Then quite surprisingly, she turned her head and their eyes met…across a crowded bar, if you can take that…then ever so slowly she padded across the bar towards him. Adrian looked around but no one else in the blue neon lit alcove paid him or the woman any attention.

After what seemed like an age, she appeared in front of him. “Hi” she purred “Mind if I sit?”

“No, no, sit down…please” Adrian blabbed. He brushed imaginary dust from the vacant seat.

“Thanks, you’re a real gent.”

Adrian felt himself begin to blush, he hated it, but he turned a deep shade of red whenever he tried his hand with the opposite sex.

The woman held out a slender hand in greeting, “My name’s Gemma.”

“Adrian…Adrian Baxter.” he reciprocated, shaking her hand gently, then, “Nice gloves!”

Gemma smiled, “Yeah I like them, they keep my hands soft and gentle…” she gazed directly into Adrian ’s eyes as she spoke.

Adrian tried not staring at the expanse of bare skin on show as she crossed her very long legs, this causing the already revealing skirt to become almost pornographic as it rode up her upper thighs.

“You meeting somebody here Gemma?” he asked, not daring for a negative response.

“No, just out seeing what I can see.” She answered. Her eyes flashed and reflected the neon on the bars’ windows.

Adrian struggled for a follow up for a second then offered, “Would you like a drink?”

Gemma smiled and tilted her head in subtle response.

“What would you like?” he enquired.

“Oh, you figure it out…” she purred playfully.

Adrian made his way to the bar as quickly as possible, all the while trying to fathom the best drink for someone like his new companion. He looked back at the woman who now appeared as a statue, motionless, bathed in blue light and achingly beautiful.

Minutes later, he appeared back at the table, amazed there wasn’t a stream of men trying their luck with this half naked Venus.

“Champagne with a shot of pomegranate juice?” as he offered the glass.

“Perfect, see I knew you had a talent for it!” She smiled.

“Talent?”

“My drink…it’s what I would have chosen myself” she affirmed.

Adrian smiled in joy, damn it he was making real headway with this babe.

“What do you do Adrian ?” she enquired directly.

“I work at the Body Perfect Gym down at Durham . I’m one of the fitness instructors.”

“Hmmn, that figures by the look of you. You’ve got really good arms. No shortage of meat on your bones!”  She said approvingly.

Adrian felt the blush starting to creep up his neck again. “So what do you do then? Do you live in Newcastle ?”

“Well, no I don’t live here, just passing through. And to what I do for a living, I work with the Cirque de Macabre show.”

“Cirque?…oh, the show at the O2 stadium? What do you do in it?” he asked. He’d seen some of the posters around the town advertising the risqué show. The posters had a few girls in bondage gear in provocative poses strewn around a piratical looking front-man.

He leaned closer and she mirrored his advance.

“I’m one of the performers, Miss Gemma Nye-Panthera at your service!” she announced slyly. A pink tongue flicked across her perfect teeth as if he needed any more enticement to keep him interested.

“What kind of performer?” Adrian ’s trousers seemed suddenly tighter; the bar a lot warmer than it had minutes earlier.

“I’m one of the contortionists. We do the slow tumbling and stretch routines. I work with three other girls. I’m told it’s very…sensual to watch.”

Adrian leaned forward again, more to disguise the swelling in his pants than to hear her. He very nearly asked ‘are you really bendy and stuff?’ then caught himself at the last second. Sexual possibilities steamed across his mind like a newsflash.

Gemma leaned back in her seat stretching her long tanned legs as she did so.

“So where are you stopping while you’re in town?”

“I’ve got my wagon up on the fields near the race-course.” She replied. She swirled the drink around as she spoke, sending a stream of pink hued bubbles spiralling to the top of the glass. “Why do you ask?”

“I…I…just asking, I didn’t mean…”

Gemma smiled, as if taking pleasure in his discomfort. “I’m just being tricky, just teasing.” she laughed.

Adrian took a long pull on his whisky. Then when he had recovered he asked, “How long are you in town?”

“We’ve got one more show at the O2 then we move south. We leave for Manchester tomorrow night.”

“Shit!” he declared under his breath.

“Don’t worry Adrian ; that still leaves tonight. The show finished at nine, so I’ve got the rest of the night to myself.”

“What…what do you have in mind?” he dared to ask.

Gemma leaned forward and whispered a question in his ear, so low and sensual Adrian thought he had misheard her the first time. She asked again and he nodded energetically in response. She smiled and leaned back into her seat again.

“Well I share a caravan with my twin sister; she’s just a little on the shy side when it comes to going on the prowl. So I tend to do it for the both of us! We’re not identical but she’s still a real cute pussycat!” She arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow as if to test his responsiveness to this nugget.

“Twin sister?”

“Yeah, my sister…and me of course…could you be interested in a late supper?” she barley breathed the last words filling them with unspoken delicious suggestion.

“Of course I’m interested!” Adrian grinned. He looked around the bar as if to share his moment of glory but bizarrely, no one seemed to be clocking this half-naked temptress with legs as long as the M6.

“Come on then, no time like the present” she uncurled her body and seemed to glide towards the door.

Adrian Baxter, knowing a chance of a lifetime when it came along, downed the remainder of his drink and followed.

The night air was sharp as he emerged from the bar, but as he followed Gemma’s barely covered rear end across the Big Market, he soon forgot the cold.

Her long athletic legs seemed to defy physics as she traversed the pavement with feline ease.

He trotted to catch up with her. His mates wouldn’t believe what they’d missed tonight. But then again if they’d been in the bar, Tony would have probably scored with Gemma instead. Mr.Good looking – Tony, would just have to miss this one!

“Where are we going?” asked Adrian as he drew level with the object of his now snowballing fantasies.

“I’m parked just round the next corner.” She replied, “Come on, keep up!”

“Lead the way Gemma lass!” he grinned.

In a few minutes of speedy walking, they arrived at a large Freelander.

“Nice!” declared Adrian as they clambered into the large 4 x 4. As soon as the doors were closed, Gemma pulled him close and kissed him so deeply he felt intoxicated by the sudden contact. “Just a little taster before the main course!” she growled.

