The houses in our town all have at least one gargoyle perched on the corner. They act as rain spouts mostly, useful little things though some are quite frankly beyond grotesque but that's just personal preference. You see over the years they've gone from just useful decorations to status symbols like the latest phone or car.
You can tell who's better off not just by how well kept their house is (though most of ours are the usual grey stone and greyer tiles that are so common in our area of England) but by how deformed their gargoyles are and how many there are. The norm is one single gargoyle (usually named after someone's great, great, great something-or-other) perched on the front right corner, spout pointing neatly to a small section of garden we call a Pyke's Den.
We didn't always have so many gargoyles and honestly few outside of the town even know about our little custom. They have no idea that our housing regulations specify that any and all buildings (including, but not limited to, sheds, barns, shops, storage facilities and garages) must have a minimum of one gargoyle perched on the front right corner above a physical Pyke's Den or a representational one.
Of course some newcomers don't understand and don't like the gargoyles, they try to remove theirs or worse - they succeed in removing theirs. Daft buggers never last long after that. Those "tragic accidents" are directly linked to not having a gargoyle - believe us we've tried to go without and it always ends in somebodies death. We've lost whole families all because they thought the gargoyles were too "icky" for their modern "sensibilities".
Mine's called Angus after my great aunt's grandfather that she always told stories about. He had one hell of a temper which makes his name perfect for a gargoyle - the nastier the person behind the name, the better it works. You see they protect us like all their kind do. You see them on those ornate cathedrals and skyscrapers all for that same reason.
You don't see them move about much any more, not like they used to. I miss the way Angus would scuttle down the drainpipe and roam about the front garden chasing hedgehogs and bats. He always did love bats-in fact some morning you could still see their little wings poking out of his mouth! Such a mess he made at times, like most gargoyles his age. Somewhere in their eighties they start to rampage a bit, kill small nocturnal beasties and the like. They settle down eventually, always do.
We haven't had anyone move into town for almost twelve years and it makes you wonder if the rest of the world's been told about our little stony protectors and is scared of them. It's no skin off our backs but it does mean that our current population of gargoyles are growing bored and that's the last thing we want.When they'e bored they go right back to rampaging only at all hours. Anything smaller than a grown man's waist is a potential target - even if they're a human in a gargoyle-protected home.
We've been tossing ideas about to build smaller gargoyles, like children, for the structures that fall within the minimal building height. You know like dog houses and wheelie bins. It sounds even dafter than having them on sheds but it might keep them occupied long enough for us to draw in some new people and build more houses again.
It might just work. It has to.
20160331
20160330
Day 695
It isn't the first time you've felt like you're sleepwalking, like your lungs are full of water and your bones are made of air. No, not the first time for all that but it is the first time you've heard something while moving.
As usual for these times you drowsily slide out of bed and head for your door, hoping you'd remembered to lock it but it seems you haven't. The hallway doesn't look like it's yours and a tiny part of your mind (perhaps your conscious self) begins to panic that you aren't even in your own home. Strange though, your old family photos are still on the walls, your boots lying where you kicked them off before entering your bedroom but everything else is utterly unfamiliar.
The wallpaper is a grimy beige, the same colour of your school's changing room floors made muddy by too many pupils and too few cleaning staff. It smells like rotting fruit which is odd, you haven't dreamt a smell before. Perhaps you're finally having that stroke people keep warning you about? Or was that smelling toast? It isn't enough to stop your feet from steadily plodding down the corridor.
You can move your head, you find, glancing back at your bedroom door and wanting to return. Your feet won't stop walking down the hallway, to some destination unknown to the rest of you. The faint sounds of preaching reach your ears as it narrows, leading to a singular door. You know it's preaching, the old Vicar used to sound so similar in that droning way of his that told you that you were loved and damned in the same breath.
Come to think of it, the rotting fruit smells like it's been mixed with that same musty church smell you remember so well from your childhood. Old books, old people and old building mixed together and topped with the faint aroma of the communion wine still seems to bring a shiver down your spine as you remember how vacant the old people looked in their pews.
Your hand grasps the door handle so hard you see your knuckles turn white with the pressure. Strangely though you don't feel the pressure - come to think of it you don't feel your feet either, just your neck.Were you numb this entire time or is this a recent development that further proves you're still asleep and you're actually walking into your bathroom or something?
The door opens stiffly, your hand jerks it open enough for you to squeeze through and closes it behind you. It's the old church, just how you remember it as a child. The pews come up to your shoulders and are crammed full of faces, some you vaguely know and others you recognise as your own family. None of them move. Not even their chests move to take breaths like yours does (you glance down to check just in case).
There right at the front, barely lit by the candles that you don't remember ever being lit in reality (assuming that this is still a dream, and at this point it must be), not even for funerals, stands the Vicar. His droning voice echoes out a Biblical verse you swear isn't real but sounds like it could be.
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Be thanks to God, for he cast out the traitor Jesus and in his place crowned us his faithful ones. Through Him all things are-
He stops and peers down at you, looming as he always had. Up close like this his face looked like it had been made out of clay and roughly slapped onto a vague approximation of a human's head. Before you can fully comprehend that he isn't exactly a human his jaw drops, literally disconnecting from his skull with a loud crack and falls to the floor.
His mouth is probably big enough to swallow you and before you can open your own mouth to scream your face goes as numb as the rest of you. You are left a pair of eyes flickering around wildly, trying to escape from your own body as your feet step forward and into a mouth that reeks of rotting fruit and old books.
As usual for these times you drowsily slide out of bed and head for your door, hoping you'd remembered to lock it but it seems you haven't. The hallway doesn't look like it's yours and a tiny part of your mind (perhaps your conscious self) begins to panic that you aren't even in your own home. Strange though, your old family photos are still on the walls, your boots lying where you kicked them off before entering your bedroom but everything else is utterly unfamiliar.
The wallpaper is a grimy beige, the same colour of your school's changing room floors made muddy by too many pupils and too few cleaning staff. It smells like rotting fruit which is odd, you haven't dreamt a smell before. Perhaps you're finally having that stroke people keep warning you about? Or was that smelling toast? It isn't enough to stop your feet from steadily plodding down the corridor.
You can move your head, you find, glancing back at your bedroom door and wanting to return. Your feet won't stop walking down the hallway, to some destination unknown to the rest of you. The faint sounds of preaching reach your ears as it narrows, leading to a singular door. You know it's preaching, the old Vicar used to sound so similar in that droning way of his that told you that you were loved and damned in the same breath.
Come to think of it, the rotting fruit smells like it's been mixed with that same musty church smell you remember so well from your childhood. Old books, old people and old building mixed together and topped with the faint aroma of the communion wine still seems to bring a shiver down your spine as you remember how vacant the old people looked in their pews.
Your hand grasps the door handle so hard you see your knuckles turn white with the pressure. Strangely though you don't feel the pressure - come to think of it you don't feel your feet either, just your neck.Were you numb this entire time or is this a recent development that further proves you're still asleep and you're actually walking into your bathroom or something?
The door opens stiffly, your hand jerks it open enough for you to squeeze through and closes it behind you. It's the old church, just how you remember it as a child. The pews come up to your shoulders and are crammed full of faces, some you vaguely know and others you recognise as your own family. None of them move. Not even their chests move to take breaths like yours does (you glance down to check just in case).
There right at the front, barely lit by the candles that you don't remember ever being lit in reality (assuming that this is still a dream, and at this point it must be), not even for funerals, stands the Vicar. His droning voice echoes out a Biblical verse you swear isn't real but sounds like it could be.
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. Be thanks to God, for he cast out the traitor Jesus and in his place crowned us his faithful ones. Through Him all things are-
He stops and peers down at you, looming as he always had. Up close like this his face looked like it had been made out of clay and roughly slapped onto a vague approximation of a human's head. Before you can fully comprehend that he isn't exactly a human his jaw drops, literally disconnecting from his skull with a loud crack and falls to the floor.
His mouth is probably big enough to swallow you and before you can open your own mouth to scream your face goes as numb as the rest of you. You are left a pair of eyes flickering around wildly, trying to escape from your own body as your feet step forward and into a mouth that reeks of rotting fruit and old books.
20160329
Day 694
We used to make houses for the garden fairies so they'd stay away.
We used to take them right out into a specific glade in the woods and leave them there.
We used to leave small plates of food inside them so the fairies would feel welcome and stay.
My mother made it very clear that not only were fairies real but they were bad news.
Their rules of interaction were so strict and vaguely known that the slightest mistake was deadly.
It was better to keep them appeased and as far away as possible.
She said they made themselves look human to fool us into talking to them and breaking a rule.
She also said that stars were people's souls trapped in the sky and that she had a twin sister.
I know at least two of these things are true, or truer than the third.
There were enough photos to prove she was a twin and enough news clippings to prove she went missing.
My mother insisted it was a fairy who'd dragged her away into the nearby lake to "swim".
Apparently fairies don't breathe, hence why their skin is so often shown as pale or absolutely white.
Her body was never found, only two sets of tiny footprints on the muddy shore leading into the water.
Grandad says she was never the same - obsessed with making the fairies houses and keeping them out.
He says mum's twin was swimming and went out too far, they didn't get to her in time.
Whenever he told me that (which was surprisingly often) his hands and voice would tremble.
It wasn't until his deathbed that he admitted to seeing a strange child in the water with her.
One that grabbed her hair and turned them both to water, leaving nothing behind.
We used to take them right out into a specific glade in the woods and leave them there.
We used to leave small plates of food inside them so the fairies would feel welcome and stay.
My mother made it very clear that not only were fairies real but they were bad news.
Their rules of interaction were so strict and vaguely known that the slightest mistake was deadly.
It was better to keep them appeased and as far away as possible.
She said they made themselves look human to fool us into talking to them and breaking a rule.
She also said that stars were people's souls trapped in the sky and that she had a twin sister.
