All stories

There was no doubt about it, Gary was a weird one. The not liking football thing, that was okay, because Hodgy, from QA, he didn’t like football either, but then, he was a rugby boy. Then there was the upper management, guys like Walter, grey suits and greyer hair, wouldn’t crack a smile unless it was seeing a poor person lose a fiver, guys like him definitely not into football, but they golfed, so that was fine too.

But Gary?

They had tried every sport with him. Hey Gary, you like darts? No? Weightlifting? Shot-putting? Beach volleyball? Swedish beach volleyball?

Nah, not Gary. The weirdo would think about it for a time, he’d wrinkle up his face as if he was giving it some serious thought and then always, every time, that shake of the head and he’d say no, he didn’t care for it. That was weird too. Who has to think long and hard if they like a sport or not? Like Laney was fond of saying, cricket was for upper class chinless morons, and he knew that, right off the bat. He didn’t have to think about it.

But you know who has to think about it? An illegal, that’s who. Out of all the theories advanced by Laney as to why the weirdo Gary didn’t like any sport, this was the one that encountered the least mirth. Gary sounded English, he was Home Counties through and through, but compared to Laney’s other theories - the man was a spy, the man was alien – yeah, maybe he was an illegal who had nailed the accent from internet videos, and each time he went silent and thought it was because he was mentally translating women’s field hockey into his own language.

Laney was determined to solve the mystery. Just where did the weirdo go, by himself, for lunch every day? What could be more fun than strutting out with the standards posse, larging it up in the town centre, checking out the fillies regaling each other with tales of Friday night down the alley next to the Sparkle Bang Bang Wow club?

Laney did his usual – yo, Gary, luncheon with the lads? Rock it with an M & S meal deal? This was to lull the weirdo, because Laney and the boys didn’t head into town, they hung back until the weirdo emerged through the side door, slung his bag over his shoulder and set off at a quick pace in the opposite direction to town.

Laney and the boys followed Gary at a discreet distance, turning when he turned. Gary left the main road, ducking down a side alley, going through a wire mesh gate that was hanging open because of the broken padlock dangling at the end of the rusty chain. No sign of the weirdo at the other end of the alley, just the green bulk of the park laid out in front of them. No sign of Gary either to the left or the right, but then Laney spotted a gap in the rusting railings. Beyond this gap was the faint hint of a trail.

Laney’s voice was full of contempt. ‘He’s in the park? What’s in the park, ducks and shit? You can’t buy a sausage roll in the park, can you? Or a steak bake?’

A sudden crack of the thunder made all the boys jump, and Laney began to laugh. ‘Loser! He’ll get soaked. That’s what it is boys, he’s a bloody illegal, and this is the first shower he’s had in months!’

“At 19.02 Mrs Debbie Jenkins of 113 Henleaze Way was in the living room talking on the telephone.

-Inspector Watervole!!! My favourite! So enigmatic!!! I’d take down his particulars anytime!- She said

-perhaps you could get your husband to dress up- her friend, Mrs Frobisher, of 55 Draycott Close responded.

-Who? Brian? Don’t be silly. He hasn’t got an intriguing bone in his body. Those handcuffs Cheryl bought me are still unused. He’d only notice me if I was stark naked covered in ketchup and lying on some chips!!! But I’d accompany Watervole to the station anytime!-said Mrs Jenkins

This statement was accompanied by laughter.

A burst of thunder and lightning occurred at 7.06. At which point Mrs Jenkins said that she heard some rustling, from the kitchen.

She then said. -I’ve got to go got get the chips off the heat and there maybe someone in the kitchen, I’ll get back to you later- the call was then terminated. Mrs Frobisher has corroborated this conversation.

At 19.06 The electricity failed and the house became dark causing Mrs Jenkins to feel her away across the kitchen with a lighted match, proceeding Eastwards in the direction of the cooker.

Once there, she discovered the chip pan was empty.

She then says she called to her husband, Mr Brian Jenkins domiciled at the same address, who she believed was upstairs at the time.

-Brian have you eaten all the chips again? You greedy bugger!!! Come down here! The leccys off-

Mr Jenkins did not answer.

At approximately 19:07 Mrs Jenkins, whose eyes were now accustomed to the dark, saw a chipped potato on the floor. She lit another match and discovered that Chips had been arranged in a trail towards the backdoor.

She followed these into the garden and at 19:08. arrived at the Garden shed observing that it’s padlock had been broken.

