Written Anything Lately?

[Alex]

Simon.
(Continued).

Simon remembered trying to loosen the bear trap and telling Bev he needed to help to get her out. Then something had happened… Had something swept him ashore? Surely you didn’t get tidal waves from a loch? For a second he thought he saw something else in the water… but it must have been a trick of the light and a bit of shock.

His chest felt battered and bruised. Even just breathing brought a thousand screams of pain. He couldn’t tell if he couldn’t see because it was dark, or if he’d went blind. That thought sent an uncontrollable wave of panic through him, and he curled up into a ball, half speaking to himself, half gibbering unintelligibly. He had no idea how long he lay there in the dark, or when his thoughts started to form a more coherent stream. Questions raced through his mind. Who the hell dumped a bear trap in a lake? Had some sicko dumped it there, hoping to catch an unwitting tourist? It would be one hell of a coincidence if someone happened to jump into the water at just the right point. Where was he? Tenderly he got up on his feet, running his hands over his body. His chest felt like a mass of painful spots, although he didn’t think anything was broken. His arms and legs were covered in scratches, but nothing too serious. He could feel a hard lump against the side of his stomach, and worried about internal bleeding. He had to find where he was, and get help. Hopefully whatever had knocked him out of the water had saved Bev too.

Then a sudden thought stuck him like a thunderbolt. Had the locals from the village done this? Had they followed them on their walk, picking them off. Where were the others? He remembered a film he’d watched a couple of years ago about a pyscho picking up hitchhikers and killing them in Australia. The rational part of his mind told him this was nonsense, but the older, more survival orientated part of his brain would not shut up. The others must have noticed they were missing and raised an alarm by now (unless of course they had been captured, or killed his thoughts told him). Starting with whatever bed he had been lying on, he worked his way to the wall and started feeling around. The walls were rough, cold and damp. Was he in a cellar? It couldn’t be a cave. There was a faint fishy smell in the air. Slowly feeling his way around, he almost fell over something on the group that clattered metallically as it fell and rolled away. Exploring a little, he found what he guessed was an empty tin of paint. Deciding it was something useless to him, he abandoned it and returned to his careful exploration of the room. He banged his head slightly against what turned out to be some shelves, with assorted items he couldn’t even guess at what they were from touching them. He found a wooden door which was locked, and when he tried charging it with his shoulder it didn’t budge even slightly, and the waves of nausea that overwhelmed him, driving him to his knees. It took a few minutes for him to recover and realise this was not going to be his escape route. Further exploration of the room yielded no further results. He considered trying to break the door down again, but decided against it in his weakened condition. He limped back over to his rough bed and lay down on it, attempting to conserve his strength. Despite his predicament and the rush of thoughts running through his head he fell into a doze, and eventually a fitful sleep.

[Alex]

Monday.

Simon.

When Simon awoke, he could see a dim flickering light. Twisting around gingerly in the bed, he could see while he slept someone had put a lit candle in the dank room he seemed to be a prisoner in. His throat burned from thirst, and his stomach growled. Retrieving the candle, he used it to have a closer look at himself. His chest was a purple mass, and the lump in his side had either went down, or it wasn’t quite as bad as it had felt in the dark, although it seemed to have a large red tip. He hoped whatever had caused the injury, it hadn’t become infected.

His body still aching all over and freezing cold without any clothes to protect him from the chill, he got up and tried the door on the off chance his captor had left it unlocked. The door was still locked just had solidly as it had been before. One thing he hadn’t noticed in his earlier search was the door did have a narrow slot in it, like a letter box, perhaps five centimetres off the ground, maybe thirty centimetres long. Simon had a very uneasy feeling about that.

He had a look around the room again, and on remembering the shelves he had found earlier went looking for them. Maybe something on there could help him out. His heart climbed at this faint ray of hope, only to be dashed when he found it contained only a number of curiously designed ornamental jewellery. Perhaps it was the poor light from the candle, but they seemed to be an unusual shade of gold, and in the vague shape of a tiara or crown, although designed for a head somewhat larger than that of any person he’d ever met. His anger rose up and he ran to the door, shouting and pounding his fists against the solid wood, not feeling the pain that coursed through his body as he did so. He howled and yelled but the door was unyielding and made from thick wooden planks, not your usual cheap household things.

Didn’t these people know who he was? How dare they treat him like this! Defeated, his shoulders slumped and he headed back to the bed, kicking the empty paint tin as he passed it. The clang as it ricocheted off the wall was shockingly loud to him.

He heard something loud crash against the door, followed by a scream of pain. Seeing the paint tin as the closest thing he had to a weapon, he picked it up and stood with his back to the wall beside the door, waiting to attack whoever came through that door. He was rich, he wasn’t going to die in this s**thole!

[Alex]

Paul.

Paul slowly regained consciousness, his wits still temporarily scattered. Something was tugging on his leg continually, and this bed felt cold and uncomfortable. He raised his head and looked down, not quite comprehending what he was seeing.

Why was someone dragging him by his leg? He looked from side to side. There was the loch on one side, and the sparsely wooded hills covered in heather on the other. Yeah, that seemed ok, but the leg thing was confusing him. He grunted as his head banged off a rock he was dragged over. At this noise, his companion turned his head around enough to see him. Oh, I know you, thought Paul. You are the ugly barman. It finally got through Paul’s head that something was very wrong indeed here. Aiming a kick at the large man’s backside, he shoved him forward, making him stumble and release his leg. He scrambled to his feet and started running back the way he’d been dragged. With a roar though, the ogrish barman was chasing him, and quickly caught up with him, buffeting Paul with a blow from a ham sized fist. Jim slammed into a pine tree, and groaned as he tried to run again, but his legs didn’t want to obey him. The man grabbed him, and slung him under one arm, carrying him as effortlessly as he would a small child despite his best attempts to escape. Up ahead, he could see their destination. The tiny village they’d visited on the first night.

He was carried toward the pub. As they reached the door, the man hit Jim again in the head, causing him to see stars, then opened the front door. Despite his own predicament, Paul wondered if this is what happened to Bev. He’d recognised her jacket floating on the loch and thinking she was still wearing it, he’d dived in to rescue her. What he’d thought was a body was only a submerged log the jacket had been caught on, but as he’d been climbing up the steep embankment from the water, something (most likely the barman) had hit him and Jim had known no more until he’d woken up being dragged by him, or it as Paul was rapidly coming to think of him as. ‘It’, opened another door, revealing a stone staircase leading down into the earth with a very old fashioned looking wooden door at the bottom. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in a medieval castle.

