alleyalligator

Everyone who was anyone knew that on a Thursday night The Surgeon on Tottenham Court Road was the place to be.  As the day’s work finished up for the night, the pub would slowly fill so that by the time 8pm hit, it was standing room only and secretaries would be shoulder to shoulder with builders, traders, lecturers, accountants, all waiting for their moment in the sun.

The tension mounted until finally Mark flicked the switch to turn the microphone on.  The familiar intro to Living on a Prayer started up.  “Ladies and gentleman, it’s karaoke night at the Surgeon, so get those requests in and get singing!”  Mark burst into the song he always opened the night with to the whoops and cheers of the audience, as people made their final selection and passed them up.

As the guitar faded away, Mark rifled through the slips of paper until he saw a name he recognised.  “Opening for us tonight, we’ve got Maria up to the stage!”  There was a shriek from the table in the corner where a group of girls always sat.  Only a couple of them ever dared sing, but they were there every Thursday, ready to have the time of their life.

The beauty of karaoke was that you never knew what was coming next.  One minute you’d have a long haired layabout singing Oasis and doing a passable imitation of Noel Gallagher, the next you’d have a drama student showing off their vocal licks.  The one thing you learned was that you could never judge by appearance whether someone could sing and what they’d choose to treat the crowd to.

Never was that more true than when Jerome’s name was called.  Jerome was a stalwart of Thursdays at The Surgeon.  He was always late, but you knew when he arrived because of the cries of “Jerome!” as he pushed his way through the crowd to hand his own CD to Mark before quietly sitting down at the stool that was mysteriously suddenly available for him to patiently wait his turn.

An unassuming man, he was always impeccably turned out in a suit, his hair neatly parted, a handkerchief poking out of his jacket pocket.  Whenever anyone tried to engage him in conversation, he was polite, but shy, and most people knew to leave him to his drink until his time came.

At last, Mark announced “it’s Jerome time!”  Maria and the girls squealed and pushed their way through the crowd to drape themselves around him as he made his way to the stage and took the mike.  “Which one tonight?” Mark asked and selected track 7 at Jerome’s request.  Usually there was some chatter during songs, but when Jerome was up, silence descended.

The opening chords to Mac the Knife began and Jerome began swaying, clicking his fingers.  The fact that he was ever so slightly off beat didn’t matter.  He was about to sing. 

Jerome couldn’t sing.  His voice was toneless and he had no sense of rhythm.  But none of that mattered as he closed his eyes and lost himself in the music, taking everyone in the room along with him.  For that moment, he was Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones and Boyzone all rolled into one delicious Jerome sized package and the crowd was eating him up.  He was Jerome!

Nobody could put their finger on what made him so cool.  Maybe it was just that he was a regular and The Surgeon loved their regulars.  They were what made the night what it was and nobody cared that he couldn’t sing to save his life.  By day, he was a simple civil servant, going home to his Siamese cat and microwave meal for one.  But once a week for one glorious song, Jerome and his audience were transported to a world where he was an international sex symbol.  Women wanted him, men wanted to be him, while all his friends swore that fame hadn’t changed him, he was still the same old sweet Jerome who visited sick children in hospital and didn’t tell anyone where he was going.

The song drew to a close and the girls invited Jerome to sit with him, as they always did.  He courteously turned them down, as he always did.  Mark handed his CD back and Jerome nodded thanks before making his way out through the crowd.  By the time he reached the door, he was all but forgotten as the next singer was up.  He turned to look back one last time at the room he’d brought such pleasure to for a few minutes and smiled before making his way out into the night air.

Nobody knew why Jerome stopped coming, just that things weren’t the same without him.  Soon the Surgeon was taken over and the new management didn’t like karaoke.  They installed a wide screen TV, since London didn’t have nearly enough sports bars, and it was only a matter of time before Mark had gone, leaving The Surgeon empty on a Thursday night except for a few die hard football fans from the office round the corner who showed up to shout obligatory obscenities at the screen.

The Thursday night regulars scattered to the four winds, the easy camaraderie built up over years of singing together meaningless without The Surgeon to bring them together.  But those who’d been there, those who’d seen him, never forgot Jerome and his easy charisma epitomising everything that karaoke should be.

alleyalligator

“Do you think we should have gone with them?” Becky asked anxiously, as she watched the group of people running across the court and out to whatever fate had in store. 

“Absolutely not.” Her father’s tone was resolute, the same voice he’d used when she’d begged him for riding lessons when she was six, to go on the school exchange when she was twelve, to be allowed to go to university at the other end of the country instead of locally when she was eighteen.  He would not be swayed and his word was law – after all, he knew best.  “I give them five minutes, ten tops, the fools.  No, we need to stay here where the army can rescue us.  If they’re lucky, we’ll pick them up when the army truck we’re in drives past them.  That’s if they haven’t already been eaten.”

“But what about the news?  They said it was safe here and it’s not.  Why would they lie?”

“It’s quite simple, Becky.  They don’t want to cause a panic.  People panic, they do stupid things.  The last thing the government needs is people in the streets, looting.  It would take away valuable manpower when it’s best served containing the infection.  No, we’re perfectly safe.  It’s just taken them a little longer to control the situation than they expected, that’s all.  The only way we could get infected would be if we were bitten and since we’re going to stay here, while the infected and those idiots are out there, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Becky worried at a hangnail at the corner of her middle finger and moved to look out of the window.  The streetlights hadn’t come on, but she could see distant lights flickering, moving.  She could have sworn she heard gunfire.  The army was on its way.  Perhaps Dad was right – the government would save the day.  So why couldn’t she shake the feeling that it wasn’t going to be quite that simple?

“Why don’t you go to bed, Becky?” her father suggested.  “You look like you could do with some rest.”

