello?” said Fred.

“I was looking for Brendan, or Marie,” said the man.

“Oh, yeah, they’re away for a few days, taken Theo to see his grandparents. We’re cat sitting,” Fred explained.

“Maxwell,” added Frank. “He’s the cat. Their cat, that we’re sitting.”

“Right, okay. Well, I’m Alex from next door. Have you lost your electricity?’ he asked, peeking over their shoulders to see they indeed had.

“We have,” said Frank, noting that there were no lights on the landing.

“It looks like the whole floor has,” Fred said, looking around.

“Yes, any ideas what happened?” Alex asked, eyes on Fred.

“No,” Fred stepped past Alex onto the landing. Another door opened, number 88, and an elderly West Indian lady poked her head out.

“Hi, Alice,” Alex nodded at her, though she didn’t see it.

“I’ve no electricity, what did you do?” Alice peered at Fred who was closest to her.

“Me? Why is everybody asking me?”

“Aren’t you a maintenance man? You maintenance men are always breaking more than you fix,” said Alice, stepping out of her apartment, pulling her bright purple dressing gown tighter.

 “I’m not a maintenance man,” Fred said.

 “He’s a cat sitter,” said Alex, “for Brendan and Marie.”

 “Ah, I’ve never been a cat person,” Alice said. “So, you gonna fix this or what?”

 “Fix it? Are you still talking to me?” Fred felt like he was being reprimanded in school.

 “I’m talking to anyone who will get my lights back on, I don’t want my Darius messing with electrics.”

 “You worry too much, Nan.” A light appeared behind her, followed by her grandson Darius who was a slim, boyish eighteen-year-old. He was in a t-shirt and jeans, his mobile phone providing the illumination. He had moved in with his nan when he was nine, due to his dad’s lack of interest and his mum’s ill health; he had been there ever since. This suited Alice just fine as she adored Darius and he was such a good boy.

 “I don’t want the risk of you getting electrocuted,” his nan said.

 “But it’s alright if I get electrocuted?” whined Fred.

 “I don’t know you,” she replied curtly.

***

Doors number 87 and 89 opened in perfect synchronisation, as if rehearsed. Mr. Hernandez, from number 87, a short, balding, Spanish man, rubbed his weary eyes, he looked like he’d slept in his suit, which he had done, on the sofa, having had a very long day at work. He held a rather clunky, but bright, flashlight. Gabi and Paul, number 89, had been enjoying a horror movie in front of the TV when everything went black and scared the shit out of them. They both had phones lighting their way.

“Before anyone asks,” declared Fred, “I didn’t do anything, and I am not an electrician.”

“Right,” said Gabi, blankly.

“He’s a cat sitter,” said Alex.

“What is going on?” Hernandez asked.

“Blackout. Looks like it’s affecting the whole block, lights have gone outside too,” Paul had looked out the window from his apartment and noticed the very dark streets.

“Wonderful,” said Frank, sarcastically.

“Who are you?” Paul shone his light at Frank accusingly, as if catching a perpetrator in the act of a crime, causing him to shield his eyes.

“Cat sitter,” replied Alex.

Paul relieved the light from Frank’s face.

“How many people does it take to look after a cat?” sneered Gabi.

“Guess it depends on the size of the cat,” grinned Darius.

“Does anyone have a signal?” Paul held his phone out to show he had none.

Everyone checked, nobody did.

“Wi-Fi is out too,” said Darius, his game having been cut disappointingly short.

“Where’s Martin?” Alice nodded toward apartment number 90.

“Probably sleeping, like I should be sleeping,” said Hernandez, looking back at his apartment longingly.

***

 Alex knocked on Martin’s door and it opened slightly.

 “Martin?” he called gently. Martin was an elderly gentleman, always friendly, chatty and polite.

There was no reply and Alex looked around at the others for ideas as to what to do next.

 “Martin?” he called again, a little louder. Still no reply. His torch started to dull and he gave it a wind, restoring the brightness.

 “Go in and check on him,” urged Alice, “he might be hurt.”

 “Or he might be okay and you’ll give him a heart attack when he finds you suddenly standing in his flat uninvited,” said Fred.

 “I don’t think you should go in,” Frank added.

 “For fuck’s sake,” Paul huffed and brushed Alex aside. He nudged the door open fully and peered in. “Martin, you alright?”

The silence was becoming heavier. Paul stepped inside, moving the beam of light from his phone around slowly. Light reflected from the glass casing pictures on the walls, but nothing stirred.

The others edged closer, trying to see in.

“Martin, it’s Paul from number 89. You there?” He stepped slowly further along the short corridor. He felt chills running up his spine, but he couldn’t lose face so carried on.

He reached the living room, his heart thumping hard in his chest and then he saw Martin, sitting in an old, high-backed armchair, unmoving. “Martin?” Paul moved quickly to him. Martin was still, his eyes staring into space.

“Shit,” Paul exhaled, “shit, shit, shit.”

Paul reached forward cautiously, intending to check the old man’s pulse, when Martin grabbed his hand and sprang toward him wide eyed. “It’s in the walls!” rasped Martin.

Paul, startled, fell backwards dropping his phone. “Fuck!”

Alex raced in, followed by Frank, Fred, Gabi and Darius. They found Paul scrambling to grab his phone and Martin leaning forward in his chair. He turned his head slowly to them and repeated the same words, “It’s in the walls.”

“Ah, Christ,” whimpered Frank. “Of course it is, of course it’s in the walls.”

“I told you I heard something,” said Fred.

“It’s in the walls,” Martin barked, glaring at them.

“What’s in the walls?” Alex asked calmly, stepping slowly to his neighbour, hands out, trying to ease him.

Martin met his eyes then slumped back into his chair, unconscious.

“Martin?” Alex checked for a pulse on his neck.

“Is he dead?’ asked Gabi.

“No, he has a pulse, but I think we’ll need an ambulance.”

“I’ll go down to the ground and call one, Trevor should be around.” Paul picked up his phone and stood up feeling rather sheepish.

“Trevor?” Fred said.

“The concierge,” Gabi informed him.

“Ooh, posh, a twenty-four-hour concierge,” said Fred. He hadn’t noticed a concierge, but Frank had been in such a tizz to not miss the start of the boxing they’d rushed through the lobby.

“You’ll have to walk, the lifts aren’t working,” Mr. Hernandez joined them.

“Fuck’s sake,” moaned Paul.

“I’ll go,” said Darius.

“Thanks, Darius, if you could,” Alex smiled, and Darius headed out.

“We should go,” whispered Frank to Fred.

“We can’t leave them like this,” Fred whispered back.

“Why not? It’s not like they’re on their own.”

“That’s true.”

“And I don’t like this.”

“I can’t say it’s filling me with joy, but what about the cat?”

“When did you last see that cat?”

Fred paused in thought, it was a good question, he hadn’t seen the cat since they’d arrived earlier that evening. “Do you think it’s Maxwell in the wall?”

“You think the cat is in the wall?”

“In the fuckin’ walls? The man’s demented.” Paul started to follow Darius when a thump-thump came from the wall, stopping him in his tracks.

“That doesn’t sound demented,” Fred sniped.

“Cat sitting pay well, does it?” Paul mocked.

“Come on, Paul, let’s get home and wait for the power to come back on.” Gabi pulled her partner away and out of Martin’s apartment.

“Is he okay?” Frank looked from the wall to Alex.

“I don’t know. He’s breathing, that’s good, right?”

“Is he diabetic?” Fred asked.

“I don’t know,” Alex felt helpless. “Mr. Hernandez?”

“I can’t help, sorry, I don’t know him very well.” Hernandez shrugged, “he’s a nice man, though.”

“He is,” Alex said.

“We’ll wait with you,” Fred said, reassuringly.

“I guess we will,” Frank planted himself on the small sofa.

“I’ll go and check on Alice,” Hernandez turned and left.

Fred peered at the wall. “That noise didn’t sound right.”

“It’s probably the plumbing, it’s an old building,” said Alex dismissively.

Fred took a seat, still unconvinced.

***

Alice watched Gabi and Paul storm past her into their apartment and was standing by the door to number 90 when Mr. Hernandez came out.

“Is Martin okay?” she asked with concern. She was very fond of her neighbour and seeing Darius race away to the stairwell gave her cause for worry.

