PROLOGUE: The Risen Part II

I first menstruated when I was nine years old; waking in bed to a small puddle of dampness, the morning light warming through the heavy curtains. When I felt the wetness there was shame, making itself known in the tears that came. It had been years since I wet the bed. I sat up slowly, and it felt as though I’d tipped something over, such was the gushing. The emptying. I squeezed as hard as I could and finally it stopped coming. It was too cold in the winter air and too warm beneath the layer of blankets to get up, so I guessed it was still real early, and figured it would dry. Two hours later and the day at full bloom was pressing into my bedroom, up the peeled wallpaper and the cracks of plaster, black mould spots in the corners of the ceiling. I wriggled my hips. It felt sticky. It would smell bad, I thought, wary of lifting the blanket. Mother would not be happy. I tentatively put a hand down there, feeling for the damp. Instead it was tacky, like wet cornbread dough, and when I brought my fingers to the light they were the colour of the mould.

I’m mouldy! It was a silly thought, but I was a child. I let in the ice of the air and there was the meconium stain on my faded-blue pyjama bottoms, black-red and the size of a newborn kitten. Shuffling backwards, the stain on the sheet was much larger, as black and as wide as Rhodri’s well. It looked like blood! I stifled a scream but the creaking springs of the mattress betrayed my consciousness and Father came in to make sure I was quick with the chores, as he always did. He took one look at the sheets, then back to me, and said; “So you are a girl, after all. Mother!”

I made myself as small as I could, backing up against the wall, while Father left to get Mother to deal with my problem. That he hadn’t acted much surprised settled what frightened nerves were needling in my stomach. It couldn’t be that bad. Quiet, I listened to the footsteps of the house; my brothers showed their heads around the edge of the door and laughed when they saw the blood on the bed. I quickly reached forward and covered it over, but it was too late. They ran off giggling, screaming “Raggedy Anne, raggedy Anne!” as though I was meant to know what that meant.

Mother finally entered, shutting the door behind her. She was the only woman in the house, and, I guess, after today I became the second, though it would be another five years until I menstruated again. She pulled the bedcover away and then sat on the bed, asking if I was scared. I told her there was nothing to be scared about, and she nodded in agreement, going on to tell me about the way of things with that resigned sadness she had about her, as though she was constantly experiencing something in the past. She told me to get up and then she pulled the cover from the bed. “Go to the bathroom,” she said, locking my bedroom door. I had my own bathroom, you see.

There, she told me to strip and poured some freezing water into the plugged sink. I sometimes made wee in the bathtub, which was green and black with dirt, so I didn’t much want to stand in it, but I did as I was told. The pyjama bottoms peeled away with some difficulty, much redder than the sheets, and stuck to my thick, matted hair. My skin was already hard with goosebumps by then, the lighter hair across my body prickled to attention, so the water made little difference. It stung a little over my nub, as sensitive as the end was, but I was used to that by now. Mother lathered soap into the hair on my inner thighs and up to my belly button and cleaned away as much blood as she could. I couldn’t help but notice how she averted her gaze from it, and wouldn’t touch it. “There you go,” she said, “you can do the rest yourself. I’ll leave a towel on your bed, and get you clean sheets.”

Alone, I finished washing and then dried and clothed, while my belly ached, hammering blows bouncing around my abdomen. A little cramp. I always wore long trouser legs and sleeves in those days, to cover all the hair. Even then little wisps crept beyond the hem of my sleeves, so I wore gloves whenever we left the farm, just in case we bumped into anyone. And a scarf for my neck.

Whenever I think back to my early childhood, I always come back to this day, for so much seemed to change for me from here on out. Father had it right: I was a girl. Not long after, I began to malt, waking up in the mornings not to blood, or urine, but body hair. A little later and my breasts began to grow sore, my nipples turning from pennies to old tuppences. I grew my hair long, because that was what girls did. My brothers stopped mocking and Mother even began to take me between her knees with a comb, and brush and brush for minutes at a time. She’d always wanted a daughter, and I was close enough, I guess. I don’t blame her, how do you treat an orphan baby covered head to toe in hair and with seemingly both sets of genitals? It can’t have been easy.

They named me Ffion, and Father’s surname was Adie, as in A-D, so that was how the locals knew me. Not that there were many locals to be had up here on the hill. Us Adies liked to keep to ourselves most of the time, anyway, tending to our farm and keeping the borders secure. If my family were muntjacs, then I was a vole, or perhaps a mole, my own sect within a sect, the outsider within.

