The Man in the Grey Hood

[Typhus]

 

PART 1

 

 

1

 

Garry Goss was trying to smile, but these days it seemed harder and harder to simply move the necessary facial muscles into something other than his usual glassy stare.

The sun wasn’t shining again, he’d heard people mutter about summer as they walked on by, and so naturally assumed the rain and frost was more of the unseasonable weather England had grown accustomed to.

“Damned glerbal warning,” he muttered into his shirt, “always bitching up things.”

Of course, there were more problems for the Garry Goss’ of the world than mere glerbal warning. That morning he had picked one of his usual spots, he liked to mix it up so the police wouldn’t bring him in for trying to scrounge a little change.

 

He was slumped near a tower block, in a dank cement hut that had once held a car. Next to him were similar contraptions, all abandoned when people realised the folly of leaving a car anywhere near the roving gangs of delinquents.

This wasn’t one of his favourite areas, the people here seemed as poor as him, they walked the same way, with their heads bowed and their hands quivering. The best he got from this lot were a few two pence pieces or some colourful hand gestures. It wasn’t surprising, the street had a bad reputation. Once, a beautiful park had sat between two rows of luxury housing. A vast green field with an intricate fountain in the centre, depicting Atlas holding the world atop his shoulders. But with a surge in the population, as well as rising numbers of immigrants, there came a need for more housing. Few remembered what the park was called, now they just called the area Coke Square – and it had nothing to do with their choice in soft drinks.

 

The square consisted of two tower blocks, Quincy and Columbus, filled to capacity and blurting out hideous music at all hours of the day. Between the towers were a neglected playground, where the slide and swings had been charred black by arsonists, and the local community centre. A drab white slab constantly advertising karate classes or dancing lessons.

If his mind had not been jellified by his diet of public toilet tap water and penny sweets he may have remembered living in one of the tower blocks that now cast a lingering shadow over his grey hut.

Garry Goss may have remembered a time when he had a baby. When his hand, strong and steady, had guided the spoon into a waiting and happy mouth.

Here comes the airplane, sweetheart! Here comes the airplane!

But if he remembered that, he might have to remember the unpleasantness that followed. The snoopers, the nosey busybodies, that awful old woman, that slut, that cruel and heartless slut, he’d like to kill her, he’d love to wrap his hands around that sagging throat and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze...

No. Too painful.

He couldn’t remember even if he wanted to, it was a lifetime ago, a life before he had begun singing so some smug bastard would throw him a five pound note, before he could be attacked and humiliated with impunity.

 

He gritted his yellow teeth and squinted in the cold, biting wind. A man was approaching him. Probably another teenager looking to use Garry as a toilet. He could always see them in the swirling soup of his mind, egging each other on, the result of disgust and arrogance settling down and having a baby.

Go have a bath, you reek.

Their taunting cries, laughter barely stifled behind wide grins, bounced around him. They’d give him a kick, or a wad of spittle, and perhaps top it off by patronisingly throwing him a single copper coin. And he’d let them. Because there was no strength left in those old bones, in those withered tendons. No more courage left to muster, nothing but a shambling bag of squishy meat held in a vomit soaked coat.

Yes, it’s safe to say that Garry Goss had little to smile about that morning. From the corner of his eye he could see a man approaching. A grey hood over his head and muddy trainers chomping at the ground, reminding him of the old black-and-white movies of Hitler’s rallies. The sound of all those soldiers, goose-stepping across Europe.

Thrunk, thrunk, thrunk, thrunk. There goes Poland.

He didn’t smile, he just considered how odd it was that he should think of such a thing at that moment. The man was coming closer, head tilting like a curious dog.

Thrunk, thrunk, thrunk.

Garry Goss didn’t smile. But he soon would.

The bad new days were drawing near.

Edited March 20, 2010 by Typhus

[Typhus]

 

2

 

Benjamin Dawson was hunched over the dining table and holding a small leaflet in his hands. Although to someone as short as Benny, it looked twice its size. He squinted at the writing, small and complicated words beneath a cheery picture of an inter-racial group of friends cheering mindlessly.

 

“They gave this to you at school?” He asked his son in his low, scratchy voice.

 

His son, sharing his fathers red hair but already much taller than his old man, moved his hands back and forth in denial.

 

“No, no, not at school, Dad. After school, this man was giving them out.”

 

Benny turned it in a circle, peering closer and closer, all he could discern were a few mentions of the local hospital and some bold writing about a meeting at the community centre.

 

“What’s it all about then?” He scoffed, throwing it at his son like a dart. “Come on, bookworm. What’s it say, then?”

 

Percy felt his mouth twist into a grimace but willed his face back into stoicism. He had learned throughout the years that questioning his father was unwise. Benny The Ball was only a little man but was always trying to make up for it. At the job he got fired from, towards the wife who left him in the middle of the night and now he took out his inadequacies on the only person left.

There was a name for that behaviour, Percy recalled, a complex was the word Wikipedia had used. A Napoleon Complex. Trying to be the biggest, hardest guy in the room because you were so short that no one even noticed you enter.

 

“You remember that boy who died? Just two floors down?” Percy snapped his fingers several times before he remembered the name. “Bobby Cole, he was just a baby, he died of some fever. You remember that?”

 

“I ain’t stupid,” Benny snapped.

 

“I know you’re not Dad. But there’s been about two other deaths like that around the town. This says that the deaths weren’t a fever or any kind of illness. It says that there was someone behind it, and it promises to tell us who if we go to the meeting.”

 

Benny heard his son speak, his face drooping at his unwavering voice, how did his boy turn into such a poof? He ought to smack him, make him normal, if he had started talking like that in front of his father...

 

“And where’s the meeting?”

 

“Community Centre.” Percy replied, sighing under his breath.

 

“Hah! As if I’m going to be trekking all the way there, just to hear a bunch of old ladies bitch about how the gypsies did it all.” He opened his eyes manically and squealed like a pig. "'Them gyppo’s did it! Lock ‘em up! Lock ‘em all up! Bring back hanging for the lot of ‘em!’”