“I couldn’t say. He’s breathing, but not awake.” Hernandez shook his head.

“Poor Martin,” she sighed.

“I’m sure Darius will get help.”

“He is a good boy. I just hope he doesn’t fall going down those stairs in the pitch black. ‘Don’t worry, Nan, I got this,’ he said, but how can I not worry?”

“He’s a smart and careful boy, not the usual teenager. He’ll be good.” Hernandez patted her arm reassuringly.

“Want to come into mine whilst we wait for either the lights to come back on or the sun to rise? Whichever comes first.”

“Okay, Alice, some company would be nice,” he said, though he wanted nothing more than sleep.

“Right then, come on in.”

***

“I hate this bloody place,” Paul paced the corridor in number 89.

Gabi nodded in agreement, “I know, I know, but what can we do? It’s a means to an end.”

Moving into Castle Heights was only ever intended as a short-term measure. Paul’s career in sales had been moving forwards rapidly and the business, a nail and beauty bar called ‘Oh G’s’, that he and Gabi had started up and which Gabi managed, was building a steady, if unspectacular, trade. Frustratingly for them, things weren’t progressing fast enough and they still weren’t in a position to buy the house both felt worthy of them.

“That fuckin’ bloke scared the shit out of me, I don’t mind telling ya,” Paul huffed.

“You did look stupid on the floor back there,” Gabi snorted a giggle.

“Thanks, I feel much better now,” Paul stomped into the living room.

“Chill out, babe, it would have freaked anyone out,” Gabi said soothingly.

“That’s twice I’ve nearly soiled myself tonight, first with the lights going out during that bloody film…”

“That scared me too.” Gabi rubbed goosebumps from her arms, it had been a pretty scary horror film without the added frights.

“Then that Martin bloke, I mean, for crying out loud. What was that all about?”

“He was acting strange.”

“He was acting like a nutter,” sneered Paul.

“If you ask me, this whole building is full of nutters,” Gabi reclaimed the glass of wine she’d been drinking before the blackout from the pristine, expensive, rather garish silver coffee table and sat down on the sofa.

“Amen to that,” said Paul.

Thump-thump came from the wall, dull and ominous.

“Are they fucking around with us?” Paul snarled.

“Why would they do that?” Gabi flopped back into the soft cushions.

“Because they’re all nutters, it’s what nutters do.”

Thump-thump, louder.

“Come and sit down, or even better, why don’t you find those nice candles your mum bought us?”

Paul studied the wall. “Did you not hear that?”

“It’s probably the pipes.”

“Pipes? They’ve never made that noise before.” He put a hand on the wall.

“Electrics? I don’t know, maybe we could ask those cat sitters,” she giggled to herself.

Paul pressed an ear to the wall.

“Fucking cat sitters,” she snorted.

Paul listened hard, he was sure he could hear something moving.

“This place gets weirder and weirder, sooner we get out of here the better.”

Paul thought he heard a whisper coming from behind the plaster, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, fear overwhelmed him and then the wall moved, as if it were alive, and sucked him into it. In a split second he was gone. The wall wobbled, like a ripple in water, then stilled.

“Do we have any more wine?” Gabi swilled the little wine that was left in her glass around the bottom of it.

She sat in the quietness of the night for a few moments before turning her torch light around the room to find she was alone.

“Babe?” She put her glass down and stood up.

Silence.

“Paul, you there?”

Silence.

“Paul, don’t fuck around.”

Thump-thump.

“Oh fuck off!” she snapped.

Silence.

She walked up to the wall along the corridor where the sound had come from, washing the torch light around the room, empty. She felt very alone.

Thump.

“Fuck!” She bashed the wall with the base of her clenched fist.

Thump!

“Right!” She bashed the wall again.

Thump!

“Off!” She bashed it once more, but this time the wall sucked her arm in and, as much as she tried to pull back, it started to drag her in, her feet sliding along the wooden floor as she tried to resist. The wall snaked out and spiralled around her arm, tightening and squeezing. It pulled her closer and closer until her face was brushing it. “HELP!” screamed Gabi and then she too disappeared, leaving a ripple behind her.

***

Fred jumped to his feet, “Did you guys hear that?”

“Not the wall again?” Frank sighed.

“I thought I heard a shout,” Fred looked toward the open front door.

“I didn’t hear anything, sorry,” said Alex.

Fred stood for a while longer then sat down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe all this craziness is messing with my head.”

Alex’s flashlight dulled and he started winding it.

“Doesn’t that get frustrating?” Fred asked.

“Not if it helps save the planet,” Alex stated earnestly. “Humankind has done immense damage to the planet and I believe we should all do our bit to help save it.”

“Oh,” said Fred.

Alex finished winding as full light was restored to his planet-saving flashlight.

With that, they returned to sitting quietly in the dark until Frank finally found the silence was unbearable.

“Were you watching the boxing?”

“Not really a boxing fan.” Alex didn’t like violence, he had to switch the television news over on occasion and those soap operas were very angry shows, though his wife loved them.

“Oh,” Frank felt deflated, which was better than scared. “It was a cracking fight, wasn’t it Fred?”

“Great fight, you really missed something there,” agreed Fred.

Alex didn’t waste his time on nonsense, “I was watching a fascinating documentary on the indigenous plant life inhabiting the subterranean basin in…”

“That is fascinating,” interrupted Fred.

***

“Thank you for keeping me company, I don’t think I could go to sleep without knowing Darius is back safely.” Alice pushed her curtain back and looked out the window. “It’s very dark out there.”

“It’s very dark in here,” said Mr. Hernandez as he safely navigated his way to a chair.

“That it is,” Alice laughed. “I can’t offer you a cup of tea, but I have some cold drinks in the fridge. That’ll be defrosting before long.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Mr. Hernandez stifled a yawn.

“Long day?”

“The shop has been very busy this last two or three weeks.” He rubbed his eyes, tiring more just thinking about it all.

“You work yourself too hard, at your age you should be putting your feet up,” said Alice.

“That would be very nice, but my nephew has been unwell and my brother is on holiday, so we are short staffed. No rest for the wicked, eh?”

“I guess not,” smiled Alice.

Pepé Hernandez came to England with his younger brother, Raul, more years ago than he’d care to remember, and it wasn’t long before they had work in a warehouse and it was only a matter of months before they found, and took, the opportunity to buy a small grocer’s shop which they both worked day and night in. Two years passed and the small grocer’s became a bigger grocer’s and then by their third year it was a mini market, then a supermarket. In the following decades they fought off large chains, maintaining a loyal and happy customer base. They kept prices fair and reasonable, and the business remained a family one, which was great, but also a pain, as you couldn’t fire family.

Alice took a bottle of lemonade from the fridge and poured some into a glass. “You sure you don’t want some?”

“You know, it might help me wake up a little, so yes, that would be nice, thank you.” Hernandez sat up in the chair.

Alice filled up another glass and, helped by Mr. Hernandez’s bright torch, worked her way over to him.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Hernandez, taking the glass as Alice settled into her well-worn armchair.

“I wonder what caused all of this,” Alice sipped some lemonade, it was cold and refreshing.

“Hopefully, it won’t last for much longer.”

“If it does, we might need to find something stronger,” laughed Alice and they clinked glasses.

“I have some wine, really good. Saving it for a special occasion, I can go and get it,” Mr. Hernandez said.

“Aw, no, you wait for that special occasion,” smiled Alice.

“This is a special occasion,” he smiled back, “and you are a special lady.”

“Stop it, Pepé, you’re making me blush,” gushed Alice.

Thump-Thump! The wall-mounted TV shook.

“What’s this now?” scowled Alice.

Mr. Hernandez focused his torch on the offending wall and they both peered intently at it. Hernandez stepped up to it, listening.

Thump-Thump!!

“Blasted thing, my old heart can’t be taking frights like that,” said Alice. “It’ll be the end of me.”

Hernandez took a couple of steps closer.

“Be careful, Pepé.”

“It’s alright. Maybe it’s rats?”

“Rats? I’ve got a hammer, I’ll go get it.”

Thump-Thump!!! Thump-Thump!!!!

“Those are some big fuckin’ rats,” Alice gasped.

“Maybe not rats,” said Hernandez, moving closer to the wall.

