Comic Review: Video Nasties

I've been hearing good things about Chris Doherty's Video Nasties for some time, so when I found out there was a collected edition of the whole series available again, I had to give it a go. Mighty glad I did.

Evan is a teenager with a healthy addiction to "video nasty" horror films. I've been there. There's nothing more exciting to the average teenage lad than watching nubile young things meet their ends at the end of a psychopath's knife, axe or meat cleaver. Adolescence = sex 'n' death, how better than to combine them? (Plus, there's a kind of transference going on there as you imagine a similar fate for all your obnoxious schoolyard enemies.(

Evan's also something of a whiz with a video camera himself - that's how he gets roped into helping film a school project documentary about a group of students who went missing under mysterious circumstances many years ago (well, that and a fit girl... there's always a fit girl involved somewhere... though one of the most important lessons we learn growing up is that the fittest girls often aren't worth all that heartache).

Evan's investigation leads him to dangerous places and shock revelations regarding some of his closest friends. There will be sex. There will be violence. There will be a clown murdering people with a baseball bat! All drawn in a wonderfully cute, cartoony style that fits the teenage soap elements to a tee... and makes the horror much more shocking when it finally hits.

Video Nasties collects the complete 7 issue series and it's available in eBook and good old fashioned dead tree format from Chris's store. Well worth your time and money, this one's a cracker... I'm looking forward to the movie!

Movie Review - Cabin In The Woods

I read a review of Cabin In The Woods that compared it unfavourably to Scream. Far be it from me to criticise a fellow reviewer, especially a professional getting paid for his opinions, but... bollocks. While both films attack the horror genre with a postmodern, deconstructionist pickaxe, Scream largely tells its audience what it's up to... whereas Cabin In The Woods almost always shows. And we all know which is better from a storytelling perspective, especially in a visual medium like cinema.

I've also seen CITW mentioned in the same breath as Jeepers Creepers for the way it willfully wrongfoots its viewers. Again, that's a totally spurious comparison. While Jeepers Creepers sets off in one direction, then u-turns with no warning into a far less entertaining cul de sac, Cabin In The Woods places its cards on the table from the opening scene. Not all those cards are turned face up, but at no point does it attempt to cheat us like Jeepers did.

Instead, what Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon deliver here is not just the most original and entertaining horror movie in years... but one of the most original and entertaining movies full stop. It's a film with the guts and balls to attempt to explain and justify every ridiculous and crappy horror flick you've ever seen. Genre fans with a sense of humour will lap it up. Those who don't appreciate Whedon's irreverent brand of snarky humour and playful iconoclasm can go watch Battleship instead.

Oh, and did I mention the cast? Beyond the five subverted teen cliches led by Chris 'Thor' Hemsworth and the doe-eyed Willow-alike Kristen Connolly, the cream of the Whedon alumni is present in full force (notably Amy Acker from Angel, Fran Kranz from Dollshouse and Tom Lenk from Buffy). But it's Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins who steal this movie, and not just for fans of The West Wing or Six Feet Under. We really didn't need the stunt-casting cameo at the end... but I can forgive the script's one mis-step into clunky exposition because by then I'd already had so much fun I was guaranteed to go home with a huge grin.

Now even if The Avengers proves a disappointment, Joss Whedon has still delivered one of my favourite movies of the year. More power to him.

Book Review: Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

In pre-WWII London, Jack Miller, a penniless young office clerk is offered the chance of a lifetime - to join a scientific expedition to Gruhuken on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Circle. But circumstances conspire to leave Jack alone and stranded at this remote, frozen camp... alone among the living, anyway.

The first adult novel by former children's author Michelle Paver, Dark Matter is an atmospheric and chilling (in both senses of the word) ghost story. It reminded me of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Albert Sanchez Pinol's Cold Skin. The Shining and The Thing also, of course. Paver has spent a lot of time in the Arctic and creates a wonderful sense of place: of lonely isolation and stark beauty. Although certain classic ghost story conventions are unavoidable (the taciturn ship's Captain who warns the expedition against making camp in Gruhuken, but won't say why), the characters are believably flawed and the slow-burn creepiness draws you in. This isn't a horror story of big shocks, though there are some memorably scary images and a gripping portrayal of Jack's sanity gradually unravelling as Dark Matter moves towards its climax. Plus there are cute huskies: always a bonus.

Comic Review: West - Confederate Dead

I've been looking forward to this latest Jerusalem West adventure ever since the book began. Seeing how well Andrew Cheverton and Tim Keable mixed Deadwood-style Western with Romero-esque horror in the book's first few issues, and knowing what a fan of zombie films Chev is, a West / zombies face-off has always been inevitable. And here it is, every bit as juicy and dramatic and bloody and beautiful as I'd hoped... in many ways the most accomplished single issue West story yet.

Plotwise, it's probably also the most straightforward. A young West and his bounty hunter pal Wilton Frohickie (I'm not sure if Chev stole that name from my own favourite Frohickie, but it's a great name nevertheless) are chasing down a ruthless gang of outlaws. Their pursuit leads them to Black Salt Island on a dark and stormy night, and then...

So not only is this the West adventure I've been dying to see Chev write - it's also the most amazing piece of comic art I've yet seen Tim deliver. From the gorgeous wraparound cover to the stylish and dramatic interiors, this is a comic you just can't take your eyes off. A truly gorgeous piece of work. If you like westerns, if you like zombies, if you like comics... if you like breathing: buy this book.

Book Review - Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Anyone who's read John Ajvide Lindqvist's previous novels, Handling The Undead and Let The Right One In will know that he's an author hugely influenced by Stephen King at his best. We see this again in the opening chapters of Harbour as Lindqvist introduces us to a strange community who make their home on Domarö, a haunted island in the Stockholm archipelago. There's Anders, whose six year old daughter disappears into thin air on a walk to the lighthouse. There's Simon, an old magician and escapologist who keeps a spooky insect in a box that gives him supernatural abilities. There's Anna-Greta, Anders' grandma, a former smuggler who knows far more about the terrible history of Domarö than she's letting on. And there's Elin, a former Reality TV beauty who's determined to make herself ugly. All great characters, given plenty of back-story while the mystery of Domarö deepens, long before the horror begins.

Anders' daughter Maja isn't the first person to disappear on Domarö, and she won't be the last. But what happens when the missing start coming back? Harbour builds to an exciting and shocking first act climax involving two old ghosts called Henrik and Bjorn, homicidal Smiths fans who ride the island on a spooky moped, quoting Morissey lyrics and causing panic wherever they go. Unfortunately, the novel loses much of its momentum in the second half and drags towards an unsatisfyingly metaphysical ending. It's just like Stephen King... at his worst. But don't let that put you off. Harbour remains a fascinating, engrossing and emotionally gripping read, and you may have more time for the climax than I did. It's worth reading for page 347 alone, where Anders breaks down while listening to a cassette of an old Swedish comedian. Lindqvist has a powerful understanding of how pop culture affects us even at the lowest points of our life, and how sometimes it's all that keeps us going.

Book Review - Dark Steps

Dark Steps is a short anthology of stories from fellow blogger and writer Martin Pond, available to download or read on old-fashioned dead trees, if you're a traditionalist like me.