“I suppose so.”  Becky’s smile was weak.  Since the infection had broken out, she hadn’t been able to relax enough to sleep properly.  Despite her father insisting that they were just people out there, albeit very sick people, and they’d be fine once sedated and medicated, she couldn’t help thinking that they looked an awful lot more like walking dead.  Since that was clearly impossible, her father refused to even discuss the idea, but Becky couldn’t shake the feeling that things were a lot worse than he’d acknowledge.  She wished she’d had the courage to defy him and leave when the others had – they didn’t have much food left and with Dad refusing to let her go out to forage, if the army didn’t get here within the next day or two, they’d be faced with a choice of starvation or infection.  But she’d kept her mouth shut and did what he said.  She always had.  Even when Mum was alive, he’d ruled the roost.  Mum hadn’t exactly been good at standing up for herself and Becky found herself following in her footsteps.  The path of least resistance was to go where Dad lead. 

But if there was ever a time to develop a backbone, this was it.  Becky took a deep breath and prepared herself to defy her father.

“It’s just…”

“Just what?  Rebecca Victoria MacDonald, if you’ve got something to say, then spit it out, girl.  Otherwise, go to bed.”

“Well, it’s just that we really don’t have much food…”

“I’ve told you already.  I made a deal with Mr Johnson upstairs.  He’s a highly qualified martial arts expert.  He’s going out foraging tomorrow if the army hasn’t arrived – and they probably will.  When he gets back, we’ll be fine for at least another couple of weeks.”

“But I’m sure I saw him among the infected earlier and even if I didn’t, why would he give us food he might need for himself?”

“That is none of your concern, Rebecca.  I told you I made a deal and that’s all you need to know.  We have something he wants.  He won’t let us down.”

Becky decided she didn’t want to ask what that something was, but she was beginning to feel that she might be safer outside taking her chances with the infected. 

“But the newsreader lied, Dad.  I don’t think they’re going to rescue us.  I’ve read about it on the internet, that if there was some kind of mass infection, they’d just kill everyone in sight and not wait to see if someone was clear or not.  It makes sense.  It’s easier to shoot first and explain it later.  Dad, I want to get out of here.  I think-”

“You think?” her father sneered.  “That would be a first.  You read something on the internet and now all of a sudden it’s fact?  Pull the other one.  Nothing but nutters and you’ve fallen for their nonsense.  No, the government wouldn’t lie to us.  They probably got their areas mixed up, that’s all.  They’re doing what’s best and we need to exactly what they say – keep calm and wait to be rescued.”

“But-”

“E-nough!  I don’t want to hear another word.  Go to your room and-”

There was a banging at the door.  Becky and her father froze, looking at each other.  Someone called from outside.  “Hello?  Is there anyone in there?  We’re here to help.”  Becky’s dad allowed himself a deep breath to relax, relief all over his face.

“What did I tell you, Becky?  Everything’s going to be all right.”  He moved to take down the barricade behind the door.  “Come and help me.”

Some gut instinct told Becky that something wasn’t right.  “No, Dad, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she whispered fiercely, tugging at his arm.

“Don’t be silly,” he told her, as the banging came again.  “I’m coming!”

Becky ran to her room and scrambled up on top of her wardrobe, doing her best to arrange the boxes and blankets up there to hide her from anyone coming into the room, curling into the foetal position and hoping against hope that she’d be invisible if someone looked up.

She heard her father unbolt the door.  “I knew you’d come!” he said just before Becky heard two gunshots and a sound of a body falling.  It took every ounce of self-control she had not to scream and stay still.

Soldiers ransacked the apartment, quickly moving from room to room.  Luckily for Becky, her wardrobe was behind the door – had the soldier been able to view it from across the room, he may well have noticed her trembling underneath a blanket - and whoever was tasked with searching her room didn’t do much beyond a cursory glance under the bed and inside the cupboard before declaring it clear and moving on.

“What have we got?” she heard someone ask, presumably their leader.

“Not a lot, sir.  Some chocolate hobnobs and not much else.”

“Right, well, we need to keep moving while the area’s relatively secure.  Let’s check the next floor and get out of here.”

Becky heard the sounds of the soldiers moving away and waited for an eternity before slowly climbing down.  When she saw her father’s body, shot cleanly in the head, she collapsed.  Many a time she’d wished she could be free of his hold, but not like this, never like this. 

A little voice in her head told her that there’d be time enough for grieving later.  She needed to get moving.  The sites she’d read that had warned her to stay away from the army in the event of a disaster had other theories about what would happen.  It wasn’t enough to shoot anyone who’d survived.  The only way to be sure that an area was free of infection was to purge with fire. 

She had no food, no money, no weapons and nobody to protect her, with the army on one side and flesh eating zombies on the other.  It was certainly going to make for interesting times.

alleyalligator

I’m tired.  Really tired.  Worn out.  Bone weary.  Exhausted.  In need of a break.  Did I mention that I’m just a little bit burnt out?

Well I am.

The pressure’s gotten to be a little too much.  The need to perform every week, produce something pertinent, witty, clever, something that will speak to the masses gets on top of you for a while.  But that’s never bothered you, has it?  No, you’re all ‘you think this is working hard?  Back in the day they were expected to do twice as much as this and no one ever complained.’

I’ve had enough.  It ends now.  I never thought I’d say this, but I quit.

You thought you were so clever, didn’t you?  After that performing squid or octopus or whatever it was picking out football results, you saw a gap in the market for a cute four year old who could see into the future.  You were great at marketing, I’ll give you that.  It was never anything too impressive, no picking out lottery numbers on a weekly basis or anything like that.  After all, what would be the point if everyone had a winning ticket?  No, it was just enough to attract the media’s interest without exposing yourself to accusations of child exploitation.  Can’t milk the cash cow too often, now, can we?  You even told me when to get the answers wrong so that the scientists wrote me off as a lucky con artist.  Accurate enough to take in the gullible, not so much that I’d be locked away and experimented on for the rest of my life.  You managed me well growing up, there’s no doubt about it.