Suddenly, the TV disappeared, right before their astonished eyes. Ripples spread across the white wall.

“What in the name of God just happened there?” Alice clutched the crucifix she’d worn around her neck for nearly forty-seven years.

“I don’t know…I’ve never…” Hernandez struggled for words, his English failing him in all the confusion.

“That TV ain’t cheap, you know? We paid good money for that.” She liked that telly.

Pepé Hernandez rubbed his tired eyes. He was sleep deprived, that was causing all of this. It was the only explanation. He touched the wall where the TV had been and his hand sank into it, like it was wet sand.

“Dios mío,” exhaled Hernandez. He tried to pull his hand back, but the wall had a tight hold of it and it was dragging him in. “No!”

“Pepé?” Alice was alarmed and helpless.

“Alice?” cried Pepé before he was lifted off his feet and sucked into the wall, taking his torch and the light with him.

***

Alex wound his torch again, the light brightening with each revolution of the small lever.

“Good exercise, eh?” smiled Fred and Frank laughed quietly to himself.

“I’m sorry?” Alex finished winding.

“You know, the winding, good exercise, strong wrists?” said Fred.

“Are you trying to be funny?” snapped Alex.

“Trying,” said Fred with a slightly apologetic tone.

“He can be very trying,” grinned Frank. “You know, a windup torch isn’t a bad idea, my phone battery is going down, it’s at forty-seven percent.”

Fred looked at his phone’s screen, “Mine’s not bad, seventy-six percent. Your battery drains far too quickly, you need a new phone.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the one I have,” Frank said defensively.

“Could either of you tell me the time, please?” Alex was becoming greatly agitated.

“Time he got a new phone,” Fred sniggered.

“It’s twenty past midnight,” said Frank.

“Thank you. And I don’t think now is really the time for humour. It makes everything feel darker,” grumbled Alex. He dealt with a lot of annoying people in his role at Veganistic, where he was now store manager.

“I disagree, it helps us cope with the darkness. It gives us light, and light gives us hope,” countered Fred.

“And with hope comes pain,” said Alex.

“Nah, that pain was already there. Hope doesn’t bring pain, it brings the promise of better things to come. Hope is dreams, hope is aspirations. Without those things, we wouldn’t cure diseases, we wouldn’t travel, we wouldn’t have learning. Without hope, we have nothing.” Fred left his argument there.

“You didn’t strike me as a philosopher,” Alex felt embarrassed.

“You didn’t strike me as a pessimist,” said Fred.

“I apologise for my manner,” said Alex. “Barbara, my wife, is out tonight. I’m not expecting her home anytime soon, it’s usually a very late one when she’s out with the girls. Which is a good thing, hopefully she’ll be spared all of this.”

“Hopefully,” Fred smiled. “Look, that lad has probably called an ambulance by now and the power will most likely click back on any second. We’ll be laughing about this in the morning.”

“How are you not freaking out?”

“I’m shitting bricks on the inside,” said Fred. “But Frank and me, we’ve been through worse.”

Frank nodded, thinking back…

“There was this house…” Fred started.

“Was it a haunted house? Don’t tell me a haunted house story, not now, I’m on edge as it is,” Alex wound his torch.

 “If you keep playing with it, it’ll fall off,” said Frank.

 “It’s so quiet,” observed Alex.

And it was, incredibly quiet. Now that they were aware of it, Frank and Fred felt chills.

 “Do you think the others are alright?” Alex wondered.

 “I’ll go and see,” Fred stood up.

 “I’ll come with you, stretch my legs,” said Frank.

 “What about me?” Alex didn’t like the idea of being alone with a catatonic Martin and the silence.

 “We won’t be long,” Fred assured him. “Besides, someone needs to stay with that poor fella.”

 “Better that it’s someone he knows,” said Frank, getting to his feet and heading for the door.

 “Exactly. We’ll be back in no time,” Fred followed Frank out.

Alex breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, deep breaths. He read somewhere that helped nerves. Or was it nausea? Either way, it wasn’t working. He slowed his breathing down, closed his eyes and sat back in the chair. “It’s going to be okay, Al,” he told himself. He didn’t see Martin’s eyes flick open.

***

Fred knocked gently on number 88, the door was slightly ajar. He poked his head in and called quietly, “coo-ee.”

“Coo-ee?” Frank mocked.

“What should I use instead? Oi?”

“What about ‘hello’?”

“What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Why are you making a thing of it, then?”

“Alright, alright. I’d say keep your hair on, if you had any.”

“You’re one to talk,” mocked Fred.

They both smiled, humour proving a solid distraction from the unease they were feeling.

“Hello?” Frank called. “It’s very quiet. Maybe they’re not here.”

“Maybe she and Mr. Hernandez are…you know?” Fred winked.

“I don’t think that’s what they’re doing.”

“Older people do ‘do it’, you know? My nan was like a rabbit…”

“Hello, Alice? Mr. Hernandez?” Frank called loudly, cutting Fred off.

They waited for a reply, but none came.

“Hello?” Frank called again,

Fred pushed the door all the way open, it tapped gently on the wall. The silence was eerie and swelled around them.

“Alice? It’s the cat sitters,” Frank raised his voice a notch.

“This is silly, it’s only a blackout.” Fred illuminated number 88’s corridor and entered. Frank followed, feeling stupid now for being scared.

***

They found Alice passed out on the floor, at first they thought she was dead – it had been that kind of night – but she roused when they went to her.

“Take it easy,” said Fred as she tried to sit up.

“What happened?” Frank asked.

“Pepé,” Alice pointed weakly at the wall that had absorbed her neighbour.

“Pepé?”

“Mr. Hernandez, I’m guessing,” said Fred.

“It took him,” her voice was low, devoid of energy and she was in shock which had caused her to faint in the first place.

“What took him?” Fred helped her into a chair.

She pointed at the wall, Frank and Fred looked from that to each other thinking ‘not again’.

***

“It’s in the wall,” said a distant voice. Alex tried to wave it off, he was too busy floating…he snapped his eyes open, adjusted his spectacles, raised his dimming flashlight and found Martin’s face up close to his, noses almost touching. Martin’s eyes were wide and wild. Alex yelped like a dog whose paw had been stamped on. Then his torch went out and darkness engulfed him, “FUUUUUUUUCK!!”

He desperately wound his torch.

“Martin, sorry if I alarmed you,” Alex stammered. “We found you in a bad way, thought you needed help.”

The flashlight emitted a dull glow, then it strengthened and Alex could see the room again, but there was no sign of Martin.

“Martin?” He stood and swooped the beam of light around. “Martin?”

Something grabbed his shoulder and he yelped again.

“It’s me,” came a voice.

Alex turned the light on the voice, stepping backwards into a chair and almost losing his balance.

“Fred, the cat sitter…” Fred put a hand up, as if to show he was unarmed.

“You scared the life out of me,” said Alex.

“From the screams of ya, that was already happening,” smirked Fred. “You okay?”

“I think so, Martin woke up, gave me a fright.”

“Right.” Fred scanned the room. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know, one second he was in my face – like, literally, in my face. The next, he was gone.”

“Well, he can’t have gone far.” Fred shone his torch down a second corridor that led to the bathroom and bedroom. “Coo-ee, Martin?”

They, cautiously, checked the bathroom and bedroom and there was no sign of Martin.

“He’s not much for decoration, is he?” Fred observed.

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t have anything on the walls; no paintings, no photos, no anything.”

“I hadn’t noticed, but now that you mention it, it is rather sparse.” Alex looked at the blank, empty walls.

“Maybe he’s wandered out,” offered Fred.

“Wouldn’t you have seen him?”

“In all of this carry on, who knows?” smiled Fred.

***

Martin wasn’t on the landing and he wasn’t in with Alice and Frank, who were very relieved to see them. Alice was still weak but regaining her senses.

“She said the wall sucked Mr. Hernandez in, along with her TV,” Frank explained.

“It can’t have,” said Fred.

“I know what I saw,” Alice retorted, her voice hoarse.

“Martin kept saying, ‘it’s in the wall’,” Alex said.

“Where is Martin?” asked Frank.

“Not a clue,” said Fred, “maybe Brendan’s? We left the door open, so there’s a chance he went in there.”