Adrian flopped back into his seat as she accelerated away north.

“So how long have you been with the show?” he asked.

“I was born into it. I come from a circus family.”

“So was you’re Mam & Dad gymnasts like you?”

“Well I’m not really a gymnast in the strictest sense, but I know what you mean.” She paused for a long beat…then…”My father died years ago in an aeroplane crash. And my Mum, well…have you heard the story of ‘The Elephant Man’?”

Adrian nodded “I’ve seen some of the movie…why?”

“Well, the story goes that Joseph Merrick’s mother was startled by an elephant while she was pregnant and the Elephant Man was born as the result!”

Adrian looked across at the beauty queen as she drove, “I’m sorry you’ve lost me!” he apologised.

“Well, a big cat scared my Mum while she was carrying Della and me and we came out like this!” she cast a teasing look at her male passenger, a wicked grin curling up her glossed lips.

“You’re terrible Gemma, you really had me going for a second there.” he admitted.

“Adrian you’re going to have the time of your life, just sit back and think about everything two perfect pussycats can do for you!…or to you.” she added.

He did just that; phantasms assailed him as he dared to imagine all of his sexual needs fulfilled. And damned if he couldn’t imagine quite a lot!

Within quarter of an hour they turned onto a darkened farm road. The Freelander bumped and jostled on the twin rutted dirt track.

“Not far now.” offered Gemma.

True to her word, within a few minutes, a large caravan was illuminated in the headlights of the vehicle.

The caravan was one of those big types that you see more on residential caravan sites. Not a little weekend tour caravan for sure.

“Come on then!” smiled Gemma as she hooked a gloved finger onto the waist band of Adrian ’s trousers.  “Let’s see what you’re made of!”

He followed her eagerly towards the large silver trailer. He hoped the twin sister was as good looking as Gemma, “Are you sure you’re sister, Della was it? Is OK with me coming back?”

“She’ll love you; don’t worry about it; now come on!”

As they entered the caravan, Adrian ’s eyes took in the most wondrous sight. The caravan was awash with art deco prints and objects d’art. All of the seats and floors were finished with a layer of thick vinyl. Posters displaying nearly naked women were everywhere.

His eyes latched on to one in particular. Although the bottom half of the poster was ripped away it was still plain to see the details on the remaining section. The top half of Gemma’s chest was showing on the poster, a scant costume barely covering her modesty. Red and gold script surrounded her image.

“Wow this is bloody amazing!” declared the impressed suitor. “This is you…” he said pointing to the poster. He began to read; “Introducing Gemma Nye…mistress of the dark, and the Fabulous Della Nye…the Panthera twins…and that’s your sister!”

Gemma smiled, scoring a ten on the sultry meter “You want a drink?”

“Yeah sure!” he replied as he looked at the posters for various stage shows from past and present years.

He took the glass of amber liquid from Gemma and downed it in one. “Now then, where’s this sister of yours?” he asked enthusiastically.

“Oh she’ll be through in a minute.” she nodded towards a double door that halved the caravan’s length.

Adrian sat back on a plush seat as his legs began to tingle. He tried to sit up but was surprised to find that his legs didn’t want to work.

“Gemma, I don’t feel right my l…”

“Legs don’t work?” she interjected. “That’ll be the poison in your drink. Well not a poison really – a paralytic narcotic to be exact. It affects the limbs and your speech…but you can still feel everything else. You just can’t move or speak.”

Adrian’s mind reeled in disbelief as he tried to comprehend the sudden turn of events. “You lied to me…” he croaked before his vocal chords ceased functioning.

“Oh no, I told you the truth. My twin sister and I do work in the shows. And the story is supposed to be true about my Mother’s encounter with the big cat in India . But who really knows?” a long dramatic pause followed, then; “Would you like to see some thing really cool?”

Adrian tried to shout NO and shake his head but nothing but a slight tremor escaped him.

Gemma Nye pulled off her gloves and flexed her fingers. A glistening set of two inch long talons sprang from her fingers. The hooked claws looked very capable of rending flesh.

Adrian stared in mute terror at the monstrous claws.

Then Gemma smiled fully for the first time and he saw the long needle like fangs that she had kept covered with her coy smiles and sly glances. “Are you ready to meet my sister?”

As if on cue, the double doors opened with theatrical aplomb.

Adrian screamed with all of his essence, yet all that escaped was a strangled high pitched wheeze. Standing before him was the most horrific beast that he’d never dared to imagine to exist.

The creature defied clear description but between the rolls of deformed flesh Adrian ’s fractured mind recognised details that he could actually register and comprehend.

A brief snap shot from an old horror movie flashed through his mind, the beast from ‘American Werewolf in London ’ stalking through the tube station, silent but menacing to the extreme.

The thing that was Della Nye loosely resembled an immense cat, but devoid of a single hair. Its/her bald and mottled skin held faint stripes across her back but these were as shadows on a lawn at twilight.

Della Nye opened her jaws and Adrian Baxter forgot every thing else in the world! The yellowed fangs were a direct contrast to Gemma’s demure needle fangs; these were huge tusks in comparison and perfect for crushing and shredding flesh and bone.

The twin sister to Gemma walked towards the stricken man on four grotesque feet. Della’s huge back rippled with muscle as she moved.

She appraised Adrian with a bestial gaze.

At that moment their eyes met and Adrian ’s already terror stricken mind started to splinter uncontrollably. Della’s eyes were unmistakably human.

Adrian Baxter began to convulse with shock and Gemma Nye, ever smiling slipped next to him. A single claw raked a neat furrow down his left cheek.

Adrian vomited a stream of bile as the twins laughed at her taunting. Della’s laugh was the bubbling of phlegm in a barrel chest.

“Remember in the club when I asked if you liked to eat pussy?”

A single tear was all Adrian could manage as he recalled Gemma’s whispered question.

“Well this time the Pussy gets to eat you!”

Gemma clamped her needle teeth down onto his right forearm.