Paul suddenly found himself being swung around by ‘It’ so he was being held in both of his massive fists for a few seconds, and then he found himself flying as ‘It’ launched him down the stairs. He landed badly at the bottom, his ankle catching on one of the steps and breaking with an audible snap. Paul looked in horror at the blooded stump of bone protruding from the side of his leg, and then after a few moments the pain hit him like a steam train. ‘It’ followed him down the stairs, walking slowly and ignored him writhing there in agony while he opened the door. Paul heard a clanging noise and ‘It’ staggered back, followed by a naked man barrelling into him through the open door. The naked man however tripped over Paul's injured leg, smashing into the stone steps. ‘It’ simply picked the nudist up with one arm, spat on his face and tossed him back into the room, then threw Paul in no less roughly before slamming the heavy door shut, leaving the pair of them trapped inside.

JPaul grabbed his shattered ankle and rolled around in his own private world of pain. A voice speaking his name however did cause him to look up. For a second he didn’t realise who was speaking to him. The collision with the stone steps had broken his nose and shattered a few teeth giving him a bit of an impediment when he spoke but it was Simon! Simon unashamedly embraced him “I am sho glad to she you”, Simon tried to speak in between spitting out mouthfuls of blood mixed with shards of teeth.

[Alex]

"Have you sheen anyone elsh?" Simon asked through mangled lips.

"I haven't seen anyone. I walked all day and night," Paul replied through gritted teeth, rocking back and forward while nursing his foot. His voice was horse from the shouting he'd been doing. He dug desperately through his jacket pockets until he found what he was looking for. "Oh thank you God!" he exclaimed as he found some pills and quickly swallowed them. He continued looking through, hoping to find some additional drugs, but he came up blank. Sweating heavily and cursing he lay back down on the cold ground. "I saw Bev's jacket... thought she was drowning and tried to save her, but... she wasn't there. That f**ker upstairs hit me and dragged me back here. How did you end up here."

Whatever drugs he had found weren't get dulling down the pain. He really hoped he hadn't popped something that would make him feel more sensitive to pain. "Do you know where anyone else is?"

As he watched Simon sat down heavily on ancient looking bedframe with a equally antiquated looking mattress. He shook his head and sighed heavily.

[Alex]

"Dey got Bev. Shesh fell in the water and schreamed. I jumped into shave her, but her leg wash caught in a f**king bear trap. I couldn't get it open and then shomething s**t me hard. I got knocked out and woke up in sheer."

It took Paul a few moments to translate what Simon was actually saying. Some of the injuries on Simon's face looked like they were going to leave scars. His good looks weren't going to be quite the same when it all healed up.

A treacherous voice at the back of his head said to him "If he lives long enough for them to heal."

"Shince den I've schtuck in dis place. It wash dark. I fell ashleep and when I woke shomeone had put shat candle in here. NO- ONE HAS f**kING GIVEN ME ANY FOOD OR WATER THOUGH, YOU DASTARDS!" he yelled, looking up at the ceiling, then sighing again continued "I shink it is the lair of shome demented artist. You sheen the jewellery?"

Simon motioned towards the oversized headpieces on the shelf, then remembering Paul wouldn't be walking anywhere anytime soon, went over, picked up a few pieces of the bizarre artworkt and brought it over for Paul to look at. "These pieces don't confirm to any known school of art I can think of. Either the designer is a genius or an idiot."

"Great", mumbled Si "I get to shpend my last hours alive with a monshter out of a bad movie and an art critic. I don't know which of you shucks more."

Even trapped in the cellar with no idea how to escape Paul couldn't resist saying "Oh, I promise I suck more, and better sweetheart."

After that the pair lapsed into silence for a while. Paul continued looking at the strange jewellery, while Simon lay in a pit of dispair. They were both startled by a clattering noise from behind them. A tin plate had been shoved through the narrow slot at the bottom of the door, and on it were slices of cooked meat. A plastic bottle of water followed, bouncing off the steaming food and rolling onto the floor. Simon got up again, picked up the bottle and plate then returned to the bed, handing the both to Paul who sniffed the meat. "Doesn't smell poisioned."

"How the f**k would you know?" Demanded Simon. "Anyway, if dey wanted us dead, I don't dink either of ush could put up much of a fight."

Paul picked up the water, opened it and guzzled half of it down.

"Hey you greedy prick, shave shome of dat for me" protested Simon, "And ration it, we don't know when we'll get any more."

Paul looked at Simon, who seemed to have no interest in the food. "Tuck in, we should keep our strength up. Soner or later they'll let their guard down and we can escape. I wonder what they want us for?"

"You kidding me right? Ishn't it obvious? Dis little s**thole at the ash end of nowhere. Everyone has to be poor right? Dey figured out when we were drinking here that I am rich. It's a kidnapping. I bet my parents have already deen sent a ranshom."

Paul picked up a strip of meat and started chewing on it. It was tough, and tasted slightly salty although not entirely unpleasant. Neither had eaten for quite a while and any food was welcome. Simon chewed much more slowly and carefully, his mouth full of broken and loose teeth painful to eat with. "My dentisht is going to charge a fortune to fix dis mess" he said through a mouthful of meat, washing it down with the remained of the water from the bottle, forgetting his warning to Paul about rationing it. Paul looked forelornly at the now emtpy bottle but said nothing. He didn't want to waste what might be his last hours alive in a pointless argument. Then an unbidden thought did cheer him up. If their captors intended to kill them, surely they wouldn't bother feeding them or giving them the mediocre light they'd been provided with. Maybe they did have a chance of getting out of here?

[Alex]

Chris .

Chris and Ali watched unseen as Paul was carried by the barman towards the inn. Paul was trying to fight, but he didn't seem to be slowing the brute down any. He looked around at Ali, who watched the unfolding scene beside him.

"He is taking him into the pub. I think we need to get back to the car and get out of here. Let the others handle this."

"Chris, he is our friend. The others might be in there too. We can't just abandon them, we have to get in there."

"Alright honey. I guess this proves that when I said I'd do anything for you, I really meant it. Lets ditch our packs here."

Chris was interupted by an unholy howl of pain from the direction of the bar. "You sure you want to go in there?"