At 19:10 Ms Langley of 115 Henleaze Way observed Mrs Jenkins from her window. She heard Mrs Jenkins exclaim -Brian! What are you doing in there, stop playing silly beggars.-

Mrs Langley reported that at this point, a naked “monster” covered in blood, emerged and grabbed her neighbour before retreating back with her into the wooden outbuilding.

Mrs Langley added that “loud shrieking” then emanated from the shed and she felt compelled to ring the police.”

PC Pinemarten cleared his throat, he looked a little nervous.

“And on arrival you discovered that no one was dead, that the reported “blood” was in fact ketchup, And the naked monster was Mr Jenkins attempting to spice up his marriage, Is that correct?” asked Inspector Stoat.

“Yes sir” said PC Pinemarten.

“And that Mrs Jenkins has made no complaint against her husband?”

“She said that she’d have preferred him to have taken off the gardening gloves sir.”

“Then what the bloody hell are they doing here, half dressed and taking up a cell?” screamed Inspector Stoat.

“I thought we might charge them with wasting police time sir” said the young policeman.

“Get out!” roared the inspector, he had a good mind to bust the hapless constable back to traffic. However when Mrs Jenkins winked and said that she’d waste police time whenever the inspector wanted, he relented and reminded himself that even he had been a raw recruit once upon a time.

It happened during a thunderstorm. Rain pelted at the striped canvas of the tent and lightning rent the sky, like a lion tamer’s whip.

But the show must go on and the lamps were lit, the mud paths were strewn with sawdust and planks of wood stretched firm over the growing puddles.

The trees thrashed their limbs feverishly in the violent winds and still they came, the crowds, egged on by the drama of it, huddling, giggling under vast umbrellas, gasping at the thunder, shivering delightedly at the chill of the rain. Their breath steamed and their flesh pimpled as they squeezed along the benches, chattering excitedly and inhaling the mingling smells of popcorn and sawdust and sweat and filth.

Backstage the performers stood damply, peering in as the benches slowly filled. The clowns bickered, whitewashing their sagging faces, painting on their macabre grins over two-day stubble and whisky breath. The animals paced wretchedly, shivering in their cages and Dmitri finished his final checks over the ropes and pulleys and lamps. All was well, the show could go on.

Natasha stood, cold and still as a statue in her sequined leotard and white feathered headdress, blackened eye turned discreetly into the shadows, reddened lids cast down and pointedly away from Isaac, who glowered, massive fist in a towel of ice and muscles bulging in his red and white striped outfit.

Like all the others, their fight had been about money. She had it. He did not. Something in this imbalance played havoc with his sense of masculine pride and he found ways to tell her with his fists and with his feet, always clad in those sturdy, heavy boots that bruised and broke and snapped.

The lights flared, the band played, the show began. Clowns first, tumbling in a grotesque parody of hilarity. Then the lions, toothless and cowed, pacing miserably about the ring, to the audience’s delight.

Then Natasha. She stalked past Isaac, feigning indifference, until the glare of the lights was upon her and she thought only of the trapeze. Stepping slowly, carefully from rung to rung she reached the platform and gazed down at the tiny people far below her.

Without thinking, she seized the trapeze and launched herself, weightless into the air. The platform, Isaac’s fists, the audience, they all fell away in that one heart-stopping moment. Down, down, down she plunged until the upward momentum caught her and she was flying, sailing up, whirling and graceful free in the air as she never could be on the ground

Dmitri trudged through the storm to lock away his tools and equipment for the night and found the padlock snapped and useless in the mud, tools scattered in disarray. It was only then that he noticed the missing saw and the trail of sturdy, heavy boot prints that had preceded him.

Too late he turned, opened mouthed. Too late he pelted back through the rain. Too late he reached the big top, shouting his useless warning - it was already filled with a shocked and horrified silence. Natasha already lay crumpled in the mud and the sawdust, downed in flight, her shining white feathers smeared with blood and filth from the ground and a length of frayed and ruined rope clutched in her broken hand.

Laura’s Den.

The sound of the train rumbled through the bedroom like a thunderstorm, but Mary slept on. Colin gazed at her slightly parted lips and her softly closed eyelids and marvelled once again at his luck.

