Trollheart

So I know that my house used to be like all the others, a target for the roving ninjas of A Taste of Mumbai and its parent corporation, Blue Fish Industries. But then, one day, it all stopped. No more did I find menus extolling the virtues of Biryani, Chicken tikka or other stuff I would never dream of eating. I found – to my initial delight, though that did not last – that I could open my door in the morning and not see the ominous cardboard menu with its half-hook hanger swinging precariously from my doorknob like some climber who had lost his hold and was trying desperately not to fall. It was great for a while, but then some nagging voice inside me started asking why?

Why was my house the only one – and it was the only one; the Indian takeaway ninjas even continued to put their menus on old Mr. Bennett's house, and he's been dead now for six months and the house vacant – that the indefatigable agents of A Taste of Mumbai ignored, even avoided? After a while, I began to feel an outcast, left out, ignored, shunned. There was a time when I would have given anything to have seen one of those stupid, badly-printed menus hanging from my door, just once.

But my door remained menu-less, and still does.

My letterbox never rattles, my door bell never rings, no footsteps wend their weary way up my pathway to breathlessly inform me that Virgin are doing a great deal right now if I switch my TV and broadband, or to try to convince me to switch to prepay power. How I used to loathe these people, who badgered and annoyed me and always seemed to call at the most inconvenient moments. What wouldn't I give now to watch one smile his or her plastic smile and rattle off a list of benefits, screw up his or her face in surprise when I inform them that I'm an “old-fashioned sort, not prone to change”, and send them off, shaking their head? Well, now I wouldn't be so eager to see them off. I'd even invite them in, make them a cup of tea. I might even sign their form, make their day, earn them a few quid in commission. What, in the grand scheme of things, does it matter if I have Sky or Virgin, or get my electricity from this or that supplier? Just to have human companionship...

The mention of electricity supply brings my already staggering mind back to the recollection of the bills that never arrived, and the huge amounts of electricity being consumed, and for a moment I'm confused. I don't use that much electricity. I don't stay up late at night. So who is using this power?
And then I remember, as I believe I continue to forget, and remember, and will forget, and remember again; as I perhaps always have done, and always will do.

I remember when they came.

II. Cockroaches

This is not quite true. I don't remember when they came. I don't even know for certain if they ever did come, or if they have been here all along. Perhaps this is their house. Perhaps, if I am not in fact a spirit wandering these halls without realising it, I am the interloper, here for some strange reason I can't fathom. If so, then who actually lives here? A relative? A friend? Business colleague? But no: I do not know these people, though I know them very well. That is to say, I am aware of them. They are always here. They are always around me. Perhaps they always have been. I know they are here. I know they may always have been here. I know they probably always will be here. But I don't know who they are.

My fragmenting memory throws shards at me, like a drunken knife-thrower who knows he is about to lose his job, but some weird sense of ... I don't know, call it honour maybe? Dedication? Professionalism? Whatever it is, it compels him to see out his last night. Which, given his profession and his current state, is probably not wise. It's a pretty safe bet someone is going to get hurt, perhaps badly. My memory surely knows this too: bombard me with too many unrelated pieces of my past – if it is my past, I can never be certain: my brain may be playing tricks on me – and one may take my very reason out, reduce me to a gibbering simpleton.

Perhaps this has already happened. Perhaps I am, even now, sitting at a metal table in a featureless grey room, the table bolted to the floor to prevent my using it as a weapon, I myself shackled to the chair and locked into a jacket without sleeves, drooling and humming quietly to myself. Behind me, perhaps I have scrawled on the wall messages I believe terribly important, but that nobody will read, or even come close enough to decipher. The stench drives them back, but I just laugh. It is not a happy laugh.

If I am mad, then in a really strange way all of this makes sense, because it makes none in the real world. One of the memory grenades impacts upon or near me, showering me with jumbled images and sounds, and I see a man arriving at my door. He does not knock. He does not ring the bell. Somehow, he is inside. He has not spoken one single word. His eyes are hidden behind dark mirrored sunglasses, although it is a cold morning. A line from Poe flits through my tortured memory: “Distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December…”

Yes, that’s right. There can be no doubting it now. A hundred-and-seventy-year-old poem confirms it. The day everything changed, a thin sleet was in the air and I was feeling cold, and making vague plans for Christmas.

December. It was definitely December.

And the man was standing inside my house. I had not invited him in. He had not asked to be invited in. But by the same token, I have no recollection of having tried to stop him, to question him, to bar his entry. Somehow, it seems almost laughable that I would even think of having done such a thing. It hurts my head to think; it always brings on those headaches I so live in fearful anticipation of. A voice in my head, to which I try unsuccessfully not to listen, tells me that the man has always been there, and why should he not? It whispers seductively: some things are fixed. Day follows night. The sky is blue. This man is in your house. There is no need to ask why, it is enough to know that he is, that he should be, and he is. There is no conversation to be had. Here is some music...

And as naturally as the man arrived in my house, others came too. I have hazy visions of black vans, SUVs, people moving equipment into the house, the man directing them – or was it him? Suddenly, there are two, three, four, exactly like him. No, ten. Fifty. A hundred? How can a hundred men fit into one small house, I ask myself, and I am told Here is some music. I listen to the music. It's quite good. Ambient. I forget my reservations. There are a hundred men in my house. A thousand. I have lost count. Every single one of them is identical, and none of them have spoken a single word, neither to each other nor to me. I believe, with a quite earth-shattering faith, that they never will. I don't believe it's that they can't speak, I just feel that in some odd way I am beneath their notice, as if I were an insect, and who speaks to insects? By the same token, who requests from a cockroach permission to enter as they walk across the threshold? That's what I am to them: a cockroach.

And yet, to me, at times, the description better fits them. They have taken over my house. They all dress identically, in black. There is no way of ever even conceiving of getting rid of them, and every day more arrive, till the house seems like it will burst if it has to accommodate any more. It doesn't, though. How many hundreds of them are there now? How many thousands? They swarm all over my house, surging up the old rickety staircase in huge numbers like a black wave, swirling around the kitchen (though they never seem to eat) and constantly banging, hammering, kicking at the walls as if testing for something. There is barely room for me to carry out my daily activities, few as they are.