I know at least two of these things are true, or truer than the third.
There were enough photos to prove she was a twin and enough news clippings to prove she went missing.
My mother insisted it was a fairy who'd dragged her away into the nearby lake to "swim".
Apparently fairies don't breathe, hence why their skin is so often shown as pale or absolutely white.
Her body was never found, only two sets of tiny footprints on the muddy shore leading into the water.
Grandad says she was never the same - obsessed with making the fairies houses and keeping them out.
He says mum's twin was swimming and went out too far, they didn't get to her in time.
Whenever he told me that (which was surprisingly often) his hands and voice would tremble.
It wasn't until his deathbed that he admitted to seeing a strange child in the water with her.
One that grabbed her hair and turned them both to water, leaving nothing behind.
20160328
Day 693
In big cities small things like bars can get lost among the noise so easily. They slip down small alleys and vanish into local obscurity or a one-off review from some nobody online. Occasionally a big name will go there and throw the obscure into public view, trampling the locals out in favour of more big names and their big stacks of cash.
When this happens more changes than just the clientèle and it starts with the little things. That dingy lighting that gave the room that warm, cosy glow becomes several shades bluer, throwing the atmosphere into something sharper that sets the hairs at the back of your neck on edge. Slightly grizzled, roguishly charming bar staff take on an angrier tone, their attitude snappier and eyes gleaming with something feral barely held back by social courtesy.
It's the locals that make the place safe, keep the staff in check and remind them to be human. Not that they're any more human of course but they remember what being human was like much clearer. It's what keeps them in front of the bar for the most part. When they go it's like kicking a hornets nest and throwing it through the nearest open window. Sure there might be nobody inside and no trouble the first few times but eventually you'll throw it into somebodies house and all hell will break loose.
This goes for all small bars, all partially forgotten, everyone's a regular, faint smell of blood and bleach in the air bars that exist globally but are so very rarely touched by humans on a regular basis. You've probably been to a few, or at least one small bar somewhere you're visiting without so much as a second thought. Did they stare at you in there? Where the patrons shiftier than normal people? Was the atmosphere so inviting you couldn't resist a quick drink or two?
What made you leave without so much as a second glance behind or a mention to anyone you know years down the line, even when you're back in the same area and looking for a place to drink?
When this happens more changes than just the clientèle and it starts with the little things. That dingy lighting that gave the room that warm, cosy glow becomes several shades bluer, throwing the atmosphere into something sharper that sets the hairs at the back of your neck on edge. Slightly grizzled, roguishly charming bar staff take on an angrier tone, their attitude snappier and eyes gleaming with something feral barely held back by social courtesy.
It's the locals that make the place safe, keep the staff in check and remind them to be human. Not that they're any more human of course but they remember what being human was like much clearer. It's what keeps them in front of the bar for the most part. When they go it's like kicking a hornets nest and throwing it through the nearest open window. Sure there might be nobody inside and no trouble the first few times but eventually you'll throw it into somebodies house and all hell will break loose.
This goes for all small bars, all partially forgotten, everyone's a regular, faint smell of blood and bleach in the air bars that exist globally but are so very rarely touched by humans on a regular basis. You've probably been to a few, or at least one small bar somewhere you're visiting without so much as a second thought. Did they stare at you in there? Where the patrons shiftier than normal people? Was the atmosphere so inviting you couldn't resist a quick drink or two?
What made you leave without so much as a second glance behind or a mention to anyone you know years down the line, even when you're back in the same area and looking for a place to drink?
20160327
Day 692
It was a scorching summer day, the kind that makes your vision as hazy as the horizon if you're out for too long. There's that old saying about mad dogs and Englishmen - the only living things dumb enough to be out in such weather and yet there you were taking a walk through the empty park grounds like you owned the place. Being the only person around you almost felt like you did.
Insects hummed and the sun beat down on you with the same intensity as your grandmother's glare any time you spoke. Fortunately she couldn't stand the heat - she couldn't stand at all. Made it so much easier for you to get out of her sight and out into the world, especially on peaceful days like this where your only company was your thoughts.
Not even the birds were out today, there wasn't so much as a seagull's cry from the distance. After a while of this near silence, you began to feel worried and headed off the path and further into the park grounds, gradually wading through the knee height grasses to the shade of the forest. You'd never been there in all your years, your parents had warned you about it the way they warned you about everything in life - fairy tales.
Their forest story revolved around living trees called Fyxenhyd. They were something like dryads but always men, always still when you looked, always active on hot summer days and always hungry. Now you think about it, they may have been trying to warn you about predators but without using that dreaded word as parents so often refused to use for reasons beyond the younger generations.
This all popped into your head as you found yourself standing in front of the trees, hesitantly remembering the fear in your parent's eyes as they told you this Red Riding Hood-esque parable. any time you asked if they could take you into the forest to pick the bluebells that grew there they'd always say "Do you want us to meet the Fyxenhyd? Didn't think so." which never really made sense to your younger self. According to them Fyxenhyd only ate things smaller than them and your parents seemed as tall as trees themselves.
Of course now you know different, especially now that you're facing the forest they never let you near. That little voice in your head that always got you into trouble egged you to take just a single step inside, just one foot even - just to see the look on your parent's faces when you told them! If you ever told them.
With a deep breath, eyes closed to brace yourself you went to move your sandal-clad foot forward, expecting to meet cooler grass but you met something... wet? Eyes snapping open you saw your foot resting lightly on a tongue the size of your torso and teeth like rose thorns. A large tree contorted around it with golden-orange eyes the size of your head gazing back at you.
As the corners of its mouth slyly edged up into a grin you stumbled back and ran for the path, ran until you were back among the concrete and your lungs burned like the sun above you.
Now it seems every tree you pass,no matter how deep into the city you are, the knots and whirls on their bark look like sleeping faces, smiling at you smugly. Waiting for you to turn your back for long enough.
Insects hummed and the sun beat down on you with the same intensity as your grandmother's glare any time you spoke. Fortunately she couldn't stand the heat - she couldn't stand at all. Made it so much easier for you to get out of her sight and out into the world, especially on peaceful days like this where your only company was your thoughts.
Not even the birds were out today, there wasn't so much as a seagull's cry from the distance. After a while of this near silence, you began to feel worried and headed off the path and further into the park grounds, gradually wading through the knee height grasses to the shade of the forest. You'd never been there in all your years, your parents had warned you about it the way they warned you about everything in life - fairy tales.
Their forest story revolved around living trees called Fyxenhyd. They were something like dryads but always men, always still when you looked, always active on hot summer days and always hungry. Now you think about it, they may have been trying to warn you about predators but without using that dreaded word as parents so often refused to use for reasons beyond the younger generations.
This all popped into your head as you found yourself standing in front of the trees, hesitantly remembering the fear in your parent's eyes as they told you this Red Riding Hood-esque parable. any time you asked if they could take you into the forest to pick the bluebells that grew there they'd always say "Do you want us to meet the Fyxenhyd? Didn't think so." which never really made sense to your younger self. According to them Fyxenhyd only ate things smaller than them and your parents seemed as tall as trees themselves.
Of course now you know different, especially now that you're facing the forest they never let you near. That little voice in your head that always got you into trouble egged you to take just a single step inside, just one foot even - just to see the look on your parent's faces when you told them! If you ever told them.
With a deep breath, eyes closed to brace yourself you went to move your sandal-clad foot forward, expecting to meet cooler grass but you met something... wet? Eyes snapping open you saw your foot resting lightly on a tongue the size of your torso and teeth like rose thorns. A large tree contorted around it with golden-orange eyes the size of your head gazing back at you.
As the corners of its mouth slyly edged up into a grin you stumbled back and ran for the path, ran until you were back among the concrete and your lungs burned like the sun above you.
Now it seems every tree you pass,no matter how deep into the city you are, the knots and whirls on their bark look like sleeping faces, smiling at you smugly. Waiting for you to turn your back for long enough.
20160326
Day 691
My camera seems a little broken, nothing I'd ever say to anyone's face but the internet's anonymity will do. See it takes photos just fine, the quality's nothing to brag about but it's good enough for a cheap film camera. I got it in an old auction house for a fiver and I've barely been able to put it down ever since.
It shows me things I could never imagine, things I don't want to imagine. Mostly it shows the world as this desolate grey void. I don't have any black and white film, never liked the monotones, yet this camera only seems to take black and white images. There are no settings to change, it's literally point and click yet somehow every frame comes out colourless. I've taken the films to almost every photography shop in the county and even resorted to developing them by hand in an attempt to keep the colour there or at least bring it back.
It never works, I'm always left with these empty, grey scenes. I took my camera to London to get definitive proof that something was wrong with it. All along the DLR train and into the Isle of Dogs I took image after image, trying to capture the busiest scenes I could. All for nothing.
Well, almost for nothing. Towards the end of my journey as I headed back into the carpark where I'd left my ride I kept taking the odd image with no real focus or effort. It was nearly evening and everything in London was settling down, the crowds of people from the morning had dissipated to the odd group or loner. I thought nothing of it at the time.
When I reached my car I began to hear footsteps behind me. While there were a few other cars about, there weren't any people. Still the footsteps seemed to be heading closer to me, making me quite nervous. After all I was just one person in a fairly empty carpark, who'd hear me cry for help?
As the footsteps drew closer and closer, sounding loudly from just in front of me they stopped. I heard a faint scuffling noise, fainter laughter (deep, deep laughter that echoed all around me) and something crunching wetly all the while I swear I didn't see anyone. Hurriedly I took a few quick photos before I made a dash for my open car and got out of there as fast as I legally could.
It was a few days before I had the film developed and when I did,my camera surprised me once again. all the busy places were as empty as I thought they'd be. Sheet after sheet of nothing but blank streets until I got to the final page where I'd fired off a few shots in the carpark. There was a figure there, blurry but standing not too far from me over by a concrete pillar in the middle of the last row.
