Day 665

Organic technology was advancing society in leaps and bounds. From fridges that scanned your hand and read what nutrition your body needed to headphones that automatically adjusted their volume depending on the angle of your inner ear's hair cells.

Everything seemed possible at first, and in a way it was.

Of course this kind of helpful technology doesn't go for long before someone decides it would be of better use as a weapon. Someone decided that there was a new kind of virus to be made, one that transcended both physical and digital mediums.

The news called is the E-Flu and advised everyone to turn off their computers.

But it wasn't just there, it was in everything. From cleaning appliances to Smart Insulation to pacemakers, everything caught E-Flu and nobody was safe from it. Not even its creators,though they came forward as soon as they became infected too and were promptly forced to release the data coding for their creation.

The deaths rolled in like ocean waves, slowly becoming a tsunami to rival the Black Death.

It started like your average flu only the symptoms got worse the closer you were to any infected device and within a matter of days 67% of global devises potentially carried E-Flu. No matter how many warnings were broadcast or signposts displayed, use of technology only dropped by 23% over the course of a year but by then the death toll was almost 2 million worldwide.

Then, like any virus, it evolved.

Day 644

She'd been missing for almost a year before a neighbour came forward with their porch camera's tape for that week. They'd always had a camera facing out to her house and the woods just beside it to keep an eye out for the bears that occasionally visited their bins.

An entire week's worth of recordings, detailing her every move around the front of her house through her large windows and they knew only one thing from it. The footage showed her checking her post before going back inside the house. That entire week she only left to check her post, every day at the same time until Sunday - the date she was presumed to have gone missing.

A few days after this tape was released her neighbour next door handed in their tapes from their back garden (again, keeping an eye out for bears and again showing nothing unusual). The view covered the entire left side of the house and a good deal of the back, combined with the footage from her neighbours across the street which showed the front and half of the right side there was only one small corner that was a blind spot.

If she never left then surely she must have been somewhere inside the house? It was one of those old fashioned places, there was bound to be some kind of hidey hole for one reason or another. She might have seen a bear coming from the woods to her house and panicked. She might have found a disused dumbwaiter and fallen down it to the basement she never knew she had.

The neighbours knew, of course they knew. In such a close-knit suburban area who doesn't know? All that they're willing to disclose to one another is that the bears must be eating well for this time of year. Must be getting a steady supply of food from their bins. Their precariously open and always empty bins. Bins that certain newer individuals never used properly and can't misuse again.

The poor dear.

Day 663

The city wasn't so much haunted as it was overcrowded by the stubborn dead. They clung to their former lives and relationships with great desperation. Anything to keep them anchored to the here and now instead of drifting away into the "Great Wind" that they claimed was constantly howling around them and trying to sweep they away into whatever afterlife there was. As they refuse to specify, one can only assume it's somehow more chaotic than the one they currently reside in.

At first sight it's quite a spectacle for sure, seeing their vague wispy forms flutter about like shredded grey scarves or wrapping themselves around people seemingly at random. This brought in a lot of tourism at first, all of them hoping they'd have a spirit attach itself to them (a lost loved one or pet - the list of reasons is as long as it is bizarre at times).

On the odd occasion it would happen and they'd try to leave with the spirit in tow. It never worked though and nobody can quite figure out why. The dead have claimed various reasons from the "Great Wind" being stronger outside the city limits, they have difficulty leaving somewhere they've been for so long, great portals of void lurk out there and are drawing ever closer to the city, threatening the very fabric of society.

Spirits can't always be trusted though, their heads are full of the past, a constant loop of their best and worst points in life. Most were unstable to the point where random screeches at all hours are commonplace and glassware just stopped being a thing (too easy to break, to annoying to clean for the eighth time that week because old Uncle Roy just re-remembered that he got fired back in the 70's for "no damn reason").

Multiple attempts at putting the dead to rest over the past fifty or so years have all resulted in nothing but upset ghosts who keep re-remembering it and asking everyone why they're so hated and why they have no respect for the dead who just want to look out for them. At least we found out what these methods do to them.

Exorcisms annoy them, while they cause pain to the dead that's about it. They liken it to dying all over again "but without the fun of coming back fine and dandy", as they have said.

Completing their unfinished tasks just makes them smug. With no niggling things to distract them they can divert their full attention to the living and by god that's irritating.

Asking them to leave puts them in a sulk which can last anything from days to years but always ends with them remembering you exist and coming back to you.

Cleansing your home does unsettle them for a while, puts them on edge and makes them less likely to stay for too long but again it doesn't last.

While most of the city's residents now accept that the dead are a part of their lives and that they will eventually join the annoyance that they've become, attempts are still being made to remove the wandering souls once and for all. Even the living need a little peace.

Day 662

The aquarium changed at night.
As soon as the sun fully set, a few hours after closing time, everything took on a different shape.
It would begin with the front doors, gradually going from navy blue to deep purple.
The same shades spreading throughout the entire complex, every inch was altered.
Even the doors, even the handles and hinges sharpened and twisted like an auger seashell.

Complex patterns formed on the floor, replacing the starfish pattern with elaborate sigils.
If one were to follow these one would encounter a door leading out of the aquarium and into the sea.
Not our sea though, not exactly.
It led to the sea where all the night creatures came from and where they roamed both day and night.
This was just one of many changes that took place during the night shift.

Even the information posts changed, simple descriptions now fitting the new creatures inside the glass tanks.
There were all kinds that couldn't possibly exist, things whose very existence contradicted themselves.
Like the Gangura Trout who ate its own fins in order to absorb their proteins to grow bigger fins.
Or the amphibious whale - size of a rottweiler with external gills, fully functioning lungs and chicken-like legs.
Or the mermaids, impossibly larger than the aquarium they resided in, drifting lazily past every window.

Eventually a night shift of marine biologists was assigned to document these new species.
They were disbanded after three days, hanging around when the changes took place distorted everything.
Some swore that everyone they now saw changed at night, even their family, even themselves.
They'd rant for hours that we're the exhibition, we're as much fish as everything else.
Three months on and none of the original team have survived.