"If we don't I am not sure I could live with myself."

"Fine then," he signed, shucking his pack on the ground. "Lets at least try not to be seen."

They removed their brightly coloured jackets as Chris put on a look of determination. Doing his best John Wayne impression "Well pilgrim, lets saddle up," he said and in a half crouching run, set off to the village. It was as quiet as when they had visited the other night though and they saw no signs of life on the street. During the day, the sense of decay of the houses was even more pronounced. Sagging roofs that were long overdue repair, front doors that hadn't seen a lick of paint for decades, lawns overgrown and chocked to death by weeds and the occasional old car, more rust that metal left to die on driveways. It was as if humanity had been wiped out, and nature was reclaiming the place.

The pair snuck up to the pub, and tried to peer in through the grime encrusted window. Using the cuff of his jumper, Chris managed to smear the dirt around, allowing him a narrow view inside. He saw the barman appear from an open doorway, walk through the bar and then disappear into a rear room. "Ok, its clear but we better be quick."

Chris silently pulled the door to the pub open, and they both slipped inside. In a careful whisper he told Ali "He just came through the door there," and pointed to the still open door leading down into the cellar. They snuck over the smooth stone floor and down the stairs. The heavy wooden door had a stout wooden bar across it, holding it firmly shut. Chris lifted the bar while Ali kept watch for the return of the man.

The door creaked slowly open outwards, a noise Chris was sure must be rousing the entire village.

[Alex]

Alison.

"Paul, you in here?" Ali hissed as the door opened.

"Oh dank f**k," a voice answered. Footsteps came walking towards the door, carrying a dim and flickering light. Simon appeared out of the darkness. He was completely naked, his face and chest a battered and bruised mess, although it was the large lump in his side that Ali could not take her eyes off. "Oh you poor dear, what happened to you" she asked as she embraced him.

"Hi folks, nice to see you."

Ali looked further into the darkness, "Paul" she exclaimed in an excited squeal. "We saw you being brought in here. How are you."

He pointed limply at his twisted, the snapped bone, still protruding from the side of his bloodsoaked sock. Ali blanched a little at the sight of that. "Oh that is just awful. I am so sorry sweetie. I'll have Hamish take a look at it right away."

Slightly confused Paul stuttered slightly "Who, who, who the hell is Hamish? Look we need to get out of here. Medical attention can wait. I'll limp out of here on one leg f I have to."

"Oh we couldn't do that. Not when we went to so much effort to get you here."

Both Paul and Simon had shocked expressions on their faces. She could tell they were wondering if this was all some sick joke being played on them or what.

"Its a complicated story, but I'll explain it as best as I can. Me and Chris come from a small town in New England called Innsm... No wait, I need to go back a bit. Human's aren't the only intelligent race on the planet. There are many others. We have many names. Mostly we call ourselves the Deep Ones, although I prefer the Dwellers Below. We come from beneath the deepest oceans. You are one of the Dwellers Above, or as you call yourselves humans. There are others out there, like the Dwellers Between, but they are seriously icky and gross and well, you don't need to concern yourselves with them. I doubt there is one of them within a hundred miles of us right now anyway. We think our species must all have had a common ancestor somewhere along the line since we can all interbreed with each other. Half breeds like me and Chris here, well we are born looking human, but as we age we slowly transform becoming more and more like our non human brethren. At that point we take to the sea where we live forever in the splendor beneath the waves, worshipping our lord, he who waits for the stars to be right. We came over here, to shake up the gene pool a bit, intorduce some new blood. "

Ali's hand automatically moved to make a sign at the mention of her lord, a completely unconscious thing, a familiar routine to her. Beside her Chris echoed the gesture. Paul and Simon just stared at her as if she had gone insane.

"Normally our race is immortal, unless we die violently or from some disease and this is where the problem comes in. All that pollution you silly humans have been pouring into the oceans, all those micro plastic beads, well it has been affecting us. Diseases have been killng more and more of us because of you, and we need to keep our numbers up. Another problem we've been finding is that we are having problems carrying live babies to full term.

All because of you filthy humans and the rubbish you dump in the oceans. Hardly fair that you do that and we suffer, but we found a way of letting you help repair the damage. If we use humans, our offspring are born normally. Yes, the aren't born under the sea in the tradional manner we'd all prefer, but needs must. We've actually been here for a while. We walked for a bit and then decided just to swim across the loch and got here early."

Paul's expression said it all. He simply couldn't believe that he was hearing this from Ali. He was her gay BFF. Over the past three years he'd confided everything in her, his worries, his plans for the future and he thought she had confided all her secrets to him. Now, here she was, the glue that had held their group together through thick and thin telling them that they were prisoners of some crazy religious cult! She looked at him, her bright eyes full of understanding.

"I know it is hard to believe sweetie, but we will prove it shortly."

"So you think, you are a member of some ancient race of mermaids and you need people to continue your line? That is seriously what you are telling me. And you Chris, you going along with this? You the man from Atlantis, or maybe Aquaman?" Paul's voice was full of contempt.

"Well, when you put it like that." answered Christ "Yes. That is pretty much it in a nutshell."

"Look you pair, this isn't real. I must have given you some bad stuff. This is all just a bad trip. You'll come down off it, I promise. Right now, I need you to listen to me and help us out."

"Oh sweetie, I really am so sorry for you. Your whole world is coming crashing down around you. We had to pick someone to pick someone to bear our children though. It really is quite an honour though when you think about it. You'll have plenty of time to think about it, and I am sure you'll see it our way eventually."

"I think I've seen this movie. So you need to kipnap our women and breed with them? You are living in a f**king crappy Friday night B movie. We watched this one together! And now you think you need Bev to have a baby?"

Simon who had been sitting, his face a ghastly shade as recent memories he'd dismissed as impossible swam to the surface, suddenly lept to his feet and lunged at Chris, "You touch Bev and I'll rip your f**king head off and s**t down your throat." Chris caught Simon's fist, pulled in towards him, spun him around and pushed him back towards the bed. Simon was shocked at just how strong pudgy old Chris seemed to be.

Bev laughed, a sweet and happy sounding noise, totally at odds with the situation. "Oh don't worry about that Simon, we don't need that dirty skank."

"f**k you, ya bamn btich!"

