Free short stories to get your teeth into.

Mist covered the lake like a blanket, seeping over the bank to cloud the edge of the woods. The sun was still low, lining the horizon in a shade of burnt-orange, blurred and indistinct.

Marcia loved mornings like this. She inhaled deeply, ignoring the small voice of warning in her head telling her the damp air was probably no good for her. It felt good. That was all that mattered.

The leaf litter, scattered twigs and other natural debris felt pleasantly spongy under her booted foot. Marcia’s pace was slow, relaxed, taking in the early morning. Cooper had raced ahead of her, drawn to a large log; the remains of a tree that had fallen long ago and had itself become a habitat for small creatures. He was snuffling around its base, his glossy red coat gleaming as he trembled with excitement, tail wagging. She smiled at his enthusiasm, giving vent to a sudden yawn that caught her by surprise.

Losing interest, Cooper pricked his ears at something beyond her hearing. He bounded along the worn pathway, determined to find whatever had caught his attention.

A sheet of fog from the lake divided them, all at once obscuring Marcia’s vision so completely that she stopped in her tracks. It hung like a physical wall, blocking her progress. Unsettled, Marcia took her hands from her pockets, ducking her head side to side in a bid to see past it.

“Cooper!” she shouted, her cry harsh and offensive against the silence of the woods, “Cooper!”

She could just step through the mist. Yet all her instincts were telling her not to, nor to even touch it, if it could be avoided. For a heart-stopping moment, Marcia thought she had lost the dog. Irrational, she knew; he rarely came back on the first calling, or even the second, but she didn’t like the sense that he had somehow gone somewhere she couldn’t follow.

“Cooper!” she shouted a third time, a touch of panic to her tone.

Then, as quickly as it had formed, the mist dissolved, allowing her to see once again. Cooper came bounding back along the path towards her, tail high, eyes bright, apparently undisturbed and unconcerned. He stopped at her feet and sat, looking up at her hopefully.

Marcia laughed, brushing off her unease. It was the mist from the lake, nothing more, it was just especially thick this morning. She dipped her hand in her pocket, bringing out a treat which she tossed to the waiting dog. Cooper, expectations met, went back to his exploring.

Movement, out on the lake. The mist too dense to see clearly, the sun too low to illuminate it, Marcia sensed rather than saw the motion. She turned to face the lake full on, aware that her feet had begun to feel almost icy cold within the confines of her cosy boots. She ignored it. Someone was out there, on the water.

She stood stock still, staring intently. Here and there were clear patches, though irregular and fleeting. Through them, Marcia thought she caught sight of a figure in a boat, before the mist closed again, leaving her wondering if she had imagined it.

Of course she had. No one in their right mind would be out on the lake this early, in these conditions. It would be sheer stupidity; madness, even. She was no expert, but even she knew that an apparently still, serene lake held hidden dangers for the uneducated and the unwary.

The narrow prow of a small boat nudged the bank, coming out of nowhere. In it, a tall figure stood erect, not losing balance even a fraction as the boat bumped to a halt.

Marcia screamed aloud, stumbling backwards. The mist around the boat had melted away completely, shrinking back over the lake just as Marcia shrunk back in shocked surprise.

The figure on the boat lifted two hands to the hood that shrouded its face, pulling the cloth down.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump.” It was the falsest apology Marcia had ever heard, the speaker’s voice laden with sarcasm.

“What are you playing at?” Marcia demanded, turning her fear into anger, “Of course you made me jump! You scared the life out of me!”

The woman in the boat laughed, the sound low and cold, “Cleary not,”

Marcia frowned, nothing humorous in the situation as far as she was concerned. She looked the woman over. It was her; the newcomer. She had moved into what had once been the old barn, now renovated and converted into a small, quirky property. Everyone called it the Upside-Down House, its bedrooms and bathrooms being on the ground floor, the kitchen and living areas upstairs. It had served some time as a holiday rental, but it hadn’t lasted, the owner packing everything up and putting a For Sale sign out front after less than a year. No one ever found out why, they had simply assumed the market wasn’t what it once was, that the house wasn’t making its money back. It had stood empty for quite some time afterwards.

Until the newcomer. The current owner of the Upside-Down House stood before her; long, dark hair coiling around her neck and shoulders in thick strands, piercing green eyes intent on Marcia. Neither beautiful nor ugly, she was very average-looking. Normal, Marcia concluded. Except for her figure. She was long-legged, slender limbs encased in loose-fitting jeans, the feet hidden in the well of the boat. The baggy hoody was zipped up over an obviously slim frame, flaring gently at the hip. The shapeless clothes hid the woman’s bodyline to some extent, yet her body language exuded lithe assuredness. Marcia felt a twinge of envy.

The woman. Marcia realised she didn’t even know her name. Ever since she had become the source of gossip amongst the tiny population that lived in the surrounding cottages, she had been referred to always as ‘the woman’ or ‘that woman.’ This was Marcia’s chance to learn something concrete about the stranger, something she could be the first to share amongst her neighbours.

“What are you doing out on the lake at this time of the morning?” Marcia tried to make her voice sound normal, uncomfortably aware that the whole scene was an odd one.

The woman didn’t answer, just stood stock still, unmoved by the gentle rocking of the boat. Her stare was so intense, so unflinching that Marcia had to look away, her skin crawling under such a blatant appraisal. All at once, finding out the newcomer’s name didn’t seem so important.

“Lilith,” the woman said out of nowhere, making Marcia jump again.

“What?” her voice a breath on the air.

“My name is Lilith,” the woman repeated, “You wanted to know,”

Marcia’s brow furrowed, trying to remember if she had asked the question out loud, certain she hadn’t. This place, always so soothing and reassuring to her, at once seemed a dark and lonely place to be, especially in Lilith’s company.

Using Cooper for an excuse to turn away, Marcia began calling the dog in a shrill, high voice that was not her own. She paused, waiting to hear the crash of undergrowth as Cooper made his crazy way back to her.

Nothing; the woods, the pathway, the lake all seemed devoid of natural life, even the birdsong falling silent. There came no response at all to her calling.

Still standing in the boat, Lilith laughed again. A cold fear forming in Marcia’s chest, she turned her attentions back to the woman.

“Who is Cooper?” Lilith enquired, a sly smile on her sensuous lips, as if she already knew the answer to the question.

“My dog,” It sounded pathetic; like a child overawed by a grown-up. Marcia set her shoulders back, determined to reassert herself, “My dog, Cooper. He’s a Red Setter,” she added unnecessarily.

“Ah,” Lilith said, the boat moving softly from the bank as if someone had punted it away, though Lilith hadn’t moved an inch, “a bit like this one?”

She stood aside, performing a graceful gesture with one hand, allowing Marcia to see Cooper standing in the well of the boat behind her. He looked back at her with imploring eyes, tail tucked between his legs submissively.

“What? How the hell? How did he get there? Let him off please, give him back,”

“Sorry,” Lilith said, insincerity once again lacing her words, “We’re on the water now,”

The boat continued to drift, inching slowly away.

“I don’t think so!” At last, Marcia could hear real forcefulness in her own words, all trace of the little girl gone. There was no way this woman was going anywhere with her dog, least of all out onto the lake, “Fuck that!” she shouted, “You get that boat back here and you let my dog off, right now!”

“Or what?” Lilith challenged.

Marcia couldn’t believe her ears. How had this come about? It was as if they were a pair of teenagers, indulging in a childish, pointless dispute.

At a loss, Marcia pulled her phone out of her back pocket. Selecting the ‘Record,’ option, she held the phone up, filming the boat moving slowly off; it was definitely doing so of its own accord, perhaps caught in a surface current. Keeping the phone held high, Marcia glanced away from the screen to check the water. There was no disturbance to the lake other than the break caused by the boat. There was definitely no motor powering it, just as there no one else aboard to row. As she watched it on the tiny screen it slewed sideways, showing her its name; Futility.

Again, she looked away from the on-screen image to look at the reality. The boat was drifting in the shallows, less than six, maybe ten feet away. She could wade out, grab the side and hope that Cooper would come to her when she got there.

She had no idea what Lilith might do to stop her. The woman was obviously nuts. Either that or she was just plain sadistic, enjoying Marcia’s discomfort. It was clear she was out to pick a fight, eager to piss Marcia off. Why, Marcia had no idea.

She experienced a pang of panic as the mist began to close around the boat, threatening to conceal it from Marcia’s sight altogether. Desperate, she shouted, “I’ve got you on camera! You don’t let Cooper go right now, you’re going to have the police to deal with!”

“No you haven’t,” came Lilith’s cool response.