Day 661

According to the flyers it was meant to be set up on the fields already but all that appeared to be there was an ornate door on the ground. It looked like it was make of those blue and white porcelain plates but the pattern was tumbling acrobats and knife throwers. Stranger yet the door actually worked and opened up to the circus itself, sitting on the field and fully set up.

You carefully stepped down and... across? You ended up standing upright instead of going down for reasons beyond your comprehension. The people around you must have come from the same place as well but they all looked perfectly fine but were wearing masks of all shapes and sizes. A clown tapped you on the shoulder and jumped back, startled by your plain face.

"Your face, good man," it hissed, teeth shaped like tiny tombstones, "Where is your face? You aren't properly attired to be outside. Look, just use this for now and get your face back on ASAP. Damn disgrace you look!". After handing you an ornate paper mask with some kind of glue along the nose bridge it sauntered off towards a dunk tank.

Placing the mask on your face you began to walk around too, wondering if you had enough cash for a snack or entrance to the big top (assuming you hadn't missed the show yet). Every now and then someone would tut at you patronisingly and say something along the lines of "Left your face again dearie? Had to borrow one did you? Oh what a shame, you really let yourself down." and after a while it really grated on your nerves.

It got to the point where you snapped at the next person to say this. You told them that in no way did the flyer say this was a masked event of any kind and your own face was just as good as any bloody mask thank you very much!

They looked so shocked, positively startled like a deer in headlights or a cat on hot coals. They meekly asked you to show therm the flyer you received and what the entrance looked like. Giving them the flyer you told them about the porcelain plate door in the empty field opening up to somehow another field and a look of understanding swept over their covered face.

"They flyer must have slipped under the door - it wasn't exactly meant for you dearie. It was meant for the you that lives over here. you're not a part of this world at all, you poor thing - must be confusing eh? I got that on my first accidental trip to your world too."

They then politely asked you to leave as quickly as possible before the main show started and you were expected to attend. "Not the sort of thing people from your world can withstand." They explained, "You're all just so fragile, so flammable. It wouldn't end well for you and with a borrowed mask you're bound to be picked off by the ringmaster!"

Escorting you firmly to the door that stood upright on this end, they bid you a fond goodbye and refused to let you have the flyer back. It wasn't meant for you or your world apparently. Before you closed the door behind you (or rather below), you asked the stranger to remove their mask just to see what was underneath it. They gave you their face.Seems that behind a clown's mask there's nothing at all, just empty space.

Day 660

Highways are strange places, a crossroads of sorts between an accepted normality and a perceived normality. The difference between them is slim at best and life threatening at worst. Today brings us to a family who made a deal with whatever came over this crossroads.

They'd tried to turn the farmstead into a kitschy museum by one of the main highways. Honestly there wasn't much to see there, weird plastic things that had once probably been farm animals of farmers but they were too worn to properly tell were perhaps the least eyesore part of the whole damned place.

As you can guess it was rarely visited on purpose. Most saw the sign saying "Old McDonulds Farm" and cheerfully ignored the apparent spelling error in favour of seeing a hidden gem that they could boast about to their friends and say they discovered it on the way to such and such and how wonderful it was and little Timothy had such a nice time. Needless to say they were quite mistaken.

It had the usual home, barn and feeble attempt at carnival style rides aside, it also had a maze. I mean of course it had to have one of those corn mazes, a pretty tall one made from conifer trees - a clear knock-off from Wragby but less child friendly. In fact the whole place wasn't particularly child friendly. The information plaques read all sorts of harsh farming truths and the images of freshly slaughtered chickens in the barn were enough to put most adults off too.

The maze itself was closed off unless you spoke to the tired looking guy wearing a shoddily made badge with "Jay McDonuld" scrawled across it. He'd give you a flag on a stick and tell you that the "secret to solving all mazes" was to keep your hand on the right wall at all times and to never touch the left side. He'd say that the left was for the devil (much to parental dismay).

After this nugget of advice he'd unlatch the tall iron gate that had been cable tied to the nine foot conifer walls. Children always listened at first, keeping their sticky little hands on the right wall, dragging their palms along until they felt conifer needles prick harshly into their skin. The fearful ones would ignore the pain until they made it to the centre but the weaker ones would let go. They always let go.

In a place that far out of the way and in a maze built on bad grounds, it was so easy to lose people. The cars they left behind would mysteriously end up sold from person to person until the trail led halfway around the country, family nowhere in sight and nothing that led mack to the McDonulds.

Meanwhile the things that rustles between the conifer branches all along the left side (as per The Agreement) waited patiently, following the visitors around until someone slipped up and someone always slipped up. Sixty years and they'd never gone a day without food. Bless the McDonulds.

Day 659

The video footage was shaky but fairly useful still. It was recovered by the police alongside the remains of three individuals who seemed to be searching for ghosts in the fields by the river and found more than they bargained for.

The footage starts off with them climbing over a farmer's fence and discussing their plans. They were following rumours of disappearances in the local area, countless human bones found washed downstream. Some were hundreds of years old and others were still bloodied and fresh. The group suspected some kind of escaped zoo animal, a wolf or panther - maybe even a whole group of them.

As the camera panned across the fields little flickers of movement darted about. At times the flickers looked almost like children running about and playing together. The trio didn't seem to notice them or perhaps couldn't see them and continued to chatter about the alleged sightings around the area that eerily matched the pallid figures that ran in front and around them.

According to their "sources" locals had seen children wearing brown rags running about, covered in filth and in some cases blood. Most of them were missing fingers, toes or whole limbs, the ends mangled and trailing behind them like wet streamers. They never stuck around for long, seeming to duck into the long grass and vanish entirely. The police had been called to these fields countless times before in search of the brutally wounded children but never found much more then old, old bones.

These "investigators" drew close to the river and to what looked to be a large iron bridge with a grate blocking off the river beneath. As they stood a stone's throw from the river countless tiny arms reached out of the tall grass on either side, frantically grasping for the trio and muttering in their high pitched little voices. Some words could be made out on the tape, in between the trio's exclamations of shock as they finally saw what had been following them for the length of the video. More like short phrases, later found to be terminology associated with industrial era mills.

