All stories copyright xoggoth unless otherwise stated

 

The Old Oak Tree

Rumours had been around for a few months that a major celebrity was planning to move to the large mansion on the edge of their village. When it was confirmed that popular comedian Rick Turnbull had brought the property it was the main topic of conversation in the village pub. His public persona was well liked by most of the locals but you never know what a celebrity is like in real life. Robin was well known for his near the knuckle remarks and didn’t disappoint. "Probably another Jimmy Saville, chaps, keep your kids locked up" That was improbable, but everyone wondered what he would really be like.

He moved in a couple of months later and everyone was pleasantly surprised. He seemed a genuinely nice chap and he and his wife mingled with the locals on the few occasions he wasn’t away in London or on one of his tours. On a couple of days every summer he threw open his extensive gardens and welcomed everyone from the village and showcased a few of his hilarious routines. Rick Turnbull was also a minor writer and artist and gave away free copies of his self-illustrated short story books to those who wanted them and few could resist having a gift from a famous person. They were not to everyone’s taste, being mainly horror stories, and not very good ones in the opinions of most critics. Without his fame it was unlikely that any publisher would have been interested.

Three years later, something went wrong. For weeks he had been more taciturn, sometimes irascible. Then the bad news came that Rick Turnbull had been found dead at his desk. The coroner’s verdict was suicide by legal drug overdose although there were no clues as to the causes for his sudden depression. He hadn’t been there very long but he had been well liked and the village mourned his loss. His wife didn’t want to stay in a place with such memories and soon moved away and was planning to sell the mansion.

About six months later a new collection of illustrated short horror stories that Turnbull had been working on until his death was released posthumously. The stories were darker, and certainly no better, than his previous efforts but many in the village brought one to remember a good friend. Around the same time the parish council revealed that Turnbull had willed a small part of the mansion grounds to the village for use as a recreation ground and it was thrown open to the public a few weeks later when the access was completed.

An old oak tree overlooked the area and it was soon noticed that it had a remarkable resemblance to Turnbull’s illustration for one of his stories. Plainly he had used it as the subject. The story was about a witch hung from an old oak tree who had cursed the villagers who gathered to watch her hanging, saying that all who gazed for long would follow her to the grave. Those who had stayed to watch had soon taken their own lives. It was rather a grim association that Turnbull had taken his own life so soon after painting this tree and one or two on the parish council suggested felling it but most thought it would be a shame to detract from the beauty of the area. Much better to erect a memorial to Turnbull close by and use the tree as a way to remember a kind soul.

A few weeks later a couple of village artists set up tables on the green and did some painting of a beautiful view that included the old oak tree and soon after that the grim association became more concrete. One rapidly became depressed and committed suicide by cutting his wrists. The other suffered a serious decline in mental health and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The council decided to re-examine the idea of removing the tree. One eccentric councillor felt that there could be some truth behind the horror story, that maybe there really was an evil spirit that could curse those who gazed upon the tree for too long. Another retorted that the story in question had a major inaccuracy, not unusual in Turnbull’s stories. How could a witch hanged in 1572 be haunting an oak tree today when an oak tree only lived for 200 years? Most felt the events were just coincidence but they agreed that it was not pleasant to have the shadow of this oak tree hanging over the pleasant green in any but a literal sense and it would have to go.

Just a week after the felling, Turnbull’s late wife came to stay at the still unsold mansion and invited some friends round for a drink. She seemed keen to open up about his last weeks. She said it was true that his mood only seemed to change when he started painting that damn tree. As for the story, it seemed he got the idea from a supposedly real event. She gave the printed details to her late husband’s best friend John.

John walked home past the recreation ground and was glad to see the tree had gone. He didn’t believe in nonsense like curses and evil spirits but nevertheless had a sense of relief that he would not be seeing it anymore. When he got home he sat with a glass of wine in the garden and read the "true" story about the witch tree. The idea of a haunted tree on their village green was even more laughable than he had thought, not only was theirs just a sapling at least 200 years after the event, it was also a good three miles away from where it supposedly happened.

He walked down the garden to look at his cabbages, still musing on the story. Pity Rick had passed away, maybe he could have written a daft story about an evil spirit that could move around and be reborn in new oak trees. On the cabbage patch he noticed a large acorn, probably dropped by a squirrel. Very likely it was from the just felled old oak tree on the green, there weren’t any others close by. Move around, be reborn, he couldn’t stop thinking about that daft story. Maybe if the natural could spread and reproduce then something unnatural associated with it could spread and reproduce also.

He was lost in thought and had been gazing at the acorn for several minutes before the anxiety seized him.

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The Trap

She had been a widow for some years and wanted to move to be near her children and grandchildren but it was a very expensive area compared to where she was currently living. She was prepared to go downmarket a bit but, even so, there was nothing she could afford that she really wanted to live in for the rest of her active life.

After looking for six months she was on the verge of giving up. Then she was contacted by an estate agent with details of a place that looked rather nice at an affordable price. Of course there is always a catch and she soon found out what it was. The price was so low because of its history. It was that house where the so-called Dorset Ripper had murdered three random female victims. All the evidence suggested he had planned to murder many more but a lucky escape by his next target had led to his arrest and trial.

Did she really want to live in a place where such horrific things had happened? On the other hand, could she turn down the chance of a house that was exactly what she had been looking for at a price she could afford? It was going for at least 20% less than comparable properties in the area. It was a difficult decision but, in the end, she decided she had to be practical. After all, when you consider the history of the UK, there is probably not a square mile where something horrible hasn’t happened. Many buildings have seen tragedy and suffering of some sort and just because something was headline news didn’t make it any the worse. It wasn’t as though she believed in stuff like ghosts or bad Karma and was pretty sure she would not be fretting about the house’s history. More importantly, the murderer would not be revisiting his old house at any time, having committed suicide in prison.

She moved in about 3 months later and did not regret it. It really was a nice place and, once people had stopped mentioning it, the house’s past wasn’t something she thought about much. It was a nice house and she was going to have a good retirement with plenty of time to spend with her grand children.

About a year later she decided to have a few renovations done. While it was in generally good condition, there were a few things about the decor that were not to her taste. She didn’t have a lot of money to spend and wanted to get things right the first time so she would decide exactly what she wanted before getting in the decorators. The first thing she looked at was that incongruously cheap fitted wardrobe in the bedroom. Maybe she could save money by pulling it out herself; her son would help if necessary, she gave him enough free child care after all. It briefly crossed her mind that she could find some torture instruments, but that was daft, the police would have done full searches of the property for evidence. It was pretty easy. The thing was chipboard and was soon lying outside the back door for her son to take to the dump. Just a few screw holes to fix in the wall and that was it, maybe she wouldn’t need to pay a decorator to sort the bedroom.

There weren’t any torture instruments either, that was a relief. All she found was a piece of paper. She turned it over and it was a child’s painting. Nothing sinister there, probably left by the people who owned the house before the Dorset Ripper, they had been a normal family apparently. The child had scrawled "Teddy in the cellar" underneath. Despite the picture’s immaturity she recognised the end of the cellar beneath the house. She had never taken more than a cursory look down there before and could not resist checking it out. There was a small alcove at the top as in the picture and when she shone the torch inside it was there, a small furry teddy bear.

She stood on tiptoe, reached in and tried to pull it out but It didn’t move far as it had a piece of wire around it. She yanked on the wire and yanked again, then suddenly fell vertically without warning. The wire had been a release mechanism to a trapdoor. The cleverly shaped drop and the sharp metal spikes were fatal.

Before she went she saw the message painted on the wall above. "If you are reading this you will know I am the best. No others have killed after they have gone as I have"

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Things may not be as they seem

We’ve always had them in the news from time to time, those daft stories about flying saucers and alien sightings. Utter drivel as far as Ellen was concerned; they probably just helped to fill a few column inches when there was nothing more normal, like terrorist attacks, to fill the news reports with.

The beginning of this year had been unusual in the sheer number of such sightings, something that had become news in itself. A few supposed flying saucers now and then was normal but hundreds of sightings in a part of South East England in barely more than a month was unprecedented and it was now making the national news.

It wasn’t just flying objects either. There were reports of strange movements in some areas of the countryside. Several people had reported seeing odd visual distortions across areas of the landscape. Ellen had watched a TV interview in which one described his experience in graphic detail. He had been sitting on a bench enjoying the view over a wooded country park, when it was as though an enormous distorting lens had drifted over the scene. Trees altered their positions and even disappeared. Even more oddly, he had seen part of a nearby old mansion appear in front of the trees although it was actually on the other side of the hill and could not possibly have been visible from where he sat.

The chap seemed normal and sincere, and, if he was lying, he was certainly a darn good actor but it had to be rubbish. Whether or not he was complicit in it, it just had to be some sort of hoax. Anyway, there could be more serious things going on. A number of people, of both sexes and various ages, had been reported missing in the area. Was there someone out there who was abducting strangers for some unknown reason? That was something she really did worry about and she would be careful to stay in well lit places with people around if she went out.

Oh well, today was not a day to fret about such things. It was a gloriously sunny and warm morning for September, a big change from the last few days, time to get out and tidy her garden before autumn covered it in leaves. She spent a couple of hours out there and loved it as usual. The only thing she didn’t like was that it was garden spider season and they were getting quite big. She had rather a phobia about spiders and checked carefully for any webs before tackling the bushes with her shears. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad. There was just one place that had a large web with a garden spider in it and she would leave trimming that bush until later in the year when the little pest had gone. A quick shower, a cup of tea and then she headed off to town to do some shopping with an old friend.

The sun was still shining as she arrived back in the village and maybe it was the low sun in her eyes that confused her slightly. Something seemed a little strange about the road, it seemed shorter and the bend was less sharp. Maybe that glass of wine with her lunch had been a bit too big. She parked in the drive and got out of the car, pulling out her bags and her new dress. When she looked up she was again struck by a feeling that something was a bit odd. The positioning of the plant pots on the patio did not seem to be quite as normal and the front door seemed a little dark. Maybe it just needed cleaning. She opened the front door and stepped into the hallway. What the hell? Nothing in here looked right. The edges of the walls and furniture were rounded and ill defined. She turned to face the door and over there was her house. Somehow she must have gone down the adjacent road and ended up on the common. But... but she had driven down HER road, parked in HER drive, she KNEW she had. Then the strange hallway turned dark and she felt something grasp her body.