“This might sound weird, Alice,” Alex was studying the apartment. “But do you have pictures up on your walls?”

“Full of them, just take a look. My kids, my grandkids. You know, I even have a great grand kid?”

Alex looked at Fred and shone the light over the bare walls. Frank was puzzled.

“I’m going to look in Brendan’s, I’ll be quick,” said Fred.

“Stay away from the walls,” warned Alice.

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Fred said.

“Freddy,” Frank stood and joined him, “you’re not going on your own. Something’s not right here, we need to stick together.”

“I’m fine with Alice,” said Alex.

“I’ll protect you, son,” she said.

“Let’s go then,” Fred nodded at Frank and they left.

***

Brendan and Marie’s flat felt cold, perhaps it was the temperature or perhaps it was fear, whatever the reason, it wasn’t inviting.

“What was all that stuff about pictures on the wall?” Frank entered the living room just ahead of Fred.

“There are none,” said Fred.

“So?”

“There should be, you heard Alice, she said she had loads of photos up of her family, but there were none to be seen.” Fred shone his light on the walls of apartment 91, they were plain, white, bare. “There are none here either.”

“Not everyone has pictures on their walls, Freddy,” Frank said, more in an attempt to reassure himself than Fred.

“No, that’s true. But, where’s the telly?”

Frank’s heart dropped at the sight of the blank space where the TV once hung. “We’ve been robbed. Brendan’ll go barmy!”

“When was it stolen and how? You telling me someone came in, filched it off the wall and scarpered down Christ knows how many flights of stairs?” Fred led the way into the bathroom, no Martin. The kid’s bedroom, Theo’s, was empty too. They opened the door to Brendan and Marie’s bedroom and saw a suitcase and a rucksack, sat by the bed.

“That can’t be right. Are they back?” Frank felt extremely unsettled.

“I’m not sure they ever left,” Fred said.

***

Alex finished refilling Alice’s glass and put the bottle of lemonade down on the table.

“I know what I saw,” Alice snapped.

“I’m not saying you didn’t see it, I can’t understand how, that’s all. It doesn’t make sense.” Alex scratched his head anxiously.

A dull thump-thump seemed to sound all around them.

“We need to go,” whispered Alice. “Now!”

“Yeah,” Alex took her arm and began to slowly edge them toward the front door, “I think we do.”

They were halfway along the corridor, almost at the front door when Alex’s flashlight began to fade, quickly losing light. He slowed to wind it, light bloomed, and he found himself standing alone. The wall to his right appeared to ripple, then still. His heart rammed hard in his chest, “What the Jesus?”

Instinctively he stepped away from it and into the parallel wall which latched onto him, wrapping itself around his body and pulling him into it.

“Oh, God, no!! Please, no!!” he yelled, tears spilling from his eyes.

The wall pulled harder, oozing around his arms, legs and torso like liquid tentacles of some starved, devilish milk monster, which seemed unfair to Alex as he had been vegan for a number of years.

“Help, please, please, help!! Help me!! HELP ME!!” The tentacles wrapped around his face, knocking his glasses to the floor, smothering his cries. They were hard, cold and relentless yet Alex still fought, determined not to be taken. The wall opened up like the jaws of a great beast, Alex’s torch dropped from his hand, holding its light, and he was pulled into the nothingness. The wall rippled for a few seconds, then it settled and stilled into its usual form.

“Alex?” Fred charged in, flashlight waving wildly.

Frank was close behind.

“Alex? Alice?” Fred couldn’t see either of them.

Frank looked down at the windup flashlight and broken spectacles, “Freddy.”

Fred picked them up and looked at his best friend.

***

Hours later, when they recounted their tale to an army officer, they unashamedly explained that if racing down flights of stairs had been an Olympic event, they’d have shared Gold and claimed a World Record.

Sergeant Drake looked over her notes. “The walls took everyone on the 14th floor, that’s what you’re saying?”

“We never actually saw it, but yes. Martin, he was going on about something being in the walls,” Frank said.

“Now, we think he’s in one. Though it’s hard to say which one,” Fred added. “Then Alice said the wall took Pepé…”

“Mr. Hernandez,” said Frank, helpfully.

“…then it took Alice. And Alex,” Fred continued.

“There were those two from 89, we never saw them again. We think it got Brendan, Marie and Theo,” Frank said.

“Okay, I understand, the walls took all the residents,” Sgt Drake was already feeling weary from these two.

“And a cat,” Frank looked at the notepad, waiting for her to add that point.

“And at least two tellies and loads of pictures,” Fred said.

“The ones you put on the walls,” Frank said.

“And not everyone, Darius went for help, so he got out,” said Fred.

“Darius?” The Sergeant raised an eyebrow.

“Alice’s grandson, he’s around eighteen or nineteen. He’s the one that called for help.”

“Isn’t he?” said Frank when Sgt Drake failed to reply.

“I’ll have to check,” she said.

“You’re here because of the walls, right?” said Fred.

“Nope, that’s news to me. But it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve heard tonight,” Sgt Drake said, donning her cap and peering through the tent flap. “Or rather, this morning.”

“You’re not here about what happened on the 14th floor?” Fred asked.

“Why are you here, then?” Frank asked.

“If you’d just wait here, gentlemen.” Drake nodded at Private Harris and stepped out.

***

She looked up at Castle Heights which loomed high above them.

Army personnel went about their duties, the building’s car park was now a functioning mobile army base of operations, a number of tents lined one side of the area, on the other were several military vehicles. Barriers were set around the block, sealing it off whilst the army dealt with the situation at hand and a lone helicopter scoped out things from above, its searchlight beaming down. Back on the ground, Sgt Major Wilkes waved to Drake as he approached.

“Anything?” He nodded to the tent behind her.

“Walls,” she said. “Apparently the walls swallowed up all the residents on the 14th floor, though they think a young man called Darius made it out, late teens. Do we know if he did?”

“I’ll check,” said Wilkes.

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Did they mention ‘The Items’?” the Sgt Major asked, furrowing his brow.

“No, Sir.”

“We have people on nearly every floor and no sign of them, though there is something very wrong with this place.”

“I think that’s putting it mildly, Sir,” said Drake.

***

Back in the tent, Frank and Fred sat tired and confused.

“You wouldn’t have any idea what’s going on, would you?” Fred looked at Harris.

The soldier shook his head, “Sorry, mate, haven’t a scooby.”

“Our phones died, you see,” Fred said.

“Even though his phone is newer, battery was flat as a pancake,” Frank couldn’t resist having a dig.

“Never happened before,” Fred said defensively.

“And our van, completely dead.”

“That has happened before.”

“Do you know who won the boxing last night?” Frank asked.

“Nichols knocked Hammer sparko in the third,” said Harris, he’d put a tenner on Nichols to win by stoppage so was pretty pleased with the result.

“Great!” Frank exclaimed happily. “We were watching when everything blacked out.”

“And it all went to shit,” Fred sighed.

“Didn’t it just?” agreed Frank.

“What a night,” Fred said sadly.

“Don’t worry, lads, it’ll be okay,” Harris said with an encouraging smile.

“Yeah,” said Fred, “we’ve been through this kinda thing before. Without the army, though.”

“And it wasn’t a tower block,” added Frank.

“What happened?” Harris loved a good story.

“Well,” began Fred, “there was this house…”

Castle Heights is available from Amazon for Kindle and in paperback here.

Find out more about Tony Sands on his website.

When Death Walks the Field of Battle (from Everything’s Annoying)

J.C. Michael

“Private Powley, you are a goddamned disgrace to your uniform.”

The private tried to hold his sergeant’s gaze, fully aware that if he looked away he’d be in for even more stick. Nonetheless, he looked down at his filthy boots. He was a grocer, not a soldier.

“Look at me when I’m fucking talking to you, Private,” bellowed Sergeant Stone, a man as hard, and cold, as his name suggested. “This is not a fucking holiday camp, and you are certainly not here to sell fucking carrots. The enemy is not going to ask you for a pound of bastard plums and a little chinwag about the bleeding weather, are they? They want a pound of your useless flesh, if anything. You are here for a single purpose. To kill those bastard zombies at the other side of this godforsaken hellhole. If you do not find the killer instinct to satisfy that purpose soon, I may as well kill you myself and find someone better suited to that uniform. Is that clear?”