Confused, Marcia said, “Haven’t what? What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t caught me on camera. Just check,” The boat came to an abrupt stop, giving Marcia time to check her phone.

Hands trembling, Marcia keyed in the pads to get the video to replay. Nothing but a minute or so of flickering blackness showed upon the screen. Unnerved, Marcia looked up.

“What is going on here?”

“Justice,” Lilith said flatly.

Justice? Marcia tucked her useless phone away, putting her hands on her hips, helping her adopt an air of bravado. Now who’s being false? she thought to herself.

“What do you mean, justice?” She noticed that whilst she kept Lilith talking, both the boat and the mist fell still. Perhaps she could persuade the crazy bitch out of stealing her dog before he became dinner, or a hat, or a lifelong partner; or whatever the hell else she had planned.

“I mean exactly as I say; justice. A fair reckoning,”

Silence fell; Marcia at a loss for words, Lilith apparently feeling no need for them. Scared the boat would begin to drift away again, Marcia had to blink a couple of times to be sure her eyes were not deceiving her.

Lilith’s clothes were changing. The cheap, plain hoody unzipped itself and fell to the floor of the boat, revealing the slender body Marcia had suspected was there all along. A long, elegant neck led to a pair of firm, shapely breasts, they in turn leading into a toned and sculpted stomach. It would perhaps have been a beautiful sight, were it not for the blueish tinge to the flesh, coupled with the twisted lines of cartilage that snaked out from the band of Lilith’s jeans up into her torso, trailing away to nothing on the surface of her skin. Black lines formed patterns like roots, as if they were trying to reach those breasts, to twist and writhe their way over them, too.

Marcia’s mouth hung open, her throat drying as the chilly atmosphere sought to invade it. Her mind, refusing to acknowledge the abnormal, settled on the mundane instead. ‘No one normal paid out good money for tattoos like that,’ Marcia thought. They did nothing to beautify the body and everything to spoil it. Those black tendrils looked like corruption…

She snapped her mouth shut, swallowing hard a few times. Behind Lilith, Cooper had sunk to all fours, his ears laid back against his head, his eyes wide. She could barely see him over the wooden seat that stretched across the boat’s width.

“You want him, come and get him.” Lilith said, an unmistakable challenge, “I know you talk about me, you cursed land-walkers. I know the things you say, I see how you look at me,”

So that was it. The crazy bitch was out for revenge, just because Marcia and a few others spoke a word or two about her behind her back.

“Land-walkers? What are you, some kind of water dwelling nymph?” Marcia was openly mocking, “Are you for real?”

“More real than you would ever want to know,”

Marcia shivered, sensing she was straying into dangerous territory, “You’re stealing my dog because you think I talked about you?”

“I don’t think; I know,”

“And that’s why you’re doing this? Really? My dog never did anything to you!”

“Just as I never did anything to you,” Lilith’s eyes were hard.

Sensing Lilith’s mood darkening, Marcia tried a different tack, “Look, whatever I may or may not have said about you, I never meant it to hurt or offend you, okay? If I did, I apologise. Now give me my dog back, please,”

Lilith appeared to muse over her words, cocking her head as if thinking it over, “Why hasn’t he just jumped overboard to swim back to you? They are good swimmers, aren’t they, dogs? I am not holding him here against his will, nothing is chaining him down. Why doesn’t he simply come to you?”

Marcia hesitated. It was a good question. She glanced at Cooper again, still hunkered down, terrified, in the back of the boat. Maybe the unnatural sensation of being on water, coupled with the mist and the cold, was too much for him. He’d never been in a boat before.

Or maybe he hadn’t expected to find himself on the boat and, like Marcia, was wondering how he’d got there in the first place. She couldn’t find anything to explain that. She hadn’t seen Cooper anywhere near the boat, nor even in the water. Yet there he was, firmly aboard.

Maybe this strange woman was scaring the shit out of him as much as she was scaring Marcia.

Marcia considered her choices. There was no way she was going anywhere for help. She knew instinctively that if she turned her back the woman, the boat and the dog would be gone, and she would have no idea where. She had a feeling that a search of the Upside-Down House, if she could even muster one legally or otherwise, would reveal nothing. It would be too late for Cooper by then, she just knew it.

He wasn’t great at coming back on command. As obviously scared as he was, it might be even harder to get him to comply. She could strip down to her underwear and brave the waters, see if she could grab both Cooper and the edge of the boat and pull him forcibly out of it if he didn’t come at her call. She didn’t relish the idea.

She looked at Lilith, standing tall and intimidatingly strong despite her obvious femininity. If the woman put up a fight, Marcia knew she couldn’t overcome her. In the water, one hand on Cooper, she was an easy target. A whack to the face from an oar would be enough to finish her off.

Except there were no oars that she could see. She wondered if Lilith was capable of actual violence. Her supple frame concealed subtle muscle, sitting comfortable and ready beneath her flesh. The look in her eyes, the set of her body, told Marcia that yes, Lilith was capable all right.

Resigned, Marcia unbuttoned her coat, letting it fall around her feet, hands already busy at the buttons on her shirt. She looked around, considering finding a stick hefty enough to use as a weapon if need be. She soon abandoned the idea. Anything in her hands would slow her down and render her clumsy. She didn’t want to fight. All she wanted was to get Cooper safely back, put him on his lead and get home fast.

She kicked off her boots and socks, dropping her jeans, shivering as her warm skin met the cold. She would never speak ill of this woman again, beyond reporting her to the authorities and telling the neighbours she was a potential danger. Her feet sank into the mud of the bank, oozing thickly between her toes.

The very air seemed to freeze in anticipation, the mist creating a marled pattern against the amber glow of the sun as it rose. Lilith had become even more statue-like, watching Marcia with keen interest.

Her skin prickling under the woman’s gaze, Marcia dipped a toe into the water. It was frigid, near icy, her skin puckering at its touch. That couldn’t be right. It should be cold, yes, but not mid-winter cold.

“You said to come and get him if I want him. You’ll give him to me when I get there?”

“If you get here, yes,”

“If?”

Lilith ignored her, watching for her next move. Marcia swore under her breath, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,”

She stepped more fully into the water, gritting her teeth at the pain the cold brought with it. The sensation of sinking into the bed of the lake, small wriggling things squirming at her invasion, made her feel instantly nauseous. Her skin reacted, the flesh rising, goose-bumps covering her like a pox.

The water lapped gently, sending enquiring wavelets higher up her leg. Committed now, Marcia took another tentative step forward, trying not to flinch as pondweed crawled across her skin like wet spider legs. When it reached her crotch she gasped aloud, paddling at the water as if to move it away.

Once free of the reeds and weeds that bordered it, Marcia could see clearly the bed of the lake beneath her. Determining where she would next place her foot, dreading the feel of the water on her stomach, she took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Expecting it to reach no higher than her abdomen, Marcia plunged instead into deep water, the lake-bed disappearing beneath her, any kind of foothold far below. Taken by surprise, she went under once, twice; her breath stolen both by the cold and the shock.

When she came up, her hair was plastered to her scalp and face, her vision yet again obscured. She coughed and spluttered, fighting not to give in to panic, her frenzied splashing slowing as she began to tread water.

Futility was even further away than when she had first stepped into the water. It took her a moment to realise that she was seeing it unimpeded by the mist. She could see all the way across the lake; an oddly serene, hauntingly beautiful landscape.

She looked up. The mist was still there; it had simply risen to form a roof over the lake, hanging there like a solid thing. Marcia had never seen anything like it. It gave the unsettling impression that it might fall at any moment to physically strike her, closing her down like a lid on a box.

She shivered, a wracking convulsion that left her body aching. Praying she would not succumb to cramp, Marcia turned her attentions back to the boat. Cooper was standing now, watching her eagerly, his agitation obvious. Lilith did not appear to have changed position other than to turn her head Marcia’s way.

“You damn well better come when I call you,” Marcia muttered through chattering teeth. Hoping the dog would survive the shock of the water as she towed him back to shore, she struck out with a determined overarm stroke, generating some small warmth from the action.

She didn’t dare stop, even though her limbs soon felt heavy and cumbersome. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that the lake here was bottomless. A yawning eternity waiting below, just willing her to weaken and pause, when it would suck her down into its irredeemable depths.

She was almost at the boat. She could see Cooper looking down at her hopefully, the merest trace of a wag in his tail. The name of the boat loomed large in front of her. Two more strokes and she’d be there. If she had her way, that bitch Lilith would soon be in the water and she would be rowing back to shore, not a hair on Cooper’s glossy, red back so much as damp.

She stretched outward and upward simultaneously, aiming for the side of the boat. Her plans now changed, she would not pull Cooper out, she would haul herself aboard. Lilith had wanted to piss her off and she had succeeded. Let the dice fall where they may.