You got what you wanted, the TV shows, the book deals, the life of luxury for doing nothing more than give birth to a freak.  It should have been enough, but no.  You got greedy.  You had to push and push and push until I couldn’t take any more.  All I wanted was a month or two by myself, a bit of time away from the world to pretend I was normal.  I wouldn’t have thought that was too much to ask.  I mean, Uri Geller’s been retired for years, but you just know that he could announce a world tour tomorrow and it would sell out.  Once you have the kind of notoriety I’ve achieved, it never really goes away.  I gave the papers enough predictions to cover my absence and I’d have thought that a couple of months away from the show would make people want me back all the more.  None of the other psychics have my gift – they all rely on cold reading and clichés.

A holiday shouldn’t have been too much to ask, not when you’ve just got back from swanning around the Med.  But no, here you are, waving contracts in my face, demanding to know why I haven’t signed them yet, why I’m not planning out my next big project.

Enough.

You taught me well, mother dear.  Hide the full extent of my powers so that no one realises they need to be afraid of me, very afraid.  Especially you – but then, you’re scared now, aren’t you?  I can see it in your eyes without needing to read your mind.  Shame it’s too late.

I saw this coming, of course.  I wouldn’t be much of a psychic if I hadn’t.  I’d always hoped I was wrong, just this once.  That you’d have more sense, that you’d know when to let it go for a while or that I’d have more patience, that the fact that you’re my mother would mean something, enough to hold me back when the time came.  But managing always came before mothering with you, so now I’m going to treat you the way that you’ve been treating me all these years – coldly, clinically and very, very professionally.

You see, I can’t just read minds, I can control them.  You know what’s keeping you alive right now?  Me.  You can’t even take a breath without my permission.  Go on, try.

Told you.  Your heart, your lungs, your everything, all under my control, all only working because I will it. 

And now you understand exactly how much trouble you’re in.  Just imagine if I fell asleep and ‘forgot’ to keep those essential organs functioning?  Imagine how horrible your final few moments would be as your body came crashing down around you.  Lucky for you, I’m not a murderer.  You can have your body back – minus one little thing.  I’m not stupid enough to think that a bit of a scare would be enough to get you to leave me alone, even if I didn’t already know everything you’re thinking. 

So all your thoughts, your dreams, your ambitions, your plans?  I’m keeping those.  The lights might be on but nobody’s home and you can sit in the hospital and rot for all I care. 

I want a holiday and if this is the only way I can guarantee myself some peace, then so be it.  In the meantime, you’ve got an appointment with a car and a tree trunk.  Got to have some excuse for your vegetative state.  Here are the keys – you’ll find a nice little sports car in the drive.  It’s my gift to you.  I figure that if you’re going to go out, better go out in style and everyone will understand why I need to take some time away from the spotlight.  All that guilt from buying you the car will be quite overwhelming.  I think I’m going to need at least six months in the sun to recover.

alleyalligator

Sometimes survival is a question of getting from one moment to the next.  You don’t worry about whether you’re jumping into the fire, you just want out of the frying pan.  When storms wrecked the Sonja Jessop, there was no time to think about supplies.  It was every man for himself and it didn’t take long before the lucky few who found themselves adrift in the lifeboat began to wonder whether they’d been so lucky after all.  Lost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, countless miles from the nearest land with precious little food and even less water, all they had to look forward to was a descent into madness before dehydration and exposure claimed them. 

“I'm going to say what we’re all thinking,” Adam said.  “We’re doomed.  Might as well dive into the sea and feed the sharks now.”

“If that’s what you’re thinking, you can speak for yourself,” Bill retorted.  “I’ve got no intention of feeding anything.  But if you want to end up in someone’s belly, I can think of a fair few people who are more deserving than the fish…”

Adam gulped as the other men eyed him greedily, his hand reaching for the knife he kept at his belt.  “Come on lads, I wasn’t being serious.”

“Still, it’s a fair point Bill makes,” Clive observed.  “One man could see the rest of us through a few days and I’m all for that.  It would be for the good of the crew.”

“But not me,” Adam said firmly.  “I’m the smallest.  It would make no sense to eat me when you’d get more meat from David or Ed.”

“Are you calling me fat?” David growled menacingly, rising up aggressively, his movements making the boat rock alarmingly.

“Calm down, Dave,” Bill told him, reaching up to pull him back down to sitting again.  “Nobody’s calling you anything.  But it does seem to me that Clive’s idea is a good one.  The only question is who’s going to play chicken?”

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Adam suggested.  Everyone looked at each other for a moment.

“Stuff this – I say we go for the scrawny kid!” David lunged at Adam. 

“Wait – land!  Land!”  Adam pointed behind them as he fell back trying to get away in a tiny boat with no room to hide.

“You’re not going to fool me.” David had his hands round Adam’s throat and was squeezing as hard as he could.

“Wait, Dave – the kid’s telling the truth!” Clive grabbed David’s shoulder pulling him round to point at the smudge that could be seen on the horizon.

“Well I’ll be…”  David slowly pulled himself up, leaving Adam to brush himself off and scuttle back as far away as he could get, which wasn’t all that far. 

“I thought there was nothing around these parts?” Ed said.

“There’s not supposed to be,” Bill told him.  “But there it is anyway.”

“And there’ll be better eating there than there is on me.” Adam was quick to point out. 

“We hope,” Bill muttered.  “Right lads.  Best get paddling if we’re to make it before nightfall.”

As they drew nearer, they could see that the island was a rough circle shape with a line of hills running through the middle.  Greenery draped the land and the sounds of exotic birds drifted across the water to them.

“Looks like it really is chicken for dinner!” Bill exclaimed as their boat drew up to the shore. 

There was no obvious easy access point – the incline up from the water was quite steep all round - but eventually they managed to find a spot close to a tree and with a bit of teamwork and luck, the five surviving crewmembers were back on dry land again.

“Will you just look at this place?” David exclaimed.  “I’ve never seen anything like it! Look at those trees – every single one of them, stuffed full of meat!  We’re saved.  There’s enough to keep us going until we’re rescued and then some.”