Powley nodded.

“When I verbalise a question, Private, I expect a reply in kind, not an impersonation of a nodding fucking dog. Now I said is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“Halle-fucking-lujah, it speaks,” Stone growled through clenched teeth. “I expect to see you locked, loaded and ready for action. Not taking a nap, and not sticking your nose in that pissing Bible of yours. There are no answers in there, son. I’m your God now.” 

With that, Stone turned on his heel and stormed off. At least as much as a man can storm anywhere in three inches of mud.

The rain fell in a light drizzle, and Carl Powley sank to the floor at roughly the same pace as the water falling from the sky. His backside sank into the mud, but he was already soaked, already filthy. They all were.

“Don’t pay no attention, mate,” said the man next to him. “He’s like that with all us new recruits.”

“Conscription and recruitment are a bit different to my mind,” Powley said.

“Well, we both screwed up there, didn’t we? If we’d enlisted, we’d have helmets, body armour, night vision, the works. Us conscripts get jack shit, eh? Anyway, you’re here now, and while you’re here you’re his. You can either let him make you a soldier and have a better chance of staying alive, or carry on as you are and in all likelihood be dead by the end of the month. Your call.”

Powley sighed. The man, a fellow private named Pierce, was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. He could put on a uniform and carry a rifle, but that didn’t make him a soldier. To do that he’d need to kill, something he worried he’d never be able to do.

“Do you know why he calls ‘em zombies?”

Pierce grinned. “Ironic innit?”

“What is?”

“That those who are still alive are known as zombies. It isn’t just the enemy he views that way, it’s all of us. We’re the living dead, mate. Once you end up here, you’re dead, or at least it’s simply a matter of time until you are. Look at us. This isn’t life. We’re filthy, dressed in little better than rags, desensitised to violence and primed to kill. Unthinking, uncaring, unfeeling zombies. Pretty apt in my eyes.”

“I don’t think I’m quite at that stage yet,” Powley said, before allowing himself half a smile. “When I was a kid, zombies were dead folks brought back to life by witch doctors and voodoo black magic. Never thought I’d end up one.”

“Me neither,” said Pierce, lighting a cigarette. Smoking was far more common now; who needed to worry about cancer when the average life expectancy in the trenches was six months. “I used to love them movies, though the ones where the zombies were a bit quicker were better. Y’know, them where they were regular people infected with some sort of virus, making ‘em into blood and brain craving crazies. Never found the shambling ones very scary when you could get away from ‘em walking at a brisk pace.”

Powley took the cigarette when it was offered. He’d never been a smoker, but the habit had soon taken hold. It was something to do as much as anything.

“What’s with the Bible anyway?” Pierce asked. “You religious?”

“Not really. The way I see it, we made God, not the other way ‘round. It was a gift when I left home, that’s all.”

“Suppose you might as well read it then. It ain’t like the entertainment is up to much ‘round ‘ere.”

Powley didn’t reply. One hand held his cigarette, the other rested on his pocket where the battered Bible sat against his thigh. He caught Pierce looking at the rifle propped against the trench wall next to him. He knew what he was thinking, that Stone would go berserk if he came back and Powley wasn’t holding his weapon, ready for action at any moment.

Pierce gave the slightest shake of his head. “Just watch that bastard, yeah? Anyway, we’re back on duty in two hours. Best get some kip mate. If he catches you dozing off again he’ll really lay into you. The bugger’s watched Full Metal Jacket too many times. Thinks he’s a bloody US Marine.”

* * *

Six hours later they were halfway through their shift. It was raining harder, and the afternoon was packing its bags to make way for evening. An orange sun hung limp in the sky, its light struggling to shine through the haze that filled the heavens since the world had been turned to dust. Powley shifted to his right, stepping away from an encroaching puddle and the reflection he no longer recognised as his own. He’d lost weight, his face gaunt and lined. He’d always kept himself clean and tidy, but his uniform was now a soiled grey, the only splash of colour being the flag of their fallen nation on his breast pocket, directly beneath his badge of rank in a beaten army. A hunk of mud fell from the trench wall into the puddle, and the reflection was gone. Powley was glad; he didn’t like the look of the man that had been looking back at him.

His attention turned to the wasted no-man’s land in front of him. It was a pointless fight, but there wasn’t really anything else left to do. The world was pretty much fucked. Even if the enemy could be beaten back, and the small bit of civilisation which was left protected from them, they couldn’t fight the wind. As if summoned by the thought, a light breeze picked up, the kind which should have been pleasant on a summer afternoon. Instead, it was a breeze now laden with poison and radiation, a deadly delivery far more effective than any missile or bomb, albeit slower and uncontrollably indiscriminate. It would be dark soon, and the artillery barrage would start. Anything the enemy could throw at them to keep them awake and soften them up for the inevitable offensive that would wipe them all out. He hadn’t slept properly since he’d arrived here.

“What’s that?”

Powley looked but saw only craters and mud below a grit-filled sky, “What’s what?”

Pierce pointed. “There, something moving. Use your scope.”

Powley raised his rifle to his shoulder. Something was moving, and moving more like a someone than a something, but that couldn’t be the case. Nobody walked out there. “I see it, what is it?”

“Who is it, more like,” Pierce said. “Walker,” he shouted off to his left. “Walker!”

“What?”

“Go and get Stone. There’s somebody out there.”

“Fuck off. I’m not falling for that.”

“Walker, you twat, I’m serious. Go and get Stone or I’ll come over there and kick your arse.”

His tone ensured Walker got the message. “All right, I’m off, but if you’re fucking about he’ll be wearing your balls on his belt come morning.”

Pierce nudged Powley and winked, “It’s useful to have a reputation sometimes.”

Powley said nothing. The week before deployment to the front, he’d seen Pierce put a man in hospital for trying it on with one of the girls who worked as a cleaner at camp. Some men thought the breakdown of society absolved them of the need to behave morally, the ladies’ man who wouldn’t take no for an answer amongst them. But all the same, he’d seen how much Pierce had enjoyed breaking his arm and three of his ribs. He was as much a thug with an excuse as a paragon of chivalry.

“Whoever it is, they’ve stopped. They’ve hunkered down behind that ridge,” Pierce said.

“Aye,” Powley agreed. There’d been something about what he’d seen that unsettled him. He’d been unable to focus on the shape, unable to make it out properly. Looking directly at the figure—who he assumed could only be an enemy soldier— had disorientated him, as however he had looked at it, it had always been on the periphery of his vision. Perhaps it was fatigue, but he felt more awake than he had in days.

***

“Good to see you’re awake, Private,” Sergeant Stone growled. “Now what the fuck do you two ladies think you’ve seen?”

“Someone’s out there,” Pierce said.

“Doing what exactly? Picking flowers?”  Stone raised his field glasses. “I don’t see anything, but I doubt you’re stupid enough to be yanking my chain. Suppose it could be a scout.” He paused for a second. “Or an enemy deserter.”

“That ain’t likely. They’re fanatics,” Walker said.

“And who made you head of bloody Intelligence?”  Stone asked. “They can get scared just as much as piss-pants Powley here, and a deserter would get a nice little room well away from the front line while he tells us all about what his zombie buddies are up to. Now sod off, and tell the lieutenant what’s going on while I babysit these two.”

Walker scurried off. Life had been a lot easier in the days of mobile phones and two-way radios, but those times were gone. The EMPs had fried everything electronic in the early days of the war. That was why men were once again fighting in trenches, like it was 1916. The idea that twenty-first century wars would be fought by geeks in bunkers who could just as well have been playing Call of Duty on their PlayStations had proven to be well off the mark. Instead, it was conscripts in ditches using obsolete weapons.

Stone rested his hand on Powley’s shoulder. “Right then, Private, tonight could be the night you pop your cherry. You saw the target, you’ve marked where you last saw him, so when he nips his little head out again, you take him out. Aim for the body, son; knowing you you’ll either take off his head or his bollocks.”

Powley looked down his scope and waited. The magnified ridge of mud, behind which the figure had disappeared, became his world, the sole focus of his attention. His finger rested on the trigger. Sweat ran down his forehead and stung his eyes. His heart pounded in his chest. He had never killed anything. In his shop, he’d had a gadget—bought off one of the satellite TV channels—that picked up spiders safely so that you could put them outside. People had ribbed him about it, and he’d told them that spiders were an essential part of the world’s ecosystem and shouldn’t simply be killed for giving people the willies. That was a laugh now.

