So Much To Answer For

So Much To Answer For is available through Lulu for only £3.05 (plus postage) or £1.25 to download.

Tommy Hill walked back into Manchester on the tail of a thunderstorm, promising easy money and atonement for his former sins. Joe Wilkinson doesn't want anything to do with his former friend, but it's not going to work out that way. Once again the Police think he's involved, and some want revenge for Hill's escape last time, and there are some dangerous characters who already think he's Hill's bag man. Can Joe stay out of jail and alive long enough to keep his name clean? And who is the mystery blonde who wants to buy his art? Originally published as a serial at the Spinneyhead weblog.

Whilst I'm unemployed I'm trying to up my output from at least one new product a month to at least one a week. The next piece of fiction available will probably be Ruby Red, which I'm working on at the moment.

Global Weirding - part nine

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Nine

The journey into town was silent. We held hands and watched the landmarks go by. From Piccadilly I had a fairly good idea where we were going and got us to within a couple of buildings before I had to consult the AtoZ. "It's that one." Jana told me before I'd reached the appropriate page.

"It is?"

"Can't you see?"

I studied the building. "Oh, yeah." It glowed, with little sparkles on the roof like those we'd seen on the pins. Apart from that, and an excessive number of aerials and dishes on the roof, it was nondescript, a six storey concrete and glass box from the 60s or 70s.

The buzzer buttons on the door had no names against them. The foyer, what we could see of it, was quite neat, it didn't look abandoned. There was one of those electronic entry key systems, the sort you wave a tag in front of to open the door. "Should we just press all the buzzers until someone lets us in?" I wondered.

Jana flexed her fingers. "Let me try something." I was expecting dramatics, but she simply poked the centre of the radio key detector. With a buzz the door lock was released. "After you."

My boots clicked on the tiles of the foyer- I'd picked up a stone between the treads somewhere- it was the only sound. Until the door clicked closed behind us. There was no artwork on the walls, no corporate logos, nothing to identify who occupied the building. There was, we suddenly realised, a reception desk against the far wall, with a small balding man sat perfectly still behind it.

We stopped in front of the desk, not sure what we were supposed to say next. The security man stared straight ahead for a while, then slowly looked up at us. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, but, er, we were hoping to go straight up."

The little man stood. And grew. And grew some more. It was hard to follow, but his body changed shape as well. He sprouted curly horns and his face elongated. His shoulders broadened and his legs were the rear legs of a goat. His uniform had disappeared, rather than ripping, and now his body was covered in short, wiry red hair. I'd seen depictions of the devil as a goat headed creature that walked like a man, and here he was. He stood a couple of feet taller than either of us, staring down and working out who to eat first.

I grew up on a small holding. We used to keep goats. They're intelligent and wilful creatures and the males like to show you who's boss. One memory that's stuck with me is of the time one reared up in front of me, nearly twice my young height, hoping to scare me. When it came back down to my level I punched it on the nose. It stared at me, shocked, then backed off and never bothered me again.

I figured that what worked for a real goat might work for this goat-a-like. It's head ducked down as it announced. "You shall not pass!" I jabbed it on the nose, as hard as possible.

The big red goat man staggered back with a surprised hiss and started to shrink. It fell over and disappeared from sight. When we dared to step forward and stare over the high front of the desk we could only see the small bald man again, slumped naked against the back wall with blood dripping from his nose.

"The top floor?" I suggested.

"That seems like a good idea. And then we can work our way down."

There was an elevator beside the reception desk. The doors opened as soon as we pressed the call button. I selected the sixth floor and stood back. "There is no spoon." I told myself.

We'd reached the third floor before Jana turned to me and said "What?" I just shrugged and smiled. It would take far more floors than we had left to explain.
The sixth floor was a wide open space. "This doesn't seem right, there are no pillars to hold up the roof." Jana noticed.

"And I'm sure there's more floor space than the building's footprint." There was a sharp crack and a shaft of dust started to trickle down from the ceiling. "But let's not notice any more structural flaws until we're outside again."

Across from us, sat on mismatched office chairs- the only furniture on the floor, were five teenage boys. "You're the ones who stole our power." spat the eldest.

"I guess we are. What were you going to use it for?"

Jana had been studying the coven. "I know what they had planned. They sold their souls so they could get laid."

"We did not sell our souls. We came to an arrangement with the Dark One."

"Fucking hell. I mean, I was desperate for some when I was a teenager, but I never damned my eternal soul for it. I just waited until I went to University, where at least some of the girls got me."

"We wouldn't be damned. The Lord Jesus would hear our prayers and grant us forgiveness."

"Oh great." Jana tutted, "They're worse than satanists. They think their imaginary friend will save them."

I think it was the 'imaginary friend' phrase that brought me back to reality. I remembered how much of the last few weeks shouldn't have happened and how impossible it all was. "I think I know what's going on."

I didn't get a chance to explain. The acned coven had conjured up a blue ball of lightning and were about to throw it at us. "You know that thing is scientifically impossible." I told Jana. She nodded. The lightning ball shot away from the youngsters then slowed to a crawl as it neared us. "If it can't exist, we can't be hurt by it."

We watched the blue ball. It had all but halted. "We could wait forever for it not to hurt us." Jana mused. I nodded. We walked either side of it into the coven. There was a crash and a bright flash of white light. We looked around. "I guess the lift still believed."

"It's the stairs for us." I grabbed the leader by his druidical hoodie and hauled him up. "I don't know how you've done it, but your idiot beliefs are twisting reality. I bet you don't believe in evolution. That's a shame, for you, because at least it would let muppets like you breed. No sane creator ever would.

"I'm not going to break this to you gently. God doesn't exist. Satan doesn't exist. Jesus doesn't exist, because he's the son of something that doesn't exist. Global warming is happening because of humans. The Easter Bunny isn't real and Santa has been co-opted by the corporations. Is there anything else you insist on believing whilst I'm here? No? Good." I let the crying boy go. He sagged but stayed upright.

There was a slap from my side. Jana had made her way around the remaining four children and given them a sharp backhand to bring them to their senses. The floor's dimensions were resolving back to something believable and there were now pillars to be seen. However, as reality took hold again, the damage done became apparent. There were more cracks in the ceiling, and running down some of the pillars. Something crashed to the floor. "We should leave." I pushed the leader toward the emergency exit and helped Jana get the others on their feet.

Herding five shell shocked former satanists down the stairs proved easy enough. Getting them to do it as fast as we'd have liked was trickier. We were on the second floor when there was a rumble from above and dust billowed down and over us.

Eventually we emerged into the foyer, patting dust from our clothes and hair. "I hope there was no asbestos up there." I roused the naked man behind the reception desk. "Where are the keys?" He didn't have a clue. I pushed him toward the coven and rolled his chair toward the door, planning to use it as a battering ram.

Jana got to the door before me. She pushed it and it opened. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to do any mindless destruction.

There was rubble on the pavement. We edged away from the doors and sprinted across the street to somewhere safer. Then we went back and made the coven and their pet goat follow us. There were sirens approaching. We left the diabolists milling around all confused and ducked down a side street. As the sirens got closer we broke into a run.

When we were safely by the Town Hall we stopped. "I want to check something." Jana said.

"What?"

She pushed me against the wall, wrapped her arms around my shoulders and kissed me hard. My hands went to her waist, then a little lower. She pressed tight against me. Our tongues played and explored. People were probably looking, but we didn't care.

When we came up for air she rested her head on my chest. "I think there's something still there."

"Definitely."

"I'm completely out of the free condoms I've been collecting. Should we go buy some more?"

"Definitely."

"Are you going to just keep on saying definitely?"

"Maybe."



On an island in Derwent Water a gnome sits, fishing rod in hand, watching the tourist steamer go by. We had to hire a car and borrow a canoe to get him there, but we thought he'd appreciate it. On the same island is a small tree that has what looks like a human face in the bark of its trunk. It's sheltered from the wind, but in a good position to catch the sun.

The soldier climbed a tree. He watches the children in Platt Fields playing, guarding them. The tin man is in my living room. If anyone asks, he's a piece of art about consumerism.

Pebbles sits on the desk in Jana's room, a pile of stones stuck together to look like a little human. He gets moved into the cupboard whenever we make love. He practically lives there.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird, Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch

Global Weirding - part eight

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Eight

We decided to collect the last of the pins. Going back to either my flat or Jana's Hall would be just as quick that way as any other.

We walked quietly along the Sunday streets, hand in hand. We'd only got together the day before and tomorrow everything would change and we wouldn't, hopefully, be tied to the sex magic that had brought us together. I missed that part of our relationship already, and I hoped Jana felt the same.

The last pin was on another piece of path. With two pins each it was easy for us to divine its location. We distributed them between pockets and the back pack, hoping that would keep them from setting up a resonance.

We went back to Jana's hall and picked up Pebbles. She packed an over night bag with him nestled safely amongst her stuff. "You could stay here tonight. Bring him along tomorrow." I suggested.

"Is that what you want me to do?"

"No, of course not. But with the pins all together we can't be sure what we'll end up doing if we spend the night together."

"I'll take the risk. 'If I've got to be damned you know I want to be damned dancing through the night with you.'"

"Shakespeare?"

"Lyrics."

"You too?"



There was a message on the living room floor when we got back. 'Sex magic not everything. Still help us when done?'

A mouse watched us from the bottom shelf of the bookcase. I was certain others looked on from their own vantage points. "Of course we'll help you. If only so you'll stop tearing up my mountain bike magazines."

Jana put her bag on the table and lifted Pebbles out. I picked Twiggy up, more gently than usual now that I was wary of charges of bush abuse, and put him on the table as well. We stepped back and waited for the fireworks.

Twiggy and Pebbles got on far better than I'd expected. My irascible shrub seemed to be calmed by the stoic little pile of stones. We left them on the table in the living room, probably watched by mice, and set to preparing a meal.

"Maybe we should try to not have sex." There are some sentences you never expect to come out with.

Jana stroked down my back. "Do you have the self control for that? Because I know I don't."

"No. I guess not. But maybe we should try not to go all the way."

"You want to cuddle?"

"I guess. But with no clothes on."

"You know where that leads."

"Yes. But let's try anyway."

She wrapped her arms around me from behind. "For you, darling, anything." She didn't want to stop the hug. "I think the gnome had a point. I don't just want to fuck you. I think I...."

A younger (by two days), dumber me would have fumbled for what to say at this point. But I was learning. And who could say that granddad's advice had anything to do with sex magic or any of the other strangeness at all? I took her arm and kissed the inside of her wrist. "Yeah, me too." I turned round to hug her back and kissed her forehead. Then I kissed her nose, cheeks, lips, chin and then back again. She responded in kind. It was all we could do to keep from going at it right there in the kitchen.

"Make me dinner. Quickly. I'm sure you shouldn't do strenuous exercise on a full stomach, that should slow us down."

"Go and talk to the rock and the twig then, or you'll just distract me."

I knocked together a stir fry, about all my concentration would allow. We ate it on the table, watched by Twiggy, Pebbles and probably a mouse or two. When I cleared the plates away Jana collected all five pins and laid them on the table. "Oh bugger. Those things." Twiggy muttered, "It's good ye've pulled them up, but their bad work's already done I'll bet."

The pins began to move. Just a little, so we could sense the movement rather than really see it, like catching it at the edge of our vision. They scraped across the table, leaving trails in the varnish. "There goes another bit of my deposit." I sighed.

The tips of the pins touched and then they spread themselves to form a five pointed star. "Their natural alignment, I guess." Jana observed. I pushed one and, after a moment, it slid back into position. Jana tried the same with a different one. When it was back in position she lifted it and moved it slowly across the table. The others followed.

The four of us, and no doubt some mice, watched the star in its new position for a few minutes. It didn't do anything. "Aligns. Then reacts." Pebbles said eventually.

"Yeah. I guess that's what it does." I stood and gently massaged Jana's shoulders. The little "Ooo." that she made was a surprise. "That's good. I hadn't realised how stiff I was."

"I can try to massage that out."

"Oh yes. Please."

"Go to the bedroom and get undressed. I'll see if I can rustle up some massage oil."

"So much for the self control."

"Keep your knickers on and we'll see about the self control."

I had some massage oil in the bathroom, hiding behind everything else on the toiletries trolley. A memento from a previous relationship, but I tried not to think about that. It was still within its use by. I ran some hot water in the sink and dunked the bottle into it. "Are you ready yet?"

"I'm lying here waiting for you."

"Just close your eyes and think happy thoughts. I'll be with you in a couple of minutes. Got to warm the oil."

"Hurry up." That last came out as a squeak. I decided that the oil would warm just as well in my hands, dried the bottle and headed through.

Jana was lying on her stomach on the bed, wearing nothing but her knickers. There's something about those moments when nothing is on show that's more alluring than being able to see everything. It's the mystery, I guess. I'd only explored this pale, gorgeous land a few times and then I'd gone straight for the treasure. This time I was going to search for those other special spots.

I started stripping. "What are you doing?"

"Well, I don't want to get the oil on my clothes, do I?"

"Any excuse."

I left my boxers on, but with the front tented out so there was hardly anything mysterious about my state. I climbed onto the bed and straddled Jana's legs. After warming the oil in my hands I leaned forward and started working on her shoulders. The muscles were quite tight. I don't know when she'd stiffened up so, but I resolved to release the tension.

As I moved my hands over alternate shoulders I found that my erection had slotted neatly between her buttocks. I'm sure her appreciative noises were down to the kneading and unknotting but I was ready to let out the occasional whimper from cotton restricted contact. It took a while to register that some of the sensations were due to her moving her behind up and down. I think I went cross eyed for a moment.
I leaned back and splashed out more oil. I pushed my thumbs up her spine from the waist band of her knickers to just above where her ribcage began. Then I worked my way back down again, firmly pushing away from her spine with the palm of my hand stretching the skin and pushing at muscles. She made appreciative noises.