Looking forward to feeling solid wood in her grip, Marcia was flummoxed when her hand found only air. She plunged clumsily head forwards, once again forced to tread water as she reoriented herself.

Futility was not where it should have been. She spun in the water, trying to locate the boat.

It was sitting in the centre of the lake, a good way out of reach, so still and unmoving it could have been a painting.

“What is going on here?” Marcia spluttered, spitting out small mouthfuls of bitter water.

Something slithered around her ankles, coiling loosely round her foot before trailing away. Marcia cried out, tucking her knees up. There were fish in the lake she knew, eels and other creatures too. It must have been an eel; that was it. Except Marcia couldn’t rid herself of the notion that whatever had brushed against her, had done so with a thousand tiny feet. She shuddered, a fresh wave of cold coursing her body. She couldn’t last much longer in the water. She had to make a decision: either get to the boat fast and not let it escape this time or go back to the bank and get warm.

She should call for help. It was obvious to her now. She didn’t know what had possessed her to get into the water when she had her phone to hand and could have called someone, but that was exactly what she was going to do next. The police, a good friend, anyone who would come first and ask questions later.

Something so light and fleeting it could have been a dream traced its way down Marcia’s inner thigh. As it writhed away, a sharp edge, fine as a blade of grass, sliced a thin, deep incision into her skin. Marcia gasped, dismayed to see her own blood seeping into the water, mixing with it in twisting coils before diluting to nothing.

Her mind made up, she spun, heading for the bank as fast as she could, her chest heaving with the effort. Her thigh was stinging even through the numbing effect of the water. She tried to focus on the bank, on her boots and clothes where they lay discarded.

Her head spun, suddenly dizzy. She stopped striking out, so sick to her stomach she was afraid she would vomit into the water. Her eyes filled with fluid, weeping and blinding her yet again. When at last the nausea passed and her eyes had ceased their welling, she looked up to find the bank had gone.

She must have turned when she was trying not to be sick, had somehow changed direction when she was trying to clear her eyesight. She spun in a slow circle, expecting to find the bank ahead of her at any moment.

Nothing in front of her but the lake, its grey waves lapping gently. No sign even of the boat.

A cold sweat broke out on Marcia’s brow, a lump forming in her throat. This wasn’t just a misty lake and a crazy woman, this was something else completely. Something she wished she’d never become part of.

Her teeth had begun to chatter, there was a tinge of pale blue to her skin. She had to get out of the water, even if it wasn’t at the spot where she’d left her clothes. Even if it meant walking home in nothing but her underwear.

Even if it meant leaving Cooper.

She started out in a cautious breast stroke, her eyes wide, alert for any sign of movement. For anything that looked like the edge of the lake where she could haul herself back onto dry land.

The water eddied around her, creating a sound that she once would have found calming. Now, every muted swoosh brought with it a sense of alarm, that she was signalling her position to anything that might care to find her.

It took her a few seconds to comprehend that the mist had begun to descend, the air around her becoming at first smoky, before thickening to a dense whiteness. Visibility reduced to absolute zero, the weird mist halting about an inch or two above the water. This time, fear and panic joined forces, assaulting her so fully that she could hardly breathe. Not daring to continue, Marcia halted her breast stroke, bobbing helplessly in the water. A single, hot tear found a way down her clammy to cheek to drop soundlessly into the water.

There was an immediate flick of a large tail. Whatever the creature was, it sank down into the depths too fast for Marcia to identify it. All she knew, from the span of its tail fins, was that it was big.

Horrified, Marcia struck out blindly, hoping her actions weren’t a draw to any predatory animals, not that she had known there were any. She had never heard stories of giant catfish or other such creatures around here. Besides, the shape of that tail was all wrong for such a fish.

Whatever it was, she hoped it was gone. Her wound was still emitting watery strings of blood, made worse whenever she kicked that leg. She had no choice but to keep going; she could only hope that sooner or later her fingers would settle upon something solid.

Something sliced the underside of her left foot, from the tip of her big toe to the base of her heel. Deep, hard and precise. This time, Marcia screamed, the sound absorbed by the fog. She knew without looking that this wound was far worse than the first; hot, searing pain engulfing her foot, billows of blood contaminating the water.

She began to cry, sobbing and choking back mouthfuls of water as she tried clumsily to carry on swimming. She felt a ticking sensation across her bare belly. Sucking her stomach in, at once terrified that whatever had cut her foot open meant to cut her there, too, she was close to giving into her fear when her hand hit something hard.

She grabbed at it like a mad woman, her fingernails sinking into wet mud. Weak with relief, she used what was left of her strength to heave herself up and safely out of the water.

She lay flat on the bank, panting with exertion, her ribs sore, her foot agony, sobbing helplessly. She had begun to lose hope of ever seen Cooper again. As for Lilith, if she never laid eyes on her again it would be too soon.

She needed something to bind her foot. It was bleeding profusely, a thick, deep red puddle forming in the brown soil. She sat up and looked around for something she could use.

She was on the edge of a thickly wooded copse. There was nothing but trees, shrubs and plants. All useless.

The only thing that was remotely useful, that could be applied bandage-like, were the two remaining items of clothing she was wearing. Her bra or her pants.

Marcia looked down at her foot, the throbbing intense, the blood still oozing freely. She couldn’t bear the prospect of removing her pants, it felt somehow wrong. It had to be the bra.

“Oh God,” Marcia sobbed as she undid the clasp, grateful that she had at least chosen a cotton one that morning, that might be some use for absorbing the blood. Trying to position it so that that the cotton cups, wet as they were, were over the worst of the cut, she wound the back straps around it as many times as she could, stretching the fabric tight and using the hooks and eyes to secure it in place. When it was done, she lay back gasping. Sapped of much of her strength, she knew she couldn’t lie there and let the cold and her tiredness win. Struggling to her feet, she saw she would have to forge a way through the bushes, there being no trail or pathway for her to follow.

The minute she set her foot on the ground, a fresh shock of pain travelled up her leg, crippling her. She bent double, wrapping her arm about her bare breasts, feeling horribly vulnerable. She hobbled into the foliage, pushing the leaves and branches aside one-handed, numerous tiny scratches, stings and itches dotting her nakedness as the plants protested at her intrusion.

It felt an age before she was finally free of the dense growth, stepping into a clearer patch of more thinly planted trees. Pausing to lean against one, Marcia lifted her foot to inspect the cut. The bra cups were already sodden with blood, covered in mud and leaf debris, the cloth hanging loosely from her foot. She loosened the straps and bound them around her foot one more time, stretching the fabric so tight that a few stitches gave. Re-fastening it as best she could, she scanned the ground for a branch long enough to use as a cane. She found one up ahead, surprisingly smooth to the touch, slightly longer than she needed, but it would help her walk.

By her reckoning, since she had just climbed out of the lake behind her, then all she needed to do was keep going forward. At some point, she would have to hit the road dissecting the woods, leading to the car park where so many others like her abandoned their vehicles for the sanctuary of the trees. It would be heavy going, but the road couldn’t be far off now. Failing that, she would emerge onto the car park itself or onto the rough trail she and Cooper had been loosely following through the woods. All she had to do then was grab her clothes and her keys and get back to the safety of the car.

A few times, Marcia put a protective arm across her chest at what she thought was the sound of a vehicle approaching. Each time, it turned out to be nothing more than the wind in the trees; endless trees that had not yet broken to expose the road or trail. If she looked directly up, she saw the sun had well and truly risen, blinking her eyes at its brightness. Yet down here, in the woods, the strange amber glow that had greeted the early morning still held sway.

Marcia sensed a change coming. The trees had once more begun to thicken, leading into more dense and scratching foliage. She used the stick to help battle her way through this time, her tender, swollen foot agony whenever she rested it on tip-toes to take a step, the only part of it that could still tolerate being set down.

Hope building, she stepped clear of the last overhanging branch, to find she was once more at the lake’s edge.

She stood in stunned silence, taking in the scene. The mist over the water, the faint, plaintive cry of some water bird, the gentle lapping of water as it met land.

“But how?” she murmured aloud, “I don’t understand how,” as if there was someone there to answer her question.

Something to her right creaked; not the natural sound of wood bending to the breeze, but a more obvious noise somehow. She turned to see a signpost, the kind made of rough arrows nailed into a post, like in a kid’s cartoon. There were three arrows on it, two of them bare. One bore a logo depicting a thick black arrow pointing firmly at the ground. It read ‘Eris Island.’

Marcia’s heart sank. Eris Island. Understanding dawned, initial despair giving way to sheer anger and frustration.

