Pulp Idol Firsts 2010

Firsts

Published by Writing on the Wall Printed by Rayross Print Factory, Liverpool Copyright Š remains with the authors, 2010 Writing on the Wall info@writingonthewall.org.uk Tel: 0151 703 0020 www.writingonthewall.org.uk

Firsts

Content i. Foreword Mike Morris i ii. Preface Jenny Newman ii 1. The Vanity Case Debbie Morgan 2 2. Reinstated PJ Smith 8 3. Alice and the Fly James Rice 14 4. The Blood Will Out Rachel Archer 22 5. The Illuminated Manuscript Jane Kitovitz 34 6. Firo Kathleen Ingleby 40 7. In Search of ASJ Stephen Potter 46 8. The Dance of Death John Donoghue 50 9. Down to Hades Cyran Dorman 56 10. Out of Time Matthew Eland 64 11. The House at Druids Cross Hazel Adamson 70 12. Pass the Parcel Sarah Haynes 76 13. Deadlegs Cardy O’Donnell 80

Pulp Idol Firsts Pulp Idol was born from a desire to reach out to writers below the radar, committed to their work but shy of writing groups and classes, to pull aside the mythical curtain that appears to surround the world of publishing, to shortcircuit the arduous submission treadmill and, most of all, to give new, original voices the chance to be heard.

This unique competition, launched by Writing on the Wall in 2005, achieves this every year by putting writers in front of new audiences, bringing them into contact with key publishers and agents, and providing support through mentoring and writing residentials.

We’ve stepped it up this year and the result, this fine collection of new writing, is in your hands. We hope you enjoy these chapters. Maybe they’ll inspire you to write or enter the next Pulp Idol competition. If you’re a publisher, or agent, maybe this taste of their work will move you to seek out the writer who inspired you. Or maybe they’ll just entertain you. Either way, we’re excited to be pushing out new work, and very proud of the quality of the writing contained within this, our first published collection.

Congratulations and thanks to all the writers, judges and audience who take part and support Pulp Idol and Writing on the Wall each year.

This could be a first step into a new world of publishing for WoW and for our writers. We hope you’ll stay with us along the way.

Mike Morris Editor

The Chapters Welcome to the novelists of the future! Here, in Pulp Idol Firsts, are samples of new fiction from five years of Writing on the Wall’s Pulp Idol competition.

Merseyside has been best known, to date, for its poets and playwrights.

This looks set to change. A generation of novelists is coming to the fore and, in line with the festival itself, their writing is original, subversive and diverse.

Take Cardy O’Donnell’s adventure story, Deadlegs, about the perils of deep-sea trawlermen in the North Atlantic; or The Dance of Death, by John Donoghue, a tense psychological thriller; or Sarah Haynes’s witty, lighthearted caper, Pass the Parcel, which follows romantic novelist Henrietta Madden-Fox; or Debbie Morgan’s The Vanity Case, with its ten-year-old narrator forced to learn how to shoplift; or James Rice’s Alice and the Fly, a witty take, in diary form, on teenage love and obsession; or Stephen Potter’s social misfit’s literary quest, In Search of ASJ; or Reinstated, a robust and gritty novel by P.J Smith about the escapades of a man in search of a better life.

Not all the fiction is graphically realistic. In Hazel Adamson’s The House at Druids Cross, three lost children are at risk because of their special gifts, and in Kathleen Ingleby’s fantasy novel, Firo, the young hero is predestined to enter a burning world. Cyran Dorman’s Down to Hades is a post-apocalyptic thriller and Matthew Eland’s Out of Time delves into the history of a family whose members are fated to disappear in lightning storms to reappear in another time. Jane Kitovitz’s The Illuminated Manuscript time travels between a teenager’s alienated present and the monastic past; and in Rachel Archer’s The Blood Will Out, an eerie crime scene leads CSI Kate Darlington into the underworld of a vampire turf war.

Pulp Idol aims to provide a platform for writers in a constructive and encouraging environment. As you can see, the competition is keen. We hope that the wonderful writing in this volume encourages and inspires future contestants.

Jenny Newman Editor

The Vanity Case Debbie Morgan I’ve worked as a primary school teacher for several years in Liverpool. I left teaching to write. The Vanity Case is a novel based on my own childhood experiences. My poetry and short stories have been published in a variety of magazines. I teach Creative Writing in the local community, and have a Masters in Writing with Distinction from Liverpool John Moores University. debbiemrgn123@yahoo.co.uk Liverpool 1974. Robyn, a ten year old girl, is faced with an impossible decision: to stay home with a father who plans to kill her, or to leave and live on the streets.

The Vanity Case I was ten years old when they first sent me out to steal. The bag bothered me most; brown stiff leather with handles that were frayed down to the white wire.

They burned your skin if held for too long. Later, they told me I held it too high - like a bloody shield - and too far away from me when I walked with it, like it was a disease. It’s only soil. A bit of soil can be easily washed away. I was making it obvious. That was the last thing you did, make it obvious. That was stupid, cos that’s how you get caught, and if you get caught you are on your own, you stupid bitch.

Coffee and salmon. I am to take nothing else. Two large jars of coffee and three tins of boneless salmon. Tinned salmon doesn’t take up much room. Get four tins if it’s easy. I have money for a packet of malted milk biscuits.

When I get to the till I am to make sure the bag is zipped all the way along. The zip has teeth missing halfway and sometimes it refuses to slide any further. I take one jar of coffee, drop it into the bag, and two tins of salmon. The zip glides easily to the end and I let out a breath. The lady at the till smiles, ‘Aren’t you a good girl doing your mum’s messages?’ I smile back and step outside into the cold, where they are waiting.

The second time, instead of holding the bag up high, I am to leave it on the ground. Instead of simply dropping the goods into the bag, I am to kneel, pretending to fasten my lace. That way the items can be easily slotted between the open teeth of the bag. Bend, kneel, slot. Say it. Bend, kneel, slot.

I wanted to say they forgot ‘take’. There was little use for bend, kneel and slot without take. I’d be slotting in thin air. I remember it like this: TBKS. I remind them my new shoes are slip-on. They say it doesn’t matter. It does to me. Balling up a wad of peach toilet paper, I push as much of it as I can into the breast pocket of my pink gingham dress. A couple of stitches snap, which leave a hole that my little finger can wriggle through. A quick glance in the mirror reveals one gob stopper breast. I start again, folding the tissue into a flat rectangle. Instead of using my shoe, I plan a pretend sneeze, dropping then picking the tissue up instead of using laces I don’t have. It

would do a better job. They said my attempt was okay the last time, as it was my first.

This time they expect me to get two large jars of coffee and four tins of salmon. Boneless salmon; if you’re going to do it, do it properly.

They don’t hand me the bag until we are near the shop. I see Angela, a girl I sit behind in school, walk in ahead of me with her mother. ‘Hi, Robyn,’ she waves. I smile and wave back. She is swinging a red vanity case, with a gold lock; she has gold buckles on her shoes.

I have seen shiny red fabric on the inside of the case. She opens it up sometimes at break time. Tiny loops of thick, black elastic have been sewn along the top in a straight line, to hold things high up. A toy red lipstick and nail varnish, a matching pink comb, brush and hand mirror. Everything slots in place, held firm, like Jesus on the cross. Felt- tipped pens, pencils and rubbers can fit inside too. They rest on the bottom of the case, like a crowd.

You’d never fit a jar of coffee inside.

Angela looks over. She lets go of her mother’s hand and walks towards me. ‘Want to come to mine to play?’ Her voice is sweet, like lemon bon bons.

‘Don’t know.’ I fidget.

‘I’ve got skates.’

‘Oh.’ I catch her looking and hide the bag behind my back.

‘Wait here. I’ll go and ask.’ She pulls her mother by the hand and walks back over to me.

‘Hello Robyn, Angela wants you to come over to play this afternoon. Is your mum around so I can ask her?’

‘No… She’ll let me though.’

‘You’re not here alone, are you?’

‘No. My mum’s meeting me by the chippy.’

‘Do you know where we live?’ Angela asks.

‘Yes, next door to Mangum’s shop. I only live round the corner, in the Gardens.’

‘See you at four then. Stay for tea till six?’

‘Okay.’ They walk away.

Dizzy at the thought of spending two hours with the vanity case, I finish my task without using the tissue paper. I check what I’ve taken; two large jars of coffee and four tins of salmon. I zip up the bag. It closes easily. All that’s left is to buy the biscuits. I bend down and take the coins from my shoe.

There is a different lady on the till. She has thick lines between her brows that bunch together when she speaks.

‘That’s a big bag for such a small packet of biscuits.’

‘It’s got spuds in it. They’re my mum’s.’ I don’t wait for the change.

‘Did you get it all?’

‘Yes.’ I lift the bag up towards them but they don’t take it.

‘You were quick. That’s it. Quick means not getting caught. Quick and quiet.’

As they speak my heart beats faster and our pace quickens all the way home.

Inside, they take the bag. The contents are carefully lined up on the floor. As they say a name, they tap each item.

‘Coffee, old Alf. He’ll buy a jar after a kiss from me,’ Mum says. ‘And Mag, we bought that clapped out record player off her.’ She smiles. ‘We can go out tonight now.’

Dad’s eyes flash. ‘Tom’ll be up to his eyes in Guinness when we get there. He’ll take two tins of salmon. I’ll rev Joan up a bit, she’ll take a tin. We’ll sell them, ask Eve for a stay behind.’

I ask to play out. They don’t look up when they say yes.

It’s a sunny Saturday, but the sun isn’t a warm sun. I skip all the way to Angela’s house, feet rubbing inside the new shoes I got for Christmas. I know they won’t be back from the supermarket yet so I sit on the pavement across the road and wait. A bedroom window is open and I can hear a song being played. You better beware if you’ve got long black hair.

My hair is dark brown, cut just below my chin. I have a few freckles around my nose that I don’t like but the ones on my arms are like squashed chocolate drops. My ankles are skinny. I can span them with my hand. I take off my new shoes. My toes are nasty. Long and thin. The second toe is longer than the big toe and when we do P.E. some of the kids laugh and say it means I will kiss girls when I grow up - on the lips. When I show my toes to my nan she says take no notice - It means you’re going to be a ballet dancer.

I start to rub my cold feet in my palms. Finally, Angela turns the corner with her mother. I slip my damp socks and stiff shoes back on and walk over.

‘You’re early,’ her mum smiles, ‘hold this for me while I find my keys.’

Peeping inside the bag I see candles, Nulon hand cream, coffee and massive bandages like my mother has. Angela takes me up to her room. She has a picture of a man on the wall above her bed. He looks kind around the eyes. He is wearing a cream suit with a red flower in his lapel. She tells me his name is David Cassidy. Her big sister Kate doesn’t like him anymore. She likes Donny Osmond now, so she gave her the poster. Angela tells me Donny Osmond is nowhere near as cute as David. He can’t even sing. She tells me she’s going to marry a pop star when she grows up.

We play outside on the step with her dolls. They have a back yard but her mum says we have to play in the front because the bin men are on strike and it stinks in the yard. Angela said she saw a rat inside one of the rubbish boxes. She gets her skates out and I have a try with one for a long time. She does the same with the other. Up and down the street with the same skate until our legs ache.

Angela’s mum comes to check on us. ‘One of your legs will grow longer than the other doing that,’ she laughs.

When she walks back inside I try with two skates. I fall and cut my knee.

Angela shouts her mum. She cleans the blood away and puts a plaster on it so I can’t bend my knee when I walk. I’m glad she didn’t see me fall.

Angela’s dad looks like David Cassidy. He has dark hair with long sideburns. He gets out of his car and locks the door. There are no other cars in the street.

‘Hiya gorgeous.’ He tickles Angela under the chin then turns to me.

‘Who’s this?’

‘It’s Robyn, my friend.’ He fluffs up my hair.

‘This is my dad, he’s a `lectrician,’ she says proudly.

I don’t know what my dad is so I say nothing.

We play until it’s time to eat. Angela says I can play with the vanity case after tea. We have mashed potato and minced meat in gravy, with tinned peaches and condensed milk for dessert. At the table her parent’s sit close to each other and laugh out loud.

‘I got the candles for tonight’s blackout love,’ her mum says.

‘No need. I’ll string up the car headlight bulbs, one in the living room and one in the kitchen. Keep them for the bedroom, for later eh love?’ He winks.

‘You’re so clever.’

She leans over and they kiss, right there in front of me and Angela.

After we help clear away the dishes, it’s time to go back outside to play with the vanity case. No sooner have I sat on the step and flipped open the lock than I hear my name being shouted. I close the case, put it on the step and stand. Angela stands up too and looks where I’m looking.

‘What’s the matter?’

At the end of the street my mum’s face, thin and pale against her pillar box lips.

‘Where the fuck have you been? We thought you were lost. Your father’s searched all over, across to the big square and everything. We’re waiting to go out.’ Mum and dad get cross if they’ve got no money for fags or the pub.

‘Get here now. Six hours you’ve been gone. Wait till I get you home.’

Avoiding Angela’s stare, I run down the street with one thought in my head.

I want a better life.

Reinstated PJ Smith PJ Smith is a young(ish) writer from Walton in North Liverpool. He has only been writing for a few years but has established himself as a talent to be reckoned with. Without any formal education in creative writing, Smith’s style is powerfully immediate and uncompromising. Smith’s own experiences give his writing an accuracy and detail missing from other writers who claim to be ‘of the street.’ His characters and dialogue are rooted in the real lifestyles and speech of modern Merseyside and offer no concessions to outsiders unfamiliar with scouse slang. Smith’s writing is effortlessly funny and poignant, capturing the humour and violence underpinning the lives of thousands of ordinary Liverpudlians. The Liverpool of Smith’s characters is a city that is at once dangerous and comically surreal. beweyblue@hotmail.com The Scanlon brothers have been falling for a long time. When one brother’s criminal lifestyle clashes with the other brother’s love of TV quiz shows the results are, as David Coleman would say, quite remarkable. So far, so good but it’s not the fall that matters, it’s the landing. A story of love, sadness, manipulation and disaster. When, it seems, the whole of Liverpool are gathered around their TV screens one Thursday evening, it becomes clear that we are about to witness an almighty crash landing...or are we?

Reinstated Jesus H. fuckin Moyes! My eyes scope the tiny, unfamiliar room. The walls are painted black. I spy a poster of Bjork on one wall alongside an Audrey Hepburn portrait and a map of the world on the other one. A greasy smell, which is coming from the empty pizza box that lies right next to my head, makes me want to strangle someone. I feel a bit like Loyd Grossman trying to work out who lives in a house like this? All I have to do is turn over, but because I can hear her snoring next to me it’s possible I may shatter into a million little pieces if I do. I continue to scan the room when I notice a pair of minty arse K Swiss trabs, a near empty pouch of Golden Virginia and a rather large thong that can only be described as ‘crusty’.

This can mean only one thing. I’ve blagged for a student. Either that or I’m in a late night episode of Hollyoaks. When I finally do find the courage to roll over it is revealed that she’s deffo no Hollyoaks starlet and I’m more likely to have picked her up in the Pilgrim than the Newz Bar. She actually looks a bit like a fat version of the buck toothed ex-Liverpool striker, Milan Baros.

Read into that what you will. Always thought he was quite lush anyway, nowhere near as dreamy as our very own Mikel Arteta though. What lovely hair he has. Oh well, all farewells should be sudden and that, so I mumble a quick ‘see yer later girl’, before I stand upright and try and grasp the concept of getting dressed. My skull appears to be made of glass and I reckon the slightest little thing will shatter it. My mouth feels like the inside of a crab’s head and I do believe something like cement has set up my nostrils. The

student snorer is dead to the world so I slot a few of her CDs into my coat pocket before I creep out the door.