I skipped over her knickers and started running both hands down her left leg. I stroked the back of her knee and was surprised by the reaction. She went taut and made an "Aaaa" sound, muffled by the pillow her head was buried in. Her rear was raised in the air, invitingly firm and round. I resisted it and worked my way down to her foot. I was teasing her, I knew, but I could tell she appreciated it. I moved to the other leg, starting at the foot and working my way up. This time I kissed the back of her knee and ran a hand up the inside of her thigh, stopping just short of the material.

Jana thrust a hand back, passing a condom to me. "Don't even pretend you're going to resist." Her derriere was moving back and forth and side to side, practically in my face. I reached up and pulled the red knickers down. "Hurry up." I pushed my boxers down, rolled the sheath on and positioned myself behind her. "I'm so close." I slid in easily, she was so excited. Good to her word she came almost immediately with her quiet orgasmic moan. I pulled out, ready to thrust again.

There was a loud crack and crash from the living room. I didn't want to stop, but I really had to. Jana had twisted around to look in the direction of the noise and all but thrown me out. "What was that?"

We went through to find the cause of the noise. On the table Twiggy and Pebbles were struggling up from where they had been thrown. The five pins were standing upright on their heads, ghostly lines like the after image of sparklers linking their tips and forming a lattice that joined in the centre of the pentagon. "Are you two okay?" asked Jana.

"Yes. Well enough." said Twiggy, "Let me guess. You were having sex?"

"Yes." I admitted.

"Good sex?"

"Oh yes." Jana replied enthusiastically.

"Have more." said Pebbles.

"Sorry?"

"Have more good sex." Twiggy suggested. "You're powering up the pins. You can use that power to your advantage later."

Jana slapped my arm, "And there you thought celibacy was the best option."

"Okay, I was wrong. Bagsy more doggy style."

She pulled me to her and kissed me hard. "You're on."



When I woke up I had Jana's hair in my mouth. It tasted of salt and a lot of sex. I kissed the back of her head and cuddled her closer. I swear she purred. "Tea?"

"Tea."

Cradling warm cups , we sat side by side with the sheets pulled up to our waists. It was the most demure we'd been in hours. "I'll have to phone my boss, tell her I won't be in today."

"Shit! I'll be missing lectures. I'll see if Alison can get me notes. What are you going to say?"

"I'll say I've been in bed most of the weekend."

"It wasn't all in bed."

"No, but I don't think I'm allowed to take shag days."

We finished the tea. Jana kissed my shoulder. "Thank you."

"For the tea?"

"I lost count. Of the number of times I came. Thank you for all those orgasms."

"It's not like it was a chore. I loved every minute of it."

"What if it's all down to the magic? What if, after the magic stops, I'm all dried up and you're," she waved her hand vaguely over my groin, "floppy or something."

"We won't be."

"You're certain?"

"Well, no."

"So why risk this stopping?"

"Because someone set this up to tap the power and use it, probably for something selfish. If we become so addicted to the sex that we do nothing about the root cause we're no better than them."

Jana hugged me. "I'm addicted to you." Which had to be one of the sweetest, if cheesy, things anyone had ever said to me. I found myself welling up. I kissed the top of her head.

"Come on. Let's get up and on with business before we get distracted."

"You already are distracted." Jana giggled.

"Er, yes. More distracted, then."

I felt like I should be pulling on some sort of fighting rig, bandoliers of bromide across my chest and a cold water dispenser on my waist. Instead I just put on my usual boots, cargo pants and T-shirt. I wanted to look bad ass, but came across as what I was, a geek who could at least dress himself.

The pins looked shinier than before. The inlaid symbols seemed to glitter. They weren't tied to each other any more either, one could be separated from the bunch without the rest following it. We put them in different pockets anyway, just in case. Pebbles and Twiggy had each found a pin that resonated with them, so they held those when we put them into a bag each. Jana and I had one each in a trouser pocket and the fifth went on a length of string and hung around her neck. I suggested this because I just knew what it was going to do to her nipples. I hadn't factored in what the pins in our pockets were going to do, though, and it was a bit uncomfortable walking at first until we entrusted them to Pebbles and Twiggy.

The hole was still in the fence and the puddle hadn't shrunk. But the little shed had gone. "That can't be good." Jana stood where it had been and looked around.

I released Twiggy and wandered to the edge of the muddy puddle. "I've found a fishing rod." I held up the stick with string attached to it.

"So this wasn't something we imagined. Where are they?"

"We're here lass. No need to worry yourself." The gnome had materialised at the edge of the clearing. The soldier and tin man appeared from other edges. "We cleared that space 'cause we'll need it later. Hello lads."

Pebbles and Twiggy had climbed out of their bags and ambled over to meet their brethren. They exchanged masonic looking handshakes and started handing around pins. Jana slipped the last pin from its string and held it in front of the tin man, the last one without a marker.

"Lots of power." the gnome commented. "You've been making the two backed beast then?"

"A lot." Jana blushed to admit it.

"It's the best way to store up energy that I've ever found." I added.

"Good. Good."

"What do we do now?"

"Ye have to go to the centre. Find the focus and defuse it. We will stay here, channel this power and use it to help you."

"He makes it sound so simple." Jana sighed. "What can we expect?"

"Demons, six headed dogs, mythical beasts. That sort of thing."

"You'd best be joking."

"Nay lass. But ye two have stolen a lot of the energy. They'll be small and you'll be tough."

"Well. I feel confident. Where are we going?"

I dug out the AtoZ that we'd marked up and flicked through a few pages until I found the relevant one. "Not there...... There."

"Okay. Is there a famous building there then?"

"Not that I know of."

"You'd think there'd be something distinctive there, if it's the centre of this magical arrangement."

"It does not have to be so spectacular now. Or ever. It could have been important at some point in its history."

"So we look for a blue plaque." I suggested.

"If it is tagged that way, yes. Now, we must set up." They took their pins, formed a small pentagon and pushed them into the ground. Then the little figures bowed to each other and sat. The low hum may have come from them or the pins, which were sparkling. Pale lines joined the pins and formed the outline of the pentagon. "Now go." the gnome told us, "We will focus power on the centre when ye get there."

We turned to go, but Jana had a thought. She knelt beside Pebbles and kissed him on the head. "Goodbye." The little figure looked up at her. Its expression was the nearest any stone has ever come to sadness.

I couldn't bring myself to be so affectionate with Twiggy. I patted the top of his leafy afro. "Are you going to take root here?"

"Nay lad. I'll get dug up when they redevelop."

"I'll come and get you and transplant you."

"That's awful decent of ye."

I took Jana's hand, "Now we should go."

There were tears on Jana's cheeks when we'd slipped back through the fence. I didn't want to see her so upset. I wiped the tears away and kissed her forehead. "It's what they want."

"I know. But it's still upsetting. And I'm scared of what happens next."

"We're going to kick arse."

"We are?"

"After everything we did last night, those pins will probably go nuclear."

She stroked my chest and smiled. "That position where you had your legs outside mine was nice. And I loved everything you did with your fingers. Even...." She went adorably red.

"Yeah. That was good." We kissed. "Let's go get a bus. We don't want to keep the boys waiting."

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird, Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch

Global Weirding - part seven

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Seven

Jana marked the locations to explore in the A to Z and I stuffed plastic bags and some other bits and pieces into a back pack. All the preparation was done in an uncomfortable silence, and we didn't say anything until we were halfway to the first point on the map. We conferred on the best place to join the footpath and, just for a moment, our arms touched. I stole a glance at Jana, who had gone a light red, and chose not to push the issue.

We found the first junction easily enough. It was what we were supposed to do there that threw us. In the end we settled for the tried and tested method of walking back and forth swinging sticks through the grass. Except this time we didn't find anything. "Is it possible we're wrong? That the pins have nothing to do with our elementals?" Jana asked.

"It's possible. Or someone got there before us. We could go and look at the next one along."

"That's the one where they haven't put a path through it isn't it?"

"Yes. Hopefully no-one's got at that one yet. That way, I think."

It was as we were walking away, beyond the edge of our search area, that something went clink in my back pack. I stopped, walked back a little. Something went clink again. Jana noticed and came back to where I stood, moving the bag back and forth. "What have you found?"

"I'm not sure." I delved into the bag and found the two spikes we had recovered earlier. They were warm. Holding them in my palm I passed them back and forth. As they passed over some invisible line they made the clink sound again. They didn't move, as far as I could tell, but something passed between them and they kept getting warmer.

"You seem to be divining."

I had an idea where the invisible line was, but to find it I started on a zig zag path. Every time the pins clinked I took another couple of steps then turned. Jana, rather wisely, marked the first clink point with her stick. The pins got a little warmer every time, if I didn't find something soon they were going to get too hot to hold. I was also going to run out of cutting, because the embankment rose sharply before me, and in front of that were brambles.

I zigged, took a few steps and heard the pins clink. I took a few more steps, zagged and set off to cross the invisible line. But the pins didn't clink I took a few more steps. Still no clink. I retraced my steps. Nothing. Unzagged and retraced the previous leg. The pins clinked.

"Something?" Jana walked over.

"I think there's something between here and somewhere over there."

"Okay, come back until you're on the line." Half a step and the pins went clink. Jana Checked my position against the marker stick. "Right," she adjusted my orientation a little, "Walk slowly in that direction. Tell me when the pins stop reacting."

One step. Two steps. Three steps. "Now."

"Okay." Jana knelt down and ran her hands through the grass. "Found it!" She tugged the pin from the ground and stood with a big grin on her face. I wanted to kiss her, but, because of our earlier conversation, didn't know if that would be right. I think she felt the same way. She bit her lip and turned away. "What do we do now?"

"Go to the next point, I guess."

"Okay. Hey, there's no thing here."

"Thing?"

"Yeah. You know, like Pebbles or Twiggy."

I surveyed the path. We were a little east of the junction, for whatever reason, and there was nothing to be seen that didn't belong there. "Maybe someone else found it. We have just started searching for these pins ourselves, after all. You keep that one. These two are getting a bit warm as it is, don't know what would happen if they were all together."

"Okay."

Jana was about to set off for our next objective. I reached out and clasped her wrist, but when she turned to see what I wanted I didn't have anything to say. I tried a smile. After a moment she returned it. We stayed like that for a while, then she pulled me to her and hugged me. I stroked her hair and her shoulders and didn't make a move to kiss her. Eventually she broke the clinch and kissed me quickly on the lips.

"This may not be quite right. It's possible we're being manipulated by someone or something. But it feels good and it is fun. And I didn't want you to get the impression this morning that I didn't really like you. Because I do."

I brought her hand up and kissed it. "I'm sorry I got offended. I'm just a bit insecure, you know? Let's go and see what's at the fourth point."



We skirted around the next location, going up and down dead end streets trying to find a way onto the fenced off railway line. Eventually we found an alley that ran along the fence.

"We could try to climb it." Jana suggested.

"Not with rusty barbed wire on the top, thank you. See if there are any holes through it."

We found our hole, eventually. Someone had cut the chain links and taken out a section large enough for an adult to fit through if they crouched. "Quite recently, too," Jana commented, "look, the bare metal hasn't started to corrode yet."

I pushed my backpack through the hole, to guard against brambles, and was careful not to snag any bits of clothing. By the time Jana was through I'd found a path made by previous visitors. "Down there."

The embankment was steep, I proceeded down it by swinging from tree trunk to tree trunk, grasping each one tight as I judged my next move. Jana seemed to have a lighter step, judging by the noises from behind me, but I didn't look around to see how she was doing. I reached the bottom eventually and gladly stepped onto flat ground. And into several inches of deep mud.

I was wearing my usual army surplus boots, Jana was in trainers. I turned, stepped up the bank and stopped her just in time to save her footwear. "That looks disgusting."

"It felt quite icky too. Let's head that way, it looks drier."

The bottom of the cutting had given way to woodland. Hard to think that one day trains had steamed through here. I wondered how long ago it had been abandoned. Just how many years before nature reclaimed the world from humans.

"Hey. I think there's a camp over there." Jana pointed at a shape on the other side of the mud puddle.

"Back that way then."

As we neared the construction the pins in my back pack started clinking again. They were going geiger counter crazy by the time we reached it. It looked like a tiny stone hut, open on one side, with slanted plastic sheet as the roof. The occupant of such a building would have to be about a foot tall. Directly in front of the building was another of the pins. I pulled it out of the ground and handed it to Jana. "Now we have two each. If we can find the fifth we'll see what happens when they're all together."

We both crouched to look into the mini hut. "Where do you think the owner is?" Jana asked.

"Don't know. Maybe they've gone hunting or something."

Jana looked around. "Let's go over there." she suggested. She took my hand and led me to a stand of trees. Leaning against one of them she asked, "Are you feeling horny?"

The front of my pants answered that for her, so my stuttered "Yes." was redundant. She handed me a condom and started unbuttoning her baggy khakis. She stepped out of them, then pulled down her knickers and stuffed them into a pocket. "I er, thought you weren't so sure about this?"

"I'm not. And I am. How can something that feels so good be bad? You don't want to do it?"

"Of course I do. I just wanted to be certain you were certain." I dropped my trousers and rolled the sheath on. She giggled as I shuffled toward her.

Jana stood on tip toe as I approached. I stooped and tried to aim. We weren't quite at the right levels. In the end I grasped her thighs and pushed her up the tree trunk. With her trainers swinging in the air she reached down and helped guide me in. I let her slide down the trunk and onto me. "Oh yes." she sighed.

With her legs clasped behind my back and most of her weight taken by the tree I began thrusting. "That's good." she announced. "Now. This is a real forest. Last night wasn't a real forest."

"I'd say this is more of a copse." I kissed her on the end of her nose.

"Don't go spoiling the mood." She reached over her head and grabbed a branch and started pulling herself up and dropping down. I stopped moving and let her do the work for a while. I don't know how much noise we were making, but they could probably hear us up in the alley. We didn't care.

Me with my pants around my ankles, her with her top and trainers still on, her trousers draped carefully over a branch. It should all have felt faintly ridiculous, but neither of us took the time to let that register. Her hair fell across her face, making her look even more wanton. She couldn't keep up the pace, so I took over thrusting again.