Father and Jack did the heaviest work; they both had the arms to show for it too. Up early to count the sheep and pigs and chickens, while I and Dylan fed them, and then it was the two hour walk, checking that the border was secure. Where the wind – for it blew a gale up here in the hills just north of Aberffrwd – had dislodged one of the giant tree trunks or bent a section of barbed wire, they were on it, fixing it in a jiffy. Aled was the youngest, though still older than me, and his morning routine was to collect all the water for the day from the nearby stream. When I was done feeding the animals, sometimes I might help Mother in the kitchen, but most often I went off by myself, and always had, ever since I was little. They never stopped me; if anything ever happened to me then I would be a mouth less to feed. Chances were slim – mostly – because that perimeter wall was sturdy. I saw them sometimes, prowling on the other side, testing the barbs and drawing blood. Licking their wounds. One sight of Father’s shotgun and they ran.

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SHORT STORY: The Order

Clive Barrett looked around and was dissatisfied. The pool was full of dive-bombing children – his own among them somewhere – and the animals of the hedgerow watched intently, freshly snipped. On the air, smoke and charring meat. The sound of satisfied murmurs and laughter. A bronzing sun glazed the white house with its white plaster and large white doors, and where guests stood before the mirrored windows, worlds repeated.

It was perhaps too hot for his suit, and God knows it was time to re-tailor, or more likely just buy a whole new wardrobe, but he couldn’t switch off, even if his suit buttons strained with every bite of the barbecued steak. His wife dabbed a napkin to his chin, smiling.

“Sweet one you got here, Clive,” said his long-time associate Mr. James Tunnicliffe. “Almost makes me pine for the good old days.” James was much slender than Clive, and it showed in his pale blue shorts, proud chest swirling with coarse, grey hair. Funny, how he’d ditched his paunch at the same time as ditching his wife.

Clive smiled, kissing Marjorie on the lips. “The sweetest.” Six years together, and she looked even younger than she did when he first started seeing her, back when he was still married to Ellen. Two children since, and not a stretch mark or wrinkle in sight. Amazing what money can buy, he thought.

“What about you?” she directed to James. “Seeing anyone?” She grabbed a mojito from a passing waiter and sipped.

“Everyone and no-one,” he replied. “Work has me busy all hours of the day. This is the first break I’ve had for five months.”

Clive unbuttoned his suit. “I can believe that. Missed you on the golf course, lately.”

“Whoa there, buster. You sure you wanna let your hair down like that?” joked James.

“Ha, ha.” For a moment he held his breath, then sighed as his belly bulged out. He could feel the sweat running down his back, cloying across his shoulders. It was a reminder of the weight he carried; all this real estate, the ten acres and the gardener’s pay check, his children’s school and Marjorie’s gym classes; the yacht and the four holidays a year to the Bahamas. He couldn’t forget all that, not even for a second.

Marjorie gave him a goodbye peck, and said; “I’ll leave you boys to catch up.” He watched as she went over to some friends.

James shuffled closer; together they leaned along the adobe wall, drinks and food balanced on the top. They had a view of the party and the guests sunning themselves, drinking and eating and swimming. “So life’s good, eh?” he asked.

Clive tossed him a smile, replying; “There’s always something, you know? This bill or that. Feels like the more we have, the more we have to lose. Sometimes I miss the old days, just you and I working late in the office, happy with a two-K trade.”

“Yet here we are. You could pack it in!”

“And do what? How long before the money disappears, living like this? Anyway,” he sipped from his scotch on the rocks, feeling the heat in his throat, as well as on his brow; “you can talk. What’s all this I’ve heard in the news? One hundred million dollars to charity? Never took you for the philanthropist sort.”

James’s demeanour straightened, the sunlight suddenly a hindrance in his eyes. “I never took me for the philanthropist sort, either. What about you? Are you charitable?”

“Do my wife and kids count?”

“I think not.”

“What about the ex?”

“Definitely not.”

“Then I’m all out of goodwill, here, my friend.”

He nodded. “Shame.”

Clive laughed, taking another sip. Don’t go too crazy with the drink. “Get yourself a new wife and a few kids and then see how charitable you are!”

James shuffled even closer and put an arm around Clive’s shoulder. His cologne was strong, overpowering even the food. “Have you heard of the Ultruistic Order?”

“Altruistic Order?”

“Yeah, with a U,” he squeezed.

“With a U? Definitely not.”

James tilted his head a little closer, whispering. To Clive, he felt like the angel on his shoulder. Or was that the devil? “Nor had I, until a friend told me about them.”

“What friend?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Can I get a little space?” he tried to shrug him off, but James held tight.

“In a sec. I was caught, like you, in the net. And then this friend introduced me to the Order.”

“And they are?” The cologne was beginning to sting his nostrils, joined by sweat in his eyes.

“A secret arm of the Freemasons.”

Clive laughed again. The Freemasons had tried to recruit him before, but what did he want with sweat lodges and cigars and ruling the world? He had enough of that at home. “So secret they told you about it.”