As I get in the lift I’m pretty chuffed to find that I’ve selected the Beta Band’s ‘3EPs’ and The Scream’s seminal ‘Screamadelica’; two mighty fine albums, even if I do say so myself. See, they’re not all bad these students. As I’m exiting the lift and heading towards a bit of daylight and fresher air, I start rifling my own pockets to see how much dough I’ve got left from last night. At two bells yesterday afternoon I was four hundred quid richer courtesy of a budgeting loan from Breck Road jobbies. I also extracted a oner from the roulette machine in Ladbrokes but, irony of ironies, right now this Lad is Broke. £4.66 and a couple of Marley lights are all I can muster up. Fuckin ’ell man, £495.34p gone and all I’ve got to offer is Milan Baros’s chubby sister.

This has to stop. Soon.

I’m marching down Catherine Street wondering how I’m gonna get some readies together for tonight. I bail into the Caledonia for a curer and try to get a plan together. I request a pint of Kronenburg from the barman. I just want to get it down my neck and vacate the premises ASAP. I’m the only one in there, and this barman looks like the sort who might want to engage in a bit of chatter. I’d never chat to a whopper of this calibre though. For a start he’s got one of those Big Brother haircuts; y’know the ones where it looks like you’ve got a smackhead’s couch on your head? I deffo reckon he’s got a WKD side an’ all. To top it all off he’s singing along to Hard-Fi on the radio and wearing a t-shirt that says, ‘While you’re reading this, I’m checking out your tits’. What an utter fuckin beaut. I should’ve made my own t-shirts with ‘Just because it’s ironic doesn’t mean it’s not shite’ plastered across them. I could’ve sold em outside gigs when The Darkness and Goldie Looking Chain were playing.

Could’ve made a fuckin fortune.

Anyway, I lash the rest of the Kroney down my gullet and contemplate what I’m going to do with the £2.46 that remains. I give smackhead’s couch head a half let-on and trudge my way to the door. In some sort of Home Counties twang I hear him reply to my raised eyebrow with a, ‘Take it easy bruvver, look after yourself. Peace out!’ I feel the blood rise in the back of my neck, but instead of filling him in I give it the old, ‘Is right lad, later!’ And I mean it, because I WILL see him later. But for now I stand in the doorway and fasten my coat right up. Outside it’s raining.

I find myself on London Road. My mate does the scran in one of the bars there. He also slings proper shite skunk to the students as well. Yeah man, I think, I’ll get myself a feed and a weed while I’m in the vicinity. It’d be foolish not to, wouldn’t it? As I enter the bar I see a lad I know, Topper. From the kip of him Topper has well been hammering the steroids and the sunbeds. His skin is like the Ronseal Man and his chest and shoulders are fucking ginormous, but he’s got a tiny little olly head. He reminds me of those Action men I had when I was a kid; y’know, when you’d snap the head off and you’d be left with a little stump. That’s Topper that is. I’m hoping he doesn’t see me, but from the way his kite goes I know he already has. I humour the fool, ‘Alright Topper lad, how goes it?’

‘Sound man, apart from that scran I’ve just ate.’

I don’t really want to know but I know he really wants me to know, so I continue to humour him.

‘Why, what’s up?’

‘I’ve just took me bird to that tapas bar in Queen’s Square and the soft twat put a load of little starters on me plate.’

‘That’s what tapas is though’ ‘Fuck off lad, if I order a meal then that’s exactly what I want, a meal. I mean it’s just a lack of respect innit? Fuckin cheeky Paki bastards.’

‘Tapas bars are Spanish.’

‘And what like?’

‘So they don’t originate from Pakistan.’

‘Yeh but a Paki’s a Paki innit? All the same to me lad.’

I just laugh cos I feel that’s all I do with this mush. I bid him farewell and swing the doors of the bar open. Topper shouts me back.

‘Ere y’are lad, gerron these!’ he says, and pulls a little booklet out of his pocket. It’s a mail order Chinese firework catalogue. I haven’t got a jar of glue what’s going on here but then he starts his waffle again.

‘Y’know that bommy night display in Sevvy Park and the one down the Albert Dock? Well this year they’re buying all the gear off me. I charged them well over the odds like, but I’ll do you a good deal though - £100 for twenty Beijing Exocet Laser Shooters.’ He points to a weirdly packaged box on one of the pages.

Personally I’d rather light five, twenty pound notes and smoke them one after the other than give him a ton.

‘Nah, I’m not into fireworks.’

‘Yeah but gerron it lad, these come in a wooden box with proper ropes for handles; know worra mean?’

I make a face that says, ‘I couldn’t give a flying fuck if the handles were made from solid gold and the box was carved by Old JC himself, you ain’t getting a oner off me’.

‘I’ll bear you in mind if I ever need any fireworks Top, I’ve gorra shoot.

See y’later.’

‘Laughin’ lad, be quick though it’s only six weeks till bommy night.’

I take a seat at the bar and wonder whether Topper the crank will ever change. I hope not, he’s pure comedy. Jordan, my cooking mate, appears from the kitchen. His eyes resemble the coin slots from the fruity in the Punch & Judy and I’m guessing it has something to do with the herbs he’s been smoking rather than the ones he’s been bakin’.

‘Alright Jord lad, any green?’

Instead of answering he just pulls a moody bag of dark green, twiggy shite from the pouch of his chef’s apron. I roar off him and remind him that I’m a pal not a punter, so he reaches for that daft checkered hat he wears and pulls a fat bag of sticky icky stuff from under it.

‘That’s more like it lad. I’ll pay yer next time though, I need all me dough for tonight…is that sound?’

Jordan winks then nods towards the bar. I guess that means ‘yes it IS sound’- it’s so sound he’s offering me a pint.

‘Yeh go ‘ead lad, any chance of a short as well, large Courvoisier?’

The stoned chef just shrugs. I take that to mean ‘why not? Me boss isn’t here, fill yer boots.’ Is right! He puts an ice cold bottle of Becks in front of me but I notice he uses the cheap and nasty shite instead of Courvoisier for my short. Beggars can’t be choosers though eh? which reminds me of something someone once told me about Keith Chegwin. What with him being a major

pisshead, his autobiography is called ‘Cheggars Can’t Be Boozers’. If that’s not true it fuckin should be, it’s genius. I raise my glass in a salute to Sir Keith of Chegwin, then lubricate my neck with this fuckin jarg Courvoisier. Fuckin ’ell, it tastes like what I imagine Cheggar’s piss tasted like when Cheggars COULD be boozers. I kill my bottle of German in two swigs, but the Cheggars piss taste still remains. I march up to the kitchen.

‘Eh Jordie, any chance of some tucker lad, I’ve got a mouthful of Cheggar’s piss ere and I need the taste to go away. One of your curries should do the trick.’

He gives me the thumbs up like it’s the most normal request he’s had today. Saying that though it probably is, what with all the students ordering shite like Power Shandies, Turbo Vimtos and Snakebites all day long; the fuckin Hard-Fi listening bastards.

Which reminds me, I must go back and see that ming from the Caledonia.

Alice and the Fly James Rice I’m twenty-two, which means that I haven’t really done much, certainly not enough for a sufficient biography. I’m currently writing my first novel, which will hopefully be published and make me enough money for me to not have to work in the retail sector. james-rice@live.co.uk Greg is a fly on the wall, a passive spectator of his own life, but when Alice smiles at him in the street an obsession begins that will lead him to realise how much beauty life can hold.

Alice and the Fly Thursday 5th November This winter will be the coldest winter in thirty years. At least that’s what the news said. Usually I don’t trust the news because the news only tells you the bad stuff, and if everyone paid attention to everything the news said we’d all go crazy and kill each other, but I’ve got this horrible feeling that, this time, the news might have got it right. It’s only the start of November and the air has already started its nose-and-chin-pinching. I’ve already had to adopt the tuckyour-head-down-into-your-coat-like-a-turtle routine.

I’m at my coldest when waiting for the bus. Two hours is a long time to shiver. I have trouble thinking up new waiting-places, because every new waiting-place I think of seems even colder than the last, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up getting sick again. Today I waited under that bridge by the square. The canal had melted into these little white islands and half- a-dozen ducks were stood on the coastline, inspecting the water like it was a life-style choice they’d yet to decide on. I balled myself into my warm-position (legs tucked to chest, coat over legs, hood-cords pulled tight. Gentle rocking). I wondered if the ducks were cold. They seemed perfectly happy stood there, beaks aimed at the surface of the water.

My sister used to have a tape of The Ugly Duckling. We’d listen to it in the car while she stared out the window, contemplating the lyrics. I never understood why that unfortunate-looking duckling had to turn into a swan. ‘A very fine swan indeed’. I bet there were thousands of unfortunate-looking ducklings that weren’t very fine swans indeed, that grew old and died just as unfortunate-looking as the day they were born. They didn’t make songs about them.

One of the ducks turned and quacked as if to say, ‘This water thing, it’s not for me’ and trotted across the ice, tripping forward with each slap of its feet like it was going to fall and smash its little beak in. It’s very strange that ducks don’t have arms. It took me a minute to remember that ducks actually have wings and I realised the horrifying truth about ducks: that (unlike chickens) ducks can fly. Ducks could be anywhere they wanted, but they

choose to be here in Skipdale. Here in the cold. Here with the choice between ice-water and ice.

By five it was dark and a faint crackling started to echo under the bridge.

I crawled along to the mouth of the bridge till I could see their reflections in the black water, big white flashes reaching across the sky. I pretended the stars were exploding. We used to go to Nan’s for bonfire night. Her neighbourhood was firework crazy. They kept jars for firework funds, and made special trips down to that shop on Honey Lane that sold the big ones. The Dragon ones.

The bonfire night walk to Nan’s was that mix of scary-exciting that makes you nearly pee yourself when you’re little. It got so foggy with smoke that I’d spend most of the walk just trying to make out the outlines of the houses. I’d hug Dad’s waist at every flash and every bang. It was like a war zone.

Herb would always answer the door on bonfire night. It was the only time I ever saw him leave his chair. I used to believe that he spent all summer plugged into the wall, charging, waiting to launch into bonfire night, into the drinking-of-Guinness, and the roasting-of-chestnuts and the piling-of-rocketson-the-kitchen-table, which I would inspect thoroughly. I’d pick the order in which the fireworks were to be launched, which would accord to the size of the rockets, and the tradition of saving the biggest, most orbit-likely till last.

Every year Herb would tell me that we’d get at least one of the bastards into space. Herb did the dangerous stuff. The yard was concrete, so he couldn’t stab the tubes into soil the way the instructions said. Instead he’d arrange the rockets in their own individual plant-pots. The yard was only twenty foot long and the hundred-foot safety distance was out of the question, but for this one night of the year Herb would take a ‘Whatever happens, happens’ kind of attitude (perhaps due to the Guinness) and would just light as many rockets as he could, only hobbling to the relative safety of the kitchen doorway when the first few were screaming into the air.

It seems odd but when I think back to bonfire night, to Herb hopping about with that safety lighter in the air like a magic wand, and Mum and Dad hand-holding, and Sarah balanced on Mum’s knee scratching at her toes, and all the fireworks in all the pots with all their screaming light and banging, my favourite part is still thinking about Nan, sat in silence at the back of the kitchen, Mr. Saunders curled on her knee. Thinking about Nan’s furry face as it followed each rocket up into the sky. It was as if, after all those years, she still wasn’t sure how it was done.

By the time the fireworks had ended, and my thoughts had drifted back under the bridge, and the cold had crawled back up through my veins, it was getting late. I had to make a run for it to catch the 17:32 bus. I do that sometimes, slip into memories and mind-blanks. As I scrambled up the hill I turned back to check on the ducks, to see if they had decided on water or the ice, but they’d all snuck off when I wasn’t looking.

Tuesday 10th November Miss Hayes has a new theory. She thinks my phobia’s caused by some traumatic incident in my past I keep deep-rooted in my mind. As soon as I come clean I’ll flood out all these tears and it’ll be ok and I won’t be scared of the crawly little bastards anymore. I’ll be able to do P.E. and won’t have fits.

Maybe I’ll even talk, and talk properly, with proper s’s. The truth is I can’t think

of any traumatic incident to tell her. I really wish I could. I’m just scared of them, it’s that simple.

I thought I was in big trouble the first time Miss Hayes asked me to stay after class. She had asked a question about Dubliners and the representation of the seven deadly sins, and nobody had answered, and she had said ‘Greg?’ because she had known that I knew the answer because I’d just written an essay all about Dubliners and the representation of the seven deadly sins, and I had wanted to tell her the answer but the rest of the class had hung their heads over their shoulders and had set their big, frowning eyes on me, so I had had to just sit there with my head down and not say anything.

At the end of class the bell rang and everyone grabbed their things and ran for the door and I just sat there, waiting for a telling-off. Miss Hayes walked over and sat on the edge of my desk (which worried me because I knew the legs weren’t sturdy after that time Ian and Duck had wrestled on it) and she crossed one leg over the other and then crossed one arm over the other and said that she’d given me an A- for that Dubliners essay. She said I was a natural at English. I wish I’d said something clever like, ‘Well I’ve lived in England all my life’ but I can never think of these things at the time so I just nodded a little. She said she had spoken to the school nurse about my problems and wanted to know if I’d come with her to her office for a little chat.

I didn’t know what to say to that either. I just nodded again. Since then I’ve been waiting behind every Tuesday for a ‘little chat’ in Miss Hayes’ office. I’ve never chatted though. We tend to just sit in silence. I scratch the palms of my hands while she twists that ring on her finger; like I’m a broken TV set and she’s trying to turn up the volume knob. It doesn’t bother me, silence. People talk too much. They make awkward talk with you every five minutes about school or your parents, or how your sister’s dancing’s going. It’s nice to sit in silence for an hour in the same room as Miss Hayes, just knowing we’re both there, experiencing that silence together. It gives me a bit of a warmth.

Miss Hayes doesn’t think that silence is very progressive. Last week she gave me this little leather book and said writing stuff down might help me ‘express myself’. I asked her what I should write. She said, ‘This isn’t an assignment, just write down your thoughts. Your feelings.’

Tonight she asked if I’d written down any of my thoughts or feelings and I said I’d written one thing but it wasn’t much, only a couple of pages. I didn’t know what to write so I ended up writing about ducks.

She said it’s ok to write about ducks. I can write about anything.

I told her it’s hard writing to yourself because you already know everything you have to say.

She said you don’t have to write to yourself. Her diary’s called Deirdre and she finds Deirdre very easy to write to. I asked her who Deirdre was and she swallowed and said ‘Nobody’.

I think it’s pretty stupid to write to nobody so I’ve decided to write to you.

I hope you don’t mind. Even though Miss Hayes said she wouldn’t read what I’ve written, I just know she’ll be on my back to write something, and you seem like a good way of getting the words on the page. I know you don’t know me, but nobody knows me and, by knowing that, you now kind of know me better than anyone.

My name’s Greg, by the way.

Wednesday 11th November Today I wasn’t in the mood for ducks, so after school I went straight to the bus stop. I thought it’d keep me dry but the wind kept lifting the rain up onto me.

By 17.32 I was dripping, and so numb I couldn’t even feel myself climbing on board. The driver gave me that smile again. I took my seat at the back and watched the wet blur of rain on the window as the bus pulled off through Skipdale.