She draped her arms around my shoulder and leaned her head forward to whisper incoherent encouragement in my ear. I needed it, because my thighs were beginning to ache, without her spurring me on I might not have been able to keep up the thrusting. She kissed my neck, grabbed handfuls of my shirt and went that special kind of quiet that meant she was coming. A few more thrusts and I pinned her against the tree as I came.

Her legs uncrossed and slid down my side until she was, shakily, supporting herself again. I dipped and pulled out of her. She gasped, a mix of pleasure and loss. "I'm just going to stand here like this for a while." she admitted, "I'll let the tree hold me up." I brushed the hair from her face and kissed her.

I pulled the condom off and tied it. I didn't want to litter, but I wasn't looking forward to carrying it home. After a couple of false starts I pulled my trousers back up. In one of the pockets was a wad of paper towel. I wrapped the condom in the paper and gingerly put it into the pocket. When I looked up Jana was pulling her combats back on, not bothering with her knickers.

“Done, are you?” asked a little voice. Jana froze with just one leg in her trousers. I looked around. "Over here. By the hut." He was, indeed, less than a foot tall. A gnome, but somewhat more battered than the jolly red faced chaps found in kitsch or ironic gardens. I moved to the side, putting myself in his line of sight to Jana. He tamped tobacco into his pipe and put it into his mouth. "Look, laddie, I know she's the hottest thing ye've ever had, but to me she's just another tall'n. Six times too tall, far too soft on the outside and full on the inside." He tapped his chest, getting the hollow tink of pottery. He hadn't lit the pipe, I doubt he had any matches. "It's okay lads. You can come out now."

There was a rustling and two other small figures came into the clearing. One was a soldier, an Action Man rip off, dressed up like Rambo. It looked around, wary of ambush. The other was a humanoid figure made of empty tin cans. They stood beside the hut, watching us carefully.

Jana had managed to get her trousers on. She'd come over to put her arms around me and watch the three strange figures before you. "They must be, I don't know, Twiggy and Pebbles' relatives."

"Aye, lass, I guess we are. I take it you've given the boys good homes?"

"I have. I think he abuses his bush."

"Hey! I do not abuse my bush. We just don't get on very well."

"And ye have four of the five stakes? Of course ye do, ye pulled the fourth from right afront of me house. Ye'll have to collect the fifth yourselfs, we can't seem to get them out of the ground. Then ye can figure out where we came from."

"You don't know?" This came as something of a disappointment.

"Well. I think I was once in some folks' garden, till I was nicked and pitched up here, where I awoke. But that's just the pottery's memory. I don't know how I come to be some mockery of alive."

"You're not alive? What are you? I mean... I don't know what I mean." Jana had done as good a job as I would have at voicing the confusion.

"Of course I ain't alive lassie. And ye know I can't be, and neither can the rest of the lads. We's physical impossibilities. I, for one, don't like existing when I oughtn't. This life lark's a pain far more often than a pleasure."

"You want to die?" Jana sounded upset.

"Lass, I shouldn't be alive. We could have a big philosophical about it and it warms me empty innards that you'd care, but ye and I both know we should change whatever it is that's got me walking and talking."

"He's right." I admitted.

"I know he's right. I just feel odd about it when it's about killing him."

"Not killing, just returning him and the others to their proper state. You said you wanted the strangeness to stop."

"I guess."

"Let's see what they can tell us."



The three animated things in the wood couldn't tell us much. They had each come alive some time a week and a bit earlier, with vague memories of their inanimate lives and a certainty that their existence was somehow wrong. A little calculation put their arrival around the time that I had found Twiggy and just before Jana had met Pebbles.

The five points of the pentagon were joined by invisible lines, the ones I'd divined with the pins. Somehow the pin in this little bit of woodland was the anchor. The soldier and the tin man had made their way here along the lines. Removed from the proximity of the lines by Jana and me, Twiggy and Pebbles had settled into their new surroundings. The gnome had built his little hut and waited, knowing that one day his brethren, or their representatives, would find their way there.

"What did you do while you were waiting? Do you need to eat?"

"Strictly I don't need the food. But- and lassie ye're not to laugh- I found myself picking up a stick, tying some string to it and sitting by yon puddle fishing."

"Did you catch anything?"

"Ye weren't to laugh."

"I know. Sorry, but I didn't promise not to, you told me not to. It's not the same thing."

"Humans. They're almost as bad as lawyers." the soldier spat.

"So, what do we do now?" I asked.

"Well, and don't ask how I know this," the gnome started, I noticed that tin man hadn't spoken at all and the soldier was nearly silent, "this sort of large scale symbol magic is usually designed to channel energy. Each of the pins catches it and funnels it toward the centre of the symbol. I think this one went horrible wrong when it roused us. The pins weren't proper earthed or something. And that means that some of the energy has probably been redirected, into animating us and affecting you somehow. If only we knew what sort of energy it was. You been having bad luck? Unexplained anger?"

Jana and I looked at each other. I really wanted to rip her clothes off and fuck her there and then. "I think we know what type of energy is being channelled."

"Good. What type?"

"Sex."

"I should have known, the way ye were at it."

"So what do we do now?"

"Get us the last pin, and bring the other two. Then we shall look at short circuiting the energy flow and getting ye back to normal. Don't look so upset, ye can still try to replicate the effects, ye've got an affection what wouldn't be there with pure sex zombies."

"We have?" Jana had been holding my hand all this time. She gave me a smile and squeezed my hand.

"Sometimes you fleshy ones can be so blind. Bring the last pin and the other two of us tomorrow. It is getting too late in the day to do anything effectively today. And I would like a night to contemplate my coming return to non-existence."

"Okay. Until tomorrow."

"Go. You have much to discuss as well. Yer relationship is young and it's about to have a major upheaval."

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird, Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch

Global Weirding - part six

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Six

"I'll make us some tea."

"I'll have a shower." I have to admit, I could get to like this ensuite lark. I know I have a flat to myself and can traipse naked from bedroom to bathroom stark naked if I want to, but the bathroom pod in Jana's room was at the end of the bed, so close I could almost fall into it.

There hadn't been the guilty silence I'd been expecting when we woke. We'd each taken some time to assess the situation then she'd smiled at me and kissed my nose. "It wasn't all a dream."

I was certain this was a one time thing. There's an unhealthy age difference between us. The sex was just something that happened because of the strangeness going on around us. It couldn't possibly last beyond the solution of the mystery, which we might achieve that very afternoon. The negative thoughts didn't last long, dispelled by the knowledge that I'd just made love with, and received finest fellatio from, one very sexy young woman. I'd been single for a while, so the fact that I could get laid made me feel so much better.

I opened the cupboard door, so Pebbles could come out if he wanted. The little stone pile was arranged for meditation. It looked up at me, its expression unreadable as ever.

Jana brought tea and toast. "It's all I've got."

"We can grab something while we're out. My treat."

"You don't have to buy me stuff just because we slept together."

"I'm going to buy you stuff because I'm a nice guy. And then you can buy me stuff later, or make me a meal or something."

It was still very early when we set out to explore the pathway. The night's chill was still in the air and dew lay on the cars and grass. We wandered down Wilmslow Road and only two cars went past. "I went that way." Jana pointed when I was about to head for where I'd found Twiggy.

"I found mine down there. We can have a look for it later."

Down in the old railway cutting the Sunday morning silence was even more acute. Jana took my hand as we walked along. I glanced at her to catch a serene expression, probably happy now that someone shared her madness and had offered to help figure it out.

Jana kept looking around as we walked, checking for landmarks. I wondered if I'd be able to pinpoint where I found Twiggy at all. She stopped when we reached a junction, "Here."

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but I definitely did not see it. The trees on either side shaded the thin stretch of pale tarmac we'd been walking along and there was a sign telling us where the new branch went. it was very pleasant, but not evocative of occult forces.

"I seem to remember I found mine on a junction as well. Maybe that's a key."

"Maybe."

"If we can find it I'll mark it onto a map and maybe we can see if there are any other similar junctions."

"What should we do now, though? Should we look for clues?"

"Okay. You take this side, I'll take that one. Work back and forth and see if you can spot something out of the ordinary." I wandered away and found a pair of sticks for sweeping the grass.

We walked in opposite directions for as far as seemed plausible. When we passed on the return leg she smiled at me, "What does a clue look like? I've never seen one before."

My swinging stick tapped against something metallic. I knelt down and pulled the rusty spike from the ground. "I think it looks something like this."

The stake had a symbol etched in the top, a segmented pentagon. Each triangular section had a symbol in it, none of which either of us recognised. "Keep going, see if there are more of these."

Half an hour of searching turned up nothing. Well, nothing occult, there were plenty of empty cans and some used condoms. We took our sticks, and our clue, and headed for where I thought I'd met Twiggy.

"If I was coherent enough, then I would have crossed this junction. But I stopped to have a piss, probably against that bush. How about you start there and I'll do the other side of the path."

"Okay." Before we went our separate ways she grabbed me and kissed me. "Am I a freak that I'm finding this quite exciting?"

"Absolutely. But I'm kind of into it too. Let's try to do this one quicker and go and get some breakfast."

Jana found the clue this time, another metal pin with the same symbol on it. "Okay supersleuth, let's go and get breakfast." I took the pin and pocketed it with the other. I felt a light tingle as they touched.



As we headed to the cafe my phone rang. The display said 'Granddad'. I stopped dead to answer it, "Granddad?"

"Ah yes, my boy. You're not at home?"

"No, you called my mobile."

"Mobile?"

"Mobile phone, sort of like a radio telephone."

"Oh, I see. Fascinating."

"How are you?"

"I'll be honest, I'm scared. It just keeps getting closer."

"Yes. I need to talk to you about that, ask you about it."

"Later. I need to talk to you about this girl."

"You do? How do you know about....?" Jana was watching me, mostly just interested but picking up on the concern in my voice. He was going to tell me not to trust her, to keep away from her. That's the way these things always went.

"Trust her. She is important."

"What? How is she important?" Jana went wide eyed and pointed at herself. I nodded.

"I'm afraid I don't know. I'm just passing on what I suddenly know. I'm told that you're current investigation will likely yield results. Keep her close to you and value her judgement. I'll be in touch again." And with that he hung up.

"Who was that?"

"My grandfather."

"How did he know about me?"

"He's dead."

"Oh. Right. How dead?"

That last question threw me. I took her for a fry up and tried to explain how I was getting phone calls from someone who was, from their perspective, in the final moments of their life. Again, as when Jana had raised the subject the night before, I was struck by the absurdity of it all. I didn't believe in ghosts. I believed in people's suggestibility and sensitivity to their surroundings, but not that what they experienced was in any way supernatural. The oddest thing about the strangeness going on around me remained my unquestioning acceptance of it.

We went back to my flat. It only seemed natural. I booted up Google Earth and started looking for ways to hack it. Having found a way to flag points on the map and overlay shapes I plotted the two junctions where we had found our elementals. "Two pieces of data aren't much use to us," I told Jana, "because the best we can get from them is a straight line."

"What about the symbol on top of the spikes? could you overlay that? What if the points are where we found the spikes?"

"That was my next step, honest."

I drew up a pentagon, resized it and dropped it onto the map twice. In one orientation it covered south west Manchester, in the other it nearly wrapped around the centre. More importantly, in the central Manchester version the points matched up to junctions on the old railway lines, at least one of which wasn't yet converted to pathway. "I think we know where we're going later." I observed.

Next I broke the pentagon into segments, as per the symbol on the pins. The centre point didn't seem to coincide with any really interesting architectural points or street junctions. It wasn't even anywhere near the railway. This was a little disappointing. "Maybe it's a red herring." Jana offered.

"Maybe. What about those symbols?"

"I've copied them. If we scan them we can put them online and see if anyone recognises them."

When that was all done I was ready to head out again. "Oh no." she told me, "You really need to get changed. Go to the bedroom and take all your clothes off."

"All of them?"

"All of them." How was I ever going to refuse an order like that. She followed me into the bedroom and watched me undress. Then she handed me a condom and pushed me back onto the bed so I could lie back and watch her strip.

Naked, she climbed onto the bed, crawled up me and slid me into her. I don't know how she got so excited, but I wasn't going to complain. She began moving gently, pausing to look around after a few strokes. "No visions?" she commented.

"No. Disappointed?"

"No. It's good."

Now, I've never had many complaints, and I've been paid a few compliments, but I don't think I've ever had movie sex. The sort where everything fits together perfectly and you come together. This time I did. The lighting was even right, the sun casting the shadow of the window frame across her glistening body as she moved. And, unlike sex in the movies, we really were having sex, which made it so much better.

We lay together afterwards, Jana running her fingers through the hair on my chest. "We should get dressed and go find those other points." she said distractedly.

"We should."

"Or we could stay here and do the sex thing again."

"Or we could do that."

"You're not very good at making decisions are you?"

"Whatever you say, darling."

She twirled a particular bit of chest hair for a while. "Steven, have you considered that it's odd that I'm having sex with you?" And my balls just shrivelled up and popped back into my body.

"Well....."

"Not. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with you. You're a nice guy. You're funny, and interesting and clever. And you are attractive, and the sex is good. The sex is great. It's just.... Maybe that's part of the whole weirdness."

"You think someone, or something, wants us to have sex? Like it might be part of some rite? Some sort of occult power is making you shag a man you wouldn't normally give a second glance?"

"I would give you a second glance. And probably a third. But I wouldn't normally jump into bed with anyone this fast." She looked away, perhaps a little embarrassed.

"Why is there a mouse watching us?"

I pulled myself up to look over her. On the bedside cabinet one of my friendly rodents sat on its haunches staring at us. It cocked its head to one side, waved a paw and then leapt off the top. It bounced out of the door and into the living room. We followed. On the living room floor, formed from bits of scrap arranged carefully by little paws, was a simple message, 'We want our mouseness back'.

"Yes, I'm sure you do. But how can we help?"