“They saw my plight and wealth. You see, the Masons of the world, all the various branches and sects… sure, they do good, or claim to. But it’s not enough. They need to keep enough back to keep up the lifestyle – to remain a Freemason! No good being poor if you want to be a part of it! You can’t rely on the world to tax itself out of poverty, and world hunger – it needs to be incentivised. That’s where the Ultruistic Order comes in.”

Clive shrugged again, and this time was successful in removing the devil from his shoulder. He even unbuttoned his collar, such was the sweat and heat hitting him now. “Uh-huh.”

“There are five levels of ascension. And with each ascension, there is a door.”

“A door, huh? Make sure you don’t hit it on the way out!”

“Listen to me, Clive. I’m telling you. These doors will change your life. I was sceptical too, at first. And then I gifted that one-hundred million dollars for access to door number one.”

“And what was behind door number one?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Of course not.”

“It’s different for everyone. The first door shows you what you need to see. There are four more after that. All I know is the final one shows you what lies beyond, and no-one has ever returned from it. Ask Ambrose Small.” James gave him one final squeeze and returned to normal posture, and Clive felt as though he’d been given a taste of this ‘other world’. “Hit me up some time and I’ll introduce you to the lodge. Be quick though, I plan on getting to door number five as soon as I can.”

“Sure.” He pocketed the information, filing it alongside pig’s heads, greased bareskin runs around the block, and blindfolded humiliation; all distant memories from his frat days. In the weeks and months that followed, he gave it no more thought, not until Marjorie mentioned an Instagram post with James standing beside a hospital sign with a freshly cut ribbon, the words Tunnicliffe Children’s Ward freshly mounted. She gave it a heart and commented to Clive how healthy he looked. Vibrant was the word she used. Clive took a closer look. Did he look younger?

“Spending some of that money on himself by the looks of it,” he said.

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“That a hint?”

“Not at all, honey. He can do what he wants with his money. I think it’s beautiful, giving so much.” She wrote a comment beneath: You are a wonderful soul… God Bless <3 .="" i="">

She received a reply: Thank you. Tell him you won’t believe #2.

“Number two?” she asked. “What’s that mean?”

Clive leaned across her in their bed, taking the phone away and slipping it beneath her pillow. “It means let’s keep the light on.”

Not long after, he was sitting in his corner office high above Manhattan, the street below painted yellow with the tops of taxi cabs, when Slack pinged on his desktop. To his left was Marjorie’s salad (she was spending the week with him in New York before flying back home to the kids on Saturday, so they could take in a show or two. He’d been spending too much time away from home, lately.) And to his right was Stan’s birthday cake. Every week was someone’s birthday, it seemed. He slid the plate closer and opened up Slack.

“Hi Clive. How’s it going?” James is typing… “Given any more thought?”

“No pleasantries, straight to it, eh?”

“No time. I’m almost at the third door. Five hundred million about to turn a village in Africa into a suburban oasis.”

“How pleasant. And no.” In truth, he had given it some thought – and then looked at his children and wondered how much he could leave for them. It was alright for James – he had no heirs. Or perhaps the children in Africa could be considered heirs, now.

“Dude, door number two alone could change your life. Take a weekend break and fly out to me.”

“I’m busy, maybe another time.” Maybe never. He said goodbye and signed off and reclined into his chair with his cake. Sounded like James had grown a little obsessive there, hopefully he’d grow out of it before he bankrupted himself. Sure was a way to make friends though, and probably his fair share of lays. He swallowed a mouthful of cake and glanced over towards The Project: a 450-metre tall work of inner-city art with 120 floors. The miniature twisted up towards the ceiling. He was too busy to be funding hospital wings and feeding African children – or his own for that matter. Gloria, Grace and Thomas smiled at him from his desktop, and he smiled back, a wave of longing washing over him. I’ll take more time off. I will.

The next he saw of James was when he landed on The Project’s helipad, the night of the grand opening. There was no secrecy behind this door; clear, solarised glass allowed a view out of the penthouse, and to the landing helicopter. James stepped out in a dervish of whipping material, two women holding their hair down on his flanks.

Clive let James find him, which he inevitably did towards the end of the evening. Marjorie had been correct; he did look younger, walking around like an airbrushed version of himself. “Evening,” he said. “You look radiant, Marjorie.” James pecked both her cheeks, and then hooked his arm around Clive’s shoulder. “Mind if I steal him away a moment?”

“Not at all,” Marjorie smiled. “Perhaps show him a thing or two about learning how to relax while you’re at it.”

“I can do more than that!” he beamed back at her. “Come.”

“How was Africa?” Clive asked as he was being lead towards a corner.

James laughed, shaking his head. “Nothing compared to this place. How much did it cost? How much did you make out of it? And how do I get in? This is one impressive feat, my friend.” His eyes dilated as he made eye contact: contract, expand, contract, expand.