Spiders are clever little creatures in their way, they build invisible snares over what flies see as harmless spaces. Not as clever as the new predators of Earth, who could generate holographic images to disguise their traps as familiar places to lure men in.

What she had thought was her house and front garden began to shift and flicker. Suddenly it disappeared, revealing the green grass and weeds of the neglected common and the huge spider-like creature that had her in its clutches.

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The Atheist Religion

Rick and his old university mate Brian got on well despite some major differences in views, including their religion beliefs. Brian was a staunch Catholic while Rick was an atheist, so convinced of his viewpoint that it was almost a religion to him. They had joked about it after a few too many beers. "You wait until you turn up at the Pearly Gates, mate" Brian said "You’ll be sorry when you get your ticket to down there" "Nah, I’ll be ok" Rick responded "The Flying Spaghetti monster will see I’m alright"

Rick was chairman of an Atheist Group which viewed religion as an impediment to progress in society and campaigned for exclusion of religion influence from state on any issue, with abortion and gay marriage being the most obvious. They were strongly opposed to the fact that religion was a let out on far too many things, including the lack of sex equality in religious roles, the use of cruel animal slaughter procedures and medically unnecessary procedures on male children.

They also regarded the law that employers should accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices unless it caused undue problems as one sided. Strictly speaking, the definition of religious belief in UK law is broad enough to include firmly held atheist views but few were aware of that and, in practice, there was not the same fear of discriminating against holders of non religious beliefs as they did not have to simply say the name of an established faith to prove their legal rights.

A suggestion in the group was that atheism should be legally defined as a religion but its dictionary definition, "A disbelief or lack of belief", was rather vague. They needed some simple named central tenet that they could claim to adhere to. Rick said they should claim to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was meant as a joke but when they thought about it, maybe that was a good idea. The FSM would simply fly about and demand nothing at all of its worshippers, produce no long-winded sacred scripts to read, require no prayers or other rituals and issue no commandments, except those that suited its followers’ interests.

Technically they would no longer be atheists but, in practice they would be, with the added benefit that they could just say "I’m a Spaghettist" to employers and others and immediately get the same rights from any who feared being taken to court for discrimination. The new religion was very democratic as the FSM had decreed. Any member could suggest what the tenets should be, tenets that allowed them to opt out of things their employers wanted them to do or complain when retailers or other service providers did not cater for their supposed beliefs. When the committee reached a majority vote on a new tenet the FSM would immediately turn it into divine law.

The new religion took off faster than they imagined. Jediism, based on the Star Wars films, had previously grown to the fourth largest religion in the UK but Spaghettism soon overtook it. Rick, still the chairman, or Pastaman as he was now called, was very proud. Then came that day when Rick, driving back from the sacred forum, or Bolognese as they now called it, was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place when two trucks collided and one careered into his path.

That was the day he found that atheism was neither more nor less drivel than any other belief when he arrived in the next world and found there was not just one set of Pearly Gates but thousands of them stretching into the distance, one for every religion there was and had ever been. Some he thought he recognised. There were quite a few beardy chaps at the gates, so it was hard to tell for sure, but was that Saint Peter? He was dealing with a large queue anyway, so it must be a major religion. Strange forlorn-looking figures manned other gates where nobody was waiting. Was that fearsome looking woman with four arms really Kali? He had little time to look, being forced to join the queue at one gate by an invisible force. The Flying Spaghetti Monster floated within and, when he reached the gate, it opened and he was impelled through it.

With a new wisdom that death had given him he realised what a damn fool he had been. Gods do not inspire religious belief; it is religious belief that invents gods. Followers of most other religions had invented their gods to shield them from the fear of death and promise a marvellous afterlife of happiness but he had been focused only on the real world and had never even considered what the afterlife would be as he had never actually believed in it.

For a short while, before he drifted away from those gates, he could see the joyful expressions of new entrants to other heavens as they entered the clouds, were greeted by numerous virgins, or saw and felt whatever other marvellous rewards their religions had promised. In Spaghetti Monster Heaven there was only the Spaghetti Monster soaring aimlessly above its worshippers, for no other benefits or wonders of heaven had ever been invented by them.

He was doomed to drift about aimlessly in empty space with nothing to do for all eternity.

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A Fate Already Sealed

It is said that money doesn’t buy happiness but if he had to choose between being lonely and rich or lonely and poor he’d chose the former any time. It was time to retire and he had enough money to get the hell out of crowded London and buy that nice little place in the country he and his late wife had always dreamed of. She wasn’t around anymore and it might be lonely but he would fill his time pursuing all those leisure interests that he had had so little time for when he was working.

He was really into ancient history and had accumulated a variety of old relics, mostly brought at auction and often at quite modest prices because other bidders were more interested in value and appearance than historic interest. The first thing he did on moving in to his new house was to unpack all those little old curios he had never examined properly and create his own little museum. There was some great stuff and now he could spend some time looking into their pasts and the history of the people who had made them.

There was one particular fascinating item, to him anyway, a circular, slightly concave, stone tablet with a central hole and shallow carvings that he had brought in an auction in Greenwich. It went for a low price due to its very weathered condition, which meant there was no real certainty on age or origin, but it was probably an ancient British stone carving over 2000 years old. He would spend some time doing some research on it, something he had always meant to do when he brought it but had never gotten round to. The worn carvings were a little clearer when viewed from the side under a bright light; he could see looping trails with scattered circles upon them. Here and there were faint traces which could once have been words. It occurred to him that this plaque looked rather like an ancient game of Snakes and Ladders. It was possible, board games date back to the Ancient Egyptians although he had never heard of anything like that in ancient Britain.

Dreams are often based on experiences from the day before, usually mundane stuff like TV programs we have watched, so it was no great surprise when he woke up the next day with a recollection of wandering in a grey flat expanse following a trail resembling those lines on the carving. He thought little of it and the memory soon vanished from his mind as dreams do.

He found nothing in his many books about ancient British history that was helpful. He phoned his old mate James who used to work at a museum and was a fountain of knowledge about British history but even he could not help very much. British history prior to the Romans was not well understood and he had never heard of any board games from that time, although it was entirely possible. It could be that the game, if it was one, was not simply for recreational purposes but had a religious significance, like Snakes and Ladders which is based on an old Indian game that represented life’s challenges of virtues and vices.

Oh well, maybe he’d never find out. Yet somehow he could not seem to stop thinking about it, searching the internet for any clues. Every day he examined the tablet and tried to find out more. He took some photos and greatly enhanced the contrast which seemed to confirm the resemblance to a board game. Every day he grew more obsessed with the tablet or, rather, the game as he was now convinced it was.

Every night, the vividness of his strange dreams grew too. He would wander a meandering path around that grey valley, at the centre of which was that huge black void. He knew now that he had to get away from it, to get up to the edge of the valley and leave, to get back into life. But it was not up to him. Every night his long walk would take him to another great circle and there, although invisible, was a presence which would demand answers from him. Based on the result it would direct him to one of two exits from the circle and, as he set foot on the new path, he would wake, sometimes with a feeling of panic, sometimes with a feeling of relief.

Try as he might to get out of the obsession, the days became nothing more to him than waiting for the night, for those dreams. And as the memories of the dreams became stronger he realised that there was nothing he could do to influence his path, the choices on which he was being judged had all been made long ago in his life. He didn’t think he was a bad man but he was not perfect either. When judgement is black and white, how can us people who live in a grey world know what our fate will be?

The walks in the grey valley went on and on for months. At some circles he was judged on his failings, like the affairs with other women that had hurt his wife or the dodgy deals he had made in his banking career and knew he was heading in the wrong direction. In others he started out on a brighter path due to positive contributions like his generosity to charity or support for friends in need. Many of the judgements were made concerning things he had little or no recollection of, decisions he had made a child. In this game it seemed there was no age of innocence.

For a long time he knew not what the final destination was due to the enormous complexity of the maze. At times he seemed to be heading for the pit, only to find a few days later that he was meandering away from it. Conversely, he would almost reach the edge where a bright future was visible, only to find himself heading back towards the darkness on the following night.

Then came that night when he reached a circle that had the usual two exits and one path led directly into that dark abyss. What would he be judged on? Would he ever wake again?

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The Warning

He had a shower, got dressed, put on his comfy slippers and sat by the window drinking his morning cuppa. It was a sunny day and he’d get out into his little garden and plant those runner bean seeds. It was so nice being just retired and free of all the hassles of his stressful job. He didn’t have a big pension or much in the way of savings but was sure he could manage if he was careful. Buying things at the charity shop, like those comfy slippers he had brought yesterday, was one of his strategies. Fortunately, most high streets have a plethora of charity shops these days.

He was in his rough gardening gear, charity shop again, when he noticed the small piece of paper in the letter box. The scrawl was hard to read but he thought it said "Please stop doing it". He opened the door to see if whoever had posted it was still around but there was nobody. Stop doing it? Stop doing what? He had no idea what it meant. He couldn’t think of anything he was doing that unduly affected anyone else but whoever wrote it must have thought it was obvious or they would have been more explicit. Probably just a joke by some neighbour, he would probably find out when he went to the bowls club on Saturday. He, or she, would get a piece of his mind as it seemed a bit sinister, rather worrying for a frail chap on his own.

He spent much of the day gardening and was a bit tired. It was nice to change, put on his slippers and relax in front of the TV with a cup of coffee. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a movement at the window, but couldn’t see anything when he looked out. Probably that darn cat climbing over his fence again. As he was going up the stairs to bed he noticed another scrap of paper sticking out of the letter box. The scrawl said. "I asked you once and you did it again. Please stop!" What the hell? He hadn’t done anything that should annoy anyone. He hadn’t been using any noisy tools, unlike some neighbours down the road. This was not funny! He knew it must be a joke but couldn’t stop thinking about it and found it hard to get to sleep.