They have infested my house.

Cockroaches...

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

They don't sleep, or at least, they never seem to. Nor do they talk to, or even seem to really interact with each other. Just as I am seemingly beneath their notice, they seem to be beneath each other's notice. I can't even tell which is the original man who arrived, if he is even still here. They have all melded now into one giant, shapeless entity, and the phrase hive mind flits briefly through my brain, (Here is some music...) and I think yes, that is what they're like: a bunch of drones, all working to (presumably) the one purpose, all of one mind, and quite possibly each unaware, or uncaring of, the existence of the others.

And yet, for all that they do not speak (or at least, have never done so in my presence), they do make sounds. I lie awake and listen to them, their deep, sibilant hissing, that unnerving scratching that goes on till well after dawn. I once had mice make their nest in this house and I remember lying awake and listening to them scratching, clawing, nibbling at my walls. They sounded just like that. In the end, I had to put down poison.

For a mad, giggling moment when insanity seems to beckon me, its promise of sweet oblivion and no longer having to care, no longer having to work anything out or worry about anything, seems so seductive, I wonder if I should buy some more poison. Will it clear my infestation? But cockroaches do not succumb to poison: they are one of the hardiest creatures on the Earth, and will probably be one of the last, when we are all gone. They would laugh at poison, if cockroaches can laugh. And these are not cockroaches. These are men, or seem to be, and yet, I feel certain that they, too, would laugh at my pitiful attempts to destroy them.

Cockroaches...

Not that I have ever heard them laugh. Or speak. Or evidence any sort of emotion, or even acknowledge my presence. More than once, I have come up against one of them trying to get past (with who knows how many hundreds or thousands of them constantly crawling through the house this is inevitable) and though there has been no communication of any sort, and neither of us has turned or moved out of the way, somehow, I have never bumped into one of them, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, none of them have ever bumped into me. I have never looked one of them in the face. I fear what I might glimpse behind those ubiquitous mirror shades, and though I would not consider myself a coward, I feel even the bravest man would rather not see beyond those darkened lenses. Thankfully for me, though it may be odd, they have never once removed their shades. Perhaps they can't. Perhaps they're blind, afflicted by the light in some way. Perhaps...

Perhaps they're vampires.

No, no, that's ludicrous. Vampires do not exist. And anyway, I've seen them out in the garden. Not relaxing of course – they never seem to take any leisure time – but measuring, charting, checking things in the garden while the admittedly weak but still present sun beats down. Vampires burn in the sun. They can't be vampires. Also, vampires don't exist. Here is some music ...

I almost came close to speaking to them when they first entered the garden. I love my garden. It is my sanctuary, my refuge from – from .... where do I work? Do I work? I can't remember. I think there's a place I go during the day, tasks I perform, but if so I do them in an almost sleepwalking state and never remember afterwards what I have done or where I have gone. Perhaps I go nowhere, and I simply dream this other life. Or perhaps this other life, this life with the hundreds of mirror-shaded, unspeaking men and a house that is no longer mine is the dream, and I will at some point wake up. I hope so. But something tells me that no, this is the reality, and if there is a dream, well, I don't remember my dreams.

But every man has his limit, and I reached mine when they went out into the garden and heedlessly trampled my prize lupins and sunflowers. I had spent years cultivating them; they were my children, and nobody was going to hurt my children. Yet, when I opened my mouth to speak, one of them, as if registering my presence for the first time turned his head just the tiniest fraction and looked at me. His hand (gloved, I now remember: they all wear white gloves with black fingers) rising just to brush off the sides of his shades, and I remember running, back into what I somehow stupidly thought of as the protection, the shelter of the house. Silly really, when you consider that it is now completely and irrevocably infested by the cockroaches. Still, at least I didn't have to look these ones in the eyes. Have they eyes?

Here is some music...

When I checked on the damage later, once I had mustered up the courage, I found that every flower, every stalk that had been touched and crushed underfoot was scorched, burned to a cinder. But it didn't stop there. As if some strange malaise had infected my garden, everything green – my bushes, shrubs and trees, the grass, the hedge, even the little ornamental pot plants I had placed at some point just outside my back door – all died, as if shrivelling up at the touch of a destructive hand, a hand that reached out and drained the life from everything. My prized garden, for so long my refuge, my sanctum, the one source of light in an otherwise blighted existence, was destroyed in a day, laid low, erased as if it had never been. My children, murdered by an unseen hand, their lives snuffed out so cruelly and so casually, without thought or consideration, were taken from me, cremated and given to the cold winter winds.

That was bad enough (and believe me, it was bad: I actually cried physical tears about it. Mock me if you want, I don't care) but after a very short period of mourning (shut up) I came to a rather stunning realisation. Nobody else's garden had been affected. I'm surrounded by houses, both adjacent to and opposite mine, and they all have front and back gardens, and not a blade of grass, not a flower, not a leaf on a tree was touched by the mysterious cancer that had ravaged my garden. You can see the demarcation line quite clearly, where my garden wall ends and my neighbour's begins. His is lush and verdant, a lawn with many colourful flowers and plants, and two apple trees, one in the front and one behind his house. Neither have been in the least infected. And on the other side, the same. It's like my garden has been singled out, and stands now naked and shorn, like a man in sackcloth and ashes cowering amidst the ranks of the wealthy and uncaring. Almost a judgement upon me, a punishment for daring to try to stand up to the faceless men? Or simply a by-product of their contact with the ground, spreading a disease that raced through all my greenery, killing it all by the time the sun rose the next morning, yet spreading no further, as if to say to my neighbours you're all right. We have no quarrel with you.

Once I realised that simple but stark fact, I felt – and I continue to feel – more alone than I ever have done.


III: Neighbourhood Watch

In times of trouble, you turn to your neighbours, don't you? The people you see every day, the people you go to work with, the people whose children play with yours (if you have children. Do I have children? Here is some music...) and the people who, in leaner times, band together and can be relied upon. My own memory is faulty, but surely that can't be true of everyone else who lives here? Perhaps someone remembers these cockroach-men arriving, perhaps someone even knows why they are here, what they are doing?