"Oh don't worry about that sweetie. You already did. You haven't really understood what I've been saying. We don't need human women to bear our young for us. We don't even need you hunky, hah! men to fertilize us. Believe me, Chris did that several times this trip already. I am surprised I can still walk right now."

Beside her Chris blushed as she continued. "You see once we have our egg sacks, we need to implant them into a human for them to survive, and it has to be a male. Something in the female immune system kills our little ones. So once they are ready, we implant them in a suitable host subject and he carries them to term.  When the little darlings are ready, well they will just eat their way right out of you. I am sorry for how painful that will be, but its what we've got to do to survive. And well, lets face it. As members of the human race, you did bring this on yourselves."

"You ain't getting near me." snarled Simon.

"Oh but sweetie, I told you, you already did. While you were lying there unconscious I already laid my precious little babies in you. Thats them right there." She pointed to the discoloured lump in Simon's side."

Simon's hand went to his side, he could swear he could feel things squirming underneath his skin. He threw up noisily, his vomit splattering on the stone floor.

"What about Dev?" he asked imploringly.

"Well, she was unlucky enough to get in the water where we normally offer our sacrifices to Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. They must have been pleasently surprised to turn up in person to accept it. On their behalf, I'd like to thank you for your offering."

"You mean, she, she's dead?"

"Well yes, but if it is any consolation we gathered up the remains, and in a very real sense she is here with you now, and will remain with you until the end. Simon with mounting horror followed her stare to the plate of cooked meat he and Paul had so recently eaten. Now it was Paul's turn to throw up nosily.

"Oh you pair! Now your home is going just stink of vomit and that isn't going to be a very nice thing. No, it isn't" she said in a sing song voice as if talking to a baby. "Poor Hamish is going to have to clean that up, and that just isn't going to make him happy no it isn't."

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand Paul asked "If this is all true why haven't I had eggs laid in me?"

It was Chris's turn to answer "Bloody hell mate, give us a chance. I am not a stud farm you know. Your time will come soon enough. You should be happy about that though. Ali told me how much you wanted to adopt some kids. Well, now you get to go one better and actually give birth to some."

"Anyhoose," interjected Ali "it has been awesome catching up with you, but we aren't really supposed to. Sort of against the rules. We just wanted to let you know how grateful we are for you allowing our little family to be possible. You see in a way, we've all got what we wanted. Simon, you wanted to have sex with me and you got that. Paul, you wanted have a family, Bev... well she wanted to be adored, and now she will be venerated as a bride of our goddess. Don’t be expecting anyone to come looking for you. I wouldn’t want you to be all disappointed when no one does. You see Simon, when we were using your computer we weren’t just doing essays for you to copy. We put a whole diary in there that tells a story about you and the boys serious drug dealing habit. It appears that you spent a load of money you owed to some drug lord and had decided to run off and hide. When we go back tomorrow, we’ll be telling everyone none of you ever showed up for our holiday, but we found your phones in our backpacks. I guess you put them there for anyone tracing your phones as a false lead. By the time it all gets investigated and sorted out, well by then me and Chris will have returned to the oceans. We will think of you often though."

Simon launched at her, but again Chris blocked him, and threw him against the wall. "Don't think I won't hurt you Si. Those little eggs inside you can survive almost anything. I doubt you can say the same about yourself!"

"You sick f**ks, you actually believe any of this is real don't you."

"No sweetie, we know it is. And soon enough you will see the proof too."

"And what about Jim."

It was Ali's turn to look shocked. "Oh! I'd forgotten about poor Jim. Oh well, we have people out looking for him. I sure they will find him soon enough, unless exposure kills him first. Poor dear. I hope they fnd him. I really want to implant into both of you at the same time, so you both give birth together."

"You really are effing demented. You know that right?"

Ali pouted. "Such a potty mouth. Well, I am not going to stay here any longer to listen to this. I'll send Hamish down to sort out your foot. I don't think we'll see you again, but I'll make sure and tell our babies all about you."

She turned around and skipped her way back up the stairs. As she left she heard Chris say "I'd say bye too, but to be honest. I never really liked any of you. I only tolerated you for Ali's sake."

Without another word he turned around and left the pair of them, securing the door behind him.

[Alex]

Jim.

Jim was cold, tired and p**sed off. He'd been wandering through the woods looking for Simon and Bev and gotten lost. All he'd had was cold water from the lake and he was starving. More by luck than anythng else he had found his way back to the loch and then followed the waters edge back to the village. He could call for help from there, or maybe the others would be there waiting for him. He was way overdue, it would be getting dark soon and he'd be lucky to make it back in time for his classes tomorrow. If they were sitting in there having drinks, they'd better have a cold one sitting waiting for him. He really hoped he could get some hot food though, and that Simon hadn't p**sed them off again.

He pushed open the door, a big smile crossing his face as he saw Chris and Ali sitting at a table. They looked slightly surprised to see him. The big barman was emerging from a doorway, with stairs leading down and he too smiled as he saw Jim. Chris pointed at him, and the man turned around. Jim's smile fell as he saw what the man was holding. In one hand he held a massive meat cleaver, stained with fresh blood. In the other he held a boot. The stump of a leg protruded from the top of the boot. He recognised the boot as one of a pair he'd bought Paul for his last birthday. The man advanced towards him, raising the cleaver over his head. Chris and Ali were shouting something, but the words didn't quite register in his head,

Jim felt something warm and wet running down his leg. He realised he was definitly going to miss his classes in the morning.

The end.

[Alex]

And Ellie, I will send you a full copy of the story when I get back home on Monday.

[Alex]

The Redcap's Lair.

   You don't mess around with a Redcap. Everyone in this business knows that much right? Or at least if you don't, well this isn't the  business for you. Murderous little buggers they are and if you make the mistake of spending the night in one of their lairs... well its cap gets dyed a little bit redder. They don't even like others of their kind. And by that I mean faries.

   Its funny to me when I hear that people used to think faries were nice sweet things that granted wishes and made flowers bloom or whatever. There are more types of them than I can count, divided up into two camps. Seelie and Unseelie. The Unseelie are all the vicious and murderous ones. The Seelie, well they might not rip your guts out and wind them around a tree like christmas decorations with your head on top, but well they were still dangerous and to be avoided by anyone with any brains. The fae had always been there, long before we climbed down out of the tree's. Just for whatever inscruitable reasons fae to things they had... faded into the background. When the werewolves repeared though, so did the fae. Well the Were's appeared first. We'd just about figured out what we had to do to kill them when the fae decided to come back. I have no idea if it was the Were's that made them come back, or if it was just coincidence. Doesn't matter either way. By the time they'd stopped fighting pretty much all the major cities were gone. They weren't destroyed, wiped out, desolate ruins with the skeletal remains of buildings reaching up to the sky like broken fingers, a sad monument to the hubris of humanity.