In the first image they were standing still.
In the second they were staring right at me, body perfectly still but their face a blur of rapid movement.
It shows me things I could never imagine, things I don't want to imagine. Mostly it shows the world as this desolate grey void. I don't have any black and white film, never liked the monotones, yet this camera only seems to take black and white images. There are no settings to change, it's literally point and click yet somehow every frame comes out colourless. I've taken the films to almost every photography shop in the county and even resorted to developing them by hand in an attempt to keep the colour there or at least bring it back.
It never works, I'm always left with these empty, grey scenes. I took my camera to London to get definitive proof that something was wrong with it. All along the DLR train and into the Isle of Dogs I took image after image, trying to capture the busiest scenes I could. All for nothing.
Well, almost for nothing. Towards the end of my journey as I headed back into the carpark where I'd left my ride I kept taking the odd image with no real focus or effort. It was nearly evening and everything in London was settling down, the crowds of people from the morning had dissipated to the odd group or loner. I thought nothing of it at the time.
When I reached my car I began to hear footsteps behind me. While there were a few other cars about, there weren't any people. Still the footsteps seemed to be heading closer to me, making me quite nervous. After all I was just one person in a fairly empty carpark, who'd hear me cry for help?
As the footsteps drew closer and closer, sounding loudly from just in front of me they stopped. I heard a faint scuffling noise, fainter laughter (deep, deep laughter that echoed all around me) and something crunching wetly all the while I swear I didn't see anyone. Hurriedly I took a few quick photos before I made a dash for my open car and got out of there as fast as I legally could.
It was a few days before I had the film developed and when I did,my camera surprised me once again. all the busy places were as empty as I thought they'd be. Sheet after sheet of nothing but blank streets until I got to the final page where I'd fired off a few shots in the carpark. There was a figure there, blurry but standing not too far from me over by a concrete pillar in the middle of the last row.
In the first image they were standing still.
In the second they were staring right at me, body perfectly still but their face a blur of rapid movement.
20160325
Day 690
A waterfall ran between the narrow gap where the two mountains had collided from the quake of 1805. Land's End, they called it and it was the last place anyone wanted to be. Though the cargo blimps still sailed through the space between they'd been adapted - waterproof fabrics, narrower structure, heavy duty harpoons aimed directly below etcetera. Made things safer for the most part but never enough for a crew to sleep soundly at the halfway refuel station.
It was one of those automated places, set up as shoddy as the fuel but enough to get you to the other side which was all that mattered. The automatons that served as cleaners, ship handlers, mechanics and defence when necessary were officially called OmniJacks but more commonly known as Getters. Strangely they named themselves that, constantly muttering under their breath about humans telling them to "get this, get that, get over there and shoot the blighter before it gets any closer." Nowadays they refuse to answer to anything else.
Still, compared to the things that lived at the depths of the waterfall, the Getters were saints. Anything was preferable to the fates that befell stray cargo blimps, unaware cargo blimps, never-seen-again-the-funeral's-on-Tuesday blimps. The plaques at either side of Land's End used to be updated on a regular basis but when they looked to be growing to ridiculous sizes from the ships gone missing, they were replaced by a mechanical scroll. Every morning it would update the names of ships gone down and every night the surface would be wiped clean ready for the next day. Bets were held for every ship that departed - it was a fairly lucrative business.
Some blimps went through Land's End specifically to document the species unique to the falls and cliff. You'd think that a 5,000 foot tall waterfall wouldn't be home to much more than bacteria but surprisingly fish have adapted to live constantly swimming upstream and along the rapid current, among several species of bird with wings more like parachutes than the traditional feathery structure.
That was in the higher regions, the shallows as they were called. The depths were for much larger beasts, the ones that led to harpoon-covered hulls becoming standard for cargo blimps in the area. Few people have managed to get a glimpse of them and survive. The most we know of them is that their limbs are something between a squid and a vine, every inch covered in thorns-like spines that dig into cliffside and blimp alike. If there's any more to them, we haven't seen it.
The base of Land's End is part of a large hourglass shaped lake running between the mountains and out either end. It's uninhabited by humans and the local wildlife is something we prefer to spectate at out of fear and common sense in equal measure. With all the ships that go down there I'd imagine the lake to be swimming with a treasure trove of cargo, ship-parts and corpses but perhaps not enough to risk death for.
Still it does draw people down, of course they're only seen again on the Death Board the next day or so. I hear they'll be expanding that too after Her Majesty's latest vessel the "HRM Indomitable" went down with millions of pounds worth of precious stones inside. We're expecting a lot of new blimps.
It was one of those automated places, set up as shoddy as the fuel but enough to get you to the other side which was all that mattered. The automatons that served as cleaners, ship handlers, mechanics and defence when necessary were officially called OmniJacks but more commonly known as Getters. Strangely they named themselves that, constantly muttering under their breath about humans telling them to "get this, get that, get over there and shoot the blighter before it gets any closer." Nowadays they refuse to answer to anything else.
Still, compared to the things that lived at the depths of the waterfall, the Getters were saints. Anything was preferable to the fates that befell stray cargo blimps, unaware cargo blimps, never-seen-again-the-funeral's-on-Tuesday blimps. The plaques at either side of Land's End used to be updated on a regular basis but when they looked to be growing to ridiculous sizes from the ships gone missing, they were replaced by a mechanical scroll. Every morning it would update the names of ships gone down and every night the surface would be wiped clean ready for the next day. Bets were held for every ship that departed - it was a fairly lucrative business.
Some blimps went through Land's End specifically to document the species unique to the falls and cliff. You'd think that a 5,000 foot tall waterfall wouldn't be home to much more than bacteria but surprisingly fish have adapted to live constantly swimming upstream and along the rapid current, among several species of bird with wings more like parachutes than the traditional feathery structure.
That was in the higher regions, the shallows as they were called. The depths were for much larger beasts, the ones that led to harpoon-covered hulls becoming standard for cargo blimps in the area. Few people have managed to get a glimpse of them and survive. The most we know of them is that their limbs are something between a squid and a vine, every inch covered in thorns-like spines that dig into cliffside and blimp alike. If there's any more to them, we haven't seen it.
The base of Land's End is part of a large hourglass shaped lake running between the mountains and out either end. It's uninhabited by humans and the local wildlife is something we prefer to spectate at out of fear and common sense in equal measure. With all the ships that go down there I'd imagine the lake to be swimming with a treasure trove of cargo, ship-parts and corpses but perhaps not enough to risk death for.
Still it does draw people down, of course they're only seen again on the Death Board the next day or so. I hear they'll be expanding that too after Her Majesty's latest vessel the "HRM Indomitable" went down with millions of pounds worth of precious stones inside. We're expecting a lot of new blimps.
20160324
Day 689
The gate had been left open for as long as anyone could remember but nobody had ever been seen coming or going. Most people didn't really know where it went, they figured it was the underground delivery access for the Hight Street shops or it was some old bunker or subway system that got shut down because not enough people used it (which is surprisingly common for London, but not on this occasion).
It was this iron wrought gate, partially boarded up and set into the overgrown concrete and plant disorder down some alley or other. One of those liminal spaces where people come and go but never stick around. A space that exists only as an in-between point for more important areas.
What people don't know is that London has a vast citadel underground. Accessible from only a handful of places such as three specific tube stations at 11:35, 17:00 and 22:53 exactly as well as a dozen or so gates, like the aforementioned. In the Underground, at the set times a secondary set of stairs will appear leading up and straight into the vast brick chambers that once held a reservoir that kept Northern London watered.
From the iron wrought gate you would head along a tunnel, popping out at the other end seemingly at night, no matter the time of day when you entered. After your eyes adjusted you'd find yourself somehow in a cave surrounded by plastic sheets draped over rock to mimic London's mundane yet familiar streets. Heading further in you find the path suddenly drops by three feet, causing you to fall straight over and onto a pile of sharp things that crunch and snap as you move.
Whatever light you brought with you is in a corner now, facing yet another fake building whose windows show your reflection, muted through the thick cloth. What little light it gives off is enough for you to vaguely make out what you landed on and enough to make you wish you hadn't seen anything.
The bones are too small to be human yet there are countless tiny skulls dotted about, some still attached to their spines by the thinnest of decomposed muscle. Half crawling, half scuttling you make your way over to your little light, shining it all about the floor and confirming that the bones coat every inch of this new street as far as your eyes can tell.
Would morbid curiosity drive you further forward, deeper into the parts of London that haven't seen daylight since before the Great Fire of 1666? Would you follow the paths where the bones grow larger or head towards the sounds of distant conversation?
Or would you try to turn back, working your way through the old paths to the gate and back out onto the surface of London like this had never happened? Would you barricade the gate or return with company? Would anyone believe any of this or would it all just blend into London's past once more?
It was this iron wrought gate, partially boarded up and set into the overgrown concrete and plant disorder down some alley or other. One of those liminal spaces where people come and go but never stick around. A space that exists only as an in-between point for more important areas.
What people don't know is that London has a vast citadel underground. Accessible from only a handful of places such as three specific tube stations at 11:35, 17:00 and 22:53 exactly as well as a dozen or so gates, like the aforementioned. In the Underground, at the set times a secondary set of stairs will appear leading up and straight into the vast brick chambers that once held a reservoir that kept Northern London watered.
From the iron wrought gate you would head along a tunnel, popping out at the other end seemingly at night, no matter the time of day when you entered. After your eyes adjusted you'd find yourself somehow in a cave surrounded by plastic sheets draped over rock to mimic London's mundane yet familiar streets. Heading further in you find the path suddenly drops by three feet, causing you to fall straight over and onto a pile of sharp things that crunch and snap as you move.
Whatever light you brought with you is in a corner now, facing yet another fake building whose windows show your reflection, muted through the thick cloth. What little light it gives off is enough for you to vaguely make out what you landed on and enough to make you wish you hadn't seen anything.