Perhaps someone has spoken to them. I don't know in all honesty whether the men have ventured beyond my house – with so many to keep track of, if I wanted to, which I don't, it would be fallacy to say they never did – but if they have, could they have chanced upon one of my neighbours? Could they, in fact, fail to do otherwise, unless they had gone out in the dead of night? Surely someone saw them and can tell me more about them? If nothing else, I can at least discuss with the likes of Peter Farrell or Janet Grissom my unease about them, and perhaps we can mull over theories.

Men in Black.

Yes, Janet is a real UFO nut, a conspiracy theorist. She'd have plenty of ideas as to who these people were. Most if not all would be crackpot, few would be likely to hold water, but at least we could discuss them. It seems so long since I have actually spoken to another living being. If nothing else, I can convince myself I'm not going crazy.

Those are my thoughts as I step out into the chilly but bracing afternoon air, choosing a time when there would be people around. As it happens, it isn't Janet I bump into, but the big bus driver Keith Mallet, whom I know casually. I think. He may be a friend. I seem to remember sharing a drink with him on occasion, and there is something about him, some interest we share ... I can't dredge the details up from my sluggish memory, but he sparks them into life as he approaches, a broad smile on his big round face.

“Rob!” he grins. He suddenly stifles a yawn. “Oh, excuse me. Up watching the Boss on TV last night. Did you see it?”

All I can do is muster a weak smile in response. I can't for the life of me guess what he's referring to.

“Always gives good value, does Springsteen,” he goes on, all but ignoring my confused smile. Then I remember.

Bruce Springsteen.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Few people around here are bothered too much about music, and those that do either get their intake from whatever pap is playing on the radio these days, or they're jazz aficionados, rigidly fixed in their opinion that there is no other music than the one they listen to. Some of the kids on the street listen to death metal, but that's a little too loud for me. Keith and I are the only ones to share an interest in, and appreciation of, the music of New Jersey's favourite son.

“Still on for the gig?” I ask. I feel I should say something, and now that my memory has been jogged, I remember we have tickets. We've been looking forward to it for months, and it's been one of the main topics of conversation when we meet.

Keith sucks in his cheeks, shakes his head. “Not so sure that's a good idea, old pal,” he confides. “Not when He's coming, you know?”

I stare at him blankly. “Who?” I ask. He looks at me at first as if I am insane, and then his face splits in a wide grin and he winks.

“Ah, nearly had me there, Rob me old son!” he chortles. “Who indeed? No but seriously,” and here his face does take on a more serious aspect, “I know we spent a lot on the tickets, but you understand, don't you?”

I say I do, even though I don't. What the hell is he talking about? When who comes? His initial reaction when I showed incomprehension about who this is though, takes me a little aback and I'm loath to give him further excuse to suspect. Suspect what? Am I trying to conceal something from him? Here is some music… He nods, happy that we are in agreement. He yawns again. “I'll see if I can sell 'em on,” he promises, again with another knowing wink adding “though I doubt if anyone around here will want to miss it when He comes either.” Again I nod, not a clue.

“Sell 'em on ebay?” I venture. He shrugs.

“Disconnected the internet,” he tells me flatly, and before I can ask why, “Ain't gonna need it no more, not once He comes.”

He's been going on about this mysterious “he” at such length now, making it obvious that he expects me to know this mystery man, that I honestly can't raise any further doubts in him by asking who “he” is. So I return his shrug and say “Yeah, maybe it's for the best.” It's as non-committal as I can get without giving anything away.

He nods, knuckles his eyes and remarks “Man, these late nights are killing me! Think I'd better take a nap before I have to go on shift.” He grins self-deprecatingly. “Listen to me! Forty-three this year and I'm acting like I was ninety! A nap, huh?” But despite his levity, he again covers his face as a long yawn stretches it, shrugs and with a somewhat apologetic look disappears up his garden path, his door closing and leaving me somewhat nonplussed, standing in the street.

So confused am I that I actually take a step backwards, almost knocking over Fiona Hutchinson, who is, as usual, out on her bike. She has barely been off that thing since she got it as a surprise Christmas present last year, from parents who could hardly afford it; I'd heard she even kept it in her bedroom so that she could reach out at night and touch it while she slept. No doubt it was in her dreams too.

“Hey!” she exclaims, in exactly the same voice a woman would if you hit into her pram and she feared for the safety of her child. “Watch the bike, Mister Charles!”

“Sorry,” I mumble, only half aware of what I'm doing, or saying. Keith's enigmatic words, somehow imbued with a tone of cheerful menace and desperation, like the smile of a man as he goes to the gallows, trying to be brave, still ring inside my head. I don't see her do it, but I get the feeling Fiona smiles at me tolerantly.

“Never mind,” she tells me. “Everything will be all right once He comes. See ya, Mister Charles!”

And with that, she's gone, humming happily as she rides off down the path. My head hurts even worse, pounding like someone inside it is trying to break out using a sledgehammer. I watch her pass me, notice the bike suddenly wobble, the little hand coming up to her mouth as she too yawns, and for a moment I think she might fall, and I take a half-step in her direction. But then she rises up in the saddle, pushes her feet down on the pedals and quickly disappears down the street.

I remain where I am, almost frozen in place, my head beginning to feel hot. She had said the same thing as Keith. Who are they talking about? Have I missed something? Have I been so long cooped up inside my house with these odd men, these cockroaches, skittering through my home that I have been unaware that some major celebrity or important figure is due to visit our little town? But who would be bothered? I decide to buy a newspaper. If there is some portentous visit on the horizon, surely it will be in the papers?

“Morning Rob,” says Benny, the old newsagent. I almost point out to him that it's afternoon, but then remember that to Benny Summers, it's always morning. It isn't that he doesn't know the correct time of day, he just always uses “Good morning” as a salutation, and people have got used to it. “Bit chilly out there today, huh?” I nod, grunting, hardly acknowledging his presence. I'm pawing through the newspapers, looking for some evidence of this unnamed celebrity who is due to visit, when a cold chill runs down my back. Two cold chills. Three.