The collection opens with The Waiting Room, a scary slice of future-shock spiced with sharp ideas and a chilling, utterly unexpected, denouement. It's probably my favourite story here, but that's not to detract from the delights that lie ahead.

Dream Feed will surely raise hairs on the necks of new parents everywhere as a spooky voice is heard over the baby monitor by a sleep-deprived father.

Near-Death Experience, which I've read before on Martin's blog, reminds me of M. Knight Shyamalan's Unbreakable - and there's no finer comparison in this genre.

The longest story here is The Inheritance, a clever piece of writing in which a son visits his dying police man father in hospital only to face some shocking revelations. The twist is obvious to the reader long before it hits the protagonist, but there's much worse to come. In his foreword, Martin claims it's his least favourite story in the collection, yet it lingered in my mind long after I set the book aside.

Three other stories and an extract from Martin's work-in-progress novel, Drawn To The Deep End, complete the anthology. It's an excellent collection of unexpected tales told in everyday surroundings with a vein of dark humour running just below the surface.

To find out more, visit Martin's writing blog or Pip's Pages, his original home on the web.

Furnace

Josh Spiller is a long distance truck driver whose girlfriend is pregnant but has just told him she's not keeping their baby. After a furious argument, Josh heads out on the road and drives non-stop for 36 hours. In desperate need of a break, he pulls off the highway into the small mountain-town of Furnace. Looking for somewhere to park and rest, he instead finds tragedy when a prominent local politician pushes a pram directly under Josh's truck. Everyone in Furnace believes the baby's death is an accident and nobody can accept that Councillor Nelly McFarlane could be responsible for such a heinous crime. Even Josh begins to doubt what he saw... until he eventually leaves Furnace only to discover something scary is following him.

I think it was Pip who recommended this novel to me, knowing we both share a great love of Stephen King. This is one of the best non-King Kings I've read: gripping, inventive, surprising and packed full of well-researched detail into the life of a long-haul trucker stateside. Not at all what I'd have expected from intellectual TV presenter / former Scottish punk singer Muriel Gray. While it's not quite up there with the master at his best, it's easily the equal of many of his recent works and a damn sight more entertaining than Dreamcatcher.

Although the pedant in me would have expected those American truckers to be transporting aluminum, rather than aluminium...

The Passage

My opinion of Justin Cronin's The Passage would vary depending when you asked me. Catch me during the first 250 pages and I'd have told you it was a gripping, character-led page-turner reminiscent of Stephen King at his very best (in particular, The Stand). 50 pages later I might have appeared alienated as Cronin turned everything upside down, leaping 100 years into a post-apocalyptic unknown with a whole new cast and little obvious continuity from the story before. Give it another 50 pages and once I'd warmed to the new setting I'd be singing Cronin's praises all over again as he led his straggler band of survivors on an epic cross-country quest... so epic, in fact that he really didn't know when to call it a day, throwing obstacle after obstacle in the way of his protagonists till the final two hundred pages became an never ending Lord of the Rings succession of climaxes, twists, further climaxes, further twists and late-in-the-day exposition (plus a vicious sting-in-the-tail epilogue) that proved almost as wearying to the reader as trekking across America on foot must have been to the heroes. And this, it turns out, is merely book one of a proposed trilogy - 766 pages, with many, many more to come.

The frustrating thing is, when its good, The Passage is better than just about anything I've read this year. Cronin has that rare ability to make you care deeply about a large cast of characters, and his plot - at least in the first three-quarters of the book - is riveting and well-paced. There's a sense towards the end that the author has his eye on Hollywood, particularly in a huge, gratuitous set-piece involving a runaway train being attacked by vampires - sadly, action lets him down. As is often the case with End of the World thrillers, the set-up is by far the most enthralling sequence... and I wonder how the second and third novels will stand up without such a seductive entry point. But despite my criticism, I will be there to find out.





If you want to read more online book reviews or discuss your favourite books with fellow readers, Hanan of Music Induced Euphoria has now set up her own online book club called Illuminated Anglophiles. Pop over and join in the debate - tell them I sent you!

Full Dark, No Stars

The latest Stephen King collection tells four stories, three of which involve violence against women - though King, always a hugely sympathetic writer, avoids sensationalism, while also providing bitter comeuppance for each of the perpetrators. Vengeance and just desserts is a recurring theme throughout.

1922 is a first person account of the life of Wilfred Leland James, a Nebraska farmer who, together with his son Henry, murders his wife to stop her selling off his land. But Arlette James does not go quietly into the night - nor, indeed, the well into which her body is dumped - and memory of their crime drives both husband and son to madness. The Steinbeckian detail is rich, and the tragic fate of Henry and his girlfriend Shannon is straight out of Badlands. The story is strong enough I could easily have done without the more traditional horror elements - notably the rats that haunt, plague and eventually seal Wilf's fate - and it was good to see King tackling a period piece again.

In Big Driver, we find a more typical King protagonist, a mystery novelist called Tess, raped and left for death in a roadside ditch on her way back from an author appearance in backwoods America. King shows admirable restraint when dealing with the crime itself, then sets his heroine on a surprising, twist-filled path to vengeance. None of the stories in this collection take the route you expect, and I kept on rooting for Tess, even when her quest for retribution led to a potentially suicidal fate. Revenge fantasy at its most satisfying.

After that, we need a little light relief. Fair Extension is the story of a terminally ill man given a second chance... at the expense of his best friend. Reminiscent of Richard Matheson's Button Button (filmed as The Box), the shortest story in this collection once more confounds expectations to darkly comic effect. Let's just say that Harry Street ain't big on guilt or regret.

The book closes with A Good Marriage, in which a faithful wife stumbles upon a dark secret about her husband that changes her life. Based on those accounts of the wives of serial killers who remained blissfully ignorant of their husband's crimes, this paints a vicious moral dilemma, gracefully avoids making the husband into a predictable cartoon threat, then executes an elegant solution I didn't see coming.

Friday Flash - Why’d You Do It, Tommy?

Don't be misled by the cute hedgehog picture below, this week's Friday Flash is as dark and disturbing as I get. It returns to a recurring motif in my fiction, evil children bullying. You don't have to be Freud to work out that I obviously have issues. I'll say a little more after the story, but viewers of a nervous disposition be warned... you might not like where this one takes you.

Why'd You Do It, Tommy?


Funny story I always tell in a situation like this, how when I was a little kid, I had a hedgehog. Called him Hector, ‘cos I was eleven and originality wasn’t really a thing back then. He wasn’t a pet or nothing, but he lived in our garden and we built him a little hide and I fed him scraps after supper. He especially liked the crusts from my peanut butter sandwiches, it’s weird the things you remember, isn’t it?

So anyway, there’s this kid lives up our road called Tommy Mason, local bully, nasty piece of work. We all knew to keep away from him. He pushed my mate Adrian in the canal and snapped Walter Hinchliffe’s little finger so it bent all the way up the back of his hand. Had a thing for stealing underwear off washing lines too – fancy stuff, what they’d call ‘lingerie’ nowadays though we never had that word back then – and forcing lads to wear it in the playground. That was quite funny, I guess, on occasion, though not if you were the kid with a cross-your-heart brazier wrapped round your head like an Easter bonnet.