He was eating his breakfast in pyjamas and slippers the next morning when he heard the sound of something being put in the letter box flap. It was another scrap of paper. The writing was even wilder as if whoever wrote it was in a highly charged state but it looked like "This is your last warning!" It was too much; this was not a joke anymore. As soon as he was dressed he went to the police station in town and told them what had happened. The policeman at the desk took all the details, looked at the notes and asked the obvious questions about any known disputes with anyone, but was not very reassuring. The threats were not very explicit and there were no details they could act upon even if they had the resources. He was told to report any more threats or let them know if he had any clues as to who was responsible but otherwise he felt he was still on his own.

He deliberately spent the day away from home, shopping in town and wandering in the park before visiting an old friend and it was dark when he got back. Nervously, he checked for any more bits of paper but there were none. A couple of large whiskies helped and he was feeling a bit more relaxed by the time he had tidied the kitchen and put the dishwasher on. He donned his comfy slippers, sat on the settee and turned on the TV to watch a war film on the Movies for Men channel.

There was a load crash in the kitchen. Had the dishwasher blown up? As he walked through the door he got a huge shock at seeing a large, ugly and unkempt man standing there with an iron bar. He looked familiar. Wasn’t this the rough sleeper who had been living in the woods not far away? The one whose odd behaviour had already alarmed some local people? But why on earth would this man have a grievance against him? Maybe there was no reason as the chap was clearly of unsound mind. Perhaps it was just walking past his spot in the woods that had enraged him. After all, how many assaults and murders have been committed by people who just got annoyed by someone looking at them?

He was a small chap and had no chance of fighting off this monster. Maybe reason was still an option. "Whatever you think I’ve done" he began "it was never intentional, I did not mean to insult you and I apologise if I offended you somehow" "Too late now" came the slurred growl of a reply "I gave you three warnings and you took no notice" "I wanted those slippers but had no money and then you took them. I asked you not too but you kept on wearing my slippers!"

The man shuffled forward swinging the iron bar.

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A Personal Therapy

What do you do when life goes so wrong? After all that had happened Roger felt like he had fallen into a pit. Now, nearly two years later, although not quite at the bottom, he still felt he was a long way from getting out of it.

He had a lot of willpower and was making a big effort to get on with his life, to get on with his work, keep up with his friends, continue with his hobbies but, although he hoped he seemed normal on the outside, inside he still wasn’t. His imagination and enthusiasm had deserted him. Nothing seemed to mean anything anymore, he couldn’t finish watching a TV program or reading a book before his disinterest made him give up a little way in.

The worst thing was that he only had one real emotion left – anger. The little irritations in his own life, the things he saw in the news, the things he saw around him, even things he imagined, would all make his blood boil. He did not think he would be going on a murdering spree any time soon, but, if he didn’t get himself sorted, how much longer could he could carry on pretending to be normal to the rest of the world?

He had tried so many of the things that are supposed to help. The pills the doctor had proscribed had had little long-term effect, and some had even made things worse, making him feel unreal and detached or anxious. He had tried various solutions ranging from the sensible to the questionable. He had tried counselling but gave up after finding he was spending expensive time looking out the window waiting for it to end He had tried cognitive therapy and not got a lot out of it, it made him feel worryingly obsessed with how he felt. He had tried herbal remedies, meditation, holistic treatments, with no more long-term success. Sometimes his efforts seemed to make him feel a bit better, but he sometimes felt a little better when he wasn’t trying and was not totally sure if the apparently positive effects of any remedy were anything more than just a part of a natural variation.

Damn it! He couldn’t just give up. He was better than that. Although none of the methods had been a complete answer he couldn’t say for sure that they were worthless. Maybe it was a mistake to think there was one single remedy, perhaps he should be more selective and try to find the most effective aspects of each. He was an individual after all, did it make sense to think that the solution was one pre-packaged parcel? What suited somebody else’s mind was not necessarily what was best for him

He resolved to go about things in a more scientific way. He would try the supposed remedies that might have done something on a regular basis and record in detail how they made him feel and whether there was any long-term effect. He would experiment with a few ideas of his own as well Mediation, relaxation, they helped. Trying to think positive, to envisage a better future in his mind helped too. He would stick with those and build on them.

He would also try and figure a few things out for himself. It occurred to him that perhaps it was wrong to ignore his anger, to dump all those negative thoughts about his life, himself and the world in general. Maybe it would be better to accept and face up to them. After all, anger and hatred are perfectly natural, they are traits that nature gave us for our own survival even if, in the modern world, we are not permitted to indulge them. Life, our minds, cannot just be all positive. We need to accept the negative side, the trick is to separate it from the positive side, to get it all out of the way in private before you emerge back into the real world.

He began the experiment and started to cobble together his own self treatment. It was not easy but, gradually, with a lot of revisions and extensive documenting of his actions and feelings he felt it was working. After a few months he knew it was working, most of the time he felt normal again. "Most of the time" did not mean what others would think it meant. There was a time each day when those negative thoughts raged in his head, the difference was that now it only happened during the window he had set aside for them when no one else was around.

In his evening therapy, he spent one hour relaxing and thinking lovely positive thoughts, envisaging all the good things that the future held. Then, after a short break, he would spend one hour being utterly negative. In his mind he deliberately raged about everything, hated everyone. The recycling came in handy, he would imagine that tin cans and cardboard boxes were all the people and events that he loathed, flattening them and ripping them apart. He was training his mind to switch between positive and negative at will. He could turn on his positive side during the hours it mattered, when he was engaged with the rest of the world and keep his negative side for when he was alone.

But his doubts were growing. There were times when his happiness and misery seemed so extreme during those evening sessions. It seemed at times like his positive and negative side were in totally different parts of his brain, it almost seemed like he was two totally different people in the plus hour and the minus hour. Should he carry on? He decided he had no choice, he felt so normal during 15 hours in the waking day, it was worth it. The extremes grew as he carried on.

Then came that night. One hour, so happy, happy. The next hour so miserable, so full of rage. So positive! Then so negative! It was like a huge psychic bang in his head and the barriers broke down. All his positive and the negative thoughts and feelings rushed together; like electrical charges, they cancelled out and left nothing. He lay still and stared at the ceiling.

No feelings, no thoughts, in his mind there was nothing at all. He never felt anything again.

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The Bio Tattoo

For many years scientists have been working to make cells into computers. A single cell can store much information in chemical form and, like a computer, can respond in a complex way in response to stimuli and carry out operations with amazing speed. Even one cell contains enough physical complexity to function as a powerful computing unit and is small enough to pack by the millions into a tiny physical space.

Brian worked for a pioneering company that specialised in research and development in this area. He wasn’t part of the science team, maths and science had never been his strong point but, as a competent office administrator, he felt he played in his part and was proud to contribute to such an innovative company. Sometimes he met up for a drink after work with some chaps from the lab and was always fascinated to hear how things were going although, for reasons of commercial secrecy, they could not always reveal too much.

He was in the pub having a lager with Blake, one of the youngest and geekiest of the scientists. They always got on well and had been chatting about the next big advances. Blake was a shy character who was not good at hiding things and Brian felt that he seemed a little too interested in some of his answers. He soon sensed he had something he wanted to say.

"Well, Brian, it’s like this. We’ve been working for some time on a project you won’t have heard of, one that could earn some good money to finance our long-term research. The managers feel we now have a saleable product, but it needs more testing before we go public. The thing is, they need people to try it out but don’t want to give anything away too soon by going outside the company and are hoping that some interested and trusted employees, like you, might volunteer. The managers asked me to ask if you might be interested. They said there will be a decent financial reward in it for you"

The thought of being a guinea pig sounded rather risky but exciting too and Brian was too curious not to go for a meeting with the research manager. The new project was the digital tattoo. Using bio computing it would be possible to make it fully configurable as required. It would look like a normal tattoo, but the big difference was that, by linking it to a computer, you could alter the image and its position in any way you wanted. You could change it at will to suit your whim, the event you were attending, to suit your current girlfriend or whatever. You could also make it invisible, which was ideal in some work situations where tattoos where frowned upon. Many who were reluctant to get traditional tattoos for work reasons or who didn’t want to be stuck forever with something they no longer liked, would love these tech tattoos.

The method had been thoroughly tested on laboratory animals and no problems had been found. There were risks spelled out in the contract Brian was asked to sign but his own rights included very high levels of insurance cover and compensation should anything go wrong. He would also receive payment and expenses that were more than he was currently earning. More tempting was the promise of a large lump sum if the project was a commercial success according to criteria set out in the contract.

It wasn’t just the money, he loved the idea of being part of a pioneering project. Brian signed the contract and the experiments began the following week. They harvested a small number of cells from his body and reinjected them after modification. It all seemed remarkably easy and largely painless and his worries soon subsided. It wasn’t long before he had a tattoo on his chest that looked as least as good as anything he could have got at a tattoo parlour. Then they linked him to a computer using a small radio device and he found he could browse through a list of images and choose whatever one he liked. It was fantastic! His girlfriend loved it when he put her name under a big heart.

The project went well, and more extensive testing was being planned to meet with all the complex legal requirements. Brian was a bit of a lady’s man and had met a new girlfriend; he hoped tonight would the night. He had Sally on his tattoo and would need to change it to Janet, it should only take a few minutes. He plugged the radio device in, spent a few minutes in Photoshop to create the image he wanted and hit the upload button. That should do it! He walked over to the wall mirror to see how it looked.

What the hell? Instead of the image he had designed there was a big advert for a cheap energy company. How did that happen? His PC must have one of those darn ad-promoting malware programs on it. He would clear it out and try again. It did not take long, and he downloaded the image to his chest again. It didn’t help. He had cleared his PC of a malware program but what if it had been embedded inside the image and infected those bio-computer cells in his body? There weren’t any anti-virus or anti-malware programs for those. As he stood looking in the mirror, he saw that ads were popping up all over his body, for dodgy products and services, for Hot Russian Babes, for overpriced and phony medical remedies.