Jana bent down and held out her hand. The mouse hopped onto it. She stood and held the mouse before her, just where she could focus best. They looked into each others' eyes. I moved uncomfortably out of her line of sight, I didn't want her seeing that I was turned on by a naked woman communing with a small rodent.

"You can't talk, can you?" Jana asked. I swear the mouse shook its head. "Okay. So maybe you can leave messages like this if you've got anything that might help." Again, another twitch of the mouse's head, this time one that might have been a nod. "Right. Well, you get on with that while we go and investigate these old railway lines." She put Jerry down then turned to me, "Right let's...." She looked down. "Oh, erm, okay." She headed for the bedroom.

The mouse was giving me a look. I sort of shrugged, but couldn't hold its gaze for very long. Jana had closed the bedroom door. I decided to cool off in the bathroom for a while.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird

Global Weirding - part five

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Five

Charlie, and his minions (sorry, the students under his care), arranged a floor party in the Hall of residence. He invited me, if only so he can try to find out what's bugging Jana. After a bit of soul searching over just what level of quality to aim for in the alcohol to take I settled for a few cans of Guinness. Not too expensive and not too cheap. I didn't want to look like I was trying to impress the children with my wage and stuff, but I'm not going to buy any of the really cheap crap I used to put up with when I was a student.

The new Halls are far more flash than what was around when I was a student. Listen to me, sounding like the old man. But it's true, most of the new builds have en-suite bathrooms, ethernet and high speed internet access is a necessity and, as they've all gone up in the last few years, they haven't started to peel apart. I found the button and pressed it. After a moment the speaker above the buzzer crackled into life. "Hello."

"I'm here for the party."

"Okay, come on in." The door clicked and I pushed it open.

Some things never change about student life. Obviously someone had gone to great lengths to tidy up the flat for the party, but the indicators were still there. On the windowsill in the kitchen were the trophy bottles, empties that used to hold spirits, wine, even beer, and now had memories associated. The cork board had flyers pinned to it, '£1.00 a pint all night', 'Free entry before 10.30', '£1 off with NUS card', that sort of thing. The washing up had been done, but it was all piled up on the drying board because no-one had been bothered to put it away.

But it was all so new and crisp. They'd plastered the walls, smoothly. I remembered the walls in my hall still had the texture of the brieze blocks beneath, smoothed slightly by a decade or more of paint. Another thing that was different from my day was that this was a mixed flat. I guess with everyone having their own bathroom the embarrassment/ titillation factor of shared showers had been done away with and boys could live, more or less, in harmony with girls. Wish they'd had that when I was at University. I was always complaining about not meeting enough women, a side effect of doing an engineering course.

I weaved my way through the youngsters in the kitchen and stored all but one of the Guinness in the fridge. There was a clean pint glass in the pile of washing up, so I hijacked it and emptied the can into it. It was whilst I was looking around to see if they had a recycling bin that I spotted Jana. She had walked into the kitchen with a couple of other girls, Alison and Kate from our night out drinking I think. Our eyes met. She faltered briefly, then nodded recognition and started over. There was no doubting it, she was definitely the girl from my dreams- the sacrifice who had morphed into a sexy archaeologist.

Jana took a bottle of lager from the fridge and looked around for an opener. I pulled out my key ring, which has two of them on it. "Thanks." She threw the cap, and my empty can, into the bin directly behind me. "Recycling." she pointed out.
I sipped my Guinness, she drew on her lager. Neither of us knew what to say at first.

"Charlie invited you?" she asked.

"Yeah. He said he needed to make up the numbers or something."

It was a weak joke, and it got a weak smile in response. She leaned toward me a little, her expression more serious. "Has any.... Any weird stuff happened to you since we last met?"

"Just a bit. You?"

Her expression said 'Well, duh. Why do you think I asked?' "Have I been in any of your dreams? In a temple of some sort?"

"Yes. Yes you have."

"My body's nothing like.... Well, you can see that my body is nothing like either of those characters." She glanced down, as if to check.

In the real world, away from dreams of barbarians and adventurer archaeologists, her body was far more to my tastes than either of my buxom REM companions. I would have liked to have said this, but it would probably have been taken the wrong way. I tried a sort of half-hearted shrug. "I'm no strapping barbarian, either." I managed to come out with eventually.

She leaned in even closer. "Have you been collecting things?"

"Trophies? Yeah. Though I threw one away the other day because I thought it was giving me those dreams."

"Come to my room," she said, "and I'll show you mine."

"I..... Okay."

We left the kitchen-cum-common room. There was a small splinter party going on in the hallway, with Charlie and a few of his postgrad friends. He looked up as we passed and we exchanged nods.

Jana's room was the last on the left. "This is a great way to start gossip." I commented as she opened the door.

"Whatever. I could do with a reputation. Come in."

I spotted it quickly. On the work surface under the window was a pile of stones. The arrangement was such that it appeared vaguely human. As I approached for a closer look, the top stone moved slightly. There were two indentations placed just right to give the impression of eyes. They studied me.

"That's interesting. He's never done that before. He's normally only animated when we're alone."

If a stone could have an expression, this one was intrigued. It was studying me as I studied it. I extended my hand and it held out a pebble. We shook. "He doesn't say much." Jana acknowledged.

"That's probably a good thing. All Twiggy does is bitch and moan and tell me to put my clothes back on." I could imagine the look that got me. "That's only happened the once."

"Sensstive." the stones said, though I couldn't tell where the voice came from. It pointed at me and the Jana. "Both sensstive."

"That's about as eloquent as he gets." Jana sat on the bed. I decided not to join her, taking the seat instead.

"Where did you find him?"

"After that night out we went on, after you left us, we went on to a club. You know, I can't even remember which one. There was something in the smoke or my drink or whatever. It didn't really hit me until we got back and I couldn't sleep. So I went for a walk at about half four in the morning. I was on the path they've made on the old railway tracks when I found him. I tripped over him and while I was there on the ground swearing he got up and said sorry."

The rock creature had been looking from one to the other of us as Jana spoke. There was a faint grinding sound as its head moved.

"Pebbles here is the most interesting of the things I've found. I'll show you the others some time. We ought to get back."

When we left the room Jana made a show of adjusting her top and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She grinned and leaned in to whisper, "I'd rather they thought I'd just given you a blow job than found out we were talking about an animated rock pile."

We grabbed more drink and found a corner of the kitchen. "I found my wood spirit thingy or whatever it is on one of those paths as well. Maybe even on the same bit. Can you remember where you found Pebbles?"

"Just about."

"How about we go and check it out tomorrow? We might find something we missed first time out because of the states our heads were in."

"Okay. When?"

"I don't know. Meet here about one?"

"Okay." She nursed her bottle for a while, then said, "You know that this is impossible?"

"What is?"

"This. This whole set of things we've found and that have happened to us. Little elemental creatures, the shared dreams, all that stuff.

"I mean. I'm a physicist. I'm studying the most basic rules of the universe, yet I have things in my room that seriously break those rules. Tell me how that happens."

"I don't know how it could have happened, but I think we can find out. I'm really good at seeing patterns, spotting connections between bits of information. It's my job. We can work together to find out why this stuff's happening to us." I drained my Guinness. "For the record, I don't believe in any of this shit either. More beer?"

"Okay."



I guess what happened at the end of the evening had a certain inevitability about it. After a while a group of revellers decided they were off to a club. Neither Jana nor I were interested, so we stayed behind. It also meant we got seats at the table. By now we'd returned to the whole landscape gardening Feng Shui thing and were practically putting together a business plan to keep from discussing our paranormal experiences.

Next to leave were Charlie and his postgrad pals. Now we were left in the common room with three couples in varying levels of snog. We grabbed the last of our bottles and cans and went to Jana's room.

This time we sat side by side on the bed. We stared at Pebbles for a while. He pretended to be asleep.

Jana finished a bottle and leaned across me to put it into the bin. She didn't go all the way back, shifting her position so we were face to face. "You know, we could go and investigate much earlier if you stayed here tonight."

"We could." I've never been much good at reading expressions, but I thought I had this one pegged. I laid a hand on her waist. She moved a little closer. She didn't move back when I moved forward. We kissed.

We shifted positions. Her hands came round and clasped my back. One of mine ran up the outside of her top to cup a breast, the other sneaked up under it. When we came up for air she had a far more readable expression. I helped her unbutton her top and pull it off. It seemed a bit too enthusiastic to go straight for the bra, so I ran my hands up and down her exposed skin- across her belly and along her arms. I moved to kiss her again, but she stopped me and jumped off the bed. "Sorry. I can't....."
Part of me was annoyed that she was having second thoughts, part of me relieved. "There's just something...." She sat on the seat by the window and talked to the pile of stones, "Umm..... Pebbles, can you look the other way?"

The stone figure pretended to wake up, turned its head to her and nodded. It pointed at the wall cupboard at the end of the desk. "Private."

"You're sure?"

Pebbles nodded. Jana opened the cupboard and Pebbles pulled itself up and walked slowly, like a determined old man, into it. When he had settled and looked comfortable, Jana closed the door.

"Sorry. I just felt a little....." She unclasped her bra and dropped it to the floor. I pulled off my T-shirt and stood to join her. As we kissed we each undid the other's khakis. She didn't have a belt, so I got hers unfastened first and started pushing them and her knickers down.

She still had shoes on. I turned her and navigated her backwards to the bed and sat her down. Crouching before her I slipped her shoes off and pulled her trousers and knickers off. I sat back for a moment to appreciate the view.

Jana sat up, a little confused by my inaction. I gave her a grin and shuffled forward to kiss a knee. I parted her legs and kissed my way up the inside of her thighs. "What are you....? Oh. I don't....." But she didn't stop me. She laid a hand on the top of my head as I started licking and lapping at her.

There was no sound but for contented sighs, slurps and a light rustling. I must have found the right place and rhythm, because she held still and pulled my head in closer. She stopped making noises. On an uplick I looked up. She had two fingers in her mouth, biting them to keep herself quiet. I wasn't going to stop and tell her there was no-one else in the flat.

When Jana came moans escaped her improvised gag. I could feel little shudders running down her legs. A strange, shrill shriek made a chill run through me. I stopped licking and looked up. Jana still had her fingers in her mouth and was too blissed out to have heard anything. She certainly hadn't been the source of the sound. I put it out of my mind by standing and undressing.

Stood in front of Jana I crossed my arms and waited for her to notice and appreciate my nakedness. She came down from the plateau gently, eventually opening her eyes and smiling at the sight before her. She pointed at the bedside cabinet, "Condoms."

It's been a while since I wore a sheath, but they're not the hardest thing to put on. Whilst I fumbled with it Jana moved round and stretched out on the bed. She reached out for me, but I intercepted her hand, found the fingers with red bite marks on them and kissed them better. Under her guidance I moved between her legs and let her place me on target. I slid right in, so well lubricated was she.

We held position for a while, kissing and nuzzling, then I pulled slowly out and thrust just as slowly back in. She liked that. On my fourth thrust there was a crashing sound above us, something falling through foliage. I stopped. Jana's expression looked as I imagined mine did. She had heard something too. "Jungle." she said.

I looked around. I could see the walls, the door, all of that stuff, but overlaid on it were tree trunks, roots and vines. We lay on a bed of trampled greenery. It was the forest around the ziggurat. Neither of us was the oil painted inflated Frazzeta figure we had been in our dream, but the setting was the same. There was a shriek again, somewhere off to one side. We both looked in that direction and saw greenery move as something leapt from tree to tree.

Alcohol and sex have long been an interesting combination for me. I've had out of body experiences on the combined effects. One time I woke up next to a pile of Barbie dolls arranged into the shape of a short, and small breasted, blonde. But I've never had a hallucination quite so vivid, or shared it with my partner. We fell into character. "Sir, you have a way with your tongue that any woman would appreciate." she told me.

"Aye, well you're so fair a lady you deserve the best. Now let me see if I can pleasure you again."

"If you can do so then I will later perform the finest fellatio on you." The phrase 'finest fellatio' didn't seem in character, but I was hardly going to complain about the offer.

I took up my thrusting again. I worried I might not last long enough to bring her to another peak, but she was already highly charged and her moans soon told me she would come quickly. She brought her hand up again to stifle any cries, but I intercepted it. "Who can hear us here but the beasts?" We both knew I was talking nonsense, but she smiled at the thought of being so wanton and let her hand go back to clasping my shoulder. I regretted the intervention as she got more excited and dug her nails into my back.

The pain spurred me on to thrust harder and faster. We were both close now. I just needed to hang on long enough for her to get there. From our perspective her cries were drowned out by the jungle sounds of creatures and wind in the trees, but anyone else in the flat, and probably the ones to either side, above and below, would be able to hear her.

I felt the spasms deep inside her, around me, as she came. For all her cries in the build up she was silent now, so blissed out she couldn't make a sound. I thrust a few more times before the jungle started to disappear in bursts of white as I filled the condom.

We were both flushed and breathing heavily. We were back in her room, safely returned from the jungle where we had made love. I carefully pulled out of her. "That was strange." she said.

"Intense." I offered.

"Yeah, yeah, intense" She looked around, groggily, "Where did the jungle go?"

"I don't think it was ever here."

"But we were there?"

"I don't know." I peeled the condom off and dumped it in the bin. "I need to pee. Back in a minute."

Whilst I was in there I washed myself as well, and splashed my face with water. I had the briefest of flashes, as I looked at myself in the mirror, of 'What the fuck did you just do?' guilt. It hadn't completely gone by the time I got back to her bed.

She had pulled the covers about herself and suddenly looked a lot younger. That did not do the guilt any good. "Some of this is scaring me. What if I'm going mad?"

"Then I am too." I sat on the bed. After a moment's hesitation she lifted the sheets to let me join her. "You can't be going mad if I'm experiencing the same strangeness. And maybe there are other people out there having similar weird shit happen to them." I coaxed her into uncurling and cuddled up close to her.

"Maybe." she conceded. She clasped the arm that was wrapped around her and relaxed a bit. "That was the first time I've had sex in a forest."

"Wasn't mine."

"Yeah, but you're a lot older than me."