They were just gone, and in their place stood pristine forests. The British Isles went back to how they had looked before mankind cut down the trees. No idea what happened to them or the people that lived in them. You can find the odd friendly Seelie and talk to one. They'll talk about almost anything, but if you ask them what happened to the cities the most you'll get is a smile and a wink. They didn't wipe out all human habitation though. Small villages, farms and suchlike remain. And if you know how to appease the fae then you'll mostly  be left alone. You know, things like leaving out saucers of cream for them, not having spikes on your fence so they can sit on them.  You do that and the Seelie will leave you alone, maybe even put a blessing on your house or do you some favours. You p**s them off however, and well you best be moving away.Far, far away.

You make the mistake of just wandering into Unseelie territory though and all bets are off.

Anyway, we were heading north, on a return mail trip. Messages are now the only way for people to keep in touch any more. No phones, no TV, certainly no damn internet anymore. It is back to handwritten letters. Not that there is much communication nowadays. People live off the land like they used to in ages past, most places have learned to be self sufficient, but lots of folks still have relations scattered all over the country and that is where we come in.

We are the post men. The last thing holding civilisation together.

We have all sorts of dangers to watch out for. Some Seelie might take a fancy to one of you, steal you away for a nights pleasure and when you wake up it is 500 years later, or another might decide you've offended it in some way and look to take payment in blood. Sometimes you'll get lucky and meet up with someone like Truthful Tom who can you out of most trouble (he has a bit in influence with the farie queen), but mostly you are out there on your own. Well, not quite on your own. We travel in groups of seven which seems to please some groups of faries for reason's we haven't quite figured out. And travelling between places isn't as simple as it sounds. Since they came back geography has become unreliable. Places that weren't there before are suddenly there. I keep hoping one day all the missing cities will come back, but so far none have. We still have Glasgow and Edinburgh north of the border. South, you have Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham... Maybe a few other places I haven't been yet? Nowhere near as many people living in them as we used to have. Few thousand at most. There isn't the infrastructure to support much more than that n one place anymore. Anyway, that's why you just can't mark up on a map the safe places to go because what is there one time, might be there or might be elsewhere. Not to mention the occasional left over Werewolf the faries didn't catch. So, yeah our job is a tough one.

Or something else might have moved in. Before I became a postman I had a nice house in a small town called Wick. A Boggart moved in and just made life a misery. Constant petty small tricks made it unbearable. Keys were always missing, milk was spoiled, things got broken. Eventally I gave up and moved out. Anytime I find myself in the neighbourhood,  check my old house out. I have no idea what he still finds to break in there, but I hear the noises of him throwing things around and smashing them.

So on with my story. We were doing the return leg of a Glasgow to Manchester run. Things had been going more or less well. We were deep in what is still called the borderlands, the old dividing line between Scotland and England. It was getting late, and the place we were looking to spend the night didn't seem to be where it ought to be. The wind was howling and getting stronger, heavy dark clouds promised a night of rain. Not the sort of weather you want to spend sleeping under the sky. Only thing we could see to head towards, was what looked like an old ruined keep on the top of a barren hill. I'd passed this way dozens of times and never seen it before. We knew it was risky to spend the night there, but we couldn't see any other choice. So we hiked up the hill. Close up, it was an old ruined keep. Looked like it had been there for centuries, and in some strange way it had, even though it hadn't been there two weeks previous. We checked out the grounds for any obvious signs of anything living there. Other than a few large boulders lying scattered around we saw nothing.

Yeah, we really should have taken that as more of a warning.

We settled down to sleep, agreeing to take it in turns to stand watch. I got the first shift, did my duty and then woke up my replacement. As I lay down, the wind and rain sounded even heavier than they did before.

Not a fit night for man nor beast to be outside.

I couldn't have been asleep for long when we are all awoken by an almighty crash. I sat bolt upright, thinking we were in the middle of an earthquake from the way the ground had shaken, but it was all over almost as quickly as it had begun. It took us a minute or two to figure out there were only six of us now, and we couldn't see the missing man. Not until we stopped a hand sticking out from underneath a boulder, fingers still twitching from whatever phantom signals were jumping around the crushed body beneath. There was no way the six of us could even try and shift the boulder. Then there was a flash of lightning and we saw it outlined against the bright flash. It looked like an ancient and wizened old man, with a floppy cap on his head. One hand held an old fashioned pikestaff which he was waving manically has he cappered around, celebrating no doubt the death of our companion. I'd seen pictures of them before, and I knew that if we saw him upclose he'd have stringy gray hair, matted with blood dripping from the hat he liked to dip in the blood of the slain and despite his appearence as an old man it was more than strong enough to kill all six of us if we were foolish enough to try and fight him.

So we upped and fled out into the night, wind, rain, thunder, lightning and all. We left everything else behind.
And that sir, is why I am formally submitting a form 67a, to request the king of the faries formally be approached to request the return of our mail sacks. Ain't no way any of us are going back there to fetch them. I mean you can try reading scripture and showing a crucifix and maybe the stories about that scaring a Redcap off are true, but me I reckon those old monk's lied when they wrote that stuff. Be a damned silly creature who was scared of words from a book. Besides, if you are close enough for him to hear you speak, then you are close enough for him to throw a boulder at you. Me, I'll put my faith in red tape (although I'd be appreciate all things considered if we could change the name to a different colour) and see if we can get the buggers to return it that way.

[Alex]

Decided to try something a bit film noirish. Not sure how this one will go, or if I will finish it, but it is something to do on the train.

Fairy Tale Murders.

It had already been a tough week. I'd been dealing with a report of a murder. Some broad had dropped a house on a witch to kill her. Likes to take trophies too, stole the shoes off a dead woman. Pretty sick stuff. Seems a bit extreme in my book, going to all the effort of dropping a house on someone, when a second report came in. The same dame had murdered the witches sister by throwing a bucket of 'water' over her.