He had met Mary at the school gates around 6 months after Laura’s death, as he broke down over a forgotten lunchbox. She had taken Lucy’s hand and led her into the classroom with her own niece, Seren, and then come back, slid down the wall next to him, and gently enfolded Colin in her arms. Stroking his head in a way which might have seemed belittling or patronising but actually transported him back into his own mother’s arms, as a seven year old boy crying over his Grampy’s heart attack, she had uttered gentle nonsenses, ‘there, there’, ‘there we go’, ‘shhhhhhh’, until he finally stopped sobbing. He had surreptitiously wiped his nose on his sleeve and tried to gather the dignity to face his rescuer.

As he looked up he saw the kindest face looking at him, vaguely familiar, endlessly sympathetic. ‘It’s Mary’, she had said, ‘we met at the funeral. I was friends with Laura’.

They’d gone for coffee, then lunch, then a walk, then back to the school gates. From there a friendship was born, developed, and eventually blossomed into a love he never thought he’d find again.

Colin snuck from the bedroom, and down to the kitchen, intending to make the coffee before he woke Mary. The kids were still sound asleep. It was amazing, he reflected, how you could spend so many years wishing they’d sleep past 5am, to then find yourself having to wake the buggers up to get them to school by 9.

As he entered the kitchen he saw the trail of muddy footprints leading from the the lounge to the back door. ‘Bloody kids’, he cursed. Morgan must have snuck out in the night again to see Kathy. Then he noticed the drag behind the left hand footprint. And why was the mud leading out of the house, he wondered, opening the door and looking out into the garden.

He immediately noticed the door hanging off Laura’s shed, her den in which she had crafted at the weekends, which he had locked and left untouched these last 2 years. As he crept down the path towards the ominously broken padlock, strains of Portishead came from the shed, Beth Gibbons’ soft beautiful voice and the resonating bassline calling him in, dragging him back to the night they had met in Bristol all those years ago. His breath caught in his throat as his pulse quickened. The shadows in the darkened room seemed to dance in time to the music, the trail of footprints leading to the passaman chair in the corner, Laura’s favourite spot; empty, dusty, but emanating a tangible chill on that mild July morning. He turned to leave, shivering, as the door slammed behind him, the padlock clicking audibly...

It’s not every day that you meet a zombie during a thunderstorm. They don’t like the rain. They tend to hide under trees or bridges during a storm. Any place they can stay dry. Funny, because they’re so disgusting that you’d think they would relish a shower. Nope. The undead love to stink.

But it’s the noise of the storm that really drives them crazy. They flinch like dogs at the white flash of lightning and the loud clap of thunder. Except their cries are far more of a shriek than a howl. Like the sound I imagine a pterodactyl would make. God help us if we ever bring those things back from the dead. Although, now that I think about it, maybe bringing back dinosaurs would help our current situation. They’d certainly have plenty of people to snack on. If they’re ok with rotten meat.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me go back to the beginning. To the summer of 2020, when I first discovered the mysterious trail on the eastern side of Fairview Cemetery in League City, Texas.

Evelina and I were taking our normal 4 a.m. stroll through the graveyard. Walking amongst the tombstones. Sleeping with ghosts. Tickling the ivories—oh, wait, that’s something different. I get my expressions mixed up sometimes.

Fairview held a special place in our hearts. It was where we shared our youth. We grew up amongst the dead, away from the troubles of the living.

By the time we were in our late teens, Evelina and I—her with long red hair and a stubborn rock ‘n roll attitude; me with short cropped black hair and a desire for controlled mayhem—had explored the cemetery hundreds of times.

And we never once noticed the trail leading out of the eastern part of the cemetery to the woods beyond. The entrance was covered in dewberry and grape vines. We’d picked that area many times over and never bothered to push into the dense forest due to all the thorns.

Yet one hot and humid summer day we made the decision to venture farther into the vegetation, to see what lay on the other side. The forest was massive. We knew it eventually came out into the gator infested swamps of southeast Texas, but that was miles away.

Using an old t-shirt from my car to push the thorns away, we were immediately engulfed in thick vegetation. As we made our way through the forest, I spotted the trail. We followed it for a mile, our arms stuck with thorns, before it suddenly stopped at the base of a large oak tree.

We climbed the tree, sitting on giant limbs, and talked about our friends, our fears, our loves. We sat in silence for long lengths of time.

I was tossing acorns down onto the ground, Evelina babbling on about her Pilates workout, when I saw a strange metal object buried near the base of the tree. I craned my neck to the side and squinted. It was an old padlock.

(To be continued next week...)