Adrian, although completely unable to move; could feel every shred of living agony as his flesh was flensed from his bones.

Then Della clamped her cavernous jaws around his throat and he knew no more.

Paul Whittaker couldn’t believe his luck when the girl he’d been staring at looked up and flashed at sexy smile back at him. He was nursing a beer in Hodge’s bar; one of Manchester ’s better establishments if you were hoping to meet an eligible single of the opposite sex.

The Lycra-clad babe padded over to him, smiling as she came.

She slid into the seat next to him with a feline grace. “Hi there, my name’s Gemma, what’s yours?”

James Hilton has had work published on Thrillers, killers & Chillers as well as on his own site.

website: www.jimhilton.co.uk

“When’s kick-off?” he asked.

Barbara stood in the background talking to a journalist.  Of course she heard him.

“Wear that badge and you commit to the cause,” she said.

Jarek inclined his head to the right, rubbing a long finger along his cheek.  Its nail was spotless, chiseled.  Marzena had always thought her husband unnaturally clean for someone used to lugging all manner of goods in and out of his rig, someone who days at a time had no access to hot water or a quick shower.

“Here,” she said, and with matriarchal care she pinned the badge to his t-shirt over the broad expanse of his chest.  She put her hand in his.   His palm enclosed over hers as if it were not there.

Marzena was not a small woman, quite often drawing stares if she decided high heels were necessary.  But sometimes she forgot how large her husband was, how tall he was.  Some days he appeared to be taller, even larger than previous, as if his height and weight increased and decreased in syncopation to some unknown order in nature.  He was the same with his lovemaking.  Some nights he brooded such passion that he took her without warning.  Other nights he was tepid, controlled, uncertain of what he was doing, as if some animalistic behaviour suited the bucking and thrusting of his needs.

She patted his arm and strode out of the tent with him.

Jarak felt his wife’s disappointment.

“Quite a turnout,” he said, trying to sound optimistic.

“I envisaged more,” she replied.

The pair of them stood watching lines of protestors breaching the summit of the hill, trawling the road in struggling groups.  Placards bobbed as if afloat.  Cries of  “What do we want…” rose and dipped.

“There’s time yet,” said Jarak.

Marzena noticed one of the compound workers stood at the gates to the compound.  She’d had a terrible dream the night before.  She dreamt she’d crept up on one of these disposal workers and  torn his throat out with her bare hands.

“I hope so,” she replied, not really believing.

*

Much to Kaminski’s relief the protest passed without incident.  Perhaps it was the focus of the media, or perhaps it was the low turnout.  Nevertheless, it was a small and minor victory. They were still no nearer to catching the killer.

The phone on his desk rang.

“Yes,” he answered, the Monday Gazette Wyborska spread out on his desk.

“They’re here to see the bodies,” said a voice.

“Take them down,  I’ll join you in a minute.”

That morning a call had come through from the Chief Inspector of the Tatra County.  Their two departments had been working with each other for almost two months now.  The decomposed bodies of two missing property developers had been found on a roadside in the village of Chelbów just after the late spring thaw.  They’d been dead for some time, but the coroner gauged it at somewhere between four to five months.

He arrived at the county hospital to find the two detectives from the Tatra department examining the five bodies.  The coroner was with them.  He was a serious man and uncle to Kaminski.

“It’s exactly the same.  Same tear marks, same lacerations to the sternum…” said one of the detectives.

His partner nodded, looking the other way.  He saw Kaminski stood in the doorway and crossed the room to shake his hand.

“Detective,” he said.

“Detective.”

The other detective continued with his rundown: “Even the claw marks…”

“Correction,” interrupted Kaminski’s uncle, “not claw marks, not as you mean them.  Those are the result of a claw hammer, not an animal.”

“I don’t understand,” said the detective.

“You and me,” said the other detective, looking to Kaminski as if he might have the answers.

Kaminski remembered the first time he’d had to gaze upon the bodies.  The gaping hole of what should have been the outer structure of the thorax had stayed with him for weeks.  Only when he’d gotten past the cannibalistic theory, did he become fully involved with what Uncle Norbert had told him, that both animal and man had committed the crime.

*

Marzena sat on the patio of the private bar with Barbara rattling on about the woman from the Gazette Wyborza.  From the patio the waters of lake rose and swelled in the sudden gusts.  A canoe that could have been Jarek mounted one wave and ploughed down.

“Weather’s taking a turn for the worse,” said Marzena, hoping to change the topic of conversation.  Their mission was over.  It was up to the people of Łagów now.  Not that she believed anything would change.  In time the resistance to the waste management companies would crumble.  The gypsies would either stay or eke out whatever they could from the paltry benefits they might or might not receive from the government.

She’d left Jarek that morning to see off Barbara.  They were to meet again in two weeks.  Another resort beckoned, another hopeless cause awaiting their final stamp of approval.  Her husband had as always acquiesced to her request that she meet Barbara alone.  He didn’t mind, she knew he didn’t like Barbara.  She glanced at her friend, who was muttering and sipping her wine in equal measure.   Yesterday had felt like an exercise in righteous indignation and nothing else.

When Barbara motored off in her new jeep Marzena decided to cut back to the cabin.  She took one of the many footpaths through the surrounding hills over the small town, admiring the view.  When she reached the cabin, Jarak, as she’d suspected was not at home.  Snuff was which was unusual.  Her husband never left the dog behind, except when he was on a job.  She put Snuff on his leash and went out to the lake.

*

He rang Marzena shortly before sundown.  He told her that the car had run out of petrol and that he was stuck in the middle of nowhere.  He told her not to worry, that he would be back sometime after midnight. She said the dog was playing up again, like he always did whenever Jarak was gone.

Jarak was not as Marzena thought, completely without feeling for her role in NCARU.  Excluding the others, especially Barbara, he knew she meant well.  It was because of this that he now parked his car on the edge of the glade and walked the perimeter of the fence round the Central Disposal Compound.  His wife was a woman of principle and action, but those actions he felt had no chance of fruition unless she disassociated herself from the rest. They were what he called “rebellious conformists”, idle and rich playmates with no real intention of saving anything or anyone. What they did merely passed the time for them, released them from the otherwise routine of their gin-soaked mornings. Where had these people been ten years ago when the farms had collapsed in the east, when the developers had come and driven out his family and their kin?