 

Trekking all that way? Percy wondered if his dad even realised that the community centre sat just between two tower blocks. Quincy House and Columbus House. Considering they lived in Quincy, it was hardly a trek. You could take the lift down and be there in two minutes flat.

 

“Dad,” he smiled, “the community centre’s just outside.”

 

Benny felt his hand reach for his belt buckle. Maybe he’d let him off tonight or maybe he’d just take off that belt and whip him like a dog. See where all his fancy words and ugly smiling got him then. His eyes seemed to blur, as they always did when he got angry, and he felt the leather strap slowly slide away from around his waist.

 

“You making fun of me?” He drawled. “Eh? You being smart? You think you’re clever? Come here a minute. Come on Per-Cee.” He drew out the syllables, making the name sound effeminate, vulgar.

 

Percy clenched his fists and tried not to buckle. When his father got like this he always felt like falling down and crawling away, retreating to a corner and trying to sink into the floor or into the nearest wall.

But just like all those other times, Percy would stand there and take it. His father would stand up, make a grand show of wrapping the black leather belt around one miniscule fist, lick his lips with a gluttons delight, and punch by punch teach his son how to respect his elders.

 

[Rhoda]

Lovely manageable chapters, just how I like 'em.

 

This is one of the best things I've read by you Typhus, I have to say. It just reads so well and true, I can hardly pick fault. You don't overboard with description but you don't leave it devoid of all imagination. You've a knack for describing the actions of people too; the sentence where Percy snapped his fingers trying to think of the name was great, and it captures the sort of person he is. The way you have the father draw out Percy's name was good too, it all feels so natural.

 

One thing that did puzzle me though - the use of the word "glerbal". Obviously I thought I had the first use figured, it was either accent or delivery, but your use as a narrator threw me slightly. Did you actually mean "global" or is it something I'm missing?

 

Either way, great reading, and I'm sorry I didn't notice it before.

[Typhus]

I like to make the narration match the personality of the character from time to time.

The reason Garry says it in that manner is because when we meet him he's in a very dark place. Hungry, bitter and not in his right mind. So I think that his self-pitying ramblings can't always make sense.

But of course, if I was to fill the chapter with errors and misspellings it would get old fast. So a noticeable example gets the point across nicely I think.

[solitudeandbored]

love the narrative and story.

[Typhus]

 

3

 

The Whitrose family home was never missed by passers-by. Surrounded by dreary houses on either side, all rotting brickwork and missing roof tiles, the Whitrose place was in a state of perpetual cheer. The walls were painted a grotesque shade of pink, statues of squirrels and rabbits sat on the neatly trimmed grass and in one window was placed a vibrant painting of Christ ascending to Heaven.

The family themselves had lived there for many years. All upstanding men of business and faith, men of few words and withering stares, men who kept their families in line and their bank accounts well managed. But now only a woman lived there, her children having left for University and her husband dying of lung cancer some five years ago.

Hortense Rosemary Whitrose bore this loneliness with the good grace you would expect from her clan. Every day she would water the flower bed beneath the living room window and extend the smallest of nods to her neighbours, on Sunday mornings you could see her at the local church, standing in the front row and singing Onward, Christian Soldiers in her typically sour tone.

Not a hair was out of place, it would always be held in a grey bun. And she would rotate her collection of floral dresses with the predictability of a clock striking midnight.

You would never know the nightmares that plagued Hortense Whitrose. And you would not believe that such a composed, stern woman would awake in the darkness and feel cold, nervous sweat on her brow.

 

And yet that is what was happening, every night, for three weeks. Like everything else in her life, the awful vision followed a set routine.

Hortense was stuck in the ceiling, looking over her motionless body in the half-empty bed. From downstairs came the sound of boots, boots clomping and stomping like an approaching army, coming up the stairs, coming closer and closer until the sound stopped at the door.

The green bedroom door opened swiftly and for an instant it appeared as though no one was there. But then the Lion entered.

Huge, golden, terrible, blood and gore hanging from its muzzle. The beast paced towards the bed and studied the body, its shaggy head tilting curiously.

 

“You stay away.” Hortense always said, her voice quivering in terror.

 

The Lion seemed to know that she was on the ceiling and turned his massive head up to look at her. One eye was a splendid shade of amber, the other was discoloured and hazy – a drunkards eye.

 

“Oh, my dear.” The Lion would titter sweetly. Its voice milky and innocent. “My dear, my dear, my dear. Do you think I’ll leave just because you ask?” The Lion turned his head with calculated sloth towards the body and laughed again, such an infectious giggle, you could hardly believe it emerged from that bloody mouth.

 

“Your God can’t help, you know. He’s not there anymore, my dear. He’s been replaced, upgraded, made obsolete. But I think, deep down, you already knew that. Didn’t you?”

 

She tried to object, tried to tell the beast any number of things her pastor told his congregation on a regular basis, but she couldn’t, she simply couldn’t. Perhaps he had robbed her of her voice, but she knew this wasn’t the case. She was silent because she had no more answers to give.

 

“I can’t eat you. You taste bitter, your flesh is too tough and leathery. But your neighbours, oh yes, they’re a nice enough meal. They’ll just line up to walk into my mouth, throwing the kiddies in first.”

 

And then came the worst of it.

The Lion turned to the door and his mouth opened, and opened, and opened. It grew longer and longer until it touched the floor.

A man and a woman entered the room, Hortense thought they looked familiar enough, but something was different, something was wrong, they had been robbed of the little spark and twinkle that made humans human.

They bowed down in front of the Lion and began paying homage to him, popping up and down like Muslims at prayer.

 

“We are yours,” they droned, “eat our flesh, drink our blood, crush our bones, consume our souls.”

 

Then, without any prompting, they crawled wretchedly into that gaping mouth. It snapped shut and gristle and slush trickled from the teeth.

 

“You’re no God.” Hortense whispered, always hoping he didn’t hear. “You’re a monster, you’re no God, you’re a monster.”

 

The world went black.

And Hortense Whitrose woke with a scream.