Good to her word, she woke me a few hours later to give me some fine fellatio. Frankly, any blow job is a good blow job, so I don't usually rate them. But this one was definitely amongst the best.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird

Global Weirding - part four

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Four

The dreamcatcher didn't work. Or maybe it needs a few days to become fully charged. Or maybe it's been storing what pass for good dreams in the realm of wood spirits and elder gods, because what I did dream was scary. The sacrifice girl was there again, but less voluptuous this time. In fact I'd say she was looking a bit Tomb Raider, in a smaller bra.

We were hacking our way through jungles, searching for I don't know what. She wasn't being very communicative, just pointing at our next destination and waving a machete. Occasionally I'd let her take over so I could follow and enjoy the view. I'm a bad enough perv when I'm concious. When the REM kicks in it just goes off the scale.
After a while we came to a clearing. Ahead of us, rising out of the jungle floor, was a familiar shape. The ziggurat I had rescued the sacrifice from only a few nights, and several centuries judging by the vegetation, earlier. The roof of the pagoda lay at the foot of the grand staircase, the cracks from its tumble from the top long since weathered from prominence.

We didn't go up the stairs. My guide had another plan, she led the way around the side of the structure. At the rear, away from prying worshippers' eyes, there was an entrance. Presumably the priests went in and out of it. If it were completely hidden then they could appear magically at the top without anyone seeing how they got there. The door had been stout wood, but a couple of kicks saw it crumble to damp sawdust. She gave me a torch and drew a revolver from her belt. I didn't have a weapon, which seemed a bit unfair.

Inside the temple the furniture was in the same state as the door. One chair completely disintegrated when I touched it. I adjusted the beam so it was as wide as possible and cast around the room until I spotted a door in the far wall. My tomb raider led the way, working her way there along the edges of the room, always on the look out for traps. This door had fared better than the entrance, but it wasn't locked.

We moved along corridors, working our way down rather than up. After what seemed like an hour I couldn't guess how far down we were, but the air was cold and the walls damp. Finally we reached the bottom. Another door opened onto a cavern. Far above there was a tiny dot of sunlight, possibly an opening under the pagoda. In the centre of the cavern was a dark circle, a hole that disappeared even further into the earth.

There were torches on the wall, but they were all too damp to light. This became more worrying because the torch batteries were running down and the bulb grew dimmer. Behind us a door slammed, there was the sound of a bolt sliding into position. I looked at the girl. She shrugged. The torch went out.

I reached out, but she wasn't there any more. There wasn't enough light coming from above to make anything out. If I moved forward I would probably fall into the chasm. I tried stepping backwards slowly until my back found the wall. Guessing where the door had been I started moving sideways to my left. After a bit of shuffling I felt the door frame. Trying the handle just confirmed that I was locked in.

There were six shots. I heard them but couldn't see the muzzle flashes. Somewhere far beneath us something let out a sigh that could shake buildings and started to move. The sounds of something slimy moving over stone was disturbing enough, the snuffling from a huge snout only made things worse.



I did that thing they do in films, where a character sits bolt upright as they wake from a nightmare. I didn't think anyone did that in real life. The cold, clammy feeling of the wall and absolute fear still chilled me, no matter how much I told myself that this was real life and I was safe. I didn't get back to sleep.

I don't think the lack of sleep is affecting my work. Which has to say something about me or it. Hopefully it.

There was email waiting for me when I got home. Mum had sent a rather brief message. Granddad was run over in the street outside his house by a hit and run driver. No-one was ever arrested, or even suspected. About all the Police were able to ascertain was that he was hit by a black car. I have to ask him about it next time. Who knows, I might be able to track the car and driver down, even after all these years.

Charlie had emailed me as well. Apparently Jana had been asking after me.

Jana?

I guessed she could be the one whose name I never really picked up on that fateful night out. Why on earth would she be asking after me?

Unless she's been having strange dreams where I've been a supporting character. Charlie was online, so I IM'd him.

Charlie's been a hall warden for a few years now, so he's seen all the strange and confused emotions students go through in their first year away from home. So he should be able to recognise a problem when he sees it. He doesn't think Jana is upset about anything, and he's certain she's not crushing on me ("Tough shit mate. I think she's got a bloke."). But she keeps asking after me in a way that has him concerned, simply because he doesn't know if he should be concerned at all and if so, how much. As she seemed perfectly sane in every other way he had been willing to leave it for a while. But now he was curious, and he wanted to know what the obsession was about, so he had arranged another drinking sessions for Friday night.
I was in. How could I not be. Just this time I'd stay sober enough to avoid conversations with the shrubbery.



The octoboar idol had fallen off the window sill again. This time it had landed okay, and crawled some of the way across the living room floor before getting tangled up in a string trap that had been stretched between chair and table legs. I decided I didn't want it in the flat any more.

Platt Fields park, just a mile or two away from my flat, has a boating lake. Strictly speaking it's more of a boating pond, a roughly oval thing that's never more than three feet deep. Slightly off centre in the pond is an island where ducks and geese nest. I found the point of the island that was closest to the shore and pulled octoboar from my bag.

I weighed the statue in my hand, trying to get a feel for how hard I could throw it. I'd never been much of a sports man at school, but I reckoned I could heft it across the gap with a run up. Luckily there was a fence that would keep me from doing a Wile E. Coyote into the pond at the end of my charge.

The first try was a false start, because I saw someone walking round the lake toward me. When they'd left I had another go. Octoboar left my hand and described a fine parabola out across the water. I'm sure at the apex the tentacles were flailing a bit. It glanced off a tree and landed somewhere on the island.

The idol must have landed near to a nest or disturbed the geese in some other way, because there was a horrible commotion for a minute and birds started pouring out of the trees onto the lake. It settled down, but they didn't seem interested in returning to the island.

At least I was rid of the octoboar idol. That, and the dreamcatcher, would hopefully stop me having such bad dreams. I considered taking twig thing back to where I'd found it, but I've become strangely attached to it.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird

Global Weirding - part three

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Three

The phone rang at 3am. I wanted to ignore it, but for some reason the answering machine didn't kick in. I wrapped the duvet around myself and shuffled through to the living room. "Hello?"

"Who's there?"

"Who's calling."

"This is Steven Wilson."

"I'm Steven Wilson."

"You are? So am I? Are we related?"

"I was named after my grandfather."

"Little Steven? Is that you?"

"Granddad?"

"I wanted to tell you something. Now, what was it?"

"Granddad, you've been dead for fifteen years."

"I have? That would explain why it's so dark. I thought the bulb had broken. Now what was it I had to tell you?"

"This has to be a dream. I'm talking to a ghost."

"Respect your elders young man. I have something important to tell you."

There was silence as the ghost tried to remember the message it needed to pass on. "It will come back to me, mark my words."

"Yes granddad, I'm sure it will. Is it a matter of life and death?"

"It could be. It could be. Tell me, my boy, how have you grown up? Are you married yet? Do I have great-grandchildren?"

"No and no, I'm afraid."

"Oh dear. That's such a disappointment to me. I was looking forward to great grandchildren. What about your sister?"

"No, she hasn't had any children either."

"Come now, it's up to you to carry the family line on and......"

"And?"

"Mice."

"What?"

"Listen to the mice. They have information for you. They don't really like cheese, you know, give them chocolate."

"Yes. Okay, is there anything else you need to tell me granddad? Can you predict the future?" There was no answer. The phone line was dead.

I woke on the sofa. Somehow the branch creature had found its way to the top of the television. I swear it was staring at me.



I decided to find out what the mice had to say. The ironmongers down the street sells humane mouse traps, so I bought one and stocked it with dark chocolate. I didn't know where the rodents were most likely to congregate, so I just left it on the floor in the middle of the living room.



There are thirty three messiahs, of various religions and denominations, at large in the world. I can't help thinking that something's going to happen when chosen ones reach forty two.

Some of the messiahs have documented miracles to their names. Of course, most of these were documented by their followers and are therefore dubious. Which is a shame in the case of the guy who can turn pils into proper beer.

Can you self proclaim as a messiah? Or does your holiness have to be verified by someone else? Is there a form you've got to fill in?

I guess it has potential as a way to make money and get laid. So long as you don't go all David Koresh and start to believe your own press.

All of these thoughts came to me after I found the messiah numbers whilst surfing at work. I also started pondering just how you go about finding a messiah for your sect. The obvious decision would be to name yourself world leader pretend, but perhaps OfGod, or whoever oversees these things might call foul on that. What do you do, put out some small ads saying your looking for someone who can bend spoons and reality? 'Well meaning spiritual group, not planning to poison our followers, seeks man with astounding beard or world view to lead us into the new millennium (which, by our calendar, hasn't actually started yet).'

I may have to look into this further.



The scary world of Islamic hate sites was brought down earlier today. it seems that, as a creation of the infidel West, the Internet is an unacceptable vessel to put the supposed words of Mohammed into. Thousands of websites went blank as writings and images purged themselves from servers across the world. Say what you like about the Christian fundamentalists, at least they embrace Satan's technology.

I'm not sure if this development makes the world a safer place, but it cheers me up no end.



There was a mouse in the trap when I got home from work. It was curled up against the back wall, looking to all intents and purposes like the cool kid with arms and legs crossed saying 'Yeah, what you got?'. I picked up the trap and stared in. There were faint brown lines on the side wall, I had to hold it up to the light to make out what they said "'Stop anthropomorphising us you bastard.' “That's it? That's your message to me? You'd have been better off taking it to the Disney corporation or someone."

Jerry just stared at me, those little black eyes scarily deep, then it uncurled and scampered over to the message. It licked the wall, removing most of the letters until only 'Stop this bastard' remained. "Thank you so very much. Would you like something to eat?" it gave me a look I swear I've seen on those rare occasions I've tried a chat up line.

I set the trap down on the table and went to get more chocolate. When I'd broken it down into manageable chunks I put it on a saucer, laid this in front of the trap and opened the door. Jerry sauntered out, I can't think of a better way to describe it, and sized up the offered chocolate. After nibbling one down to size it took the offering in its mouth, ran to the edge of the table, did a kamikaze leap to the carpet and bounded across the floor to a hole in the skirting board I'd never noticed before.

So much for granddad's advice. I guess being dead has made him go a little senile.
Somehow the stick thingy had got to the bookshelf. It hadn't gone any further because The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, one of the heaviest books I own, had fallen on it from the top shelf. The bark on its trunk had been squashed by the impact and now it looked surprised, annoyed and in great pain.



The phone rang at 3am again. "Hello."

"The mice did not tell you anything did they Steven?"

"Not unless 'stop this bastard' means anything, no."

"Enigmatic little buggers aren't they?"

"I'd use far stronger words."

"Yes. Well, you're young. That sort of language comes easier to the young."

"Granddad, you're going to have to stop calling me. You're dead. It's just not the sort of thing dead people do."

"You don't have the time for your old Grandda?"

"I'd have a lot of time for you, if you were alive. But this, this is just a dream. The sort of dream that messes with my sleep patterns and leaves me dog tired for the whole day."

"I'm a dream, am I?"

"Why else would you call me at this god forsaken hour of the morning? Why not call me at eight in the evening?"

"I guess I could do that. But you do realise I've only got a little bit of time before the car hits me."

"The car?"

"Yes, bloody great big German thing. Mercedes, that's the type. It's all black and the windows are tinted and it's going far too fast for a residential street."

"Can't you get out of the way?"

"I'm trying, boy, believe me. But everything is moving so slowly. I would say it's like running through treacle, except it's worse."

"Okay. well you keep trying to get out of the way and call me again at some civilised time and we can have a conversation where I'm coherent, okay?"

"Alright my boy, if you insist."

At least this time I managed to get back into bed at the end of my dreamt phone call.



I've always followed the news of the weird on teh Internets. That's part of what having web access at work is about. But I swear there's more of it every day, and more from mainstream sources as well. I can understand when the Mirror tells me about Elvis's face being seen in an Eccles cake, but I get worried when it makes the front page of the Times. There was even a full page spread on the history of faces in food. I'm thinking of framing it and hanging it in the kitchen.

When I got back from work the mice had left me a present. And it was not, as in some previous houses, in the form of droppings on a work surface. On the table, by the decommissioned humane trap, was a tiny dreamcatcher. I don't know where they got the feathers or the string, but I checked and the branches had definitely come off the twig thing. By now it was beginning to look a bit pissed off.

I hung the dreamcatcher in the window, tidied the twig thing up and superglued octoboar's tentacle back on and arranged them under it.



I emailed Mum to ask about granddad's death. I remember it was when I was fifteen or sixteen and everyone said how sudden and unexpected it was. I don't recall anyone ever telling me why it was unexpected, or if they did I've forgotten. It was the first funeral I ever attended and I was certainly mature enough to handle talk of the cause of death. I just think no-one else believed that.

Granddad called, as promised, at eight o'clock. "Hello my boy. How are you today?"
"Well, now i know this isn't a dream. I think that makes it worse."

"You do moan a bit, don't you. The car has come another inch or two closer you know."

"Do you know why this is happening? Why has time slowed down for you? Why do you keep calling and giving me cryptic messages about mice?"

"One question at a time boy. Don't be so impatient."

There was silence on the line. What do you say to an annoyed ghost?

"Actually, I don't know why any of this is happening. Do you know how they say that your life flashes before you before you die? Perhaps this is like that."

"So where are your messages coming from?"

"I do not know. They just sort of occur to me. As if they are so obvious I have always known them. And I know that I have to tell you about them."

"The mice gave me a dreamcatcher."

"What on earth is a dreamcatcher?"

"It's an indian, er native american, thing. I haven't googled what it's supposed to do yet."

"Googled?"

"Looked up."

"You speak a different language."

"And it's happy hour again."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. I just keep getting the urge to quote lyrics. I can do a search to find out what a dreamcatcher will do, but I haven't got around to it yet. Hold on a moment." I wiki'd Dreamcatcher. "Ah, there we go. It is used to protect me from nightmares. It should catch the good dreams and store them whilst letting the bad ones dissipate."