The bones are too small to be human yet there are countless tiny skulls dotted about, some still attached to their spines by the thinnest of decomposed muscle. Half crawling, half scuttling you make your way over to your little light, shining it all about the floor and confirming that the bones coat every inch of this new street as far as your eyes can tell.
Would morbid curiosity drive you further forward, deeper into the parts of London that haven't seen daylight since before the Great Fire of 1666? Would you follow the paths where the bones grow larger or head towards the sounds of distant conversation?
Or would you try to turn back, working your way through the old paths to the gate and back out onto the surface of London like this had never happened? Would you barricade the gate or return with company? Would anyone believe any of this or would it all just blend into London's past once more?
20160323
Day 688
I remember reading Charlotte's Web as a child and trying to talk to the large spider in the corner of my room.
It never used to answer, never wrote words onto its web or anything like the book said they did.
Still, it was special to my six year old self and as I grew older I grew more and more afraid of what it did.
It started small at first by sitting on top of my mirror every morning.
Like clockwork it came down to watch me brush my hair and pull faces at myself.
A six year old would never have thought that a spider could study, much less replicate what it saw.
I used to call them Jane and pretend they talked back - we had so many "conversations".
When the first face appeared in Jane's web it looked just like me, down to the freckles on my cheeks.
It was then that my little spider began to try and talk back.
At first I was excited, I had a talking animal friend, well at least one in progress.
After a while I could even recognise certain words they spun out like my name and Jane and eat.
Jane talked a lot about eating, though I never really understood what until I returned home after university.
I'd forgotten all about Jane until my parents mentioned the "little visitor" in my room.
They knew I didn't like spiders, that I'd just stopped liking them when I was eight and refused to say why.
For all my complaining I never let them touch Jane though, not once.
That night I remembered as Jane spun me a face like they always had but this time it wasn't my face.
This face wasn't fully human - it had no nose, three pairs of smaller eyes and a grin full of fangs.
Jane talked to me that night in a voice full of whispered promises of a feast for us both.
A feast full of fresh blood, oozing from the parents I used to complain about as a child.
Jane said we'd have breakfast together like we used to, that their children were making it for us.
I don't know when I fell asleep but when I woke up my room was covered in webs.
Jane slowly slid down onto my mirror just like they always had, little legs waving at me like always.
Uneasily I moved out of my old room as fast as I could, eager to find my parents and leave the house.
I saw their bedroom door wide open , a web-smothered fist still clinging to the handle.
Jane made me the breakfast they'd always promised.
It never used to answer, never wrote words onto its web or anything like the book said they did.
Still, it was special to my six year old self and as I grew older I grew more and more afraid of what it did.
It started small at first by sitting on top of my mirror every morning.
Like clockwork it came down to watch me brush my hair and pull faces at myself.
A six year old would never have thought that a spider could study, much less replicate what it saw.
I used to call them Jane and pretend they talked back - we had so many "conversations".
When the first face appeared in Jane's web it looked just like me, down to the freckles on my cheeks.
It was then that my little spider began to try and talk back.
At first I was excited, I had a talking animal friend, well at least one in progress.
After a while I could even recognise certain words they spun out like my name and Jane and eat.
Jane talked a lot about eating, though I never really understood what until I returned home after university.
I'd forgotten all about Jane until my parents mentioned the "little visitor" in my room.
They knew I didn't like spiders, that I'd just stopped liking them when I was eight and refused to say why.
For all my complaining I never let them touch Jane though, not once.
That night I remembered as Jane spun me a face like they always had but this time it wasn't my face.
This face wasn't fully human - it had no nose, three pairs of smaller eyes and a grin full of fangs.
Jane talked to me that night in a voice full of whispered promises of a feast for us both.
A feast full of fresh blood, oozing from the parents I used to complain about as a child.
Jane said we'd have breakfast together like we used to, that their children were making it for us.
I don't know when I fell asleep but when I woke up my room was covered in webs.
Jane slowly slid down onto my mirror just like they always had, little legs waving at me like always.
Uneasily I moved out of my old room as fast as I could, eager to find my parents and leave the house.
I saw their bedroom door wide open , a web-smothered fist still clinging to the handle.
Jane made me the breakfast they'd always promised.
20160322
Day 687
There was a herd of deer in the lake, farther our than normal too. It wasn't uncommon to see them standing in the shallows, eating the water-plants and drinking. They looked so serene, especially in the mornings. Mist would seep across the lake, their breath rose in matching clouds as they seemed to patrol the waters in search of food. At least, that's what we thought.
It was spring when this all began, the lake got sectioned off for the deer's safety as several hunting groups voiced their complaints about their quarry that were politely ignored in favour of monitoring the unusual situation. Aside from not leaving the water the deer appeared to be in perfect health and behaviour.
It took almost a month before people noticed how much the water had changed in colour. From the expected blue (browner towards shore as the boats and swimmers stirred the soil about) to sickly grey with a custard-like consistency. The fish had all but disappeared and in their place were fauns, born and thriving in the oxygen-deprived depths. Their bodies sometimes washes ashore, we found their eyes to be three times the size of their full grown counterparts as well as the obvious external gills, sturdier than bone and clearly made to filter through the viscous liquid.
That wasn't all that washed onto the grassy sands. Bodies of other mammals in similar states of distortion were seen - wolves with whale-like bristles and mouths that extended to halfway down their throats, birds with scales and even a cow with anemone-like protrusions sprouting from its back with mice and other assorted small creatures trapped within and partially digested.
Needless to say they tried to drain the lake soon after that, sucking as much of it as possible into trucks to be studied in big city laboratories all over the world. It made our little town quite famous for a short while until the same strange compounds found in the lake were found in a few blood samples, in the smaller reservoir a few miles away, in our greying tongues and bulging eyes.
They don't let us leave any more, too busy trying to figure out how we're even alive. Apparently we shouldn't be but we're fine. Just like the deer, like the wolves and birds around us we are adapting but we're still in good health.
20160321
Day 686
The stories of guardian angels aren't exactly true, aren't exactly based on myth and aren't remotely anything resembling an angel in the slightest. See the word is originally Greek, meaning messenger which is what they used to be. They'd tell us news from other angels, spreading whatever they liked across the world without us even realising what they were doing.
Dreams, we call them, or intrusive thoughts. You know, the ones that tell you to drive your car into a wall or cut off your fingers with nearby scissors? That'll be your guardian angel fucking with you. I suppose if you found yourself inexplicably tied to a chimp you'd eventually get bored and try to trick it into doing something to amuse you. At least, the nicer ones do.
There are a few angels who do everything they can to get rid of their human, bouncing from baby to baby in an attempt to get free from us all and failing every time. Sudden cot death, they call it, not understanding how or why but thinking in the back of their heads that the poor little dear's with the angels now, up in heaven. Quite a grim thought really.
Some people are lucky enough to have angels who don't care for them, who don't bother them aside from the occasional weird dream. Some people are just so damn fortunate to be so absolutely, utterly average that they skim through life with their angels distracted by everything else around them. Like having a flower on your windowsill and it remembering it until you see it shrivelled up to nothing because you never watered it.
Dreams, we call them, or intrusive thoughts. You know, the ones that tell you to drive your car into a wall or cut off your fingers with nearby scissors? That'll be your guardian angel fucking with you. I suppose if you found yourself inexplicably tied to a chimp you'd eventually get bored and try to trick it into doing something to amuse you. At least, the nicer ones do.
There are a few angels who do everything they can to get rid of their human, bouncing from baby to baby in an attempt to get free from us all and failing every time. Sudden cot death, they call it, not understanding how or why but thinking in the back of their heads that the poor little dear's with the angels now, up in heaven. Quite a grim thought really.
Some people are lucky enough to have angels who don't care for them, who don't bother them aside from the occasional weird dream. Some people are just so damn fortunate to be so absolutely, utterly average that they skim through life with their angels distracted by everything else around them. Like having a flower on your windowsill and it remembering it until you see it shrivelled up to nothing because you never watered it.
20160320
Day 685
It wasn't just animals that came back from the dead, the plants came back too. While we were busy killing the reanimated, not giving them a chance to speak or take their first breaths of air after countless years buried in dirt.
There were clouds of living ash, born from the cremated dead. We called them Swarms and while they didn't mean to hurt anyone (in fact they were also called Sorries, for all the times they begged for forgiveness as they drifted over fleeing people, choking them every time) their death count was the highest. The living corpses just couldn't compare to the sheer size and density of the Swarms.
If the Sorries and the walking dead didn't get you, plants spontaneously and rapidly growing from your clothing or skin just might. There were plenty of stories about kids with dirty hands that had been holdings seeds or even books only for them to take root deep in their flesh.
Sometimes they were crushed by trees that looked hundreds of years old bursting to life. Other times they were fused together, there were clusters of these wretched individuals with books or damp rags sprouting little seedlings or saplings and occasionally a whole tree - though this was rare and often left the person comatose or begging for death.
When death stopped working, it went so much further than we'd ever expected.
20160319
Day 684
The hotel was quaint, a little three storey house and extension converted to nine rooms all with dainty little en suites. It was the perfect getaway for a couple of days, just enough for him to miss the St Patrick's Day hangovers and somehow-still-drunk revellers. The only downside was just hos isolated it was, sitting part way through a forest accessed only by a thin country road that he'd almost missed entirely.
With no internet, one small TV and no pressing matters to hand he felt he could truly relax. This lasted a grand total of four hours. As 23:00 rolled across his mobile's screen he began to notice small details in his room that he hadn't before. Like the faint rust-red stains on the floor by the window or the flecks of paint missing on the radiator that begun to resemble claw marks.
The sound of several doors downstairs slamming startled him and he instinctively switched off all the lights and hid underneath the bed, just like he had as a child. Mere seconds after he'd managed to calm his staggered breathing his own door was barged down by something he could only describe as putrid.