“An Island? Really? I’m on a fucking island?” She hadn’t even known this lake had an island. In all the years she had been coming here, this was the first she had heard of it.

She was out there somewhere; that evil, twisted thing that called herself Lilith. Marcia knew her words were reaching her, wherever she was.

The mist once again lifted as if picked up as a whole and definite thing, the surface of the lake gleaming in the suddenly bright morning sun. Far across, on the other side, Marcia could just make out the spot where she had first entered the water, her clothes heaped exactly as she had left them.

To the right of that was Futility, in the same spot it had been when Marcia had first set out to reach it.

Lilith’s frank gaze reached across the open water, giving Marcia the feeling she was examining her nakedness even from this distance.

Covering herself as best she could, Marcia scanned her eyes along the boat. No sign of Cooper, unless he was hunkered right down, out of her view. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe Lilith had done him any harm. She couldn’t, otherwise all of this was pointless.

She was exhausted, shivering with pain and cold. Her foot felt huge and heavy, she didn’t like the way it was pulsing. The bra now hanging so loose it was useless, she kicked it off impatiently. It fell into the water with barely more than a light splash.

A coil of something serpentine rose in and out of the water like a smooth, dark wave. It reached the bra before it began to sink, raking it up in a twist of many fingered coils, nails sharp as flint atop each one. They grabbed the bloody cloth with relish, snatching it down into the depths before Marcia had time to process what she had seen.

She stepped away from the edge of the lake, grasping the stick for balance. Whatever that was, it had to have been the creature that had cut her in the water. She thought she could make out long, waving fronds of dark hair and the flick-flack of a wide, silvery tail fin before the sank out of view.

“That’s right, a fucking island,” a cool voice enunciated, mimicking Marcia’s words.

Marcia jumped, forgetting her foot, letting out a howl of pain as it hit the ground hard. For a minute or two she could do nothing but bend double, tensing her whole body against the agony. When it finally subsided, she looked up to see Lilith standing in the boat, its prow gently nudging the shoreline, just as it had been the first time she had laid eyes on it.

Her blood ran cold. Lilith was wearing her bra, complete with bloodied cups and stained, stretched straps.

Not for the first time that morning, hot tears welled in Marcia’s eyes. She didn’t understand any of this.

“Perplexing, isn’t it? When things are not as they seem?”

Marcia tried to concentrate, to make some kind of sense out of Lilith’s words. She would never refer to her as the woman again. She knew now that, whatever Lilith was, it was nothing human.

“I can see you are struggling. Here, let me help you,” Lilith supplied, “I thought this was a small neighbourhood, the kind of place where you land-walkers kept to yourselves, that you would mind your own business and let things be. But no. This place is a denizen of gossips and mischief makers who cannot leave well enough alone. Little devils, all of you,”

“But it was nothing!” Marcia’s voice was barely more than a whisper, “It was just curiosity, that’s all. Just people wondering about the new neighbour, about you. You were always so stand-offish. We just couldn’t understand, we don’t understand…”

Marcia’s voice trailed away to nothing. What was she thinking, trying to argue her case against something so aberrant, so patently supernatural? She had been tried and found wanting, she understood that now.

Lilith bestowed a wide smile upon her; her most convincing yet. “You don’t understand what, Marcia? Why I am such a cold fish?”

Of their own accord, Lilith’s jeans unbuttoned, the zip unlinked. Marcia saw now that the lines of cartilage she had earlier thought a distasteful tattoo, led down into legs the shade of a blackened bruise. The woman was naked beneath her clothes, the dark bruising covering her womanhood. As she looked on, Lilith’s jeans fell away to her feet, dissolving away to nothingness, leaving no trace of their existence.

Except Lilith didn’t have feet. In their place was a single wide, silvery fin. It twitched restlessly as Marcia looked stupidly down at it, mouth agape.

“Now you know,” Lilith said, her tone satisfied and smug, “and before you make any unwise remarks, I suggest you look down,”

Dread covered Marcia, but she did as she was bid, unable to disobey. Her foot had stopped hurting she suddenly noticed. It had turned a shade of deepest black, the very tips of her toes edged in silver. The blackness was spreading even as she watched, etching its way up her calf.

Lilith uttered her soft laugh, “Now you have another choice to make. Stay on the island and die, where my venom will act like a poison; or step into the boat and come with me. It gets lonely on this lake, sometimes. I could use someone to gossip with,”

“I won’t do it! I’ll stay here! Someone will come looking for me sooner or later, there’ll be something they can do about this, even if they have to cut my leg off!”

“By the time anyone comes looking, all that will be left is a corpse so blackened and hollow they will think it a death that happened months, even years, ago. What they will find of you is your clothes in a heap, blank footage on your phone and your dog running loose, looking for you,”

“Cooper? You mean he’s okay?”

“Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be?”

“But you taunted me with him! You told me to come and take him from you!”

“Did I? Ah well, goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything you hear,”

“But he was there! You had him there, I saw him!” Marcia was shrieking, her throat sore with the effort as she pointed into the back of the boat.

Lilith shrugged, “A trick of the light, perhaps. The mist can make a fool of you, it can make you see things that are not really there,”

Marcia sank back, the fight seeping out of her, “How do I know he’s okay?”

“Look for yourself,” Lilith turned to the far bank.

Marcia followed her gaze. Cooper stood there, looking out across the water, his tail wagging, his red coat shining. He began barking crazily, bound to catch someone’s attention sooner or later. Every now and then, he broke off from his noisy tirade to sniff at Marcia’s clothing, snuffling into it as if he was already forgetting her scent.

She had no doubt it was really him. She knew her dog’s body language, his posture, even his bark, so very well. He was safe from harm. The irony did not escape her, that this whole thing had started because she wanted to keep him from danger, yet here she was herself now, firmly in the grip of it.

“Can there not be a third choice? Can’t I chose to live here, on this island, with Cooper?”

“You don’t think that would attract attention sooner or later?”

“Is that why you live like a human, then? In the Upside-Down house?”

“It is why I pretend to live like one, yes. I cannot fulfil my destiny if I am constantly fending off annoying angry mobs or inquisitive loners,”

“The whole thing’s a front?”

Lilith smiled appreciatively, “The whole thing’s a front,” she agreed.

“So I would come and live with you?”

“Oh no, we have other plans for you,” she left it at that, the sentence hanging in the air. Marcia was too scared to ask what she meant by ‘we.’

She looked down at her badly injured leg. The blackness had reached her knee. On the other one, where she had been sliced across the thigh, the corruption was travelling downward as well as up. The thinnest lines of grey were weaving their way up to her hips. It did indeed look like the rotting flesh of a corpse, Marcia noted with dull surprise.

“I have no choice, do I?” she said.

“Of course you do. There is always a choice,”

Marcia looked behind her, at the way she had come. She was standing on an island that didn’t really exist, Lilith’s venom already coursing through her veins. She had the feeling that the agony in her foot had only stopped because of Lilith’s presence. If she chose not to go with her, she was certain she would be wracked with unimaginable pain the second the boat drifted off. She did not want to die like that.

She caught sight of the signpost out of the corner of her eye. Looking at it again, she saw one of the previously bare pointers now had a word inscribed upon it. Fixed directly at the boat, it simply read, ‘Futility.’

Cooper began barking again, the sound both joyous and inquisitive. She took the time to look once more at his beautiful form; his long-legged, reckless gait, the way the sun shone upon him, turning his coat a shade of warm copper.

She looked up at Lilith; cold, hard Lilith, standing unmoving at the prow of the little boat.

“Permission to come aboard?” she asked.

Lilith’s response was many-voiced, deep as the lake, old as time.

“Granted,” it boomed.

*

Alexis was enjoying the brisk pace his gun dogs were setting. Evening was coming on, but at this rate they would soon be back at the car, clear of the woods before night fall.

As he walked, he pondered over Marcia’s apparent suicide. It was inevitable that his thoughts would turn to her, this being the very place they had found her belongings, poor Cooper curled up on top of her jacket, waiting for her return. It hadn’t been difficult, finding such an affable dog a loving new home and by all accounts, he was doing well.

It was sad, Alexis reflected. More than that, it was downright weird. Marcia had been vivaciously alive, exuberant, always ready for a chat. It didn’t seem quite right that she should come out here, abandoning Cooper, the dog she had so adored, to take her own life. They still hadn’t found her body.

Even so, there had been rumours of foul play, some of them even going as far as to speculate over the involvement of the new neighbour in Marcia’s disappearance. There was no real basis for this, other than that the was woman new to the area; and quite strange. She was never at home, not even there when the police had knocked as part of their routine enquiries. Alexis wasn’t even sure they had managed to get hold of her yet. Marcia had disappeared months ago. Between them, the neighbours always referred to it as a disappearance, not a suicide. None of them were convinced.