Anyway, like most bullies, when Tommy latched on to a new victim, he went all out to make that kid’s life a misery for as long as it took to break him… or until he lost interest and found someone new to plague. I’d done pretty well at keeping myself off Tommy’s radar, but I knew he’d get round to me eventually, and sure enough, one summer afternoon I’m on my way home from school when Tommy steps out of the bus shelter and puts himself in my way... and from that moment it was on. Problem was – Tommy’s problem, anyway – I was fast. Fastest kid in our year, proved it every Sports Day. And Tommy, well, he carried a bit of weight. You wouldn’t call him fat to his face, of course, but… well, he wasn’t ever going to catch me if I got to running, and as soon as I knew he was after me I ran pretty much everywhere. All the way to school in a morning, all the way home on a night. Even in between lessons – I lost count of the times I was caught by a teacher and made to “go back and walk”, but I was happy to walk if I knew a teacher was watching. If I knew I was safe. The rest of the time? I wasn’t giving Tommy no chances.

Thing about bullies, and maybe you understand this, they don’t like being denied. Sometimes I think maybe it’s easier just to give them what they want straight out. 'Cos the more you deny them, the more they want it. Maybe if I hadn’t run, maybe if I’d just let Tommy have his way, modelled some frilly pants for him in the yard and taken a few slaps, maybe he’d have moved on to somebody else. But all that denial, it built some kind of resentment in him, I guess. One way or another, he was gonna get me. And if he couldn’t catch me on foot, he could still follow me home and wait. And watch. And…

Which brings us to the bit of the story which isn’t all that pretty. Someone like you, you’ve probably been waiting for this part. Well, I hate to disappoint, but I’m gonna spare you the gory details. I’m sure you can fill them in yourself. Tommy followed me home, then he waited, and he watched. He saw me bringing scraps out to feed that little hedgehog, saw how happy I was in that moment, saw something that was missing from his own twisted life, and then he waited till I’d gone back in the house, and he took that from me.

I didn’t know anything about it till the next day at school when I opened up my locker and there was Hector… what was left of him.

You know that kid on The Simpsons? The bully that picks on Bart, with the obnoxious laugh? “Haw haw”? I don’t know whether this is one of those memories I added on retroactively, or whether Tommy really made that sound as I stood there with the locker door in my hand and tears rolling down my…

Tommy got his. Maybe he taught me something that day about watching and waiting, till the right moment comes. Till the afternoon he’s out by himself, walking past the old allotments, and he doesn’t see me coming up behind him with that cricket bat till it’s way too late, and the next thing he knows he’s waking up in that shed, hands tied behind his back with a pair of washing line knickers I’d dug out the pocket of his coat, staring at the tools I’d laid out on the little bench in front of him. Pruners and shears. One of them little garden forks, a trowel and a wire cutter. Secateurs.

“Why’d you do it, Tommy?”

The thing is, he couldn’t tell me. Oh, he came up with plenty of excuses and explanations – he hated the way I won all the races and did well at spelling and lived in a much fancier house than him and got to kiss Gemma Gibson twice in the school play – but we both knew they were bullshit.

“Why’d you do it, Tommy?”

I kept on asking, till there were bits of Tommy all over that shed, but he just couldn’t give me an answer I was satisfied with. Closest he came was, “I don’t know - all right, Dylan? I just don’t know!”

What happened that day set the course of my whole life, you know? It’s why I joined the force – why I worked my way up to detective. Wanting to know what motivates people to do the sick things they do… having to know. A lot of the times the answer is obvious. “He was sleeping with my wife.” “She was threatening to take away my kids.” “When he gets drunk, he hits me.” All perfectly good reasons, you ask me, and I’m happy to let the law deal with people like that.

Every now and then though, I come up against someone like you. Someone who, just like Tommy Mason, has no real justification. What you did to those girls, Peter, it’s no different to what Tommy Mason did to my hedgehog. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you actually will be able to give me an answer that’ll make some kind of sense. We’ll see. I’ve got all night. And lots of tools.



*************

I don't like cruelty to animals. In fiction, I find it far more disturbing than cruelty to humans. You can kill, torture, maim and mutilate as many regular people as you like and I won't bat an eyelid, but harm a cute little bunny rabbit and I'll be up in arms. I didn't like what Tommy did to that hedgehog, I didn't even want to write it... yet not writing it might be even worse, depending on the reader's imagination. This story was unsettling for me, but I still had to do put it out there. Horror should be unsettling... the real world certainly is.

Top Ten Witch Songs

Following on from last week's Top Ten Bitch Songs by changing just one letter in my search engine (yes, I'm that lazy) - and also in celebration of the unholy mockery that was Season Of The Witch - here are ten songs filled with hubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

10. Jeff Buckley - Witches Rave

Everyone knows the story. Jeff Buckley made one classic album, Grace, then floated away down the Mississippi River before he ever got chance to complete its follow up, My Sweetheart The Drunk. His record company, doing what record companies do best at times like this, released the unfinished sessions as a double album of incomplete "sketches". They're nowhere near as compelling as anything on Grace, but who knows - maybe they would have been.

Whoever uploaded this to youtube decided to link it to scenes from the movie Unfaithful, so you get to watch Diane Lane get it on with Olivier Martinez while you listen to Jeff's song. This may prove too much of a distraction...

9. Get Well Soon - Witches! Witches! Rest Now In Fire

Gloomy German arthouse types give great title... but slightly less memorable song.

8. Everclear - The Good Witch Of The North

An Everclear track that begins with a shag and ends with a promise. The titular witch is obviously his girlfriend... would you marry this man?

7. Eagles - Witchy Woman

A song written by Don Henley in a delirious fever dream, the witch in question apparently being F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife Zelda, "the first American flapper". (Yes, I said 'flapper'. You just read it as 'slapper'.)

6. Hefner - The Sad Witch

Her atheist tracts are certainly persuading.

...is one of those lyrics that always brings an unnecessary smile to my face. The question is, if we threw Hefner in a lake with bricks tied round their ankles, would they float or would they drown?

(No indie-folk weirdoes were hurt during the preparation of this Top Ten.)

5. Eels - Teenage Witch

Speaking of which...

If being a witch isn't bad enough, E imagines it must be even worse being a teenager as well!

Heaven can't help a teenage witch
From sinking deeper down into the ditch

4. Bloc Party - Hunting For Witches

The witchhunt here is the media-fuelled hysteria created after 9/11 and the subsequent terrorist attacks on the London Underground. Those wacky, fun-lovin' Bloc Party lads.

3. Edwyn Collins - The Witch Queen Of New Orleans

Originally recorded by Redbone in the 70s, there's just something about the Edwyn Collins version that tips it over the edge. Great strings, and Collins' voice has never been richer. Curiously, he also does an inspired cover of our next track too... though sadly I can't find either of them on youtube.

2. Frank Sinatra - Witchcraft

Written and released in 1957. It's easy to think of Sinatra as being a big musical force in only the 40s and early 50s, disappearing off the scene once his nemesis, rock 'n' roll, arrived on the scene. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a classic, whatever the era.

1. Donovan - Season Of The Witch

The film may have been a crock, but Donovan's 60s hit steals the broomstick from all other contenders. It's also the only truly spooky song on the list.



So... who did I forget? Or, as Scooby Doo would have it... which witch is WITCH?