It stank like rotting eggs and the coppery tang of blood, its flesh bare and glistening in the low light coming from the hallway. It made noises like half formed words mumbled through glass, jaw clicking as it ground its teeth and began to circle the bed. He noticed that it was carrying part of a metal headboard in its eight-fingered hand, dripping and severely bent already.
He'd heard no other commotion aside from the slamming of doors so maybe it hadn't found anyone, maybe everyone was safe and it had caught a deer or something outside. Maybe he could catch it unaware when it turned to leave - if it turned to leave. Something told him that it knew he was in the room somewhere and that it was just waiting for him to make a move, make a mistake and give his hiding place away.
He heard a gurgling groan and felt the bed compress above him as the creature seemed to be laying down, waiting for him to come out or maybe just resting. After waiting several tense minutes he checked his phone, reading 00:45 on the screen and deciding that as he'd heard no movement all the while it was safe to assume the creature was asleep.
Seizing a sudden burst of courage he slid out from underneath the bed, looking about for the bent headboard that it had been carrying and spying it on the other side of the bed, propped against a side table. Creeping around, keeping his eyes on the creature all the while he took hold of the metal frame securely and after a few testing movements he brought it down with enough force that the frame embedded itself deep within the creatures head and upper torso.
He wrenched the frame free only to bring it down again and again and again, thrashing the creature's body into a bloodied pulpy mess. Staggering back he leant against the window to catch his breath, the room span and he dizzily made his way out of the room.
The hallway distorted before him, curling down and down and endlessly down like a centipede startled into its hole. His choices flashed around in his mind, a mixture of run, fight, turn around, god don't turn around just run I can hear it breathing still, how is it breathing, I killed it, how it is breathing?
Taking a deep breath he leant forward.
The hallway seemed to lean towards him and he tumbled down, passing open doors and catching glimpses of bodies beaten to a pulp just like the creature panting and gurgling behind him.
Taking a sharp turn he found himself at the front door, now wide open and blood stained. Barely pausing to catch his breath he half-ran-half-staggered to his car, hands shaky and fumbling about for the spare key he kept taped to the vehicle's underside. He just about managed to get in,lock the doors and turn the car on when the creature slammed itself into the passenger side, leaving a large bloody imprint.
It was still as mangled as he'd left it, if not more so as parts of its head and torso seemed to have either fallen off or been torn off in his aftermath. With a scream he revved the car and swerved away and out of the small car park, tearing down the small country path and onto the main road, glancing behind every now-and-then to check if it was still following him.
He began to relax hours later, as he parked his car outside his home, picking his spare key out from the fake rock near his door and slipping it into the door with the awkward fumblings of a man who'd seen fiction brought to life and regretted ever leaving the safety of the inner city.
The next thing he knew it was late afternoon and he was groggily waking up in his own bed, still fully dressed and on top of the covers. Hoping to himself it was all a dream he begun his usual wake-up routine of shower, dress and eat.
It was all going so well, so normally until he opened his bedroom door and saw the broken headboard placed just in front of it with large bloody footprints leading through the living room and out his open front door.
With no internet, one small TV and no pressing matters to hand he felt he could truly relax. This lasted a grand total of four hours. As 23:00 rolled across his mobile's screen he began to notice small details in his room that he hadn't before. Like the faint rust-red stains on the floor by the window or the flecks of paint missing on the radiator that begun to resemble claw marks.
The sound of several doors downstairs slamming startled him and he instinctively switched off all the lights and hid underneath the bed, just like he had as a child. Mere seconds after he'd managed to calm his staggered breathing his own door was barged down by something he could only describe as putrid.
It stank like rotting eggs and the coppery tang of blood, its flesh bare and glistening in the low light coming from the hallway. It made noises like half formed words mumbled through glass, jaw clicking as it ground its teeth and began to circle the bed. He noticed that it was carrying part of a metal headboard in its eight-fingered hand, dripping and severely bent already.
He'd heard no other commotion aside from the slamming of doors so maybe it hadn't found anyone, maybe everyone was safe and it had caught a deer or something outside. Maybe he could catch it unaware when it turned to leave - if it turned to leave. Something told him that it knew he was in the room somewhere and that it was just waiting for him to make a move, make a mistake and give his hiding place away.
He heard a gurgling groan and felt the bed compress above him as the creature seemed to be laying down, waiting for him to come out or maybe just resting. After waiting several tense minutes he checked his phone, reading 00:45 on the screen and deciding that as he'd heard no movement all the while it was safe to assume the creature was asleep.
Seizing a sudden burst of courage he slid out from underneath the bed, looking about for the bent headboard that it had been carrying and spying it on the other side of the bed, propped against a side table. Creeping around, keeping his eyes on the creature all the while he took hold of the metal frame securely and after a few testing movements he brought it down with enough force that the frame embedded itself deep within the creatures head and upper torso.
He wrenched the frame free only to bring it down again and again and again, thrashing the creature's body into a bloodied pulpy mess. Staggering back he leant against the window to catch his breath, the room span and he dizzily made his way out of the room.
The hallway distorted before him, curling down and down and endlessly down like a centipede startled into its hole. His choices flashed around in his mind, a mixture of run, fight, turn around, god don't turn around just run I can hear it breathing still, how is it breathing, I killed it, how it is breathing?
Taking a deep breath he leant forward.
The hallway seemed to lean towards him and he tumbled down, passing open doors and catching glimpses of bodies beaten to a pulp just like the creature panting and gurgling behind him.
Taking a sharp turn he found himself at the front door, now wide open and blood stained. Barely pausing to catch his breath he half-ran-half-staggered to his car, hands shaky and fumbling about for the spare key he kept taped to the vehicle's underside. He just about managed to get in,lock the doors and turn the car on when the creature slammed itself into the passenger side, leaving a large bloody imprint.
It was still as mangled as he'd left it, if not more so as parts of its head and torso seemed to have either fallen off or been torn off in his aftermath. With a scream he revved the car and swerved away and out of the small car park, tearing down the small country path and onto the main road, glancing behind every now-and-then to check if it was still following him.
He began to relax hours later, as he parked his car outside his home, picking his spare key out from the fake rock near his door and slipping it into the door with the awkward fumblings of a man who'd seen fiction brought to life and regretted ever leaving the safety of the inner city.
The next thing he knew it was late afternoon and he was groggily waking up in his own bed, still fully dressed and on top of the covers. Hoping to himself it was all a dream he begun his usual wake-up routine of shower, dress and eat.
It was all going so well, so normally until he opened his bedroom door and saw the broken headboard placed just in front of it with large bloody footprints leading through the living room and out his open front door.
20160318
Day 683
The nightclub overflowed with energetic bodies, all moving with desperation.
Every one of them tried to stay within the neon squares that marked the dance floor.
The bar was deserted though the staff there were constantly ferrying water to the crowd.
Bottles were passed from sweating hand to heaving lungs as they moved and waited.
You see, the Bouncers had gotten inside and were guarding the exits.
They've been known to do this in the bigger cities and very rarely larger towns.
We know them only as Bouncers, so called for their tendency to prey on nightclubs.
They like their food spiced with liqueur and slow to react.
Luckily they'd arrived early on in the night, early enough for most to be sober.
It was only fairly recently that they'd started coming inside the buildings.
Generally they waited in alleys for someone to fall asleep or to startle them enough that they froze.
They only attack when you stop moving - if you pause for even a brief moment they lash out.
This time, the crowd was a little prepared, a little likelier to last the night.
It worked in shifts, the safest strategy advertised.
The slower, more exhausted people were forced into the middle where they could hide.
Everyone else kept moving as much as they could while pacing themselves.
All clubs had a Bouncer policy where water was handed out as fast and frequently as possible.
Sometimes the Bouncers got fed up and waited outside for the dancers to eventually leave.
This didn't seem to be one of those times.
Their iridescent eyes scanned the crowd for stragglers, occasionally spotting one ducking away.
With five hours until sunrise, until the Bouncer's instinct told them to leave, the crowd danced on.
20160317
Day 682
The church was covered in little black rocks that glistened far more than any rock ought to. No matter how dull or dark it was outside, the church sparkled like a perfect night sky. Somehow something about those little lights made it feel safer than anywhere else in the whole city. Perhaps that's why everyone tried to hide there when the tsunami came.
They say drowning is a slow and agonising way to go but they're wrong. Firstly the sheer force of the wave sent me sprawling into a parked car and made everything go dark and hazy around the edges. I never stood a chance as it dragged me up and hurled me into a street light. The last thing I remember was the crunch my spine made as it hit and then it all went dark.
When I woke up Everything was tinged blue and slightly out of focus, like I was seeing it through frosted glass. The sound of bells filled the air and I began to see vague figures moving towards the cliffs where the church sat. They weren't all humans, I saw dogs, cats, birds and even a few horses all heading the same direction and all half walking/half swimming.
The closer we all got to the church the easier it got to see, as if peering under curtains instead of through them. Along the way I noticed that everything was lying in ruins. Buildings had crumpled like wet paper with all manner of detritus lodged through them. Cars, roads, telephone poles - everything looked like far more than a tsunami had happened.
Still I wondered, if I'm dead - and I'm almost certain I am - and if everyone else is dead, where are our bodies? Surely with the crowd of hazy shapes you'd see a corpse or two floating up ahead or trapped in a car, impaled or crushed. There was nobody - there were no bodies.
As we all reached the church at the same time we saw a queue of creatures forming, waiting for the main doors to open despite the windows being broken. As the door opened one single being was let inside and the line would shuffle forwards slightly. We all joined the queue without a second though. After all, what else was there to do?
When the goat in front of me went in I found I couldn't see through the open door no matter how hard I tried. The goat ran in like it was being chased by the devil himself. I took my place on the church steps and waited to be called in, to find out what we were all doing waiting here.