“Not so fast,” Clive cautioned.  “We haven’t found water yet and we don’t know if there are any nasty beasts lurking in wait.  Let’s save the celebrating until we know for certain what we’ve found.”

As they talked, a large, turkey-like bird came waddling up to them.  Placing its head to one side, it looked up at them and squawked. 

“Just look at him!  He’s practically begging us to eat him.”  David reached down and picked up the bird, which happily nestled against him as he scratched its head.  “All we need to do is build a fire and dinner’s ready and waiting – and I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Ed had already been gathering firewood and the men swiftly had enough wood laid out to roast the bird over.  Clive still had his flint and a few sparks later saw fire.

The men cheered as the blaze took hold.  “Right lads,” David said.  “You go off and see what else you can find.  I’m going to wring Gertie’s neck here.”  ‘Gertie’ cooed and looked up at him lovingly.

As the men moved to search through the trees, the ground shuddered, knocking them off balance. 

“What the-” Gertie spread her surprisingly large wings and took to the air, joining the thousands of birds that had flown off in unison.  As the sailors watched, they all flew up a way then stopped, circling the air.

“I don’t like this lads.  Let’s get back to the boat,” Clive ordered.  Nobody felt like arguing, but as they turned to run, the land shifted underneath them again, moving to the side and washing their boat out to sea.  Up ahead, something rose out of the water, something that turned round to look at them.  The monster on whose back they’d landed opened its mouth and roared.

“Oh no.  Oh no no no no no no no no,” moaned Adam, but it was too late.  The creature dived, putting out the fire they’d been foolish enough to light, dragging them all to their graves.  The birds waited patiently overhead, knowing that their home would come back soon enough.  It always did.

alleyalligator

“He said what?”  Meg’s jaw dropped and she looked aghast at what she’d just heard.

“That there’s a coven in St. Alban’s that deliberately impregnates women according to the right phase of the moon and then when the time comes, cuts them open and sacrifices the baby before getting her pregnant again.”

“Seriously?”  Meg couldn’t help herself.  Once more, she found herself picking her jaw up from the floor.  “And you pointed out that you can’t guarantee when a woman gets pregnant?”

“Yep.”  Lucy’s smile was smug.  She knew Meg would react like this and it was almost as amusing as the original encounter had been.

“And you explained how difficult caesareans are to perform without surgeons and theatres?”

“Very yes.”

“And you talked about how hard it would be to conceal a pregnancy and come up with a plausible excuse for what happened to the baby?”

“Oh yes.  All of that.”

“And he still believed that nonsense?”

“Reckons he got it from one of the coven members themselves.  Took him to the site of their coven meetings and showed him their sacrificial altar.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“So let me get this straight.  Not only does he know for a fact that there’s a coven which treats women as brood mares, he’s had one of the coven members openly admit to murder and lead him to the scene of the crime?  And he doesn’t for a second see anything wrong with this scenario?”

“That’s the one.  Hilarious, isn’t it?”

“Hysterical!  Although I suppose if you look at it one way, if you believed that the coven was full of all powerful witches, you’d be too scared of what they’d do to you to go to the police.  Isn’t that right, Paul?”  Meg cast her gaze down to the naked man trussed up before her, his mouth firmly gagged.  His eyes widened with fear as he desperately tried to say something which, alas, was totally incomprehensible.  “For a start, everyone knows the St Alban’s crew are a bunch of wusses who hold more cake sales than they do circles.  I guess if you’re as stupid as Paul, here, you could believe that that was a front to deflect suspicion, but even if it were true, no true witch would be so keen to show off that not only would they break their oath, they’d let you know where they meet.  To be silent, Paul.”  Meg tapped his forehead with the hilt of the knife she was holding to emphasise her words.  “To.  Be.  Silent.  One of the first lessons we learn and for good reason.” 

“Lucky for her, Mae was acting under my instruction,” Lucy told Paul.   “If one of ours had really blabbed like that, you wouldn’t be alone on the altar.  But the one thing she didn’t tell you is that unborn babies are no good for our purpose.  No, we need someone who came of their own volition and your desperation to play the big man in front of the pretty girlie meant that you played right into our hands.”

“It never ceases to amaze me what people are willing to believe about witches.”  Meg shook her head.  “Mae, approach the altar.  The time has come to make the sacred offering to our beloved Goddess.”  A pretty young woman stepped forward and leaned over to kiss Paul on the lips.

“I consecrate you with love.  Blessed be,” she smiled.  Paul strained against his bonds, trying his best to appeal to the girl he’d thought had been attracted to him, who he thought might have been the start of something special.

Meg threw her head back, arms opened wide, as if to embrace the sky.  “Allmighty Goddess we call upon you to join us here to witness our rites.  We offer you this sacrifice as a humble token of our devotion to you and ask that you bless our work.  As the blood flows, may our power grow.  So mote it be.”

“So mote it be,” echoed the rest of the coven.

Mae pushed Paul forward into a kneeling position before grabbing his hair and pulling his head back to expose his throat.

“As the Chalice comes from the female,” Lucy intoned, kneeling to hold the cup under his throat.

“So the Athame goes into the male,” Meg responded, plunging the knife into one side of Paul’s throat before dragging it over to the other side.  Hot blood spilled everywhere, Lucy catching as much as she could in the chalice.  She stood and held it up in offering. 

“Blessed be!”

“Blessed be!” responded the coven as she went round and anointed the witches’ foreheads from the chalice, signalling the end of formal ritual and the beginning of the festivities celebrating the good fortune that was bound to come their way now that they'd appeased the Goddess' need for blood.

alleyalligator

“Thought you could hide, did you, maggot?”

Eric cringed at the sound of Philip’s voice.  He thought he’d found somewhere private, but it didn’t matter how hard he tried, Philip and his cronies always tracked him down.

“So what have you got for us today?  Better make it good.”