Edited April 5, 2010 by Typhus

[Typhus]

 

4

 

“Just listen to this, Steph. It’s the best part yet.” Tom flattened the leaflet and coughed dramatically. “Ahem. ‘I have the answers, I have all the answers. The council has given me the right to look into the issue. And if you want to know the truth, just come and listen to me speak.’”

 

Stephanie laughed mindlessly, probably unsure of what was so funny. But Tom didn’t mind that she was stupid, just as long as she was his. He looped one muscular arm around her waist and kissed her on the cheek.

 

“That teacher still giving you grief?” He asked softly, his raspy smokers voice capable of sounding surprisingly tender at times. “Mister...what’s his name?”

 

“Bishop.” She huffed, her absurdly tanned face twitching in anger. “Yeah, Tom. He’s still going on at me about missing my homework.”

 

Tom remembered the name and put a face to it. He used to have Mr. Bishop teach him maths, he was a spindly man with a buggy pair of grey eyes and a horseshoe of silver hair. Always whining, always shouting.

Lockesley, take off that jacket! Lockesley, spit out that gum! No, you stupid boy, not on the floor!

 

“Don’t worry,” he shrugged, “what’s the worst he can do? Detention? You don’t even have to go to those things, it’s voluntary.”

 

And he was right, in order to give troubled pupils the means of achieving academic excellence, the New Britannia High School had sought to make punishments voluntary, reasoning that teenagers would respond well to suggestions rather than commands. Tom didn’t know what he loathed more, their attempts to control the students or their attempts to coddle them.

The teachers, with their iPods and skinny jeans, all trying not to look like terrified forty year olds suddenly realising they were in the wrong profession. Every single one of them about as cool as a drunken uncle dancing at a Christmas party.

 

“Yeah,” he continued, “you don’t have to do anything. Even wear their stupid little uniforms.” He turned his head and looked at Percy, who was trailing behind them. Still dressing in the maroon school jumper and striped tie. It was that kind of thing that got him beat up, he was sporting another bruise on his face and it was probably because of his little wardrobe malfunction.

 

“I like wearing it.” Percy mumbled, a queer smile on his thin lips.

 

“Yeah? Well no one else does.”

 

“Conformity is the new non-conformity, didn’t you hear?” Percy quipped.

 

“No one ever got the girl by playing by the rules,” Tom countered, “that’s the truth, mate. Ever wonder why you’re single? Because you don’t give the girls anything to work with, just look at you. You look like a joke.”

 

Stephanie let out a high squeal of laughter and Percy managed a chuckle too, but said no more on the matter.

 

“I’m kidding mate, you know that. But what’s a bigger joke is this leaflet thing they’ve been handing out.” Tom screwed it up in a ball and threw it over his shoulder. “A few kids die in the hospital and all of a sudden people go completely mental. This man won’t tell anyone anything they don’t already know, it was just a bug or something.”

 

“Could be.” Percy admitted.

 

“Could? Is. Trust me. This is all nothing. Know what? I’m going to go to that meeting and tell them how it is. Where is the meeting anyway? Where’s that leaflet?”

 

“You threw it away.” Stephanie stammered.

 

Percy pulled three of them from his trouser pocket and handed one to Tom.

 

“Jesus, Percy. How many of those things are you keeping down there?”

 

“Lots.” He replied sheepishly.

 

“Lots.” Tom whistled. “You are such a geek.”

[Typhus]

 

5

 

They were in there somewhere. He knew it. His little girl was acting so strangely, so withdrawn and despondent, that there had to be something wrong. He guessed it was a boy, that’s what it always boiled down to. Hungry, greedy, selfish boys. He knew all about them, he used to be one after all.

Laura Nielsen would be easy pickings for those louts, he just knew it. She had not been blessed with good looks, her eyes were red and watery, her skin the colour of a raw turnip and her hair was like a damp and lifeless rag.

She was a mouse of a girl, buckling down and never seeming to socialise, he couldn’t remember the last time she’d brought anyone around their house, and their house was nothing to be ashamed of. The Nielsen family lived in a respectable area, owned two cars and a dog. He had given his little girl all the advantages possible.

 

“She needs to be protected.” He muttered, aggressively shaking her books and magazines to see if the note was buried there. It had to be somewhere, he had seen her reading it and upon demanding what it said (As was his right as a father) she had mumbled incoherently and ran to her room.

 

He wouldn’t have those kids making Amy a laughing stock. Why would any boy take an interest in her? At that age all they cared about was filling out the population.

It was a cruel prank, the boys would lure her in, make her feel accepted and then throw her away like any other piece of rubbish. They’d do it loudly, publicly, draw an audience.

And he’d have to pick up the pieces, like he always did when one of those rotten bastards took a shot at her.

He shuddered and moved towards the bed, sliding one hand into the pillow case he felt the unmistakeable texture of crumbled paper.

He drew the note out and slowly unravelled it. It was a poem, the ink was smudged and it was done on cheap lined paper, most likely the kind they handed out at school.

No signature, just three large X’s at the bottom.

 

“Don’t confront her,” he thought slowly, “she’ll dig in her heels and make it harder to help her out of this mess. At least I know where she hides the notes, I can keep track of it and see what game Casanova here is playing.”

 

He sighed, wishing he could simply step in and do something, and put the note back in the pillow.

 

[Typhus]

 

6

 

Drew Cole blinked in the light and was suddenly aware of the piercing agony in his side.

What was he doing here? Where was ‘here’? Chewing gum on the tiled floors, a rack full of fashion magazines in front of him and a robotic voice on an intercom.

Some shop probably, though he couldn’t recall walking here or what he may have wanted to buy to warrant the journey in the first place. His wife wouldn’t understand, not that she wanted to. Her grief was all that mattered, he was just the father. He hadn’t carried that child in his guts for nine months. That’s how she saw it, Drew was another shoulder to cry on, nothing more.

He wished he could muster up some anger, but as he stared through the magazines no emotion came. He had tried to be brave when the hospital took the child in, he held back tears when Bobby had grasped his finger for what was to be the final time and when that tiny coffin was hidden beneath the mud he had wept unashamedly.