He removed his clothes and walked naked into the darkness.

He did not care whether they would see him.  He knew they would not.  He was invisible to them.  To their eyes he was a figment, something primitive. He lay in the grass, watching the stars come out. The curtain of night shivered and shook droplets of light gathering in identical pinpricks of energy.

Several months ago he’d given a lift to two businessmen, property developers whose car had skidded off a back road leading into the Tatra Mountains.  He’d killed them with satisfaction and  ate their flesh without caring.

They would have done the same given the chance.

He crawled to his feet, feeling the stinging pains of change.  He grabbed his trousers from the ground and shook them.   A hammer fell out.  After feeding he would use it to deceive his hunters.  He hated having to resort to such techniques, but it served a purpose.  It implied the work of human savagery, of a shattered mind.  They would never know it was a ruse designed to confuse them, as he had always confused them.  Yet its randomness in an act of normality made him weep for lost traditions.  The modern world was a mediocre one.  He was glad that he had Marzena to help keep it at bay.

Mother moon made her guest appearance in the summer firmaments.

He smelled the grease of a weapon on a fat man in a pair of dirty overalls at the gates to the compound.  He would eat him and relish the taste.  This man like the men in the suits was the enemy.

Jarek stared at the hammer on the ground.  It saddened him to think it had come to this.  Then his flesh began to prickle, to warm, to begin…

He changed.

Frank Duffy is the co-writer of “The Journal” – See the Links Sections for details

“You have no idea how ready I am,” she said, hinting the true meaning with the fluctuation of her voice. Although she had never seen his face, skin, she imagined Scar’s body tan, muscled, exquisite, cultured. Lucy ached for him to touch her once. Just once would be ecstasy, anything more, nirvana.

Scar chuckled. It sounded cruel. Lucy blushed, she had said too much, and then she felt angry. Wasn’t this what he wanted all along? “Your laughter mocks me.” It did. And yet she still craved it.

“Lucy, my dear, remember now.”

She remembered everything he’d ever said.

“Remember when we first met two weeks ago.”

“How could I forget, Scar?” Lucy smiled, anger forgotten. “I saw your shadow beside the barn and when you spoke to me…” She trailed off with the memory.

“I left you the silk scarf. Do you remember why?”

“You asked me if I liked the dark, and I said yes. So you told me to close my eyes and you put on the blindfold.”

“Yes, excellent.”

Lucy felt a rush of warmth at these words, so she carried on with the rest. “I remember the feel of your breath on my neck as you tied the scarf around my eyes. You told me your name was Scar. You asked me if I was angry, so I told you about Luke.”

Scar laughed again, deeper. “Then I asked you to play a game with me, do you remember that?”

Lucy whispered, “Of course, I do.” She smiled, and felt him lean over her, so close she could feel his heat.

“I led you into the cornfield,” he said.

“Only by the sound of your voice.”

“And I handed you the scythe,” he said.

“Luke’s scythe, and you told me…”

“To pour all your rage into the field. Cut, slice, hack.”

And I could feel the scythe slice through the flesh of corn

“I did what you said.” Lucy beamed at this.

“And you felt better, didn’t you?” His voice poured deep and thick.

“Yes.” Who knew how much money would be lost because of it. It didn’t matter anymore. None of it did. Lucy knew Scar was the one she was supposed to be with all this time.

“I promise to take you with me tonight, Lucy.”

Her breath escaped, and Lucy giggled at the thought. To be with Scar? She’d do anything, anything.

“First, we will play one more game. Just like the first night.”

“Anything to be with you.” She reached for him, but he wasn’t there. She grasped the cool autumn air. She smelled alder smoke. It warmed the night breeze. Lucy wondered where the fire came from.

“Stand up, Lucy.”

She did, and when an object was placed in her hands, she had no doubt what it was. She recognized the feel by the long crack in the handle. The scythe.

“Follow my voice.” And she did. “Follow me, Lucy.” His voice was straw spun gold. The scent of smoke purged her senses, and she swore she could see firelight through the silk scarf. A muffled noise, like a scream, broke through Scar’s hypnotic whisper. Perhaps it was the breeze whistling through the corn.

“Stop, there. Excellent.”

The fire was on her right. She could definitely see it now. The muffled noise came from before her. She felt uncomfortable about it. It sounded so vaguely familiar.

“Do you remember what he called your mama that last time she came to visit? The very last visit before she died? He’d called her the devil’s whore didn’t he?”

She nodded her head. Anger flashed in her. Lucy never had the chance to apologize before mama had come down with the illness that had taken her life.

“Swing.”

Lucy hesitated.

“Swing now, Lucy.”

She swung. The scythe sunk into something soft. The sharpness of the blade cut through it.  Cornstalks weren’t soft. This felt wrong. Lucy breathed heavily. Completely wrong.

“Do you remember what he did to those kittens last spring? Remember what he did when you begged him not to? He tossed them in the river. You could hear their little mews as they drowned couldn’t you?”

Lucy felt the scarf soak with tears. “Yes,” she said.

“Swing, Lucy.”

And she did, a bit surer now. The muffled noise rose again in pitch.

“You remember when he said he was visiting the Coyers’, but he came home smelling like perfume?”

She nodded. A sob escaped her lips.

“And when you confronted him, he told you you were just delusional. Crazy. But then that whore called late that night and you answered the phone. She just laughed and laughed and laughed.”

Lucy screamed and swung the scythe. She felt it slice threw through solidity. She kept swinging. The muffled cries drained away as she swung, cut, sliced.

“Stop, Lucy.”

Lucy stopped. The scarf hung loosely about her eyes. She could see something hanging from the pole she’d erected weeks ago. She had stuffed hay into some of Luke’s old clothes, complete with hat, to keep the crows away.