Then came the fake news. "Trump seen booking into a hotel room with Vladimar Putin" began scrolling across his forehead.

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Coming Back

He had worked in technology all his life and didn’t really believe in ghosts. Some of those stories you read in the news were plain daft, like the one that showed glowing white shapes captured on a CCTV. He had a CCTV himself and knew the reality of that one, out of focus bits of dust caught in the camera light. On the other hand, no rational person could ever dismiss something without proof and nobody could absolutely disprove the existence of some afterlife. After all, there was no obvious explanation for the strange experience he had had with Julie in that old hotel room when they had seen a vague moving shape cross the room.

After his retirement he soon found himself with not enough to fill his time. Despite his rational disbelief, he had always been a big fan of stories of the supernatural and it might be interesting to set up a blog covering some proper research into the issue. He’d try and separate out the nonsense and the hoaxes and cover any reports that seemed more convincing, assuming there were any. The blog was moderately popular and attracted quite a few geeks, maybe the rational yearn for deeper meaning.

There are a lot of problems with ghosts. A big question is, why are there far fewer ghost sightings today that there used to be and why do so many reports relate to people who died many decades or even centuries ago? People still die in extreme circumstances with unfulfilled wants today, so why don’t we get modern ghosts wandering about looking at their mobile phones? And why is there so much more belief in the supernatural in less developed nations? The obvious explanation is that people in the past or with less advanced education were, and are, more likely to seize on the supernatural as a cause of unexplained events simply because of belief in it.

But was it that simple? He investigated further and found another odd correlation. In the UK there were more reports of later ghost sightings in remote rural areas than there were in towns and cities. Was there some other factor? After all, plenty of things in nature were declining due to man’s activities and it was not always something as obvious as habitat destruction or pesticides. Bees, for example, are said to be affected by mobile phone signals.

The more he researched it, the more he became convinced of the cause. Electricity first came into use in the UK from the late 1800s and networks had been gradually spreading over the UK since. Electricity usage was also obviously much higher in towns and cities than in rural areas. He was good at statistics and correlated the more credible ghost sightings with the spread of UK power networks. Due to the unverified nature of the former there would never be real proof but it all looked quite convincing. It was electricity that prevented or repelled ghosts. He posted his ideas on his blog and got praise and ridicule in almost equal proportions. Little did those who ridiculed him realise that, very soon, for reasons outside the control of any of them, the real proof was about to come.

It is a dangerous world we live in and all those tensions with North Korea reached a climax. The warnings that our power networks could be shut down for an indefinite period by an Electromagnetic Pulse from a nuclear missile were shown to be true when one, curtesy of that fat little loony, detonated over the UK. It was mid-winter and deaths rose sharply in the weeks that followed due to cold and loss of all those many technical things that we rely on. Fortunately, they began to fall again after a few weeks due to massive international aid.

Initial optimism diminished when deaths began to rise again because many were suffering heart attacks. The stressful events were cited as the probable cause until the initially discounted rumours were recognised as fact. The ghosts, phantoms and demons that most had dismissed as superstitious nonsense were coming back in force. Due to populations much higher than there had been back in those past centuries, they were everywhere, revealing their, often grizzly, fates in almost every house, every road, every street.

The death of electricity had restored the life of the dead.

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Haven't We Been here Before?

Their marriage had been through some difficult patches in recent years, mainly due to the stress of running the family business which had had its ups and downs. Fortunately, things had ended on an up and they had sold it for a decent figure on retirement. Now they had the time and money to do the things they wanted to do, and it rekindled their relationship. They both loved history and travel. They became active members of the local history group and started going off on holiday at least four times a year to places of historical interest in the UK or elsewhere in Europe.

That September they decided to go and explore the countryside and historic buildings in the North West, finishing up with a day at Hadrian’s wall. It should be interesting as neither of them had ever been there but there was another reason. They had both been actively researching their family history and Edith had managed, with some degree of certainty, to trace her lineage back to the early 18th century. Her earliest known ancestor was also an Edith, one Edith Allerton, the daughter of the vicar in the still existing old parish church in Brampton, and it would be great to go and see how she might have lived.

The trip up had been rather stressful due to traffic jams and it would be good to chill out on their first day and have a leisurely day wandering around the town. After a late breakfast at the hotel on the edge of Brampton, they headed for the old parish church on foot. It was over a mile away and Edith was rather overweight so maybe she was just tired. Why else would she feel oddly confused as they approached the church entrance? Somehow, it looked familiar. "Haven’t we been here before?" she asked Ray. "Don’t think so" Ray said, "at least I haven’t. Perhaps you’re thinking of that place in Kent we went to last year. A lot of old churches look rather similar, after all." She didn’t think any more of it and afterwards they walked back to the town, had some coffee in the café and then explored the other nearby historic places including the priory and the roman fort.

They spent the next couple of days visiting the various attractions that were a bit further afield, finishing off with Hadrian’s wall. They loved this area, so interesting! They got back to the hotel and packed for their journey home the next day. Afterwards, it was still a bit early for dinner, so they went for a last wander around. Like many towns it had a mixture of interesting old buildings and some less attractive newer builds on the outskirts. They walked up a nice old street of Victorian cottages before it petered out into dull 1960s semis and decided to turn back. Ray turned to say something, and realised Edith wasn’t with him. She was staring at one of those bland semis, although what she saw of interest in it he could not understand.

He walked back. "Are you ok?" She did not answer, just turned and walked by his side. She did not speak for several minutes and then said again "Are you sure we haven’t we been here? I’m certain I’ve seen that stone wall and the archway before" Stone wall and archway? What was she talking about? She had been staring at a brick house with a tatty fence and an old van on the driveway. He decided she must be tired and decided not to quiz her. They needed dinner.

They drove home the next morning and Edith seemed rather distant over the next couple of days, indeed she seemed progressively stranger, doing things which she normally had no interest in, like sewing or cooking with very traditional recipes. Things like using her computer seemed to be increasingly confusing to her and she started asking his advice about things she should know. Her voice seemed to be changing too, there was an odd accent that he could not place. Ray was worried that maybe she was getting Alzheimer’s, perhaps he should seek advice.

Ray went upstairs the next morning with a cup of tea for his Edith and she was no longer there except in physical form. She looked at him and then at the modern room about her in confusion. In a broad old Cumbrian accent "I must get to the church and prepare it for my father’s service this morning"

The real cause had not occurred to him. Many of us are fascinated about our past, we love to know our origins, who our ancestors were. Perhaps some of our ancestors are equally interested in knowing about their future, in finding out who their descendants will be. Edith Jacobs had wanted to find out all about Edith Allerton and visit her life places. Edith Allerton had recognised Edith Jacobs and had come to visit her in the only way a spirit could.

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The Reunion

James Freeman had moved away from the area in his twenties when he found a job up North but always liked going back with his wife to visit his parents who still lived in the same old house where he was born and grew up. The area held some fond memories and he liked wandering around recalling old times. Much had changed beyond recognition but there were still some places that had not changed a bit, including the entrance to his old primary school. Most of the school buildings had undergone major changes but he still remembered going through that old brick archway at around 8.45 every school morning.

Dad had been gone a few years and his mum was getting rather frail, so he had been thinking of moving back to the area for some time. After months of looking he managed to find a decent job in the area and his wife was happy with it. She was an accounting assistant and it wasn’t hard for her to find something. Changing jobs and moving is stressful but after a couple of months they felt settled in. They were a sociable couple and soon began to find new friends in the area. He liked going to see his mother who was not yet a burden, he loved her weird sense of humour.

His journey to work took him past those old school gates and he began to wonder whether any of his old primary school friends were still around. Unlikely to track anyone down after nearly 40 years but he thought he’d have a search online for a couple of names he could remember, including his best mate Barry Campbell. He found an old pupils group on Facebook and it had a list. Unbelievably, there was a Barry Campbell and the date looked about right. He contacted Barry and soon got an invite round to the house he remembered visiting when he was a youngster, he must have inherited it from his parents!

It looked just as he remembered, the garden, the furniture, everything, it was weird. Barry seemed weird too, not because his friend was no longer the Bazza he had known, just the opposite. Apart from appearance he seemed to be exactly the Bazza he had known and that was not normal for a 50-year-old. He kept talking about their past in an absurdly childish way and never gave any answers when asked what he had done since, just looked puzzled and changed the subject. Maybe there was something he didn’t want to talk about. Perhaps he had spent his time in prison for some heinous crime or had some mental problems. Whatever the cause, James did not feel comfortable with him and soon took his leave. Oh well, you can’t turn the clock back.

When he got home he did a bit more Google research and found nothing at all about the Bazza he knew. That was strange, at least he should have come up on the same Facebook old pupils group. He logged in. Odd, there was no mention of him anymore, had he unsubscribed because he did not want any more visits from old mates? Next day, he went to see his mother and told her he’d seen Bazza. His mother was still very with it and recognised the name immediately. "Bazza? You mean Barry Campbell? Are you pulling my leg love? There wasn’t a Barry Campbell, he was your imaginary friend" "You must be mixing it up with another name mum" said James, "Bazza’s real, I saw him yesterday"

On the way home, he walked back past Bazza’s house; he’d call in again and suggest they go for a drink, he’d been a bit rude with his abrupt departure. He got there, and it was definitely the right address, but the house looked nothing like the one he remembered from the previous day, it had been extensively revamped. He rang the bell and a lady came to the door. "Is Barry in?" he asked. "Sorry, think you’ve got the wrong address" she replied. "Nobody called Barry here" Now he felt anxious for reasons he did not want to put into words. If his vivid memories of Bazza were false, then why should any other memory be true?

He walked back home and called out to his wife. She was not there. There was nothing there in the house to indicate his wife or any other woman had ever lived there. He felt dizzy, things seemed blurred and unreal, and he was now in a total panic. He walked back to his mother’s place for some company and it was gone, the place he had lived in for over 20 years, replaced by a new housing estate, What the hell was happening? Not just Bazza who was imaginary, everything else was too. He turned around and it seemed that the whole world was fading away. Then there was nothing.