The bus was full of uniforms. Yellow visibility jackets and Waitrose name badges. There was a cleaner still with her Marigolds on. No one who works in Skipdale lives here; they all get the 17.32 back to The Pitt.

We pulled into the square and stopped outside The Prancing Horse.

Four old ladies shuffled on, showing their passes, riding back from their day out in The Crime-Free Capital Of England. ‘It’s such a nice town,’ they told the driver. ‘It’s such a nice pub. It was such nice fish.’ Their sagging faces were so expressionless I could have reached out and given them a wobble.

And then there was you, all red curls and smiles, stepping up to buy your ticket, and the warmth rose through me like helium to my brain.

You were all wet today, and shivering. Working after school must really tire you out because you drifted off as soon as you sat down, your head rocking against the window. I watched your sleeping face in the mirror for as long as I could, only looking away when the driver caught my eye. You smelt of disinfectant. It was stronger than any other work-smell on the bus. Is it legal for you to work there? The landlord probably doesn’t know how young you are. You have that older look pretty girls tend to have. You’re not the prettiest girl in school. There’s a gap in your teeth and your eyebrows could do with plucking. You don’t half have a sweet smile though. Once I walked right past you, and you smiled at me, right at me, as if we knew each other. It’s only a little smile. Your cheeks bunch at the corners just the right amount. It made me want to reach out and grab them, like Nan used to grab mine. I know that’s sad but it’s true.

As we passed out of the square I looked over at Hampton’s Butchers and thought about your dad and the others, shivering with all that slippery meat, while I was on the bus with you. Then we turned onto the dual carriageway and sped out to The Pitt.

I wonder what it’s like to live in The Pitt. Do you tell anyone? I can’t think of a single kid who’d admit to living in The Pitt. It’s quite odd that you have Skipdale friends. Very few kids from The Pitt get into Skipdale High and, even then, they stick to their own. Pitt families are always trying to get into Skipdale but it does its best to keep them out. I can’t count the number of times Mum’s peeped out the window and suspected the new neighbours of being Pitts.

She’d tell me and my sister to keep away. ‘They’re trying to climb too high in the property market. They’ll fall and they’ll break their necks.’

The bus rattled on past each green bridge along the carriageway and I watched them grow rustier and rustier as we got deeper into The Pitt. I remember when I was little and we first moved to Skipdale and Mum would drive out to The Pitt to see Nan and I would try and count how many of the houses were boarded up and how many were burnt out. Sometimes I’d find a house that was boarded up and burnt out. It was hard because all the houses

are joined together in The Pitt, and Mum would drive through so fast, as if the air there would rust the BMW. As always you woke just as we passed the church, just in time to miss the large poster that spanned its boarded-up window. Today it said, ‘Life: The Time God Gives You To Decide How To Spend Eternity’. I realised that there was no graffiti on the church. It seemed odd with the amount of swear words sprayed on every other wall in town.

We pulled into the council houses behind The Rat and Dog. The rain was harder out in The Pitt. You skipped down the steps and out onto the blurred, grey street, holding your jacket over your head. I felt that pull in my stomach, like someone was clutching my guts. I wished you had an umbrella.

The trip back was hard. I got shivery and goose-pimpled. There were a lot of gangs out tonight, mounting their bikes on the curbs of street corners, cigarettes curling smoke from beneath their hoods. I nearly fell out of my seat when one of them threw a plastic bottle up at the window. I wasn’t too bothered about people anymore though, all I could think about was them. I lifted my feet up onto the seat. I knew they were everywhere I wasn’t looking, so I had to keep turning my head, brushing any tickles of web on my neck, checking the ceiling and the floor. They’re sneaky.

The houses started to grow and separate again. Potted plants congregated in front gardens. Eventually we came back through the square.

The bus hissed to a stop at Green Avenue and I scrambled up the aisle.

As I looked back the driver gave me that same old smile. The smile that knows I will always get off the bus at Green Avenue. The smile that knows it was the same stop I got on just half an hour ago.

The Blood Will Out Rachel Archer A Scottish native, Rachel Archer gained a Masters in Writing with Distinction from Liverpool John Moores University. After discovering the Wolfman and Dracula at a tender age, Rachel began a life-long love affair with the paranormal which she blames for her obsession with ghosts, selkies, vampires and werewolves. Although she lives next door to a graveyard, thankfully the neighbours remain quiet; being cautious, she has a Zombie Apocalypse contingency plan just in case. Rachel is currently working on the third instalment of the Nakamura novels and her first amateur sleuth, Cozy Mystery. ruadhsionnach@aol.com San Francisco crime reporter Daniel Nakamura is a former member of the Sohei, an order of monks dedicated to the elimination of the supernatural. He is also a vampire. His humanity bled out onto temple grounds two centuries ago and a continent away. When gang bangers with strange glyphic tattoos similar to his own are found murdered, Daniel fears that something from his past has woken. Blood is Kate Darlington’s forensic speciality; as the CSI assigned to investigate San Francisco’s newest serial killer, she’s seen enough of it to verge on burnout. Her world collides with Daniel’s past when a senator’s daughter is found drained of blood.

The Blood Will Out Prologue San Francisco, August 8th 2010, 6.30pm (PT; 1 hour before sunset) Jenna Nadine’s tattoo was three hours old when she died.

Baptiste was the one to mark her, after he anointed her with oils that reeked of liquorice.

‘Virgin flesh.’ Mike’s voice echoed up to the warehouse rafters. Jenna rolled her eyes. She could hear the thump of Mike’s combat boots in the main room of the warehouse; the lack of profanity told her he was pacing rather than stamping on roaches.

Super-sized roaches were one reason she wasn’t exactly crazy about the warehouse, but Baptiste had picked it out for its seclusion from the main road. He and Mike had spent hours debating the merits of its shape and location; Baptiste argued that the motel wasn’t safe anymore, there were too many entry and exit points to cover. Sooner or later the enemy would find them and they couldn’t risk the collateral damage.

The warehouse was divided into two sections, shaped like a T, and had a single entrance to act as a choke-point. Its corrugated metal walls and roof gave no purchase for intruders and the high old-fashioned windows, which

made her think of churches, were deemed a ‘defensive wet dream’ by Mike, who claimed only a rappelling force could come through them.

Jenna could care less about defensive tactics, but at least they weren’t running anymore. A shiver inched down her spine as she watched the fading rays of sunset through the window.

She stood at the back beside the altar. Baptiste’s incense sticks failed to mask the stale air. In the main room Baptiste chanted Zazen; the bass rumble of his voice was joined by Mike’s baritone in the meditative chant. They were waiting for her. Goosebumps formed on her arms as she stripped down to her bra. Jenna laid her shirt on the altar.

She let out a shaky breath and rounded the corner. Mike and Baptiste wore green ceremonial robes. Baptiste’s black skin gleamed under the harsh fluorescent light. At Baptiste’s signal, Mike daubed oil on her chakras at the hollow of her throat, above the heart and the abdomen. The herbal scent stung her nose and the oil left a chilled trail against her suddenly clammy skin.

She tried to force the sensation out of her mind, focussing instead on the feeling of the wood, smooth and cool against her back. From her position on the floor she could see thick layers of grime underneath rusted machinery.

Packing crates draped in industrial tarps loomed over her.

‘I feel kinda drunk.’

She winced as Mike shone a pencil-thin beam of light into her eyes. He winked. ‘Don’t concentrate on the pain, kid, or you’ll miss all that heavenly glory.’

At the poker table at the edge of the room, Baptiste silently prepared his equipment, testing the edges of the Tebori needles – whisker-thin steel points bound by coarse black hair to a slender bamboo handle.

Mike settled back on his haunches behind Jenna, his mouth set in a grim line. He was two days overdue for a shave and sprinklings of grey stubble crept into his military buzz cut. He squeezed her shoulders gently, then let his hands rest lightly on them.

‘Relax. Uncle Mike’s gonna take good care of you. Right, Baptiste?’

Baptiste grunted. Settling into a crouch beside Jenna, he swept her dark hair off her shoulders and slid her bra straps down just enough to expose the clavicle. Spreading his large black hand over her collarbone, he held the needle like a pencil in his right hand and braced the shaft of the tool on his left thumb.

‘Are you ready?’

His hand on her shoulder was cool, as impersonal as the examination of a doctor; it was also steadier than the drumming of her pulse.

‘Will it hurt?’

Baptiste shrugged. ‘It is different for every initiate.’

‘Was it bad for you, Mike?’

Mike snorted. His breath tickled her ear. ‘I’m a manly man.’ He gave her hair a playful tug.

She swallowed hard. ‘Bet you cried like a little girl.’

She sensed him shifting back on his heels to give Baptiste working room. When Baptiste crouched beside her all she could see was the glint of the needles.

Nothing in Jenna’s life had hurt as much as that first fiery cut. Don’t scream, don’t scream… Mike gripped her shoulders tighter, pinning her with

his wiry forearms. Baptiste paused to work more ink onto the needles. She gritted her teeth as Mike used McDonald’s napkins to blot away the blood.

When Baptiste leaned forward his robe gaped open and Jenna saw the brands burnt into his pectorals. She hissed as he carved the glyph outlines across her clavicles. Something like pity softened his brown eyes. Jenna lowered her gaze; Mike had told her that in Baptiste’s native Haiti they still used a branding yoke for initiation rites.

How much discipline would it take to remain still and silent while wearing a red-hot harness? To feel the hot bite of metal eating through skin and muscle, to be able to withstand the taste of your own burnt flesh drifting on the air? Four months you’ve trained for this. Just a bit longer; don’t give up…

Jesus, it hurts.

Sweat dripped into her eyes. Her back arched against the pallet as Baptiste ground in the final touches to the outline. She bit her tongue to stifle a scream.

He turned her head from side to side, assessed each glyph for imperfections before he rose and turned back to the altar. Mike applied a cool poultice that prickled on her burning skin.

She’d completed the ritual; Jenna Nadine was now an initiate of the Sohei.

Baptiste and Mike shrugged out of their robes. Mike changed into street clothes, but Baptiste sat bare-chested at the poker table with his tools carefully laid out in front of him; oil, rice paper and white powder. He began the laborious process of wiping flecks of blood from the needles, cleaning each individual tip. She swallowed as hot bile flooded her mouth. Her skin had swollen up in small bumps like Braille. The throb ached down to her bones.

Baptiste nodded his consent for her to join them at the poker table. She rose from the wooden pallet and made her way to the altar. Carefully, she eased her shirt over her shoulders. The cotton felt like sandpaper. Her fingers skimmed over the poultice, and she had to swallow the sudden lump in her throat; she was Sohei now, like Mike and Baptiste. She stumbled on stiff legs towards the empty stool at the table opposite Mike.

‘Unbutton the shirt. Air will aid the healing,’ said Baptiste.

Jenna obeyed. The dry, scum-green poultice cracked at the small movement and she scratched it absently. Baptiste’s arm snaked out to rap her wandering hand.

‘Leave it alone.’

Jenna pulled a face at Mike, who smiled and went back to shuffling and cutting the deck of cards with lazy dexterity. Every so often she caught a glimpse of the tattoo on Mike’s forearm. When he made a particularly flashy move with the deck, the mermaid’s breasts jiggled. At Mike’s initiation they’d probably had trouble finding an unmarked patch of skin. When he dealt out the cards she squinted at hers and sighed.

Mike played poker with the intensity of a general at war. The silence wore her down.

‘It itches.’

Mike snorted, cradling his cards closer in the crook of his palm, ‘So does the clap. Keep your mind on the game.’

Jenna knew that Mike’s broad grin meant little; he never betrayed his hand so easily. He would win and occasionally lose with that same Cheshire Cat smile. They played for incense sticks; at fifty dollars each she already owed him a fortune. The Sohei frowned on gambling, but Mike was a Vegas boy and poker would always be his first religion. His winning streak would come to an end when the Zasu – the Sohei Abbot – arrived. The Abbot was flying in tomorrow from Osaka. The tattooing was just the first part of the initiation process. Come tomorrow the Zasu would test her physical prowess and determine her intuitive abilities. Not all Sohei were sensitives - from what Baptiste said they were actually pretty rare; Mike was more the typical Sohei candidate in that sense – strong with fast hands but with as much psychic ability as a block of wood. It had fallen to Baptiste to train her in that area.

Baptiste sat in the corner, eyes closed in meditation. His muscular body eclipsed the shrine. A narrow line furrowed the bridge of his nose. Jenna had always found Baptiste intimidating, but there was something spooky about him in a trance state. He was barely breathing – utterly submerged. When she meditated, instead of finding inner peace and the quiet still voice Baptiste urged her to connect with; she just found that she really needed to pee.

‘Read them and weep, chica.’ Mike’s gloating cut through Baptiste’s meditative glow. He knew without opening his eyes that Mike had a straight flush, but that was from experience. It was zanshin – the awareness of everything and nothing around him - that told him Mike’s breathing was ragged with excitement, that Jenna was cheating… that there were footsteps outside.

Even before his eyes snapped open, Baptiste’s hand was on the hilt of his wakizashi. ‘Get down!’

Mike was belly-down on the floor already, one hand reaching for his dagger. With the other he tugged Jenna down on her knees.

‘I’ll watch the girl,’ Mike said.

Baptiste pulled the short sword free of its scabbard.‘I’ll take the heads.’

‘What’s happening?’ Jenna cried.

The narrow window on the west wall exploded, punching glass fragments through the room like shrapnel. The cylindrical grenade clunked against the concrete. Baptiste kicked the poker table over on its side and hit the floor, palms down. The canister flashed, filling the room with grey smog.

He heard a yelp of pain from Jenna, but he was already inching low underneath the tendrils of chemical gas that spiralled up into the rafters.

The steel doors crashed open, drawing in the salt breeze of the Bay. Three figures stood in the half-light of the doorway.

Baptiste blinked furiously, trying to clear his stinging eyes. There should be more of them. They had never sent so few before – they’d learned from that mistake in Carmel. He crept towards them on the balls of his feet.

They stood waiting for him. As he drew near, two of them closed in on either side. Through the smoke he had a blurred glimpse of a broad figure with hair the colour of sun-bleached bones. The Blond’s partner walked with a rolling gait that swung his long ponytail like a noose, but it was the third man that made Baptiste’s shaved scalp prickle. He wore an overcoat and was tall enough that his head brushed the top of the doorframe as he lounged bonelessly, blocking the only exit. His languid air was betrayed by the predatory gleam in his eyes.

Instinct warred with training. Baptiste knew he should circle them, force them to attack one at a time, but he needed to keep them from the girl, Jenna, who had yet to be prepared for Level Three Initiation.

He let go. Even as his eyes and nose stung, the void of meditation beckoned. He plunged into it. He released the burning sensation behind his eyes, the mucus clogging his nose and throat. The future and the past disappeared. Nothing existed but the Now. All that he was trickled away; he was hollow, a conduit.

He was ready. There was no fear, only motion.

The two figures moved through the smoke and shadows as he raised his blade to high guard.

They lunged to attack, impossibly fast, inhumanly strong. Fists flashed, jaws snapped. He moved to meet them.

He slashed at Ponytail, who twisted, denying him the decapitation stroke. Steel grated on bone as his wakizashi glanced from a clavicle.

The Blond leapt onto his back and sank his teeth into the meat of Baptiste’s shoulder. Baptiste roared in pain and flipped the sword, holding it like a dagger, and stabbed the pommel into his opponent’s eye socket to dislodge him. The impact shuddered up his arm. Warm blood ran from his shoulder, trickled over his chest.