Two Books For Frustrated Creators

Sean Azzopardi's excellent graphic novel Twelve Hour Shift tells a tale familiar to many of us. A story of someone with creative drive and ambition forced to take a soul-sucking, dead-end job to make ends meet. In this case, comic artist Steve Jones finds himself working as a concierge and night porter in a block of luxury residential flats, suffering the slings and arrows of a mithering boss and jaded, lazy, alcoholic colleagues. He gets up before dawn, braves the horrors of public transport, spends his day being abused by clients and co-workers alive, while failing to motivate himself to steal many moments of creative expression along the way, then returns home to a lonely cold-water flat with only his cat for company.

And yet... he keeps going, because writing and drawing those comics means that much to him. It's all he wants to do. And even if he achieves nothing else with his life, better that than denying himself that creative outlet at all.

If you can understand where Steve Jones - and Sean Azzopardi - are coming from, you can share their misery by clicking here. It's much better than going to work.

On the surface, Brian James Freeman's novella The Painted Darkness tells the story of an artist haunted by a terrifying event from his childhood who finds himself having to once again face the monsters living in his cellar. It's been compared by some to Stephen King, which I always think is a kind of lazy shorthand for "horror in a real-world setting", but I couldn't see much of King in Freeman's writing. The story is an extended metaphor about why we're driven to flog ourselves at unappreciated creative endeavours (in Freeman's words, "we're painting against the darkness") dressed up as a perfectly enjoyable little monster-in-the-woodshed thriller. Both moving and gripping, it's a read-in-one-sitting affair that stays with you for all the right reasons.

Paranormal Activity 2 - What Went Wrong?

Yes, yes, all those of you who hated the first film, you can leave your "I told you so's" at the door. (Yes, Kelvin, I do mean you!)

And yes, all those of you who liked the first film but knew the sequel was going to be pants: ditto.

So, I saw PA2 yesterday, and it was dull. It wasn't rubbish, but it was a huge disappointment after the first film. But... why?

1. They handicapped themselves from the outset by making this a prequel. Or a three quarters-prequel, anyway. The film deals with the sister of the heroine from the first film, and tries its best to develop a backstory regarding where the family's curse comes from. That's all very well, but in doing so it hampers itself - because if anything truly awful happens to the sister and her family for the most part of this film, then the characters in the first film would have been more aware and prepared for what happened to them. Which they weren't... which is why PA2 saves its real shocks for the final 5 minute epilogue which leaps forward in time to after the first film.

2. They go out of their way to avoid using the same shock tactics as the first film. Which is to be applauded... except... they don't actually come up with much to replace them. I spent the majority of PA2 waiting for something to happen. Anything! The first film was a slow-burner, but this didn't even start until the last 20 minutes. By which time most of the audience were tired of waiting for a jump.

3. The night-time highjinks of the first movie were captured by one video camera set up amateurishly on the dressing table. This time the family in question set up a whole houseful of CCTV cams to observe their spooky goings on... though there's actually less to observe. A definite case of more = less, the rule of thumb for all unsuccessful sequels.

4. The low-budget cast of the original were unknowns, and that worked in their favour. Although they reprise their roles here, the main characters are played by proper actors - recognisable actors in the case of the lead, Sprague Grayden, previously known as President Taylor's backstabbing bitch of daughter from 24. Her stage-school brat step-daughter stole even more of the shaky amateurishness that made the first film such a gem.

5. Maybe there's something to be said for the madness of crowds. I saw PA in a packed cinema full of jumping, screaming teenagers. Yesterday I went to a matinee with 10 other people, and nobody even squealed. I heard the occasional yawn, but that was it.

Maybe the true problem with Paranormal Activity 2 is the problem with all horror sequels. What made its predecessor work for me was that I didn't know what to expect. This time I went in with a bunch of preconceived notions... and they really couldn't win. Either they give me what I want, and I moan I've seen it all before... or they don't and I moan about that. You can't fool all the people all the time...

Top Twenty Horror Films (Part 2)

(Click here for 20-11.)

OK, we're back with my Top Ten... and I'm sure it'll have you screaming at your computer screens. "WHAT - NO DRACULA 2001? ARE YOU AN IDIOT?" Etc. Etc.



10. Paranormal Activity

9. The Amityville Horror

I still remember watching this on TV late one night when I was a kid and not being able to sleep afterwards. For a long time. I became obsessed with the Amityville story and read the three novels and anything else I could find on it. Marketed as a true story, I still hate the idea that it was all a giant scam. I want to believe!

The movie doesn't have a great reputation among horror fans, but I think it stands up well, with excellent performances from James Brolin, Margot Kidder and (especially) Rod Steiger and a creepy score by Lalo Schifrin. The sequels are a waste of time and the remake misses the point, despite a half-decent cast... but then, it does suffer the stench of Michael Bay.

8. The Exorcist

Another movie that could have sunk under the weight of expectation once I was finally allowed to watch it, but thankfully didn't. A much better film than Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though not quite as shocking. Still, it's Mark Kermode's favourite flick, so it deserves its position here.

The sequels are drivel, particularly the recent, supremely dreary prequels.

Your mother cooks socks in hell.

7. The Descent

Crammed with twists, claustrophobic tension and genuine jumpy bits, Neil Marshall's best film delivers - as long as you're watching the original UK version. The "it was all a dream, happily ever after" ending grafted onto the US version was a kick in the horror-nads. And it led to the sequel, which was worse than pointless.

6. The Haunting

The movie that showed Paranormal Activity how frightening a few slamming doors could actually be, this is essential viewing for anyone who ever plans to direct a horror flick.

The Jan De Bont remake from the 90s is essential viewing for anyone who ever plans to ruin a horror flick. Truly ghastly.

5. Jaws

Part of me didn't want to include Jaws in this list, because part of me doesn't think of it as a horror film. Part of me thinks it's too good a movie to be considered horror. Which is snobbish and silly. Chief Brody rules.

I actually like Jaws 2. 3D and The Revenge are bobbins though. Were there any more? I'm sure they were offal too.

4. Halloween

Ah, John Carpenter. The man responsible for two of my top five horror flicks. The man who invented the handheld camera following you down the street routine. The man whose weird, self-composed synth music was more effective at delivering shivers than any big orchestral score. The man who created one of the truly great screen monsters... using a William Shatner mask.

Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Myers, Donald Pleasence... what's not to like?

I think I probably liked more of the Halloween sequels than any other horror franchise. H20 was particularly good. Rob Zombie's remake was bobbins though.

3. Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock. Anthony Perkins. Janet Leigh. Bernard Herrmann. Who's the bigger star of Psycho?

Actually, the thing that impresses me most about this film is the way it changes direction in such a startling manner midway through. I guess that's down to Robert Bloch, who wrote the original novel, and Joseph Stefano who did the screenplay.

She wouldn't even harm a fly.

I like the sequels purely for Perkins' hammy performance. The Vince Vaughan / Anne Heche shot-by-shot remake was an exercise in utter futility though.

2. The Shining

Which is better, Stephen King's novel... or the vastly different Kubrick movie? The author obviously believes the former, but as much of a King fan as I am, and as much as I can take or leave just about everything else Kubrick's ever committed to celluloid... the atmosphere of this film is unrivalled. Jack's just-the-right-side-of-mental performance, Shelly Duvall's wonderfully insipid support, the creepiest horror movie kid ever, the scene in room 237, Scatman Crothers' botched rescue attempt, all that snow and isolation, Delbert Grady and Lloyd the bartender... a horror movie I never grow tired of. Hoping to watch it again this weekend on the big screen.