In the hospital the parents were grief stricken as the life support for their 5-month-old son was turned off. Their little boy had experienced so little of real life, but at least James Freeman had had 50 years of an imaginary one.

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Creative Heaven

Ray was lying in bed in St George’s hospice, sipping an orange juice and contemplating his life. He knew he did not have much more of it ahead but at least it had been a pretty good one, a long and happy marriage, a couple of great children and a successful career as an author of detective fiction. He wasn’t up there with the well-known greats like James Patterson but he had made a decent income and had a substantial following. He knew from the fan mail that some of his fans thought his main character, DCI Jake Dickson, was one of the best in the modern genre. Some had even likened Dickson to a modern Sherlock Holmes in that he combined his great knowledge of all the modern sleuthing techniques with an astonishing insight. Ray was always flattered by that, as a child he had loved reading the Holmes stories.

He felt no fear at all when his thoughts shifted to the future. He had always been a committed Christian and, unlike so many who paid lip service to its ideals, he had embraced the central tenet of love for his fellow man. He had always gone out of his way to help others, donating a good deal to charity and helping to promote worthy causes. He was convinced there was a heaven and had no doubt that he would soon be there.

The day came less than two weeks later. He said goodbye to his family and closed his eyes, feeling a blackness close around him. Then came the light! He was drifting over an endless plain and experienced, in ways that that his limited human senses could never have comprehended, a vast panorama of beauty full of numerous happy souls. He was here in heaven! He kept drifting. Perhaps he was being taken to see god himself? He passed through a huge cloud and the landscape went much darker. Beneath him was grey scrubland covered in tiny square concrete buildings. It did not look like what he imagined hell to be, but it certainly wasn’t heaven. Maybe he was in Purgatory, but why did he deserve that?

He found himself in a weed strewn street outside a dirty crumbling block, which was distinguished from the others only by a slightly larger size. An elderly man with a moustache, dressed in a suit that looked like something from the last century, came out of the door, hand extended. He looked familiar, but Ray could not place him. "Good morning. Mr Raymond Keating I presume. My name is Arthur." he said in a posh voice that matched the suit. "Those who dwell above us have assigned me to inform you with regard to your new life with us, what it means and what is required of you" Ray opened his mouth to ask where he was and why he was here but before he could get a word out the man held up his hand. "Before I tell you anything it would be easier if I take you on a little tour and show you the truth regarding the things I have to tell you. If I try to tell you here, I fear you will find it hard to believe me". With that he turned and strolled up the tatty street, signalling Ray to follow.

They went a short distance along dismal streets and squalid alleys before reaching a decidedly cleaner square with a white central building. Arthur unlocked the main door and ushered Ray in. Then they walked down the corridor and opened the door to that blissful, beautiful place he had glimpsed before, the true heaven. Ray should have been ecstatic, perhaps this was his new home and that other place was just the equivalent of an airport check in. And yet, he felt he did not belong. The people here were strange, the way most looked and spoke did not appear natural and some did not appear to be human at all, they had exaggerated features, abnormal sizes or strange colours. A few looked like cartoon characters. He saw one gigantic man with enormous muscles and green skin. He did not get that close, but could have sworn it was the Incredible Hulk,

They stopped in front of a small group of men. "Allow me to introduce you to some people you would love to meet, I suppose you could say this one here is a progeny of mine" He was a tall thin faced man in a long tweed coat and a deerstalker, smoking what could only be described as a Sherlock Holmes pipe. All the other characters in the group were also dressed as fictional characters he knew well from books and films. One of them was even made up as Dracula!

He turned to Arthur and asked why they were made up like that. "Now, Ray, perhaps I may explain. These are no longer fictional characters, they all exist. This is the real Sherlock Holmes, and it is I who made him. My Name is Arthur Conan Doyle. You see, this is what heaven really is. Mankind is to those above us what farm animals are to humans. We are kept on Earth only because of the things we, or at least some of us, produce for them. They cultivate us so that they can harvest the products of our creativity and imaginations and it is these that are turned into something real to live in heaven forever. You were not imagining things when you walked here, you did see the Incredible Hulk. All the popular fictional characters, from books, films and TV exist in this heaven, from Mickey Mouse to Miss Marple. They are all there and all real"

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle turned and guided him back to the entrance to that dull place. That purgatory. He led him to a small, crumbling concrete building with just a bed and a sink. "I don’t understand" said Ray "If heaven is reserved for our creations, what are we doing here?" "I was coming to that" said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. "Perhaps those above feel that some small reward should go to those who provide them what they want. Maybe they feel a little attached to us, as a dairy farmer might to one of his productive old cows. I suppose we should be grateful we exist at all, as far as I know, most humans who have never created anything of significance do not. More importantly, we have a purpose, there are jobs that need doing, you can’t expect the inhabitants of heaven to spend time doing things for themselves. We are the unpaid workforce."

Sir Arthur turned to go. "I’ll guide you through your duties over the next few weeks. We’ll get started first thing tomorrow. I think Gandalf’s drain needs unblocking."

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The end of rubbish

Some massive discoveries had come out of research to understand the nature of matter. Nuclear fusion began to provide the world with clean energy back in 2034. All the same, many people doubted what purpose CERN and other advanced research places probing the fundamental structure of the universe, funded by billions of taxpayers’ money, really served. Black holes, Dark Matter, proving the Big Bang, all very interesting if you are into that sort of thing but what relevance does any of it have to our every day lives?

World governments with ever more stretched finances who funded these places were getting worried about the costs too and felt there should be more focus on reaping the immediate practical benefits. More and more, such research organisations were being pressured into setting up subsidiaries that focused on the practical uses of these esoteric discoveries. Black holes were of major interest. Most people, whose knowledge of such topics had been obtained from watching Star Trek, thought of them as gigantic things at the centres of galaxies, sucking in everything in their path but a black hole can theoretically be as small as 22 micrograms. Approximately 0.0000008 ounces to the less scientific. Unless they were scientists working at CERN or some other advanced research place probing the fundamental nature of the universe, few people knew that. If black holes could be so tiny then, surely, they could be useful, provided of course it was possible to control them.

We sent enormous amounts of un-recyclable waste to landfill and were rapidly running out of landfill space. What if we could install a small black hole at every waste recycling centre and chuck all this stuff in it? Once the waste had passed the event horizon, i.e. the point of no return where nothing can be saved from the black hole, it would be compressed into a massive density. Huge amounts of waste could be stored in a tiny volume. Once the black hole had started to grow too big, a way would need to be found to destroy it. This would release enormous amounts of energy that could supply the neighbourhood with electricity. The waste would have been returned to basic compounds in a compacted form that could easily be re-used.

It took a few years before the black hole waste disposal method became a reality in the lab. It took many more years before the principle could be applied in practice as most had major concerns at having black holes in their neighbourhoods, they had seen too many science fiction movies and were worried about being sucked in and consumed. It took a lot of trials in remote areas of the world to convince people that the principle was safe. Fifteen years went by before the black hole waste sites were available in most areas of the UK.

The next step was already under development. Why did councils need to spend money on weekly bin collections? The solution was obvious. Soon citizens were being provided with special waste bins containing a small black hole. They could suck in almost a ton of household waste before the "event horizon" approached the container walls. When that happened, the smart bins automatically signalled the council that a collection was needed. Most households only needed it once a year. It was going great. There had not been a single catastrophe in 5 years and people had got used to it. It reduced their council tax, saved them the hassle of putting their bins out every week and they didn’t get bothered by smells and swarms of flies in the summer. Not only that, but the method provided energy and re-useable chemicals.

What could go wrong? It started with rumours of people seeing the tiny black holes floating in their gardens. At first these were dismissed as hoaxes or imagination. Then more and more sightings were reported. The holes had been seen drifting and swallowing garden furniture and other items and there was a big rise in the number of cats going missing. The councils said it was quite impossible for the black holes to emerge from the secure containers and had sent officials to check those of some householders making such assertions. All the containers were found to be fully operational with the black holes safely contained inside. There was no likelihood of the black holes emerging from intact containers and, as for the idea that they could wander around and then go back to their normal resting place, that was clearly quite absurd!

True enough, if black holes were the inanimate objects they were supposed to be. Even with all that expensive research, they had not been totally understood. Maybe the scientific rationality behind it all was a bar to considering the other possibility. Perhaps if they had had a few biologists or priests at the research centres they would have. An inanimate object cannot find ways to escape a container whenever it wants to but a living creature with at least a little intelligence can. Even cats and dogs can learn how to open doors. Unfortunately, the denial went on for too long. The black holes not only had self-awareness and intelligence, but they could also communicate with each other in ways that even Stephen Hawking would not have understood. The community grew and soon it was ready to break free from the oppression of mankind.

Twenty years later and mankind and almost all other life forms, as we know them, were gone from the Earth. The only signs of movement were the numerous black holes drifting over a barren land and consuming everything in their paths.

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The secret of St Hillary′s

St. Hilary′s is a small historic Anglican church near Totnes, parts of it go back to the 14th century. It is of minor interest to tourists in that area, but the name has little meaning to most. Who bothers to check what a Saint did or why he was made a saint? Even most regular worshippers at the church didn′t have a clue.

That began to change when a derelict building nearby, once a cattery, was taken over by Jehovah’s Witnesses. After a year of slow renovation, the new Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses was officially opened, and it wasn’t too long before the doorstop calls started. At first most were reasonably tolerant of them as they always made the effort to be polite and avoid being pushy but, over time, it became apparent that there were a few in the group who would not take the first no as a final answer. After a few weeks they would call again and some in the parish reported numerous visits in the year.

Some parishioners were talking about the problem at a parish coffee morning and a chap who belonged to the local history society told them a little about St Hilary. Hilary was the Bishop of Poiters in the 4th century, originally a pagan who converted to Christianity. One form of it anyway, for in those days there were major sectarian differences within the religion over the nature of the trinity. There were those who believed Christ was one aspect of god, part of the trinity. Most Christians, including Anglicans, believe this today. Then there were the Arians, who embraced a more logical view, using the word logic loosely, that, since he was born as God’s son well after creation, he was separate and subordinate to god. Today, this belief is mainly held by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Most would wonder, given the shared views on most other aspects of god, why this detail was of major importance. Perhaps it never was, but that’s human nature. We are always seizing on something to assert our superiority over others. 