First, as I peruse the sheaf of papers on the stand I hear the unmistakable sound of a yawn, followed by a thump and then a loud snoring. Glancing up, I see that Benny has fallen asleep, his big head resting peacefully on the remains of the sandwich he had been eating as I entered, his eyes closed. For a moment I am torn between going to him to see if he is all right (I assume he hasn't suffered a heart attack or anything, as I can hear the gentle snoring) and trying to confirm what my eyes are telling me about the newspapers. My gaze is drawn back to them, as I try to work out what I'm seeing.

Every single headline, and every byline on every single paper says exactly the same.

On the Herald, the headline blares HE IS COMING!
The front of the Bugle screams HE IS COMING!
The entire first page of the Standard is given over to the proclamation HE IS COMING!

Even the less salubrious publications speak of the same thing. The News of the World displays a garish picture of a very well endowed young lady, alongside the words HE IS COMING, while the Mirror has a similarly endowed girl bending over and smiling. Printed directly below the curve of her buttocks are the words HE IS COMING.

And that's not all. Every other line on every paper I pick up has the same words, repeated over and over again, in a seemingly nonsensical repetition that covers the entire page:
He is coming. He is coming. He is coming. He is coming.

There are no photographs accompanying the text, only large square or rectangular shapes of black, as if someone has carefully cut out sections of the newspaper. But they aren't just blank shapes. As I look at them, my gaze drawn towards their innate weirdness, I feel a rush of fear. I know that if I were to allow my finger, which is incredulously tracing down the neat lines of script made up of those three words, armies of hostile letters that seem bent on destroying me, to touch the black un-photograph it would sink into it. I know that. I know it without knowing how I know. Pain screams in my temples, sears my eyes, constricts my neck. I think I may faint, but I don’t. Something will not let me. Like some vast, deep well or the pull of a neutron star that drags everything towards it by the force of its incalculable gravitational attraction, till not even light can escape its embrace and is trapped within its core forever, the dark spaces leech at me, pull at me, invite me in. I feel my face move closer to the page. Closer. Closer.

My nose is almost touching one now, along which lines of text march, battle-hardened troops wending their weary war to war, advising me that He is coming. I know that if my skin touches the black square I will be lost, sucked in, absorbed, trapped forever in whatever dark hell lies beyond. I must not touch it.

And yet I cannot resist the pull, the darkness like a beckoning finger you know you should not – must not follow, yet you do anyway because you have no free will of your own. The square of darkness is expanding now, filling my vision, blocking out all other sight and sound. Even the incessant repetitive lines of text have blurred into indistinct shapes now, and then faded away altogether as I stare at the black hole my world has suddenly become, unable to fight as I am inexorably dragged towards it, through it, into it...

“Harumph! Wussat?”

The sudden sound breaks the spell, and I drop the newspaper from nerveless fingers, gasping, fighting for breath as it falls facedown on the ground, the sports section now looking up at me, nothing running across its surface but those three words. There are no black photographs though, or if there are they are hidden by the fold of the paper as it had fallen, and I consciously avert my eyes from any of the others, forcing my head to snap up with such force it hurts, and turning my eyes in the direction of the sound, the sound that has broken the spell, the sound that has saved me.

“Wow! Sorry about that!” grins old Benny, smiling sheepishly as he deftly removes a slice of processed ham from his cheek and drops it fastidiously into the bin behind the counter. “Musta dozed off there for a minute.”

For a moment, I don't know where I am. The ground, which had seemed to be slipping out from beneath me a moment ago, reasserts its presence and suddenly my body feels very heavy. I almost crash to one knee, but force a thin smile as I shakily move away from the newspaper rack and towards the recently woken Benny. He frowns at me. “Not takin' your paper, Rob?”

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

rubber soul

This is starting to sound a little Kafkaesque. I also notice that you like to write in first person, present. Some people at my old forum tend to frown on that but, truthfully, that's how I like to write too.

I did find one grammatical glitch. I highlighted it in red. Virgin is a single entity I assume, so it should be 'Virgin is doing a great deal right now.'

Anyway, now you really have me curious as to who is what. You're not a ghost and I'm guessing those people aren't really cockroaches. I'll read more tomorrow and I'm sure I'll get the answer soon.

Keep writing

__________________

Trollheart

Hmm. Interesting catch. I think it's one of those things, is it they or is it it? Like when your favourite football team is playing, do you say, Aston Villa are playing or Aston Villa is playing? I always say the former, as the club is made up of separate individuals, and in the case of Virgin, yes it's a single entity but the corporation is made up of millions of little cockroaches, sorry salespeople, who offer the deals. I'd probably still say "are", just because it sounds better.

I actually seldom write in the first person, as you'll have seen from the extracts from my novel, since I like to be able to shift scenes and do things from different perspectives. It just happens to suit this story better.

Glad you're enjoying it anyway. On we go!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Frownland

Nah it should be is or else we would apply this to countries as well.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

I stand beside her, not sure how to open a conversation, not even sure if she wants to or will deign to talk with me, a professed unbeliever, as just about everyone in this town is. But the promise of human contact is something I long for, more, as I realise it now, than I had thought. Human. I taste the word, as if its flavour is unfamiliar, strange to me. Human. Somehow, for some reason, I find myself discounting all those I have met and spoken with - if you can call it speaking, when all they say is “He is coming”! - as if somehow not human, or at least, not any more. Even Benny. Even Benny has been got to, and is in some weird way no longer human. Listen to me: I sound like her, I snort to myself, and then realise she is talking to me.

“Weird, isn’t it, Charles?” she says, without turning to face me, her back to me as she seems to gaze over at the ruined park. “You spend all your life looking for conspiracies, making websites, writing blogs, checking footage, and all the time, it’s right here in front of you.”

This is it! I think triumphantly. She knows! She knows what’s happening. Good old Janet! The nut has figured it out. She knows what has happened, she probably knows how and why, and if I know Janet Grissom, which I don’t, she has a plan.

Of course, she is borderline psychotic, but let’s not worry about that now.

“I should have known,” she says, more to herself than me, still not turning around, and I realise now there is something odd about her voice, something … not stuttering, as such, but as if, well, as if she’s having difficulty pronouncing words. I once met a kid who had Down’s Syndrome, and she sort of sounds like him now. Slurred, but not from alcohol or (as far as I know) drug abuse, her voice is flat, toneless, devoid of any emotion. “Charles, it’s so obvious.”