Heeeeere's Johnny!

1. The Thing

For anyone wondering why there's no room for Alien in this list, the answer is simple - everything Alien can do, The Thing can do better. All the crimes against horror committed by John Carpenter in the latter half of his career matter not one whit. This movie is perfect, I won't hear a word said against it.

I have low, low hopes for the upcoming prequel.


This week's Thoughtballoons strip features my tribute to The Thing, starring its more Fantastic namesake. You can read it here.

Top Twenty Horror Films (Part 1)

In preparation for Halloween, everyone's listing their favourite horror flicks. Well, Final Girl is, and Ryan 'Stinkbrown' Lindsay is too. I'm sure a bunch of other people are thinking about it. Show me a barrel and I'll scrape it...

Runners up included Evil Dead 2 and 3, Final Destination (any of the first three, not the rubbish 3D one), Rec (Spanish), The Fly (Goldblum), The Hitcher (Hauer) and The Ring (Japanese). Which should give you an idea of how bad my taste in horror films really is.

Here's 20-11 then... come back tomorrow for part 2. You just know it's gonna piss you off some more.


20. Friday The 13th

It's well over twenty years since I saw the original, and I'm sure it wouldn't stand up after all this time, but I still remember the impact this movie had on me - particularly the ending. Diluted to death by a dozen inferior sequels, this stuck a spike through my heart like an arrow through Kevin Bacon's throat. And Jason wasn't even the killer!

19. 28 Days Later

What if zombies could run really, really fast, Christopher Eccleston was a right hard bastard, and Manchester looked like LA from a distance...?

The sequel is... OK.

18. The Strangers

17. Cube

Some ignorami consider this to have invented the torture porn genre and spawned a million Saws, Hostels, et al. The difference being there's more invention, imagination and genuine tension in the first five minutes of Cube than there was in the whole Saw franchise.

The sequels are good too.

16. An American Werewolf In London

Another of those horror films that defined my youth, and not just for Jenny Agutter in the shower.

Keep off the moors and stay on the road.

The sequel is rubbish, despite Julie Delpy.

15. Them (Ils)

Because, it seems, only the French truly understand there's little scarier than a bunch of unruly hoodies. Inspired The Strangers, Eden Lake and a bunch of other "aren't kids bastards?" flicks, none of which were quite as efficiently brutal.

14. Frailty

The film that made Bill Paxton scary. That's some achievement! (He directed it too, so it was all his own doing.) Great twists and a black-as-pitch ending.

13. Duel

The horror film that reminds you you're not as indestructible as you think you are in that little tin box you drive about in every day. Dennis Weaver does the everyman routine perfectly, Spielberg's direction has never been grittier, and the fact we never see the trucker makes him the perfect boogeyman.

I was tempted to include copycat 70s movie The Car in this list, if only for the scenes where the eponymous driverless vehicle refuses to go onto consecrated ground... and then explodes in a fiery devil explosion at the end. In my memory, I often get the two films confused and have that devil explosion tear up the sky after the Duel lorry tumbles over the cliff too. I'm always vaguely disappointed when it doesn't happen.

12. The Blair Witch Project

All you people who hate Blair Witch, sorry, but you're wrong. It may just be a lot of silly running about in the woods, but woods are scary places... and that facing the wall ending haunted me for weeks.

The sequel is bollocks.

11. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Since it was banned in the UK as a video nasty throughout my youth, I expected to be disappointed by TCM when I finally saw it. Disappointed, I was not. Disturbed, I was. Not by the expected scenes of chainsaw torture - which turned out to be mercifully few and actually quite restrained - but instead by the scene at the dinner table where Grandpa's corpse starts sucking the girls finger and she screams... and screams... and screams... and screams.

The remake was far too glossy.



Click here for part 2...

Under The Dome

It seems the pattern these days that a new Stephen King novel will be greeted by two wildly differing reactions from longterm fans. It's either "great - a real return to form" or "SO disappointing - not a patch on his old stuff!"

The problem is that I generally wait to read King's novels in paperback, so by the time I got round to Under The Dome I'd already read loads of reviews - by people whose opinions on such things I respect - telling me how much they either loved or hated it. And because I'm such a lily-livered milksop when it comes to voicing my own opinions, I'm filled with trepidation at the prospect of writing this review.

Ah, sod it.

I liked it. I'd almost go so far as to say 'loved'. If it was written by anyone other than King. It's just that after so many years as one of SK's biggest fans, we always expect a little more.

The high concept plot involves a small town in Maine (surprise!) that one day finds itself sealed off from the outside world by an impenetrable dome that appears from nowhere. While the US army tries to find a way to break through and rescue the townspeople trapped inside, the politicians and policeforce set up an independent state and refuse to co-operate with the outside world in an attempt to cover up their own crooked dealings.

Those who loved the book talked about King's mastery with a large cast of characters, and how fast and exciting he keeps the narrative - "whizzing from one cliffhanger to the next" says the Telegraph. I'd mostly agree. I felt the 800+ story sagged a little around the page 600 mark, but it certainly rallies for an explosive finale.

Those who hated it complained about the characters being far too black and white, and the rather heavy-handed nature of the allegory - the town becoming a microcosm representing the state of US politics in the 21st century. Well, yes, but I didn't feel it was any more clunky than many other sci fi metaphors, and more importantly it didn't hinder my enjoyment one bit. As to the lack of grey - hell, I read Dean Koontz novels, compared to him, King's got a million different shades in his palate.

Ah, make up your own mind. Opinions are like arseholes - everybody's got one. Mine rarely resembles anybody else's.

This week's Thoughtballoons character is Araña, the new Spider-Girl. I'm not too familiar with this character, although I was a big fan of Tom DeFalco's recently concluded "Daughter Of Spider-Man" incarnation. Still, give Anya a chance. Spidey is.

You can read my one-page Spider-Girl story here. I named it after a My Chemical Romance song, for any emo-kids in the audience.

Friday Flash - Don't Touch That Dial

At last, an all-new Friday Flash short story, rather than just another dip into my greatest hits. The oldest thing here is the title, Don't Touch That Dial, which I've used for a number of speculative projects over the year including a sitcom, a comic strip and a novel. None of those went where I wanted them to, so at least I get to use the title for something.

This story is about DJs, but it shouldn't be seen as a slight against the few good friends I have in that particular profession. It could just as easily have been written about advertising copywriters, though that wouldn't have made for quite as strong a set piece.

I do hope you enjoy it.

Don't Touch That Dial

“Idiots,” said Dean.

“Morons,” said James.

“Idiots!” said Dean again.

“Morons!” came the reply.

“Idiots.”

This would have gone on…

“Morons.”

Much, much longer…

“Idiots.”

Had Hailey not interrupted.

“Guys…?”

They should have known from her tone that she wasn’t in the mood.

“Morons.”

After all, the estate agent had agreed to come out well after her normal working hours to show them round these recently closed studios that Dean and James had visions of buying. They planned to start up their own music- and personality-led radio company that broke away from the tight formats and strict playlists that were strangling all the fun out of an industry they both loved. They weren’t messing around here, they were each prepared to risk their life savings to get this venture off the ground. Radio was in their blood and this was their chance to do it the way they’d always believed it should be done.