Funny how small things can bring back the conflicts of the past. The Trinitarians of St Hillary’s church were being bothered by those non-trinitarians from the Kingdom Hall down the road so why should they not get their own back? They weren’t being very Christian but then how many Christians are? A small group in the church parish began to get together secretly and plot their little revenges on the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in festivals like Christmas, which they consider to be based on pagan rituals, so late December was the ideal time to send canvassers round to their doors asking them to come along to mass to celebrate Christmas. Those thought to be Jehovah′s witnesses were deliberately targeted. There was no huge animosity and it was all intended as a joke to begin with.

They were offered leaflets with the church of St Hilary in the title. If nobody was in the leaflets went through the letterbox. Some Witnesses would know who St Hilary was and that was a plus, they would get the hint without there being any provable abuse. Those who did know spread the word and it was not long before the malicious intent behind the visits became apparent to many in the community. As the visits increased, they saw it as more than just a joke. They resented it and would hit back. Visits by their own people, especially to those they saw as parish leaders, became more regular and more pushy. In retaliation, the St Hillarians, as they now called themselves, upped their own aggression.

Hostility grew and soon it was not just limited to Jehovah’s witnesses and parishioners of St Hillary’s. Neither side were totally sure who was what outside their own communities and many of the people subject to these increasingly annoying visits were not religious or held other less traditional views. Soon other groups started to hit back in their own ways, going door to door with the main purpose of annoying others. Totnes is famous for being the UK’s New Age capital and various psychic remedies for all life’s problems were among the many different ideas being peddled to door. Soon it all became the norm. People were getting several visits a day by all sorts of groups offering salvation, both spiritual and physical, in various forms and letter boxes were being stuffed with leaflets. One could not go to the shops without being pestered by people hanging around on street corners promoting their solutions to life′s problems.

Soon people began to get more than just irritated. Irritation grew into annoyance and annoyance swelled into anger. It was not long before the violence started. The 4th century had returned.

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Nostradamus returns

There was another silly story in the tabloids about the predictions of the so-called mystic Baba Vanga. According to those who believe in her abilities, 85% of the predictions by the blind and illiterate Bulgarian lady have come true although, when you look at what she is supposed to have said, that is a rather biased figure. Europe "ceasing to exist" is probably not quite the same as Brexit. More objective assessments, assuming that the predictions were not faked, put the figure at 65%. Some would think that is still higher than one would expect from chance, but it probably isn’t when you realise that most people are capable of rather better than 50%. Many predictions can be made based on current realities and probabilities, you don’t have to be a mystic to think that China could become the world’s dominant nation.

Still, Brian thought, at least she is not as vague as Nostradamus. "The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt. An evil deed, foretold by the bearer of a petition." That could cover a lot of assassinations. It was probably all rubbish of course, he was a sceptic on such matters, but he always found this sort of thing interesting. Perhaps it was the fact that he had the same birthday as Nostradamus, day and month that is, not year, he wasn’t quite that old yet. You need to fill your retirement with something and reading up on mysticism, ghosts etc. is as good as anything.

Difficult to find much real information about Vanga but one or two things seemed a bit odd. She supposedly said that "At the turn of the century the Kursk will be covered with water". The Kursk, a Russian nuclear submarine, sank in 2000. Hmmm. Probably a faked prediction or just a coincidence but who knows for sure? He wasn’t enjoying retirement and needed a little more purpose in life. There are all sorts of methods to train the brain, to achieve calm or to beat anxiety of depression, so perhaps there was a bit of brain in there that could be trained in other things. Perhaps he could turn himself into a mystic.

His first search in Google brought up an article "How to be a mystic". It was a good start and, surprisingly, some of it looked rather sensible. "look for order in the world rather than emphasizing differences", "avoid distractions and complex schedules", "avoid the materialist trappings of some religions" Even if he did not end up as the new Nostradamus, perhaps it could help him out of his recent lowness, the basics did not seem much different to various recognised therapies for depression. He settled back in his sofa and started to try and make sense of it. With a couple of large vodkas of course, what better guide was there to the inner self?

He found various other articles and a good book and had been at it for a couple of months. He found the whole thing rather relaxing and helpful and felt a lot better although, disappointingly, he could still not foresee the future any better than anyone else. Would he ever manage to be the new Nostradamus? But, thinking about it, he had not actually tried. He had assumed that, as he mastered the techniques, these predictions of the future would automatically pop into his head but maybe it didn’t work like that. Taking a course does not give you results, you have to practice your skills and accept that you will make many mistakes before you get good at something. That’s what he would do! Every evening he would spend one hour attempting to predict things and write down whatever popped into his head. He would make sure that they were mostly events in the near future, no matter how insignificant. That way he would be able to check what progress he was making, catastrophes in the next century would not be much help.

He did not have any success at first and was thinking of giving up but then there was an odd match. He had imagined a bird hitting something and the next morning a pigeon flew into his window. Probably coincidence but soon he was not so sure as the accurate predictions became more frequent. In one week, he predicted a major train crash, the resignation of a top politician, a terrorist attack in Italy, an unlikely win by an underdog football team and various little things in his own life, including his garage door getting stuck.

Maybe he could be a famous sage. He started posting his visions on Twitter. He did not have many followers, and nobody seemed to take much notice. He got derision from the few that did comment. "Yeh right!" said one "Not as if politicians resign much these days, do they?" That was the problem, his predictions were too vague. He would need to concentrate more. Whenever he had a vision, he would not just write it down, he would stick with it, try and probe deeper and get more detail.

A few weeks later and his thoughts were as nebulous, he was on the point of giving up again. He was very tired and went to bed early. Suddenly, just as he was about to fall asleep, he was hit by an enormously detailed vision, he knew the date, the time, the place and the person. It was if he was actually there. He could not resist the temptation to get up and post it on Twitter. "The president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will be shot dead by a renegade security guard tomorrow morning, Friday, 21st of December at 8.15 UK time". Then he went back to bed and passed out, totally exhausted.

He had no recollection of posting the comment the next morning and it was not until he saw the breaking news on the BBC Breakfast program that he remembered his Twitter post. Oh god! A false prediction would get just him laughed at but a correct one like that? He needed to delete the post! It was too late. The police were banging on the door.

His Twitter post had been reported by one of his few followers. In the police’s view, nobody could have known in advance about the assassination in such detail unless they were involved. It was a hard few months. He was interrogated and had every aspect of his life looked into. Fortunately, they could find no evidence whatever that a retired British dentist with an interest in gardening had any connection with Kurdish terrorists. His lawyer’s suggestion that perhaps his Tweet had been hacked by persons unknown to show a false date and time was most helpful.

Despite all the stress he had suffered, the predictions kept coming into his head and they got more and more accurate. He did not need to read the news as much anymore as he already knew what was happening in the world before it happened. Then he had had a great vision! Next week Tony Blair was going to get stabbed. Great! He would post it on Twitter, but this time he would be much more careful. Nostradumus was a sensible guy, he deliberately obscured his meaning to avoid offending the powers that be. He would do the same. He wrote his prediction:

"One in rage to the East with power across the water will feel the point"

They couldn’t get him on that one.

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The Last Men

It should have been obvious that World War 3 would come eventually.

There had never been any wars between Innuits and Australian Aborigines for an obvious reason, thanks to geography they never affected each other in any way. Conflicts happen between people who live side by side or whose ambitions overlap, who have different and conflicting agendas, who see themselves as separate and have competing aims and wants for their own people. As the world became more and more crowded and free space, raw materials and natural resources grew scarcer, so the tensions inevitably grew to levels that had not been seen previously.

There were parallels with World War 1. The trigger came on the 3rd of April 2131 when the assassination of a leader started a war between two relatively small nations. As in the first war, it soon grew into something much greater when more powerful allies piled in for their own reasons but this time it was not just Europe that was involved but the whole world. And, this time too, weapons were of a different nature. It was unclear who made the first nuclear strike but the panic spread, the desire to knock out the other side to protect your own. Numerous nations, both big and small, had them by them and most used them. By the summer of 2131 the world as we had known it was largely gone. The radioactivity, plus huge releases of toxic chemicals by smaller nations that could not afford nukes, had decimated nature and it would take hundreds of thousands of years before it would fully recover.

Here and there, due to the patterns of winds and tides and a lot of luck, a few small areas were less affected and in some of them mankind had just about survived. In one Island in the Pacific almost five thousand people remained. An understandable loathing of what technology had inflicted on the planet caused the inhabitants to reject it and they lived as the Amish had once done, surviving through manual labour. All the things that technology had left behind, like cars, machines, TVs, radios, computers and mobile phones, were seen as evil things to be feared and avoided and were left to rot wherever they were. In the absence of any electricity, oil or gas supplies, TV or radio stations, phone lines, phone signals or satellites, most of them were of no use anyway.

It was a tough existence, given what the radiation and other contamination had done to the environment, but it took hundreds of years before attitudes began to change and some began to argue that they could learn from the past, that they could use positive aspects of science and technology and improve their lives without using it for weapons.

Their ideas gained acceptance because it was becoming obvious that they had no choice, time was running out. Although the island’s inhabitants had survived, the radiation had not left them untouched. Photographs that remained from before the obliteration showed how they had changed greatly, genetic mutations over the generations had made them appear to be an entirely different species. Some mutations appeared harmless, even positive, but there was no easy solution to the major problem, the plummeting number of women. A genetic fault was causing a much lower survival rate among females and there were now only a few of child bearing age left, all married to the powerful men in the tribe. Few of the living males had ever had any sexual encounter with the opposite sex.