These days the planet’s ecosystem, if it could be said to even have one, had more in common with Mars than the Earth he’d grown up in. Next to nothing grew. Food was scarce, and the grocery trade he’d followed since school was virtually extinct. The only place that guaranteed a meal a day was the Army, and that was synthetic garbage that tasted like wood. His thoughts were racing, and he suddenly realised he was thinking about spiders and ecology instead of the fact that any second now he would be expected to take a life. A human life.

The fatigue had returned. His limbs were lead-heavy, and he felt sick. He’d spent a good deal of time dwelling on the thought of taking a man’s life since receiving his papers. There’d been nights on watch when he had pondered if he would be able to live with himself after committing what, in his eyes, would be murder, even one sanctioned by what remained of the state. In a kill or be killed situation he had no idea if instinct would take over, self-preservation taking the lead, or if he would freeze, and die. But there was no time for such thoughts now and besides, this was different. Whoever was out there was no direct threat to him, to take the shot would be little short of an execution.

Part of him wanted to be like Stone, devoid of feeling, a killer without conscience. He wasn’t on some anti-war crusade. He was just a normal guy. The enemy was guilty of atrocities on an industrial scale and many of them undoubtedly deserved to die. But he was in no place to judge, particularly when he knew nothing of the man out there. Perhaps it was someone just like him? Someone for whom killing wasn’t in their nature. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. His finger came off the trigger to rest on the guard.

“I can’t.”

“I beg your fucking pardon?” Stone snarled in his ear. “You can and you will, soldier. It is an order. It is the right thing to do. That thing out there is the enemy.”

Powley’s eyes were shut tight. The voice in his ear sounded like a devil. He knew the consequences of disobedience, but it made no difference. He wasn’t a killer, not like Stone. They’d been lined up during training to witness their sergeant shoot a deserter—from their own side—in the back of the head, like a cow in an abattoir. A deserter who’d seen his best friend disembowelled by a piece of shrapnel, not two feet away from him, and had run off into the night, still covered in blood and intestines. He hadn’t been a coward, just a man with the type of emotions any human being should have been able to empathise with. Once, there would have been counselling for such victims of the conflict. Such individuals were now burdens and bad examples. Bad examples put to use by being made an example of.

“It’s a person, a he, not an it.”

“No, it’s not. It’s the enemy. Detach yourself and dehumanise that target.”

Powley paused. Did that explain it? Had Stone’s constant haranguing of the enemy prevented him from seeing whoever was out there for the man they were? His mind conditioned to obscure the kind of details that would make it harder to pull the trigger? To kill a man once you’d seen his eyes, the curve of his mouth, the lines etched on his face, would undoubtedly be more difficult than to take the life of a figure no more distinctive than the stock targets they had practiced on during basic training.

“What if he wants to surrender?”

“Then he’s a pussy or an arsehole, Private, and you know what pussies and arseholes get, don’t you boy?”

At twenty-seven, Powley viewed himself too old to be called “boy”, but here and now he felt like a small child. A child in a world too big and too harsh for him. The only answer that came was the tears from his eyes.

“You pathetic cunt.” Stone’s mouth was against his face, his hot breath blowing into his ear. “Pussies and arseholes get fucked. If he’s either, he’s fucked. If he’s still got some fight in him, he’s fucked. If you don’t shoot him the second he shows himself, then guess what? You. Are. Fucked! Now take a deep breath and open your eyes.” His voice was lighter now, almost soft. “You can’t shoot a man you can’t see. If you don’t neutralise the target, you know what will happen to you, and what’s the point of that? You won’t be saving his life because the moment I give the nod, Pierce here will do the job without a fraction’s hesitation. He’s a dead man walking. A zombie. He means nothing. When he reappears, you take the shot. One shot. That’s it. Then your shift is over. You can go back to your pad, get some sleep and wake up a man. Put your finger back on the trigger. Come on, lad. Do that for me and I’ll talk you through this, just like your first girlfriend telling you which hole to stick it in.”

“He’s someone’s son. A husband. A father. A brother. I can’t.”

“I don’t give a shit who he’s related to.” The vicious tone was back. “He isn’t my family, and he isn’t yours.” Stone was now standing behind him, and Powley heard a cold, clinical click. “I’ll give you to three to get your finger back on that fucking trigger, Private. One…”

Powley wondered if Stone had ever been like this? Fearful and afraid? Had he wrestled with his conscience before taking his first life? Or had he taken to dealing in death without a moment’s thought?

“Two…”

There was no time left to think. Powley opened his eyes, rested his finger on the trigger and looked down the scope at the figure, the zombie, the enemy soldier, the man, who at that very second emerged from his hiding place.

Powley didn’t shoot.

“You useless, cocksucking faggot,” bellowed Stone. “You just signed your own death warrant. Pierce, take the shot.”

Now a shot did ring out, and as Powley watched down his scope, he expected to see the man flung back by the bullet’s impact. Only he wasn’t. He didn’t even flinch. Pierce wasn’t the best shot, but he should have hit the target from that distance. The man took a step forward. Another shot, another miss. Powley continued to watch the magnified image in his scope, but he still couldn’t pick out the type of physical details he should have been able to at that range. His brain couldn’t process what his eyes were seeing with any degree of clarity. His was a world of shape and shadow, uncluttered by detail. He blinked, squinted, and tried to make out the approaching soldier’s features. For the first time he could clearly see the approaching target, but where there should have been a face there was nothing more than an empty blackness.

As he stared into that void, Powley could feel his mind unravel.  He knew he was going to die, possibly right now, for disobeying Stone’s order. His life had come to this. All that effort at school, all that hard work to build up a business, only to die in a ditch for refusing to shoot an unarmed man.

Unarmed? How hadn’t he seen that before? They were shooting at an unarmed man. Powley stood, shouting as he did so that they were all murderers who would burn in Hell, when he was hit by a sharp and violent explosion of pain in the back of his skull.

He heard a voice in the scarlet- tinted darkness that swallowed him.

“Shut the fuck up, prick.”

* * *

Powley could only have been out for a moment, and as he regained consciousness he could see Stone cleaning the grip of his sidearm on his jacket. He felt blood running down his face. The rubber eyepiece that should have been fitted to his rifle’s scope had been missing since his second day of training, and he assumed he must have cut himself on it when his head had been thrust forward by Stone’s strike. He guessed the back of his head was bleeding too, but he didn’t pause to check. His concern was for the man Pierce was still trying to kill.

Raising his scope to his eye once more, Powley could see the man had lifted his left arm and was pointing it toward their position. His right arm was also raised, the elbow jutting out from his body, the hand just in front of the abyss that should have been his face. He was aiming an imaginary rifle, like a kid in a school playground.  

Another gunshot rang out, and something warm and wet splattered against the side of Powley’s face. Pierce’s blood and brains. As Powley wiped himself in disgust, he felt something sharp embedded in his cheek and, without thinking, pulled it free. When he realised that the item he held was a shard of Pierce’s skull, he vomited against the wall of the trench.

Looking to his left, he saw Stone pulling the rifle from Pierce’s hands, before positioning himself against the trench wall.

“If you want something doing right. Then do it your fucking self. Now look down your scope, Private, and watch me kill this fucker, or I’m going to execute you first.”

The figure had moved closer, and Powley could now see the flag of the enemy embroidered on the breast pocket, an epaulette hanging loose from the left shoulder, but he still could not discern a face beneath the helmet. He scanned down the man’s body and could have sworn that a host of scorpions were creeping over his boots, but as soon as he looked again, they were gone.

That was it. He decided that he’d gone insane. A rational decision in the most irrational of circumstances. He looked again, everything now seen through a thin crimson veneer of rain-diluted blood running down over his eye. He heard Stone take a shot, curse, take another, curse again. Shoot again, and again, and again. The enemy soldier kept coming, bolt upright without missing a step despite the churned-up state of the muddy ground. When he reached the lip of the trench, covering the distance far more quickly than he should have, he stopped. As Powley held his breath, the figure spread his arms, clapped his hands in front of him and the world exploded.