But now there was nothing, it was as though his soul had been drawn out of his mouth and evaporated in the air. He didn’t care if it ever came back, he didn’t care about much now, he wasn’t even sure when he had last had something to eat or drink. For all he cared, he could stand there until he keeled over, it would make no difference now.

 

“Excuse me?” Came a shrill voice to his side. He looked and saw a woman, young and perky, obvious management, used to dressing down men twice her size. “May I help you?”

 

“My son is dead.” Drew answered flatly.

 

One of her hands moved erratically as she considered what to say. Sympathy was probably as complex as Latin to her.

 

“Oh.” She finally managed to squeak, before scurrying towards the frozen food section.

 

For the first time in his life the thought of suicide crossed his mind. He’d search this place for a knife, go to the nearest public toilet, lock himself in a cubicle and bleed out. Hopefully, wherever he woke up would have his boy waiting for him. Understanding, happy to see his father, with the rest of eternity to spend together.

 

“I know that look.”

 

Drew heard the voice beside him but could only grunt in response, catching a grey hooded sweatshirt from the corner of his eye.

 

“I see it in the mirror sometimes, myself. ‘Mummy, what are you doing with Dad?’” The stranger tittered jovially, a well-worn laugh he probably exercised often. “I kid, I kid. I never had a father.”

 

“Is there a point to this?” Drew grumbled.

 

“Yeah, I got a point, Drew. Wandering into supermarkets and vegetating in front of Wallpaper Monthly won’t bring your boy back.”

 

He turned around and stared the stranger in the face. He was a small man, slim and underfed, a battered guitar was slung across his back and his green eyes sparkled with mirth. His hair peeked under his hood in black curls and his thin lips were hidden behind a spindly beard.

Drew imagined he was a musician of some sort, but that still didn’t explain one little thing.

 

“How,” he asked, “did you know my name?”

 

“Just an educated guess.” He replied with a tiny shrug.

 

“Did my wife send you?” Drew snapped, poking a finger in the mans chest, all that lost emotion flooding back in huge angry balls. “Are you some sort of counsellor? Well, you can tell her that I’m fine, I’m just fine and I only wanted to take a little walk to clear my head.”

 

“You got me!” The man chuckled, shaking a fist in mock-anger. “You’re a sharp one, alright. Yeah, I’m a counsellor. But not for you, Drew. I’m here to help the community.”

 

“Yeah, well the community’s a big place.”

 

“Tell me about it, so that’s why I’m starting with you guys in the tower blocks. Columbus and Quincy. I’m holding a meeting, tomorrow night. To give people hope, things have been rough around here and we could all use a little pick-me-up. You especially, Drew.” He nudged Drew with his elbow and winked, as though they had known each other for years. “I look forward to seeing you.”

 

And without waiting for any response, without waiting to hear if Drew would even show up, without even revealing his name, the man in the grey hood went striding away.

 

[Tyler]

I read the first, and sadly am too tired right now mate. I shall read the rest when I get back on.

[Typhus]

 

Part 2

 

 

1

 

“Dreams, messy business, yeah, messy business alright.”

 

Hortense always called him the Highgate Man (Though not to his face), because the first time she laid eyes on the old fellow he was mumbling about Highgate Road. Mumbling to himself about an assault on Highgate Road. She stood at this bust stop every Thursday morning, taking the number nine to the local Baptist church where she would attend the weekly prayer group.

And every Thursday there was Highgate Man, sitting there in his green bomber jacket and white sandals. Looking every inch the mental patient but showing baffling moments of clarity.

She wondered if he was indeed a lunatic or merely playing a joke on the world.

Sometimes it felt like he was the only person she could talk to.

God, confiding with a stranger at a bus stop. What would her family have made of that?

 

“The problem isn’t that my dreams are messy,” she pouted, “it’s that they’re so clear. It’s obvious to me, something bad is going to happen, it’s going to happen soon and it’s going to happen to everyone around me.”

 

“Paranoid, you are.” Highgate Man cackled, scratching a patch of mustard around his mouth. “You look into them too much, they’re just a big load of nothing. Probably something you ate before going to bed, that’s what my Mam always said, God rest her.”

 

Hortense saw the bus approaching and stuck out her arm to halt it.

 

“Big load of nothing?” She whispered with a frown. “I wish I could believe that.”

[Typhus]

 

2

 

Tom fingered the cigarette behind his ear gently and stared at his feet resting on the table. It had been a rough night and he felt like nodding off.

 

“Tom? Tom? Could you please take your feet off the desk, Tom?” Mrs. Burns asked, an expectant smile on her pudgy face. She was the Religious Education teacher of New Britannia High School and seemed to have stepped out of a psychiatrists office. Clinical, emotionless, never raising her voice, not even a little. Tom had long since given up on trying to irritate her, he’d have an easier time climbing the Empire State Building.

 

“My feet ain’t stopping you from teaching,” he sighed dismissively, “so just get on with it, yeah?”

 

A few indulgent snickers from the rest of the class but he didn’t push it further. Maybe later, in science.

 

“Very well.” Mrs. Burns said, in that infuriatingly casual manner of hers. “Let’s begin the lesson, shall we? Today we’ll be discussing dreams and what they can reveal about out subconscious desires.”

 

She turned her back to the class and wrote a brief summary of the lesson on the whiteboard.

Stephanie was bobbing her head along to some music on her phone and briefly turned her head to blow Tom a kiss.

He caught in his hand and mimed throwing it back. Christ, did that girl ever let up? Quick-sand with mascara and a fake tan.

 

“Throughout history, people have placed an immense amount of importance on dreams and lauded those who have been able to interpret them. I don’t know if we have anyone that perceptive in this school, but why don’t we share a few of our own dreams and see what the class makes of them?”

 

Her hand curled into a ball and one sausage of a finger poked out and scanned the room. Eventually resting on one girl who was busily preening her hair in a small mirror.

 

“Yes, you, why don’t you tell the class about a dream you’ve had, dear?”

 

“I had a dream that I was telling you to piss off and ask someone else.” The girl sneered, not even looking up. Tom smiled a little at this and folded his arms, resting his face in the crevice they created.