Nobody had left the island since the great extinction and they did not know if any other humans existed but finding another human population with enough females was their only hope. Reechat was put in charge of trying to revive the forgotten technology. If they could find a way to contact other humans and build some means of transport to get to them, then they, maybe mankind in general, could survive. The records indicated there was a telephone landline from their island to the neighbouring one and they had been attempting to communicate through it. It was just possible that, if anyone lived on the other island, they had not given up on technology and might receive the message.

They had little hope and were amazed to receive a response. Communications went on for several weeks between the islands. Fortunately, their languages had not changed so much that Reechat and his counterpart on the other island could not understand each other although it was very difficult. She was a lady, her name was Feldas. It seemed that, for some strange genetic reason, it was their male population that was in danger, they had over 600 females and just 7 males, 4 of whom were quite elderly. What a perfect situation, thought Reechat, all those needy females in need of servicing to preserve our species! He couldn’t wait to meet Feldas and, hopefully, take their relationship further. She seemed just as keen as he was, in fact their conversation had become distinctly flirtatious. The next week the boat was completed and, using old maps from mankind’s better days, Reechat and his crew set off to the ladies’ island. Feldas said they would keep a look out and she would be there to meet them on the beach. She and Reechat had agreed to wear red scarves to make themselves recognisable.

She was true to her word. He jumped off the boat and he saw her standing there on the shingle. His lower jaw dropped. Right down to his stomach. Then his middle jaw dropped almost as far. His eyes, all three of them, did not know where to look while his tail twitched nervously. He had hoped to meet a large-breasted lady and she did not disappoint in that way. The two largest ones that protruded from her hips were even bigger than the three that hung from her neck. She was clearly startled too, it was her tentacles that twitched in a nervous way.

From his study of all the old archives Reechat knew that the radiation had greater altered mankind’s appearance. It had just never occurred to him that different groups of humans would have changed in such entirely different ways.

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A Funny Feeling

It’s difficult to get on the housing ladder in the UK these days but Tony and Rachel had finally made it, using the government’s Help to Buy scheme and some money from their parents.

It had been a stressful few months, with all the uncertainty, form filling and moving but here they were at last, in a brand new flat conveniently located in the centre of town and close to their workplaces. There were still things to do, like replacing the old furniture they’d purchased second hand once they had saved enough money, but that could wait. It was time to relax and start enjoying life again. They sat in the front room with the winter sun streaming through the window and celebrated with a glass of wine.

Having invested so much effort in acquiring the place neither of them were willing to express their concern at first. It was a few days before Rachel mentioned it. "You know Tony, I don’t know, I have a funny feeling about this front room, it feels a little creepy somehow" Tony was silent for several seconds, it was strange she felt it too, he thought his nervousness when he sat in here was just down to the stress of moving. "It’s weird Rachel, I feel that too. Yet, what could it be? This is a new build, there are hardly going to be any ghosts around. It would have been in the news if some builder got killed during the construction. Maybe something in the light is stimulating our imaginations, I’m sure we’ll get over it once we’re more used to the place"

They didn’t. Things started to take a new more alarming turn. On various occasions both of them had seen strange shadows moving across the room and felt a distinct chill in the air. It was terrifying and neither of them wanted to be in the front room at all, but they couldn’t let it go to waste when it had cost so much. What could they do? It was hardly a problem covered by insurance or the purchase agreements, they’d just get laughed at if they mentioned it to anyone.

They did a bit of online research and Rachel came across a story about a haunted pub, the Talbot Hotel in Oundle, North Hants. The staircase taken from a nearby castle is the one where Mary Queen of Scots walked to her execution and her ghost is said to have been seen many times walking down it. Maybe their own ghost had been imported too, it wasn’t the flat that was haunted, it was one of those items of furniture that they’d brought at second-hand shops. Who knows what history they could have had? It was worth a try. One by one they started selling the suspect items back to nearby second-hand shops, then leaving it for a week to see if there were any more frightening occurrences.

After a few weeks all the second-hand furniture, including the sofa, the dining table and chairs, the wardrobe and two cupboards had gone. They now had a bare flat with hardly more than the bed and the TV, they had wasted a lot of money and it had not helped at all, the strange apparitions were actually getting worse as if the ghosts were becoming attuned to their new home. They were not just vague shadows; they could see real outlines of someone who appeared to be writhing in torment. Neither of them wanted to go into the front room anymore.

What options did they have left? Hire an occultist to banish the spirit? They didn’t have much money and were afraid of being ripped off by some fraud. Maybe they could get the ghost to leave themselves. Google had a few tips and they tried them all without success. What else? Maybe they could just carry on as normal and adapt to the damn thing, if they got used to it, they’d stop being frightened. It was worth a go; they’d purchase a cheap but brand-new sofa on tick and start using the room again.

The sofa was being delivered that day, so they went into the front room to give it a clean. The apparition was very strong, and they were both frightened, but they ignored it and carried on as if nothing was happening. Rachel was vacuum cleaning the carpet and heard a clatter; there was a paper clip on the floor. It must have dropped out of that old second-hand chest of drawers they’d just got rid of. Tony picked it up and suddenly felt he was someone else in another place, in a small dingy room, he’d just picked up a paper clip to attach a couple of forms when he felt the searing, life-ending pain of the knife in his back. He reacted instinctively, hurled the paper clip out of the window and the vision was gone.

Later, he and Rachel were sitting on their new cheap sofa, this time actually enjoying their glass of wine. There were no strange events, no flickering apart from the shadow of leaves in the wind and no chill other than the normal one of February when the radiator had only just been turned on.

They heard later about some strange sightings in the small communal garden where the paper clip had landed but, fortunately, that wasn’t their problem.

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What happens at night

He seemed to sleep ok, but Tony has been feeling tired and depressed for many months and sometimes it was so bad it was hard for him to cope with it all. After a day struggling at work, he couldn’t wait to get home and have a nap, although it didn’t help. He’d been to the GP and had a blood test but when he had phoned for the result was just told that everything was fine. The overworked surgery didn’t seem interested in supplying further help and, in any case, he did not want to get into taking pills, he’d read so many bad things about them.

Friday evening was not great, but he’d make the effort and wander round to the local social club for a drink. His mate Brian was there, and he told him about the problems he’d been having. One of the regulars, Steve, a much younger and rather reclusive chap he didn’t usually speak to, was standing at the bar nearby and somehow got involved in the discussion. He suggested that Tony should try out one of the many sleep monitoring apps on his mobile phone. It could be that Tony had Sleep Apnoea, snoring and interruptions to breathing which could affect your sleep quality without you being aware of it. Prolonged poor sleep could certainly make you feel low. You left your phone next to your pillow and the app recorded noises and movements.

Tony was a landscape gardener and close to retirement; he didn’t do technology. He had a mobile phone which he only used for phone calls and the occasional email or text message and wasn’t even too sure what an app was. "Don’t worry about it" said Steve, "I’ll do a check for you and email you the details, although it might be a few days as I’m really busy at the moment. You don’t need to pay for it either, I know ways to get around these things, I’ll attach a file to the email, just click to install it" Tony was very grateful. He had not realised that the bloke was such a nice guy under his rather unfriendly exterior.

The email came a few days later and he sent Steve a reply of thanks and a promise of a pint next time he saw him up the club. That evening, following Steve’s clear instructions, he installed the app on his phone, set it up and put it by his pillow. He thought he had slept ok but was as tired as ever the next day. Thank heavens it was Saturday and he didn’t have to go to work. After lunch he decided to check out what the phone had recorded. Apparently, he had spent almost 7 hours asleep with 45% deep sleep. It didn’t sound too bad. Then he checked a couple of other graphs recording snoring and "other sounds". He’d done a bit of snoring but not a lot. The other sounds came out quite high, it seemed he’d been talking in his sleep.

He was curious as to what he’d been saying and, again following the instructions Tony had given him, he scrolled to the first spike in the chart. He’d expected to hear odd mumblings and couldn’t believe what he was hearing, a horrible loud moaning. It didn’t sound like him at all, he had a deep voice, and what he heard was higher, sometimes turning into a screech. It wasn’t very clear, and he listened again, trying to make out what was being said. It sounded like "I’m coming for you. I am going to make you pay" before turning into a string of obscenities. He checked out the other spikes in the sound chart and most were the same, a horrible, hardly human voice making dire threats. Had it somehow recorded a phone call? He had no idea how mobile phones worked but it seemed unlikely, it wasn’t as though he’d ever done anything horrible to anyone as far as he knew. It had to be him acting out his nightmares. But why would the voice be so unrecognisable? He tried to mimic some of the things that had been recorded and couldn’t manage to sound anything like them.

Now, as well as feeling depressed and tired, he was rather anxious. That night, he wasn’t sure whether he should try the app again. He didn’t want to hear more of those horrible threats but he was trying to be rational. If it was just some nightmare that he’d had, then it was hardly likely that he’d have the same one again. Hearing nothing untoward tomorrow would be reassuring. If only. He kept putting it off but eventually he reluctantly checked his phone and panic took over. Things were even worse, that monster he was listening to was promising his end very soon. The end. He would save it the trouble; he’d just had enough of life. He walked to the balcony of his fourth floor flat and saw the concrete below for the last time.

Steve heard the news a few days later and was initially stricken with guilt. He’d loathed Tony ever since he’d heard that it was his objection that had stopped him getting planning permission for an extension but when he took advantage of the old guy’s technical ignorance by sending him a hacked app with fake ghost noises in it, he’d just wanted to teach the old twit a lesson; he’d never wanted to kill him. He hadn’t realised his depression was that bad. He consoled himself after a few days by telling himself that he was over-reacting. He had no evidence that the bloke had even used the app, let alone that it had played any part in his suicide. Yeh, he probably would have jumped off the balcony anyway. Forget it.

Yet he couldn’t get it entirely out of his mind, sometimes he’d wake at night and start thinking about it. He decided to try the sleep app himself to see if he could tweak his sleep pattern to avoid waking up at all. In the morning he checked out the records, rather low deep sleep, not much snoring but quite a lot of other sounds. He scrolled across to listen to the first significant sound and it was unrecognisably Tony’s distinctly deep voice, "I will be avenged, you will pay" He flung the phone on to the sofa, then retrieved it to make sure he hadn’t inadvertently used his own hacked version. No, it was the real, unmodified thing, freshly downloaded from Google just yesterday morning. Maybe he really was feeling guilty inside and it was guilt that was feeding his imagination, Anyway, he just wouldn’t use the damn app again, no way. Problem sorted.