Clive frowned, blinking to rid the illusion. He felt an electric thread lightning through his brain. He imagined fingers rifling through his thoughts.

“As I thought,” James said. “Amazing. There are sooo many doors. Sooo many opportunities for the likes of us. You must let me in on the action. Just a little more and I’ll have enough for the fourth door.”

“I thought you liked to keep business and pleasure separated?”

“These days, they’re the same.”

“And who’s your cosmetic surgeon, by the way? I’m sure Marjorie would love to know.” He swallowed and felt his tie tighten across his neck.

“Join us and find out!”

“I have too much on my plate, and a family to support, to start swanning off to far-flung countries splashing my cash.” He gave brief thought to answering James’s original questions, but decided they were rhetorical. “Why don’t you let off about this Order of yours?”

James was silent while he stared intently again – contract, expand, contract, expand – long enough for the moment to grow uneasy. That heady buzz flitting through Clive’s mind once more.

“Okay,” nodded James. “I can see I’m not going to be able to change your mind. Honestly, though, it’s the biggest mistake you’ll never know you made.” His face took on a serious expression, and before turning to return to the room, he looked Clive up and down and then squeezed his shoulder, almost sorrowful.

Clive never spoke to him again. Between work, more work, and family, the weeks blew by while the weekends were tiny blips on the calendar. Even when he went home, the travel time ate into those weekend hours; lost hours where his children evolved out of sight, placing him in an almost perpetual state of surprise. I should stop, he often thought. I can’t, at other times. The Project is just the beginning, a taste of the success to come. He commissioned a photographer to capture The Project at dawn, with the sun rising from the spire, and had this mounted in the new boardroom beside his new office, even grander than before. New York was full of tired estate prime for redevelopment. He couldn’t give up the opportunity to stake his name on the city.

Marjorie often commented on James’s social media posts – Clive’s own patience for anything social growing thin – the occasional pillowtalk swinging towards James’s easy lifestyle, funded no doubt by a portfolio longer than the lobby of The Project. How he could donate so much, while still growing richer, befuddled Clive, especially when the old friend seemed to spend his time between Monaco, the Bahamas, Aspen, and places he’d never heard of before. Perhaps there was something to these doors. The Ultruistic Order. He had Googled them once, returning zero results.

“Look at him,” said Marjorie, rolling over and pressing the phone to his face. “A man like that, as fit and healthy and travelled as he is, while still raking in the money. He has to delegate. Can’t you learn to delegate?”

Delegate? The very concept turned his stomach. “A man who delegates does not get his hands dirty. Cannot be said to have truly built anything.” He looked closely at the photograph. James was meditating in his red Speedos, legs crossed and fingers an O, floating above the sand by about a foot, the azure ocean calm behind him. Clive had seen enough over the shoulders of his designers over the years to know what could be done with a little photo magic.

She sighed and rolled back over. “Strange. This one is just of a door.”

DailyFlash: Adrift

Skin no longer skin; inside a bubble of gelatine gently decoding her, she followed where her mind lead. Threads stretched beyond the dome; beyond the planet and the atomsphere and into the empty chaos of space. She was that chaos; starbursts and heat deaths and dark that did not matter, and dark that was. She could see between the nature of things, and through it, into the soul - a disembodiment of God. Planktons of knowledge dislodged from her and became part of the soup around her, blazing.

DailyFlash: ImMEDIAte

The man has a flashback to sitting in the backseat of a car with potential in-laws, the heat of a strange country on everything from the window glass to the material upholstery to the kid's clammy hand. The kid - not his, but yes his in this as-yet unbroken timeline - goes "Mommy says you're my Daddy now." It explodes in the car, an aftermath of silence, and the potential in-laws say something, he doesn't remember what; and he says something, he doesn't remember what. It doesn't matter. There's no rewind.

In the present timeline he sees the kid's face as it is now on the screen, and the face of his own as she plays in the corner of the room. She calls out a legitimate Daddy, and he is struck by his own complacency, and remorse. She wasn't the first to call him Daddy - how could he have taken the clammy hand so lightly? Not seen through the eyes of the kid? A well opens in his heart and he falls into the darkness, staring only at the kid's gaze, hoping they were young enough to forget him easily. His punishment; that they would or already have: unaware of the Daddy roaming the earth who would never forget them.

DailyFlash: Under the city

We shuffle across the steel ramparts that link the canyon caves, in droves and bright orange bodysuits with our nutrition packs tied around our waists. The bright spotlights glare from the high eaves like daylight, casting our shadows down into a lake of darkness in black bars. From loudspeakers at the end of tall poles, we half-listen to the March of Progress - "... bring it home for the sake of your brethren, one-hundred-percent and we'll soon be one..." Ahead, the flames of the forges billow across the faces of rock and we can already feel the sweat burning on our brows.