This was confirmed by the three individuals, examining the bridge from a safe space of shorter grass, all trying to cram close together to avoid the little clutching hands. They thought it was definitely victorian at least, possibly older and somehow very well preserved. The little voices thanked them, said they worked extra hard to keep the place in "working order".

This made the trio drop their guard. Fatally. They stepped closer at the little voices invitation, making a move towards the bridge. The camera suddenly shook and the screams began as the little arms took hold of them and began to pull them towards the grating. With a jolt the camera was dropped and the angle just about showed their horrified faces being forced through iron bars far too narrow for them until their bones just shattered with sickeningly wet crunches.

The last few hours of footage were of a filthy child with a partially caved in head picking up the camera in a bloodied three-fingered hand and walking with the lens pointed at its smiling face towards the farmer's fence where the trio had originally entered. It placed the camera gently on the sty and skipped away, ducking into the long grass to run alongside others similar to it.

Day 658

The bleached white walls send sharp bolts of pain to your eyes.
You wish you could sleep but the guy next to you is hooked in tight and beeping obnoxiously.
They tell you he can't help it, he needs it and there's nowhere to move you to.
It's a blatant lie, this place is full of empty rooms they can stick you in.
You don't know why they insist on keeping you in with the dying ones.

You know you aren't dying.
You aren't.
It's just an infection, it'll pass long before you do.
You know this.
You just know.

They come in shifts and drabs, feet sliding along the floor wearily.
Why are they so tired when there are so few people here?
You've seen peaks at the ward names, there are three rooms stuffed to burst and eight empty.
At least there are no names written on them so you seeume they're empty.
Who knows what poor buggers they've lumped in there and forgotten.

At least they won't forget you, you won't let them.
They gave you a help buzzer and you make damned sure you use it once a day.
Not that they care, not that they come rushing to anyone's aid in here.
Everything is done with the same weary malaise and annoyance.
You catch yourself almost wanting to apologise for inconveniencing them.

Some days others like them come in wearing the same uniform.
There's a triangular symbol on it that you can't quite recognise through the searing pain of the bright white.
They all have those ridiculous hats on and refuse to take them off to talk to you.
Very rude of them and you make sure they know this.
At least they know your name.

One day this ungodly creature comes storming in, screeching and asking for you.
You don't want to see it and you don't know why but you think you know it.
That loud voice hurts your ears and makes your eyes throb.
Footsteps thunder towards you and a blotchy pink thing is suddenly beside you.
It calls you Grandad.

You don't remember it and this upsets it, you think.
The face is hard to read, so full of meat and blood - a stark contrast to your greyish flaps against bone.
It asks if you remember getting sick and you try to say you're doing fine but they can't understand you.
The guy in the next bed starts to groan and reach out.
The fleshy thing is suddenly scared and backs away towards the shift workers.

They try to explain what they think is wrong with you like you aren't right there.
Words like ineffective, contagious and morticious-like state were tossed about with no regard to you.
The thing goes pale, not your kind of pale but getting close, as shift workers say they've set a bed up.
Seems the thing is staying too.
Somehow being near you was enough to "infect" them but you know you're fine.

You feel just fine.

Day 657

The residents of Stoney Fowlhead were mostly elderly, the youth having left as soon as they could, the rest unable to. They stuck to the gravel pits, left the swampy areas well alone. It hasn't been the same there for many years. Not since the lake had swallowed most of the docks leaving behind unstable shells of the boathouses.

Nobody knew if there were any boats left there and nobody really wanted to find out. The faint sounds of music that drifted out from there (ABBA's "Greatest Hits", a leftover from one of the fishermen's boats, well under the water by now) and the ever present chill only served to remind them of who and what they'd lost.

The mass phone calls from the deceased every year on that day didn't make things any easier. They'd call their old friends, neighbours, all manner of relations and just talk  - sometimes for hours - about what it was like at the bottom of the lake. They'd talk about their boats, how the pond weed chained them to their boats, to the old walkways in the boathouses, to each other in some cases. Fused by greeny-grey tethers like amphibious conjoined siblings.

Though the actual cause of their deaths was debatable as none of their bodies had been found yet, it was the heavy rain apparently. Officially. Flash flooded the lower half of the town - you can still see the faint green line from the algae on some of the houses further down the way. Nowadays of course the event that led to the deaths of forty locals has been reduced to a few lines in the history books.

On the twentieth anniversary of the floods the community leaders decided to commemorate the event in the hopes that the music would stop. They had a touching ceremony full of eulogies from the relatives, poems and ABBA's famous hits, all to try and appease their lost ones and settle the lake for good, make it safe again.

For a while it went quiet, no music, no cold chill over the lake and most importantly no mass calls the following year. Only a handful of people were still phoned by the dead, those who hadn't gone to the commemoration for some reason or another.

Word eventually reached Stoney Fowlhead and questions were asked, a second commemoration was planned for the people that had missed the first. The rain poured down as they began the opening speech, an absolute downpour that formed a fine mist all around them. Someone spotted figures walking towards them, slowly rising up from the algae-coated depths with weed trailing behind them in capes and swathes. They were not appeased.

Stoney Fowlhead isn't on the maps anymore. All the roads were broken up and covered in plants. Somewhere deep in the midlands it still sits there, the lake growing with every drop of rain and the townsfolk waiting underneath in pondweed blankets. They're dormant for now but once a year they still reach out to the descendants of the former residents, the ones that got away.

Ever had a call from an unknown number, a silent one that hangs up as you answer?
Ever had any kin from the English Midlands?
Ever had a craving for the mist-smothered moors of a place you've never set foot in?

Day 656

The town watch used to be our protectors, now they're just ceremonial.
They parade, they fight each other and they patrol the old town walls during the solstices.
We don't quite know why they do the latter but apparently they've been doing it since 1257.
Something about Pagan invaders (the usual lark from a Roman based area) but nothing certain.

Their website says there are twelve of them, named and known to everyone but that's not quite true.
There are fifteen in reality but we aren't meant to acknowledge the three extras.
Known only as "The Grey Watchman", "The Lady Knight" and "That Watchman".
They're as much a fixture to the town as the rest of them but never properly discussed until now.

Let's begin with "The Grey Watchman".
So called for the colour of his skin, that sickly ashen tone with sunken bloodshot eyes.
Bloodshot everything really, the last time he was alive was during the Civil War.
He was a staunch Royalist, hit right in the chest by a rogue cannonball.