“Idiots!”

But, at heart, they were still disc jockeys.

“Morons!”

They’d have happily kept this stupid routine going all night if they thought they could get away with it.

“Guys, please…”

Or at least until someone fed them the straight line they were looking for.

“What are they arguing about?” asked the estate agent. Her name was Meredith and she had high hopes for this evening too. She didn’t mind humouring these egotistical blowhards if it got this blasted radio station off her books once and for all. Six months now she’d been trying to sell these premises, and though she’d had any number of promising enquiries, nobody ever came back for a second visit. Still, there were other ways of making it pay…

Hailey ran a hand down her face with an expression that screamed “I wish you hadn’t asked that question”, but it was too late now.

“We’re arguing about the previous owners of this building,” said Dean, “were they idiots or morons?”

“They actually packed up and handed back the broadcast license to a lucrative business like this - just because they thought the place was haunted?” said James. “Idiots!”

“Morons.” said Dean.

“Well, that was the reason they announced to the press,” said Meredith, turning the key in Friendly FM’s side entrance and hearing the bleep of the alarm from down the corridor. “Rumour has it their advertising sales figures were fine, they just couldn’t get any presenters to stay in the studio for more than two records in a row. I presume you’ve heard what happened to their drivetime DJ?”

“Gary Peters?” said Dean. “We used to work with that boob. Dude couldn’t tie his own shoelaces without an instruction manual.”

“It’s very sad,” said James, “slitting his throat with a broken CD live on air like that – right before the traffic and travel, too - but I refuse to believe it was because he was possessed by some dark satanic force…”

“What was the CD, has anybody asked that?” said Dean. “My betting it was either Simply Red, Phil Collins, Celine Dion or the Lighthouse Family. That was pretty much Friendly FM’s entire playlist right there. I imagine playing the same dated MOR shite day-in day-out would make anyone want to gargle blood… I know it would me.”

“We’ll have a strict No Celine policy when we’re running this place,” said James, “and Phil Collins will be shot on sight.”

“Phil Collins,” said Dean, shaking his head, “what a bunch of morons!”

“Idiots,” said James.

“Morons,” said Dean.

“Idiots!” snapped Meredith as she keyed the code into the alarm box. “Idiots, idiots, idiots! There. It’s decided. Can we let that one rest now?”

James and Dean responded with their best two-scolded-schoolboys faces. Hailey glared at them. “See – I told you to knock it off!” She followed Meredith down the dusty corridor towards the studios.

“I like her,” said Dean.

“You should try being married to her,” said James.

“I don’t mean your wife,” said Dean. “I don’t like your wife.”

“You don’t like my wife?”

“No – I like your wife, I like her just fine.”

“You like my wife?”

“I don’t like-like your wife – she’s your wife. I like and respect her as your wife. But this estate agent lady – Meredith – her I like-like, in ways it wouldn’t ever be appropriate for me to think about Hailey.”

“Probably in ways it wouldn’t ever be appropriate for me to think about Hailey. Since, you know, being married…”

“Such things aren’t appropriate any more?”

“Such things just don’t come up anymore.”

Ahead of them in the corridor, Meredith pulled open the first of the huge soundproofed doors, letting Hailey hold it while she pushed through the second. “Well, here we are,” she said, palms up like she was checking for rain, “this is where it all happened.”

As James and Dean followed the two women into the studio, a striking change came over them. Suddenly, they were all business.

“Decent enough desk,” said James, flicking a couple of switches under the mixing desk and brushing dust from between the faders.

“Optimod, Myriad system with built-in Cool-Edit Pro… apparently there’s a half-decent SADie around here somewhere too,” said Dean, checking off the equipment against a list he’d printed off at home.

“I think that’s in the second studio,” said Meredith, recalling this query from a previous viewer.

“At least they cleaned up all the blood,” said Hailey. “In the back of my mind, I had this really gruesome image…”

“Apparently there are people you can hire to do that sort of thing,” said Meredith. “Like CSI, only with scrubbing brushes.” She expected a joke from the jocks in response, but they were lost in their anoraks.

“CDQ Prima codecs, Neumann mikes, Denon CD players…”

“Eleven swans a swimming and a partridge in a pair tree,” said James, slipping the headphones over his head and taking pole position in front of the mic.

“Is this thing on?” said Dean, going round the desk to the guest mic and giving it a one-two tap.

“It is now,” said James, dropping a CD he’d brought along into the player and opening both mic channels. “Come on, mate, let’s take this baby for a ride!”

The intro to Bachman Turner Overdrive’s cheesy 70’s anthem You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet began playing from the monitors and both jocks’ faces lit up with huge grins, turning to catch the reaction from their audience. “Let’s rock!” said Dean.

Meredith favoured them with a polite but confused frown. Hailey – who knew them only too well – remained hands-on-hips non-plussed. Secretly though, she was holding her breath and praying.

“We’re kidding!” said James, switching quickly to the second track on the CD. Song 2 by Blur.

“Woo-hoo!” screamed Dean, expecting the same response from his partner in crime. And that was when it happened.

They all felt it. The temperature dropped by ten degrees, the lights flickered, the monitors crackled and a shadow fell across the desk. Then James started screaming.

Thinking back on it later, Hailey compared the change on her husband’s face to the switch from Bachman to Blur. It was just as sudden, just as jarring, though much less contrived. One second that corny publicity shot grin she’d grown to loathe more with each new day of their marriage. The next, a look of total, wide-eyed hysteria as he tore the cans from his head and stumbled, panicked, away from the desk.

“James?” said Dean, his own grin faltering, “mate, are you…?” And then he saw it too. The scariest thing he’d seen in his whole life.


* * * *

“So… how much did we say?” said Hailey.

“Two fifty,” said Meredith as she reset the alarm.

Hailey counted out the notes. If this had worked out the way she’d heard it did, it’d be worth every penny.

James and Dean were already in the car, sitting together in the back, holding hands and staring into nothing.

“All those wasted years,” said James. “My god, what have we done with our lives?”

“How come we never saw it?” said Dean. “How come we never realised…?”

“My dad wanted me to become a plumber,” said James.

“Gary Peters,” said Dean. “He saw it too, didn’t he? He saw it, and he couldn’t… he…”

The driver’s door opened and Hailey climbed inside.

“I can’t do this anymore, love,” her husband said from the back, his voice breaking, tears still streaming down his cheeks. “I have to get out, I have to get a proper job…”

“We both do,” said Dean. “Retrain or… something. Do something useful with our lives, anything… anything to save us from…”

“I’m so, so sorry,” said James. He was really blubbing now. Hailey’s heart went out to him. She reached over the seat and rested her hand on his shoulder. She hated seeing him like this, but still she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this happy. Relieved. Like maybe they actually had a chance now…

Meredith watched the three of them drive away while folding the money and putting it away in her bag. Then she checked her mobile. Five new messages, all from the wives or girlfriends or significant others of DJs the length and breadth of the country. Word was getting round.