The shape she saw hanging from the pole was not what she had put up. A cry escaped her lips.

“You can look now, Lucy.”

She snatched the scarf away to find what her heart dreaded.

Luke’s eye’s rolled back, his mouth draped open. Blood dribbled from his mouth into the mess of gashes she had imposed upon his body.

“No! I didn’t do that…” She shook her head.

“You wanted to play,” Scar’s voice was behind her ear. She could feel his body press against hers. When Scar’s straw fingers pranced their way down her arms, she drew away – confused.  Lucy turned and looked. What she saw made her scream.

The straw hat covered Scar’s face, the brim tucked low to his chin. A red glow came from underneath. He held a cluster of cornstalks licked with flames. “Come with me, Lucy.”

“No!” She turned, tripped over a log, crawled. He snatched her pants, grabbed a shoe. She screamed and kicked his straw hand away, only to look up at Luke, then to the fire lighting up the sky.

“You already made your choice!” the scarecrow barked.

Lucy jumped to her feet and ran towards the fire. It was better to die in the flames then to be consumed by the darkness of the creature.

She reached for the flames. As she did, she felt the bristly arms wrap around her waist. “You made your choice.”

“No,” she wept. “No, no, no, n-”

Lucy gave one more push to jump into the fire, broke free of Scar’s grasp, only to have him grab her ankles. He drug her through the dirt, away from the fire.

The last thing she saw was the pale body hanging from the pole. “Help me, Luke! Don’t be dead!” Lucy roped her arms around the log that had tripped her, temporarily pausing Scar. Luke’s body just hung there. The only sound was crimson dripping from wounds. “I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

Scar yanked her from the log. She dug her fingers into the ground. Her nails snapped. “Damn you, Luke -help me!”

Lucy’s screams pierced the night as Scar the scarecrow drug her into bowing corn and alder smoke.

This story was inspired by Johnny Hollow’s “Dark Things”

Jodi MacArthur serves imagination raw on an open flame. Bring your fork to www.jodimacarthur.blogspot.com. Published online and in print, she is currently working on her first novel, Devil’s Eye.

“I can’t see anything,” said Jarek.

“You will,” replied Marzena.  She snapped the straps of her bathing suit back into place, pointed to a group of teenagers stood at the edge of a fractured jetty and began to steer the boat in the same direction.  Snuff had hidden himself beneath a blanket atop the icebox stowed on the lipped shelf at the rear of the pedal-boat.  It was much too hot for him.  They stopped and drifted about twenty metres from the shoreline.  Marzena slung a waterproof transparent kitty bag over her white bony shoulders and stood up in the boat.  Her ankle bracelet rattled as she steadied herself, the tug of the lake rocking them like feeble matter.  “Pedal round if you want,” she said to her husband, “I’ll be an hour,” and dived over the side of the boat into the water.  Minutes later she was striding up the shore to the teenagers building the fire.

Jarek watched his wife untangle the kitty bag and take out her camera.  A pair of sandals and a notebook followed.  It was safe to say that Marzena possessed Herculean properties in matters of leadership.  She could entrance the most obstinate of opponents with a few words of compliment, or if the moment demanded, was able to criticise the worst offenders into submission without them realising it until it was too late.  With a few hurried words in the ears of the teenagers, and with a promise of a hundred Zloty to be shared out five ways, she rallied the troops.  She directed them toward the last visible remnants of a jetty, acknowledging this as their termination point.  Along this ridge of broken bottles, discarded food wrappers and plastic disposables, she gave them their instructions.

As her new band of helpers went about their task, she photographed each of the ten sites that she’d categorised as the worst along this stretch of the shoreline.  She used her notebook to record the kind of refuse collected, its impact on the surrounding environment, logging and dating and then finally photographing the evidence. After an hour there was a three-foot high mound of rubbish giving off a hideous rotting odour.  She paid the teenagers their hundred Zloty and swam back out to the peddle-boat.

She hauled herself up and toweled herself off.

“Pass me my phone,” she said.

“What now?” he asked, his sun burnt face peering up from beneath his baseball cap.

“I need to call Barbara.”

“I thought she was coming with the others tomorrow?”

“She’s already here.  She’s up at the camp.”

Barbara was the official spokesperson for NCARU, and chief coordinator for Sunday’s big protest at the gates of the Central Disposal Compound.  They were expecting a big turnout.  Up and down the lake tomorrow morning over fifty helpers would rein in as much rubbish as possible and transport it to the compound as a symbol of the authorities’ failures.  Usually it wouldn’t have made the national news, something so small, but the fact that three employee’s of the Central Disposal Compound had been murdered in the two months, meant that they could at least expect one or two national new crews hanging around in case of any unexpected developments.  Jarek had expressed doubts; morale doubts he had claimed that he felt the organisation was exploiting the deaths.  Marzena had reiterated her original stance: “We didn’t kill those men.”

*

“You think it’s such a great idea having armed guards?” asked Danuta Dabrowski.  The Gazette Wyborza journalist sat on a stool next to Detective Kaminski’s studying his steaming bowl of Flaki.

He saw her looking

“You want some?”

She shook her head, instead motioning to the open packet of Sobieski Lights on the countertop.

“Sure,” he said.

A purple mirage of light flooded the bar, the backdrop panelled with long mirrors that reflected the light in eddying streams, as if they were submerged inside a giant fish tank.

Dabrowksi took a cigarette and placed a hand on her dictaphone.

“About the armed guards.”

“The union wanted to strike, do you know that?”

Dabrowksi with her square jaw and peroxide bob assented that she did.

“That’s one good thing to come out of it,” he said, regretting the words the second they were out of his mouth.  “I mean at least the system doesn’t break down.”

“But you’re putting lives at risk by continuing.”

“I think it’s quite the opposite.  It’s the most effective way of protecting those men.”

The journalist smiled as if privy to inside information.

“Won’t tomorrow’s protest by NCARU be a problem?” she asked, switching tact.

Kaminski started from his bowl of flaki and looked at her.

“It’s nothing.”  He didn’t sound so sure.