Powley was thrown backwards into the wall of the trench. His body numb, his mind reeling and his eardrums shattered by the blast which he could now see had torn one of Stone’s arms from its socket and thrown it five feet from where it should have been. Stone was still alive, firing his rifle at the enemy. Impervious to the bullets hammering his torso, the man jumped down and lowered his head to Stone’s face. At the sight of whatever was beneath that helmet, Stone finally stopped shooting and began dragging himself away from the encroaching figure, hurling inaudible curses as he tried in vain to use his single arm and two crippled legs to reach a pace even approaching glacial. In seconds the figure was upon him.

Powley could only watch as Stone screamed a silent scream with tears streaming from his eyes before his head lolled to the side, a look of terror frozen on his dead face.

Rooted to the spot, Powley could do nothing as the figure now approached him. The man’s uniform was full of bullet holes, but there was no blood. Perhaps Stone had been right and this was a zombie after all, an enemy soldier brought back from the dead, a reanimated corpse ordered to lead the attacking troops into battle. His pulse raced as his heart thudded in his chest and his throat constricted with fear, threatening to choke the life from him and save the advancing monster the trouble.

Powley readied himself for the end as the monster squatted and raised its hands to its helmet. The helmet slid back, and the most beautiful face he had ever seen smiled at him. He had glimpsed insanity, and now looked upon infinity.

Numbness and fear departed his body and spirit, leaving a warm serenity which turned to bliss as the figure placed a hand against his cheek. The figure came closer, the deliverer of death to Stone now an angelic messenger sent to release him from his broken world. It cradled him in its arms as soundless explosions shook the ground beneath and held him tight as showers of mud fell upon them. Amidst the tumult and upheaval, he felt nothing but the lightest of kisses to his cheek. The kiss of a father wishing his son a good night’s sleep. All was peaceful and serene. It was a massacre, Powley’s regiment slaughtered as he watched. Most were cut down by automatic rifle fire, others, Walker included, burnt alive by flamethrowers spitting liquid hell. A tank swept over the top of the trench as silent as a summer cloud, crushing a man beneath it as it passed. It was as though he was watching it all on TV with the volume muted.

Yet more figures were now swarming over the side of the trench, but these were neither devils nor angels, and they weren’t zombies. They were men. Men with faces. Men like him. Men like Stone. Men like Pierce. The offensive was in full swing and destroying anything in its path. One of the enemy soldiers drove his bayonet into Stone’s chest, needlessly twisting it this way and that before pulling it free and approaching Powley, who greeted him with the kind of smile normally used when greeting an old friend. Powley was amazed that time stretched, allowing him the opportunity to wonder why this man was here, thousands of miles from home and with murder in his heart. Was he here by choice? A born killer like Stone? Or had men like Stone forced him to become a twisted by-product of the machine of war, humanity ripped from him to be replaced with animalistic aggression? Were those on each side really that different? The long bayonet was now pointing directly at him from underneath the cold black eye of the gun barrel. There would be no answers to his questions. The black dot at the end of the gun was a full stop at the end of his life.

As his hand rested on the Bible in his pocket he awaited the inevitable, feeling that he should be scared, though he wasn’t. Even now, comforted as he was by an angel’s embrace, he doubted the book held the answers to what would come next. Stone had been right about that. What it did contain was a picture of his family, a lock of his daughter’s hair and a drawing by his son of a sunny day. It was those which he had spent his time looking at, not the archaic dogma written in a text too small to read. It was those, as the figure holding him began to fade and the blade came down, that gave him peace.

Everything’s Annoying is available from Amazon for Kindle and in paperback here. Coming soon to Audible.

Follow J.C. Michael on Amazon

The Space Between Spaces (from the collection Six!)

Mark Cassell

When did I last see Mr. Edgar Allan Poe? On the Friday before his untimely death, Inspector. It is with regret I learn of his passing, although, it is something I must admit that comes as no surprise. One must understand: it was during the days preceding the death of the man which concerns me the most.

He was stepping from his house, tucking his collar up against the chill wind that had seemingly collected on our street of late, looking somewhat bedraggled. As I approached my own house, which as you know is next door, I bade him good morning, to which, unusually, he did not reply. He simply kept his head down as though watching his feet shuffle beneath him on the paving and across the road. Indeed, he did not even acknowledge my presence, so evident was it that he was in a hurry.

That was on the Monday. I did not see him either on the Tuesday or Wednesday, and then, come Thursday, just as I was to retire for the evening, I heard the strange noises.

At first I decided to ignore them. It is not unusual to hear the occasional sound from a neighbour, something of which we are all familiar or indeed a victim, however this time there was a persistence to it. It was a scratching sound that pertained to the presence of vermin; an unfortunate sufferance in most households at one time or another. Moreover, these scratching noises were akin to a rhythmic knock. Thus, this rhythm led me to believe it was neither rat nor mouse, nor even a bird in the eaves overhead. No, this was more a repetitive thump; a hammering of such insistence that it was not long until I stood outside squinting through autumn fog at the second-floor room in which I understood Mr. Poe to sleep. Such was the effort it took to wear suitable attire for a small trip out into the autumnal cold, those sounds had now ceased. All was near silent, save for the soft flap of drapes against the inside of Mr. Poe’s open bedroom window, from which a flickering light, perhaps an aggravated candle, shone.

Sleep that night did not arrive easily, for too long did I will myself into slumber, such was the sense of heavy foreboding upon my soul. Proceeded by troubled dreams, the following morning saw me wake to clinging bedclothes. I could recall nothing of what I dreamed, although I knew it to feature an animal or perhaps even a creature larger than a rat yet smaller than a dog, scratching and thumping beneath the floorboards, inside the wall cavity, its clutch and claw of rafter overhead. Whatever the thing of which plagued my dreams, it kept to the darkness just beyond my sight, not even a flicker in my periphery; hiding in fact, in the space between plaster or carpet, hiding in the shadows beneath my everyday world.

On Friday, which was to be the penultimate time I saw Mr. Poe alive, he appeared as troubled as those dreams of my midnight hours previous. Akin to before, he failed to return my greeting, and also my subsequent pleasantries. His hat was low to his brow, and there was an odd pallor to his face. Something else to note was the way in which he purposefully averted his gaze.

Later, when night and fog descended, the sounds returned. As before, I was close to retiring for the evening. On this occasion, I did not endeavour to immediately get dressed for an impromptu garden visit, instead I went to my window from which I knew would I glean a direct view of Mr. Poe’s bedroom window, albeit from a side angle.

I listened intently, the freezing fog seemingly to contain teeth to bite my face. With the smell of the cold air, of a burning coal fire somewhere, I wanted, in fact I pleaded for more sounds. That was when the first scream came.

It was Mr. Poe himself, surely. At least, that was what I assumed.

Perhaps I should have called for help at that moment; call for the police, for your enforcements, and in doing so perhaps our Mr. Poe would be alive with us here now. My actions could have been different, of that I am aware.

By way of the rear entrance, I entered his property at around ten of the evening. In the past, and on many occasions, he and I would share a sherry or two, and it had long since become the unwritten rule for this route to forever be my entrance and exit.

A gloom hugged every surface and every shadow, enough to both slow my progress and to see the outlines of furniture and doorways to avoid. There was a smell of dust, and dare I say it, rot. It reminded me of the time as a young boy my brothers and I had trespassed into a mausoleum; its stone entrance had crumbled enough to allow our thin bodies to sneak between rusted ironwork and dusty masonry. The darkness, the stony cold and the smell of decay were there. And just as I walked cautiously and in no way confidently through my neighbour’s home, the usual aroma of sherry, of a welcome warmth was masked by that of the mausoleum.

I shivered. There was to be no warmth in there that evening. Indeed, to encapsulate the darkness and my growing incessant feeling of dread, the silence embraced me; it froze me to the core.

From overhead, from Mr. Poe’s bedroom no doubt, came a rhythmic knock; a familiar hammering similar to that of the night before, only this time I trod the man’s home feeling every bit an intruder. The beat was accompanied by another scream. Being indoors and beneath the very room from which it was uttered, I recognised it for what it was: inhuman. Such a ghastly sound could not possibly emanate from a human oesophagus. Make no mistake, that knowledge, that realisation in itself filled me with a heightened sense of chill, of terror.