Eric bent over his lunchbox, trying to shield his food, but Jason, Philip’s henchman, snatched it from his hands and the pair of them picked over the contents. 

“What’s this in the sandwich?  Salami?”  Philip picked it out and threw it at Eric’s face.  “Tell your mum none of that foreign muck tomorrow.  Here you go, Jase – have some of these crisps.  Not much else in here worth bothering with.  You need to get your mum to buy some of those cheese strings, put some sweets and chocolate in.  Oh well.  Hand over your cash.”

Eric shook his head.  He had his birthday money and had his heart set on Lego Pirates of the Caribbean.  There was no way he was giving it up without a fight.

Philip raised his fist and Eric winced, instinctively putting his arm up to shield his head.  Philip laughed as Jason went behind Eric to hold his arms out of the way so that Philip could ransack his pockets.  It didn’t take long for him to find the notes.  “Cheers, mate!  This’ll come in very handy.”  Jason shoved Eric away.  “Look at the scaredy cat, Jase!  He’s crying!”

Jason picked up Eric’s juice and squirted it over his crotch.  “He’s wet himself too, Phil!”

The two bullies laughed and walked off, congratulating each other on their good fortune. 

Eric thought for a moment, depressed and desperate.  Suddenly, he picked himself up, ran after the two older boys and threw himself at Philip’s back.  Biting, pulling his hair, clawing at his eyes, screaming at the top of his voice “you’ll never win!  You’ll never win!”  Jason tried hard to pull him off, but Eric was like a man possessed.

Jason ran off to fetch a teacher, as Eric’s onslaught beat Philip to the ground.  Curled up, foetal like, Philip’s nose was bloody and his face grazed.  Finally, Eric calmed and stood up, giving Philip a kick to the stomach for good measure.  He reached down and reclaimed his money.

“You’ll never beat me again,” he said, before striding off, head held high.

“Eric?  Are you all right?”  Miss Jenkins’ voice was soft and concerned as she brushed his hair gently out of his eyes.  Eric just snuffled.  “It was those boys, wasn’t it?  Did they take something of yours?”

Eric thought for a moment.  “They took my birthday money, miss.  I had twenty pounds.  I was going to go to the shops after school.”

“Right.”  Miss Jenkins carefully helped him up.  “We’ll see about that.”  She marched briskly towards Jason and Philip.  “You!  Boys!  Stop right there.”  Jason and Philip jumped and turned around guiltily.  “What’s this I hear about you taking Eric’s birthday money?”

“Oh miss, it was just a joke,” protested Philip.  “We were going to give it back to him, weren’t we, Jase?”

“That’s right,” nodded Jason. 

“Hand it over.”  Philip reluctantly placed the notes in Miss Jenkin’s outstretched hand.  “Now you boys will report to me every lunchtime this week.  I have a few chores in my classroom that have your name written all over them.  Maybe that will teach you not to pick on someone smaller than you.”

“Yes, miss,” chorused Philip and Jason.  “It won’t happen again,” added Philip.

“I should think not.”  Miss Jenkins turned to Eric.  “I’m going to look after this for you.  You come see me at the end of the day and we’ll go pick out something together, OK?”

Eric nodded, allowing a shy smile to spread across his face.  Nobody had ever been this kind to him before. 

“Eric?  Eric?”  Miss Jenkins sounded really concerned.

“I’m fine, Miss, honest,” Eric replied.  “We were just playing a game.”

“Looks like it.”  Miss Jenkins’ voice made it very clear that she knew exactly what kind of ‘game’ it had been.  “Come on.  Better go and get yourself cleaned up.  Can’t have you wandering around school looking like that.  Would you like me to call your mother to come and get you?”

Eric thought for a moment.  “OK.”

Eric’s mother was a stern woman, the kind who’d accept no nonsense from anyone.  She often wondered how on earth she’d managed to produce a delicate little flower like Eric and when she saw him, she tutted and shook her head.  “Eric Bolton, you’ll be the death of me.  Do you know how much those trousers cost?  They’re ruined.”

“It’s just a bit of dirt, Mum,” Eric mumbled.  “I can wash it out.”

“Too right, you’ll be washing it out.  As it is, I can’t see any reason why you should miss an afternoon of school.  You can just walk round looking like that for the rest of the day.  That’ll teach you to spoil perfectly good clothes.”

Eric said nothing and hung his head.

“I’d rather not phone Mum, to be honest.  She’d only worry.  If it’s all right, Miss,” he said to Miss Jenkins, “Can I spend the afternoon with you?”

The young, newly qualified teacher thought for a moment.  What was the worst that could happen?

“I’m sure we can arrange that,” she smiled, holding out her hand for him to take.  The grin that spread across Eric’s face made it very clear that this, this moment right now, was worth losing every penny.  In hindsight, whether Miss Jenkins would agree with that is a very different story.

alleyalligator

I was never good enough.  When I got into the prestigious local choir, the one you had to audition to get in, my mother’s first reaction was “but you can’t sing.”  When I came home carrying the essay that had won first prize for my year, my mother criticised my subject choice and told me I could have done better and then maybe I’d have come top in the school.  After a while, I stopped trying and settled into a comfortable existence of mediocrity.  What was the point if it would never be enough?

That was until I discovered pottery.  It was a minor assignment for my coursework, but the moment I cradled the clay in my hands, it felt as though I’d come home.  As I moulded it, the pot taking shape as I teased it out of its hiding place in the material, a deep calm descended, almost as though I was channelling some mystical energy that was using my hands to perform its Will.  The finished product wasn’t the best pot I’d ever seen – the top lip was slightly uneven and there was a bulge in one side where I hadn’t quite smoothed the surface properly – but I knew that I would do better next time.

And I did. 

I don’t think my art teacher, Miss Linnett, was used to students taking her subject seriously.  She was the stereotypical mouse, all flyaway blouses and flyaway hair, who couldn’t keep control of a classroom if her life depended on it.  So when I asked her if I could stay behind after school to work on my pottery, she was hesitant to say yes, probably thinking that I was planning on trashing the room.  It wasn’t difficult to talk her round and I found myself sitting in an empty room, a lump of clay before me, waiting for me to bring it to life.