He heard the whisper of feet behind him and thrust backwards. Felt the elastic pop as Ponytail’s skin parted beneath the blade tip, the meaty resistance as sword sank into flesh. The acidic shit-stink of perforated bowel tainted the air. Adrenaline flooded his system.

They were powerful. Ice clawed at the pit of his stomach. That cool backwash of energy was a rarity on Sohei hunts, but the taste of the power was familiar. Ragweed and ashes – death energy, the same kind he’d felt as a boy in Haiti when the Hougans raised the Loa in their veve circles. His heart pounded, mimicked the beat of the ritual drum. He was Baptiste Travaille, the son of a Voudon priestess. He was Sohei.

Ponytail clawed for his neck. Baptiste hunched his shoulders to protect his throat, caught Ponytail’s right hand with his left, and twisted, locking his enemy’s arm as he tore the blade free and slashed at his neck. Ponytail ducked too slowly; the sword laid his face open from cheek to lips. Baptiste completed his spin and threw him to the floor. Before he could finish him off, Blond moved in with a flurry of blows Baptiste barely avoided. By the time he had his balance back Ponytail had risen to his feet.

Smooth and controlled as liquid shadow, his short sword wove an intricate dance to keep them at bay.

Baptiste sank deeper into his meditation, the heart of Zen swordsmanship. He was barely conscious of the writhing ripple as Ponytail’s injuries knitted shut before his eyes. He was hardly aware of the Blond’s punch sweeping towards his face, or the edge-on block that split Blond’s arm from knuckle to elbow, separating radius from ulna.

Abruptly, Baptiste swayed, dizzy from blood loss and Blond’s venomous bite. His blood pattered on the floor at his feet. Shadows flickered across his vision, coalesced from dark specks into a skeletal figure; his mother’s met tet, her patron Loa, Baron Cemetaire.

At last a blow got through his defence. Ponytail lunged, smashed his face with a fist. Baptiste reeled, distracted by the shimmering skull-white face

as Cemetaire, Lord of the Dead, raised his ragged top hat in a salute. His response to the attack was a half-second too slow.

Blond’s snap-kick took him in the elbow, sent his sword spiralling away.

Baptiste rode the impact, spun to floor the Blond with an axe kick.

The Blond flipped himself upright and glided towards him. Overcoat placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. Baptiste caught a glimpse of green shirt behind a packing crate. Mike crept low like an alley cat, blending with the background. Baptiste tried to signal him with his eyes to stay put. Mike ignored him. He leapt onto Ponytail’s back, forced the attacker into a necklock. A Sykes-Fairburn dagger appeared in Mike’s hand like magic. Baptiste used the distraction and jabbed at the Blond’s throat, rigid fingers extended.

Overcoat batted him aside easily.

Ponytail struggled in Mike’s grasp, the dagger hard against the muscle of his neck. Mike’s right palm forced Ponytail’s head forward. Ponytail’s tendons bulged, his eyes stretched wide in panic as Mike sawed with the dagger.

Blood coated Mike’s hands as his opponent squirmed.

Overcoat grabbed Mike by the scruff of the neck and tore him away, throwing him carelessly across the warehouse.

Baptiste heard a wet crunch and a hiss of pain. Mike’s attacker brushed specks of dirt from his lapel then turned to Baptiste.

‘No more participation from our studio audience, please.’

Baptiste let his hands fall to his sides loose and limber, out of weapons but not options. Two out of three injured. He could handle these. He reached to the small of his back, drew the tebori needles and threw them like a knife.

The needles struck home, quivering in the Blond’s right eye.

‘Now really, this just becomes tiresome.’ Overcoat tutted at the Blond’s wound and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Playtime is over, children.’

The fabric flapped as he withdrew his hand. Baptiste had a brief moment to process the shining cylinder, to recognise the barrel of the gun. He launched himself at his opponent. Let Cemetaire claim him if he could.

No fear, only motion.

Jenna huddled by the altar, her eyes raw and red. Baptiste was just a blur, his hands and feet lashing out in the smog. Overcoat pulled out a gun and the spit dried up in her mouth as Baptiste leapt at him.

A wet pop – Baptiste crumpled. Grey matter spattered against the concrete.

Laughing, the two figures fell upon Baptiste’s corpse. Flesh rended with a wet tear. Retching, she scuttled backwards, scraping her palms against the floor as she crawled to the safety of the back room. Every muscle shaking, she wedged herself into the alcove. A lump lodged in her throat; they had taken Baptiste, who was easily the best warrior of them all.

Blood – copper bright and metallic – seeped out from under the poultice, trickling warmly between her breasts. Jenna froze, felt her knees weaken.

Ponytail raised his head from Baptiste’s remains and snuffled deeply, his lean body quivering like a hunting dog’s. Despite the chemical haze, none of the attackers wore gas masks; the air that choked her didn’t bother them.

Ponytail’s eyes glowed as he scanned the area.

Jenna gripped her shirt closed in her fist. She needed to find a weapon.

She needed to stay calm. A roaring in her ears drowned out all that Baptiste had taught her about combat. Their senses were sharper. They could smell her blood even through the chemical gas, and the drumming of her heart would be a dinner gong.

The gunman wandered around the warehouse, watching the carnage with the air of an elegant guest at an art exhibit. Jenna’s heart lurched as he strolled towards the poker table a few feet from her hiding place. Thick, wet slurping noises filled the room. Her body folded, a thin whistling noise came from her throat. Her asthma might kill her before they did. A bubble of hysterical laughter welled up at the absurdity of it.

It got her moving though, and she crawled along the floor using her fingertips to grope blindly at the walls. Where was Mike? If she could find him he would make it okay, somehow.

But what if he was hurt too, maybe even dead? Greasy nausea churned in her stomach; she was alone with three attackers and no weapon. Eyes stinging, she cursed the pointless, stupid, stupid Sohei rituals; she was going to die because the rules said initiates learned hand-to-hand combat before sword-work. Find a way out then, a voice in her head counselled.

Scrabbling with her fingers behind oily machinery she nearly cried with relief when cool air brushed her damp palms and she traced the outline of a door.

Lips brushed her ear and she yelped.

‘It’s over, kid.’ Mike’s gun was inches from her head.

Jenna tried to remember how to breathe, her heart stuttering as she stared down the barrel. ‘Mike? It’s a fire door. We can get out!’

‘Tried. It’s welded shut.’ His face was drawn. His gun hand was shaking.

She heaved all her weight against the door. It refused to budge. ‘Son of a bitch. We can get this open, I know we can. Help me.’

Mike pressed the gun to her temple, the barrel cold against her skin.

‘This is all the help I can give you,’ he whispered. ‘It’s better than what they’ll do.’

The hammer cocked with the dry click of bone. Mike’s cheeks were wet.

‘Close your eyes. I promise it’ll be quick.’

Jenna shook her head, dug her nails into her palms, ‘Screw that! I’m not ready to die. Please, Mike.’

Mike lowered the gun. He gestured to his leg; bone protruded, wet and gleaming. ‘I’m out of the game.’

‘C’mon you’re a manly man, remember?’ Jenna’s voice thickened. It had seemed like a game when Mike had first approached her all those months ago. She risked a glance at the far corner. The attackers were mercifully obscured by the grey haze. It didn’t feel like a game now.

Mike gripped her elbow. ‘There’ll be six rounds left in the clip. You only need one. Use it.’

Tears dripped down Jenna’s nose. ‘You call this taking care of me? You promised me. You promised to keep me safe. You’re a fucking liar, Mike.’

He reeled back as though she’d slapped him. ‘Listen...’

‘I don’t want to die.’ She heard the hitch in her voice and sniffled.

Mike’s chest shuddered but he forced the words out. ‘If it comes down to it, you put one here.’ He tapped his temple. ‘You understand? You won’t get an open casket, honey, but at least you get to keep your soul.’

‘Mike, don’t. Don’t do this, Mike… please don’t leave me alone.’

‘I tried, honey, I tried my best… I’m sorry.’ His voice cracked and he smoothed a strand of hair from her forehead with his thumb. She felt the stickiness of the blood on his hands.

‘See you on the other side.’ He placed the muzzle under his chin, his hand steadier than his voice. ‘Blood in, blood out, kid.’

The Illuminated Manuscript Jane Kitovitz Jane Kitovitz began writing at an early age. Her first published piece was a letter in Bunty for which, aged seven, she won an indoor table tennis set.

More recently, as well as her success in Writing on the Wall’s Pulp Idol, she won the playwriting category in a competition run by Liverpool Libraries as part of the Liverpool Festival of Comedy, where one of the judges was Jimmy McGovern. She has lived in Oxford, London, Paris and Liverpool and worked variously as a waitress, chambermaid, teacher, recruitment consultant, youth adviser and bank clerk. The Illuminated Manuscript is her first foray into children’s fiction. jane.kitovitz@tiscali.co.uk 11 year old Rosa Lilac’s parents are at war and Rosa is bearing the brunt. In an effort to escape she finds herself fighting the battle in an unlikely setting – as a novice monk in a medieval monastery.

The Illuminated Manuscript I felt a bit funny when I found the calendar of near naked women in Dad’s bedside cabinet. Not the same funny I felt when stealing loose change from his jacket pocket, but funny all the same, because I’d always thought of him as a bit of a monk, really, what with him and Mum having separate bedrooms, and his room being so small and sad and lonely.

Mum had the main bedroom in the house and his was a room off it, like a nursery or something. In fact that’s what it must have been originally, because there were bars across the windows to stop a small child falling out.

Even in summer it was cold and miserable in there. The walls were a pale faded green with nothing hanging on them but a dusty old cobweb in one corner. His single bed, with its too thin duvet and single feather pillow, dominated the space. I’d started to go in there regularly to pinch money for sweets, but this was the first time I’d poked about the rest of the room. I didn’t think I’d do it again in a hurry.

Later that evening I was lying on my bed staring at the ceiling when he appeared in the doorway, startling me.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘Why should there be?’

‘No reason, just wondered. You’re so prickly these days. I wish I knew what you wanted.’

‘I don’t want anything,’ I grunted, curling up in a ball like a hedgehog.

‘Leave me alone.’

Then it struck me that was exactly what I wanted; for him to leave me alone and stop interfering. I hated him with a capital H. No, make that all capitals, like I’M SHOUTING. And then I was shouting, eyes screwed up. ‘Go away! Just go away!’

When I looked up he’d done exactly that.

I heaved myself up, slammed the door shut, pulled the curtains and switched on the lamp at my desk. It illuminated my history homework that was due in tomorrow. We’d been set some questions on medieval monasteries over the weekend. I’d just started getting into it earlier in the day, quite enjoying it in fact, when Dad had barged in, picked up the book I was using to help me and flopped down on my bed. Before I knew it he was asking me what the questions were and dictating answers and I was at my desk copying them word for word as if I was in a trance. Then he came over, stood at my shoulder, and checked it.

‘If your whole project is on medieval monasteries the first thing you need to know is how to spell medieval,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘You’ve spelt it differently three times. Look.’

I paused, the words a blur, before pointing at the one I knew was right.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I before e except after c. Don’t they teach you anything at school these days? And where’s the full stop in number 10?’

‘Sorry,’ I said again, pressing the pen so hard at the end of the offending sentence I nearly made a hole in my exercise book.

Dad sighed. ‘You’ve left out a word in number 12.’

‘Oh yes, sorry.’

And so it went on.

His answers were OK I suppose. I’d probably get an A for it, but that wasn’t the point. It was his work, not mine, and I hated him for it. Anyway, what did it matter? Miss Niblett said these questions were only to get us thinking. It wasn’t as if this was the final project. It was just a kind of preparation. Rough notes really.

Now, hours later, with the lamp shining on the open page, I felt the urge to kill him. I wanted to smash his brain in, scoop out his eyeballs and kick them round the room, have him lying on the floor writhing in agony as I jumped up and down on him, stamped all over him. Well, Ok, maybe that was going too far, this is my dad we’re talking about, but I had to do something.

There was no way I was going to hand in his work and tell him he’d got an A. Suddenly I knew what I had to do. I leapt down the stairs and into the kitchen, where mum was at the table with her lap top and bottle of lager.

‘Mum, mum,’ I said, ‘have we got any candles?’

She pointed vaguely at a drawer in the corner.

‘Matches?’ I asked impatiently, and she produced a box from her handbag. ‘I thought you’d given up smoking,’ I said. She gave me such a filthy look I just took the matches and candles and ran.

If she’d asked me why I wanted the candles I would’ve told her I wanted to do my homework by candle light and imagine myself a monk in a real medieval , i before e except after c, monastery. But she never asked. She never asked me about anything these days. That wasn’t the real reason anyway.

As soon as I got back to my room I tore Dad’s work out of my exercise book, ripping out the corresponding pages at the back as well, to get rid of the tell tale shreds around the staples so that Miss Niblett wouldn’t notice. Then I set fire to the corner of his homework and smiled as I watched the pages flicker in the dark, then crackle and burn more quickly before I blew hard and the brittle paper turned to ashes.

If only I’d dared I would’ve liked to go back into his room and do the same thing to the pages in that calendar. I sighed as I scooped the remains of his work into the bin, blew the rest of the ashes away and rubbed the desk with the sleeve of my jumper. My hands were filthy.

Downstairs I could hear some sort of row going on. I opened the bedroom door and listened.

‘It’s no good denying it Lisa, I can smell it. You’ve been smoking again.’

‘No I bloody well haven’t. Search me if you don’t believe it. Here’s my bag. Look, purse, keys,’ then a whole lot of stuff hitting the floor. ‘See…. no bloody cigarettes. No matches either. Rosa’s got them.’

There was a pause, then a ‘Rosa!’, then a pounding of feet up the stairs.

I leapt back to my desk.

‘This room stinks!’ Dad said, framed with Mum in the doorway.

A single candle was burning on my desk.

‘Huh?’ I said, swivelling round to face them.

‘There’s your answer,’ Mum said, arms folded and looking very pleased with herself.

‘Candles don’t smell like cigarettes,’ Dad said.

‘Well it wasn’t me!’ Mum snapped.

‘You haven’t been smoking up here have you Rosa?’ Dad said.

‘No of course I haven’t. What do you take me for? You know I hate Mum smoking just as much as you do.’

Mum’s face fell.

‘Well you never know. Girls your age….’ Dad went on.

‘What about girls my age? You know nothing about girls my age. What about older girls though. I bet you know a lot about them!’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he said.

‘Well, those girls in those pictures,’ I blurted out.

Mum giggled.

He turned to her, red in the face. ‘What?’ he said.

‘Oh nothing’s secret in this house, John. I thought you knew that. If you want to hide stuff you’re going to have to find somewhere better than your bedside cabinet.’

‘Oh, I suppose you’ve sound somewhere safe for your cigarettes then.’

At which point I clapped my hands over my ears.

‘Oh stop it!’ I shouted. ‘Just leave me alone. I hate you. I bloody well hate you!’

My parents looked at each other, opened their mouths to say something, then shut them again.

‘Get out of my bedroom! Both of you! Now!’ I screamed, and for the second time that day Dad did as he was told. He shuffled about a bit, pushed mum ahead of him, and slunk off downstairs with her.

I couldn’t i before e believe it. Both my parents looked ashamed. Dad for looking at naked girls, well bare breasted ones at any rate, and Mum for smoking when she swore blind she’d given up. Maybe they even cared that they’d upset me. I still felt like killing Dad though, and went to sleep fantasising about Mum weeping and wailing beside his coffin while I jumped for joy dressed in a monk’s habit beside her.