Dabrowski had a reputation for fairness with her interviewee subjects, and she could see the dark circles round the Lieutenant’s eyes.

“There’s talk there planning on storming the gates to the compound.”

“That’s all we need,” he sighed.  Then something he hadn’t thought of before occurred to him.  “How much do you know about this NACRO?”

“NCARU,” she corrected, “as much as there is to know. You want specifics?”

Kaminski was running a hypothetical through his tired brain as fast as he could run with it.

“I want names,” he said.

*

Marzena went alone to the gypsy encampment, while Jarek stayed behind in their little cabin on the edge of the lake they’d boated across the day before.  He’d said he had stomach cramps, making some crass joke about it ‘being the time of the month for him.’  She guessed he missed his rig.   It’d been almost a month since he was last out on the roads.

The camp was beneath a derelict railway bridge, forty or so caravans huddled round its red-bricked legs.  A couple of horses and one sorry looking donkey chewed grass from box in a badly constructed pen.

Barbara was waiting for her in the largest of the caravans with tatty curtains and yellowing wheels.  Most of the noise was coming from inside of it. She came out clutching a newspaper.

“The nationals are definitely in on it now,” she said, flinging it into a black bin-liner draping the interior of an oil drum.

“Who?”

“The Detective investigating those murders gave an interview to Dabrowksi.”

“So?”

“He claims it poor taste and bad timing on our behalf.”

“Forget it.”

“I can’t.  He’s saying people are scared enough as it is without inciting a riot.”

“He’s just trying to frighten people off.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d got our names down on his list of suspects.”

Until now it hadn’t even crossed her mind the police might suspect them.

“But what about this lot,” she asked, climbing the steps to the caravan and dumping the placards inside the door.

Barbara with her green headscarf and the tight angles of her face, scrunched her eyes together and shrugged.

“He’s already interviewed most of the men in the camp.”

“He has?   Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was ages ago.  Before we even got this far.  We were only just drawing up plans back then.  Besides, they let everyone go the same day.  They wouldn’t have done it if they thought it was someone from the camp.”

It made sense to Marzena that since the murdered men were all employees of the recently established waste management companies, that the police would suspect someone from the camp.  In reality they had the most to lose.  Ever since the intrusion of the foreign companies, the money paid on returnable and recyclables had plummeted. People’s livelihoods were at risk.

“Shall we postpone?”

“Are you crazy?” asked Barbara, “this gives added impetus. We need the attention.”

Barbara noticed the look in her friend’s eyes.

“Is that husband of yours coming?”

“Yes, though I’m not sure he wants to.  I think he wants to be back on the road.”

“What?  And you two not yet married more than eye-blink.”  Her tone was humorous, but the spite was prominent.

“Paradise is an illusion, trust and reliability, that’s what makes it work,” said Marzena. Later she would wonder what she had meant by that.

* End Of Part One* – Part Two Next Time

Frank Duffy is the co-writer of “The Journal” – See the Links Sections for details

——————————————————————————

Jeffrey S. Callico hails from Atlanta. His collection of short fiction, Fighting Off The Sun: Stories, Tales, and Other Matters of Opinion, is available on Amazon. His work has appeared in several
online literary journals, including FRiGG, Johnny America, Dispatch, Origami Condom, Calliope Nerve, The Legendary, Full of Crow, Opium Poetry 2.0 and Spoken War. His website can be found at www.whatisbutmaynotbe.blogspot.com.

Samantha was that girl. Every one in the office loved her.

Isn’t Sam beautiful?

Isn’t Sam funny?

I don’t know how she looks as good all of the time…she could be a super model.

Ashley hated Sam! Not just her though, she hated all of the skinny bitches. She saw the snide looks they gave, whispering about her, about how she looked.

Ashley kept a size ten dress in her wardrobe, even though she wore four sizes up. Ten was her target size.

And now she was one big step closer to wearing it.

The computer screen blinked into life as the DVD drive whirred. The information presented on the disc promised to make using the Cinch as easy as A, B, C.

Ashley knelt on the floor as the presenter gave a dazzling white smile.

It was the same handsome face as on the website. “Hi, my name’s Pim Stansa, founder of Cinch Industries.” For the next ten minutes the smooth talking Stansa explained in a west coast American accent, how all other diets and health kicks were now obsolete due to the miraculous development of the Cinch. He finished with the declaration that within a few minutes of trying the Cinch, all thoughts of weight loss would be the farthest thing from your mind.

Ashley studied the cinch that lay across her knees as the infomercial spouted potted wisdom and told just how great her new life would be.

The cinch itself resembled an extra wide belt. A simple adjustable buckle system allowed the belt to be made a perfect fit. The inside of the belt was decorated by a string of strange glyphs.

Chinese? No.

Maybe rune symbols?

She didn’t know, or care, as long as it worked.

But the real innovation with the cinch was the thousands of tiny magnetically charged crystals embedded within the pliable fabric. She’d heard of magnetic therapy before but it was usually used to alleviate aches and pains or symptoms of arthritis.

With the cinch, it was claimed that the crystals magnetised the fat molecules in your body working in conjunction with the normal healthy levels of iron in your blood. The magnetism promised to bind particles of fat together in pea sized clumps and allow the body to pass them in a natural and painless way.

Ashley could only hope it worked. She’d tried everything else apart from gastric surgery; no way would she ever afford that anyway.

On the screen, Pim Stansa was encouraging the viewer to go ahead and try on the cinch.

Like most products, you could buy accessories and Ashley had decided to buy the whole range. Her set comprised of the Cinch belt, two arm bands to be worn on the biceps, two leg bands for the upper thighs and a soft neck cowl, all presented in a coordinated eye-catching design of course. The material looked like leather but felt more like neoprene as used in wet suits.

She stripped down to her underwear. She was a direct contrast to the dusty skinned model that was posturing confidently on the screen. She looked like a professional fitness instructor; the lycra suit and the Cinch accessories enhancing her form to perfection.