"The Lady Knight" lived many years before him and was one of the town watch founders.
Her legacy and body were partially destroyed during the days of the Black Plague.
They burnt her before she'd fully passed, full armour and all.
She walks about at night mostly, likes to hide from us but watch over us still.

And at last the final specter, "That Watchman".
He's the least corporeal, mostly shows up as a brownish cloud that's roughly shaped like a person.
You can still see his town sigil bright and clear as everyone else's.
It must have been the one thing he remembered most as he died, however he died.


He's never left his duties, somehow turning up at every town watch meeting along with the others.
They're a loyal lot, we'll give them that.
Much as we wish they'd shuffle off this mortal coil, something about their presence is reassuring.
Makes us think we might live on after death too.

Day 655

A few excerpts from an idea called "You thought Wrong"

It moved as I moved my torch, slightly bulged out of the wall, pitch black and pulsing.
I thought it was just my shadow until it opened its eyes.

------

She swore her rucksack had been lighter when she went to visit her grandmother's grave.
She thought she'd misplaced her bag for a while, saw it placed beside a bench looking fuller somehow.
Putting it down to tiredness she thought no more of it or the faint scent of sawdust in the air.
When she opened it back home she found she'd brought company with her.

------

It was common knowledge that small rail trains don't have drivers and some don't even have controls inside.
So who is this man calling himself the conductor and why is he telling us we missed our stop?

------

What do you know about the old mad houses?
That they kept the unstable, non thinkers away from the public.
All safe and quiet.
Mad houses weren't for keeping the mad ones inside.
They kept the mad ones out.
All safe and quiet.

Day 654

The London Eye is meant to take around half and hour, gradually climbing four hundred and fifty feet above the River Thames to allow the passengers to gaze around central London until the capsule aligns with the ground base once more. It's done the same routine since 1999 with no signs of change until one lone employee made their last stand and tried to save what would remain the last of humanity in England until night fell once more.

The date was June 5th 2017 and pod 12 was almost at full capacity despite it being a Monday evening, then again tourists come and go whenever they please or so it seems. Aside from murmurs among the many residents of London that dead strays had been found stuffed into alley corners and birds were falling from the skies more than normal, everything was proceeding as always.

The children pressed their faces against the glass, noticing with distant interest that there was some kind of black cloud coming in and down like a fog video fast-forwarded. They asked their parents what it was only to hear vague answers about London smog. Soon everyone's attention was turned to the gradual miasma seeping its way through the streets.

Then came the faint sound of screaming. Of course being over three hundred feet up and counting made it harder to hear but when the wind changed directions it was all they could hear, even over the radio music playing in the pod. The black fog blocked their view of the streets but huge crowds of people were running away from it.

The Eye began to speed up, the employees at the base were trying to rush everyone off and to safety, evacuating as many pods as fast as possible. In their panic several people and a pram slipped right off the platform and into the Thames, being swept slowly towards the incoming darkness with screams and splashes in equal measure.

Just as pod 12 drifted past the peak by mere inches the Eye stopped entirely. Unbeknownst to them the last remaining employee (Sandra, aged 31 and staring at a cloud made of screams and teeth) had sabotaged the controls, setting them to remain fixed in place, realising that the only way to keep the people safe was to keep them elevated and hope they stay safe until this passed. She died surrounded by crowds of people all unable or unwilling to run.

To either side of the passengers were pods 11 and 13, one full to the brim, the other half empty and both full of terrified people wondering why they had stopped moving and why they weren't being evacuated like everyone else. Arguments started up quickly in pod 11 while pod 12 tried to remain calm (for the children's sake, she's only five and let's not scare her any more than she is please). It was mere minutes before a punch was thrown and the children were turned away as blood and bodies began to splatter against the glass, cracking and eventually breaking it. Their screams joined the chorus below as the survivors of pod 11 clung to the far rails, weeping and nursing injuries.

As morning began to creep across the sky the black fog retreated to the outskirts of London and the carnage it left behind had stained everything up to twenty feet high in blood. The Eye began to descend, much to the passengers horror and before they knew it they were standing in ankle-deep blood. They kept together all day, calling out for survivors and being met with the deafening silence of a city killed in its sleep.

Spying the gruesome tidal mark they decided to head to the closest skyscraper and keep to the top floor, hoping that they would be kept safe but all wondering the same thing.

Now that it's fed, will it grow and by how much?

Day 653

The family she babysat for had this cutesy little dollhouse that was an exact replica of their renovated Tudor-style home in the town's oldest area. Every room was perfectly matched to its real sized counterpart, right down to the minute details like clothing left on the floors or what books they have on the shelves. She'd never asked much about it beyond the cursory "how cute, must be a pain to maintain but what a conversation piece".

The family seemed normal enough, dollhouse aside. Fairly well off, two kids who behaved well, good neighbourhood and all the rest. After spending the first night watching the kids and making sure the dollhouse was set to match the rest of their home (one of the conditions they specified she was to do before they got home) they fell into a weekly routine.

Fridays were date night for the couple and payday for their babysitter who relished the £60 they gave her (plus extra to buy or make the kids dinner). She'd arrive at 5:30pm sharp and meet the couple at the front door where pleasantries were exchanged and excitable children said goodbye until the morning.

Tonight she put the children to bed early, hoping to have some wine to herself and grab a taxi back to her place, warm inside and cash in hand. It sounded perfect and she settled onto the plush sofa, wine glass in hand and bottle nearby for refills. She must have dozed as she woke up some time in the wee hours or the morning.

Glancing around she noticed that she hadn't paid any attention to the dollhouse that evening. From when she walked through the door to dinner to games and now to her sitting down, four hours later than arrival, she hadn't so much as glanced at it. Now it was a key part of the agreement she had with the couple that the rooms match the house as closely as possible.

Bringing her glass with her she set about making mental notes of the rooms downstairs and began to match them to the tiny counterpart. As she knelt down to it she noticed that the back door on the dollhouse was wide open and tiny muddy footprints led from the outside, along the hall, up the stairs and into the children's rooms where the doll versions of them had been torn apart and crudely nailed to the walls.