I don’t take offence at the use of my surname. A long time ago, Janet came to the conclusion that the alien invaders (who were definitely here, and had infiltrated the highest levels of government, to the point that when she went to vote she always jeered “Shall I vote for the Pod Man or the Tentacled Queeeblepled?”) had acquired control over humans by usage of their first, or as she called it, Primary, name, and so she never used hers, and never used that of anyone else, always addressing them by their surname. She would probably have called her husband by his surname too, if she was married.

I’m not sure if I should speak now, and I take a moment to wonder how she knows who I am, how she even knows anyone has walked up behind her, when she has not turned around to see me? But I deem it best to keep silent, as she obviously has something to say, and since, at the moment, even if only in my own mind, she is my only ally, I hesitate to interrupt her.

In reality, I realise I just don’t want to be abandoned. I don’t want her to get the hump and walk off if I say the wrong thing, leaving me in this town of … of …

“All my life,” she’s saying, and it’s very clear now she’s talking mostly to herself, as if a younger version of herself were standing in front of her, and I just happen to be in earshot “I’ve worried - been convinced - that aliens are here. You remember my T-shirt? Look at it.”

And she turns to me.

I feel a scream bubbling up inside me, but it won’t come out. My voice is silent, my scream is stillborn, I feel the world wheel around me and a sense of dizziness takes me, coupled with the most violent nausea.

I see now why Janet’s speech has been slurred. It’s not, as I had originally thought, due to tiredness, like everyone else I’ve met so far. No. I realise that it’s very hard to speak properly when your face is disfigured by what looks like the word “coming” traced in deep red and black through, from below the nose to the chin, travelling across like an obscene badge of honour from one side of her face to the other. Her lips are split, her cheeks torn. Folds of flesh flap at the sides of her head, reminding me of a fish I once saw gutted, all red and glistening. Blood is running freely down what remains of her face. She seems not to heed it; perhaps she does not feel it.

Her teeth are broken and crooked where the knife has carved that hateful word, and as I drag my unwilling eyes higher, I see that two roughly parallel lines trace their way from the top of her forehead, passing through her left eye, which is red and bulbous and dripping. Just above them, where her eyebrows should be, another red line bridges the two, making what I suppose is a passable effort at a “h”, when you consider the effort it must have taken to have carved it out of flesh. The right eye is similarly marked, but by three horizontal lines joined by one vertical, a reasonable approximation of an “e”. It’s hard to tell really though, as her right eye has fallen completely out, and I’m left staring at raw, red flesh, through which I think I can actually see her skull.

That’s two words, and the third is ripped across her nose, which is hanging loose. Seemingly completely oblivious of the horrible wounds that have been inflicted on her face - I have to assume by her own hand, then - she smiles, forcing the grotesque, broken lips apart. Although she asked - demanded, really - that I do so, I transfer my gaze to her chest automatically: anything not to have to stare into that awful, awful mockery of a face. The calm, serene face of a smooth-skinned alien looks unconcernedly back at me, underneath it the words THEY ARE HERE.

“They are here!” she spits, literally, the words out: two or three teeth eject from her mouth amid a spray of spittle, blood and other stuff I don’t wish to think about. “They are here!” she repeats, rather unfortunately shaking her head, which dislodges some loose flesh. It falls to the ground like the leaves from a tree in autumn, and she pays them as much mind. “How could they be here?” she asks me, a quizzical tone in her voice. “How? Tell me that!” I feel like she is going to advance on me, touch me, and for all the pity I feel for her, I do not want her anywhere near me. I take a step back. She does not advance. “How could they be here?” she asks, “when He is coming? How is that possible? What a fool I’ve been!” She snorts in derision, which has the unfortunate consequence of shaking what remains of her nose loose. She takes as much notice of it as she has the various other wounds on what was once a human face.

I wish I could be sure, but given how ruined her mouth is I can’t. It looks to me as if her destroyed lips are mouthing one word, which gives the lie to what she’s saying to me. It’s just one word, and I wish I could obey, comply, if that’s what she’s saying, because right at this moment it’s about the only thing that makes sense.

Run.

But I stay where I am, as if gripped in some invisible vise, as if something is going to happen, something important and certainly very terrible, and someone or something wants me to bear witness to it, won’t let me turn away, won’t let me take heed and put into action the wordless instruction, the prayer, the warning I fancy I see on Janet Grissom’s bleeding and torn lips.

No, no: there is a show to be seen. Be patient. Here is some music…

The sound her mouth makes, however, the words she actually forms, that I can hear, are “I waited too long, Charles. I waited too long … Rob.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her call someone by their first name, certainly the first time she’s called me by mine. I feel, somewhere deep down, in a place that has been closed off to me, that I can’t access, that this is a cry for help, a confirmation that she is being made speak words she does not believe.

“I waited too long,” she repeats, a sad, mad look in the one eye that remains, its ravaged, bleeding pupil unblinking. The eye is wet. She may be crying, or it may just be all the blood and goop that’s spilling from it. She turns her back on me again. I almost scream with relief, and feel vaguely ashamed, and selfish. “Don’t make the same mistake I did, Rob,” she counsels me. “Don’t wait to accept Him into your heart. You have no choice. He is coming.”

Then she steps out into the road, directly in front of a large semi truck.

I’ve never even seen a traffic accident before, and I have never seen anyone die. It’s surreal. Janet literally explodes across the front of the truck, her skin, her bones, her exposed insides exploding through in a burst of dark colour and a horrible plopping sound, spread across the highway, some of what was a woman, a human being, only moments ago, splashing back on me like rain. Repulsed, I take a step back, a wordless cry still struggling for release in my throat. The truck does not even stop, just sounds its air horn as I watch, horror-stricken, and continues on its way.

“Now, sir! Step back there if you don't mind!” A heavy hand is suddenly on my shoulder and I start, realising in amazement that I am suddenly surrounded by men in uniform. Dimly, I perceive them as police, their bright yellow hi-viz jackets slick with rain, their faces dripping too, as if they too are crying, but these are not men who cry easily. You can see that as the waning sun strikes sharp reflections off their mirror shades.

Cockroaches...