I took a deep breath, opened myself up to my Muse and pulled off a piece to shape it.

When I stepped back from the finished work, it was dark outside.  I’d completely lost track of time, immersed as I was in creating a shallow dish with ivy leaves entwined around the rim.  So many flaws stared back at me I felt like smashing it up and starting again, but I was already late for dinner and I forced myself to remember it was still early days.  I hadn’t even begun to master my craft.

I began coming into school early so I could use the art room.  Part of me was relieved to have the excuse to be away from home.  Mother had already lined me up with a job working in my uncle’s shop and I wasn’t going to take it.  She wouldn’t hear of it and things had become even more tense than usual.  But when I was working, my real work, all of that fell away.  Everything I created was better than the last, intellectually I knew that, but all I could ever see were the faults, what I’d done wrong, what I could do better next time, what I would do better next time.

What Mother didn’t know was that Miss Linnett had said I could move in with her after exams were over.  She’d been impressed enough by my creations to show them to a potter friend of hers and he was going to take me on as a sort of apprentice.  It was informal with no guarantee of money other than what I could make from selling what I made, but I knew he would be able to help me take my art to the next level and I so desperately wanted to be good at something.

Exams came and went in a blur.  I didn’t really care about the results – I already had my future laid out and it was hard enough putting the clay to one side for long enough to sit them; revision had taken a back seat and I’d be lucky if I’d even passed one.  But Miss Linnett, Beth, had convinced me it was important to try and so I did, just for her.  But even as I drifted off to sleep in her arms at night, that glorious first night when I officially left school and Mother behind, I was planning my next work.  I was thinking that I wanted to explore more with the leaf shape I’d developed, use it as the basis for a bigger piece than anything I’d attempted in the past, maybe a Green Man figure.  I slipped into dreams where my Green Man came to life and whispered dark, arcane secrets in my ear that lingered into morning, echoing sweet suggestions of what I might learn if only I could recreate him.

My first day under the supervision of Ned went well I thought.  He put me to work mass producing statues with a mould he’d created, telling me I could do my own thing in the afternoon.  The work was unchallenging, but there was something to be learned from even the most basic of tasks and over lunch, he told me that he thought I’d do all right.  I’d come to learn that this was high praise indeed.  Ned was not one for hyperbole.

That afternoon, I began carving out the leaves that would form the basis of my Green Man’s head.  Maybe it was the nerves, but none of them came out right.  Ned reckoned they were fine, but I could see that they simply weren’t good enough, not for what I had in mind.  Build, destroy, build, destroy, a pattern that continued well into the evening until Beth came to see why I hadn’t come back for dinner.  I left the workshop in frustration, knowing that I could do better and cursing myself for failing.

That night, the Green Man whispered to me once more, promising all sorts of wicked delights if I could only bring him to life.  All he needed was the perfect vessel and I knew I could build it for him.

Ned gave me assignments, tasks he needed me to do so that he could get on with the more sophisticated work and as long as they were completed to his satisfaction, I was free to do what I liked with the rest of my time.  But I found it increasingly difficult to focus on them.  They simply weren’t important in comparison when my Green Man deserved a statue that reflected his beauty.

If only I were good enough to do him justice.  Build, destroy, build, destroy.  It became the story of my life.

Eventually, Ned tired of telling me to redo work that I’d rushed so I could get on with my Green Man.  I’d yet to make even a single leaf that would do him justice and I’d have thought that Ned would understand how important art was.  It was more important than food, more important than love, more important than life itself.  If he couldn’t see that, then he wasn’t the mentor I thought he would be.

So I stayed home, while Beth went to teach the demon hordes how to appreciate art.  I was becoming increasingly doubtful of her qualifications though – couldn’t she see the cracks, couldn’t she appreciate that the lines were all wrong?  Ned had said that the leaves were perfect too, but what did he know?  He left the workshop at 6 every night, wasn’t dedicated enough to work until he dropped.

Build, destroy, build, destroy.

The Green Man promises me that Beth will stay, that she is devoted enough to realise that creative genius such as mine deserves support.  He guides my hands, tries to place my fingers where they need to be to recreate his foliage, but it’s just not good enough. 

Build, destroy, build, destroy.

Beth says she’s worried.  She says I’m not the girl she fell in love with, that I’m wasting away, I need to take better care of myself, eat something at least.  She doesn’t understand.  It’s her who’s not the person I thought she was.

Build, destroy, build, destroy.

So close now, so close.  I can feel success waiting around the corner, lurking ready to pounce when I finally find the zone that will channel my Muse and allow me to create that one perfect piece that will be the start of something the likes of which the world has never seen.  Michelangelo will be like a toddler with play dough in comparison to my work.  Beth says I’m obsessed and it’s her or him, but know she doesn’t mean it.  I know that when she sees what I see made manifest in clay, she’ll understand that it was all worth it.  She just has to hold on for a little bit longer.

Build, destroy, build, destroy, build, destroy, build, destroy.

alleyalligator

I never did enjoy horror movies.  I never saw the appeal of all those blood and guts and gore and for what?  So we can play guess who’s going to die next?  Put bets on how creative their demise is?  Give me a nice romcom any day and keep your torture porn, thank you very much.

Maybe if I had been a fan, I’d have been better prepared.  A virus, they said.  Spread through bodily fluid, they said.  Seems to be activated by adrenaline, they said, so whatever you do, stay calm and don’t panic.

You try not panicking when Mrs Harrison from down the road is trying to eat your face.