Though she knew it was only a dollhouse (it was only a dollhouse, right?) she still got up to check the back door, spotting muddy footprints as she reached the hallway. They led upstairs. She'd heard nothing this whole time, no sounds of violence, not even felt a breeze from the wide open back door which she promptly shut as quietly as she could.

Her eyes darted all around as she tried to spot the intruder, if it was an intruder and not the children playing some sick kind of joke on her. She saw nothing and heard nothing. Each step she took on the stairs seemed to sound like crashing cymbals and cracking bones against the carpet. She held her breath as she crept towards the children's rooms, hoping to find them alive and coming up with excuses in case they were not.

If she had stayed downstairs with the dollhouse just a little longer she would have seen a broken babydoll crawl out from underneath the bed in the master bedroom and scuttle up the walls to a dark corner right by the door. If she had stayed for a few moments more she would have noticed the blood trail leading right to it instead of discovering it after she'd reached the top of the stairs. She may even have seen it move from the master bedroom to the children's joint ensuite to wait for her to use it to cross between the bedrooms.

Day 652

You weren't scared because you'd seen a small child get hit as they crossed the road in front of you.

You weren't scared when you saw their small body flung to the side as the car slammed on its brakes.

You were scared because you'd spoken to the child as you waited to cross the road.

You were scared because they told you exactly what what about to happen.

They were so calm, plainly stating that they would die today and even gave you the license plate.

In fact they'd scrawled down the driver's life story as well as his insurance details.

His name was Cameron MacKerre and he'd been drinking since the night before.

This was his second hit-and-run attempt in a row.

The last one died and in a fit of panic he'd stashed their body in the trunk.

It was still there.

The child's last words were that if there were no witnesses his body would be in the trunk too.

Cameron MacKerre exited his car and stood in front of the child's body screaming at them to move.

Day 651

He'd only leant on the mirror by accident. The mansion had been crowded with tourists, hungrily snapping photo after photo of the old lavish interior that they'd dream about but never possess. They'd not given him any space at all, just shoved him against a dull but antique mirror and he'd somehow fallen through.

From his side he found himself in a world where the sky was a swirling fusion of black and grey smoke. The mirror looked the same on his side and all the tourists on the other side looked the same, only duller somehow. It was like he was seeing them through a thick layer of plastic which he may well have been as he tried to reach back through and met with a cold, hard surface.

He realised he couldn't get back that way and with the black streaks in the sky growing thicker he presumed that night was coming in whatever place he'd managed to find himself in. Glancing around for another mirror or doorway he saw that he was standing in the ruins of some enormous stone building much like the mansion he'd previously been in only much, much larger.

Skeletal trees and bushes were scattered around the crumbling bricks, moving in an unfelt wind as he trudged along crumbling staircases and seemingly endless pathways in search of another mirror that would hopefully take him back home. Night was coming fast and with it the air began to turn colder and harder to breath.

He must have walked for hours but he didn't feel tired or hungry or thirsty. He did feel like he was being watched from around every corner. After a while he took to slinking along in the hopes that whatever was following him (or was he following it?) wouldn't notice his presence.

He'd found traces of it along his explorations, little hints of another living being here and there.He soon took to leaving his own, hoping against hope that the other being was at least friendly, if not human or human-like. From the footprints he'd seen in the snow it had ape-like feet, almost thrice the size of his own. It sometimes seemed to climb the walls, leaving damp prints along those and even along what remained of the ceiling in some places.

Following these took him far from the mirror where he'd begun, along the parapets and down to the remains of a basement. Through day and night he walked endlessly after this other creature, hoping it would give him the answers he needed, help him escape and not follow him through into the mansion where this had all begun.

At some point he'd gotten distracted by what appeared to be writing along the wall. It looked English in some places but was mostly a mixture of scribbles and thumbprints. What little he could read told him that countless people had come before him, stumbling through mirrors and other reflective things, some in search of treasure and adventure but most by accident, just like him.

He didn't notice when the footprints stopped being in front of him and dropped to behind him.

Day 650

The statues in the graveyard were rotting, their formerly placid and peaceful marble faces gradually melting away to reveal porcelain-looking bone. From the doves carved onto simple Christian tombstones to the elaborate cherubs of deceased infants, nothing was safe.

Beneath each one of these strange occurrences puddles of stone "flesh" were found, some analysed and found to contain trace amounts of human blood cells despite their greyish appearance. Most masons compensate for this now by carving delicate skeletal based gravestone designs, equally respectful of the dead while not leaving any room for the grieving relatives to imagine their loved ones rotting in tandem to their marble counterparts. It only made things harder for them.

For a while time lapses of rotting statues became quite popular, it was fascinating to watch the stones mimic life in such a detailed way. If course conspiracies came about declaring the phenomenon a prank, a cover-up for the countless missing persons around the world, a virus that would eventually lead to us calcifying and becoming new tombstone decorations ourselves and of course something about aliens.

The truth was simpler, kinder in a way too. The human body contains a multitude of things in it, one being about 3-4grams of iron. We resonate with our environments without even realising it to such an extent that the stones around us are feeling what we feel. The great rocky monuments we hold dear to us in graveyards, in war memorials and even common hiking ground gradually become infused with whatever emotions transpire in that place.

When enough emotion occurs in one place something is bound to change. In this case, the stones aren't just rotting with us, they are feeling with us. Mourning in their own way by shedding parts of themselves to become more like the bodies they guard. They are sad for us and sad with us.

Day 649

Last month the body farm called in with missing persons, more specifically all the bodies were missing.

Over two hundred corpses in varying states of decay just vanished overnight.

Ever since then people have been reporting strange homeless looking individuals on the town's outskirts.

I was lucky enough to be tasked with investigating these but despite regular sightings, I never saw anyone.

People would sometimes come into the station with blurry photos on their phones.

A few even claim they heard them talk in the voices of their dead relatives.

Now I should probably point out that the bodies used in this farm come from all over America.

They do this specifically so that people never find their loved ones rotting in a car or wherever.

After a bit of calling around I found twenty other body farms whose bodies had all gone overnight.

Sightings keep going up, the townsfolk are swearing they've seen deceased relatives.