No, she was an odd one, that woman. A shade too cool, a touch too unreachable. Alexis wouldn’t be that surprised if she was involved somehow.

He became all at once aware that the air had turned deeply cold. He had been looking at the ground, absently watching each booted step he took, deep in thought. When he looked up, he was surprised to find he had walked straight into a wall of dense fog. He stopped in his tracks, the moisture in the air settling in droplets on his shoulders. Beyond, he could hear the baying of his dogs, as if they had smelled out something interesting amongst the trees. Alexis shrugged. It was unexpected, but it was only mist. If he just kept walking, he would soon come out the other side…

S P Oldham

Dana crested the highest of the Tops, the name the locals used for the series of low hills that separated the small rural town she lived in from the village the other side. The gravel crunched softly beneath the wheels of her bicycle. The ground was still wet, raindrops falling silent as tears from the heavily leafed trees flanking the road, such as it was. The sudden downpour she had been caught in had come to an equally abrupt stop.

Overhead, a pale moon showed now and then through the smoke-grey clouds as they drifted. To the west the sky was a darker grey, threatening more rain to come.

Dana rested one foot to the ground, catching her breath. She shuddered; an involuntary action due less to the cold and her sodden clothes clinging to her and more to the shadows that lurked in the surrounding woods.

‘Not far to go’ she told herself. The route from here was mostly downhill, though the road twisted and turned treacherously at points. She knew the way like the back of her hand, could do it blindfolded if she had to. She had been taking this road back to town all of her life. It had never made her feel so uneasy before.

Something moved to her left. She turned, searching the darkness beyond the trees. Logic told her it was probably nothing more than her imagination or a trick of the eye, but her instincts were telling her otherwise. Wasting no more time, she lifted her foot and pedalled hard, taking her over the crest and down, allowing her to freewheel as gravity and momentum did its work.

The ride was far from smooth, loose stones, cracks and bumps in the neglected road rattling both her frame and that of the well-used bike. She swore as an especially jarring bump sent a shockwave up her spine. She tightened her hold on the handlebars, hoping they weren’t too slippery with rain and sweat to make her lose her grip; the last thing she needed now was to come off. Vowing to pass the driving test she had booked for the coming week so she would never have to do this again, she gritted her teeth and ploughed on. Next time she babysat for a family in the village the other side of the hill, she would be coming home in a car.

Small, stinging pellets began peppering her back as she bent to her task, gaining speed as she went. More rain, coming down hard enough to hurt. The droplets bounced as they hit the ground ahead, a drumbeat that quickly became a torrent. The way ahead all at once obscured by a sheet of rainwater, Dana had no choice but to slam on the brakes, simultaneously turning the bike sideways to prevent hurtling over the handlebars. She skidded to a halt, a ridge of sludge forming along the edge of her wheels and the side of her trainers.

She was sure she had felt something pop. Dismayed, she pinched the front wheel, the rubber coarse to the touch. It was flat, losing air rapidly. In her haste to stop, she had punctured the tyre.

Her hair plastered to her head, clothes soaked through, she swung her leg free of the bike and tilted it upright, preparing to wheel it down the hill. She didn’t relish the thought of walking home from here, but riding the bike was impossible now, not to mention dangerous. With a heavy heart, she realised she had no choice.

She began slowly, alarmed at the way her feet were losing their grip, each tread more of a slide than a step. Trying to estimate the closeness of the next turn, Dana twisted the handlebars, directing them straight into the searching tendrils of a shrub. She backed away in shock, the scratchy feel of the foliage through the sleeve of her flimsy jacket unsettling her. She had never known rain as obscuring, as absolute, as this.

Something flitted amongst the trees to her left a second time. Her head jerked round involuntarily, her body responding to the movement before her mind had time to acknowledge it. She was certain it was real this time, not the effects of the rain or anything else. Something was out there.

Fear gripped her, catching in her throat. Clutching at the bike for support she picked up the pace, allowing herself to slide with each step.

Her brain refused to cooperate. As much as she tried to focus only on her descent, nagging questions came from the back of her mind. Who could be out there in this weather? Okay, she was fool enough to be out in it, but in her defence there had been no sign at all of this coming when she had accepted her pay for the evening. Refusing the offer of a lift, able to smell the alcohol on the young father’s breath, she had declined firmly but politely and pulled the front door closed behind her. He was probably safe and warm in bed now, fast asleep, she thought resentfully.

Why would anyone be hiding in the shadow of the trees? Why didn’t they just come forward, make contact? Even if just to express their distaste at the weather?

There was only one reason Dana could think of for why someone hid in the dark and watched from distance, and there was nothing at all friendly about it. He, she, it, meant her harm.

It. Now where had that come from? There were no wild animals in this part of the world. Some kind of escaped, vicious dog would have attacked her long before now. Shaking, she refused to admit to herself what she already believed; that it could be something supernatural, otherworldly.

She felt rather than saw the bend in the road, the one she had misjudged moments ago. She allowed the bike to follow its curve, leaning into it as if it might offer her some comfort.

This time the movement was closer, as if whatever it was grew in confidence. Panicked, Dana began to run, the bike juddering alongside her.

She thought for a moment that it had lost interest, or that she had outrun it. It seemed once more that she was alone in the rain. Then she felt an unmistakable breath of warm air on the back of her neck.

Dana nearly fell to her knees in sheer terror. Whatever it was, it had stepped into the road and was now close enough to simply reach out and touch her.

She screamed, a timid sound that was lost to the elements. She threw the bike aside, nearly tripping over it as it toppled, the pedal whirring gently. She redoubled her efforts, arms pumping. Her legs were leaden, her terror making her clumsy.

A fresh breath of warm air on the exposed skin of her neck. The sensation made her skin crawl. Then another touch, this time of light, bony fingers upon her shoulders…

Light flashed across the canopy of trees across the way. It shifted, like a searchlight, across the green expanse, offering hope. Dana could hear the thrum of an engine working against the incline and the weather; a car was coming.

The hands resting on her shoulders fell away. There was a coldness at her back. Dana understood that whoever had occupied the space behind her only moments before, had gone.

She was so caught up in her relief and anguish, she hadn’t realised she was firmly in the path of the approaching vehicle. With visibility as reduced as this, it was very likely that it would hit her if she didn’t move. She sprinted for the opposite side of the road, determined to flag down the driver and get in, even if it was going the wrong way for her.

Too late. A van turned the corner too fast for the conditions, sending mud flying, the glare of the headlights sweeping across her, blinding her. Dana threw her arm across her eyes, shielding her from the worst of it as she threw herself bodily across the road. Fractionally too slow, the van clipped her knee, taking her legs out from beneath her. The breath was driven from her lungs as she hit the ground, landing with a solid thump on her back.

She lay there, dazed and winded, the rain falling into her face as if attempting to drown her. She coughed painfully, turning onto one side, regretting it immediately as a sharp pain shot through her leg.

For one horrible moment, Dana thought she might be the victim of a hit-and-run, or that the driver hadn’t even realised they’d hit anything at all. The prospect of being left there, lame and defenceless, filled her with dread. She squinted through the downpour, watching the van roll on, hope leaving her. She called for help, though it hurt her chest to do so, the sound swallowed up the moment she made it.

Then, a small miracle. The van stopped, its rear lights blurry, and the driver door opened uncertainly. A head popped out, a hand holding the on to the open door’s handle as whoever it was turned to look behind them.

Bracing herself against the pain, Dana shouted for help again. It seemed she had made herself heard this time, as the head disappeared back into the vehicle briefly before its owner stepped out fully into the rain, a jacket held over his head as he crossed over to where she lay.

The man, bowed over her, creating a hazy sort of aura around him as he blocked out the car’s lights, “Are you all right? Sorry, a foolish question. Can you stand? Here,” He reached out a hand to Dana, who took it gingerly, already knowing her knee would not take her weight. She braced herself, resting the foot of her good leg on the ground as she pushed up. She didn’t get far, letting out a gasp as she fell back heavily, panting with exertion.

“Here, let me help you,” the man said, taking the jacket from over his head to wrap it about Dana’s shoulders. The removal of the jacket revealed a strong face with very defined features, mature yet handsome. His thick, black hair was close-cropped and neat, making him a striking figure. He tucked a hand beneath each arm, “On three, we lift together, all right? One, two, three,” he spoke the last word softly, yet he lifted Dana easily, as if she weighed nothing.

“There,” he said, “Can you make it to the van, do you think, if I take your weight for you?”