It’s all very well and good to yell at the screen “shoot her!  Shoot her!” when it’s a film, but everyone knows that zombies don’t exist in real life, and when your neighbour looks at you funny, suddenly starts running at you full pelt, your automatic response isn’t to grab a knife or bash her brains out with a rock.  It’s to freeze.  And zen Buddhist meditation to slow your heartrate while you’re trying to keep her teeth from ripping into your throat and simultaneously fending off her fingers trying to scratch your eyes out?  Something tells me the government didn’t think that one through.

The only reason I’m still alive right now is luck.  It’s sheer fluke that I happened to be visiting a friend living in a high rise when the news came on.  We barricaded ourselves in, blocked up the stairs, just as the sirens started, heralding the screaming.  Oh, the screaming.  A persistent soundtrack to the surreal reality we found ourselves acting out. 

You’d think we’d be safe until the army came, wouldn’t you?  I mean, we were snug behind our doors, we had the TV reassuring us; all we needed to do was put our feet up and enjoy a nice cup of tea while the army cleared a path to the door.  Shame life is never as simple in practise.

Don’t believe the hype.  We found that one out to our cost.  There’s the woman, blithely smiling on TV, telling us all to stay where we are and keeping us updated on the areas which have been secured when she listed our street.  Lying bitch.  We heard the tanks come and we heard gunshot.  We also heard the screaming when the zombies overran them.  You can’t outnumber the dead or whatever it is they are.  That’s when we knew we were alone and our food supplies weren’t going to last forever.

By alone, I don’t mean the other poor saps who were trapped in the building with us.  We’d sneak out on to the balconies and compare notes with each other in those moments when the zombies were off marauding elsewhere.   There was even a bit of resource sharing in the early days, before we realised we were going to have to fend for ourselves and had a very stark choice between starvation or being eaten.

It was Gabby’s idea to make a break for it.  We could see an abandoned army truck just up the road and she reckoned that we could commandeer it, use it to get out of Dodge.  Personally I didn’t see it would do us any more good than it had the heavily armed soldiers, but we were down to our last chocolate Hobnob and it made sense to at least try while we still had some energy.  Although I did jokingly suggest that if we waited until we were faint from hunger, we could lurch down the road and the zombies wouldn’t realise we weren’t one of them.

The irony.

We suggested that the others join us.  Most of them still thought it was best to wait for the army to come.  You know, that other army that hadn’t already been turned into sushi.  But the couple living above Gabby and the loner from the next staircase said they’d come with us, figured there was a certain safety in numbers.

Mrs Harrison was waiting for us at the foot of the stairs.  I thought she’d changed her mind at first, until I saw the look in her eyes, her milky white eyes clouded by decay.  That’s one of the effects of the virus, you know.  It attacks the eyeballs, eats them from within, so that eventually the zombies end up running blind.  You’d think it would give us an advantage, that we could just tiptoe past them, but another effect is an elevated sense of smell.  The bastards don’t need to see you.  They can just sniff you out. 

She screamed and launched herself at me.  Before I’d even had time to think, I was on my back, fending her off.  Even though I was fighting for my life, I couldn’t bring myself to really try and hurt her.  In my mind, she was still the sweet little old lady who’d let me pet her house cat while she was walking it only a few days previously.  Lucky for me Gareth didn’t have my qualms and we left her battered body behind as we raced to the truck.

The keys were still in the ignition and Gareth gunned the engine as Gabby checked me over.  I’ll never forget the look on her face when she rolled up my sleeve and revealed the bite on my arm.  We’d been best friends since we were six, but in that moment, I knew she’d drop me in a heartbeat if that meant saving her own skin and I couldn’t blame her.  Last thing I’d want to do is take the risk of infecting my friends.  She screamed at Gareth to stop the car, but I told her to wait, let me off at a more strategic place so I could act as a distraction, lead the zombies away.  If I was going to die, I was going to do it on my terms, dammit, and my terms were that my friends would get a chance to live another day.

A strange calm arose from within.  I’ve never been particularly spiritual, but if I were, I’d almost describe it as God letting me know that He was with me, that I was doing the right thing and I wouldn’t be alone.  Gabby bandaged up my arm, which was throbbing like hell, and gave me a knife she’d taken from the kitchen.  Maybe I’d be able to overcome my squeamishness enough to take out a zombie or three.

Gareth spotted a good place to pull over safely and they let me off.  I stood and watched my last link to humanity drive into the distance.  I might be still walking, but to all intents and purposes, I was dead to mankind, whatever remained of it.  For some reason, the knowledge that I was irredeemably doomed was comforting, as though nothing I did would ever matter, so why worry?

Turns out the bitch newsreader wasn’t lying about everything.  Staying calm does slow the progress of the virus.  Although my arm was sore, the rest of me was fine.  The familiar screams coming from behind warned me that there was a good chance I’d be eaten before I’d succumb to zombiedom. 

And then something strange happened.  The mob of zombies running towards me suddenly stopped short as they got closer, sniffing the air.  They knew that something was here, but they didn’t seem to be able to pinpoint what or where.  At first, I couldn’t believe my luck and although it might have been foolhardy, I went up to one of them and waved my hand right in front of its face.  It sniffed at it, followed the scent up to my face, grabbed my shoulders to steady me while it inhaled a good noseful of my skin and then let me go, even though it must have known that I was human.  Apparently, if you’re infected, you’re dead to them too.  They only like fresh meat and the virus… taints it.

I laughed, then, a bittersweet laugh at everything I’d lost.  I could have stayed with my friends, if only we knew, but they’d never take the risk that I’d suddenly turn on them.  The army would probably welcome me with open arms, but then they’d cut me open, use me to study the virus in its under developed state.  And the zombies smell as strange to me as I do to them. 

So that leaves me in some weird no man’s land.  I can go wherever I like, take whatever I want, but I have to be on constant alert for humans – my own people.  And all the while, I need to maintain a continuous state of relaxation.  You have no idea how hard that is when you know that any breath could be your last as a fully functioning person.  I might wake up tomorrow as one of them and the thought terrifies me.