Great, just what I needed. A serial killer bumping off witches. And an inventive one at that. I was sitting wondering just how she'd gotten a witch to agree to a wet tee-shirt contest, and how no one had noticed one of the buckets had been filled with acid. The suits in city hall were pretty nervous about this one. They'd have to put a pretty good spin on it. There was an election coming up soon and no one wanted a headline grabbing serial killer running around pushing politicians off the front page. Those guys did not like compition.

The lieutenant called me into his office. Gave me the hard sell on solving this one fast. The mayor was breathing down his neck, which meant the LT was breathing down my neck so closely I could smell that he'd had steak, eggs and coffee for breakfast. By the time I left his office, his voice was hoarce from the yelling and my ears were ringing.

I left the office, turning the collar of my mac up against the drizzling rain. Funny, no matter what the weather was like everywhere else, it was always drizzling when you left the police station. I called a cab aand took a ride out to the first murder scene. I never liked getting out of the city. On it's mean streets everything was black and white, but once you got away from it, suddenly everythng became colourful. I was just glad went I crossed over, I stayed black and white. Proper colours for a person to be.

[Alex]

Something about this case though… It sounded somehow familiar. I felt like a man drowning in quicksand trying to reach a branch just brushing his fingertips. Something was there, I just couldn’t grasp it.

I noticed the driver was going over the speed limit. I figured he knew I was a cop and that I wouldn’t really care if he sped a little, or ran the odd red light as long as I got where I was going. Pulling him up now would mean paperwork, and I was already buried deep in that. I took his badge number and made a mental note to report him to one of the traffic boys later. They’d appreciate the assist, and it never hurt to have them owe you a favour.

We reached the outskirts of the city, the change to technicolour hit me hard like it always does. If I’d thrown up in the back of the cab though, it might have counted as an improvement. The floor was littered with trash, and I’d to be careful where I sat not to get someone else’s chewing gum stuck to the seat of my pants. Dirty cabs like this one made me wish sometimes the seemingly endless dreary rain would turn into a flood, wash all the filth away, but I’d learned in my time of the force that some dirt just doesn’t clean off, and this city was dirty deep down to its very core.

We arrived at the Podunk town where the first witch had died. The bright colours made me wish I had a hangover. If I’d been making friends with Jim Bean last night, I’d at least have a good reason to feel so nauseated.

Jerry, one of the junior detectives I worked with on a regular basis was already there. He’d directed the blue suits to secure the crime scene. I got out the cab, tipped the drive a $10 (which I’d get back when the traffic boys fined him). Jerry handed me a welcome cup of Joe. It was dark and bitter just the way I liked it.

“So, what’s the score Jerry?” I asked, pulling a cheap cigarette out and lighting it as I did.

“The old lady didn’t stand no chance. She was walking along, minding her own business when SPLAT! Out of know where a two-story house drops on her. One hell of a murder weapon. Ever tried dusting a house for prints?”

“Witnesses?”

“Oh yeah a ton of them. We got a second body to deal with though.”
“The house landed on two of them?”

“No, apparently the witch had a beau in town. He hung himself when he heard she was dead. Oh, and get this, the entire town is populated with Munchkins.”

“You’re kidding, right? Just tell me they don’t keep bursting out into song.”

“Nope to the first. And three times so far while I’ve been trying to question them. Ever tried keeping track of twenty identically dressed short guys when they start doing a song and dance routine? It ain’t no picnic around here boss. And I thought the time that chocolate factory guy enslaved those midgets and started murdering kids in ‘industrial accidents,’ was bad.”

I shuddered at the memory. Only one kid called Charlie and his granddad had survived that day and they were never quite the same again.

The singing short people had really got on my nerves and I’d hoped never to work with anything like them again, and yet here I was. Different place, same s**t.

“Ok Jerry, round up the little men. We’ll interview them one at a time in an isolated room. Handcuff them to a chair if we need to. That should at least stop them dancing. Break out the hot lamp and we’ll see who wants to sing a different tune after a while under it.”

[Alex]

Better show me the murder scene.”

Still something was bugging me, some forgotten memory that was dug in like a worm. It teased me, seeming to always just be on the tip of being recalled but not quite. I’d was a fifteen-year veteran of the department, worked a lot of cases and sometimes the details just flowed together like a how a bunch of raindrops coming together to form a river.

I thought of a holiday years ago with Devon. Now there was a swell date I was foolish to let go, but I’d let Devon walk out of my life without even trying to keep things together. I remembered that walk, how the hips swayed from side to side, how the distinctive conditioner smelt. Little things like that, that just stay with you, like gum stuck on the sole of your shoe. Finishing my coffee, I sighed and crushed the paper cup tossing it aside. Jerry was looking at me expectantly. “Say boss, you need a minute? You look like you just seen a ghost.”

“You know Jerry, for a moment I think I did.”

We walked over to the house, which despite being dropped from the sky, seemed to be in remarkably good condition. Sure, it was a bit of a fixer upper but a little work and it would be as good as new.

Providing of course you could figure out how to get the stiff out from underneath it of course. Jerry showed me where her legs protruded out from underneath it. They looked fairly intact. I didn’t want to see the mess the rest of the body was in. The two legs were covered in red and white stripped tights, the toes curled up. It looked so sad and pathetic. What a crappy way to be remembered. Judging from the holes in the leggings, she did not have money. As it had mentioned on the report, her only possession worth taking, her shoes, had been stolen off the dead woman’s body.

I promised myself there and then, I’d take this one down hard. It had just got personal. If the court sentenced her to the big sleep, I’d be there to watch as she did the electric jig in the chair.

Jerry put his shades on and said I guess for her the housing market had just collapsed. I put him in charge at the scene and called one of the beat cops to drive me to the second site. Other than a description (woman in a gingham dress), I didn’t think Jerry would get much to go on from the Munchkins. Plus, I didn’t want to have to deal with the suicide on top of everything else.

We took the Highway towards Oz City. Kids had vandalised the road a while back, painting rude signs all along it in yellow paint. Ever since it had been known as the ‘Yellow Dick Road’. The shocks on the police car were in need of work. I felt every cobblestone brick we bounced over. The beat cop driving me, a heavy-set guy called Murphy (weren’t they all?) and identical to every other beat cop in the precinct was good enough to drive in silence. I was in no mood for idle chit-chat.