SHORT STORY: Cancer

Little Greg was eight years old when he developed a plan to save his parents’ lives. And it was so simple too! His heart thumped, imagining the scenario playing out. Would it go as he thought it would? Or would they laugh in his face? Once they knew he was serious they would soon clock on and change their ways. He was sure of it.

He chose a rainy day to emphasize his point, maybe with a pronounced cough or two. Outside the window, grey clouds laboured heavy across the sky, with the gentle pattering of rain striking the glass and windowsill and pouring from the gutter and into the street. The window was open a crack, and his father’s cigarette smoke feigned escape in slow-moving swirls, almost blue against the grey.

Read more: https://culturedvultures.com/short-stories-cancer/

Short Story: Accident

He had the most boring job in the city – for real – it ranked bottom in a Kingdom-wide satisfaction survey. Traffic control warden. There were only six of them, and they rotated in eight-hour shifts, two a shift; relinquishing their soft, warm seat and sweat-sticky headset to the next with a wordless, faceless expression.

                An expression that didn’t change.

                He could see through the ‘eyes’ of the drones and direct their movement through the headset and from the ‘comfort’ of the office. There were physical monitors too for when the heavy feeling on the eyes became too much, but for the most part, that faint blue glimmer of the screens was a pale facsimile of light on his skin and nothing more.

                Two minutes into a shift and he became a dislocated entity, a city-bird without a roost.

                A little longer and red triangles flashed in his periphery. An accident. Two traffic control drones were needed on the A5 road. He despatched them and connected to their cameras; autocars shifted in synchronicity around him, keeping their distance and speed in check. As he got nearer to the accident he began to overtake them as their speed decreased, and then stopped altogether. Up ahead, one autocar had overturned. The wheels hadn’t thought to stop turning.

Short Story: Ends Meat

There it was again – the smell. Barrick glanced at his father, who had his eyes closed but he probably wasn’t asleep, just too exhausted by hunger to keep them open. His cheeks were shallow, as though sucking air, his lips two thin lines of scabs.

                Father’s hemp shirt had become a shawl these last few weeks. The same was true for Barrick, his brothers and his sister.

                Finally, father’s eyes opened, his nostrils twitched, and with energy summoned from a dark place, he rose. “Again…” he said, barely moving his lips; tension in the jaw and scabs that would split.

                “I don’t know how they can do it,” said mother, head limp and resting on her raised knees.

                Father swung his legs from the bed and stared into space. The look was a disease, and they all had it. Barrick had seen it first in the faces of the eldest; at night, sharing a bowl of thin soup and disappearing as the first songs began, taking a bottle of moonshine with them. One by one, others caught the look and stopped turning up at all. He’d see them by day, afflicted by the vacant gaze as they sat beside the transparent wall of the dome. They’d stare at the sands but Barrick had no idea what they were looking at; perhaps they saw mirages of visiting caravans that no longer came.

DailyFlash: Within Means

“How do you want them?” asked Mireille.
     The wanderer held her rations out. The temptation to eat them right away had slowly vanished the older she got. Now it was the exact opposite. “Dried.”
     Mireille took the fruit from her hands and placed them in the condenser. In an hour, the grapes would be raisins, the apples one third their size and hard, and all the liquid would be collected in the bottles. They would make a nice meal out on the sands, sometimes accompanied by jerked meat.
     It used to be a challenge to spread the meals out; make it last as long as possible. Now, she’d find shelter and be surprised by how much she still had left. Might even take fewer rations than offered.
     “Can I trade these for extra clothes anywhere?” she asked.
     Mireille looked at her as though she was crazy.

This flash fiction was inspired by the world of Neon Sands, the first in a trilogy currently accepting nominations on Kindle Scout. Like this world and want to read more? Please vote for Neon Sands on Kindle Scout and get a free copy!

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/M0AVK7KHQVAB

DailyFlash: Lightning Rainbow

"The rains are coming on! The rains are coming on!" shouted the little boy. He jumped into an excited run and tried to pull his sister with him.
     She stood, knowing there was no need to rush. There was a little bubble of excitement within, but it wasn't quite as big as it used to be.
     The boy lead the way, bounding up the stairwell from level three where he shared accommodation with his family - and a few others. Neon strip-lights lit up as he passed beneath them. The girl watched him disappear into the courtyard of the dome through heavy double doors that swung back into her face.
     In the courtyard her brother was already standing with his friends, waiting for the weekly shower.
     "30 seconds..." said Kirillion's voice over the loudspeaker. The girl looked up to the apex of the dome and the saucer-shaped shadow of the watchtower from where Kirillion spoke. Where the important things were done.
     Then it began. The pipes that ran adjacent to the shaft leading to the watchtower gushed with water. She put a hand on one and could feel it vibrate. At the top, the pipe passed from their dome and into the outer dome - the Agridome - and there; they watched as the water cascaded in a rainpour they could see, but not feel.
     Lightning rainbows shimmered on the inner lining as the rain made its way down to the crops below, and all the kids "wooowed" in wonder.