 

Unflustered, Mrs. Burns continued to scan the small, peach coloured room.

 

“Ah, Percy, can you take your nose out of that notepad and perhaps favour us with one of your dreams?”

 

Percy’s small, timid eyes looked up at the teacher and then flickered instinctively towards Tom, as though hoping his friend would bail him out with some outburst of misbehaviour.

 

“I can’t really think of anything.” He squeaked, hunching further over his desk and scratching the back of his neck nervously.

 

“Come now, I’m sure a smart boy like yourself has plenty of dreams.”

 

“Leave the baby alone,” A boy yelled joyously, “he’s just going to start crying again.”

 

If Mrs. Burns disapproved of the mockery, she didn’t show it. Instead she pointed at Tom, with that same pleasant expression on her face, and asked him to contribute to the healthy debate.

 

“I’m tired, let me sleep.” He grunted, blowing a gust of air out of his sharp nose like an irritable rhinoceros.

 

“You can do better than that.” She insisted.

 

“What do you want? What are you chatting about?” He snapped, exasperated. “Dreams? You want to hear about my dreams? Fine. Last night I had a dream that I was taking a giant sh*t. I flushed it and flushed it and flushed it, but the giant sh*t kept getting bigger. The more I flushed, the bigger it got. And by the end, it was a giant sh*t-dragon.” Tom waved her away with his hand. “There, I bit, now go talk to someone else.”

 

He put his face in his arms and this time really fell asleep. He needed to catch whatever little naps he could. That night was the night of the meeting. The mysterious meeting held by the mysterious man who promised mysterious answers to invented questions.

He didn’t know what he’d do, just that he wanted to screw it up.

Somehow it seemed very important.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Typhus

[Typhus]

 

3

 

He had dreamed about her face. Sometimes it seemed like God had painted it inside his eyelids, right now he could even see it in the barbershop mirror, her little dome head with locks of golden beginning to peek through and bright eyes far too innocent for the world they had to look at. She was sitting quite contentedly behind him on one of the red leather chairs the customers used, her pudgy little fists waving about happily and a patient smile on her toothless mouth.

 

“You won’t need to be patient much longer, sweetheart.” Garry whispered, oblivious to the cockeyed look the old barber gave him. “I’m taking you back.”

 

As a chunk of matted grey hair fell before his eyes, he blinked, and behind him was no longer the little girl he was doing all this for. No, it was him. The stranger, the guitarist. He was sitting quite patiently where his daughter had been only a few brief seconds ago.

Garry didn’t know where he came from, nor why he had earned this mans generosity. In truth, he didn’t care. All reservations had been swept aside by the promise of a hot meal, some new clothes and a haircut.

He seemed respectable, this stranger. To Garry, he looked a little like Bobby Moore, with his sandy hair and apologetic eyes, but whereas Bobby had been man enough to lead England to the cup in ’66, this man seemed feminine in his gestures. He didn’t walk with conviction, he minced along the street with elegant movements of his legs. The way he ruffled his hair was straight out of a billboard with some half-naked woman advertising conditioner. His blue eyes were cold and hard, but his lips seemed to purse together when he saw something that displeased him.

It was as though he had adopted the look of a man but didn’t have the slightest idea how to act like one. And this made the deal all the more concerning for Garry.

The man had known him, his name, where he used to live, everything. He knew his history, he knew his darkest fears and insecurities.

 

“Your daughter,” he had stated, “was robbed from you. Stolen by snoopers and busybodies. By bureaucrats more concerned with shutting up a few old gossips than making sure that a single father got a fair deal. Garry, I know it hurts, I can feel it.”

 

But Garry doubted that he could feel his pain, he saw the flicker in the mans eyes, the shadow of a cruel joke hiding behind that cold shade of blue.

But how can you refuse a man offering you the one thing you want? How could Garry stick up two fingers and politely tell the musician to shove his guitar up his arse? He may have been destitute, he may have even been half crazy. But one thing kept him going, his real and tangible love for his daughter. For her he would do anything, even make a deal with the Devil himself.

So when the man in the grey hood explained the trade in black and white, Garry had nodded his head, he wasn’t even sure that he had considered it.

In exchange for his legs and his co-operation, Garry would see his daughter again. He would probably have to be wheeled to her door, but he would see her, the one who got away, little Angie.

The barber stepped back and admired his handiwork, Garry Goss now looked halfway decent. His mane of filthy hair had been shorn away, leaving him with a very businesslike crew-cut. And despite the knowledge that he would soon have to pay for this in bone and blood, he felt the alien sensation of happiness glowing in his heart.

 

“Is that okay, mate?” The barber asked, adjusting his glasses.

 

“Perfect.” Garry smiled, ready to play his part.

 

[Tyla]

I read through this the other day, it's truly captivating.

 

I'm left wondering who (or what) "The Man in the Grey Hood" is and what they stand for. You've done a great job with your selection of characters, going into an appropriate amount of detail about their backgrounds and that they all have something in common that it seems will come to a head for all of them at some point, kind of like Ashes to Ashes (not the best example) I guess. I also picked up on what you said about making the narrative reflect the nature of the characters personality from time to time. That first Garry Goss chapter was particularly brutal, quite commendable

 

Hope you add to this soon, Typhus. I'll be looking forward to reading it.

[Typhus]

 

4

 

Laura pulled her sleeve over her wrist and wiped down the green plastic bench at the bus station. Maybe it was the snob in her, but she worried about catching something from places like this. About a dozen cigarette butts were scattered on the ground and someone had politely left a wad of yellow and white phlegm on the bus schedule.

The reason she took the bus sometimes eluded her, surely her father would drive her if she simply explained who she was seeing and how she felt about him. No, that would never work. He was still buying her stuffed bears and dolls as though she were a child. The only reason her room was still painted pink was because she dreaded telling him that she was too old to pretend to be some magical princess who rode a white unicorn.

No, it would definitely be better not to let him know. A woman should have some secrets, she assured herself, it wasn’t natural to tell a father everything.