We’d been driving for half an hour when I heard Murphy swear and slam the breaks on. I looked up from the report I’d been reading and re-reading endlessly, hoping to scratch the itch in my memory. Some damned fool dressed as a scarecrow was standing in the middle of the road, slowly turning around in circles. Murphy climbed out the car, roaring at the idiot to move. His back was to him as he approached the scarecrow. I wound down the window, to tell Murphy to shove him off the road, or arrest him if he resisted when his slow spin turned him around to face us. The head was initially hanging down staring at the ground, but slowly rose to stare straight at Murphy. He was wearing old ripped clothes, a mix of greys and browns with a sack over his head and a tattered hat on top. A carrot poked out the sack for a nose and the eyes seemed drawn on and soulless, but the teeth. In the name of the fairy godmothers, the teeth… Each of them seemed like a three-inch-long ivory dagger, gleaming in the sunlight. Even from this distance I could see a drop of saliva run down one of the fangs and drip to the ground.

Scarecrow said a single word, and I felt a cold chill creep through my bones as everything that happened in the next few moments seemed to slow down to a crawl.

“BRAINS!”

[Alex]

And with that, before anyone could say or do anything else, he leapt on Murphy, sinking his teeth deep into Murphy’s head. I heard the crunch as his skull collapsed under the attack. I dropped the papers I’d been reading and jumped out of the car. For the first time the Scarecrow took notice of me and dropped poor Murphy’s body, starting to walk in a strange, jerky fashion towards me. I pulled my piece out, shouting at him to halt, but knowing I was going to plug this monster even if he did stop. I pulled the trigger six times, the Scarecrow staggering backwards as I emptied my revolver into him. He staggered all right, but didn’t fall. I could see holes straight through him where the bullets had passed through his body, but he straightened himself and continued his weird stop motion walk toward me.

I felt as much use as a tub of butter in trying to stop a blowtorch as he showed me his blood and gore stained teeth. I was pretty sure the gig was up for me right there and then, when I had a sudden thought. I dropped my gun and grabbed for Jerry’s lighter. I flipped its top and flicked the ignitor in one smooth motion. The smile dropped off the Scarecrows face pretty quickly when I started running towards him, shoving the lighter in through one of the holes left by a bullet, while my other hand grabbed his throat to keep those lethal teeth from sending me for a dirt nap.

The dry hay he was stuffed with caught fire, and with a whoosh, he went up in flames. For a few seconds he looked even more horrific, his face wreathed in fire. Then it hit him just how much trouble he was in. I pushed him away from me. The day wasn’t going to get any better for me if I ended up as a human Catherine Wheel. Damn thing still kept on moving in his stiff limed way, trying to beat out the flames. I backed off to the driver’s side of the car and watched him burn. No way I was putting this guy out. I checked the trunk of the car just in case we had a can of gas back there just to make sure he burned, but no such luck but by then the Scarecrow was just some ash, blowing away in the wind. I made a call to headquarters and set up a road block. A look at Murphy’s head told me his wife would be collecting a widow’s pension. I’d seen worse ways to go, but not many. His head had been burst open like a watermelon being eaten by a shredder. I covered his body up with my mac so I didn’t have to keep chasing the birds off him. For a second I thought I could really do with a scarecrow, but I killed that line of thought damn quick.

The department takes it pretty seriously when one of its own bites the dust. The crime scene investigators were here pretty sharpish, along with some suit from the Mayor’s office to run some PR. He jumped out his car, smoothed down his suit, checking himself in the wing mirror before striding over to me.

I could tell I wasn’t going to like him already.

“Detective Holzman?” He asked. I nodded and he thrust out his hand for me to shake. I looked at him coolly and ignore his hand. From his face, I could tell I had rattled him a little. Good. I could tell this guy was going to be a pain.

“My name is Lyman Baum. The Mayor is taking a personal interest in this case and asked me to come down and keep an eye on things. Keep him informed on the progress you are making, and here I find you knee deep in the ashes of someone you apparently decided to burn alive. Is he even a suspect? Do you have any clue about who might be responsible or is this whole thing just turning into a cluster on your watch?”

Talk about first impressions being right.

“Mr Baum, first of all no he wasn’t a suspect. He was just some random nut job who attacked us in the middle of nowhere. Second, no I don’t have any clues. I might never get any clues because some ass from the Mayor’s office is for one thing stopping me doing any investigation, and for another thing his two hundred and fifty-dollar shoes are currently standing in the middle of what is left of the perp. Three, we lost a man here today. I didn’t know him well, but from his wedding ring I assume he has a wife, maybe some kids. I saw him get half his head ripped off for nothing more than telling some circus freak to get out of the road, so how about you back off before I decide to slug you one right on the jaw.”

I deliberately pushed past him, making sure his expensive suit was smeared with the blood and ash I’d picked up while checking out the two victims.

I ignored him as behind me I heard him call out “I am a dangerous man to upset detective, and I have contacts.”

Yeah, no doubt he’d cause problems with me. The Mayor played golf with the Chief, and the Chief would come down hard on the LT about this, which meant the LT… well s**t rolls down hill and this particular detective seemed to be standing at the bottom with a basket designed to catch it all. I found a still burning ember from the Scarecrow, lit another cigarette and flicked the ember behind me in the vague hope that it would burn Lymon’s suit. Maybe they’d push for my badge and I’d quit and become… whatever ex detectives became. Another detective arrived, Morrison. He was going to take the Scarecrow case. I was a material witness, not to mention I’d burned the guy until only scraps were left. Morrison was a good man. He’d been my supervisor when I’d been a junior.

“Jeez Winnie, what a mess.” He grunted and indicated both sets of remains. “Any leads?”

“Nothing. Perp had no ID, at least nothing that survived the fire.”

“Straw man huh? Tough break for Murphy. He was only three days from retirement. They’d picked him out a gold watch and everything.”

“I can tell you one thing, he moved funny. It was as if he didn’t have full control over his body. Even when he was burning, it was like some messed up dance.”

Morrison pulled a pair of shades out of his coat pocket, put them on and said “Sounds like a real disco inferno.”

[ER]

The Redcap's Lair.

   You don't mess around with a Redcap. Everyone in this business knows that much right? Or at least if you don't, well this isn't the  business for you. Murderous little buggers they are and if you make the mistake of spending the night in one of their lairs... well its cap gets dyed a little bit redder. They don't even like others of their kind. And by that I mean faries.