"Sounds like a load of codswallop to me."

"Yes, it does. But I'm having a whole shoal of codswallop happen to me at the moment."

"Such as what?"

"Well, for one thing, I'm having a conversation on the phone with a dead man."

"I'm not dead yet. It's all about your frame of reference."

"In my frame of reference you've been dead since I was fifteen. In yours you're just waiting for the car to hit you."

"That is true."

"So. Do you have an insight for me today?"

"No. I don't. I just wanted to call you when you suggested. To show that I wasn't a dream."

"Oh. Okay. That's good. But I shouldn't keep you. I think. How does time pass for you?"

"I'm not sure. I just keep sort of waking up, with an insight and a need to talk to you. I think this telephone conversation thing is a metaphor. I can't move, really, so I'm not really holding a telephone up to my ear. But I think I am, and I'm sure I'm talking to you with it, even though I also know that I'm really not. Does that make sense."

"Sort of." I was talking to a ghost. There really was no call or reason for it to make sense.

"Well. I guess I should go. I may just be hanging around in limbo, but I know that you really are in the fourth dimension. No doubt you have things to do, stuff to be getting on with."

"Well, yes. I guess so. You'll call me again?"

"I shall try to make it a more convenient time for you next time."

"Thanks."

"Goodbye Steven."

"Goodbye Granddad."



You know the weirdest thing about all this? The thing that most worries me and freaks me out? It's not that all these bizarre things are going on, that I have miniature idols and animated sticks in my living room, or that I'm talking to my dead grandfather and getting gifts from mice. The weirdest thing is that it all seems so natural. It's obvious that this stuff shouldn't be happening, none of it is possible. Yet it is and I'm not in the slightest bit flustered about it.

Am I going insane? Is that it? They do say that it's a sure sign that you are sane if you begin to wonder whether you are. A truly insane person wouldn't stop to consider the status of their thought processes. And this is the first time I've wondered about my mental health since this started happening to me.

Does that mean I've been through my madness and I'm coming out the other side? Or is it just a respite?

I was pondering this late into the night. Even without a call from my grandfather I still can't get any sleep. In the end I got up and wandered around the flat. The dreamcatcher was where I'd left it, and the idol and stick thing were still real, if inanimate. So I had some physical evidence to back up my delusions. Perhaps I fused something on that first drinking session and I've been hallucinating ever since.

The dreamcatcher belonged above my bed if it was going to do its job. As I reached up to unhook it there was a cry from the window sill. "Great seasons! Would you put that away!"

"What?" The twig thing had folded its branches over the front of its trunk to hide its face.

"You're stamen laddie. Don't you go waving your reproductives at me. Do you fauna always have to be so damned blatant about it?"

This was the first time twiggy had spoken since the night I'd found it (I try hard to think of it as genderless) and this time I wasn't drunk.

"I'm sorry. Does my nudity offend you?"

"Too feckin' right it does. Put 'em away fer hawthorn's sake. Ye wouldn't catch a self respecting plant displaying its sexuals so blatantly."

"Really?" I had the dreamcatcher now and could stand back to give Twiggy my full attention, "Then what would you say flowers are all about?"
"Well that's.... I mean..... Will you just but the bloody thing away? It's obscene, okay."

"Hey, I'm sorry, but I sleep in the nude. You'll just have to accept it." I patted it on top of its twiggy afro and took the dreamcatcher back to the bedroom.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird

Global Weirding - part two

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part Two

My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk.

Worse. I'm a data analyst for a utility company. I'm the man who decides it's time we sent a salesman round to your area to pester you into changing suppliers.
Don't hate me. I need the money.

I can geek out about it really hard, and I think I can tell you which postal sector I'm in at any given moment. I've started mining the data for myself, seeing if I can spot any trends. Not ones that have anything to do with selling you electricity or gas, just, well, trends.

Customers are allowed, encouraged even, to write in and change the details as held on the system, to keep it up to date. There's been a trend toward slightly odd titles. Somewhere on the Altrincham border there are ever more Brothers (br.). Brothers of what, they don't say, and I can't find any mention of a monastery anywhere in the area. I know I'm not supposed to, but I've got the postcodes tagged on a Google map overlay, and every time a new brother appears on the system I check to see how they relate to the others geographically. There are twenty now, and they form a ragged circle around a small patch of woodland. I'm off there when the hangover eases.



The sign said 'Beware of the God'. It wasn't a mis-spelling. There was nothing that said the wood was private property, only this one threat of theist violence, so I went in. A short way into the trees the path became so rough with roots that I got off the bike and walked it along.

It may have been in the physical centre of all the trees, I couldn't tell, but the clearing was obviously the heart of the wood. At its centre was a strange structure. I'd seen these flat topped pyramids before, marking the tops of closed off mine shafts and the like, but none had ever looked so old. It had the dark stain of ages on it, and moss and vines climbed up it. As I got closer it became obvious that someone had chiselled details into it, individual stone blocks and grand steps leading up it. It looked more and more like a Mayan ziggurat, or the sort of thing Conan would plunder. As it was under three feet tall, Conan would have to be a toy soldier to get in and fight the serpent at its heart.

There was structure on the top, a pagoda of sorts, with an altar on the roof. Grimly, there was a dead mouse atop the altar, its innards splayed out as if it had been butchered with a modelling knife. All the blood had washed away in the most recent rain, but I could see the channels it was supposed to drain down. They led to holes at either end of the altar, which would drip through the ceiling of the pagoda onto its occupant.

Under the blood holes there was a small statue. Ensanguined as it was, the details of its carving were hard to make out, but it looked like an octopus swallowing a pig, with hands on the ends of some of its tentacles. I reached in, trying to ignore the stickiness that rubbed off on my hands, and grasped the statue. It was slippery, but when I finally got a good grip it moved. I slid it out of the pagoda. It took a few goes because I had to turn it around and over until it fit between the tiny pillars. I put it in a plastic bag, wrapped it up tight and stored it in my back pack. Sadly I didn't take my camera, because the whole set up deserved recording. For some reason I didn't think it would be there if I returned.

I must have disturbed something getting the idol out because as I walked away there was a cracking sound and when I looked around the pagoda had collapsed and the roof was sliding down the steps. If it hadn't been for the dead mouse I'd have felt guilty about my theft and vandalism of someone's handiwork. I wiped my hands clean on a handful of grass and headed home.



I got a bit Lady Macbeth at home. My right hand was itching where it had got ichor all over it. I washed it three times, using a different soap each time, then smeared a bit of E45 over it to see what that did. If I stopped thinking about it it became less irritating.

Then the whole process began again because I had to wash the idol. I put it in the sink, squirted washing up liquid (Ecover of course) over it and then covered it in warm water. An hour later the water in the sink was a scary inky red. I drained it and checked the idol. It wasn't perfectly clean, there were still grim little crevices that germs would love, but I could see more of the detail.

It had a wild boar's head protruding from the part of an octopuses body that I'd charitably call the forehead. Six of the octopuses tentacles kept the beast upright, whilst two reached out and had hands on the ends. I don't know what it was cast from, but the surface was soft and smooth and slightly pliable. It made me shiver to run a finger across it, and not in a good way. I decided to sacrifice a scrubbing brush to clean out the crevices and attacked the idol with yet more Ecover.

When I was done the idol glistened in sickly shades of green, yellow and brown. I dried it and took it to sit beside the twig with a face on the window sill. But the twig wasn't there. I found a suitable place for the idol and looked around. The twig was sat on the sofa, beside the remote control. I couldn't remember when I'd put it there, or leaving the television on standby when I went out. In fact, I couldn't remember turning the television on at all. I took the stick fellow back to his place on the window sill.



There's a community, somewhere in the hinterlands of the United States, where the women have started giving birth to chimps. Or something very close.

It seems some of the community decided to home school their children rather than have them subjected to the horror of being taught such perversions as science, particularly evolution. If their children could just hear the word of the Lord then they would grow up to understand the Truth.

It might be that in-breeding is inherent in that sort of community, or it might be that evolution abandoned them the after they abandoned it, but they've been giving birth to throwbacks ever since. I shouldn't laugh, it must be horrible for them. Though I guess they'll just accept that they have in some way sinned and pray for forgiveness whilst trying to coax their little ones down from the light fittings.



The octo-boar invaded my dreams last night. I was back in the wood, only this time I was a toy soldier sized Conan climbing the steps of the ziggurat. I hacked away at branches that blocked my way and clambered over lumps of moss.

When I reached the top of the stairs I found the interior of the pagoda enveloped in a pink mist. Shapes moved inside that I did not want to think about. There was a chanting, but it was coming from the pagoda roof. Ladders led up there and I went silently up the nearest one.

Atop the pagoda, arrayed around the altar, were six priests. Dressed in flowing robes with head dresses decorated in gold and precious stones they were chanting whilst staring at a seventh, far older man. He held a long knife in both hands, its blade curving like the snake etched into its surface. It was raised ready to strike the victim tied to the altar.

She was a Frazzeta perfect fantasy maiden, her skin the colour of lovingly applied oils, her body voluptuous and perfectly defined. She looked vaguely familiar, I think my subconscious was pasting the face of someone I knew onto the body. She stared at the blade and struggled against her bonds.

My muscles tautened and I leapt over the ledge like a tiger. My blade was out, it whirred through the air, separating the two nearest priests from their heads. I pushed between the falling bodies, leapt the altar and ran the old man through. Minna be damned, but his body wedged on the hilt and the sword would not pull out of his limp body. The remaining priests were coming out of their trance. I hadn't noticed before, but they each had a long sword at their side and now they drew the weapons.

I hefted my sword with the old man on it. He was not so heavy, but his bulk hindered my movements and I could not swing or thrust the sword because of it. There was a clatter behind me, the old man's sacrificial blade. With a roar I threw him and my sword at the nearest priest, pushing him over the edge of the roof. I grabbed the blade from the ground and brought it up just in time to block the first blow from the next priest.

The priests' swords had a longer reach than my sacrificial blade, but the old men were not as fast or strong as I. I dodged a second blow and swung the blade around back handed to drive it under his ribs and up to his heart. As he slumped I took up his sword. It was smaller and lighter than the blade I had brought with me, but the edge was sharp and the balance good. I left the sacrificial blade in the priest and turned now to the last two.

They charged together, swords above their heads, one slightly behind and to the side of the other. I whirled, matching their screams, parrying the first and bringing the sword around to sever the other's elbows. He staggered on, a confused expression across his face as his companion tried to stop and turn. I was around faster, driving my blade between his shoulder blades.

I pulled the blade from the priest's back and wiped blood off it on his robes. The armless one was screaming obscenities at me in a language I did not understand, his life squirting in rhythm out of his severed arms. I gave him a sharp shove and he flew off the pagoda roof and fell to the forest floor below. It was a mercy rather than dying by heartbeats.

The unwilling sacrifice was straining against her bonds, only now I believe she wanted free for a different reason. I cut the bonds that held her and she wrapped her lissom limbs around my blood and sweat soaked body. We would have kissed and she would have offered her body to me, but the structure began to shake.

I took up the sword again and looked around. Tentacles were rising from the interior of the pagoda and reaching over the ledge, searching for us. The creature below had received plenty of blood, but the life liquid of the priests was not good enough for it. It required its luscious offering and it required it immediately. I could not allow that. I hacked a tentacle, severing it with two blows, took up the wench and ran for the edge nearest the steps.

We leapt between two flailing tentacles, sailed a long way out over the stairs and finally landed safely in a tangle of moss and branches. I led the way to the path I had cut on the way up.

There was a crash from above. The pagoda had collapsed. Tentacles still waved around its edges and it began to move. Now we ran down the steps, jumping down several at a time. A grinding noise indicated the creature had pushed the roof aside. It did not stop. I chanced a look behind and saw the great stone roof sliding down the steps toward us.

We were near the bottom of the structure now, but the stone was gaining on us. I grabbed the girl's hand and pulled her to the side, leaping over the edge of the ziggurat away from the danger of being crushed. Soft foliage cushioned our fall.

There was rumbling behind us. The creature was at the top of the steps, tentacles flailing, dragging itself toward us. I was too battered to put up much of a fight when it reached us, so we should move if we could. I tried to rouse the girl, but it wasn't working.

There was a scream from the ziggurat, the sound of stones sliding over each other as the structure began to collapse in on itself. The creature disappeared into the cloud of dust that replaced the building.

And then there was silence. The dust slowly settled. The girl came round. "Are we safe?" she asked.

"Aye, we are. That beast has returned to whichever hell birthed it."

"I owe you my life, kind sir." She smiled seductively.

"Tell me girl, what is your name?"

"Jan, kind sir. How can I reward you?" She was wearing nothing, I remembered, and I had but a loin cloth to slip out of.

"I shall think of a way." We moved together to kiss, her hands went to my loin cloth.

And then I woke up.



I hate it when the dream ends at the good bit. I woke with a raging hard on but too apathetic to do anything about it. Rolling over onto my stomach trapped it, and thinking about soap operas made it go away.

Of course, I couldn't get back to sleep after that, so I just lay there and listened to the sounds of the building. I'm pretty sure there are mice in the walls, I can sometimes hear scampering and scraping. Tonight they seemed more active than normal, like the Jerry collective had decreed that they should congregate above my bed and have a rave. I buried my head in the sheets and tried to think of something soothing to lull me to sleep.

In the morning I found the idol on the floor. It had lost an arm when it fell off the windowsill, and I was sure the shape had changed. I tracked the arm down and left both pieces on the table for future supergluing.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird

Global Weirding - part one

This is my contribution to Pixel Stained Technopeasant Wretch day. I'm going to spread it over a few sections because it is over 20,000 words long. There'll be a version available through Lulu as soon as possible, and a donate button at the bottom of each section if you like it and would like to support my work.

This was written for National Novel Writing Month. I didn't finish the 50,000 words called for, but this stands up well as a novella and part one of a longer story.

Global Weirding - Part One

I shouldn't go out drinking with students any more. It's not the blank bits of memory, or the drinking bruises. It's not even the day long hangovers. It's the hallucinations and the things I bring back with me.