All that’s left to do is what the bitch newsreader advised me to do – stay calm and don't panic.

alleyalligator

You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that heavy, leaden weight that sits there, tearing up your insides, when you know that you’ve done something wrong and there’s nothing you can do to make it right?

Yeah.  That feeling was my best buddy, my constant companion ever since I’d agreed to deliver a certain package and then got so drunk that I’d lost it in a card game.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  You don’t mess with the demon mafia.  Heck, you don’t call them the demon mafia, not within their earshot, not if you still want to keep your ears.  And tongue.  And other squishy bits that are supposed to stay inside your body.  They were the Brotherhood of Ba’al, a family of lion headed demons from the ninth dimension of Hel who believed firmly in promoting family values by promoting family.  You cross one, you cross them all and it didn’t matter that the package I’d gambled away had belonged to a second cousin twice removed – I might as well have stabbed the Don in the back.  Donald Ba’al, a demon so slippery, nothing ever stuck, despite Lore Enforcement’s repeated attempts to contain him in a brass vessel.  Word had gotten round that he wanted a nice, friendly chat with me and everyone knew what that meant.

So that’s what brought me to this dump, a little bedsit in the less salubrious part of town.  If I’d been smart, I’d have gone to a five star hotel in the posh end of town, but that required money and funds were not what they used to be, not after that game.  Even worse, I descended from a line of fallen angels and you try camouflaging great big fuck off wings under a trench coat.  It’s impossible.  Every time I went out to forage, I was forced to scurry along like a sewer rat, hoping no one would recognise me and report back.  I couldn’t even get food delivered – the Don had eyes and ears everywhere, not always obviously attached to anything.

Somewhere in the room, a phone rang, making me jump.  I hadn’t paid to connect the line in the room and I’d ditched my mobile long ago so they couldn’t trace me.  I hadn’t even trusted to get a pay as you go – there was no one I wanted to speak to enough to take the risk.  So you can appreciate why my blood ran cold when I followed the sound over to my bed.  My bed that was mysteriously stripped of its covers and sheets.  My bed that had a brand new phone sitting on top of my bare pillow, calling out to me to answer.  I picked it up and looked at the screen – unsurprisingly, it was an unlisted number. 

I watched it ring, the vibration running down my arm, sending shivers up my spine.  I couldn’t help it – I shuddered violently.  They'd found me and now they wanted to ‘talk.’

The ringing stopped as it clicked over to voicemail, but started up again a second later.  There was no point in delaying any longer.  I pressed the button to answer.

“Hello, Cherub,” came a rumbling voice tinged with a lion’s roar.

“Hello,” I replied, trying not to let my nerves show.  If I was going out, I was going out with my head held high.  My family had its own pride.

“Bit rude of you not to answer when you know who’s calling.”

“Sorry about that.  I wasn’t sure and you can never be too careful.”

The Don chuckled.  “Well you certainly can’t.  I want you to do me a favour.”

“Sure thing.”

“Cross over to the window and tell me what you see outside.”

I did as I was told and looked up and down the road, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.  “What am I meant to be looking for?”

“Look closer.  You’ll know.”

I leaned forward, trying to focus on whatever it was that was lurking outside when suddenly I was grabbed from behind and something that felt suspiciously like my pillowcase was thrown over my head.  I breathed in a strange odour and moments later, all was black.  It was over.

+++

Groggily, I came to.  My head was still covered and when I tried to get up, I found that I was tightly bound to a chair.

“Sleeping beauty’s awake,” observed the Don, ripping the pillowcase off.  I blinked rapidly, my eyes adjusting to the light, to find his face so close to mine, I could feel the warmth of his breath.  He brought a sharp knife up into the field of my vision and I followed the silver of the blade as he waved it hypnotically in front of my face.  “All together everybody!”

He stepped to one side and began sawing through the knots as my friends and family began to sing Happy Birthday.  I’d been set up!

“You guys!  It’s not my birthday until next month!”  I stood up, rubbing life back into my wrists as people came up to wish me many happy returns.  The Don clapped me on the shoulder.

“My boy, you’re not telling the Don he’s got his dates wrong are you?”  I gulped and shook my head.  The Don turned and waved to the crowd.  “I’m sure you all won’t mind my taking young Cherub away for a few moments.  I’ve got a special treat in store for the birthday boy.”  Everyone melted away as the Don lead me to a side door and through into a room where a large parcel was waiting on a table.

“Isn’t that-?”

“That’s right, my boy.  That’s my package.  The one you were so… careless with.” 

“Listen, Mr Ba’al-”

“Call me Don.”

“OK, er, Don." The word felt strange on my lips.  I'd never dreamed that I'd dare to call him by his first name to his face.  But then, I'd never dreamed I'd be face to face with the Don.  "I’m really sorry about what happened.”

“I’m sure you are, my boy, I’m sure you are.  Don’t worry about it.” The Don smiled and waved off my apologies.  “Your father and I go way back, he pulled some strings and now it’s water under the bridge, water under the bridge I tell you.  He’s a decent chap, your father.  You’re lucky to have had him.”

“Oh, I am.”  I nodded vigorously, not believing what I was hearing.  Good old dad.  I’d known he was connected, but he’d always kept me out of his business and I didn’t know that his ties went this high.

The Don’s manner and demeanour changed and suddenly a menacing aura oozed out from him.  “But now, you really are my boy.  You belong to me.  And you’re going to make sure that this parcel arrives where it was supposed to otherwise…  Well.  I don’t even need to tell you.  Your imagination will do a much better job than I ever could.  Betraying family is the worst sin of them all and us Ba’als never forgive.”  He suddenly switched back to the jovial fellow he’d been when he took me into the room.  “And since you’re family, we decided it was only appropriate to throw you a party to welcome you into the fold.  Today really is your birthday – you’ve been born anew.  Come on in and taste the food – we have some boiled babies on offer that are simply divine and the roasted dodos in their shells?” He smacked his lips, pressing his fingers to them in a little kiss. 

I followed him through to where the party was getting into full swing.  What else could I do?