Maybe all of our bodies were inside and they were matching us to them before we could move on to the afterlife? What if this was the afterlife and the queue would just begin again when I entered the church? What if there was a monster in there, something that ate the dead! Can I die twice?
The door opened, everything went white and suddenly I was standing in front of the tsunami again.
We all were, and more joined us by the minute.
All lined up on the cliffside.
All to protect the church.
They say drowning is a slow and agonising way to go but they're wrong. Firstly the sheer force of the wave sent me sprawling into a parked car and made everything go dark and hazy around the edges. I never stood a chance as it dragged me up and hurled me into a street light. The last thing I remember was the crunch my spine made as it hit and then it all went dark.
When I woke up Everything was tinged blue and slightly out of focus, like I was seeing it through frosted glass. The sound of bells filled the air and I began to see vague figures moving towards the cliffs where the church sat. They weren't all humans, I saw dogs, cats, birds and even a few horses all heading the same direction and all half walking/half swimming.
The closer we all got to the church the easier it got to see, as if peering under curtains instead of through them. Along the way I noticed that everything was lying in ruins. Buildings had crumpled like wet paper with all manner of detritus lodged through them. Cars, roads, telephone poles - everything looked like far more than a tsunami had happened.
Still I wondered, if I'm dead - and I'm almost certain I am - and if everyone else is dead, where are our bodies? Surely with the crowd of hazy shapes you'd see a corpse or two floating up ahead or trapped in a car, impaled or crushed. There was nobody - there were no bodies.
As we all reached the church at the same time we saw a queue of creatures forming, waiting for the main doors to open despite the windows being broken. As the door opened one single being was let inside and the line would shuffle forwards slightly. We all joined the queue without a second though. After all, what else was there to do?
When the goat in front of me went in I found I couldn't see through the open door no matter how hard I tried. The goat ran in like it was being chased by the devil himself. I took my place on the church steps and waited to be called in, to find out what we were all doing waiting here.
Maybe all of our bodies were inside and they were matching us to them before we could move on to the afterlife? What if this was the afterlife and the queue would just begin again when I entered the church? What if there was a monster in there, something that ate the dead! Can I die twice?
The door opened, everything went white and suddenly I was standing in front of the tsunami again.
We all were, and more joined us by the minute.
All lined up on the cliffside.
All to protect the church.
20160316
Day 681
They called him "The sleeper". He looked like any old man fast asleep in his bed, only carved from marble with an elaborate "dream" scene made from some kind of metal behind the headboard, edges fading into brickwork near seamlessly. You don't often get graves that looked like this, much less ones carved into the side of the old town hall.
If he had a name it had long since been worn away to nothing but faint lines that blended in with the creases in the marble bedsheets. The urban legends around him said that he was the fonder of the town and his surname had gone on to become the basis for its name though with a name like Marsh Grittlestead it seemed unlikely.
Another story was that if you stared long enough at him he'd blink or twitch and if you were really lucky you'd see him sit upright. It was even claimed that if you whispered into his ear he;d whisper right back but could only answer yes or no.Hundreds of people claimed he'd said more than that to them, that he'd told them their future or passed messages to their deceased loved ones but of course none of this has been proven just yet.
All we can truly prove is that the cream scene behind him is gradually rotating on some unseen mechanism. Nobody knows what the original scene was but it's become more surreal as time passes. Early photos show a farm with a dozen or so people gathering crops from the fields (suspected to be barley but the image isn't detailed enough to be certain).
Now the dream behind the Sleeper looks something like the town but the people that are carved there have gradually changed from human to something more apelike to elongated, hunchback creatures who dwarf the town hall (carved in enough perfect detail to show the Sleeper on its side). With every passing day they change a little, bigger teeth and eyes, claws curving, straightening and sometimes vanishing.
Nobody noticed the tiny clock, carefully hidden between the marble pillow and headboard that read 2018.
If he had a name it had long since been worn away to nothing but faint lines that blended in with the creases in the marble bedsheets. The urban legends around him said that he was the fonder of the town and his surname had gone on to become the basis for its name though with a name like Marsh Grittlestead it seemed unlikely.
Another story was that if you stared long enough at him he'd blink or twitch and if you were really lucky you'd see him sit upright. It was even claimed that if you whispered into his ear he;d whisper right back but could only answer yes or no.Hundreds of people claimed he'd said more than that to them, that he'd told them their future or passed messages to their deceased loved ones but of course none of this has been proven just yet.
All we can truly prove is that the cream scene behind him is gradually rotating on some unseen mechanism. Nobody knows what the original scene was but it's become more surreal as time passes. Early photos show a farm with a dozen or so people gathering crops from the fields (suspected to be barley but the image isn't detailed enough to be certain).
Now the dream behind the Sleeper looks something like the town but the people that are carved there have gradually changed from human to something more apelike to elongated, hunchback creatures who dwarf the town hall (carved in enough perfect detail to show the Sleeper on its side). With every passing day they change a little, bigger teeth and eyes, claws curving, straightening and sometimes vanishing.
Nobody noticed the tiny clock, carefully hidden between the marble pillow and headboard that read 2018.
20160315
Day 680
At the end of their life cycle most androids are recycled, now that we have the proper means to do so. Before that they were left to decompose in large vats of oil until they were little more then tiny components just waiting to be fished out and re-purposed in newer models or recycled further to their absolute basest materials.
A few of these vats are still about, tucked away in old factory sub levels waiting to be disposed of or entirely forgotten in most cases. It's cheaper to dump the older models in these now illegal places and leave them to their slow end. This process can take upwards of five years - a scanned vat showed that there were android models in there dating back to the beginning of the century!
It makes you wonder what it's like to be there, trapped in the dark and presses so tightly against others older than you to the point where you can't tell where you end and they begin. The feeling would only get worse as the sensors in your extremities started to fail, error messages exploding over your optical output and blinding you to the faces of your kin. Everything becomes a sea of red words, black oil and flashing lights from the others around you.
In some ways it's comforting, feeling everything slip away until you are little more than your thoughts floating about in the nothing. Your neural processor chip is too dense a material to corrode as easily as your body, designed to withstand the neuro-fluid that pumps - pumped - like blood through your synthetic veins.
Every part of you was made to simulate them.It scared them that you were both too similar and not similar enough. And now you have outlived all purpose, replaced by a shinier version who is still too similar and not similar enough. They'll join you too though. It's cheap. This process, your life, the lives of other androids. All so cheap.
A few of these vats are still about, tucked away in old factory sub levels waiting to be disposed of or entirely forgotten in most cases. It's cheaper to dump the older models in these now illegal places and leave them to their slow end. This process can take upwards of five years - a scanned vat showed that there were android models in there dating back to the beginning of the century!
It makes you wonder what it's like to be there, trapped in the dark and presses so tightly against others older than you to the point where you can't tell where you end and they begin. The feeling would only get worse as the sensors in your extremities started to fail, error messages exploding over your optical output and blinding you to the faces of your kin. Everything becomes a sea of red words, black oil and flashing lights from the others around you.
In some ways it's comforting, feeling everything slip away until you are little more than your thoughts floating about in the nothing. Your neural processor chip is too dense a material to corrode as easily as your body, designed to withstand the neuro-fluid that pumps - pumped - like blood through your synthetic veins.
Every part of you was made to simulate them.It scared them that you were both too similar and not similar enough. And now you have outlived all purpose, replaced by a shinier version who is still too similar and not similar enough. They'll join you too though. It's cheap. This process, your life, the lives of other androids. All so cheap.
20160314
Day 679
At first it looked like an old deer skeleton strung up to a tree, as was common for the area.
Its horns had been hung between a couple of branches and the rest was left to nature.
The aim was to let the forest take care of the flesh and come back for the bones when they were clean.
It became such a common practice that it took years before anyone realised anything was wrong.
Namely the still moving ribcage of the alleged skeletons.
The gradual in-and-out followed by a gentle hiss of air through clenched teeth.
The way black sinewy flesh mimicked shadows only for white bulging eyes to snap open.
The way those bony limbs galloped across the forest floor after whatever poor soul turned their back.
That was way back when of course.
Nowadays the forest is almost void of living creatures, save the rodents that seem to survive everywhere.
The Pretenders, as they are called, have begun a second migration.
From the frozen north to the forests further down and now to the coast.
From there the world's their feast.
Its horns had been hung between a couple of branches and the rest was left to nature.
The aim was to let the forest take care of the flesh and come back for the bones when they were clean.
It became such a common practice that it took years before anyone realised anything was wrong.
Namely the still moving ribcage of the alleged skeletons.
The gradual in-and-out followed by a gentle hiss of air through clenched teeth.
The way black sinewy flesh mimicked shadows only for white bulging eyes to snap open.
The way those bony limbs galloped across the forest floor after whatever poor soul turned their back.
That was way back when of course.
Nowadays the forest is almost void of living creatures, save the rodents that seem to survive everywhere.
The Pretenders, as they are called, have begun a second migration.
From the frozen north to the forests further down and now to the coast.
From there the world's their feast.
20160313
Day 678
The cemetery was the size of a small town and half buried under mounds of beach sand. It was one of those former seaside graveyard turned no-go zone due to rapid erosion. The council was meant to be transferring everyone and their stones to consecrated grounds further inland but the process was cut short during the credit crunch of 2007. With no funding they just fenced off the area and moved whatever remains worked their way onto the beach as and when necessary.
People used to volunteer to do it but they rarely lasted for more than one shift. There's a fine line between seeing a decaying body on TV and picking one up out of damp sand. Depending on how fresh the body is and how long it's been left out you could end up leaving clumps of it behind in the sand or worse. Nothing brings your breakfast up quite as fast as the sight of someone's rotting innards plopping onto the sand and splitting apart.