“I think so,” Dana said curtly, suddenly aware of how bony the man’s fingers felt, digging into her flesh. She couldn’t help noticing how tall he was, Dana barely reaching his chest.

She was grateful for his sure-footedness, unable now to rest her foot on the ground at all. They reached the van, Dana attempting an awkward sort of hopping movement, the man steering her left, to the passenger side. Through the streaking rain, Dana made out the legend ‘V.P Raime Quality Butchers,’ printed on the van’s side.

The man opened the door and rested Dana gently on the seat, helping her swing her legs around and into the footwell.

“Fasten your seatbelt,” he said, slamming the car door shut, leaving Dana alone for a moment in the interior of the van, the rain pounding on the roof and windows. She leaned back and closed her eyes, allowing a sense of sheer relief to flood her. She wasn’t out of the woods yet, pardon the pun, but her situation had just got a whole lot better, despite the metallic odour of blood that was reaching her nostrils. ‘It’s a butcher’s van,’ she told herself, ‘calm down and stop imagining things.’

The driver door was yanked open and the man ducked in quickly, pulling it shut behind him. Dana followed his advice and clicked the seatbelt into place. He turned to look at her.

“You are all right?” he asked a second time, “No bleeding?”

Something in his tone made Dana uncomfortable, but she couldn’t determine what. She put it down to a mixture of things; fear, panic, her recent experience. In the shelter of the van, she started to wonder if she had imagined the fingers on her shoulder, the breath on her neck as she ran. She had let her situation get the better of her once tonight, she was determined not to give in to panic again.

She forced a smile, “I’m in quite a lot pain, but I’ll be all right, I think. I’m glad you happened to be coming this way,”

“As am I, though I am so sorry I hit you. Talking of which, what are you doing out alone at this time of night? And in this, too,” he gestured at the windscreen and Dana watched as lines of water traced their way down it, to well in the groove at its base.

“I was on my way home. It wasn’t raining when I left,” she was aware that she sounded almost apologetic, as if she had asked for this.

“But it was late, no? When you set out?”

“It was late, yes, I suppose,”

“It is not wise for a young girl to be out alone at night,” the man said, though his tone was more conversational than reprimanding, “especially in so quiet an area. You never know who is around,”

Dana’s sense of unease grew. Something about the man wasn’t quite right. He was just sitting back in his seat, his head almost touching the roof of the car, showing no sign of starting the engine and moving off.

“Can we go now please?” Her voice came to her as child-like in the cavity of the vehicle.

“What is your name?” the man asked. He was looking directly at her, his expression benign, harmless.

“Dana,”

“Dana? A pretty name. You know what it means?”

Dana shook her head. He had seemed concerned for her welfare as she lay in the road, stricken. Now, there was no urgency about him at all. Her knee throbbed gently beneath her sodden clothing.

“Do you have relatives from Denmark?”

Again, Dana shook her head, “I don’t think so,”

“Then it most probably means something like ‘all the most beautiful things together,’ something like that, you know? Just right for a pretty girl like you I think,”

Dana’s heart sank. Had she really escaped the rain and the strange, lurking thing in the woods, only to be delivered into the hands of some kind of pervert with a thing for young girls? The man was more than old enough to be her father.

Unsure what to do, knowing there was no way she could cut and run even if he hadn’t locked the car door, she chose to deflect instead. Reaching up to the sun visor, she pulled it down to check her appearance in the mirror.

“I’m not so pretty at the moment,” she said, the words vain and hollow in her ears, trailing away to nothing when she saw there was no mirror there, just a small rectangular stain where the glue had one held one in place.

“You are too modest, I think,”

Dana turned a questioning look at the man, who laughed softly, “The mirror fell off long ago. This van is old. I keep it for business purposes, nothing more,” he said by way of explanation.

Dana nodded, snapping the visor back up, “Could we please go now? My knee…”

“Does anyone know you are up here, alone?”

This time, fear knotted in her stomach like a solid thing. The question was an odd one. Dana struggled for the best way to answer it, searching for words that would make this strange man think twice about anything he might have planned for her.

“Yes,” she said, unable to keep her voice from trembling, “my father and my brothers know. They are waiting for me at home. If I am not back soon they will come looking for me. They usually do,”

The man studied her, a glint of amusement in his hard eyes. She began to squirm under his scrutiny and used her knee as an excuse to shift position, tearing her eyes away from his as she massaged it gently, feeling heat emanate from it in spite of how cold she felt.

“My bike is in the road ahead,” she volunteered, hoping to distract him, “You’ll have to be careful to drive round it,” A hint to move off.

At last the man looked away from her, into the road ahead, “Thank you for telling me. I will get it for you, put it in the back of the van. Perhaps one of your brothers can fix it for you,” his tone was derisive, telling her he hadn’t believed a word of her lie. All she had at home was her mother and she was most likely slumped in her armchair, drunk and asleep by now.

At long last, the key turned in the ignition, the van thrumming into life. They moved slowly, the man craning, searching ahead for Dana’s abandoned bike. They drew alongside it, the man applying the hand brake, leaving his door wide open as he once more left the engine purring and stepped out into the rain.

Through the streaky windscreen, Dana watched as he bent to retrieve the bike. Holding it aloft in one hand, he paused, his attention caught by something in the woods opposite it seemed.

Dana held her breath, wishing he would hurry up and get back in the van. Whatever threat he posed to her, she would sooner deal with it away from this place.

As suddenly as if someone had flicked a switch, the rain stopped. There were no lingering drops or drizzles. It just stopped, as if a tap had been firmly turned to off. The man did not respond to it all, but stood unmoving, his focus on the woods beyond.

Dana wondered if she could handle the van, if her knee was up to driving it. If she was quick, while he was distracted she could slam the door shut, turn the thing round and head back to town alone. She was willing to deal with the consequences of arrest for car theft if she had to, she just knew this whole thing was weird.

The man snapped his head in her direction, grinning at her through the smeared glass. Dana’s blood ran cold. It was as if he had known what she had been thinking.

She had to move. Gritting her teeth against the inevitable pain, she cocked her leg over the handbrake and slid into the driver’s seat, pulling the door to. She released the brake and depressed the accelerator, abandoning her idea of turning round and just veering forwards instead, back towards the village. If the man got in her way than so be it, she was getting the hell out of here.

He had moved too, though she hadn’t seen it. Now he was standing in the middle of the road ahead, the bike in one hand, the other hanging loosely at his side. He was still smiling.

Dana blanched. She was bound to hit him if he stayed there. If he would just get out of the way…

The man held up his hand, his palm facing her, the gesture to stop. Dana had no intention of doing anything of the sort, slamming the accelerator still harder.

The van stopped, as completely and suddenly as the rain. No juddering halt, no screeching of brakes. It simply stopped, dead and lifeless, only the lights still glaring.

Dana scrabbled for the locks, terror mounting when they refused to work for her. The man approached and Dana gave up, her mouth dry with fear, wide-eyed as he drew level. He moved on, passing her with barely a glance. He seemed to float by, as if his feet were not even touching the ground.

She twisted in her seat as he disappeared from view, realising for the first time that the van had no wing mirrors either. There was a rush of damp air as the back doors were opened and her bike was thrown inside.

The man gave a low, melodic whistle. Dana whimpered softly, her instincts screaming at her that everything was wrong here. He whistled again. Definite movement came from the treeline in response.

A tall figure emerged from the woods, this one obviously feminine. She covered the distance to the car unnaturally rapidly, going to the man and falling into his brief embrace before clambering in alongside Dana’s bike. The doors were slammed shut, the man appearing moments later, sitting in the passenger door alongside her.

She turned to face them both. The woman was peering at her from the space between the seats, her shapely lips accentuated by a deep red lipstick, her almond eyes wide and intelligent. The man had lost his grin and was staring at Dana with obvious interest.

Dana was aware that she was gripping the wheel, as if it could offer her any sort of help now. Her knuckles were white with the effort, her knee pounding, heart racing.

“Who are you?” she managed, her voice barely more than a breath.

The man laughed, “We never give our names,” he said cryptically.

“There is little point,” the woman added, her voice smooth as silk, “You will have no need of them when we are done,”

“What do you mean, when you are done?”

“Ah child, you know in your heart, if you care to truly examine it, what we mean,” the man replied. He turned to look at his companion and Dana couldn’t help but notice that they were both bone dry, not a droplet on them. She sat, shivering with fear and dread, her own clothes so drenched they were sticking to her, her hair slick; drops of water sending trickles to snake down her neck.

“Such a pretty neck too,” the woman said, reaching out a slender hand to brush Dana’s hair aside. Dana flinched, the movement stopped by a strong hand the other side of her neck. The woman was fully behind her now, her breath once more warm on Dana’s skin.