But she wondered what would happen if she got to the stage of inviting him to her house. What would her father make of him? To her, they seemed like polar opposites.

 

When she first saw him, on that balmy summers day, she had been walking along the beach. Running her long fingers on the smooth stone of the sea wall. At school she had few friends and this was how she spent her weekends, walking and taking in the crowds who scurried around like ants in a farm. All trapped in their own little worlds, like an alien species.

And that week had been particularly bad, whilst she was able to put up with being completely anonymous and unremarkable for most of her years, there was something much worse about being noticed. On Monday it had begun, with sidelong glances and whispered sni**ers. And then the photographs started going up, photographs of her in black and white, on every door and wall. With the words “OINK,OINK,OINK” underneath in bold.

Before long, people were making that same vulgar sound right in front of her. Whenever they passed her on the stairs, or brushed past her during a class. Oink, oink, oink. Like a damn catchphrase. At first, upon seeing the photographs, Laura felt her stomach curl and gnarl in shame, she had been chosen, she had been picked out for mockery. But after a few days, it was just routine, she could take the snide comments and cruel smiles. That was their level.

But she had never expected them to take it that far.

 

Her whole class was sat in the computer room, officially to learn how to become computer literate but mostly the students chose to browse through pornography or chatter amongst themselves. But on this occasion, they were gathered around one boy. Bradley Dowton, an acne-ridden little scrote who spent his days pushing little children into thorn bushes and throwing chewing gum around like hand grenades.

She gingerly approached, and amongst the laughter and appreciative clapping and hooting, could hear her name whispered again and again. Laura, wait until Laura sees this, nobody tell Laura.

Nobody needed to tell Laura, because Laura saw for herself.

It was one of those social networking sites, Facespace or MyBook or something. She never used them, her father claimed they bred illiteracy. But for some reason, there she was. Blurry photographs of her taken with a camera. Taken when she was answering a question in Maths, taken she had bent down to tie her shoes in the cafeteria, taken when she was in the gym and taking turns on the trampoline with everyone else. It was some sort of group. And whilst the tight crowd made it difficult to make out the finer details, she did see the title. And it simply read; wud u f*ck this bitch for $$$???

And then, slowly, like a nightmare you can’t shake off, they saw her, studied her pained expression, examined her trembling lips and shaking hands, analysed her drooping shoulders, and decided to laugh. They laughed and laughed, faces turning red with amusement.

 

“Why are you doing this?” She murmured. “Why are you doing this?”

 

But all they could do was laugh.

 

As she walked alone, the sun in her eyes and the stench of sea water in her nostrils, it was hard not to remember. It was hard to take in the buoys clanging and ringing in the sea, or the seagull waddling away with a chip in its beak. All she could think about was that sea of faces, cemented in a single expression of joy and she was the cause of it. That night she had dreamed that they had torn her apart, like a dummy in a shop window, they had pulled her down and cleanly ripped her limb from limb. Laura wondered if she would ever forget, or if it would remain in her thoughts like a parasite. Eating away at her until she could no longer sleep or eat.

But then she heard something that did make her forget, someone was crying. It sounded like a boy, but no one walking past had tears in their eyes, they just came for the suntan. Walking slowly, she realised that it was coming from the old wooden pier on the beach. It had been rotten for years and walking on it was to risk falling through the cracks or stabbing your foot with a rusty nail. But from underneath it, someone was definitely crying.

She crawled over the wall and heard it getting louder, short sobs, painful weeping being hidden poorly. Watching her head, she ducked down and saw him for the first time.

Her first thought was that he could use a decent meal, he was scrawny, like a greyhound, and not much older than her. His large head was resting on his knees and his wide eyes seem to stare into nothing.

 

“Hello,” she smiled, “are you all right?”

 

The boy shifted his gaze in her direction and for a moment there was a flash in those eyes, a cold and dark glint which caused her to take half a step backwards, the kind of look of a man who would be quite happy to stick a screwdriver in her neck. But then it disappeared and he was himself again, the sad boy under the pier.

 

“Go away.” He sniffled, wiping his eyes with the palm of his hand.

 

“You just look like you could use some help.” Laura replied, even though she didn’t have the faintest idea of what she could do. The boy tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders dismissively.

 

“Help?” He scoffed. “I’m not a baby, I don’t need your help.”

 

“So what are you doing, then?”

 

“Nothing,” he snorted, “just sitting here. There ain’t a law against it, is there?”

 

“Sitting here crying?”

 

“I wasn’t crying!” He snarled, balling up his fists and pounding them into the sand. “I’m not a child, I don’t just cry like some girl! I was just sitting here, why do you keep bothering me?”

 

Why did she keep bothering him? It was a valid question, one she wasn’t sure how to answer. But something about him was calling to her, she knew that much, something about him needed saving.

 

“I don’t know.” She answered at last, folding her arms defensively. “Maybe I’m bothering you because you look hungry. Want to get something to eat?”

He considered this for a moment, with the paranoia of a mouse sniffing a piece of food before it eats, and despite the tears and despite his attitude, he gave the smallest of smiles and nodded his head.

 

“I had plans,” he replied, “but I can hang out with you, I guess.”

[Typhus]

 

5

 

His wife was still holding the blanket. It was this pink, soiled thing she had brought before Bobby was born. Picked up from a charity shop when she was expecting a girl.

That always rankled him and as he saw her rock back and forth in the same sad cycle, he felt his jaw tighten. How much of this was real? How much of this whole mourning mother act was genuine? Secretly, in those parts of himself he never displayed to anyone, he suspected that she was acting like this because she was expected to act like it.

It was a grand performance all right. Her days usually conformed to a familiar pattern.

First of all she would go to the fridge, put one hand on it and then spontaneously notice the photograph of Bobby on the door. Then came the big, gulping sobs. A-heh-huh-heh!

The next few hours were spent on the sofa, clutching the blankie and swaying like a pair of fuzzy dice attached to a rear view mirror. Of course, she’d stop every so often when The Jeremy Kyle Show popped on and then happily recommence the farce as though nothing had happened.