This flash fiction was inspired by the world of Neon Sands, the first in a trilogy currently accepting nominations on Kindle Scout. Like this world and want to read more? Please vote for Neon Sands on Kindle Scout and get a free copy!

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/M0AVK7KHQVAB

DailyFlash: The Boss

I wonder how much longer he can keep up the pretense. How much longer before everyone heeds my words of warning about him. He's not on the level I tell them: Pat in Accounts, who just nods and types away with fingers that never stop moving; the warehouse operatives going about their heavy lifting, grunting dismissively and lumbering around in their steel-toe-capped boots; the Sales team jabbering with one ear on the customer and the other on the gossip. You're in danger, I try to tell them. The Boss has flipped and you need to get out. But they can't hear me. My old office in the basement is locked. I messed up sure, and received my final notice. But I messed up again and got my marching orders; a pair of hands around my throat. We can merge your department with Marketing, the Boss said, to himself more than me. Yes, moving with the times, he said. He has cold hands, I shriek now, but no one comes down here any more.

DailyFlash: Wailing

1056 Mitton Street. Every day, the same crying, the same high pitched wail followed by sobs sad enough to melt a Republican heart - no offense to Republicans. "Some taken, actually," he says to himself with a smile. A smile that immediately turns back into a look of concern as he looks over his shoulder to the basement grating.
     1056 Mitton Street; a red-brick townhouse, one of many down this block. He walks past every day on his way to work, and every day for the last two weeks, that he has noticed (lost half the time in his phone) a baby has wailed from the basement. Today he stops, and turns back towards it.
     Looking down into the grating, he sees nothing but darkness, but the baby cries on. He stands there a moment, looking around and at his phone, looking for answers, wondering about making a decision that will take him out of his daily routine. The baby cries on.
     He sighs and steps up to the front door of the townhouse. He knocks to no avail, waiting five minutes before really banging on the door. No answer, yet the baby cries on. No answer, so he turns the doorknob. The door opens inwards, so he calls out down an empty hall. No answer, but the crying has stopped.
     He steps inside, listening, but there's nothing to hear. Smells like there'd be nothing to hear: fetid - dusty, damp and musty. No-one's lived here for ages, he thinks. And then he steps quickly to the basement door, and he's just about to open it when the wailing begins again, causing his hand to freeze. That wailing, it ain't no baby, It ain't like nothing I've ever heard before.

DailyFlash: Intrusion

"I'm ooold, you don't want to hear anything this old man has to say."
     "Oh but I do. Don't hold nothing back now. Ooold man." The intruder hovers all hoody and black scarf, pointing a knife and waving it around in front of the seated pensioner. The tall arms of the armchair seem to wrap themselves around his frail frame as he sinks into it, urging his body away from the tip of that knife. His wrinkled face begins to shake, his lips moist, almost drooling.
     "What say you tell us where the key is?"
     The old man shivers.
     "Hey! I'm speaking to you, want me to cut out your tongue? Then you'll be really mute."
     The old man shrinks, almost, disappearing into the armchair.
     "Hey, Badger! Oi!" shouts the intruder, backing away.
     Badger shows up behind him. "Where'd the old dude go?"
     The door of the safe, set into the wall and revealed by removing a painting, clicks. It swings open.
     "Look, it's open," laughs Badger, bounding, almost gleefully, like a child chasing the ice cream van, towards it. "I wonder what's inside."
     The old man's face shoots from the darkness within the safe. Only it's smirking, eyes yellowed and fangs dripping saliva. "You wanna talk now?" he howls.