Firo Kathleen Ingleby Kathleen Ingleby studied Imaginative Writing at Liverpool John Moores. Firo is the first book in the Ombasa series. Currently she’s working on the script of Fallen Wing (the second part of the series) hoping to make it a twenty-four episode anime. She has a dog named Sunset, and a bearded dragon named Firo. kingleby1987@hotmail.com Firo is set in the realm of Ombasa, where immortals come to entertain themselves when bored with their own realm. One mortal race of Ombasa, the desert Anellan people, believe that one day Ar´r Well, the One God, will bring order to their world. The hero, Dimitri, son of an Anellan, becomes the unlikely key to his people’s fate.

Firo Fire Caves The heat from the flames was making my hair stick to my scalp and forehead.

The five mile walk from home had left me panting, legs aching from unfamiliar exertion. I tasted the ash in the air. My body craved water so much my legs shook. I wiped my hand across my forehead, hoping Father hadn’t noticed.

He had been adamant I wear my finest ivory shirt and brown trousers. Now they were stained with sweat.

‘Father, I want to go home.’

His yellow gaze left the flames and settled on me. I cringed. My eyes were like his, but I had Mum’s light green colour softening the outer edges. I couldn’t make a scary face like that.

‘You’re twelve now. It’s time you were useful.’ He turned away, stepping into the flames. I gasped, shrinking back and scraping my back against the cave wall. Father’s figure was engulfed, the sound of his footsteps drowned by the cackling fire.

Father had been working at the fire caves for fifteen years, ever since coming to Firo. Their inside structure was a maze paved with fire, the ragged stone walls immune from the element. The floor was coated with dirt as fine as sand, a fuel for the constant inferno. Their heat was so near yet never touched my skin, even when I dared move from the wall. The dancing yellow orange red and, sometimes, a hint of blue was so clear I was mesmerised.

Our Anellan eyes were ideal here, sharp enough to see without pain through the flame’s light and smoke. But I was still human. I could burn.

‘Father.’ Tears spilt down my shaking face.

‘Come on boy! Stop embarrassing yourself!’

A blaze of blue burst out in front of me, forcing the orange and red to part. The blue outline grew broader, pushing the flames back to form a pathway. Father grabbed my wrist, pulling me down the path. I looked at the

ground, seeing the floor change from dirt to burning ember as we emerged into a clearing. I whimpered, the vile smell of singeing rubber rising from my feet.

‘Ignatius is waiting.’ Father pulled me in front. I took a deep steadying breath before looking up.

My eyes could see through the thick smoke rising from the floor. A wooden throne sat in front of a fork path, breaking away into more tunnels, where no fires were burning. A man sat there, watching me with no clear expression. Each strand of shoulder-length hair was ablaze, rooted into the skin of his scalp. His brown leather clothes exposed his arm’s tanned skin and muscles.

‘So this is the child?’ he sneered. His eyes were edged with yellow blending to orange, and red-rimmed around the pupils.

I stumbled backwards, slamming against my father, and fell on the ground. The burning coal met my bare hands. I screamed at the searing pain and the man’s cold stare.

‘Dimitri!’ Ignatius’ voice called my name. My entire body began shaking, the smell of burnt cloth reaching my nose. I tried to scramble to my feet, but the feel of my raw hands touching the ground made them collapse, my shoulder hitting the ember floor. The focused gaze of the immortal crushed all the breath from my body. Sharp, unquenching gasps escaped.

I’m going to die!

‘Yes, Master?’ My father appeared, bowing.

‘What is the meaning of this? You dare insult me by offering this coward as a servant!’

I didn’t hear the rest. I didn’t want to. I gave up trying to control my breathing, and let the blackness in my vision take over.

‘That boy has failed to please Ar´r Wel. He has cursed this family!’

Eyes scrunched shut, I pressed my face into the suffocating softness of the mat beneath my bed. I’d wanted to hold my hands against my ears but couldn’t bring myself to lift them from my side once the shouting began.

‘Don’t talk about our child like that! At least now he can leave the house and make friends,’ said Mum. I wondered whether she stood facing him or was looking away.

‘Dimi,’ a closer voice whispered, making me jump and whack my head on the bottom of the bed. I groaned, finally moving my hands to rub my sore head, while turning it to see little Annie crouched beside me.

‘It’s okay, Dimi,’ she said. ‘Me and Mum don’t care about you being in that man’s service. Dad will understand someday.’

Father’s voice cut through from the kitchen.

‘He has disgraced the Gods! He’s not worthy of anything anymore.’

Annie’s hands clenched into little fists. She sprang up, and was out of the room before I had begun moving.

‘That’s not true, Daddy!’ I heard as I entered the hallway and raced towards the kitchen. I froze in the doorway, fear catching up with me.

Annie stood next to Mum, facing Father. She’s only seven and already smarter and braver than me.

‘Dimi is an amazing person, and talented! He’s even started designing a really pretty necklace.’

Not even Annie had managed to calm Father’s expression. His sharp yellow eyes stared at her with so much anger her legs were shaking. Annie didn’t even notice, and I loved her all the more for doing what I couldn’t.

‘He is a damned child, no son of mine!’

His gaze darted to me. I felt like I’d been stabbed. My legs didn’t shake, they collapsed without a fight. I couldn’t look away.

‘His whole life has been a waste.’

‘How dare you talk to my son like that!’ Mum stepped around Annie and rushed towards me, bending down and pulling me up, letting me hide my face against her, blocking me from his eyes. ‘That cave has changed you, Dimitri.

That thing is not your God, he’s a fraud!’

I heard a quick step and a loud crack before Mum fell to her knees, dragging me down with her. Her arm instinctively tightened around me, a surprised sob escaping before she forced it away.

‘Mum!’ Annie cried. I managed to turn my head in Mum’s grasp. Annie was already beside us, crouching down and crying. Her sobs were making her whole body heave. Her soft brown eyes filled with tears.

She looked so scared.

I didn’t feel scared anymore.

‘Leave her alone!’ I burst, standing up. The sudden movement took Mum by surprise. She let go.

Father didn’t even acknowledge me. He was staring at his right hand. My face felt warm with sudden anger. I grabbed a vase off the kitchen table; his precious Anellan artefact designed with ashes and dragons.

‘Get out! Go back to your God!’ I threw it blind. He let out a surprised grunt as he was hit in the stomach. The vase bounced to the floor and smashed, pieces scattering across the floor. Father rubbed his stomach. His gaze finally lifted and looked at me.

I didn’t like the look he gave me: confusion, no spark of recognition. I was a stranger.

‘Get out! We don’t need you, I hate you!’ I screamed, fists clenched.

He looked at Mum before nodding once. He didn’t look at me again as he crossed the kitchen, pieces of vase crunching under his steps.

He left the door open, never turning to look back at the mess behind.

In Search of ASJ Stephen Potter Stephen Potter was born in Birkenhead. He has worked at many jobs including advertising salesman, factory worker and chef. He recently joined a creative writing group with the Spider organisation of Liverpool and is included in their current anthology of work. ‘In Search of A.S.J.’ is his first novel. stephenpotter51@googlemail.com A year in the life of Simon Randle, drug user, poetry buff and social misfit as he champions the cause of forgotten Birkenhead poet ASJ Tessimond. The novel poses the question, ‘Who is entitled to write in 21st-century Britain?’

In Search of ASJ Not Love Perhaps July 19th 2009 5.32am The golden nightlights along the front which mask the tawdriness of Bootle are extinguished, one by one, as first light emerges over the stark industrial topography. Hues of blue, cream and gold emerge above the silhouettes of cranes and warehouses. A Liverpool Pilot boat makes its way determinedly down the Mersey to greet a new arrival to the city when suddenly a resounding crash booms out behind the ever-present heaps of twisted metal on the quayside to herald the beginning of a new working day on the docks.

Over on the Wallasey side, in his rented first floor flat, Simon Randle is woken by the noise. He fumbles for his mobile beside a mattress that has been dumped on the living room floor. Through sleepy eyes he registers the hard digital truth - 5.32am! What kind of dickhead starts work at this time of morning, he thinks. Noisy fucking bastard. As usual he feels like crap but manages to stagger to the window to slam it shut and dampen the racket coming from across the river. He pulls a makeshift curtain across the grubby window in an effort to eliminate the blinding nuisance of the rising sun and he returns to his squalid nest. He pulls the blanket over his head and tries to get back to sleep.

The Irish ferry, which is early this morning, dawdles its way to Birkenhead. It cuts a swathe through the golden barcode that the sun is laying down over the bluish, greyish, greenish water. The tide is beginning to recede and a swarm of purple redshanks land adroitly on re-emerging moss-covered rocks at Egremont. The inexorable sun continues its ascent and casts brilliant shards of light from a bright orange disc that rises like a trophy over the Liverpool skyline.

It’s no fucking use. Simon won’t get back to sleep anytime soon. The sheet that serves as an improvised curtain is not big enough, and the sun

pierces the gaps on either side like the beams of a laser. He turns to an overflowing ashtray, finds a serviceable dimp and lights up. A familiar dullness, anchored to the bottom of his stomach, reminds him he is still breathing, it is a brand new day… and life is still fucking shit!

He casts his eyes dispassionately around the room. The mattress which has become a permanent fixture is surrounded by the detritus of his lifestyle.

An ocean of mess encircles his pit and looks like it has been emptied from a skip. Near to him lie ciggy packets, worn out lighters, unwashed plates, empty lager cans, anti-depressants, and the sordid paraphernalia of recent crack cocaine use. His eyes scan further afield and take in the randomly discarded clothing - smelly socks, dirty undies, grubby T-shirts. These are strewn amongst old newspapers, plastic carrier bags, and unopened final reminders.

But amidst all this, there are books. Lots and lots of books! They lie marooned amongst the squalor like so much literary flotsam. Simon drags the last out of his dimp and his mind takes a philosophical turn. He is reminded of Tracy Emin’s bed, and wonders what Charles Saatchi would pay for this installation in which he lies, which at least has the benefit of authenticity. He snaps out of his reverie and searches for his copy of Nicholas Alberry’s Poem for the Day, which he finds located under the remnants of last night’s chippy meal. This book has become something of a lifeline for Simon. Part spiritual compass, part alternative medication, he has got into the habit of reading it first thing in the morning - on those days, that is, when his drug habit allows.

Born 50 years ago into a large working-class Catholic family in Birkenhead, Simon’s upbringing was underpinned by certain absolutes.

Absolute number one: God existed. He was Roman Catholic and would probably speak with an Irish accent. The world he now inhabited was a much different place. His childhood belief in God had it seemed been consigned to the dustbin. However Simon’s temperament required a spiritual dimension, and he found this fulfilled more and more by his love of poetry. This interest had initially been stirred in adolescence by the work of Philip Larkin. His reading was clandestine at first. Poetry wasn’t quite what you told your footy playing mates you were interested in. But as he’d grown older he had widened his reading and was now at an age not to give a flying fuck what anyone else thought. The only part of his living room with a semblance of tidiness was an old two-tiered bookcase crammed with over a hundred books of verse. These were impeccably arranged in alphabetical order. Most had been purchased from local charity shops and some had been ‘borrowed’ from libraries. A few however had been stolen from his local branch of W.H.Smith, making him perhaps the only poetry specific shoplifter in Britain.

Poem for the Day was the result of one such light-fingered foray. He found that reading it religiously each day helped him encounter new writers.

He also found the ritual of reading a poem first thing every morning to be far more beneficial for his depression than any number of prescription tablets.

And so on this July morning with the sun annoyingly in its heaven and the dulcet tones of dockland Bootle in the background, Simon turned to that day’s page and read ‘Not Love Perhaps’ by a poet he had not encountered before, called ASJ Tessimond. The poem described a relationship that on the surface fell somewhat short of the ‘grand passion’. However, Tessimond, in a virtuoso exercise of understatement and economy had managed to describe succinctly the very essence of human love. Simon read the words again and again,

enchanted by their simplicity and beauty. Underneath the poem was a brief biography. His interest was stirred when he read the first line: ‘Arthur Seymour John Tessimond was born in Birkenhead.’

The Dance of Death John Donoghue John Donoghue has worked in mental health for nearly twenty years and has written numerous medical articles relating to the treatment of various mental illnesses in a range of publications including the British Journal of Psychiatry and the British Medical Journal. His knowledge of mental illness and its treatment brings a gritty authenticity to his writing. He lives in Liverpool with his wife, four children and one dog. john@johndonoghue.orangehome.co.uk Psychiatrist Dr Edward Plant’s belief that demonic possession may be a real phenomenon is derided by his fellow professionals. Yet it is to Edward that the police turn for help to catch a serial killer they believe to be a Satanist.

The Dance of Death Practitioners of the art of invisibility will tell you that it is easier than most people think. It is based on the twin principles of misdirection and hiding in plain view. It is particularly easy to achieve when travelling unless you are famous, given to flamboyance or determined to make a fuss about something, none of which applied to the passenger in seat 14e on the evening flight from Rome. He had selected his clothing with care - a combination of nondescript browns and greys - and asked to be seated on the right side of the cabin, his face out of the crew’s sight line. To minimise any possible scrutiny by the cabin staff, on finding his seat he fastened his seat belt, studied the information card and feigned interest – though not too much – in the brief pantomime that was performed while the plane taxied to its take-off point. The passenger in seat 14e was also aware that despite the claims of the authorities that they could track down undesirables, they were as unobservant as the rest of us, with equally unreliable memories, forcing them to rely on various technologies which can be bypassed. When drinks were served he asked for water (he never touched alcohol) and accepted the offered in-flight meal with barely a glance in the direction of the stewardess. For the rest of the flight he pretended to be engrossed in the magazine that he found tucked into the seat pocket in front of him, though its only item of interest was how to get from the airport to the city centre. Although his fellow travellers were aware of his presence, if asked none would have been able to describe him.

He was, to all practical purposes, invisible.

On arrival, he copied his fellow passengers’ Pavlovian response to the chime that accompanied the extinguishing of the ‘fasten seat belts’ sign.

Pulling a bag from the overhead locker, he allowed himself to be swallowed in their midst. When the passenger to his left, to whom he had spoken not a word, made his move along the aisle the passenger from seat 14e followed, head down, becoming one with the throng shuffling into the terminal.

If the other passengers were starting to relax, this was not the case for the man from seat 14e. The name on his boarding card was Paulo Fantoni, which matched the name on his passport, but it was not his real name, if

having a ‘real’ name had meaning for him any more. As he trudged up the gangway that led to the terminal building the pounding of his heart was so pronounced it was difficult to believe that his fellow passengers would not hear it. He knew that this could be accompanied by other signs of anxiety – pupils dilating, palms sweating, and perhaps even unseasonable beads of perspiration on his face. He glanced behind. How many more passengers were there to disembark? The flight had been full, and he had been seated not quite at the mid-point of the cabin. He wanted to pass through immigration firmly in the middle of the general mass of people. He judged he had enough time to go to the washroom. Standing at the urinal, he forced a meagre stream of urine before washing his hands and face in cold water, drying them on paper towels. He looked in the mirror. It was foolish to be nervous. He was in the hands of his Lord and had never been let down yet. Picking up his bag, he pulled the door open and rejoined the straggle of people heading for the border control booths.