Up until last night I didn't believe them and then my mother came to visit.

She hasn't left yet.

Day 648

They allowed nature to smother the walls of the buildings to make them look abandoned.
Anything to stop anyone from seeing them and coming for them.
Trees grew into rooms, ivy carpeted the floor and nature moved in with humans.

From above the entire city was little more than slightly oddly shaped patches of forest.
As long as they kept the greenery sustained and kept themselves quiet, all would be safe.
Technology withered like a daisy in a dark cupboard as all effort was put into hiding away.

They couldn't get into the forest you see, they needed sunlight more than the trees that hid it.
Even mere minutes without light caused them great pains, so much so that they remained in orbit.
Until they found ways to lure humans out into the open, well-lit areas.

The forest bordered a sea of ash that had once been people foolish enough to wander into the light.
Nobody had kept a record of who lived and who died, no way of communicating across the world.
And so the world shrunk to forests and the green-thumbs that hid away inside them.

It seemed that animals were safe at least, they had flourished at first until the ash clogged their lungs.
Now even they hid away with humans in the forests trying to survive.
All the while they waited for the things in the sky to grow bored enough to leave for good.

Day 647

The last train at Oxford Circus was always crowded despite the late hour. People arrived in varying states of sobriety and proceeded to jam themselves into whatever remaining space the carriages had to offer, which was not a lot.

None of them noticed that the train was a different colour to the usual underground red/white combination. This train was solid grey with the London underground logo on the side, writing back-to-front. Even the seats were different, they were all small fold-up ones, a single row on each side and all with seatbelts. Still nobody noticed the differences and proceeded to buckle themselves in without a second thought. The rest stood, grabbing the dark grey poles for dear life as the train jolted into its journey.

Their next stop should have been Green Park, proceeding from there to the awaited destination of Brixton just as the prerecorded voice announced but that stop never came. It took a fair while for the passengers to notice and even then most remained ignorant until the end.

As the few who were aware enough to realise began to panic, the train began its descent. It was gradual at first, hardly noticeable but it grew steeper and steeper as the minutes progressed. The temperature rose with each gradual turn of the train and soon each compartment stank of sweat.

Before long the people standing found themselves gripping onto the poles to prevent themselves from slipping down the carriage. The seated people counted themselves lucky but in truth were in far more danger. Eventually the train seemed to plateau.

The announcer, now sounding like a man with who'd gargled gravel instead of the smoother woman's voice, advised that they were drawing close to Victoria Station. He didn't once mention that they'd bypassed Green Park but instead listed a dozen other stations that nobody had ever heard of.

By now everyone was sweaty, exhausted and a tiny bit afraid that they'd all gotten the wrong train entirely but none of them said anything until the train pulled to a complete stop at what the announcer had called Victoria Station. It might have been a Victoria Station at one point, perhaps at the first point when the underground was still being developed?

Even with the doors still closed, waiting for someone to push the release button they could taste the soot and grime that coated everything on the platform. Dim gaslights were sparsely placed along the murky blue walls and flickered worryingly as if they could go out at any second. Despite the eerie feel of it the passengers refused to spend another moment inside the train and after a few tense seconds all rushed for the doors as fast as they politely could.

Those who made it up the stairs found themselves in a mimicry of Liverpool Street Station only covered with the same sooty grime that "Victoria Station" had been. There were no people and no electric lights, only gigantic gaslit chandeliers. They found every exit locked and no other train in sight but for the one they arrived on. Every window showed only dirt except the skylights. They showed some kind of city with countless black snake-like things slithering across every surface and gradually descending towards the trapped passengers.

With only a few stragglers remaining, seatbelts refusing to open, the doors slid closed and melted together. With passengers tightly secured the train began to drive off, down the steep tracks and increasing heat.

Day 646

As Jamie, aged 7, wandered around the house late at night he met all the others that lived there.
The ones his parents called "imaginary friends".
They were quieter during the day, sitting all silent-like in the corners or their "zones".
Every one of them had their place and they made sure Jamie knew his.

For example there was Long-Bones.
He'd wrap his flexible limbs around the tops of lampshades and melt into them.
Any time Jamie went to turn on a light without checking Long-Bones would snap at his hands.
His parents thought he'd cut himself on a sharp wire, taken him to hospital and forgotten.

And so Jamie knew not to turn on the lights, Long-Bones couldn't see him in the dark.

There was also Sally who sat next to his parents when they slept and tried to steal their breath.
She'd wrap her tiny hands around their throats until they choked and gasped awake.
Jamie knew she was the reason why they wore oxygen masks to bed.
They called it sleep apnea and paid no mind to the smaller imprints on their pillows.

And so Jamie knew to block his door at night, Sally was too short to reach the handle.

Not all of them were bad though, Jowl wasn't bad like the others.
He'd flatten himself onto the floor and slide under Jamie's door to block others from coming in.
His body blended perfectly into any carpet but felt like raw meat and ribs to the touch.
It was the only downside to having Jowl protect him.

And so Jamie knew to wear boots at night, Jowl's spines would shred his feet otherwise.

The worst of all was the one that Jamie had never properly seen, the one the others called Banjax.
Every night Jamie would try to hunt him down and make him stop and every night he failed.
Instead he ended up clearing the mess that Banjax left so his parents never knew.
His mum hated the sight of blood on TV, how would she react to mutilated sparrows on the walls?

And so Jamie knew that if he ever stopped patrolling, Banjax would get worse and bring larger prey in.

Day 645

Ghosts have always been shaped by their surroundings, being that they are essentially our leftover electrical impulses trapped within the earth's magnetic fields. In earlier times they were often stuck in place but gradually moved into kinetic forms that moved easier.

From roaming animals to torches to other humans these remnant memories latched on like an invisible leech. Of course this eventually kills the kinetic host as their own electrical impulses are reconstructed to fit the ghosts ultimately shredding them both into smaller impulses (what are classed as "orbs") or completely deconstructed.

As our technology advanced and improved, so too did the forms that ghosts could inhabit. Like mirrors, for example. In the dark they seem to show a face that isn't yours and in fact this distorted face can be these remnants within the mirror itself, within you, the host, or a combination of both. It's awfully crowded nowadays.