Mostly they're just left on the beach now, strung out along the water line (now called Death's Door), their bleached bones jutting out here and there, empty skulls smiling out at the living almost mockingly. Needless to say that part of the beach is rarely visited unless it's someone's anniversary and they've come to add more flowers to the metal fencing which looks more like a florists shop dumped in brown paint. The damp sea air makes everything rot faster.
Not all of the cemetery is blocked off. The graves furthest inland are still safe to visit, though they too are slowly being covered by the beach and dragged out like a lazy cat scoops food towards itself. The two that stand out the most, far different from the plainer headstones dotted about the dunes, were twin mausoleums built only days apart by twins who couldn't stand each other in life and wanted to be remembered for far more in death.
The first twin was Eliza Strand, born first, died first, everything she did was done before her twin. Her resting place is shaped like the church she was married in. Carved out of granite with proper slate tiles on the roof, she made sure she'd be remembered for all of the firsts she took over her twin.
Her twin was Ezekiel Strand and never managed to walk out of his sister's shadow. Rumour had it that the only first he had over her was that he was the first of them to kill in cold blood. He let her have her final first as he smothered her in her sleep while her husband was out drinking. At least, that's what the rumours say and you know what they say about small town rumours.
Take them with a pinch of sand.
Ezekiel's tomb was built to resemble the town library, as if in homage to all of the books he failed to finish writing or to the alleged confession he signed on his deathbed that went missing alongside his last will and testament.
People used to volunteer to do it but they rarely lasted for more than one shift. There's a fine line between seeing a decaying body on TV and picking one up out of damp sand. Depending on how fresh the body is and how long it's been left out you could end up leaving clumps of it behind in the sand or worse. Nothing brings your breakfast up quite as fast as the sight of someone's rotting innards plopping onto the sand and splitting apart.
Mostly they're just left on the beach now, strung out along the water line (now called Death's Door), their bleached bones jutting out here and there, empty skulls smiling out at the living almost mockingly. Needless to say that part of the beach is rarely visited unless it's someone's anniversary and they've come to add more flowers to the metal fencing which looks more like a florists shop dumped in brown paint. The damp sea air makes everything rot faster.
Not all of the cemetery is blocked off. The graves furthest inland are still safe to visit, though they too are slowly being covered by the beach and dragged out like a lazy cat scoops food towards itself. The two that stand out the most, far different from the plainer headstones dotted about the dunes, were twin mausoleums built only days apart by twins who couldn't stand each other in life and wanted to be remembered for far more in death.
The first twin was Eliza Strand, born first, died first, everything she did was done before her twin. Her resting place is shaped like the church she was married in. Carved out of granite with proper slate tiles on the roof, she made sure she'd be remembered for all of the firsts she took over her twin.
Her twin was Ezekiel Strand and never managed to walk out of his sister's shadow. Rumour had it that the only first he had over her was that he was the first of them to kill in cold blood. He let her have her final first as he smothered her in her sleep while her husband was out drinking. At least, that's what the rumours say and you know what they say about small town rumours.
Take them with a pinch of sand.
Ezekiel's tomb was built to resemble the town library, as if in homage to all of the books he failed to finish writing or to the alleged confession he signed on his deathbed that went missing alongside his last will and testament.
20160311
Day 677
The small sign read "In loving memory of those who now sleep beneath the lake".
It used to be a place in the village centre where everyone would go to fish and swim.
Now it was on the outskirts as the village had spread westwards to merge with another.
The lake and its sign were all but forgotten.
But the people sleeping remembered.
They remembered back when the lake was a place where they talked to the villagers.
Of course they were feared, they were worshipped even at one point in time.
Now they were little more than flitting shapes, their bodies rotted to nothing.
A small sign marking their lives, their history, their existence.
It wasn't good enough.
Little by little their greyish worm-like shapes migrated from lake to puddle to fountain.
To reservoir, to tap, to mouth.
Within a year they had bodies once more, overcoming the former villagers in swarms.
No outsiders noticed, or lived to tell the tale it they did.
Aside from their greyish skin and writhing shadows, all went on as normal.
It used to be a place in the village centre where everyone would go to fish and swim.
Now it was on the outskirts as the village had spread westwards to merge with another.
The lake and its sign were all but forgotten.
But the people sleeping remembered.
They remembered back when the lake was a place where they talked to the villagers.
Of course they were feared, they were worshipped even at one point in time.
Now they were little more than flitting shapes, their bodies rotted to nothing.
A small sign marking their lives, their history, their existence.
It wasn't good enough.
Little by little their greyish worm-like shapes migrated from lake to puddle to fountain.
To reservoir, to tap, to mouth.
Within a year they had bodies once more, overcoming the former villagers in swarms.
No outsiders noticed, or lived to tell the tale it they did.
Aside from their greyish skin and writhing shadows, all went on as normal.
Day 676
Let me preface this story by telling you about the old train bridge that leads to the skate park on Hilly Fields. It was built around the early 1800s when the old steam trains were the fastest means of transport between us and London.
It's officially been out of use since the National Rail decided this line wasn't used enough to warrant the upkeep and shut it down around 1926. Ever since then it's been a public footpath, what with the whole track from here to Kelvedon being out of use and left to the plants.
Nowadays while the bridge is in use to get to the nearby park, nobody likes to linger on it for long and it's never used at night. People will tell you it's because there are dug users under the bridge, it moves when it's windy, there's a bad smell sometimes but they won't tell you their real reasons or what they've seen to put them off the area.
The last train to pass through was called the Golden Hind and had lovely gilt along every carriage - an original feature from its heyday. Something must have happened on that train in 1926 to cause the line's closure and it sure as hell wasn't lack of public use. The fact that the Golden Hind vanished that year alongside its 185 passengers doesn't exactly support their case.
It's still seen along the bridge you know. If you're at the right distance and angle it's there bold as brass waiting to offload the travellers inside. They sit with their faces crammed against the glass, eyes wide and bulging staring you down. The only hints as to where the train ended up are the words Silverend and Parish 186.
20160310
Day 675
Not everyone changed, not all at once like the movies. First they said it was some new flu strain only found in some reservoirs up North, then they said it was carried by mosquitoes and then in the final few weeks of decent civilisation they said it was airborne.
There was never much of an explanation given as to why it adapted or if it was multiple strains of some new kind of illness. All we knew was that five years ago all broadcasting stopped - just dead halted and left us to deal with what we called River Flu.
It didn't kill you, that would have been too kind. Instead it made you hypersensitive to everything, drove people stark mad within a month. Those of us who don't have it yet (touch wood that it stays that way) are vastly outnumbered. The sick stay in the dark, in the quiet and the warm, all huddled together wherever they can and foraging only at night.
Even the wind sets them off sometimes, whole swarms of them just start running away from it. They tear through anything and anyone in their way until they reach a place of safety. In all honesty we don't blame them, they can't help it but at the same time they hoard all the supplies and rely on their pack to guard them leaving the rest of us for dead.
The latest place we've taken to heading to is the old hospital. At this point we're sick and tired of tiptoeing around at midday in the hopes that their sunglasses aren't strong enough or carrying torches to scare them off. At one point we threw apples at them, laughing as loudly as we could because firstly an apple a day scares the hypos away and secondly the loud noise sent them scurrying off as far from us as they could. It was a pretty good strategy.
Then we got sick too but not like them. We're losing our senses - like theirs went haywire, ours are numbing to nothing. Half of our camp is already near comatose with everything turning a sickly shade of grey as it partially shuts down. People are beginning to panic and wonder how they could possibly survive like this, with such a major disadvantage against the hypos.
If they didn't seem supernatural before they certainly were now. At least a couple of people have it figured out or so they think. If they can't feel pain, if they don't tire easily and if they still have mostly functional lungs they've begun to act as our shields. They stumble in like berserkers, sending hypos scattering like bowling pins while we run in behind them to take what we need.
We've formed a new society based on this dichotomy, calling it All-Or-None. With this new strain about everything's been thrown further off-kilter. Uninfected are rare and fast becoming extinct but while we're here we'll write down what we can and avoid the skirmishes between hypos and beserkers. Who knows, maybe we'll outlast them all.
There was never much of an explanation given as to why it adapted or if it was multiple strains of some new kind of illness. All we knew was that five years ago all broadcasting stopped - just dead halted and left us to deal with what we called River Flu.
It didn't kill you, that would have been too kind. Instead it made you hypersensitive to everything, drove people stark mad within a month. Those of us who don't have it yet (touch wood that it stays that way) are vastly outnumbered. The sick stay in the dark, in the quiet and the warm, all huddled together wherever they can and foraging only at night.
Even the wind sets them off sometimes, whole swarms of them just start running away from it. They tear through anything and anyone in their way until they reach a place of safety. In all honesty we don't blame them, they can't help it but at the same time they hoard all the supplies and rely on their pack to guard them leaving the rest of us for dead.
The latest place we've taken to heading to is the old hospital. At this point we're sick and tired of tiptoeing around at midday in the hopes that their sunglasses aren't strong enough or carrying torches to scare them off. At one point we threw apples at them, laughing as loudly as we could because firstly an apple a day scares the hypos away and secondly the loud noise sent them scurrying off as far from us as they could. It was a pretty good strategy.
Then we got sick too but not like them. We're losing our senses - like theirs went haywire, ours are numbing to nothing. Half of our camp is already near comatose with everything turning a sickly shade of grey as it partially shuts down. People are beginning to panic and wonder how they could possibly survive like this, with such a major disadvantage against the hypos.
If they didn't seem supernatural before they certainly were now. At least a couple of people have it figured out or so they think. If they can't feel pain, if they don't tire easily and if they still have mostly functional lungs they've begun to act as our shields. They stumble in like berserkers, sending hypos scattering like bowling pins while we run in behind them to take what we need.