The immigration official seemed slightly disengaged from the process of checking the identities of the hundreds who passed before him. The passenger from seat 14e pushed his passport, open at the page with the photograph, through the gap in the glass screen and did his best to appear unconcerned while the official slid it into a scanner, waiting for it to confirm that this individual was not unwelcome. This act of unconcern did not come easily: the anxiety that the passenger felt was compounded by a sense of eagerness for what he had planned for the next days and weeks, so that he was more than a little on edge. The official seemed to be taking longer with his passport than with those of the passengers who had gone before. He looked at his computer monitor and then glanced at the man who, in return, offered a weak smile.

‘Mister Fantoni? You’ve just arrived from Rome. Is that right, sir?’

The man from seat 14e hesitated. Then understanding of the official’s words registered on his face. He smiled broadly. His reply was heavily accented.

‘Si. Roma. Yes-a. From Rome.’

Any concerns the official might have been harbouring evaporated.

Without another word he gave the passport back and indicated that the passenger should move on.

Although it had been more expensive, the man from seat 14e had elected to travel on the flight that would arrive towards the end of the day, when the immigration and customs officials were nearing the end of their shifts, tired after a day’s work, and less attentive. This brought with it a potential problem. He had not wanted to make a hotel reservation in advance.

It was too easy for the authorities to obtain details of credit card transactions.

But there was bound to be a tourist information desk that would help him to find a room – at least for tonight, and, exiting into the arrivals hall, he looked for the letter ‘i’. A small hotel was located, hidden among a warren of streets in the city centre. It was perfect. He took a train into the city; once there, he would find a taxi to take him to the hotel, his anonymity restored, ready to put on a new identity.

Manson had been expecting the package, but not so soon. Either the Italian police were on an efficiency drive, or they were more competent than she

gave them credit for. Inside the anonymous brown cardboard with its yellow courier’s label were a DVD and a compliments slip. She opened the DVD drive on her lap-top and inserted the disc. A number of icons appeared on the screen. There was a folder of jpeg files, which she assumed would be crime scene photographs, several PDF files, which were probably forensic and other reports, and two movie clips, which she thought would be a record of the forensic team’s entry and their perspective of the crime scene.

To one detective constable she gave the urgent tasks of getting the reports translated into English and printing off the crime scene photographs.

While that was being done, she settled down with the rest of her team - her sergeant, another DC and the newest member, a forensic psychologist - to watch the movie clips. ‘Be warned,’ she told them, ‘the Italians said this was not a pretty sight.’

The first clip was silent. It showed a woman in a long black gown, arms stretched above her head, shackled to a pillar with her feet barely touching the floor. Although the scene was clearly indoors, it must have been a large space, for they could not see beyond the pool of light that illuminated the victim.

Phil Towers, her sergeant, said, ‘Christ, it looks like a nun.’

The camera zoomed in on the woman’s face. She was clearly very frightened, and was shouting or screaming at her captor, though it was impossible to know what she was saying.

‘D’you think the Eyeties will have had a lip-reader on it?’

Maureen Peters was a new member of the team, too new to be worried about bringing up off-the-wall ideas.

‘Good point,’ Manson replied. ‘Can I leave you to check up on that in the report, and if they haven’t, to follow it up with them?’

Maureen nodded, scribbling quickly in her notebook.

The camera zoomed out again. Now a hooded man in black clothes walked in front of it and stood before the woman. She shrank from him. Again her lips moved silently, her eyes pleading. The man walked round her anticlockwise, three times, taking deliberate steps, before coming to a halt in front of her.

‘Funny way he has of walking,’ Towers observed, ‘up on the balls of his feet like that, looks almost as if he was dancing.’

Manson hit the pause button.

‘I wonder . . .’ She rewound it until the man disappeared, then pressed play. ‘I think you’re right,’ she said. ‘It seems almost ritualistic. And walking round her anticlockwise, could that have any significance?’ She looked to see whether Elaine, the psychologist, might have an opinion. She shook her head.

Manson resisted an urge to scratch. ‘You keepin’ a note of all this, Maureen?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

The film continued. Now the man had a knife in his hand. He held it to the woman’s face and slowly drew the blade down her left cheek, a stream of blood following its course. Someone gave an involuntary gasp. Manson felt her stomach contracting.

‘Bastard,’ Maureen hissed.

Now the woman was clearly screaming. Holding the knife above his head, as if displaying it to someone, the man again made three circles around his victim before coming to a halt before her.

‘Hang on a moment, boss,’ Towers said. ‘Run it back a bit, now – there pause it.’

The knife was now clearly visible, the man holding it up by its blade; a curved double-edged blade with an ebony handle. ‘Is it possible to zoom in on the knife?’ Although the picture quality was poor, an emblem could clearly be seen. He swore.

‘Hell. It’s a swastika. It’s an SS dagger.’

Laying the knife at his feet the man removed his clothes except for his hood and stood naked before his victim. It seemed obvious that she was repulsed by what she saw, but too frightened to look away.

Manson paused it again.

‘I want this gone over using whatever enhancement techniques we’ve got. I want us to look particularly for any distinguishing marks on his body.’

The clip continued: now the man used the dagger to cut the clothes away from the woman’s body, leaving only her veil. He raked his nails down across her shoulders and breasts, leaving livid weals in their wake.

Manson paused it again. ‘I’m sure the Italians must already have done this, but can we check to see if any DNA was recovered from what he just did there?’

Then the killer took up the knife again. Using only its point he made two cuts deep into her skin, one from the base of her throat to her pubis, the other left to right, low across her belly, blood welling over her torso. Though the woman screamed with the pain of it, still she remained conscious.

‘Sadistic bastard,’ Towers could not help himself saying.

Only now did Elaine speak up. ‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘He’s a fuckin’ sadist all right, but look what he’s just done. He’s not simply inflicting pain; he’s carved a cross into the flesh of a living victim using an SS dagger. Add that to the ritualistic behaviour. This isn’t just sadism for its own sake.’

‘And it’s not just a cross,’ Maureen added, ‘It’s an inverted cross.’

Suddenly all eyes were on her. ‘I’m no expert, but isn’t that the kind of thing that Satanists get up to?’

Manson looked to Elaine. ‘I’m not sure,’ the psychologist said, ‘but I’ll look into it right away.’

There wasn’t much more to see. The killer walked back to the camera and the clip ended.

Manson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Shit. Fuck. How had she managed to get landed with this? Would the second clip be more of the same? She couldn’t ask her team to go through more of this, not today at least. They were all experienced, but none of them could have come across anything like this before. She made a mental note to see about some counselling support should it be needed.

‘That will do for now,’ she said. ‘We’ll wait for the crime scene pics and the translation of the report before we have a look at the second video.’ She paused to clear her thoughts. ‘I’m afraid there’s worse. The Italian Police traced him to Ciampino airport. As far as they can tell, he took a flight to the UK.’ ‘Not to Manchester, by any chance, was it?’ Maureen asked.

Manson nodded.

‘When?’

Sergeant Towers’ question seemed to reverberate around the room before coming to a gradual halt.

‘Five bloody days ago.’

Down to Hades Cyran Dorman Cyran is a Liverpool-born writer. Inspired by her grandmother who regularly had her poetry published in the Liverpool Echo. She has been writing since she was five. She studied Screenwriting through Birkbeck College London and Cinema at the BFI. She has written three novels and two screenplays (as yet unpublished) and was recently asked to write a story in 5 instalments for the Liverpool Daily Post’s LiveRead Online Literary Festival. cyran_dorman@hotmail.com Down to Hades is a Post-apocalyptic thriller which follows three groups of survivors, some human, some not so much, as they try to make sense of the changing world around them in the hope that they can get back to the life they once knew.

Down to Hades ‘This milk’s bad,’ Henry shouted from the kitchen.

It’s all relative, Hanya thought as she rooted through another of his newly-moved-in boxes.

‘There’s another pint. Keep looking,’ she shouted back.

He’d moved into her flat that morning, into her living room and she was already lamenting the day she’d given in. She dropped a toy from a chocolate egg back into the box. She’d collected far too much of this sort of stuff herself without now having to make room for someone else’s. She looked over to her bookcases with its display of non-collectible plastic crap.

It was all relative.

And it was. Because for as long as she could remember she’d suffered from the certainty she’d been born to die. Many others had known this surety over time. Many others had done what she’d done. But where their attempts had been, by and large, successful, her attempts had so far failed to show any results. Hanya had attempted suicide sixty-seven times.

She’d started with lots and lots of pills. When that’d failed to work she’d gone with electrocution, which didn’t even mess up her hair let alone her heartbeat. After that, she’d slit her wrists, the right way, vertically through the artery. Then came leaping from tall buildings, train tracks, car wrecks, fire, water, lava, bleach, salt, sugar, rubber, starvation, mutilation, humiliation, power tools, insects, lightning, poultry, loud music, caffeine, cough medicine, dangerous animals, large rocks, cardboard boxes, ice cubes, petrol, diffracted light, heavy literature, heavy lifting, projectiles, peanuts, hanging, knitting with real wool, ducks’ feet, pure maths, nitro-glycerine, hairspray, fairground rides put together by teenagers, a stampeding hippo, gold, fireworks, general anaesthetic, flying javelins, goldfish, running with scissors, a speeding bullet, stirring up trouble, picking at scabs, nicotine, bubble gum, a scalding iron, Country & Western, fuzzy felts, sherbet, plastic bags, long skirts on

escalators, rough crowds, loan sharks, bright lights, fluctuating interest rates, toothache, unfiltered water, dodgy haircuts, big thick marker pens and velour.

And now the milk. It hadn’t ‘gone’ bad. Hanya had made it that way with enough bromide to bring down her entire family and the families of everyone she knew. It wasn’t that her suicide attempts were no good. They just didn’t work. And she’d yet to work out why. She’d long considered insanity. It seemed to be the only explanation. Yet she’d never cared to explain it to anyone else, certain that if she did she’d be immediately sectioned and never see daylight again.

Or Henry. They’d been dating for four years now and she was fairly certain that by now he knew some of her history. In fact she was counting on it. If anybody could prove to her that she was far from an evil creature it was him. Only Rasputin had more deaths than she and the jury was in on that one.

But what of her? Was she an evil creature, or simply insane?

In order to prove to herself that she really did want to die and her attempts weren’t just elaborate hallucinations, she’d set up a camera to take a time delayed snapshot trying to catch an altogether different kind of shot. The resulting picture of the bullet going straight through her head without even a blood spatter was one that would have even the scienciest of scientists baffled. Although she did obtain her proof. Not from the photograph - that was just one to add to the Arthur Conan Doyle collection - but from the bullet which continued its trajectory passing undetected through the modern day craftsmanship of her flat’s paper thin walls and directly into her neighbour’s left buttock. At the time she’d felt something, which she took to be remorse.

Not enough to own up to her part in the incident but she thought she felt bad.

When she’d found out through the following day’s newspaper report that her neighbour had only days before left a teenaged boy to die in a hit and run incident, her guilt had lessened. Letters published later that week had called it karma in the generic sense and she had to wonder, where was her karmic reward? Not that she believed in karma either.

In the kitchen a cup smashed.

‘The milk!’ Hanya raced to the kitchen door and arrived just in time to watch Henry collapse. She leapt across the kitchen in a single bound and lifting his head she cradled him in her arms.

‘Why?’ she asked. Perhaps of him. ‘It was bad.’

‘It’s all relative,’ he whispered, and died. * ‘That seagull’s back, Sir,’ Matthew said.

Richard Todd looked out of the hospital window with its view of Liverpool’s cathedrals through a dense mist of rain and the now familiar seagull pacing the sill. It came to visit as regularly as Matthew. The bird was such an inane thing to draw attention to that Richard wanted to tell him to get lost, to get out of here and get a real life, but he’d been visiting every day for the past three weeks. Richard admired his perseverance and had neither the heart nor the coldness to send him away.

From September to July Matthew Price was one of his most treasured pupils. He was enthusiastic although not overly bright, and considerate but never a pushover. But today was a Friday in the middle of the summer holidays. Richard was thankful enough for the company. Matthew was often

his only visitor and the two could usually find something to talk about.

Matthew avidly followed the news and brought the newspaper every day, but Richard often felt he was holding him back from whatever boys did in the summer holidays these days.

‘For God’s sake, Matthew, don’t you have better things to do?’ he blurted out, almost shocking himself that the words hadn’t stayed in his head.

Matthew’s head turned sharply away from the bird and he looked to the ward’s other occupants to see their reaction to his headmaster’s outburst. He slumped in his chair and picked up the Liverpool Echo. Richard knew all too well that Matthew was only partially here through choice. At the beginning of the year he’d had friends and a girlfriend, hobbies and a future. He was here because he thought he knew what his headmaster was going through. He thought he was helping. He thought he knew because he’d been shot through the leg as well. The blood loss had almost ended his life. It had ended any prospects he’d had of becoming an exhibition stunt rider, lost him all of his friends after the initial reporters had fallen by the wayside, and his Facebook page had fallen silent. He’d lost the girlfriend when she’d thought he might lose the leg and so far he hadn’t been able to bring himself anywhere near the expensive BMX which sat in his hallway. The gleam of its chrome when it caught the sun brought back flashes of the gun barrel. All of this he’d told Richard in confidence and Richard had listened with guilt.

He adjusted his position in the bed, angry at himself and his impatience.

He’d been here for four months and spent the last three weeks asking when he could go home and being told, ‘Soon.’ He should have been more aware that he was taking it all out on the wrong person.

‘I’m sorry,’ he offered.

Matthew nodded a few times and re-read the sports section.

Richard regarded the knoll of his right leg covered by the bedding. He pictured it in his head, for now it was all that he could do. He wanted to look at it, he wanted to run a finger along the length of the deepest scar and examine the space where muscle and flesh had been. He wanted Matthew not to be here so that he could be alone to examine the silvery lines and the dimpled and pitted flesh. He wanted him not to be here for the simple reason that Matthew could never know what he, Richard, had been through because he’d never know that the shooting had been no accident or incident.

Richard Todd had tried to blow his own leg off with two shots just below the knee cap. The leg was mostly still there and until the NHS psychiatrists had time to fit him in and tick him off as being at no risk of ever trying it again, Richard was stuck here. With a boy, a bird and a yearning for a scar.

Hanya felt Henry’s death. As though it’d happened physically. Not to her but around her. Just moments after it’d happened so did an earthquake. Sam, her Golden Retriever, had gone berserk as the ground beneath all three of them had trembled and knocked her sideways so that she lay alongside Henry prostrate as he. A Frida Kahlo picture had fallen from the wall, a teapot had tumbled from the work surface and landed heavily on her arm.

And yet nobody else seemed to be aware of this. Hardly odd considering that outside of her own kitchen the quake hadn’t so much as displaced the

toothpaste mug, never mind a foundation. She’d mentioned it to the paramedics who’d attended Henry but they’d dismissed her and mumbled something about shock.

‘I think Henry was a part of it, I think he knew,’ she said to her best friend Alicia Thorpe. She’d called her to come and stay with her when she’d found out it’d be a few hours before Henry’s body was to be removed. The body was gone now and the two women sat in Hanya’s tiny kitchen, Alicia drinking black coffee, Hanya sitting on the floor next to the space where Henry had been.

Since the moment they’d taken the body away Hanya wanted it back.

She missed him. But without the body there was no real proof he was dead. If she’d drunk the milk she’d still be fine so surely there was some hope for him.

She felt something on her arm and shifted herself to look at it. A dark patch of skin had appeared where the teapot had landed. She held her arm out in front of her.

‘I have a bruise,’ she said.

‘I noticed,’ Alicia responded.