She cried out as the woman took a handful of her hair and yanked her head violently backwards, exposing her bare skin more fully. Dana tried to release her grip on the steering wheel and fight back but found she couldn’t. It was as if her hands were welded to the thing.

“After you,” the woman said, gracefully.

The man smiled, reaching out a hand to touch the woman’s cheek tenderly, “No my sweet, you did much of the work after all. After you,”

If there had a been a mirror in which to see it, Dana would have witnessed the woman’s beauty fade as she drew back her exquisite lips to reveal a row of stained teeth, two sharp and pointed fangs among them. She would have been able to see as those teeth sank into her flesh, puncturing her skin with two perfect holes, penetrating her bloodstream to greatest effect.

But she saw none of it, lost as she was in her horror and pain, the man looking on with relish, waiting for his turn.

*

Outside, the wind blew, sending myriad miniature downpours as the trees shivered in response, releasing captured raindrops to the ground below. The sky was clearing, the pale moon a little brighter now. The scudding clouds were lessening, the world fresher, as if washed clean by the storm.

In her armchair by the fire, Dana’s mother stirred. She had been enjoying a dream, ensconced in the cosy glow of a half-bottle of brandy. Something had pierced her subconscious. Her eyes flickered open, momentarily aware that it was very late. Was Dana home yet?

She shrugged, unconcerned. The girl had always come home before. She took another swig of the near empty brandy bottle, sinking back amongst the cushions, letting it fall to the stained carpet at her feet. She would go back to sleep.

Everything would be all right in the morning.

S P Oldham

There was a dead fly in the crease of the book; at least the delicate, desiccated remains of one.

It was tiny. Perfect against the white backdrop, it was still possible to trace the fine veins lining its wings. Slender antennae formed a V-shape on the page, like two fingers stuck up in a final message of disdain to whoever had killed it.  The insect corpse even held the faintest trace of light brown, the colour it must have been in life. Unless that was the colour its’ blood had stained the page when the book had been slammed shut. It was long dead, that was obvious. He could have blown it off the page to disintegrate into dust had he wanted to. He didn’t

Masson turned the book over, still open, and carefully laid it face down noticing that its shape now was not too dissimilar to the small corpse tucked inside it. The title stared up at him; “Garden Pests and How to Prevent Them.” Innocuous enough, Masson couldn’t shake off the feeling that the words were somehow faintly mocking.

There were other books ranged along the shelves that lined the garage wall. Most of them shared a theme; gardening.

Losing interest, Masson turned back to the job in hand. To the right of the bookshelves was a shadow-board, a range of quality tools in place upon it with one notable exception. The unmistakable shape of secateurs was painted in white against the black board, the tool itself missing. Masson shrugged. It would have been nice to have the whole set, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

He glanced longingly at the shredder that stood alone against the far wall. It would have brought him a decent price when he sold it on, but there was no way he could carry that out of here unnoticed.

Regretfully he bent to unzip the holdall he had brought with him and began lifting the tools down, placing them as considerately as he could into the bag. He had brought old towels along to layer between the tools and minimise damage as much as possible. They were near pristine; it would be a shame to scratch them.

He stood tall, hoisting the wide strap of the now heavily laden bag onto his broad shoulders, the job complete. A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention, like that of a small bird flying low to land upon a branch. He looked up to see the shiny new secateurs hanging in their rightful place on the shadow board, rocking back and forth gently under the weight of their own momentum.

Masson felt his flesh turn to goose-bumps. How could that be possible? The board was right above him; if anyone was going to hang anything on it, they would have had to lean over him to do so. He would have seen them, he would have heard them; hell, he would have heard their breathing and smelled their body odour, they would have needed to get so close. There was no one else in here with him.

There was no way they had been thrown. They had landed so precisely and so silently in their proper place, the idea that someone had launched them from behind was ridiculous.

So how had they got there?

Masson lowered the bag carefully to the ground and ran a trembling hand over his greying beard. He risked a look behind, reluctant now to turn his back on the shadow board.  Unsurprisingly, there was no one there. He turned back; the secateurs hung innocently in front of him, the swinging had ceased and they were in perfect place against their painted silhouette.

There had to be an explanation for this, Masson reasoned. He had somehow overlooked them, perhaps when he had allowed himself to be distracted by the books. His mind’s eye had told them there were no secateurs when in fact, there were. It was an oversight that’s all; nothing to get spooked out about. Maybe he was getting too old for this line of work.

Shrugging defiantly as if to demonstrate that it was no big deal, he bent to unzip the bag and make room for the secateurs. He reached up to them, only to find their space on the board once more empty, no sign of the tool anywhere.

A thrill of fear raced the length of his spine. There would be no rationalising this time; this was just plain weird.

“Screw this,” Masson said, once more hefting the bag and turning on his heel in a hurry to get out of there.

A brass screw, about an inch or so long, dropped in a vertical line right in front of his eyes to fall with a clatter on the concrete floor. It spun noisily at his feet, coming to a stop with the pointed tip facing him. Had he been a single step quicker it might easily have drilled into the top of his skull.

“What the..?” Masson could hear the fear in his own voice. Whatever was going on here, it was freaking him out. He looked up, shielding his eyes with his free hand in case there were any more sharp pointed objects about to drop from the ceiling,  “Bloody kids!” he grumbled half-heartedly, knowing there were no kids within spitting distance of this place.

He hesitated, no longer sure of himself. Should he go out the way he had come in, through the overgrown back yard and over the ramshackle fence that he had not been convinced would take his weight as he climbed over it? Or should he take the big risk of being caught and open the garage doors that led straight out onto the street?

The mere fact that he was even considering the second option gave the lie to just how scared he really was. It was not a sensation he was used to. Ordinarily he had nerves of steel. Now that he thought about it, there had been something odd about this job from the off. Why would someone who owned a range of immaculate, expensive tools such as these allow their garden to become so wildly overgrown? Who would let their fence fall into such disrepair, while these items hung unused yet well cared for in their garage?

He peered out of the grime streaked windows. It must have been his imagination, because it looked like the greenery outside had become denser since he had shut the door on it a bare fifteen minutes ago. Like the garden had somehow moved closer.

He considered his options. The reassurance of an ordinary, mundane street lay just beyond the old-fashioned corrugated steel garage door that had to be heaved open with a chain and pulley system. That was odd too, come to think of it. A garage as well equipped as this should have a more modern entry system, surely.

On the other hand, Masson reflected, although the garden to the rear meant a slower escape, it also offered the comfort of camouflage.

The whiskery, spiked head of some nameless weed raked across the filthy window, leaving a trail of viscous fluid in passing. Masson shuddered: he was sure those weeds had not been so tall or so close before.

It helped make up his mind to go for the quickest way out; the garage door. It took an effort of will to turn his back on the windows and move towards his chosen exit. It left him feeling exposed to some nameless danger. The bare skin on the back of his neck prickled unpleasantly, as if someone was behind him.

He shrugged again, feeling foolish for allowing himself to be rattled. It was just a garage in an ordinary street; that was all. If he was jittery it was because he was afraid of being caught. He was too old and too tired to face another prison sentence. Being sent down again would finish things between him and Jen for sure. It had been a mistake to come here; this would be his last job. He’d go straight from here on in if it killed him.

He set the bag down heavily at his feet, the tools inside clanking together awkwardly. He winced, hoping he hadn’t scratched them. The chain mechanism for the door hung immediately in front of him. It was only now he was close up that Masson saw how out of keeping it was with the perfect condition of the tools.

The chain was caked in grease and dust. In parts it had rusted, tiny flakes of red-brown spiralling to the floor like dead skin when he reached out to touch it. He felt a tiny flicker of panic at the thought that the door might not open at all as he expected it to.

It suddenly dawned on him that of course the garage door would open. It was precisely because it had been left wide open and carelessly unattended a mere few days ago, allowing him to look in and see the wall of tools just begging to be stolen, that he had come here in the first place.

With renewed optimism, Masson spat onto the palm of his hands, rubbed them together, then took a firm, two-handed hold of the chain and heaved.

Nothing happened.

He heaved again, altering his grip and stance to give maximum leverage. The chain remained stubbornly unmoving, the door not giving an inch. Puzzled, Masson ran the back of his gloved hand across his brow, conscious that the sweat gathering there was not entirely due to physical effort.

There was a skittering, clattering noise across the floor behind him. Masson froze, finally allowing himself to acknowledge that there really was something strange going on here. He gripped the chain as if it was a lifeline, dreading what he might see should he turn around.