And when night came and Drew tried to crawl into bed she would mumble something along the lines of: I’m just not ready!

And it would be another night on the sofa for Daddy.

Was it selfish to belittle her grieving process? Was he a bad husband? A bad man?

 

“Everyone else in this piece of sh*t town is a selfish, uncaring bastard.” Drew thought furiously. “Maybe it’s my turn.”

 

He smiled a little too wide at the thought, unaware that his thin face resembled a hyena looming over a particularly juicy carcass. But swiftly remembered that the real scumbags didn’t stand by their wives, they didn’t stick around long enough to see their child born or to cry when they saw their baby die in a fit of coughs and splutters.

No, this was his lot in life. And he’d just have to deal with it.

 

“Paula, love, can I speak to you for a sec?”

 

Her little dance routine slowed down long enough for Drew to realise she had heard him, but then she resumed her theatrics.

 

“Paula.” He said firmly, positioning himself right in front of her. “I want to talk to you. Can you talk?”

 

Christ, it was like speaking to a damn child. And Paula didn’t help by shaking her head manically.

 

“Fine. That’s fine. Whatever.” He sighed, drawing a hand over his long and pallid face. “I can talk and you can just listen. Yesterday night, I was just wandering around a supermarket. It could’ve been a gas station, I dunno. Can’t remember how I got there, can’t remember how I got back here.”

 

Probably some Voodoo curse, he considered. Biting his lip to avoid saying it out loud.

 

“But I met this guy, I didn’t catch his name. But he knew me and he knew about Bobby.”

 

“Don’t say his name!” Paula shrieked, complete with quivering lips and smeared mascara under her eyes. Drew had to give the gal credit, she was good.

 

“Fine, okay, right. Anyway, he told me that he is a counsellor. And he’s in the city to talk to us about all the recent deaths. He’s holding a meeting tonight and I’d like us to go. Together. As a couple.” He hated to have to spell things out, but it felt necessary to remind her that she had a husband.

 

“Why?” She grumbled. “Why should we go?”

 

“Our son is dead, Paula. I’m acting like a zombie and you, you’re...” he broke off and gave another deep, tortured sigh. The last thing he wanted was for this to turn into a slanging match until the whole issue was forgotten. “We’re not handling it very well, that’s all I’m saying. Maybe this man could help us get to grips with what’s happened. Maybe we could meet other parents and then it might not be so hard for us, we might be able to get on with our lives.”

 

He had expected some outburst, some tedious line about how she didn’t want to get over it. About how accepting Bobby’s death would be tantamount to forgetting him entirely. But she didn’t say any of these things, she actually smiled a little.

Drew suspected she was considering the prospect of an entire audience for her grief and just how much she could milk the good will of her neighbours and friends.

 

“You’re right.” She whispered in a practiced tone. “I think it will be good for us.”

 

Good for you, you mean, good for you, Paula.

So many years together, and not a shred of honesty from either of them in all that time. Liars torturing liars. And if Bobby had lived, they likely would have turned him into a little liar too.

He didn’t often admit it, but they deserved each other.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Typhus

[Typhus]

 

6

 

Hortense hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but when she lied down on the sofa and put the book over her eyes to block out the sun it was clear that she had underestimated how tired she was. It was the day of the meeting and she had decided to go and see what was discussed. As a respected member of the community she had a duty to keep tabs on these kinds of things. Failing to go would look peculiar, suspicious. And she had always been taught that the show must go on, even if the nightmares were turning her into an ogre.

 

And nightmares they were. After all, how many dreams began with the sound a child sobbing? There was nothing to see, only darkness. Darkness so thick that she no longer had any limbs or flesh, she was absorbed into the black void, she was the void. And all around her came the crying, the little weeps of a young boy trying to conceal his weakness. It reminded her of the time her youngest child, Ian, was in the park and trying to learn how to ride a skateboard. He wobbled on that thing for a good twenty minutes and only managed to move a few inches. But eventually, Ian got impatient, he had to learn how to do it, he had to be perfect. He propelled himself with one foot and promptly flew into the air, landing back first on the grey concrete.

And immediately the tears came flowing out, Hortense tried to help him up, tried to console him. But he pushed her away, told her he didn’t need any help, tried to force those tears back into his eyes.

 

You smothered your children too much, she thought, and that’s why you’re alone.

 

But was it smothering someone when you tried to help them? Was it too much to extend a gentle hand to a child in need? It was a mother’s instinct to protect her children, she could no more stop it than she could stop breathing.

 

“Ian.” She called out in the darkness, not sure if she even had a mouth to speak out of. “Ian, where are you?”

 

The sobbing halted abruptly and a quivering voice answered her.

 

“Who are you?”

 

No, this was not her son. The voice sounded calm and full of knowing innocence. So who was he? And why was he invading her mind? Any moment she expected the Lion to return, pacing out of the dim and opening his jaws to the floor, only this time he would eat her too, she was sure of it. Those teeth would clamp down and she would be ground up into little chunks.

 

“My mum.” The boy whispered. “Daddy says that Mum is sleeping. He says I sent her to sleep when she had me. I tell him I didn’t mean to do it, I tell him it’s not my fault but he keeps shouting at me, I just wish my Daddy would be happy, I wish he’d forgive me.”

 

The boy sounded detached from it all, brutalised. It almost seemed like a mockery of real human emotion, a child’s jeering sing-song.

 

“My best friend,” the boy continued, “is a very bad friend. I don’t like him. Sometimes I like to take my little notebook and scribble down ideas. Ideas about what I would do to him. How I’d kill him. Is that wrong, Mrs. Whitrose? Is that evil?”

 

The Lion. Yes, no doubt about it, it was him. She knew it and she knew that she had nowhere to go, no legs to carry her, no mouth to scream. She was alone in the blackness, alone with the Lion.

The childish, sickly voice resumed talking. Growing more sarcastic, more bitter.