Another key example of this post-mortem evolution comes from steam-based engines. These became hives for paranormal activity, all based around how many remnants were drawn there, either from their hosts working there or from the accidents frequently occurring in the early industrial period. Factories seemed to make as many ghosts as they did products, with poor birth control only contributing to the supply of both.

With the global use of electricity ghosts now travel faster than ever before and become so much more than faint electrical impulses. They are less like the individuals stuck in confused memory fragments, latching onto the closest source of kinetic energy. They are now a global force, a conglomeration of everyone who has died since we began running cables through the oceans and placing satellites in orbit and carrying phones with us at all times.

They aren't just one person.

They are every person in one space - in one planet.

They are the new afterlife and we stare into their leftover faces every time we go online.

Day 644

It all began with one road diversion.

He was heading to the carpark by the train station, about to catch the train to London for the day. Local traffic was heavier than normal, even for rush hour every street seemed packed. As he inched along to his turnoff he swore he saw the same five cars loop slowly past him, the people inside were either yelling or singing but he couldn't hear them. His own radio had been broken all week, volume never turning off or down.

As he approached his turning down to the aptly named Station Road he saw that it had been blocked by a police car, two or three cars were just past them all smoke and crumpled wreckage. The sign perched neatly on the window of the emergency vehicle advised there was a diverted route and to follow similar signs to lead back to the end of the road via untold others.

Unthinkingly he drove on, still perplexed by the looping cars beside him whose occupants sometimes just stared at him, mouth and eyes gaping wide and unmoving. At least the traffic on that side, odd as it was, seemed to be moving at a regular speed as opposed to his stop-start-stopping.

With every turn he took, following the diverted routes, he noticed that the road opposite or nearby was being blocked by an emergency vehicle of some sort, either police or hospital yet no people were visible there. The smouldering remnants of crashed cars lay just past them.

At some point he reckoned he'd begun to loop back around and was starting to head back the way he came. The cars that had been looping beside him were now in front and behind him. He wasn't sure when this had happened but it seemed that with the traffic now flowing smoothly he had unknowingly joined them.

When the loop ended everything would go black briefly and a human face the size of a torso would be sitting on the bonnet of his car briefly as he jerked awake once more. Its lidless eyes and far-too-toothy grin got closer with every loop. Eventually after countless loops it just sat there constantly, face pressed against the window, heavy breath fogging the glass.

He tried to look to the ignorant people on the other lane, yelling at them to turn back while trying to keep his eyes on the head in case it moved to his partially open side window. The people on the other side of the road either ignored him or looked confused.

He swore he'd seen himself over there several times already.

The other him never looked over.

Day 643

When they burnt the forest to make way for new houses they found all the trees were metal.
For months they tried to figure out when and why this happened, reaching no set conclusion.
The forest air had always had that tin-scent to it, presumed to be the heavy iron deposits underground.
The trees looked far too convincing to be old but too old to be recent.

From photos taken back in the early 1900s and over the century right to the day before the fire we could clearly see that the forest had grown over the years.
So somebody had been either planting new trees or there was someone underground making them grow.
By local vote it was decided to dig up the forest and see how far down those metal roots went.

That was almost twelve years ago.
Now they've dug almost thirty feet down, construction has slowed.
The metal roots have begun to form a tangled labyrinth and we're relying now on volunteers.
The end isn't in sight just yet, we haven't reached the base.

From time to time we see words carved into the roots.
Words like ameliorate and forthright for no apparent reason.
All the syllables so far are even, there isn;t a single odd syllabled word yet but we're keeping watch.
The roots are gradually getting thicker, becoming tinged with red too.

At first we thought it was rust but one particularly early digger says he saw it fresh, running dark red upwards.
We're getting it tested but several of the other volunteers are convinced that the trees are bleeding.
It's more likely to be rust or some oxidised reaction the newly dug out roots are showing.
After all, how could a metal forest bleed?

Day 642

He always did make the most lifelike of dolls.
From the pores on their skin to the paws he'd sewn them as hands, each detail was perfect.

He tended to them every day, polishing this or resewing that.
Always spraying them with scents too.

He said it was what his wife had done to stop their sawdust insides from smelling odd.
When the dolls were presumed to be made from wood though, it didn't make much sense.

We found out what they were made of when he was rushed to hospital.
He ended up staying there for three months, and the rest of his life he spent in prison.

It happened when a kid knocked one of the dolls off the shelf and it broke upon impact.
The chest and head were damaged beyond repair and definitely not wooden.

He'd always insisted that he used the finest quality materials, never saying which wood he used.
Seems he'd preferred rawer materials for his work.

Where we'd expected to see some kind of wood there was instead something that looked like jerky.
It was a deep mahogany red and smelled faintly of pork.

We didn't quite get it until the kid that knocked it off pointed out the doll's ribcage.
It wasn't another detail that the old man had added, they were actual human ribs.

When the doll was taken apart further in the back room we found that the face had been a mask.
Those perfect features were a mockery of the mummified face behind, frozen in terror.

All of the dolls were like that, children killed, innards scraped out and filled with sawdust.
We'd spent years admiring them, so many had gone to people's homes and children played with them.

As of yet, they haven't been able to identify a single child.
Almost a hundred tiny corpses with no names.

Day 641

During WWII every family was encouraged to build an Anderson shelter in their back garden just in case they didn't have the time to make it to the community one. They'd be made of corrugated iron sheets and steel plates at either end and buried under as much dirt as their gardens could manage, all in the hopes of protecting them.

Ridiculous to think about now of course, with our advancements what chance would a tin coffin stand against another blitzkrieg? It'd be a bright flash and burial all in one. No need for pomp or ceremony, just stick a tombstone on and call it a day. We all know it would get to that point, there's only so many bodies we're willing to dig up before we choose to let them lie.

Did you know that most of these shelters survived their intended period? After the All-Clear was declared a great deal were destroyed and the metal sold or repurposed in the harsh economy left behind after the War. Others were forgotten and buried even further, replaced with vegetables and flowers. Some had been buried long before the end by falling debris, with their occupants inside.

If a family screams eight feet underground and everyone on the streets above is screaming too, who will be around to hear them slowly starve and turn on each other?