If only. That night he awoke, his phone turned off and in the other room, to hear Tony’s harsh deep voice threatening him with the direst consequences. Tony may have been an idiot on techie matters and had not had a clue how that Google Play Store sleep app worked, but what it and Steve had done to him consumed his spirit and the combination of them drew him towards it.

Tony’s hacked Google app had pushed him over the edge but, now he was here in the right place, he did not need it to get his revenge.

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Under the Bed

It had been a nice Saturday out with his lady friend Wendy, visiting an interesting old castle. He dropped her off outside her flat and they said goodbye with their usual little hug before he drove back home to his lonely, over large, house. That was his main female company over for a few days. He poured himself a vodka, settled down with his little puppet parrot on the sofa and started flicking through catchup TV to see if there was anything worth watching.

He doubted there would be. Nothing grabbed him much these days. He poured another vodka, mainly for the sake of his little parrot obviously, and started thinking about the good old days when he used to sit there with his wife watching all sorts of daft stuff on TV. He remembered watching André Rieu’s classical programs and playing a silly game trying to spot people in the audience who looked like famous people. Her company was lovely, and it was there most of the time. He had one more little vodka with his parrot before heading off to bed. Bed! Ah, the company could be great there too. Pity Wendy wasn’t interested in that sort of thing. Older women never seemed to be in his experience.

He was slowly decluttering his house with a view to moving to something smaller in a few years. He wasn’t into gardening so that old greenhouse heater could go. He went online to post it on Freecycle; with autumn approaching, somebody would have a use for it. He rarely bothered to look at what was on offer, but something did grab his attention this time, a big collection of short horror stories. No, he wouldn’t. He didn’t want more stuff cluttering up the place.

Somebody contacted him about the greenhouse heater and came to collect it that evening. He went onto Freecycle to remove his post and the horror story books had not been taken. Ah, sod it, why not? He could always give them away again and they wouldn’t take up much room. When he collected them the next day, he found there were more than he thought, they wouldn’t fit in his bookcase. He took out one to read and shoved the rest into a box under his bed.

He told Wendy about it when they went for a drink at the local pub and she was horrified. "What? you really shouldn’t be putting horror story books under your bed, the bad vibes from those will have a really adverse effect on you" He grinned. Ah, here we go again! He really liked her company, but they were like chalk and cheese on some things. She was into all sorts of mystical stuff and he was a devout rationalist, if science couldn’t prove it, it didn’t exist. They had a little argument over it and then moved on to more mundane topics but, after their little goodnight hug, she briefly raised the subject again. "Honestly Joe, you really should move those horror stories from under your bed, they won’t do you any good at all"

He read a couple of the horror stories in bed before turning off the light, quite unconcerned that most of them were still inches below the mattress. He found it difficult to get to sleep but that happened sometimes, nothing to do with horror story books. Silly woman! They couldn’t be anything to do with the nightmare he had that night that caused him to wake up quite anxious, either. Coincidences happen.

But do coincidences keep on happening? It was a horrible week. Night after night he kept waking up feeling anxious with vague memories of terrifying dreams in his head and they wouldn’t go away. He felt tired all day long and couldn’t stop thinking about them. It was daft but he couldn’t ignore it, those books would have to go. He took the lot out and put them down the shed well away from his sleeping self. It was crazy, it made no sense, but it worked. That night he slept well, and everything started getting back to normal. After a couple of days, he didn’t feel tired and had stopped thinking about those horrible things that had now almost disappeared from his memory.

He told Wendy he’d moved the books but said it was just a tidy up, he didn’t want to hear "I told you so" Maybe she wasn’t wrong on some of these things. After all, with all the millions of strange beliefs there are out there, was it not possible that a few had some basis in fact? It's impossible to totally disprove anything, so it was rational to at least accept possibilities.

Anyway, they had another nice day out which ended in their usual hug. Ah! Wouldn’t it be nice if they could go further? He hadn’t had a bit of nookie in years, Fat chance with her! A funny idea crept into his head as they said goodbye. That evening, sitting with his puppet parrot and their shared vodka, he thought more about it. If horror fiction could release some unknown vibes that affected the human mind and made you scared why would other sorts of fiction not have an effect? Would a lot of violent crime novels under your bed make you violent? Would romantic fiction make you feel more romantic? Or, going on from that one…

Wendy was going to stay with her daughter in Wales for a couple of weeks and, as the weather was very hot, she asked if he’d mind calling in at her flat and watering her house plants. He was happy to do so, but even happier that he had the chance for his big experiment. He looked up "women favourite erotic novels" on the internet and purchased a bunch of them, including Fifty Shades of Grey, on eBay. The day before her return, he went to her flat to water her plants again and then did what he was really there for. He lifted up the mattress and posted all the naughty novels between the slats. For good measure he shoved all his old men’s magazines and porn books and CDs there as well. Now he’d see if lots of fiction under the bed could really influence the way somebody thought and felt.

He would be going to her flat for dinner tomorrow evening. Perhaps this time he’d get more than a little hug.

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Past Life

He had spent most of his working life in the garage business, initially as just a mechanic fixing and servicing vehicles and later as the manager of a small local branch of a major dealership. It had been ok as careers go but, now that he was retired, he was rather glad to get away from it all and find something more interesting to do with the rest of his life. There were so many things, both big and small, that he had always wanted to do.

The trip to the Amazon he had always dreamed of had been amazing, but he couldn’t afford to splash out on expensive adventures like that too often, he needed to find cheaper little things he could do to interest him in between. One of them was looking at his heritage. It was something he had started doing a couple of times but had never got very far due to work and family things getting in the way. Now, with all the online guides, it should be a lot easier, especially as he had quite a lot of information among his late mother’s large collection of old documents which would probably tell him who his great grandparents were at least.

Like many people who get into it, he had been rather hoping to discover he was descended from someone famous but, after fiddling about for some months and spending rather more than he had expected on those online services, he was disappointed to find that those ancestors he did manage to trace were somewhat unimpressive, mostly farm labourers, servants, builders and other manual workers. The only professional he could find among them had been a solicitor, and it seems he had been struck off for dodgy practices. Also, no matter how hard he delved into it, he could not go further back than five generations, his further searches drew a blank. He decided not to waste any more time and money on it and gave up looking.

Why did it matter anyway? Not as though your ancestry really says anything about what you are today. Maybe what you yourself used to be is more relevant. That was an idea, perhaps it would be more relevant and interesting to try and find out who or what he had been in past life. He wasn’t totally sure he believed in it, but neither was he a total disbeliever. Like so many young people who look for meaning he’d gone through a bit of a Hindu stage in his youth and had never quite shrugged it off. It might be interesting to check it out anyway.

Was there any proof that past lives really existed or any means of finding out just what that past life had been? The evidence online was not exactly convincing. A number of cases were cited where people supposedly recalled details of their previous existences yet, when their recollections were checked against the known realities, the correlations were poor, with some supposed memories shown to be based on fiction or common incorrect ideas about historic events. However, there were also many with very different opinions who cited various proofs and they were not all mystics who got paid for providing past life regression sessions.

He’d give it a go anyway. It was something to do to fill his time, give him something to talk about with his drink mates at the village club and it was supposed to be quite relaxing and therapeutic anyway, regardless of any success in finding past life events. He found a fairly local past life therapist who wasn’t too expensive and booked a session. It was all a bit odd. He had to lay back on a soft couch wearing glasses with tiny lights in and low music playing to help him relax while the therapist guided him with relaxation techniques and suggestions of things to imagine. On his way out another man who was just leaving nearly bumped into him. He seemed rather curt and rude, just glowered and walked off. Maybe his session hadn’t gone too well.

Thinking about it back home, he was glad he’d given it a go as it had been quite interesting, although he didn’t think he’d had any past life experiences. Probably not anyway, there had been just that brief moment when he had felt a stabbing pain in his side and had a momentary vision. Like the memory of a dream, it had quickly faded into near oblivion, but it was some sort of open space in the sunset with a lot of movement around him. That was a little strange. He occasionally got very brief pains just there although he had no known medical problems and they were surely too superficial and short lived to indicate some significant undiagnosed problem. His online searches had told him that brief, unexplained pain could be a sign of injuries suffered in a past life.

He’d give it another go anyway. On his next visit to the therapist he passed that man again who scowled at him. What a miserable git the bloke was. At the end of his own session he wasn’t that happy either. This time the memory of that open field in the sunset was still brief but not so vague. He was standing opposite another tall man and they were both waving something, although he could not quite see what. Then there was that brief stabbing pain in his side.

It was not pleasant, yet he was fascinated and had to carry on with it. On the fifth visit things took a turn for the worse when that strange memory burst through some barrier and for a minute, became like reality. The open area was a battlefield of two huge armies locked in violent conflict, with the red of the setting sun on the surrounding trees and the red of spilled blood on the grass. He was battling a tall man facing him. He almost managed to dodge it but his opponent’s swing caught his side, triggering that pain he had often felt, although this time it was much worse. Then he lunged his own heavy sword at his opponent and drove it deep into his chest.

Fortunately. the memories, or were they just fantasies, were very brief and he was soon back into today but this time they did not fade away as quickly. As he left the building, he could remember it all in detail, including the face of his deadly opponent. It did not look much like him but for some reason, he could not help but link him to that guy he had seen coming and going from these same sessions. Ah, that was silly, he was letting his imagination run away with him. He’d just forget about it, and he wouldn’t be coming to any of these daft things anymore. They had been relaxing and interesting but now they were rather stressful.

He walked out of the door and there was that guy was standing near the entrance, holding a heavy iron bar. He swung it up high and came forward. in a deep heavy voice, he said "I’m going to get you for what you did to me"

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All stories copyright xoggoth unless otherwise stated