Friday Flash - Forest For The Trees

I will have a brand new Friday Flash for you next week, I promise. This week though, I'm proud to represent my prize-winning short story Forest For The Trees. Originally written for Elephant Words back in 2007, this story marks the first time I've ever won a writing competition - the grand runner-up prize of five whole pounds! Chev suggested I get the cheque framed, but sadly the prize money came via Paypal, so the internet has defeated me again. Many thanks to the folks at Acacia Books who were discerning enough to select my story for inclusion in the first issue of their new quarterly horror and speculative fiction e-zine Aversion. Find out more about the competition or order a copy of the zine and read a bunch of other scary stories by clicking here.

But before we get to that, a quick mention for this week's Thoughtballoons character - Buffy The Vampire Slayer. As with last week's Lara Croft, this is a character who came to comics late, via movies and a long-running TV show. Comics were obviously a huge influence on the show's creators though and they recently chose to continue Buffy's adventures in a monthly mag from Dark Horse. You can read my Buffy story here.

And now, the main event. Drumroll please, here comes my first ever prize-winning, magazine published short story...

Forest For The Trees

A ‘Wake Up, Little Susie’ Adventure


It’s 2.32am on the disposable digital watch I wear because anything more valuable might get trashed in a fight. The middle of the night (midnight’s such a misnomer): dark, silent and cold. As usual, I have no idea where I am, or why I’m here. Just that feeling in my belly, like I’ve eaten too much fruit and it’s starting to ferment; and the noise in my head, like a mobile phone signal heckling my stereo.

I stand still, resting a hand on slimy bark. The pines around me grow so close together their lower branches are mostly bare, spindly quills: their needles and cones much higher than I could ever reach – but at less than five feet tall, that could place them on the top shelf in the supermarket. My name is Susie Chernobyl and this is the night I wake up in the woods.

Once, when I put my faith in doctors, they gave my condition names. A rare combination of narcolepsy, dissociative fugue, and somnambulism; so rare even the experts had only read about it in dusty old cracked-spine textbooks. It’s a terrible moment when you finally acknowledge it, but doctors know nothing.

I give it a few moments for my eyes to adjust, listening through the night noise of the woods for a clue to why I’m here. There’s always a reason. Above me, an exasperated wind nags at the higher branches. There could be moonlight up there, but it won’t ever trouble the soggy mattress at my feet. Beneath the wind, I can make out the syncopation of old raindrops, fingertipping their way down through the branches, drip drip-drip DRIP drip drip-DRIP drip…

As the darkness opens, I can see two, three trees ahead of me now – though still I don’t move. I might be warmer if I did, but not yet. I huddle into myself and shiver without noise. Sometimes when it’s really cold, I’ll express it vocally, but I’ve never been a ‘brrr!’ person – more a ‘hoo-ah!’ – like Al Pacino in the blind dancing film. (He’d have to be blind to dance with me. Even then, I wouldn’t wager my chances.) But there’s no risk of a ‘hoo-ah’ tonight, not until I know what I’m up against.

Top half: I’m wearing an itchy woollen polo neck, at least two T-shirts, and one of my unduly padded bras. Bottom half: jeans (always jeans), long johns, knickers, it feels like two pairs of socks, and toe-capped boots. No coat, but I’d only have had to ditch that anyway – coats slow you down. I’m certainly waking up a lot more prepared than I used to. Time was, I’d come to face down on a frosty lawn, wearing only a ratty old nightie and bed socks. Try fighting ninjas when you’re dressed like that. No, really. And just in case you still haven’t caught on, get that image of Jennifer Garner right out of your head – me in skimpies isn’t going to vamp or beguile anyone, not even a carnally-unsatisfied ninja. Nauseate – very possibly; but ninjas are plenty formidable already, without the added peril of flying ninja spew. Not that I want to give you the impression it’s always ninjas: I’m just using them as an example. I don’t think it’s ninjas tonight. I don’t know what it is, not yet, but it doesn’t feel like ninjas. Somewhere in my brain, that blasted pre-signal staccato kicks in again – and I await my instructions. But it’s too early. Damned esoteric static. Sometimes I wish they could just write me a letter.

Still none the wiser, I move forward through the pines, pausing every few steps to give it the full 360, and to listen. Nothing, still nothing. Just the wind, the drip DRIP-drip drip, and the slight suck of my boots in the quaggy mulch. Gradually the woods unfold, and the pines give way to other, older trees: twisted sycamore and imposing oak, their leaves fallen with the season, crisping and curling at my feet; the peeled-paint bark of a skeletal birch; a huge, just-berried holly. Unruly brambles tangle the undergrowth spotted with shrivelled blackberries even the birds won’t fly down to eat, and I find myself wishing – as I so often do – that I was home in my bed, unaware. Safe in that other life, oblivious to the substance of the world and my true role in it. Asleep. What sort of existence is it when in your moments of greatest clarity, you wish only for blissful ignorance?

The sound of the baby flips the switch from introspection, and I’m back in the moment: the dark, soul-cold night, the drip-drip drip DRIP drip-waaaaaaaah! I follow the wail up a slope and hurdle a huge, rotting trunk, dragged down by its own ancient weight. There’s a stream cackling somewhere below, and up ahead I catch the first glints of life: the flames of torches, and the low, earnest chant.

“Ad gloriam, ad majorem Azrael gloriam. Ad gloriam, ad majorem Azrael gloriam. Ad gloriam…”

Cultists. It had to be bloody cultists, didn’t it? And Azrael? What the hell are they doing invoking Azrael? Like he’s going to give any kind of shit about them. White robed, Halloween-masked amateurs. White robes! Out here in the middle of a sinking forest. I bet their wives love them. I can see the commercials now. “My robes were always filthy after a night of ritual sacrifice – until I discovered ‘Cult! Automatic’. Guaranteed to fetch out all ground-in forest-sacrifice stains like mud, berries, and virgin’s blood. Abaddon recommends NEW ‘Cult! Automatic’.”

Seriously – anything but cultists. Ninjas, zombies, CEO’s, admen – anything. I feel my last meal come rolling back up my throat and wonder what it might have been. Something spicy, obviously. Something I wouldn’t even touch in my right mind. If you can call this my right mind.

For a moment I freeze. It’s overwhelming:

“Ad gloriam, ad majorem Azrael gloriam. Ad gloriam…”

Drip drip DRIP-drip drip DRIP drip-drip…”

Waaaaaaah!

Then above all that I hear that old dissonant pulse come breaking through on my wavelength… and after all this time, I know how it goes – I’ve guessed my orders long before they’ve even been sent.

“Protect the child.”

Everything else falls away, and at last I have clarity. Out in the clearing, the leader of the cult steps up to the altar, cradling the baby like a plastic-smile Nativity Joseph. At last I can see the sky – no moonlight after all, just an oppressive, damping drizzle. The chanting builds, and moisture sizzles on the cultists’ torches. Then someone steps forward with a silver dagger – that’s what I hate most about cultists: they’re all so blasted cliché. Just once I’d like to see one of them bring forth a machete, nunchucks, or a Heckler & Koch. Something to surprise me. Something that shows at least a little damned imagination!