Alison or Kate or Jane (I think her name was) would have been good to bring home. But it never works out that way, and I ended up with a scally ent propped up in a corner of the living room. Except now I'm sober it looks more like a few branches and a load of mud. This is what happens when you mix your lagers. I wouldn't normally touch pilsner, but after a certain point in the evening the sort of place that sells real beer in a condition fit to drink have all closed.

I had been on the way home after a long day with a promise that I could take an early weekend. So when I bumped into Charlie and his entourage of barely legal lovelies I had no problem tagging along. Charlie's doing a Phd in something or other and has sweet talked himself a place as a Hall tutor. This gets him free accommodation and early access to a lot of fresh meat. He's not quite unprofessional enough to abuse his position of responsibility, but he has no problem playing pimp for the likes of me.

"Ladies. This is Steven. He's not a dirty old man. Well, he's not dirty anyway. Steve, come and join us. What are you doing out on a school night?"

"Drinking, of course."

"Sounds good. Mine's a Guinness."

Even my paltry Data Analyst wages are more than the funding Charlie's got, so I figured a pint was small change for the chance to hang out with nubile and impressionable women. Alison was short and blonde and voluptuous. Kate was taller, also blonde, with smaller everything. Jane (or Janet, I may have to find out) was my height, slim and brunette. I wouldn't kick any of them out of bed, but it's the one who's name I can't remember I wanted most. Obviously nothing was going to come of it.

In the second pub I remembered to take off my tie. In the third I remembered that my job really isn't very interesting and started telling everyone that I was a Feng Shui consultant for municipal parks. It's vitally important that the chi flows properly in and out of the gates with visitors and around the paths in a clockwise direction. And of course there are loads of water features and the like. It can be hell getting them all aligned correctly.

By closing time I could have pitched my services to the council, I'd honed the spiel so well. The girls, however, did not own any park land or know anyone who did. They decided to go on to a club, Charlie and I went off for more beers.

More beers became more and more beers. There's a blank spot in my memory where we changed pubs and I walked into something that's left a nasty bruise across my shin. I remember the last beer, more or less, and wandering off at two in the morning thinking it wasn't that far home, no point trying to catch a bus or get a taxi. There's a path laid out on one of the old stretches of railway line and it's an ideal short cut so I wound my way down to that.

It's about the darkest you're going to get in the middle of the city. The trees on the embankments block out street lights and noise. It would be an easy place to get mugged I guess, but the thought didn't occur to me at the time. I zigged and zagged my way along the tarmac ribbon, and occasionally up into the tree line when directional control completely abandoned me, until my bladder started to complain. I could have held it in, maybe, but why should I when there were trees in need of watering.

I found a likely looking bush and steered toward it, an elegant parabola where a sober straight line would have done. I unzipped and aimed straight at the heart of the shrub. "Ah, that's better."

"No it fucken isn. What you doin pissin on me, eh?"

I have no immediate fear of becoming incontinent. The stream of piss was cut off the instant I heard a voice. I stepped back, looking for the tramp I was soaking. There was nothing there, though. No suddenly moving lump on the ground or rising figure, just the skeleton of the bush I'd been drenching. "Sorry."

The hose got shaken a few times before being put away, I wasn't so drunk that I wasn't going to try and get the last drop out. Looking for a human figure to explain the noise, it took me a while to notice the branches moving. Climbing out of the heart of the bush was, for lack of a better description, a stick figure. It was only vaguely human until I realised it had four legs (roots?) and three arms (branches?). It pushed its way out of the shrub, dropped to the ground and shook itself. "Fuck. I know that stuffs good for plants and shit, but it's just wrong to go and piss on a feller when he's getting' it on with his cousin."

"Cousin?"

"That there's a Grey Willow. Me an the willows is like third cousins two or three times removed. I was just trying to cross pollinate."

"Isn't it the wrong time to pollinate? Isn't that a Spring thing?"

"Oh hark at the human. He pisses on me and suddenly he's the master gardener. We tree spirits is horny all the fucken time. Part of being imbued with human characteristics and the like. So it's all your fault. But ain't everything."

"I'm trying to pin down your accent."

"Don't have no accent me, like. I get around."

The branches on top of the twig thing formed a green afro. I leaned forward and grabbed it, bringing it up to head height. Lo and behold, the bark on the trunk did make up a passable face. It scowled at me. "Put me down, ye bastard."

"You're cute. I think I'm going to take you home and put you on my windowsill."

"Ye'll regret it."

"I know that already. I'm so drunk I'm having a conversation with a stick. It's a good job no-one can see me."

"Put me down ye flea! I'm older'n your granddad! Yeh can't treat me this way!"

"Careful with that mouth, you don't want me to take cuttings do you?" It shut up at that. I carried it home and put it on the windowsill of the living room, as promised.

It's still there, but now I'm sober it's nowhere near as animate. I'd throw it out but, well, the bark on the trunk does look like a face, if you squint a bit.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Fantasy, Weird

A Sort of Homecoming

Home (Page) at last

Home again, home again. Or not.
I've moved into my new house, which is nice. And empty. And I've finally got internet access, albeit dial-up, back so the world is no longer safe from my inane wittering and sarcastic opinions.
Oh, and I managed to turn commenting on. Say something.
Please.
Posted by Jim at 9:16:48pm

Something.
Comment by Steve at 10:02:28pm
You so funny.
Comment by Jim at 11:32:22pm

- - - - -

Unfurnished. I hadn't really thought about just how empty the house would be. Right now the only furniture I possess is the TV stand and bean bag in the living room and the computer desk and chair upstairs. It's all very minimalist. IKEA- the Swedish god of flat pack- calls to me.

I've heard that sleeping on a hard surface can be good for the back. I hope it's true, because the only thing between me and the floor is the spare duvet. With it as a ground sheet I feel like there should be a tent above me. My two suitcases are on one side of the bed, storage with handles, and all the boxes I packed my life into are clustered by the door or trailing off to the other rooms. Maybe I could build a fort, barricade the door and feel safe from all those unfamiliar creaking and popping noises the house makes as it recuperates before the 'morrow.

- - - - -

Lost and Found

Lost-
toothbrush, toothpaste etc.
Found-
Carter USM- 101 Damnations cd, which I thought I'd lost but turned out to be in a CD-R case amongst a pile of Verbatim disks I 'requisitioned' from my last job.
No. I can't sleep.
Posted by Jim at 2:19:32am

- - - - -

Ah, the joy of the lie in. I haven't found the radio alarm yet, so this morning I was woken by the shrill sound of my mobile. I turned it off, rolled over and went back to sleep. Finally rose at eleven. I was half showered before I wondered where I'd packed the towels. So now there's a trail of wet footprints all around the house.

I have a month's pay due. Extra time to find a new job, one benefit of the 'agreement' I came to when they sacked me. So I spent the afternoon printing out CVs and figuring out where to send them. I should just relax and take the money for a couple of weeks. All in all a very, as in not at all, productive day.

- - - - -

Cabin Fever

Okay, so I didn't leave the house at all today. Which is sad, I know. So tomorrow, honest, I'm checking out the neighbourhood. I've been away for a while, so who knows what I'll find.
Posted by Jim at 11:36:41pm

They tore down paradise, put up a parking lot.
Comment by Steve at 12:08:03am
I'm going to be in town tomorrow (this) afternoon. Give me a call.
Comment by steve at 12:47:16am

- - - - -

New buildings going up, old buildings coming down. I was like a tourist on the bus, sat on the top deck looking left and right all the time to see what had happened to all the places I remembered. After a while I took to running 'Dirty Old Town' through my head, not quite humming it but doing the rhythm by clicking my teeth together. It must have looked like I was worrying at a particularly small piece of chewing gum, the funny little tack tack movements my jaw was making.

It was certainly grey enough for a melancholy song. The big ugly concrete wall is still standing at Piccadilly Gardens. The least they could do is commission some art for it. I can't believe they turn the fountains on on such an overcast day.

I'd decided on any coffee shop that wasn't Starbucks, which narrowed it down to about three. Even then I could see an outlet of the coffee colonialists from my window seat. I settled down with a copy of the Guardian and a fairtrade latte and savoured being early.

Steve wandered in quarter of an hour later. He nodded in my direction and pointed at my cup. "Latte." I mouthed. He nodded again and headed for the baristas.

I made space for the tray. My empty mug went on the table behind, the Guardian curled up faithfully at my feet. Steve landed the tray and tried to move his cup onto the space that was left. "You don't call, you don't write....." he tutted as he sat down.

"Well, you know. It was only going to be two months. And then I hadn't been in touch for two months and then....." I made the shrug that said 'And then everything went to shit and they decided to blame me for it.' Everyone foolish enough to ask had received an e-mail ranting about the stupidity of middle, upper and line management and didn't need a recap. "You using up holiday again?"

"One day I'll be organised and plan a proper one. They only let me carry five days over."

"Brazil. You want to go to Brazil." That's a lie, I want to go to Brazil. I must stop projecting.

"I'd settle for Bournemouth.

"Actually, no. I wouldn't."

We sipped coffees and watched the wet shoppers go by.

"You should have sent me a message. I could have helped you move."

"Everything I own fit in the back of a small van with room to spare. It wasn't a big job." This struck me. There was something wrong about it. "I'm sure I used to own more. I mean, I can remember when I could get everything I owned into the back of an Escort. Last time I moved I swear I needed a tranny van.

"I must have left so much shit at my parents' house."

"You don't know?"

"I guess I got too wrapped up in all that corporate bullshit. I...." Another shrug. I'm getting better at stopping myself. Plus, I'd had another realisation. "Oh shit. I left all my porn with my parents."

"What?"

"Well. It wasn't porn porn, you know. More sort of...... erotica."

"Erotica?"

"Erotica. Stuff like books on oriental erotic carvings. And stuff." Vague hand waving gestures that could mean anything.

"Can we stop talking about your porn?"

"Yeah. Sure." Back to drinking our coffees and looking out of the window.

"What's the gossip?"

"What do you know?"

"I don't know."

"Well." Steve began ticking things off on his fingers. "Mike and Rachel are engaged."

"Again?"

"Again?"

"They were engaged for the Millennium. At least, I think they were."

Steve shrugged. A 'nobody ever tells me anything' shrug. "Tom and Graeme have split up."

"No surprise there."

"Neil has a new girlfriend. I swear she's only ten."

"He's breaking the album rule?"

"I think she was born after he bought his last album, let alone his first."

"Vinyl?"

"Oh definitely his last album on vinyl. She's much younger than that.

"What else? Oh yes. Bob and Louise have split up as well."

"Shit. Now that is a surprise."

"Not to some of us."

I figured I'd leave that one alone. "Anyway, I was thinking of going record shopping."

"That sounds like a plan."

- - - - -

3(?) feet tall and rising

Damn those record sales! I just bought five new CDs.
It's true- I can resist anything but temptation.
Posted by Jim at 6:38:27pm

- - - - -

Notes This is from the original incarnation of Post & Publish, written a while ago. As with Boyfriend Season, it's going to be expanded upon. I'm seeing the story coming together as four "seasons", starting in Spring, with Jim's emotional progress mirroring them in some way. The Album Rule (a phrase first coined by Brian, and which I asked permission to use ages ago) is going to be yanked out of the Spring section and form a major part of the Summer part. Autumn is Boyfriend Season and Winter allows me to wrap stuff up. I'll be publishing bits and pieces here then putting together a full manuscript. If you'd like to be in my test group for that manuscript get in touch.

Other fiction- check out So Much to Answer For, the crime tale I wrote last October, Heavensent, the propeller-punk sci-fi war novel I wrapped up last year, or download Another Education/Ruby Red or Ten Years Asleep.

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Comedy, Manchester

Boyfriend Season

"Autumn is boyfriend season. With the nights drawing in and the weather getting worse it's the right time to have a man to keep you warm and stuff."

I was with Lauren and Vanessa, a few pints into the night somewhere in Didsbury, when Lauren had dropped this concept into the conversation.

"And in Spring you can dump them because there's so much else to do." Vanessa added.

I think I did a guppy impersonation for a while. It was only later that I thought that men are at their horniest in Spring. It's all sunny and the serotonin levels are rising again. I'd probably have been told that that's just the way it goes.

Tis the season to be hunted
Important message for the Brotherhood of Single Men!
It's Boyfriend Season.
They're after you, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Or let yourself get caught. Whatever.
Posted by Jim at 00:52:34am

I really ought to have asked what a boy does to attract attention during the season. Preferably early on. It could be useful information.

I'm not looking for a relationship, but, then again, I'm not not looking. You know how it is. And the sort of relationship I'm not looking for is a long term one. I don't think I'm wired for one night stands, flings or seasonal affairs.

Unless the right woman suggests it.

So I'm meeting new people, trying to give a good impression to as many women as possible and having conversations about dating to suit the weather. There's a whole world apart from the geeks I know and love and it's quite interesting.

Just so long as they don't ask me to do tech support.


Sue kills mice for a living.

Not, you know, herself, physically. She does have little hands, probably small enough to wring a rodent's neck if the need arose. There'll be a fetish site for that sort of thing.

No. Sue formulates the poison that goes into those mouse hotels, or whatever they're called, the black or brown plastic boxes with little circular doors you see on the exterior walls of cinemas and the like. Her aim is, perversely, to make the tablets less toxic. If she can kill the mouse quickly and have the poison break down there's less chance of it getting into the food chain.

God help me, but I found this fascinating. So much so that I sought her out after the speed dating session and we talked some more. It helped that she's cute. Short, slim, very dark hair, pale. Perhaps a little too pale, she does look like someone who spends her days around poisons. In a room full of topped up tans, Rimmell and hair gel her unpainted pretty face drew me.

I didn't ask for her number. I don't know what the etiquette is about that, and she didn't ask me. I ticked her name on the list, however, and hopefully she did the same for me.


The boyfriend season thing's becoming a meme. I've had a couple of comments and a few people have mentioned it in emails. I'm waiting to see how long it takes for someone to tell me it as if they think I don't already know about it.