DailyFlash: The Wedding Speech

James stands, champagne glass in hand, and looks out at his friends and family waiting for him to speak. So many eyes on him, so much expectation; from those who know him best to Melissa's cousins, aunts and uncles whose faces he has seen today for the first time (and in them, the uncanny of the bloodline).
     "We met," he begins, smiling and turning to Melissa, "in first-year molecular biology. I said something along the lines of how beautiful your chromosomes had combined, which degenerated into the worst gene-related jokes we'd heard. But it was enough to break the ice." He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a remote, pressing a button. As a projector screen descends behind them he continues. "But you know. You've never really understood how truly the girl of my dreams you are."
     Melissa turns, a confused look on her face, to look at the screen. James can almost feel the weight of eyes shift from him to the screen. Another button, and the lights dim slightly and a video is projected onto the screen. "Is that?" says Melissa, clutching James' hand. "Is that you?"
     "Yep," says James of now. "Hi, everyone," says James of fifteen years ago. "If you're watching this, you're at my wedding. Well, not my wedding - our wedding."
     "Aww, you look so cute," says Melissa.
     The boy on the screen continues. "So thank you for coming. I must've said that already, right? No? Where have my manners gone?" The boy smiles, and then breathes deeply, straightening his face. "I'm so impatient. I've imagined this day since - well, since I was a boy! I've imagined marrying you. I can see you now; you're blond, most of the time." Small gasps in the crowd.
     "Good guess," whispers Melissa.
     "Blue eyes. My height. Most of the time. You like a lot of the same stuff as me, but you're more of a rocker than me."
     "Hmmkay," Melissa furrows her brow, looking up at her new husband, and then back to his boy-self.
     "You like it when it rains, more when it snows. Oh, and when it's cold you get a little cramp sometimes in your hip. We should get that looked at."
     "What the?"
     "But Melissa, you know, I just can't wait to grow up and find you. The man standing next to you right now is the luckiest man alive."

DailyFlash: Bloody Knuckles

His right hand is shaking - his small child hand - still balled tightly into a fist at the end of a hairless arm and thin wrist. The knuckles are red and raw with bits of white skin torn away. For an instant he sees his father's face as he reacts to the news, gearing into a rage. Not now, man, he thinks, pushing it aside with deep breaths, quelling an urge to pant.
     The other boy, the one on his haunches, is looking up at him, one eye beginning to puff up. He glances at the girl who started it all and then shuffles backwards, inadvertently putting his left hand in the sticky, bloody residue left on the tarmac by the second punch he'd dodged. Had I dodged it, though? Didn't he just punch the ground?
     To the girl, it's as though the sun has just broken through the clouds. Which it had, funnily enough; it settles over the scene casting shadows. From behind, she eyes her saviour's fist as it shakes, and reaches out to grab it. As she takes it, it stops shaking, and the boy stands taller somehow, stretching his shadow until it reaches and covers the hopscotch pattern chalked into the pavement.

DailyFlash: Monolith

The gravity was heavy underfoot as I climbed the incline to get a better view. Boy, was it spectacular. The ancient alien monolith even more mysterious against the backdrop of undulating, barren hills, punctuated by faux-cacti and shrubs. It glistened irregularly, humming audibly; I could feel its vibrations in my fingertips. The shadow of its tall pillar stretched taller still, a thick black block of darkness reaching for the hills, as though running from the sun. It was happier, more at home, in darkness I sensed.
     The dusty ground at my feet began to move; slowly, the tiny grains of sand, stone and dirt rolling around my boots and between my legs and away from me, in ever increasing swells, towards the now-blinking light of the monolith. Not a breath of wind whispered in my ears. It was pulling me in. It was pulling everything in.

DailyFlash: Paint the Playground Red

Years of school playground games of tag, football kickabouts, rounders and training, and we're finally ready for the real thing. A lottery selected the two captains: Jerry and Samantha - two mid-grade players at best, now taking turns to choose their teammates. Friendships mean nothing at this point: Jerry's best friend is Mark, but he can't shoot for shit and his weapon of choice is a Samurai sword; lethal, for sure, but not when looking down the dark end of a barrel of lead.
     "Felix," says Jerry, meeting his eyes gravely. Felix, the sharpshooter, smiles and joins ranks.
     "Samantha, your turn," says the Sergeant.
     "I..." she looks at Melissa, her hands and voice shaking. After a swallow she looks away, looks down, and says, "Jason."
     Jason, all six-foot-seven of him, strolls with long strides to stand behind Samantha.
     Uniformed, we are picked, one-by-one, and then given coloured bibs to distinguish the teams.
     "Now go," says the Sergeant. "Team Red, go west. Team Blue, go East. Find your HQs. Find your supplies. You have thirty minutes, and when the klaxon sounds, it's time. Last team standing wins."

DailyFlash: Peeping Tammy

Part one: Peeping Tommy

The girl drops her arm and leans forward on the windowsill, the night air like cold hands on her shoulders. It cools on her brow.

     “What is it?” asks her pa down in the yard, turning his head.

     At the outer edges of the yard, where the security light fades into the bushes, she’s spotted a hunkered mass of ginger hair and a face burying itself in the dirt. Poor little fella. Pa’s gonna tear you a new one. “Under the bush there, Pa,” she shouts down. “We got us a peeper, I reckon,” she smiles.