She put her arm back down. ‘It’s my first one.’

Alicia looked at her but gave no response and she went back to looking at the space.

‘I killed my boyfriend.’ It was the first time she’d said it and she spoke the words softly, almost under her breath.

Again Alicia said nothing.

‘Even you don’t believe me.’

‘It was an accident,’ Alicia said softly.

‘I killed my boyfriend,’ she repeated louder. Sam raised her head at the admission but more it seemed in annoyance at Alicia for having brought it out of her.

‘You’re not thinking of...’ Alicia started, ‘you know...’ She mimicked cutting her throat with her finger, the universal sign for death. Or bad acting.

‘Wouldn’t matter anyway.’

‘That usually wouldn’t stop you.’

‘Hadn’t even occurred to me.’ For the first time in what seemed like forever Hanya took her eyes off the floor and looked at Alicia with seeming confusion. She fingered the bruise on her arm. ‘Hadn’t even occurred to me,’ she said again with a vague look in her eyes.

In a second she was out of the chair, down the hall and in the bathroom with the door locked behind her. It was Sam who reacted first, running after Hanya just a moment too late. It took a couple of seconds for Alicia to realise what was going on and another couple after that for her reflexes to kick in.

She sprinted through the kitchen and down the hall, banging on the locked bathroom door with the full force of both of her fists, Sam’s barking accompanying every thump.

‘I’m busy,’ Hanya called in response as though all she were doing was washing her face.

Alicia banged repeatedly. Sam’s barking reached a crescendo and she pawed at the door desperately.

A scream came from the bathroom and then dead silence. Alicia looked at Sam who looked at the bathroom door and then sat with a whimper and hung her head.

From the other side of the door came the sound of slow footsteps and then the noise of the bolt being unlocked. Sam let out a low moan and stood up. Slowly the bathroom door opened, Sam rushed in and Alicia followed.

Hanya sat on the bath mat in the middle of the floor, a white towel across her knees to catch the profusion of blood dripping from her wrists. The gash hadn’t gone all the way across.

‘It hurts,’ Hanya said.

Alicia sat next to her and gently lifted her arm above her head. ‘It will for a time.’

Doctor Cillian Doyle sat alone in one of the Royal Hospital’s empty board rooms taking up one of the forty-five chairs and kicking the table’s leg.

He read over Brian Milton’s charts again. And again and again and again. Although he knew every word, every syllable, every punctuation mark, still he was missing the answer and was resolutely punishing himself by not going home until he found it.

He’d treated Brian for just under eight months and had initially thought his case to be a simple one of kidney stones. Since then Brian had thrown every complication Cillian’s way and shown almost every symptom known.

He’d even gone so far as to die and be brought back to life and to Cillian’s way of thinking that was just rude. Brian Milton was in his 70’s and had little expectation of making it out of the hospital in one piece and therein lay the difficulty. Brian claimed he was ready to go but Dorothy Milton wasn’t ready to wave him on his way.

Cillian needed a distraction. He knew his brain worked best when it was left on the back burner. He slammed the file shut as effectively as paper and card will and made his way out of the board room to the lift. The vending machine on the third floor was the same as all the rest but if he was lucky he might get to bump into the cute teacher with the leg injury again. He hadn’t been sent home yet: Cillian had checked. Ethical concerns aside, Richard Todd was exactly his kind of guy, cute and depressed. * Hanya hadn’t cut too deeply and the bleeding had stopped within minutes. Alicia bandaged her wrists and Hanya had decided she wanted to take a bath. She lay as flat as she could in the tub whilst trying to keep her wrists clear and Alicia sat on the toilet seat quietly keeping an eye on her.

Sam lay beside the tub occasionally looking up as Hanya waved a hand, lost in thought.

‘Perhaps I’m invisible,’ she said eventually. She reached to her side to pick up her coffee cup and found it unsatisfactorily empty.

Alicia had made another pot, this time emptying a good quarter of a bottle of bourbon into it. She reached across to pick up her own cup and handed it to Hanya who took it without a word. Alicia wondered how long it would take Hanya to wonder why a bullet to the head had no effect yet alcohol was finally hitting her like a bear. She looked at the bruise on Hanya’s arm, the first indication that things were indeed progressing.

‘We can see you,’ she said. As she did Sam looked up and Alicia wondered, not for the first time, just how aware the dog really was.

‘Maybe she’s invisible as well,’ Hanya said.

Alicia smiled at her. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Things ignore me,’ Hanya said into the cup.

‘Everybody feels that way.’

‘No, I don’t mean people, I mean things. Like I’m not there, they pass through me. I’m like dark matter.’

‘Right, so you at least think you have significance?’

‘I think I must have.’ She lay her head back on the edge of the bath.

‘Either that or I’m immortal.’ She closed her eyes as she said it and so she missed Sam poking her head up. Missed Alicia staring at her wide-eyed with the knowledge that she hadn’t missed a thing.

Out of Time Matthew Eland Matthew Eland was born in 1985, and graduated from Liverpool John Moores University in 2006. mattheweland1@hotmail.com Julia Monsarrat’s family has a secret – for one hundred years they’ve been disappearing in thunder storms and turning up years out of time. Her Grandmother thinks it’s finally under control until, in 1996, Julia’s brother goes missing. After growing up in the shadow of her phantom sibling, the lightning finally gets Julia and she has to negotiate five generations of strange family history, trying to find her brother and an end to the curse.

Out of Time 1996 – 2006 Julia knew about the lightning. She knew about the strange family curse that took Ben, her brother. Their Grandmother had thought that ignorance was the best protection against it; a tactic that backfired when he was caught in a storm on the way home from football. They tried to keep it from her but Julia had worked it out, even though she doesn’t remember much about that night when she was six years old, except hiding under her duvet too scared to leave the bed, and birds singing when it was over, and wondering, where did they hide in the rain?

Now the lightning was looking for her.

The night Ben disappeared she remembered the voices downstairs; Mum’s and Dad’s and a third she didn’t recognise, then Grandma a few hours later, and other things that for years she believed she must have dreamt. Like walking downstairs and seeing a strange young woman in the kitchen before being ushered back to bed by her father. The same woman, she was convinced, was crying in her room one night later that week. Julia’s screaming sent her hurrying out, and her Mum reassured her that it was only a nightmare.

She doesn’t really remember Ben anymore. She can remember him opening his bedroom door with the toe of his football boot, and the feel of his hands as he held her over a castle wall to see the medieval re-enactment happening below, but his face is hazy and his voice is gone.

Growing up with a phantom brother had repercussions. If someone could disappear for no reason then other terrible things could happen. It made Julie nervous. If Mum was late back from shopping she’d think the car had crashed and she was dead. If Dad’s snoring paused, then Julia, in the dark across the corridor, would assume that he’d swallowed his tongue. If Grandma didn’t answer the phone, then she was broken at the bottom of the stairs.

Meanwhile, the kids in school seemed to know more about Ben than she did. A few weeks after that hot, humid evening, Mum got a phone call.

‘Mrs Monsarrat,’ said the teacher, ‘I’m afraid we’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding in school, and Julia is a little upset.’

A boy in her class told her that his Dad reckoned Ben had been murdered.

‘Is he dead?’ asked Julia between heaving breaths when Mum collected her from the school office.

Julia was taught that every chance remained of him being alive, but as time passed hope faded, and the other children developed their theories. She became proof of an urban legend and struggled to make friends.

Julia once heard Dad shout that he had no idea where Ben was, and that him disappearing ‘wasn’t supposed to happen.’ Obviously, thought Julia, hidden behind a door. They kept mentioning the curse as well, long before Julia knew what they were talking about. From what she could overhear, Mum had stopped believing it. Dad mentioned something about wallpaper and a timeline, and Mum would shout about Grandma being a deluded old woman.

Julia could always rely on the argument to stop at the point when Grandma’s health was mentioned.

Grandma wasn’t around as much as she used to be. She couldn’t pick her up anymore, or walk around the park and push her on the swings. ‘Well,’ said Mum, when Julia tried to prise information out of her. ‘She’s getting older, and you’re getting bigger.’

Julia had to get most of her information from eavesdropping. She got good at going unnoticed and hiding, and would jump out once the receiver was down and probe for details. One day she heard Mum talking and was too stunned to move. ‘She doesn’t have long’, came the muffled voice through the wall.

Until then death hadn’t existed for her. Mum’s parents were alive and well and living down near Cornwall. Granddad Monsarrat had died when she was very little, although Ben must have known him. She’d been too young to appreciate Ben going, and that wasn’t real death because no one seemed to know where he was and Mum and Dad would always celebrate milestones like he was alive somewhere. ‘He would have been going to university by now,’ they’d say, or ‘He would be looking for his first job. Or do you think he’d be going travelling?’

She’d hoped she’d never see anyone she loved die, but just after her tenth birthday Mum sat her down and said that Grandma was very ill.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Julia.

‘She’s got cancer,’ said Mum. ‘We’re all very proud of you,’ Grandma would say when Julia went to visit her.

‘You’re going to grow up to be a fine young woman.’ As the weeks passed she started to say stranger things. ‘You’re going to save us all, Julia’, and ‘Keep your parents out of the lightning.’ This terror of storms had always been a familiar theme with Grandma. Maybe this was why Mum called her deluded.

‘I’m going to see you again,’ she said, ‘Very, very soon.’ Another time she told her that ‘Ben went into the lightning. I know it. I should have taught him about it. When you go in, you’re going to bring him back. When you see me, ask about the wallpaper.’

Grandma died at the end of the summer holidays.

They buried her on a hot day in a church out in the countryside near where she lived. Julia cried in the big black car with the plush leather seats, and tried to stifle her sobs as she walked up the aisle behind the coffin with everyone watching her. After a long, boring service, they went outside to the graveyard. ‘It’s just a box, it’s just a box,’ she repeated to herself as the coffin was lowered into the hole. She hesitated when they offered her earth to throw, and when she did it felt like someone else was doing the movements for her.

They said some prayers, and Julia tried not to imagine the two gravediggers who stepped up as they left, shovelling earth onto her.

‘She said some strange things to me before she died,’ said Julia to her parent’s when they were finally alone after the reception.

‘Really? Like what?’

‘She mentioned something about wallpaper; that I should ask her about it the next time I saw her.’

Dad looked at the walls. ‘Paper’s been the same for years,’ he said.

‘And she said that the lightning took Ben.’ Neither of her parents spoke.

The next week she started at her new school. It was strange starting at the bottom again, but she was glad to have a fresh start. No one knew about Ben’s disappearance, and Julia could pretend to have a new personality.

For the first few weeks things went well. She found some people she could talk to, a couple of girls like her who knew no-one else. Rather than spend her lunchtimes dodging footballs in the playground she sat in the library and did whatever homework she had, and if she didn’t do that she’d walk around the school, getting used to the large site. That way she’d never be late and wouldn’t have to do the walk of shame into the class in front of everyone.

On the eleventh though, at the same time Julia was trying to stay awake watching slides in a dark room as part of her art lesson, the terrorist attacks in New York happened. She didn’t know until Mum had brought her back home and they turned on the television. She thought about all the missing and the dead. How could two massive buildings vanish, just like that? She wanted to ask Mum and Dad if this was going to mean the end of the world, but was worried that they’d laugh at her.

In school the next day a boy a few years older than her with a wispy moustache was imitating a hysterical American they’d all seen on the news.

His friends were laughing and jeering, but it made Julia want to scream. She tried imagine how being in one of the planes knowing you were about to die.

Then she thought about Ben and the crying finally started. She slipped out of the yard to the garden in front of the sixth form block and sat with her head in her hands on a bench on the lawn, away from the prying eyes of the kids in her year.

‘Are you okay?’

Julia looked up to see one of the sixth form teachers standing, concerned, besides her.

Julia just nodded, noticing the students at the window of the sixth form block who’d seen her crying.

‘Is it the stuff on the news?’ asked the teacher, and put an arm around her like she was still in primary school.

Julia nodded.

When she turned fourteen her parent’s became obsessive, and Julia realised she was catching up with Ben’s age when he disappeared.

One day at dinner Mum warned her that a storm was on its way. ‘So, you know,’ she said, ‘Be careful.’

‘If you knew what happened to Ben, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’ said Julia.

‘Of course we would,’ said Mum, a little loudly. Dad looked away.

‘Grandma really did think he went into the lightning, didn’t she.’

‘Grandma didn’t know where he went,’ Dad said quickly.

In the summer holidays Julia finally outgrew Ben. She knew that her parents had also noted the date but it wasn’t mentioned. It was a stifling hot summer, just like the one Ben left in, and Julia spent it walking around the town trying to feel something significant; to feel like it was all over, but the dread was still there. The sense of loss might never go away, she thought.

She had to go and do the things Ben never could and that would have to be enough.

But the lightning hadn’t forgotten her.

It came in august. The rusty heat of the day preceded it, and Julia watched the clouds roll in with dusk. It began to rain, and it was dark when she heard the first rumble of thunder. Soon rain was bouncing up off the road and great sheets were unfurling across the haze of the streetlights. Usually when there was weather like this Julia would stay in her room while Mum and Dad would shut the curtains and watch the television, but tonight they were nervous. Seeing their daughter watching at the window reminded them of that first night, all those years ago.

The first flash came at ten, followed two seconds later by a roll of thunder that sounded like a giant two hundred miles away losing his balance.

Julia didn’t look at her parents because they were both crying. It’ll never stop, she thought, as she stood up and pulled on her coat. She’d either prove to them that she’d be safe, or find out the truth about Ben once and for all.

She walked out and opened the front door and the sound hit her in stereo. There was another stab of ultra violet light and a noise like metal shifting underground.

Her parents made no attempt to stop her as she walked out into the rain trying to feel how Ben had on the night he’d gone. Lightning flashed and Julia lifted her face to the clouds, the cold rain thrilling her as it ran across her face.

Julia turned back to the window and her parents. They saw that she was laughing and waving. As she took a step towards the house there was an enormous bang and a flash, as though the lightning and thunder had become one. Mum and Dad ducked away from the window, and when they looked again, she was gone.

The House at Druids Cross Hazel Adamson I was born in Longview, Huyton, in 1960. After leaving school at sixteen and doing various jobs I joined the Second Chance to Learn Course in Liverpool’s Unemployment Centre in the early eighties, which gave me the opportunity to get on an honours degree in ‘Literature Life and Thought’ at John Moores University. Later I completed a P.G.C.E and worked as a supply teacher in schools around Merseyside. Having spent a lifetime compulsively making up stories in my head I finally decided to take the plunge and put some of these stories down on paper. I am currently working towards an M.A. in writing at J.M.U. hazel_adamson2000@yahoo.com Carl, Eden and Theo are all lost kids. Until they meet in a children’s unit they don’t know they possess special gifts. But others do. And they’re coming, seeking them out. What do they want from them?

The House at Druids Cross Carl He had been on the run for weeks now, living on leftovers in the bins outside Pizza Hut and KFC. It didn’t worry him too much, the food thing. People were wasteful, especially when they rolled out of the bars drunk and swaying, ordering too much and throwing it away hardly touched. All he had to do was position himself in the right place and he could get hot food every night. They didn’t seem to see him. He merged into the shadows.

Finding a place to sleep had been more of a problem at first. Most adults reported him to the police if they saw him sleeping rough. Thinking they were doing him a favour, rescuing him. This time, if they took him back, he’d burn the place down and wouldn’t even care if he was still in it.