In the meantime, the local chapter of the Brotherhood of Single Men is trying to imagine what sorts of lures we could be using.

"Shouldn't the hunters be the ones using the lures? We are the prey, after all." Steve observed.

"Ah, they have their feminine wiles to use as lures." I can't believe I said that. This is what happens when you drink strange spirits people bring back from holiday.

"T-shirts with big targets on them." Bert suggested, "Or that say 'This space available to rent' and point at the crotch."

"Mount me." I offered.

"What?"
"T-shirts that say 'Mount me'."

"Oh. Right."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a duck call kind of thing."

"What would it sound like?"

"Wa-Hey!" Bert offered.

"Nah."

"Get yer tits oot for the lads." Me.

"Not going to work."

"I have chocolate." Bert again.

"That.... Now that might work."


I really, really hate Neil.

Oh, okay, that's a lie. I love him to bits, in a totally heterosexual way. But he's getting laid, so I'm very jealous.

She's a Phd student, "Companion Animal Learned Behaviour."

"What?"

"Pet psychology."

"You're joking right? They do postgrads in pet psychology? How?"

"Have you ever tried to out-think a cat?"

"Fair point. So what are you doing in the pub with your sad single friend when you've got a hot doggy shrink to go home to?"

"She's got some sort of open session on. 'Bring in your gerbil and we'll deal with its Oedipal problems.' That sort of thing. It won't be done for a while."

"I was hoping it was because you still loved me."

"Nah, sorry. You're last moth's thing. I'm just slumming with you 'cause she lives across the road. Bar billiards?"

Two games, and another pint, later, his phone rang. "Hey honey." he glanced out of the window at the flats across the road. "Really? How come? Oh, well, that's cool. Just take all your clothes off and I'll be right over. Bye bye."

My shot had gone so horribly wrong that I'd knocked over all three pins. Mental images.

"I've got to go. Finish this if you want." Neil waggled his half drunk pint.

"She isn't going to be waiting there naked you know."

"She might be. And would you pass up the chance?"

"No, I guess not. No doggy style, though. Might remind her of work."


Maybe Neil's girlfriend can introduce me to a few of her friends.

Or maybe not. The last time we went to a student party Steve and I got drunk and started reminiscing about the early nineties.

There are only so many times you can hear, "I was only four!" before you start to feel old.


Larger offices tend to have a demarcation along employment status lines. The perms look down on us temps because we don't have their security. We look down on them because that security so often leads to lack of imagination and risk avoidance. Morlocks and Eloi, where it's always the other bunch who are the knuckle dragging devolveds.

Karen was another of the temps at work. We'd developed a nil carborundum kind of camaraderie against the management stupidity. It was her last day on Friday, so we went for a few drinks.

She's quite buff, goes to the gym twice a week, to maintain the flat stomach and muscle definition. I refused the offer of an arm wrestle. Cycling does wonders for the definition of my arse and legs, but my top half is flabby and weak.

One by one our band of Eloi disappeared, off home to S.O.s and cats. In the end it was just Karen and me. Somehow we'd made it to the Kro on Oxford Road opposite the University. It was that flux period, between the after work drinkers going home and the party animals getting dressed and heading out.

Karen cycles as well. I shouldn't have been surprised. Perhaps I should have suggested a ride, but there's an inner ten year old that just can't accept the possibility of being beaten by a girl.

At some point before closing time we went our separate ways. I don't strictly remember the bus ride home. Not that I blacked out. It's just that I've made it so many times it all passes me by unless something particularly interesting happens.
I can't believe I didn't get her number or email. I think she knows about my blog.


Sue chose me!

Hungover and befuddled I checked my email. I nearly blocked the message from the speed dating site. It proclaimed 'Susan wants to see more of you!' and I was about to mark it as spam when I recognised the site name in the email address.

Sue put a tick next to me on the website. As I ticked against her on my page we get each other's emails to do with as we please. I was far too hungover to do anything and decided to leave it for a while.

Steve owed me a fry up, so I headed over. Somehow he convinced me to pick up the bacon and sausages on the way. There's something not quite right about that.

Bert had been photoshopping and now his desktop is a picture of Alyson Hannigan as Vampire Willow, saying "Be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting boyfriends."

We like the idea of being hunted. We don't believe it really happens, though. Any woman caught making it easy for a bloke would be kicked out of the girly club.


Sue emailed me whilst I was out. Is it a bad sign that she's capable of being that coherent on a Saturday morning?

She wants to get together some time, tonight even, if I'm free. I guess if I take some paracetamol and drink enough water I'll be able to pass for sentient by the evening.


Food and drinks in Metropolitan on Burton Road. We met early evening, before the pre-club crowd filled it. It was as awkward as you'd expect at first. I bought her a drink (Directors, good call) and we found a table.

"So...." I began, but couldn't think of what to say next. 'Why did you wait nearly a fortnight to tick my box?' would probably sound too judgemental and/or desperate. I sort of waved my hands and smiled.

"Sorry I took so long to complete the feedback. It's been hellishly busy the last few weeks. I just got back from three days in Germany yesterday."

"Sounds interesting."

"Not really. I didn't get to see anything of the area. It was all meetings, trips around chem labs and late meals at the hotel. I got some reading done."

"What sort of stuff?"

"I'm re-reading all my Pratchett."

"Oh. I started doing that last year."

We discussed the Discworld for a while, and somehow it segued into hobbies. Thankfully, nothing Sue does in her spare time involves cruelty to small furry animals. We ate, and drank a bit more, then it became a bit too crowded.

Her place was only a couple of street away. It seemed logical that we should end up there. It was a single bedroom flat on the first floor. I sat on the sofa and checked out the living room whilst she broke open some wine. It was good to know I'm not the only one who's so untidy. It wasn't messy, it was just that paperwork, books and magazines were filed in piles on available surfaces.

She brought a bottle of white and two tumblers and sat right beside me. One glass later she was draped across my lap and I was pushing and tugging her top off.

She's got tiny tits with responsive nipples that seem, relatively, large. I couldn't keep my hands, lips, tongue and, occasionally, teeth off them. She squirmed a bit, made a lot of appreciative noises and finally went tense and then limp with a little "Wow". The flush on her pale skin was very sexy.

Having made her come just by concentrating on her breasts I had sealed the deal. We took things to the bedroom.


Coffee in bed. Sweet.

The bedroom's tidier than the living room. Two bookshelves completely filled, a dressing table and two cupboards. The only signs of disarray were the suitcase and our discarded clothes from the night before.

It was good coffee, too. "I buy the beans from the health food shop. They're FairTrade." Sue explained.

She was wearing a big baggy top, looking tiny. Her hair framed her face and she looked worryingly young. "I nearly didn't tick anyone from the speed dating night. I kept telling myself no-one would be interested."

"So what made you change your mind?"

"You seemed a nice guy, and interesting. And I was a bit horny. And, well, it is boyfriend season."

Notes I did think of posting this in parts, but then decided to present it in one piece. "Boyfriend Season" was written in October whilst working on an IT helpdesk. It was inspired by a conversation very like the one that opens the story (see my own version of the Boyfriend Season post). Sadly I haven't seen the women who introduced me to the concept since that evening.

I'd like to expand upon this story. I was experimenting with minimalism when I wrote it and on re-reading it I think I may have stripped away a little too much. I've stated my aim to incorporate this into a novel about a blogger to be called Post & Publish. I see it being the second, of three or four, distinct parts of the novel. Parts 3 and 4 will concentrate on Jim and Sue's relationship developing and the lives of their friends. I've only got this lightly sketched out at the moment, it's my New Year writing project.

Other fiction-

So Much To Answer For, a crime story also written whilst I was on the helpdesk.

Heavensent is the propeller-punk sci-fi war novel I recently wrapped up.

Download Another Education/Ruby Red or Ten Years Asleep.

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Romance, Comedy, Manchester

So Much To Answer For- Part 24

"You should just put my number in your phone and call me directly." Wood told Joe. She had taken his and Rachel's statements on a digital recorder to save them a trip to the Police station. The scally had been carted off to hospital under armed guard, the gun was bagged and about to be sent for finger printing and the scene of crime officers were discussing removing the bullet from the tree it had hit. Rachel was sat on a wall coming down from her adrenaline high.

"That's the way rumours get started. Do you know who he is?"

"We have a tentative ID. He was arrested and did time because of Hill's last deal, the one with..."

"My money, I know."

"He had a knife with blood on it that might link him to Hill's killing. And he had a picture of you and your address. We don't know where he got that from. How do you make so many enemies?"

"Clean living."

"My...... What I think is he killed Hill."

"With a knife? Not the gun?"

"He got the gun from Hill, before Sarah got back to him. This is just a theory, mind. He got the gun from Hill after killing him with the knife. And then he came looking for you. Just like so many others he thought you were involved in the deal that went wrong and put him in jail. He could have found the picture of you on your website, I guess."

"How many more of these guys are there? Just waiting to get out and get even?"

Rachel came over and draped herself over Joe. "I'm starving."

"Are we done here?"

"I guess so. I'm getting tired of saying it, and it obviously has no effect, but take care. Both of you."

"We will. Let's go order Chinese."

"Curry."

"Okay, curry. But it's a small room and not very well ventilated."

Part 23
Part 1

Notes And that wraps it up. A bit of an odd final line, but it might make it into the next draft. This bit clashes a little with Sarah's description of what happened a few parts back, but we'll put that down to her being emotional and not keeping track of time so well.

Other fiction- check out Heavensent, the propeller-punk sci-fi war novel I recently wrapped up, or download Another Education/Ruby Red or Ten Years Asleep.

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Crime, Manchester

So Much To Answer For- Part 23

Rachel parked nose on to the curb, just for silliness. The Smart was shorter than the next car along was wide, so it wasn't a problem.

"We should probably get some food." Joe pointed in the direction of the shops. Rachel did a skip and shuffle move so she was on his left. He'd noticed she liked walking on this side of him, but hadn't figured out why.

Ahead of them someone jogged across the road. Joe only registered it as movement until they reached the pavement. The figure was wearing the scally uniform- baggy track suit bottoms and hoodie, both black with embroidered swoosh, trainers and baseball cap- but somehow didn't look pale and unhealthy enough.

The faux scally stared at Joe, took a few steps and, mere feet away, drew a gun.
Joe froze. The gun swung up and levelled, pointing at his face. The scally's finger was on the trigger, squeezing it.

Rachel didn't freeze. Acting on an instinct she never could explain, she had moved away from and slightly ahead of Joe when she had seen the scally's expression. Now she leapt. She caught the gunman's wrist and pushed it aside just before he pulled the trigger.

One shot from this small revolver was so much louder than the whole fusillade from the Kalashnikovs. Joe was certain he felt the bullet pass his ear.

The scally's upper body twisted. His knees began to bend as he moved to correct his balance. Rachel kicked the side of his knee, hard enough to feel something give. He began to collapse, a scream marking his fall.

Joe finally reacted. He moved away from the pinned gun hand and helped Rachel hold down the scally, now bawling non-stop. "Let go of the gun." The scally stopped screaming and gave him a defiant look. "Let go of the gun or she'll break your fingers one by one until you do." Rachel gave him a look that said 'I will?'.

There was a clatter as the gun hit the pavement. Rachel carefully pushed it out of reach.

"You saved my life."

"Yeah, well, I owed you. We're going to have to talk to the Police again aren't we?"

"Yeah." Joe got his phone out and started dialling.

"Damn. All this adrenaline is making me horny."

"Police please. And an ambulance, I guess. Self defence classes?"

"I keep starting to learn martial arts and never finishing. Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Karate......"

"Yes. Someone just shot at me. No, no, I'm fine. We disarmed him and we're holding him now. Yes, you probably should....."

Part 24
Part 22
Part 1

Other fiction- check out Heavensent, the propeller-punk sci-fi war novel I recently wrapped up, or download Another Education/Ruby Red or Ten Years Asleep.

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Crime, Manchester

So Much To Answer For- Part 22

All thoughts of salvage and sculpture from the remnants of the garage had been abandoned. Pete had ordered a skip and Joe had shovelled his studio into it. Then he'd trimmed the hedge and pruned some of the trees and thrown the branches on top. The skip was still only half full. Joe was looking for new things to throw into it.
Rachel arrived before he found any new junk. She gave the skip a wide berth, and stepped back from Joe when she saw his soot stained hands.

"You're looking at On The Wall's new Manchester shop manager."

"Cool." Rachel's smile seemed a bit forced. "Not cool?"

"I was talking to Hugh. I think he wants to come up here and castrate you."

"Oh I can deal with your brother."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I know loads of places to hide." That got a genuine smile. "Should I talk to him? Tell him my intentions toward you are entirely honourable. Or, at least, only as dishonourable as you'll allow."

"I'm worried I've upset him. I don't want to upset him. He's the most important man in my life. Yes, more important than you. More important than my father, or my step-dad. He's the only one who's been there all my life."

"Okay. I won't make jokes."

"Don't be silly. Make jokes. Be yourself. Remember that you were his friend long before you started sleeping with his sister."

"I can do that."

"Did your friend take the money?"

"Sarah? Yeah. She didn't want to. I sat there and let her tell me all the reasons she wouldn't. I learnt some stuff I'd rather not have, and will never repeat. Then I just slid it across the table. She looked at it for a while then picked it up. God knows what she'll tell her fiancee."

"Nothing. I wouldn't."

"I'll remember that."

"Can we stay at your place tonight?"

"I only have a single bed."

"So we'll have to snuggle."

"Okay. You've convinced me."

Part 23
Part 21
Part 1

Other fiction- check out Heavensent, the propeller-punk sci-fi war novel I recently wrapped up, or download Another Education/Ruby Red or Ten Years Asleep.

Donate Now I've started writing again I'm unlikely to stop, but it would be nice if I could eat during my breaks. So please feel free to donate some money to my starving author fund by clicking on the PayPal button below.

Technorati tag: Fiction, Crime, Manchester