I wished to call out for Mr. Poe, to inform him of my presence, but something stayed my tongue. The near-dark was like a pressure upon my face; I tasted it, and indeed it was as though I breathed it in the further into his home I stepped, eventually reaching the bottom of the staircase. I looked up into the darkness of that floor, seeing only the soft and flickering amber glow from candlelight in a far room up there.

Aware too much that the stairs creaked beneath my every footfall, I headed upwards and toward the sounds of someone – Mr. Poe himself, of that I could only assume – speaking rapidly, some kind of chant perhaps, all too aware of those floorboards beneath my shoes. Finally, after what seemed like too long a time, I reached the landing, treading across the carpeted hall to a doorway, and an archway, and then to Mr. Poe’s bedroom itself.

In that moment, my senses failed me: the smell of sulphur strangled me, the feeling of the hard floor beneath the soles of my shoes, the taste of the cloying gloom, and the sound of the incessant mantra from the room into which I now stood agape. I ignored them all to only look, and I saw … I saw Mr. Poe himself hunched in the centre of a circle of candles. Those dozen flames pushed back the shadows only to make them dance no further than an arm stretch away. Bunched twigs and strange-looking dolls had been placed intermittently around him, as though those miniature effigies were onlookers unto him.

My voice sounded tiny as I uttered his name.

Whether he heard me or not, that insistent chant did not falter. It sounded like absolute nonsense, a foreign tongue only a madman would utter. There were, however, occasional words in English, diluted in the wash of the nonsensical.

Yet, it was not the way he huddled into himself, that awkward position he held, nor was it the way he chanted this nonsense; it was in fact that which was behind him. Entirely to block my view of the remainder of his chamber, a shimmering wall of glass stretched around him, as though to shroud him. The epicentre of which was hollow, black as a void my eyes had never before witnessed; I was seeing another space beyond that of our own. And that was precisely what I was to witness that very moment: a space between the spaces supposed to be there.

From that dense and dark epicentre, numerous clear tubes coiled and draped across the floor to where Mr. Poe huddled. The tubing contained a liquid, bubbling and travelling from the void, the colour beginning as a dark green to lighten as it neared Mr. Poe, and as it protruded into the veins of his bleeding wrists, it glowed red to add to the fiery illumination of the room.

I attempted to again say his name, yet failed as I watched him dip a quill into a pot of ink that had spilled to pool in the carpet fibres. As he did so, the multiple tubes attached to that wrist went taut. Blood trickled and caught in the hairs of his forearm. He appeared not to be concerned in the slightest. There was no notebook or parchment, or any medium upon which he was to scribe, he instead raised his hand to write something on, or indeed in, the shimmering void about him.

There was a howl beyond the darkness inside that crack in reality, it was the very scream that chilled me earlier; and it chilled me again, only being this close to the void itself that shriek made me sick to the stomach. I doubled over and clawed the wooden doorframe, terror freezing my blood as I could not imagine what those tubes and that fluid were doing to poor Mr. Poe.

Whatever he wrote in the air was evidently accepted, (for want of a more appropriate word), and as proof those tubes slithered from his wrists with a grotesque squelching noise. They whipped and lashed, trailing blood across the carpet. One splashed blood across his trousers, whilst another dragged through ink.

The hole shrank causing those coiling tubes to retract, unravel and reveal feelers of some such, like thin and looping tentacles, reminding me no less of a cephalopod; squid-like appendages of needle-tipped probes. They retreated fully, and immediately the hole in the air, the very void into which I gawped, snapped closed with an audible pop, the broken glass shimmer no longer there.

Still, Mr. Poe had not acknowledged me. He now had his eyes closed, his breathing erratic, still hunched and seemingly oblivious to the blood that trickled from the welts and lesions along his wrists.

The air no longer felt tainted, and glad I was to inhale the cold and fresh air which rushed in through billowing drapes. I uttered his name, softly, and reached an unsteady hand for him. At this point I had dropped to my knees, feeling the sickness still rising in my stomach.

Mr. Poe’s head snapped up, his eyes wide.

“Speak nothing of this!” he declared.

The look upon the man’s face was enough to send me backing out of his bedroom, awkwardly collecting my stubborn feet beneath me. A giddiness stole me. I watched him blow out each candle, one by one with a delicacy to betray that which I had mere moments before witnessed. Ignoring me then, he was to set about preparing his bed, all as though I was not there.

As I had so often of late, I attempted to speak with him, I cannot recall precisely what I said, but I wanted to know, I needed to know of what I had viewed there in his chambers. I needed to understand the void, and his actions, and that vile creature’s needle-tipped appendages.

He began to disrobe, muttering to himself, and of course I respected the man enough to allow him privacy and so left him to retire. His final words were those that have since troubled me.

I am telling you this, Inspector, because I know that Mr. Poe lived through the weekend to follow and died this Tuesday gone. It is with regret that I now go against his wishes, but I feel it necessary to inform you of the truth. You see, I understand you are led to believe that in his delirium during his final hours, he called for someone named Reynolds. This is untrue. A repetitive calling by all accounts, yet what you believe here is incorrect.

I have since given this much thought, for I heard him utter two English words repeatedly during the chant, and also later as I retreated along that upper hallway to leave his abode. Two words, Inspector: “rare” and “worlds”.

I believe Mr. Edgar Allan Poe spoke of a rare world beyond that of our own.

Six! is available from Amazon for Kindle, in paperback, and on Audible here.

Our 31 Days of Horror series kicks of with Wall Crawler, part of Demons Never Die, a collection of artwork and flash fiction from David Paul Harris & P.J. Blakey-Novis.

Wall Crawler

I woke to the sounds of clacking feet, scurrying up the wall beside my bed, disappearing into the darkness of the corner. That corner. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that dreaded sound, it had been almost nightly for weeks. At eight years old, nobody listened to my claims of a monster in the dark, nobody cared as the tears fell every night before bed. I’d leave the light on but always awaken in the dark. I didn’t know if my parents turned it off or if the wall crawler did it. It doesn’t like the light, I know that. The monster’s legs click, beginning beneath my bed, working their way up my wall, always to that same spot. I open my eyes, I can’t help it, and they grow wide both in adjustment to the darkness and in terror. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. I can make out the multi-jointed legs as the evil thing disappears into the impenetrable blackness of the corner. I feel the unseen eyes as they fix on me, studying, wanting. I know it’s only a matter of time before it makes its move, before it comes for me. And all I can do is wait, duvet pulled up to my chin, heart hammering, skin clammy. I almost welcome it, I’m almost ready to face the wall crawler if it means an end to this nightmare. Almost, but not tonight.

Demons Never Die is available from Amazon for Kindle and in paperback here. Special edition signed hardbacks are available exclusively through our website here.

Learn more at David Paul Harris’ website and find more stories from P.J. Blakey-Novis on Amazon.

Coming October 1st and available to pre-order now for Kindle, K is for Kidnap is book eleven in the A-Z of Horror series of anthologies. Paperback coming October 1st to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Including stories by Daniel R. Robichaud, Donovan ‘Monster’ Smith, Nat Whiston, Ruschelle Dillon, J.J. Steinfeld, J Benjamin Sanders Jr., Peter Germany, Peter Kelly, Tori Danielle Romero, C.R.S. Ford, Chris Hewitt, Joseph A. McCorriston, and Salomon Nousiainen.

This week saw the release of F is for Fear onto Audible and iTunes and we have a limited number of review copies available. Get in touch if you’d like a code for the book on either Audible UK or US. Details of our audio books catalogue can be found here.

And some exciting news…

Pre-orders are now open for the stunning hardback edition of Demons Never Die, a unique collection of dark artwork from David Paul Harris with flash fiction from P.J. Blakey-Novis. This is a limited run of signed and numbered copies, only available through our website. Featuring new cover design, seven new pieces of full colour interior artwork, and new stories, all on high quality glossy paper. Pre-orders are being taken until we sell out, which we expect to happen quite quickly. Details here

• 

• 

• 

For our 31 days of Horror promotion this year we are doing something a little different. You’ll be able to read a free short story from one of our anthologies each day on the blog to get you in the mood for spooky season, to do check back for those.