 

“Oh, I don’t just hate him Mrs. Whitrose. No, no, no. I hate the world. I hate the world and everyone in it! I hate the people who live upstairs and insist on making love every time I close my eyes. I hate the starving babies on the news who put me off my food. I hate those well dressed kids who walk down the street, because they have so much and I have so little. And most of all I hate people like you, Mrs. Whitrose. So safe in your little world, turning a blind eye to my blood and a deaf ear to my screams. I have a little notebook for you too, my dear.”

 

She felt something move below and was suddenly aware that she was whole again, able to clench her fists or click her heels. But still in darkness, still blind and now feeling very wet from the knees down, a putrid smell and squelching coming from her every move.

 

“Perhaps, dear woman, you think that you can stop what is going to happen? That you can somehow stop the boy from coming to me, or perhaps expose me to all the brainless swine who will gather around us? Hortense, my beautiful Hortense, you can’t do a thing. It’s far too late, things are in motion. They will worship me and one by one I will simply open my mouth and let them walk in.”

 

“I won’t let you!” She screamed, her voice ricocheting around like a bullet.

 

“Won’t let me?” The Lion mocked. “My dear, you’re already standing on them.”

 

Dreadful light broke through and all around her feet were digested bodies, their arms gnawed to the bone, their innards half-chewed and their faces set in ecstatic grins. The mindless smile of a brainwashed drone.

 

“Do you see now?” He asked softly. “Do you see? It’s too late. You are already in the belly of the beast.”

 

She awoke, once again covered in a film of sweat. But there was no more screaming. Only bafflement and the lingering question of who this Lion really was and what grotesque tricks he held up his sleeve.

 

[Tyla]

I love how you crafted such haunting imagery, really manages to bring home a tormented feeling of being in the grip of personal demons, trying to battle them and carry on as though all is well, that I think a lot of people can relate to. Excellent writing.

[Rhoda]

I'm enjoying this. I don't know what it is but I'm finding it very hard to get into. I'm sticking to it and I'm reading it but there's something in the way. Maybe it's the content and theme itself. Having said that, I am fond of it and there's some great imagery here, particularly:

 

 

He smiled a little too wide at the thought, unaware that his thin face resembled a hyena looming over a particularly juicy carcass. But swiftly remembered that the real scumbags didn’t stand by their wives, they didn’t stick around long enough to see their child born or to cry when they saw their baby die in a fit of coughs and splutters.

No, this was his lot in life. And he’d just have to deal with it.

 

Really powerful for me that part, and really quite daunting.

[Typhus]

 

Part 3

 

1

 

“Do we have to go and see him?”

 

Tom had to stop walking and let Percy catch up, although he didn’t really feel in the mood to tolerate his whining.

 

“You chickening out, Percy?” He asked with a smirk.

 

Percy stopped to a halt and tried to catch his breath, his face was almost as red as his hair. Tom wondered how someone so skinny could be so out of shape.

 

“I’m not a chicken.” Percy mumbled in between gasps. “I just don’t like Kevin.”

 

Fingering the zipper on his fine leather jacket, Tom looked hard at Percy and shook his head in quiet disgust. Of course Percy hated Kevin. Kevin was everything he wasn’t. Kevin was fun, every weekend he seemed to pull a different girl and his parents never once bitched if he held a party at their house. And only Kevin had the necessary skills to help him out before the meeting later that night.

 

“I don’t know why you hate him, mate. He’s never had any problems with you.” Fair enough, that was a lie. But Percy didn’t need to know that. “He’d probably be happy to see some familiar faces. He’s still got a few months on that suspension.”

 

That, at least, was true. In what the Headmaster labelled a “senseless, foul, idiotic act of petty vandalism”, Kevin Glover had performed an act of inspired sabotage. At the Christmas assembly, they had called the entire year group into the theatre, sat them down and gave them a stern talking-to about the dangers of alcohol. It was inevitable, they claimed, that they would drink during their holidays. But to drink to excess would cause long term health problems. So, they pulled down a giant screen and prepared to show a tedious PowerPoint slideshow about the horrors of binge drinking.

Kevin had long since taken his position in the production booth, through which all films and presentations were projected through a tiny window.

The movie flickered into life and there was a collective gibber of surprise. Where was the cream background? Where were the crude clip art cartoons showing a body under a sheet or a crashed car? Where was the oversized Times New Roman font? And just what the Hell was this movie called: One Night In Großpürschütz?

If the audience still didn’t understand what was going on even when the sleazy saxophone music began, they got clued up pretty quickly when ‘Hans’ reached around his enormous gut and began unbuckling his belt.

Porn. Kevin Glover had showed New Britannia High School some homosexual German fetish porn right before their Christmas holidays. The teachers went instantly berserk, seeing court cases and mobs of angry parents in their immediate future. They tried to lift up the giant screen only to find that the film was simply projected clear as day on the wall behind it. Mr. Bishop, the maths teacher, was actually trying to crawl in the miniscule window to shut the film down.

It was chaos, anarchy. And Kevin, that magnificent bastard, simply barricaded the door to the film room and watched his plan unfold.

 

“He went too far.” Percy seethed, beginning to walk again. “That wasn’t funny. He deserved to get suspended for that.”

 

“If you keep crying like that you can f*ck off back home right now.” Tom said sharply, poking his friend in the chest for added emphasis. “You ain’t going to embarrass me in front of him, Percy. All right? Just smile, say hello and then shut up. Got it? He’s not inviting us to his house just so you can start moaning at him.”

 

Percy buried his hands in his pockets, bowed his head and gave two silent nods.

Giving Percy a stern, sidelong glance, Tom took out a cigarette and lit it up. Inwardly he kicked himself for telling off his best mate like that but knew that it was the only way he’d learn. Tom Lockesley knew how hard the world could be, he knew the cruelty and apathy that almost everyone on the planet had within them. Percy’s problem was that he always needed protecting, always needed someone to bail him out. And when that didn’t work, he’d crawl up, slink away and start crying. Someone had to teach him how to be a man.

Hopefully, what Tom had planned for that night would help Percy out. Maybe the rush of humiliating someone – in plain view – and then legging it as fast as you could would toughen him up a little.

He hoped so at least. Because if Percy Dawson stayed as he was, as quivery as a beaten dog, then God help him.