“Restricted area, Sir.” The cop in charge is consulting a notebook and nodding to a colleague. I don't see what the colleague does, but he disappears from my line of sight. “I'll have to ask you not to cross the cordon. Can’t have anyone getting in the way when He comes, can we.” His frown deepens, as if a suspicion has formed in his mind. “Didn't you see the police tape?” he asks. It’s almost a challenge. How could you not see it? It’s all over the place!

As if shaken awake from a dream, I now see that my left arm has a twisting yellow strand of plastic tape adhering to it, and behind and in front of me is more of this tape, marking out an area which protects the entrance to the carnival and, more importantly, seems to roughly encompass the thing I cannot see, but can feel, and have been drawn towards. I had obviously blundered through the cordon, unaware even of its existence, as my feet took me down towards the thing.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

It's over in seconds, though it seems hours, days. I remain kneeling by the water, my chest heaving as I take a deep drink. The water of the stream is by no means drinkable, a fact hammered home by the rather unsettling sight of a Coke can drifting by with a used condom wrapped around it. I may be sick after this. I may be very sick. But that doesn't matter. At least, I'm alive. I swirl the dirty water around in my mouth – careful not to swallow – cooling it down, trying to mitigate the effects of the smoke I've swallowed, and then I spit it out and take what seems like my first breath in hours. The air sears through me, hot and vital, and I feel my head swimming. I manage to stagger to my feet just in time to avoid making the metaphor literal for my body. I can't swim, and I feel that, though the water is not that deep, if I fell in these cops would just let me drown. They're busy.

He is coming.

Back on my feet, I reach into my pocket and with the fury of one betrayed, crumple up the packet of smokes and toss its corpse into the stream, all remaining eighteen inmates rejoining their traitorous comrades, and with a certain dark satisfaction I watch it sail slowly away.

Perhaps it's for the best. Time I gave up anyway.

Assuming there is time left.

He is coming.

V: Outside the box

Once my breathing has normalised and my heart rate has climbed down from the kind of pace that makes me want to think in terms of ambulances, I slowly retrace my steps back up the long road that leads up the hill. For some reason, I think of Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the mountain, almost at the top, only for it to roll back and he has to start all over again. Why do I think of this? What have I done that merits such punishment? Perhaps somewhere deep down, I know I have crossed a line (if unintentionally), broken a taboo and entered a sacred place, an area forbidden to we mere mortals. Other than the guardians of that place, though even the cops don't go into the fairground, but merely patrol, or guard, the entrance. No kids allowed in there now. They never were, of course, but it's a lot easier to ignore DO NOT ENTER signs when there aren't armed guards on the -

Armed?

Yes, yes. Something sparks in my memory and I recall seeing the unmistakable glint of steel behind one of the cops' hi-vis, and a dark shape disturbing the line of that of another. Armed? Have the police around here ever been armed? And what are they armed against? Whoever or whatever it is that's due to come through from the mouth of the ghost train? Surely not. The smallest child here will tell you that bullets will be no use against Him. I have no idea why I know that, but I do. He cannot be stopped by our weapons. There is no stopping Him.

He is coming.

And anyway, they're not here to try to stop Him: they're preparing for His arrival. They are welcoming Him, waiting for Him. Praying for Him? No, the guns are to be used, I have to assume, to deter anyone from entering the sacred area. I recall with a shudder the shaded face of the cop when I inadvertently blundered across their barrier. We can do this the hard way or the easy way, Sir. I realise now how hard that alternative could have been, and I have no doubt in my mind whatever that if that cop, or any of the cops, thought I posed a danger, thought I would somehow try to prevent His coming (as if anyone could! How do I know that?) they would shoot me. And they would shoot to kill. Despite what I have just gone through with my packet of Major Extra Tar, I suddenly feel an almost compulsive need for a smoke.

But my cigarettes are lazily punting down the stream, sodden and useless, and let's not forget: they tried to kill me. Oh yes, it might sound like I just went mad and had some sort of bad hallucination, but I know the truth. It happened. Impossible, crazy as it may seem, it happened. I know it. I feel it in my bones, which are now shivering both from the fright and from the sudden immersion of my face in the freezing waters of the stream which saved my life. I know it happened, and though I still find myself gasping for a cigarette, I will not go back to Benny's newsagents. The newspapers are waiting there. The black, inky, depthless, bottomless, star-spanning, cold and evil photographs that are not photographs are there, and they want me. I will not let them have me. I will fight. I will never read another newspaper.

He is coming.

My trek up the road seems to take ages, but luckily for me, unlike Sisyphus I am not damned to repeat this climb forever, never reaching the summit, and I gain the top just in time to stare into the flat, emotionless eyes of old Josiah Bennett.

He does not speak, he does not even register my presence, but I can see, though logic would deny the evidence of my eyes and tell me I am hallucinating (again) that it is he. I recognise the old battered hat he wore everywhere, a very distinctive style, not available here. Not available in Europe at all. He once said his grand-daughter brought it home for him from Malaysia. I have no idea whether that's true or not but it's definitely the same hat, and there aren't two like that this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

I recognise his gait. He always had a gammy leg, the result of shrapnel he picked up in El Alamein, he claimed. Again, I don't know if that is true, and it really doesn't matter, but it certainly gave him as distinctive a walk as his hat, a sort of shuffling, scuttling gait, like that of a crab. He doesn't have a walking stick – never used one; hated the things. His clothes look a little the worse for wear, and I am mildly surprised, as Mr. Bennett was always very fastidious about how he dressed, always well turned out. Possibly came from his time in the army, if the tales he told are true. Again, not important.

There is, however, something here I should be considering, something that is important. I can't think of it. Something is distracting me. On old Mr. Bennett's hat, there appears to be movement. I can't see what it is, but it looks alive. Perhaps he passed under a tree and a caterpillar dropped onto his hat? What is it I'm supposed to remember about him? It's very important. It didn't seem so, when I remember I mentioned it earlier. Something about menus and ninjas, and people selling Sky TV...

Oh yes. Of course. That's it. How could I forget that?

Josiah Bennett is dead.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

He's been dead for six, no seven months now. I know this, as I went to his funeral. Everyone around here did. He was well liked. But not that well liked that he should be again walking among the living. He had been somewhat irrepressible in life, had Mr. Bennett, and he had lived to a good age – at one hundred years they said he might get one more, but he made liars of them and lasted for two after that. Many people around here thought he would never die.