   Its funny to me when I hear that people used to think faries were nice sweet things that granted wishes and made flowers bloom or whatever. There are more types of them than I can count, divided up into two camps. Seelie and Unseelie. The Unseelie are all the vicious and murderous ones. The Seelie, well they might not rip your guts out and wind them around a tree like christmas decorations with your head on top, but well they were still dangerous and to be avoided by anyone with any brains. The fae had always been there, long before we climbed down out of the tree's. Just for whatever inscruitable reasons fae to things they had... faded into the background. When the werewolves repeared though, so did the fae. Well the Were's appeared first. We'd just about figured out what we had to do to kill them when the fae decided to come back. I have no idea if it was the Were's that made them come back, or if it was just coincidence. Doesn't matter either way. By the time they'd stopped fighting pretty much all the major cities were gone. They weren't destroyed, wiped out, desolate ruins with the skeletal remains of buildings reaching up to the sky like broken fingers, a sad monument to the hubris of humanity.

They were just gone, and in their place stood pristine forests. The British Isles went back to how they had looked before mankind cut down the trees. No idea what happened to them or the people that lived in them. You can find the odd friendly Seelie and talk to one. They'll talk about almost anything, but if you ask them what happened to the cities the most you'll get is a smile and a wink. They didn't wipe out all human habitation though. Small villages, farms and suchlike remain. And if you know how to appease the fae then you'll mostly  be left alone. You know, things like leaving out saucers of cream for them, not having spikes on your fence so they can sit on them.  You do that and the Seelie will leave you alone, maybe even put a blessing on your house or do you some favours. You p**s them off however, and well you best be moving away.Far, far away.

You make the mistake of just wandering into Unseelie territory though and all bets are off.

Anyway, we were heading north, on a return mail trip. Messages are now the only way for people to keep in touch any more. No phones, no TV, certainly no damn internet anymore. It is back to handwritten letters. Not that there is much communication nowadays. People live off the land like they used to in ages past, most places have learned to be self sufficient, but lots of folks still have relations scattered all over the country and that is where we come in.

We are the post men. The last thing holding civilisation together.

We have all sorts of dangers to watch out for. Some Seelie might take a fancy to one of you, steal you away for a nights pleasure and when you wake up it is 500 years later, or another might decide you've offended it in some way and look to take payment in blood. Sometimes you'll get lucky and meet up with someone like Truthful Tom who can you out of most trouble (he has a bit in influence with the farie queen), but mostly you are out there on your own. Well, not quite on your own. We travel in groups of seven which seems to please some groups of faries for reason's we haven't quite figured out. And travelling between places isn't as simple as it sounds. Since they came back geography has become unreliable. Places that weren't there before are suddenly there. I keep hoping one day all the missing cities will come back, but so far none have. We still have Glasgow and Edinburgh north of the border. South, you have Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham... Maybe a few other places I haven't been yet? Nowhere near as many people living in them as we used to have. Few thousand at most. There isn't the infrastructure to support much more than that n one place anymore. Anyway, that's why you just can't mark up on a map the safe places to go because what is there one time, might be there or might be elsewhere. Not to mention the occasional left over Werewolf the faries didn't catch. So, yeah our job is a tough one.

Or something else might have moved in. Before I became a postman I had a nice house in a small town called Wick. A Boggart moved in and just made life a misery. Constant petty small tricks made it unbearable. Keys were always missing, milk was spoiled, things got broken. Eventally I gave up and moved out. Anytime I find myself in the neighbourhood,  check my old house out. I have no idea what he still finds to break in there, but I hear the noises of him throwing things around and smashing them.

So on with my story. We were doing the return leg of a Glasgow to Manchester run. Things had been going more or less well. We were deep in what is still called the borderlands, the old dividing line between Scotland and England. It was getting late, and the place we were looking to spend the night didn't seem to be where it ought to be. The wind was howling and getting stronger, heavy dark clouds promised a night of rain. Not the sort of weather you want to spend sleeping under the sky. Only thing we could see to head towards, was what looked like an old ruined keep on the top of a barren hill. I'd passed this way dozens of times and never seen it before. We knew it was risky to spend the night there, but we couldn't see any other choice. So we hiked up the hill. Close up, it was an old ruined keep. Looked like it had been there for centuries, and in some strange way it had, even though it hadn't been there two weeks previous. We checked out the grounds for any obvious signs of anything living there. Other than a few large boulders lying scattered around we saw nothing.

Yeah, we really should have taken that as more of a warning.

We settled down to sleep, agreeing to take it in turns to stand watch. I got the first shift, did my duty and then woke up my replacement. As I lay down, the wind and rain sounded even heavier than they did before.

Not a fit night for man nor beast to be outside.

I couldn't have been asleep for long when we are all awoken by an almighty crash. I sat bolt upright, thinking we were in the middle of an earthquake from the way the ground had shaken, but it was all over almost as quickly as it had begun. It took us a minute or two to figure out there were only six of us now, and we couldn't see the missing man. Not until we stopped a hand sticking out from underneath a boulder, fingers still twitching from whatever phantom signals were jumping around the crushed body beneath. There was no way the six of us could even try and shift the boulder. Then there was a flash of lightning and we saw it outlined against the bright flash. It looked like an ancient and wizened old man, with a floppy cap on his head. One hand held an old fashioned pikestaff which he was waving manically has he cappered around, celebrating no doubt the death of our companion. I'd seen pictures of them before, and I knew that if we saw him upclose he'd have stringy gray hair, matted with blood dripping from the hat he liked to dip in the blood of the slain and despite his appearence as an old man it was more than strong enough to kill all six of us if we were foolish enough to try and fight him.

So we upped and fled out into the night, wind, rain, thunder, lightning and all. We left everything else behind.
And that sir, is why I am formally submitting a form 67a, to request the king of the faries formally be approached to request the return of our mail sacks. Ain't no way any of us are going back there to fetch them. I mean you can try reading scripture and showing a crucifix and maybe the stories about that scaring a Redcap off are true, but me I reckon those old monk's lied when they wrote that stuff. Be a damned silly creature who was scared of words from a book. Besides, if you are close enough for him to hear you speak, then you are close enough for him to throw a boulder at you. Me, I'll put my faith in red tape (although I'd be appreciate all things considered if we could change the name to a different colour) and see if we can get the buggers to return it that way.

I like your representation of fairies. Supposedly I'm descended from them, ha. Explains a few things, I've always thought.