All at once aware how vulnerable his back was, exposed to the wide, empty garage, he whirled around, trying to shake off the image of those secateurs buried deep between his shoulder blades.

There they were; sitting innocently on the floor just a few feet away; the blades open wide like a sharply smiling mouth.

Masson looked on disbelieving as the screw began to move, rolling first its flat head, then its spiteful little point, creating a metallic scratching sound as it jerked across the floor. It positioned itself alongside the gawping secateurs, where it came to a sudden and absolute stop.

Masson whimpered, his hands slick and sweating inside the gloves where they gripped the now forgotten chain. He was afraid to take his eyes off the strange pair; uncertain of what they might do next.

He felt movement beneath his fingers. It was not accompanied by the straining rattle of long unused machinery, as it should have been. Rather it made a soft, whispery sound, underscored by the slightest suggestion of wetness.

He snatched his hands away, repulsed, staring in shocked horror. The chain had taken on a greenish tinge, its multi-linked back covered in minute white hairs that bristled obscenely as it moved. Myriad legs trampled over one another as what could only be described as some kind of hellish millipede toiled in an endless loop; over and over and over, squeezing itself through the cogs of the pulley repeatedly, having no effect whatsoever in raising the garage door.

Masson staggered backward, sickened. He wondered if he had inadvertently inhaled something when he broke in here. Perhaps he had released some long-contained hallucinogenic gas, or accidentally swallowed some sort of mind altering substance. He recalled the strange weeds growing in the garden; he could  have brushed them aside and then absent-mindedly raised his hands to his mouth, somehow ingesting their toxicity. Perhaps the top of the ramshackle fence he had clambered over had been laced with some kind of drug.

He looked on, his limbs paralysed, his mind racing. The impossible millipede slowed, stopping at the height of the chain’s turn. A small, misshapen head turned to look straight at him, bright yellow eyes glaring, antennae pointing accusingly. Ice cold fear griped Masson. This was no hallucination: this was real.

He forced his frozen limbs to back up until he had all three of his odd oppressors in view. He wished he had thought to drag the bag with him; the tools it held could prove useful now, and to hell with keeping them near perfect.

The bag jumped once, visibly rising an inch or two clear of the floor. Masson jumped too, startled. It jumped again, this time moving closer to him. Masson retreated until his back was to the wall, cold and unforgiving behind him.

He watched fearfully, aware that he had run out of room to back away should the bag advance towards him anymore. He held his breath, his mouth dry with fear.

Something bulged inside the bag; a fast, violent movement as if a boxer was trapped inside trying to punch his way out. It came again, from the other side this time. Then again, and again until the bag was a frenzy of internal strikes that were all thwarted by the strong canvas constraint; so far.

Masson dared to look away long enough to check the distance to the window. Suddenly the prospect of facing the fast-growing garden weeds was not so daunting. He looked back to find that the bag was slowly unzipping itself.

A wave of nausea washed over him. He knew the variety of tools stashed away inside that bag. Most of them were bladed; all of them were made to carry out specific jobs. Amongst the other things he had lifted from the shadow board there had been a particularly mean little pruning knife, a pick mattock, uncomfortably similar to an axe, and a pruning saw. He did not allow himself to dwell on the power tools. He knew it would be deeply unwise to wait around to see what might happen should those supernaturally animated objects find themselves free.

He ran for it, his heart pounding so fast his chest ached. He kept his focus on the window; that grimy rectangle of light that was now his only hope. He was in fingertip reach of it when he stepped hard down on something solid, sharp and awkward, causing him to cry out as he crashed to the ground in pain, his sprained ankle already swelling and horribly tender.

The sharp little screw rolled away from him, not stopping until it reached the wall at the other end of the garage, as if it was content that it had done its part and could stand aside now.

Even in his pain and fear Masson knew how absurd the thought was. That an item such as a screw could be capable of conscious thought, much less smugness, was ridiculous; yet he just knew that was what it was thinking.

He pulled off the gloves, now wet with sweat, to hold his ankle gingerly aloft, scared that if he had to lie it flat the pain would be unbearable. The gloves had barely hit the ground before they lifted off again, flying across the room like a pair of deformed crows. The shredder whirred into life, engulfing the gloves and grinding them to nothing.

There was a heavy dragging sound as the bag slid a fraction closer, its zip apparently snagged. Panic gave Masson a surge of adrenalin. Shoving aside the pain in his ankle he heaved himself upright, using all of his strength to reach that window, his leg trailing uselessly behind him.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Masson reached up to the narrow window and lifted the bar that would free it. To his relief it came up easily, a draught of cool and very welcome air rushing in to soothe his flushed face. He had reached both hands up to the sill and was preparing to haul himself upwards when the zip finally gave on the bag, the unmistakable sound of it opening slicing through the heavy atmosphere.

Masson whimpered, his strength leaving him. He did not want to turn and face whatever horrors now lurked behind him, but he had to. Unwilling to give up on the possibility of freedom just yet, he left his slick hands resting on the sill and turned his head to see.

It was not possible. Even though he was looking at the evidence of it at this very moment, it was simply not possible.

The tools had somehow escaped the bag and were arranged in a row before him, the secateurs dead centre. The bag, its job done too now, hung a little further back; its open zipper like a wide, jagged grin, laughing at him.

He was going to die. The certain knowledge of it assailed him. He did not waste time or energy wondering which of the tools would do it; they all would. They were assembled before him like a sharp army, the secateurs its’ general. He had no doubt that each and every one of those tools would do its designated job; on him.

A small, smart little budding knife, its glossy handle glinting like marble, fell out of ranks. It spun a whole circle, skittering to a neat stop about a foot away from Masson’s damaged leg where it lingered menacingly. Masson held his breath, waiting for the rest to follow; they remained still.

He didn’t dare move. Even if the throbbing pain in his ankle allowed him to run, he knew instinctively that he would not get far before he was pinned down. Where anyway would he run to? The weird head of the millipede chain was still watching him, the garage door remaining stubbornly closed. There was nowhere else to go.

A rush of gentle air rippled over his hands, reminding him that the window was still open. There was little chance he could haul himself up and out of it without injury at the very least – those tools would fly at him the moment they understood his intention – but he had to try. He wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his upper arm. Then he took a shallow, wavering breath, and pushed upwards.

For the merest of moments he thought he might succeed. A fleeting euphoria rippled through him as the cold air embraced his head and shoulders; then his world became one of heat and agony.

The budding knife did the first of the work; slicing through the leather of his soft shoes as easily as skin, to begin removing his toes as if it were dead-heading roses. Masson screamed and kicked ineffectually, the knife clinging to him obstinately. There was the rattle of metal across the floor behind him as the other tools closed in.

A double-headed hand hoe took up the cause, flicking between its solid, flat hoe head to its triple-pronged fork head as it worked its way up the back of his legs, hacking into the back of his knees, hopping from the left to the right like some indecisive insect, leaving his flesh hanging raw, exposing the bone beneath. Masson thought he was probably screaming but he couldn’t hear it anymore.

His hands flailed uselessly as his grip on the sill weakened and he fell to the ground, landing face first, the smell of dust and concrete hard in his nostrils. He felt the cartilage in his nose give and the warm trickle of blood as his nose snapped. The taste of salt filled his mouth, gore and mucus twisting its slow way down his chin, through the stiff bristles of his beard.

Masson tried to push himself up, only to find his hands clamped to the ground as two u-pins circled his wrists and drove easily into the hard surface. He was trapped.

Part of him was thankful that he couldn’t see what was coming next, like the flat head of the shovel as it came for him, smashing into his skull and driving all thought and feeling out once and for all.

As the room darkened and his body became numb, from far, far away he thought he heard the whining, electric thrum of a power tool coming to life…

***

To any outside observer the garage would no doubt appear normal; excessively clean and tidy perhaps, but normal. The floor had recently been washed clean, a pressure-washer standing neatly to one side, all its tools properly stored. Only a very observant looker-on would have detected a trace of self-satisfaction about the machine, and even then would likely dismiss that as imagination. That same curious individual might also wonder why the door was left wide-open with no one in attendance, its old and slightly rusty chain hanging to one side as if waiting for someone to put it to use. A large shadow board full of immaculate tools hung on one wall, every tool pristine and in its rightful place; a veritable treasure trove to any opportunist thief.

Temptation indeed.

The bookshelves would probably be of less interest to a burglar. The books for the most part shared a theme; gardening. There was one volume however that seemed to catch the eye more than the others, though why would be impossible to explain.

Had anyone unwary enough to wander in picked up the book entitled “Garden Pests and How to Prevent Them,” they would find nothing more amiss than the dried, desiccated corpses of two dead flies in the crease of the book…

S P Oldham.