I ask because an Anderson shelter was found in my neighbour's garden when he was digging the garden up to build an extension. The excavator drove straight through the tin roof revealing four skeletons. Two adult, one child and one infant.

Of course the police were called immediately, thinking at first that it was related to the recent spree of missing people. The bones dated back seventy-odd years, the clothing dated them to the early forties and the overall cause of death was a peculiar assortment.


The infant had died by asphyxiation, skull fractured suggesting a heavy object compressed the head.
Bones showing teeth marks in some places.

The child, aged twelve or so, blunt force trauma to the rear of the head, suspected weapon - one tin of beans with blood stained corner. Larger teeth marks in places.

The adult male had also asphyxiated, found with his torso buried under dirt in a clear escape attempt.
Large teeth marks to the thighs and left calf.

The adult female was the strangest, seemed to have died last by almost a year gap. Found sitting on the only chair there, a pipe in her hand full of tobacco. No teeth marks present.

Day 640

It was called the floating forest and was viewable mostly from the telescopes on the beach, you know the ones that you put a coin into? Through those grubby, finger smudged lenses you could see it, though it was still quite small compared to the rest of the lake.

If you stood there long enough, observing the trees sprouting from the old shipwreck, you'd notice that no boats ever seemed to go near it in spite of the large shoals of fish that darted in and out of the safe, murky waters beneath it.

Perhaps it was because of all the rocks in that area, the ones that were rumoured to have caused the wreck to occur in the first place. Or was it because of the pale, lithe figures that darted in and out of the trees like they were on a mossy forest floor as opposed to a creaking, slowly rusting to nothing boat?

It's hard to say when nobody knows any of the fishermen, has seen any of the fishermen and honestly doubts their existence as one might doubt the existence of ghosts. Though at this point the two are fast becoming interchangeable  - both stay in one area for an unknown amount of time, both have hard to distinguish facial features, both flicker in and out of view if you stare for too long and talking about either makes the temperature wherever you are drop by several degrees.

Needless to say there are signs advising that people avoid swimming and fishing unless they have a license and written permission from the mayor. This way only a few bloated, half eaten corpses wash up on shore. So fewer compared to the years before but so much more brutalised.

I think we angered the fishermen by denying them regular feedings.

Day 639

It was the kind of theatre that you'd expect to see in the old black and white films and the only one around that still enforced a formal attire dress code. It showed a mix of modern day cinema and sepia toned classics, now dubbed masterpieces. From time to time they would roll up the old silk screen and play host to live local performances.

The midnight screenings were always the most popular but the least populated - most of the living had better things to do than watch a seemingly empty stage. There were a select few who could see the performers, hundreds of years old and frozen in their prime. They would reenact their favourite shows, their most famed shows and with each session they would grow stronger.

It seemed sometimes like they almost fed from the attention of the sparse but rapt audience, flickering shades brighter with each round of muted applause from their regular fans and whatever bored friends they dragged with them, insisting that the stage was filled with the ghosts of such performers as Anna Pavlova and Marlon Brando.

Mostly these people, the ones that couldn't see the actors, walked out before any kind of climax had been built. Times like these made the performers' flickering form dim. Countless ghosts had been lost to audiences like this, vanishing before their very eyes, their faces the very definition of terror. Not that they were seen by the ones who left. Those people left as ignorant as they arrived but with an urge to rewatch old theatricals.

Day 638

Her wanderings had taken her far from the city streets that she was used to and right down into the shabby homes on the outskirts, gradually tapering off into forest smothered hills. She'd never taken these paths before, always taking main roads or the train to other places but never the outskirts.

They had a bit of a reputation, things turned up there that the authorities never let into the city. Still let them wreak havoc on the outskirts but that wasn't a city matter apparently. She'd been curious about the reports and blurred photos all her life, finally seizing the chance to go out and see them for herself, if they even existed at all.

As she got closer to the city's absolute edges she heard strange music, like violins and xylophones played underwater. The tune sounded so familiar, it resonated right through her and made her skin itch deep, deep down. Searching for the source she came to a row of brightly lit houses with a queue of people outside.

Something about them didn't seem right, like their skin had been stretched roughly over a frame. All loose and saggy in some places and so tight she could almost see their bones in others. One spotted her, face shadowed in the dim evening light, and beckoned her over calling her "sister". She went and stood beside him about to ask what was going on when he grabbed his upper lip and pulled upwards, dragging his face clean off revealing gleaming white bone beneath.

She felt the blood drain from her face and everything went dark as she dropped to a faint.

The beings around her brought her in with them, gently putting her onto a sofa. They tried to pull her skin off, thinking she was like them after all why else would she be there? When her skin remained stubbornly on they took matters into their own hands. If she wasn't like them before, she would be by morning.

Day 637

The cemetery was so large and so old that it had long since spilled out of the original consecrated church grounds and led to the whole city being consecrated to save time and space. It seemed that no matter how many of the older tombs were dug up, bodies cremated and placed a dozen to a plot, more were always there to fill the space.

Each day there were at least eight funerals, hearses slowly working their way around the town in a seemingly endless parade of morbidity. It had gotten to the point where a system of underground roads were built so that regular commuters could bypass them. There were so many funerals they had a team of priests working 9-5 every day, saying the final rites to jars of ashes with no family to mourn them or mark their passing.

Sometimes there weren't even names given to the deceased, sometimes they were simply known by their cause of death. Well, most were nowadays what with so many dying all of a sudden and there being no time for individual funerals. It was all done on mass. There was no other way.

At least the law made certain that tombs built along main roadsides and near the city centre had to be lavishly decorated. There were specific rules on this so as to increase tourism without detracting from the otherwise bustling modern day environment. There were even small funeral shelves in most shops where urns belonging to the family who owned the business were publically displayed.

Although these were another draw for the tourists, they were seen throughout the city as a sign that the owners were too cheap or poor to afford even the smallest plot of land to bury their dead respectfully. Not that burial kept the dead down anyway. Not that the unburnt didn't just walk back out of their tombs and got on with their lives until they either decayed or were burnt to ash like all the others.

The city and the graveyard were fast becoming one place where the living and dead were interchangeable.