     Pa follows her pointed finger with his eyes, squinting at the line of bushes. "Alright," he says. "You got five seconds, pal. If I gotta come git ya, I really will wring ya."
     A ginger-topped head emerges from the top of the bush, face streaked with dirt and tears. 
     "Step out, boy."
     Leaves part as the boy moves forward. 
     "Hey, don't I know ya?" shouts the farmer's wife. She's a silhouette in the doorway with a hand clasped round the dog's collar.
     "Good God, Jesus, would ya look at that," laughs Pa. "He's pissed his pants." He points, looking back to his wife and daughter, who join in the laughter.
     "Please," starts the boy. "I ain't done nothing-"
     "Quiet, boy!" The farmer barks. Then takes in a deep breath. "You gettin an eye-full there, boy?"
     "No, sir."
     "What you gonna do, Pa?" shouts the girl. 
     "You! Get your tits back in the house now, and draw the damn curtain." He begins to pace.
     The girl, looking disappointed, withdraws back into her room, closing her curtains.
     "What shall I do, boy?" The boy opens his mouth but the farmer raises his hand to silence him. "I ain't asking you," he says. He looks back to his wife for help, and smiles. "You smell that, Buck?"
     The dog barks.
     "You smell that piss?"
     The dog barks again.
     "You better start running, boy." The farmer looks around to the boy, who just stands there, shivering. "Don't say I didn't warn ya! Sic him, Buck."

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DailyFlash: Peeping Tommy

The boy is crouched in the bushes surrounding the back of the farmhouse. There's cloud coverage so it's pretty pitch black, the only light glowing in the yard is from the windows and the half open dutch farmhouse door: the top half that is. Indistinct sounds float on the air.
     The boy catches his breath as she appears in the upper window. She swaggers in, removing her shirt and closing the door behind her. He praises Lord she don't pull the curtains like she sometimes does; the farm is isolated but it's always a lucky toss. She stands there combing her long blonde hair - he assumes there's a mirror there somewhere - letting it fall over her shoulders and the cotton of her bra. A familiar feeling rises in the boy's pants.
     Distracted, he doesn't note the rising noise level; the barking and shouting - not until the bottom half of the back door kicks outwards and the farmer comes out. He's clutching something to his chest. Behind, the farmer's wife is shouting at the dog to stop barking, holding it by the collar.
     The farmer drops his bundle as the yard light comes on.
     Heart thumping, the boy cowers, in more ways then one, convinced he can be seen. But he dare not move.
     The farmer walks calmly over to the shed, leaving the wriggling brown bundles on the floor. The dog in the house barks on, and the girl is at the window, looking out.
     From the shed, the farmer grabs a bucket and starts filling it with water from an outside tap.
     The boy squashes himself closer to the ground. There's no way they wouldn't see him if they look in his direction. Over his heartbeart he can hear a low mewling and realises the wriggling bundle in the middle of the yard are puppies.
     "You don't need to do this," yells the farmer's wife.
     "Already too many goddamn mutts," is the reply she gets.
     The farmer, in the middle of the yard again now, drops the bucket. Then, as cold as you like, he picks up the newborn puppies, one by one, five in total the boy counts as they are lopped into the bucket, but not before a twist to the neck that sends a crack through the night.
     The boy coughs involuntarily, and he thinks he could die right there, right then. It might be preferable if he did.
     "Who's there?" shouts the farmer, tossing the final dead puppy into the bucket. He takes a step further, wiping his filthy hands on his trousers. "Come out or I'll wring your neck too!"
      The boy had expected damp pants that evening, but not the piss that now spreads down his thighs. He wants nothing more than to be gone from here. He has a momentary thought that even as he's thinking it, he knows is crazy: he is about to be caught peeping, and will surely be in for a hiding, if not from the farmer than his Pa, and yet he thinks, If I stand and run I'll be giving my game away. The game will be up. No more farmer's daughter for me. While the chance of riding it out exists, he cannot move.
     "There, Pa," points the girl from her window.


Read part 2: Peeping Tammy

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DailyFlash: Eden Day

"What's wrong, Annie?" asks Mrs Monroe.
     "Nothing," she says, staring down at the blue planet. The sun is a distant ball of light, its glare and power absorbed by the solar glass.
     "Then get back to your desk," orders Mrs Monroe, offering the empty seat.
     Annie turns away and slumps in her chair. "Yes, Doctor Monroe."
     "How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not a Doctor."
     "About the only person who isn't," mumbles Annie. It's not fair, she thinks, looking back to the blue planet. The solar glass stretches across the entire wall; the entire side of this pod constantly facing the sun. Looking back at Mrs Monroe, who continues her history lesson, she stares into the vastness beyond The solar tubes arc for miles, connected in grids, like highways, with family pods linked like roads.
     "... and there came a point where all the petty fighting and squabbling became too much; the danger of death over oil or territories too likely. So we developed our technology, and on Eden day, we fled, leaving all the war behind."
     "It's not right," says Annie. "What we did. They needed us. They need us. If everything you've said is true."
     "They do. And one day, when the time is right, we will share with them what we have learned, and it will be Eden for everyone."

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