Seems he didn't.

Except, I know he did.

And yet, here he stands. Irrepressible is one thing. Long-lived is one thing. But when you finally give up the ghost and let them bury you, you're not expected to come back. Death is a one-way ride; there is no return ticket option.

Except that Mr. Bennett seems to have found one.

Before I can open my mouth to speak to him he turns away. Whether this is because he is afraid that if anyone sees him they will quickly re-inter him in the ground (perhaps ramming a sharpened wooden stake into his heart to ensure he stays there – some people watch far too much Buffy and True Blood) or he has urgent business somewhere else (how urgent can the business of a dead man be?) I don't know, but I know one thing: I'm not letting him get away. If only to sate my own morbid curiosity, if only to point him out to some other living soul and confirm I'm not going mad; that the corpse of Josiah Bennett, (1914-2017) is walking the streets as if someone has forgotten to tell him he is dead, and behaving in a most unseemly manner for a corpse, I have to follow him.

Besides, I'm curious: where does a newly-risen dead person go? I thought he might go back to his house – first denuding his door of a veritable family of menus from A Taste of Mumbai, Pizza Haven and Il Bistro Italiano – but he turns in the opposite direction, heading west. I follow him as unobtrusively as I can (can a dead man hear you pursuing him?) and though we encounter several people along the way, and though I point him out with initial excitement and then successively waning enthusiasm, nobody cares. All I get in response is a weak, tired smile and the by now familiar assurances of His imminent arrival.

I can feel the darkness beginning to gather now around me, like thick smoke pouring in to obscure the world, or at least our town. I am reminded uncomfortably of my experience with the Major Extra Tar, and the first faint stars begin to appear in the sky as the weak sun decides it has had enough and retires, ready to try again tomorrow. Out onto the outskirts of town we go, and I see he is heading for the church. A cold feeling gnaws in my heart, and I pull my jacket tighter around me as the evening chill begins to bite. My jacket is wet from the recent rain, so is of little comfort to me, but I cling to it anyway.

From somewhere, a sudden scream. I whirl, ready for ... what? I'm neither armed nor any kind of a fighter. I avoid confrontations and violence whenever I can. I'm not a coward, exactly; I just don't invite trouble. You live longer that way. Mr. Bennett would obviously disagree. Forty years in the army, three major wars; you can bet he invited a whole lot of trouble. And dealt it out with gusto too. And look at the age he lived to! Hell, even the grave, it seems, couldn't defeat him! But that's him and I'm me, and what can I do if someone's shriek for help pierces the night? Sorry love: my white charger's in the shop and they repossessed my armour, you know how it is..

But I need not worry, at least not about this, as it's quickly clear that the scream is not one of fear or terror, but a ribald one, an involuntary one which has resulted when one of three women, all very much the worse for wear even at this early hour, tottering down the road in front of me, felt the rather cold hand of one of the three men they are sharing their company with slide up her skirt. She collapses against him, her scream turning to bubbling laughter, and the six of them, sharing a bottle, stagger down the road without so much as a glance from their exhausted, drooping eyes at me. The strains of their drunken song drifts back up to me from the valley into which they have descended, to the familiar football chant Here we go....

He is coming, He is coming, He is coming. He is coming, He is coming, He is com-ing. He is coming, He is comng, He is coming, He is coming. HE – IS – COMING!

Into the valley of death, I think, and realise I have lost sight of the shuffling Mr. Bennett, but how far can he go anyway? He has a gammy leg. Oh yeah: and he's dead. Not likely to cover much ground with – I see him again, entering the church on unsteady feet. I let him enter, then follow, as quietly as I can. I haven't been in a church in years. I think the last time was when - someone - my wife? Not sure; someone close to me, anyway - died. And before that, a long time too, so I'm not in awe of the power of God or anything, but even so, something, some ingrained, almost genetic response makes me lower my head and walk quietly. If, by some chance, I end up speaking to the corpse of Mr. Bennett, I feel sure I will whisper. It's like going into a library. You just naturally fall under its spell.

As I enter the church Bennett is already halfway up the aisle. I watch him, in a mixture of horrified wonder and confusion, asking myself, what is he doing here? Then I remember I'm talking about a man to whose funeral I brought my own best flowers and who I watched being buried, helped throw in the sods of earth on top of his wooden box, as if we were all anxious to get him in the ground, and such questions become almost ludicrous. My real question, asked of myself, should be What am I doing, tracking a dead man across town into a church?

But I have no answer, other than that there is that inside of me that must know. What power could be strong enough, what impetus important enough to wake the dead and call them from their graves? Is Bennett the only one? The sudden implications of this hits me, and I find myself asking myself if I remember seeing any other dead men or women walking in the town, but I can't honestly say. Perhaps those people I thought were tired were really ...? I don't know. My entire life these days seems to be lived in an almost dreamlike state, and I can't be sure of anything.

My headache seems to be making tentative plans for a reprisal against me, gathering its strength.

But if my eyes have not also betrayed me, then I'm watching a dead man stand in the aisle of Saint Jeremy's, standing there, a shaft of moonlight spearing in through one of the high stained-glass windows seeming to catch him as if in a spotlight, as if old Mr. Bennett is about to give the performance of a lifetime. If this is indeed the case, he will have a very small audience.

It's a strange feeling, hearing a dead man talk. I'm not that close that I can make out the words, but I can see his head bobbing up and down and his arms raised in the air, some sort of sound coming out of him. At first I mistake this for a prayer: Josiah Bennett is supplicating himself, offering himself to the god he believed in while alive. Then, as I inch a little closer, ducking down behind one of the rear pews, the cavernous acoustics of the church carry his words back to me, and I know it is no prayer he utters, or if it is, it's a very dark one.

“... everlasting?” he sneers, his voice sounding like logs popping in a winter fire, all sharp and hissy with an undertone of earthiness, as if he has gravesoil in his teeth, which he very well may do. “Believe in me? He who believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live, we were told. They preached that, every Sunday at mass, and we all believed it. We wanted to believe it. We told ourselves it was true, must be true, for if nothing existed beyond this life, if there was no reward at the end, why bother being good? Why lead a good life if in the end all there was waiting for you was darkness and silence?” A strange sound issues from him, and I realise that he is crying. Or trying to, anyway: any moisture in his body has by now long dried up, and no tears will come. But his body, that frail, almost skeletal body shakes with dry sobs.