Ashley however looked more like a professional pie eater. Rolls of pale skin sagged over her Marks and Spencer ‘Magic Knickers’ and support bra. Maybe she needed more magic than any high street retailer could provide.

Ashley fitted the belt, then the arm and leg straps and finished by slipping the neck cowl over her head.

Stansa was back on the screen telling the viewer how great they must look and feel.

Ashley did feel good, a strange tingle was emanating from the belt. Maybe this was the real thing!

She looked down and decided that she could go another notch up on the cinch belt.

A quick breath in…another notch.

Damn, but she was looking a lot slimmer just by wearing the cinch. It had shaped her waist like an old fashioned girdle but looked sleek and stylish, if a bit Goth-like for her tastes.

She looked down again.

Could she manage another notch?

She fumbled with the small buckles. As the pin slipped into the next hole on the belt, it cut a V shaped gouge deep into her thumb.

“Ow.” She pulled her hand away instinctively and traced a line of blood three inches long from the buckle along the cinch belt.

The effect was instantaneous. A ripple of energy pulsed through the cinch belt. But it didn’t stop there, the arm wraps, leg wraps and neck cowl vibrated in response.

No not vibrated, squirmed!

The blood was absorbed by the fabric of the belt.

Then the cinch emitted a strange cracking sound. That awful knuckle-cracking sound that the men in the office did to annoy her.

She looked at her waist, bewildered.

The cinch tightened again…on its own!

Ashley tried to release the belt but it was stuck fast.

More of her blood across the cinch fabric.

The belt tightened another inch.

“No!” was all she managed. Then the rest of the cinch set began to reduce in circumference as well.

The neck cowl tightened around her throat. She could feel her pulse throbbing against the fabric. No, it wasn’t her pulse. The cowl was pulsating with an intrinsic energy of its own.

She dug her fingers under the fabric, but as she fumbled and pulled at the band around her throat, it seemed to constrict even more in response.

Ashley started to choke. Cold darts of panic shot through her nervous system.

“No, no, no.”

He computer screen blinked back into life again. Pim Stansa appeared again; smiling as ever. He seemed to be looking directly at her; through the screen.

The waist cinch clicked up another notch. Ashley was finding it hard to breathe now. Pressure seemed to be building all over her body. Her limbs were tight and sluggish as the bands restricted the blood flow to her extremities.

As spots of light danced across her vision, she staggered and knocked the computer monitor to the ground.

The picture flickered then turned a solid blue.

The cinch bands on her thighs cut so deep into her legs they now resembled a roast of meat in a butchers shop. Both her arms and legs had turned a mottled shade of red. Swollen veins accentuated their path like a ghastly road map.

Ashley fell to her knees. Her eyes and tongue sought to escape he confines of her head. Vomit rose in her throat but failed to pass her oesophagus.

The Cinch around her waist tightened with a force that caused Ashley’s bladder to empty.

She fell onto the floor, her fingers clawing without effect at the band around her throat.

The computer screen again flickered to life.

Pim Stansa gazed at her from his horizontal perspective. Then, ever so slowly, he turned on the screen so that he stood perpendicular again.

From his impossible manipulation of the screen, Stansa gave Ashley another perfect smile and a double thumbs up.

The arm bands had nipped through the delicate skin, soft fat and muscle tissues and now encircled the bone itself.

She tried to scream for help, but all that escaped was a thin whistling wheeze. Her mouth worked like a fish out of water, but to no avail.

The waist cinch tightened again, now cut so deep that she couldn’t see it in the folds of her abdomen.

Her legs began to jerk spasmodically. She looked down at her self animated feet. They were doing ‘Riverdance’ of their own accord.

A varicose vein on the inside of her left knee expanded like a child’s modelling balloon. The skin ruptured and a pencil thin stream of blood was ejected under pressure. The crimson stream covered the whole length of the bedroom, some fifteen feet across.

Then her whole body joined in with the jerking of her legs.

From Stansa’s view she looked like a jockey spurring on an imaginary horse.

The waist Cinch tightened again.

Deep inside Ashley Armstrong’s torso, her liver and spleen burst, flooding her abdomen with both precious blood and harmful toxins.

The neck cowl seemed to loosen for a couple of seconds. In that time, the contents of her stomach coupled with the emissions of her ruptured organs spewed forth. She had scant time for one shuddering intake of breath; then it constricted again.

The range of sensations she endured was beyond words. Pain, agony, mind-numbing terror, anguish, torture, suffering, misery; these were words that featured every day in the tabloids. Ashley’s ordeal reset the very parameters of these words.

With an unearthly snap of bone, her left leg detached itself. As she continued to flop on the floor gouts of dark crimson essence spurted over the dismembered limb. The cinch had constricted to such a point that it nipped the top of the lost limb tight around the femur. The amputated appendage now resembled an over sized bratwurst – with toes.

On the computer monitor, Stansa looked directly into Ashley’s bulging eyes.

As she clung to the last vestige of life she watched his name appear on screen in large animated letters. PIM STANSA.

She watched them rearrange themselves; undoing the simple anagram that she’d missed at the start of the presentation.

New torrents of time rendering agony swept her body. With three decisive snaps, her remaining limbs were detached as the Cinch on each reduced itself to a bizarrely small circumference.

Then the waist cinch constricted for a final time, crushing all remaining soft tissue into her spinal column. She was now beyond individual sensations and the loss of her pelvis escaped her.

Ashley’s perspective of vision changed, twin messages of contradicting sights each vying for dominance in her brain. Then she realised that her right eye had popped out its socket and was now lolling downwards on her cheek.

On the screen, Stansa, now framed by his real name gave a cheery wave goodbye.

Ashley was still trying to draw one final breath as her head was severed by the cinch around her neck. What little blood that remained in her torso now trickled lazily from her mangled throat.

The DVD tray on the computer tower opened and ejected the disc. The disc landed on the floor and then curled into an unrecognisable shape resembling a dead crustacean.

Then silence settled on the household of Ashley Armstrong.