He’d found the perfect place to hang out in the day. In a set of city allotments right next to the flyover there was a neglected patch amongst the neat rows of onions, carrots and runner beans. A jungle, the undergrowth taller than he was, with a path that led to a rickety shed. It was locked but a loose board became a lot looser after a couple of hours working on it. Now he could slip in and out and no one any the wiser.

Inside was pretty grungy. There were cobwebs and millions of spiders, and stinging nettles and creepers pushing through the wooden boards, but after he’d stuffed a few holes with plastic bags it was mostly dry. A big old chair sat in the corner, all musty, its arms shiny with dirt, but comfortable enough. He’d nicked a quilt airing on someone’s line and had draped it over the chair like a tent.

And in every corner, mice. They didn’t bother him. They moved so silently you hardly knew they were there. They had soft grey bodies and quivering whiskers. Shiny, worried eyes. He fed them scraps when he had

plenty. They were so used to him they would climb onto the chair and eat out of his hand, their feather-light claws tickling his palm. Strange, how some people were scared of mice. He could only assume they’d never had anything proper to be scared of.

Eden All of Eden’s life had been about God. She was raised in Paradise, with people who dedicated their lives to following God’s Word - avoiding worldly temptation, and relying on prayer and roots and herbs to cure the sick.

Cranks, one nurse had called them when she thought Eden wasn’t listening.

After they dragged her mother out of the ward Eden was relieved. Her mother had been trying to stop the operation. Shrieking that it was against God’s Will.

Six days ago Eden had never seen a doctor. If she hadn’t collapsed in a crowded shop on one of their rare excursions into town for supplies, she would probably be dead by now. The doctor said so. Someone in the crowd had called an ambulance. Not her mother - she had fought them. Kicking and punching. Had to be held back as the ambulance doors were closing.

Eden didn’t doubt her mother loved her; she just loved God so much more. She believed what the doctors were going to do to Eden was dangerous. Meddling with the Lord’s work, thinking that they were above Him. The hospital brought her father in. They talked to him, tried to get him to sign the papers that would allow the operation, but he wouldn’t go against her mother. She knew her father loved her; he just loved her mother so much more.

Her mother was following God; her father, following her mother. Eden could see it like a vision: her mother flying towards heaven, her father hanging on to the hem of her skirts. Gripping by his fingernails. Eden quite liked the vision. It made her feel floaty and light. She tried to imagine herself flying up behind them, but couldn’t quite manage it. It made her feel too tired. She was stuck - all alone - in her in her crisp white hospital bed. Except for the nurses.

And, of course, the visitors from Social Services, who stretched their smiles so wide she thought the top of their heads might come off. She’d never felt this alone her whole life, not hardly for a second. In Paradise there had always been The Family.

Eden hadn’t ever gone to school or mixed with children outside the community. The kids here were alien to her; using strange words and laughing at things she didn’t understand. And every evening their families would crowd around their beds, bringing treats and cards and flowers.

Sometimes a kind nurse would allow Eden to pull the curtain around her bed so she didn’t have to see them.

In a few days she would have the operation. Maybe she would wake up.

Maybe not. It was in God’s hands. At night she lay awake, her eyes stretched wide against the darkness.

Theo Theo had always heard voices. When he was little he assumed everyone did.

The voices began like whispers, but the older he got the clearer they became.

They laughed, joked. Told him to do things. One voice in particular he had been hearing more and more. Sometimes it felt like company. That was nice; he was often lonely. At other times it felt like he was being controlled.

The Voice didn’t have a name, or if it did, it was keeping it to itself.

Theo hadn’t spoken for nearly two years. He didn’t know why. One day he was able to talk and the next day not a word. In the middle of class he’d been asked a question about the Second World War. He’d opened his mouth but nothing had come out. His classmates had thought he was playing some sort of joke on the teacher. Playing dumb, like he usually did. But it was weird.

He’d put his hands up to his throat and all that would come out were choking sounds. Mrs. Parr got mad and sent him to the headmaster, Mr Ripley, who’d gone ballistic. Shouted and ranted and paced up and down his office. Kept on asking Theo what he was playing at, what his game was. Theo stared at Mr. Ripley. Willing him to understand.

The headmaster’s face had gone all white and sweaty, like he was having a heart attack or something. Theo’s Mum had been called. He’d not been back to school since.

He had seen lots of people though. Doctors, therapists, shrinks. None of them could cure his silence. They talked a lot - words piled upon words mountains of them; but nothing came of it.

Somehow the link between Theo’s brain and his mouth had been broken, like an e-mail connection. Your server no longer recognises your password.

He wished he could talk, if only to reassure his mum who spent each day with red eyes. He heard her crying at night when she thought he was asleep.

He wanted to tell her not to worry, it would be alright, not to blame herself. He tried writing to her a bunch of times, but when he looked at what he’d written it always seemed so lame. Sad, spastic scribbles. Shredded and pushed to the bottom of the bin.

The crying got on his nerves. It didn’t help either of them, the fact his mother was always so depressed. It just made Theo feel worse. So he hadn’t spoken for a while. It wasn’t like he was dead. She should just get over it and cheer up.

Perhaps his silence was something to do with his dad suddenly dying like that. Going to bed with a headache and never waking up. The doctors seemed to think so; maybe there was a connection. Though it made no difference, whether there was or wasn’t. It didn’t change anything.

His mother had been talking about him going to a special place. A unit for kids like him, who had problems. She’d been in touch with a doctor who had children’s homes all round the world. Who performed miracles, apparently. She talked about it endlessly, her eyes all lit up inside. He worried that she might be cracking up.

The Voice wasn’t happy. In the day it could be interesting and funny, but at night it nagged him.

Your mother’s trying to get rid of you, Theo. She sending you away.

Have you any idea what these places are like? What are you going to do?

Nothing. I can’t do anything. Leave me alone.

We could run. Find somewhere.

Theo turned his mp3 player to full volume. Stuffed the buds in his ears.

The voice persisted for a while but eventually gave up. Theo slept with dronemetal bouncing around his skull.

Pass the Parcel Sarah Haynes Sarah Haynes is Head of Interactive Media at Liverpool John Moores University. With a background in drama, video and photography she is interested in all forms of storytelling. Through her work Sarah explores new platforms for narrative and ways in which stories may unfold across multiple media. s.haynes@ljmu.ac.uk A Henrietta Madden-Fox Caper.

This caper follows the journey of a stolen necklace, the fate of a Polish pickpocket, a romantic novel, its author, Henrietta and her enthusiastic new assistant. This unlikely cast of characters collides in a light-hearted thriller that combines a gritty tale of robbery interwoven with Henrietta’s latest romance.

Pass the Parcel She shuddered with another convulsive spew, doubled over, her hair hanging down in the gutter. Unstable on spindly heels she looked like she might tip forward any moment into the pool of vomit at her feet.

Piotr pulled his collar up over his nose as he squeezed past her on the narrow pavement. She turned glassy eyes toward him for a second and he saw a necklace spread across her throat, another class entirely to the high street fashion she was wearing. The gems caught the orange glow of the streetlight. She retched again and the necklace sparkled as the skin beneath it heaved.

‘Here, let me hold your hair out of the way,’ Piotr said, holding his breath to keep from gagging. He brushed aside her tumbling auburn curls, plastered to the back of her neck with sweat. The choker had an old-fashioned clasp.

She didn’t feel a thing. He slipped it in his pocket. As he walked away he heard her friends shrieking as they spilled out of the club. He quickened his pace around the corner. From a safe distance he checked to see if she had noticed. A man in a cheap suit picked her up, barely conscious, and carried her back inside. His broad shoulders and long arms challenged the sleeves of his jacket and his face had been redesigned by someone with an aversion to symmetry. A cheekbone too high, the bridge of the nose flattened.

Piotr pulled his hood up as the drizzle increased, turned from the back alley onto a busy main street, keeping to the shadows.

He waited for the daylight in a fast food dump that was too bright. After the poor sod behind the counter had been on cleaning duty in the bathroom, Piotr went to freshen up. He stared into the mirror. He could just about recognise himself. His large almond shaped eyes peered out from a face that suited his current situation. Features lost in grey shadows, high cheekbones and strong jaw obscured under blonde stubble. He had aged considerably since his nineteenth birthday a year before.

He remembered where his fingers had been. He soaped his hands and face, gouging down behind his nails.

Locked in a cubicle he unloaded his pockets. It had been a good night: a couple of wallets, a watch and the necklace. He considered its weight.

Although he was no expert he knew it was genuine. He heard the crash of the washroom door, a stumble, a torrent of urine. He wrapped the necklace in toilet paper, tucked the neat package in his breast pocket.

Back in his corner booth, he invested some of his night’s takings in an early breakfast of grease, carbohydrate and protein. He could feel the necklace against his chest. It made him feel giddy. He wanted to touch it again. He wanted to lay it out and inspect it properly, to be sure, but it was too risky. From his brief glance before he had seen there were no stones missing and they looked flawless. He looked round to assure himself that all the other customers were genuine, melted cheese dripping down their chins, guzzling Coke to quench their drunken thirsts.

Was this the chance he’d been waiting for? If he gave the necklace to Terry he would be treated well for a few weeks. If he went to Dennis he would either get away and have a new start, or …. but he knew that by not going back to the flat he had already started the whole thing in motion. He took out his phone and dialled the number Dennis had once given him.

Beaming, Phoebe settled into her seat, placed her skinny latte and copy of Hello on the table and hung her new Prada jacket on the peg by her head.

She did this carefully, running her hand down a sleeve. This jacket had been a present to herself for getting the job. She had only been in post a week and was already travelling with Henrietta up to Liverpool. Not quite with Henrietta, who was in First Class and had given strict instructions not to be disturbed.

Phoebe had thought they would get on like a house on fire. After all she had been Henrietta’s biggest fan for years. She had read all her oeuvre, and was a regular contributor to the online fan forum. Although her application had been a long shot, this was her first real job.

She smiled at a young man across the aisle from her who had placed a bouquet of white and yellow chrysanthemums on the table in front of him. She couldn’t help but speculate about who they might be for. He is rushing back to his girlfriend left behind in Liverpool while he works in London to save up for treatment for her mystery illness, he is running out of time and shouldn’t waste money on flowers, but….. She would make a note of this later in her blog.

Phoebe took her laptop from her bag and anxiously reread the itinerary for their day in Liverpool arriving at ten past ten and departing on the three forty-eight. Then she took Henrietta’s first draft of the first chapter of her new novel from an envelope and reverently placed it on the table. She only had this precious paper copy. Her predecessor had typed it and it was full of errors. She checked herself for thinking uncharitable thoughts about the poor girl’s lack of grammatical knowledge, as she remembered her sad demise, cut off in her prime at twenty-two. She had fallen from a cliff whilst working on this very chapter at Henrietta’s rural retreat in Cornwall. Henrietta wanted it retyping and had given Phoebe some further details to add.

Henrietta Madden-Fox sniffed at the brown liquid Phoebe had said was a latte. She wished she was still swathed in her Siberian goose down quilt on her king-sized bed, the aroma of Agnes's freshly-ground Italian coffee wafting up the stairs. This trip to Liverpool was absurd. People bought her books anyway and she was forever signing the bloody things wherever she went.

She sat back and sipped the coffee, disturbed by the thought that Agnes would be alone in her lovely home. Suspicions percolated in her mind. Maybe she was watching TV, her feet on the eighteenth-century Moroccan pouf, or luxuriating in Henrietta’s walk-in massage shower. She must check for evidence when she got home. Agnes was a recent acquisition. Not her real name of course: that was something unpronounceable. Henrietta had given her a new life, a new character.

She took out her palm pc and went back to work on the plot. Phoebe could fill in the details later. Her heroine is in the morgue, a label round her big toe reads conveniently ‘fell off a cliff’ and heroine number two is waiting in the wings to comfort poor old Marcus, presently grieving for the love of his life.

Henrietta persevered with her coffee and pondered what to call heroine number two.

Deadlegs Cardy O’Donnell Originally from Fleetwood, I completed an MA in Writing Studies at Edge Hill University in 2001. In 2002 I moved to Liverpool to work as an admin assistant at Mersey TV, which led to a job as a storyliner on Hollyoaks. For the last two and half years I’ve been a storyliner on Coronation Street, living vicariously through Graeme Proctor.

Cardyod@yahoo.co.uk It’s December, 1975. The height of The Cod War. Glen and Charlie are brothers working aboard a fishing trawler in the North Atlantic, deep within the Icelandic exclusion zone. With Glen still blaming Charlie for the death of their younger brother, their sibling rivalry comes to a head as the Icelandic Coastguard closes in.

Deadlegs Nearly all the fish were down below. A molly’s wing was batting against Charlie’s face. He flicked a hand and it dodged out of the way, then landed in the fish pounds with all the cod they’d dragged up. Eddie Latus had his head down as he gutted the fish and threw them in the chute. One seagull flew right into his face, another snatched a codling from his hand. Charlie could see he was bottling all his anger up, concentrating hard on his gutting, swearing under his breath.

Eddie focused on a seagull that was hovering just by his ear. He plucked the bird out of the air and held onto it by its neck. Charlie thought he was going to wring it, but he stepped out of the fish pound and went over to the mast. With a piece of twine, he tied it by its leg to the mast. The molly tried to fly away, but only managed a couple of feet. A molly’s distress call is like a high pitched, speeded up air-raid siren in World War II films. It flapped its wings and made this noise.

Charlie looked at the bird, flapping, pulling at its shackle. It tried flying for a few seconds at a time, found it wasn’t getting anywhere, landed back on deck, then tried again. All the time making its shrill distress call.

Charlie felt sorry for the bird. Like all fisherman he hated the gulls, but he thought Eddie was just being cruel for the sake of it. He wanted to cut the molly loose, but knew the other men would give him a hard time. He was gutting slower than usual as he kept checking on the bird as it strained to break free, its head arced back, beak wide open, pulsating squawk splitting everyone’s ears.

A few minutes later the seagulls had flown away. Their dark silhouettes were scattered all over the sky. Almost all of them had left the deck. ‘See!’ shouted Eddie. ‘Now we’ve got a bit of fucking peace.’

Every so often, the shackled seagull would settle down and sit at the foot of the mast. Then the other seagulls would come back, walking over the fish and swooping round the heads of the crew. When this happened, Eddie would

throw bits of sprags, pebbles or guts at the bird, saying, ‘Come on; make your noise.’ This happened a few times. The bird would be peppered with objects until it panicked into trying to escape again, trying to fly and pull its leg free.

The bigger cod had parasites attached to their bodies, little fish or worms.

Charlie was picking them off and throwing them so they landed just in front of the molly, for it to eat. He saw Murray looking at him and it made him jump.

But Murray didn’t say anything.

The fish were pretty much all down below and it was nearly time to haul again. The winch clanked, groaned and started pulling the trawl up from the sea bed. Mollies were swarming around the ship once more like overgrown gnats. Eddie picked up a pebble. He aimed at the foot of the mast where the captured bird was, then realised: there was no bird. He walked over to the mast, bent down, picked something up and said to Billy, ‘Would you believe it?’

‘What?’ Billy said.

Eddie held up the twine he’d untied from the mast. Dangling at the bottom of it was a seagull’s leg, one end with a webbed foot, the other red and bloody.

The sea frothed as the net burst to the surface, straining as the cod flipped and flapped, beating against each other and the net and the sea. The crew moved into position at the starboard rail, ready to drag in the loose trawl before it was winched up onto deck. Charlie was still in the fish pounds staring up at the sky, looking for a seagull with one foot.