“But it was all a lie!” he fumes, his upraised arms now ending in fists, as he vents his rage on the altar, snarling at the huge wooden cross that adorns its centre, the figure upon it looking more like someone in repose than one in torment. The mild, kind eyes of Christ look down on him. There is forgiveness in them, eternal, endless forgiveness. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But Josiah Bennett does not want forgiveness - he knows exactly what he’s doing - and he has not come to offer any either.

“There is nothing after death!” goes on Bennett. “Nothing! Just ... just ...”

Suddenly, the energy, the anger, the rage seems to drain out of him like water going down a plughole or air escaping a balloon, and like that balloon he deflates, sinking to his knees with a noisy crack of bones, his head falling so low upon his breast that I fear for a moment it will snap off. “Nothing.”

It's a whisper now, ironically carried, via the acoustics, to my ears as clear and as perfectly audible as his shouts and roars had been a moment ago. For a long instant, Josiah Bennett is not 103 years old, but six, or seven, or four: a child, a child whose fantasy has been ripped from him, a child whose world has collapsed, staring with tear-filled eyes as he realises it is all a lie, and Santa Claus does not exist.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

I feel sorry for him, and almost go to move up the aisle, to place a hand on his bony shoulder, comfort him, let him know he is not alone. But what would I say? The ultimate hypocrisy: I understand. How can I, one of the living, understand what it is like when you die? How can any of us? Nobody can know what Josiah Bennett has gone through other than those who have also died, and none of them are here to offer comfort. Perhaps I should try though, poor and probably useless though my attempt would be. It would be something, and something is always better than nothing.

But then he raises his head, and though I can't see his eyes I know they are blazing with renewed anger. His voice is stronger, yet for all that, flatter, more emotionless.

Deader.

“Seven months I lay in the dark,” he tells the crucified Jesus. “Seven long months, listening to the sound of the soil settling around and above my coffin, the sounds of things crawling outside, the sound of my own fear. Why didn't you let me die?” There is a plaintive, wailing quality to the question. “Why? If you weren't going to take me to Heaven, send me to Hell. I tried to be a good man in life.”

His voice is dropping now, quieter, more reflective. Sadder.

“I fought for my country. Yes, I killed, but only in war, and I never enjoyed it, or killed a man when I could wound him. I was faithful to my wife, I loved my children. I thought I had probably earned my place in Heaven, but if you didn't agree, then you could have abandoned my soul to the flames. But neither happened, did it? You left me there. My body rotted, and my mind, my very – HAH!” He lets out a short, unpleasant bark, “My very soul began to rot, and nothing. No beam of light to lift me into your presence. No angels. No choirs of heavenly hosts. Not even a demon to torment me. Nothing.” He sighs, shakes his head. “Nothing.”

He falls silent then, and I am reluctant to move, for fear of alerting him to my presence. I feel that whatever strange force has motivated him and brought him back to life, perhaps it is spent now. Perhaps this was his intended destiny, to die on the church flagstones, railing at a god who did not exist. In the morning, the priest would find him there (not Father Liam, of course: he was a charred cinder in the hospital morgue by now, but another of his staff) and wonder what sort of vagrant would allow himself to reach that state of decrepitude, shake his head and wish that the man had come seeking help sooner, so that he could have been helped. The chances were he would not even be recognised as Josiah Bennett, late of this parish.

It therefore startles me when he speaks again, though it is little more than a murmur and I have to strain to catch the words.

“I was afraid,” he confesses, watching the impassive face of the pinioned saviour. “I believed, while I lay there in the darkness, that the worst part of it was the sounds I was hearing outside, the things I imagined. I was wrong. When the worms finally came, when they managed to eat through the wood of my coffin, the only barrier between me and their hunger, I went into a fit of panic. I tried to lift the lid but of course it would not move; I was pushing against six feet of solid-packed earth, to say nothing of the screws that held the lid closed. And so I was helpless as the worms entered my coffin, and then my body.” What seems to be a shudder passes through him at the recollection of the horror he has experienced. I find myself shuddering too. Who would not, hearing this tale of horror?

“They crawled into my ears,” he says, his voice low. “They squirmed over my hair, they devoured my best tie, the one I had asked to be set aside for my burial when I went. They travelled up my nose and when I tried to scream they invaded my mouth. I can still feel them, wriggling, twisting, sliming their way down my throat. When they poked into my eyes I think my mind snapped, and for a long time I didn't remember anything, until I was called forth.”

Struggling to his feet, seeming to marshall his strength, Bennett raises a fist again towards the cross. “You did this to me!” he spits. “You promised – your priests promised – the Bible promised there would be life after death. I would see all those I had lost – my Bella, my niece Julie, my mother and my father. We would all live together in Paradise. But it was all a lie. Like me, they had nothing to look forward to after death but slow, creeping, silent horror. This is what you get, for a life well lived or a life spent pursuing evil. It doesn't matter how you live; we are all, in the end, literally, food for the worms. And that's all.”

There is a soft rustling, and I realise with horror I can now see Mr. Bennett's bony, spindly legs, the flesh on them hanging loose, his bony backside all but sunken in, a few tufts of grey hair still adhering to its mostly shiny, bone-smooth surface. The man has dropped his trousers, or what remains of them anyway. His growl is more an animalistic snarl now as he sneers “This is what I think of you and your priests and your masses and your churches and your pope and your ...” There is the sound of a grunt, and with again a cracking of dusty bones Bennett drops into a sort of squat, and I realise with mounting revulsion (and some sort of sick understanding, surprising myself) what he is doing, or trying to do. The ultimate insult to a God he had revered, and found himself abandoned by.

But nature herself is against Josiah Bennett, and if God does exist, maybe up there He's laughing at the old man's vain attempts. Josiah has forgotten, perhaps, that he is dead, and there are no more waste products to be squeezed from a body which has not ingested food for over half a year.
Try as he might, Mr. Bennett literally cannot give a shit.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018