“Hear us, Azrael!” shouts the main man, and all the rest go silent. He lays the mewling infant on the wet stone of the altar, then folds back the hood of his robe. And I let my mind do its thing. It’s a dozy Saturday afternoon and he’s on his way to pick up the kids from the ice rink, but he stops off at Woolworths on the way. Flips through the Halloween masks ‘til he settles on the one he’s wearing now. The one that suits him best. His wife’s told him not to be late – they’re meeting the Armitages for dinner – and he’s told her she’ll have to book an early table: there’s a lodge meeting tonight. Must remember to set the video for Strictly Come Dancing…

It helps me to remember that most of the time my enemies are just as dull as the rest of us. Even ninjas scratch their arses when they think no-one’s looking. Dismiss their intrinsic humanity and you bestow on them a significance they haven’t earned, and an intimidation that would be paralysing under circumstances like this. Imagine them scrubbing the stains out of their silly white cowls, or losing out on a parking space to some wattle-necked fogey in a 4X4, and any sense of menace just pales away. Then you can act.

As I move round the edge of the clearing, getting as close to the baby as I can without drawing attention to myself, I watch the leader take the dagger in his palms and hold it up to the cold cinder sky. Another worthless invocation, like a teenager reciting ‘Candyman’ in front of a candlelit mirror. Then he grips the hilt with both hands and angles the blade down, his eyes rolling back – and with a low, guttural howl, he…

…goes down like a million different boxers, shipwrecks, and hookers, in a library full of metaphors.

Something I might not have mentioned about my strange, quack-confounding condition is the ability I possess, when awake and myself (as opposed to that other person who shares my waking hours) to induce certain, sudden, sleep-related afflictions in others. The scope is limited – I couldn’t just make this whole lunatic congregation catch z’s as one whilst making off with their nappy-rash sacrifice – more’s the pity – but I can certainly snooze out their budget airline Charlie Mansun mid-infanticide and cause enough of a kerfuffle amongst his flock to distract from my big entrance.

And so I break from the trees, cut through a gap that’s formed in the stupefied crowd, vault the altar, make like the baddie from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and keep on going out the other side where a boot-worn path leads away from the clearing and back to whatever kind of civilization these cultist clowns call home. Tending to their cataleptic principal, the brothers are slow to react. It helps too that unlike most of them, I need no Halloween mask to engender shock and disgust: the face I was born with is more than enough. The child shrieks back over my shoulder, its waaaaah like a flare through the trees behind me. A trail even sheep like these can follow – and follow they do, faster and more determined than I’d anticipated. This limits my options. Stick to the path and they’ll be on me in minutes. I don’t have enough sleep left to put them all down: I could probably manage another two or three right now, but there had to be at least twenty in that clearing. Stand and fight? That’d be the plan if I didn’t also have the baby to defend. Too risky, as is. Get the child to shut its yap? In thirty years of life, I’ve developed more social graces and dinner party etiquette than I have maternal instincts (yet I only ever dine out at KFC, and even then, by myself) so I wouldn’t have the first idea whether it’s crying because it needs to be burped, wants its bottle, or is flat out terrified of the scary-looking midget lady who just abducted it from the nice, boogly-eyed, child-executioners. Perhaps if I’d ever considered the possibility of an eligible male approaching me to do anything more than stub out his cigarette… But physicality aside, the fact that my waking hours brim almost entirely with running, punching, screaming, and fighting, there’s no time left for romantic assignations anyway, not even with the odious and desperate. (It should also be noted that the majority of men I come into contact with end up trying to kill me one way or another – and the same goes for women, should I ever choose to consider the Sapphic alternative.)

Whilst this all ploughs through my mind, the pursuant cultists are gaining ground, and I realise now that there’s only one option left: get off the path. I’m fully aware of the risk – trips and tangles and branches that’ll hook out an eye and leave it dangling like a bird feeder, but I’m taking the chance these hazards will be far more likely to impede my robe-dragging shadows.

At first this goes entirely according to plan, as the closest of them fall back, stumbling and snagging and forced to cast away their vestments for their chase to continue. I’ve brought the baby to my chest now, shielding its eyes from the scratches, grasps and snarls, whilst keeping my own to the ground, dodging octopus roots and leaping moss-gutted logs, before sprinting up a mud-slippery slope that leads along the edge of an abrupt shale banking. One foot wrong and I’m thirty feet below in a petulant stream – or maybe it’s a river – it’s loud enough anyway to be audible over the thumping-panting-pounding of my heart and my feet and my head, and the siren in my arms. Behind me – disrobed now and unmasked (beneath their smocks, they’re dressed as sensibly as me) – the cultists are drawing closer still, and organising too. Shouts go out and I know they’re dispersing – taking two, three, four different routes to the same destination, circling to ensnare.

At the top of the rise I scatter a wet drift of leaves, and from nowhere an awful image shoves into my mind: a bescarfed November afternoon, lovers in the park, hand in hand and kicking through the late Autumn tumblings. And it fills me with such an ache, such an intense clench of sadness – self-pity, maybe, but when you’ve only got yourself, what other kind is there? – that I almost let them catch me. Kill me. What does it matter? What does any of it–?

That’s when they come at me, two from the left and one from behind, crashing out of the dead ferns and swiping through the low slung branches of a lime. I dodge and kick like somewhere, someone’s hammering on a joystick, and send one of them immediately rolling backwards down the banking. I hear him scream, and a snap I hope is more than just another twig. The other two hesitate – gender and size always leads my opponents towards underestimation, and I always use that in my favour. Swapping the child from arm to arm, I grab for the nearest weapon: a fallen branch shaped like a hod-carrier’s arm. Then I hear the sound of running, and furious voices calling more of them this way, and the baby screams louder than ever, and I know this is getting desperate. So I close my eyes, and I concentrate. Tap into the sleep – all that I have left – and use it the best way I can. In the crook between arm and breast, the baby goes quiet.

Now I can think. My opponents trade glances. They know there’s something not right this. About the freak that stands before them. More than just her car crash face and her stunted, nigh on hunchbacked gait. More than the fact that she’s out here in the middle of god knows where, 3am, crashing their flock and making off with their lamb. I imagine them talking it over, later in the pub. A pint of bitter and a pint of cider. A packet of cheese and onion split on the table before them. Trying to put it into words: this feeling they’re having right now, like they’re in the presence of someone… something other. Something far beyond their own feeble dogma – something that makes them question everything they’re doing, everything they are.

And then I hear the shouts again, closer than ever, and I can see the light of their torches come flickering up the rise. And so I turn, and I sprint back to the edge of the steep shale banking, and I jump. Putting my faith in a power they’ll never understand: praying for a deep and swift-flowing river… not just a stream.

*** *** *** ***

Hours later, sodden but safe, I book myself and my charge into
a Travelodge on the edge of a still-drowsy retail park. The girl behind the desk gives us a look like maybe she ought to ask questions – but she’s seventeen, her boyfriend’s a dick, and they’re not paying her enough to give a toss. Once in the room, I bathe, dry, and swaddle the child (it sleeps throughout), then shower the chill out of my own body. I can’t risking sleeping, not ‘til this is over, so I drink all the coffee sachets the hotel has provided, then call down for more. I know it won’t be much longer, and it isn’t. Soon enough there’s a knock at the door and I know my part is done. Someone else will take it from here: that’s how it always happens.

My name is Susie Chernobyl, and this was the day I saved the life of The Snake Baby. The Iniquitous Wretch. The Perpetual Mockery. The Scarlet Nesbiros. And now I can sleep.