James Hilton has had work published on Thrillers, killers & Chillers as well as on his own site.

website: www.jimhilton.co.uk

The Ambulance by Melanie Browne

The Sinner’s Release by Steve Jensen

Talking Gun by Dan Krokos

Crazy by Melanie Browne

2x Paul Brazill

Frank and Cindy came over late on a Saturday afternoon. I grilled meat and drank beer on the patio. Frank came out to talk to me and we talked about sports and politics and the dying economy and how lucky we both felt to be working – me as a salesman selling supplies to car washes and Frank as a mechanic and Frank said his business was actually doing quite well.

The barbecue was tolerant enough and we ate on the patio and Frank and I got along alright and Cindy and Mary talked and talked about everything from children to fears of menopause and they each drank about a hundred little glasses of white wine and they were both giggling to high heaven before the evening was through.

Cindy and Mary agreed to meet at the steakhouse right there on my patio with Cindy saying it might be fun to go dancing and Mary’s eyes lit up at the suggestion and she poked me in the ribs as I leaned back in my patio chair with my hands clasped behind my head because I didn’t know what else to do with them.

I said, yeah, sure, whatever.

And so it went.

We got to the steakhouse and headed inside without talking. Mary walked in front of me breathing hard with her face turned towards the cracked concrete of the parking lot and despite her heels her strides were purposeful and quick and I almost had to run to keep up with her. I wondered what that meant, in her mind, her walking in front of me like I didn’t exist.

But I didn’t run because that would mean I was chasing after her and a man doesn’t chase after his woman, even if his woman was looking so damn good in a new dress and shoes.

We found Frank and Cindy sitting at the bar smiling and holding hands, just like a normal and happy couple, just like Mary and I used to do so long ago and I thought about mimicking Frank. I thought about reaching for Mary’s hand and I looked at Mary and she still wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Frank and Cindy, at their faces and bodies, looking them up and down with her eyes.

But the hand holding ended because Frank had a beer waiting for me, the same kind I served at the barbecue and I thought he was a hell of a guy for it and I shook his hand and I realized that was about all the physical contact I might get in a good long while. I drank the beer quick and fast and I was relieved that Cindy handed Mary a wineglass and our tension dissolved in the company of others even though Mary still wasn’t looking at me. She talked to Cindy as we were seated at a table right by the dance floor that was then empty as the band was yet to take the stage. .

The dinner conversation was a mirror of the one on my patio. Frank and I talked without conviction about the sorry state of the Detroit Lions and Mary and Cindy talked about everything else in the world with no small amount of animation. Frank and I ate our steaks rather quickly in between bottles of light beer and Mary and Cindy picked at their plates of whitefish as if the whitefish was something that was meant to last forever.

The meal was finished and there was a moment of awkward silence that I filled with ordering another beer even though Frank wouldn’t drink one with me because he said he had to drive.

Yeah, me too, I said feeling like that much more of a shit because not only was my wife not looking at me but I was also being selfish, drinking and not caring that I had to drive, not caring that I put my pleasure in front of my wife’s well-being.

The band took the stage, puffy middle-aged white men just like me but they were wearing Hawaiian shirts and white pants and sunglasses.

I would never, ever wear a Hawaiian shirt.

The music played. Oldies. Songs from the ‘70’s. Music to dance to.

The music played and people started to smile. Men stood up and led their women by the hand out to the small and parquet dance floor.

The music played and Frank and Cindy stood up. Automatically. Like there were springs in their chairs.

Mary and I just sat there and watched.

We watched as Frank and Cindy moved in rhythm with each other as the band played several songs that I’ve heard a million times on the radio. Songs by The Beach Boys. Abba. Van Morrison. KC and the Sunshine Band. Songs light and airy and without any meaning. Songs that showed me the true nature of Frank and Cindy by the way they moved, in time and in step with each other, their bodies wiggling with contented ecstasy and with love in their eyes and smiles on their faces and I could tell the way they moved on the dance floor was they way they moved through their relationship. They probably moved with ecstasy while talking to each other on the phone, while working around the house, while in bed.

The music played. Mary and I continued to sit without looking at each other but I was watching her from the corner of my eye. She was watching Frank and Cindy while wiggling in her seat and tapping her feet and I asked her if she wanted to dance.

She shrugged her shoulders and stood up without looking at me.

She walked out onto the dance floor and I followed.

The music played and we danced. If you want to call it dancing. My body moved in jerky motions, like a gorilla doing ballet and I wasn’t even close to being in sync with Mary who danced very well and that wasn’t surprising to me. I’ve always known Mary likes to dance and that she is a really good dancer. I’ve watched her float through the house while cleaning to music and there have been weddings in the past where I sat nursing a beer while watching her dance with friends and relatives and she’s always looked so happy dancing and I’ve always been happy for her, watching her do something I knew she enjoyed.

But on this night watching her dance was torture. Watching her dance while I moved like a robot on speed made me feel inadequate, something like a public display of impotence.

The music stopped.

And then it started again. A slow tune. A cover of “Feel Like Makin’ Love”.

Mary and I embraced but with a distance as we danced and I watched Frank and Cindy. I tried to copy Frank’s dance steps and mannerisms until Frank started kissing Cindy on the mouth and I knew that wasn’t going to be possible for me.

The music played and I tried to move my feet slowly and carefully while leading Mary in a slow circle that was making me a little bit dizzy.

I stepped on her feet.

I said I was sorry and I tried to give a little laugh and Mary said nothing. She just kept on staring at my shoulder and I was hoping she would lean into me and rest her face against my chest.

But she didn’t.

The music stopped and the band took a break. Mary said she wasn’t feeling well as we went back to the table and would I mind taking her home? I said of course not. So we said goodbye to Frank and Cindy who were sorry to see us go and said what a great time we all had and when should we do it again?

Mary said to Cindy that she would call her. Tomorrow or the next day.

Mary walked out of the restaurant and I followed her to the car. I opened the door for her and closed it.

I started the car and put a piece of gum in my mouth. I turned on the radio and found a Top 40 station.

Mary reached over and turned the radio off.

David LaBounty is the author of Affluenza  :here