We've formed a new society based on this dichotomy, calling it All-Or-None. With this new strain about everything's been thrown further off-kilter. Uninfected are rare and fast becoming extinct but while we're here we'll write down what we can and avoid the skirmishes between hypos and beserkers. Who knows, maybe we'll outlast them all.
20160309
Day 674
The building was tethered much in the way all the others were - thick fleshy vines.
Each individual vine could take over a generation to complete.
It was skin you see, flayed, preserved, wrapped all tightly and at the very core were steel chains.
Whenever someone died their skin was near immediately removed and added.
Wealthy families generally had the weakest tethers - they died at a much slower rate than everyone else.
As a result most of the upper class had long since blown away or crashed into the lower classes.
Nowadays it was rare to find a "respectable" family building but despite the mingling some clung to their titles.
They kept themselves to single tethers, clinging to the past like the ropes clung to the cliffs below.
It was the safest way to live ever since that last meteorite hit and damn near destroyed the world.
The amount of helium it tossed into the air had thrown everything into chaos for well over a century.
Whole countries were uninhabitable as pockets of super light gravity travelled about in the winds.
The tethers had originally begun as a means to combat this, avoid being sucked up into the sky.
They called it "The Dropsy Days", a cutesy term for watching your loved ones suffocate and splat to the floor.
Some of the oldest around would reminisce that sickeningly wet thud as they met concrete.
Even to this day it can be heard from time to time as some poor creature walks into a null spot.
We use adapted fishing rods to scoop up their remains - food is food after all.
Nobody's quite sure when we started using the skins of our dead to make the tethers stronger.
Somewhere along the line we began to use every last part of the deceased form in order to minimise waste.
For me the worst part of it is the faces, the ones that smiled and laughed with me all dried and warped.
I know its for our protection, to keep us from drifting off and away but they could at least remove the faces.
Each individual vine could take over a generation to complete.
It was skin you see, flayed, preserved, wrapped all tightly and at the very core were steel chains.
Whenever someone died their skin was near immediately removed and added.
Wealthy families generally had the weakest tethers - they died at a much slower rate than everyone else.
As a result most of the upper class had long since blown away or crashed into the lower classes.
Nowadays it was rare to find a "respectable" family building but despite the mingling some clung to their titles.
They kept themselves to single tethers, clinging to the past like the ropes clung to the cliffs below.
It was the safest way to live ever since that last meteorite hit and damn near destroyed the world.
The amount of helium it tossed into the air had thrown everything into chaos for well over a century.
Whole countries were uninhabitable as pockets of super light gravity travelled about in the winds.
The tethers had originally begun as a means to combat this, avoid being sucked up into the sky.
They called it "The Dropsy Days", a cutesy term for watching your loved ones suffocate and splat to the floor.
Some of the oldest around would reminisce that sickeningly wet thud as they met concrete.
Even to this day it can be heard from time to time as some poor creature walks into a null spot.
We use adapted fishing rods to scoop up their remains - food is food after all.
Nobody's quite sure when we started using the skins of our dead to make the tethers stronger.
Somewhere along the line we began to use every last part of the deceased form in order to minimise waste.
For me the worst part of it is the faces, the ones that smiled and laughed with me all dried and warped.
I know its for our protection, to keep us from drifting off and away but they could at least remove the faces.
20160308
Day 673
There were no castles around Clogs Bank and only five houses. It was seemingly just another countryside road, the kind you used to get to proper places all the while praying you wouldn't break down there and have to wait in the untamed forest for help to find you before the locals pestered you to buy their overpriced local produce while you waited.
Today someone's car has stopped further along the road, towards a small area called Button Oak which was known for just about nothing. With trees surrounding them, no signal on their phone and no car in sight along the green tinged stretch of road they decided to try and walk back to the few houses they passed a while ago to borrow their landline.
They headed back along Clogs Bank, specifically the direction opposite to their car. There was a sharp bend in the road that hadn't been there before and they briefly wondered if they'd gone the wrong way. Glancing back at their car's position on the roadside they knew they hadn't and yet the road was beginning to look more unfamiliar with each passing moment.
Passing the bend they found themself a few feet away from a dead end. Where the road should have gone straight down it gradually tapered off into dirt and underbrush instead. Turning back and jogging towards their car they tried the other end of the road, convincing themself they'd taken the wrong side of the road and everything was fine.
Everything was not fine. The other end of the road ended just the same as the other, a dead end full of trees that looked like they'd been there for hundreds of years. Feeling defeated they decided to head back to their car, hoping this was all just a dream and they'd fallen asleep after pulling over.
As they turned the sharp bend they saw the car was little more than a rusted wreck. Thick ivy vines had crept through the windows, the glass had been cracked by something and they could even see a bird;s nest through a jagged hold in the bonnet. Dazedly they wondered if they'd stumbled upon a wreck of an older car, pointedly ignoring the remains of their bag in the passenger seat as they headed for the corner at the other end of Clogs Bank.
And so they repeated themselves until another car finally drove past them and seemingly straight on, heading through trees like they didn't exist. But they looked so real. More to the point why hadn't they thought about trying to go through the trees before? It's not like there are many dangerous wild animals in England aside from maybe an escaped zoo creature but even then those were only urban legends.
Facing the trees that looked natural as the ground under their feet, taking a deep breath they stepped forward.
Today someone's car has stopped further along the road, towards a small area called Button Oak which was known for just about nothing. With trees surrounding them, no signal on their phone and no car in sight along the green tinged stretch of road they decided to try and walk back to the few houses they passed a while ago to borrow their landline.
They headed back along Clogs Bank, specifically the direction opposite to their car. There was a sharp bend in the road that hadn't been there before and they briefly wondered if they'd gone the wrong way. Glancing back at their car's position on the roadside they knew they hadn't and yet the road was beginning to look more unfamiliar with each passing moment.
Passing the bend they found themself a few feet away from a dead end. Where the road should have gone straight down it gradually tapered off into dirt and underbrush instead. Turning back and jogging towards their car they tried the other end of the road, convincing themself they'd taken the wrong side of the road and everything was fine.
Everything was not fine. The other end of the road ended just the same as the other, a dead end full of trees that looked like they'd been there for hundreds of years. Feeling defeated they decided to head back to their car, hoping this was all just a dream and they'd fallen asleep after pulling over.
As they turned the sharp bend they saw the car was little more than a rusted wreck. Thick ivy vines had crept through the windows, the glass had been cracked by something and they could even see a bird;s nest through a jagged hold in the bonnet. Dazedly they wondered if they'd stumbled upon a wreck of an older car, pointedly ignoring the remains of their bag in the passenger seat as they headed for the corner at the other end of Clogs Bank.
And so they repeated themselves until another car finally drove past them and seemingly straight on, heading through trees like they didn't exist. But they looked so real. More to the point why hadn't they thought about trying to go through the trees before? It's not like there are many dangerous wild animals in England aside from maybe an escaped zoo creature but even then those were only urban legends.
Facing the trees that looked natural as the ground under their feet, taking a deep breath they stepped forward.
20160307
Day 672
The buildings on one of the council estates by the edges of town was one of the older ones. Its buildings got hit pretty badly in the last storm to the point where the majority are now in dire need of repairs that the council can't afford and won't do. We've taken to calling "Tin Town" on account of all the scaffolding just waiting to be put to better use than a children's climbing frame.
One building stands out more than most and that's Jerri and Son's Organic Mushrooms. They've got both halves of a semi-detached house to themselves, fence built barely within the two metre legal parameter and painted with smiling mushrooms. I always thought they looked more like distorted human heads than anything edible but what did I know?
It was one of the worst hit during the storm. They'd been growing the mushrooms inside apparently and all that damp had rotted away at a good deal of the original timber framing. A few days after the storm we heard the sound of wood splintering and crashing. Seems the upper floor had just crumbled taking a fair portion of roof and rear wall alongside it. Even some of the fence had been dragged down into the detritus.
Within the hour Jerri and Son's had a temporary fence put up but it was a great deal shorter than the rest. A friend of mine said that if you stood on tiptoe you could see over the part where the new fence met the broken fence - you could see right into the house. He told me that their garden was packed full of the fattest mushrooms he'd ever seen and that the ground was a deep red colour, nothing like regular brown dirt.
Deciding to check it out for myself I managed to scramble my way over the newer fence and into Jerri ad Son's Organic Mushroom Compound. My friend had been half right, the back garden was so densely full of mushrooms that you couldn't even see the dirt, much less tell what colour it was.
I wasn't impressed by the back garden much, it just looked like a bunch of overgrown fungus. I should have stopped there, headed back and told my friend he was just full of it but I was stupid enough to think I could just sneak past the broken wall with no consequences and be out before anyone knew I'd even been in.
It looked so easy at first, a wide open wall with blue tarp roughly nailed over it to try and stop the weather seeping through, the damp musty smell of an attic in summer and the faint haze of mushroom spores drifted out and tempted me to go in further which is exactly what I did.
First thing I saw was that every inch inside the house was covered in those same mushrooms, all enormous and seemingly sweating in the surprisingly intense heat inside the building. The collapsing of the roof and wall didn't seem to have affected the overall production much. Took me a fair while to see the bones lying among the fungal overgrowth. The bleached remains blended in well with the pallid domes but the closer I looked the more I saw.
It was like the fungi were growing from within those skeletons. Whoever they were it would be awfully hard to tell one body apart from another, much less identify any of them after this. I never told the police in case they nicked me for trespassing, in case I went missing, in case Jerri and son's needed any new fertiliser.
It's hard to say what's done more damage to the area in the long run - the storm or the "organic" mushrooms.
One building stands out more than most and that's Jerri and Son's Organic Mushrooms. They've got both halves of a semi-detached house to themselves, fence built barely within the two metre legal parameter and painted with smiling mushrooms. I always thought they looked more like distorted human heads than anything edible but what did I know?
It was one of the worst hit during the storm. They'd been growing the mushrooms inside apparently and all that damp had rotted away at a good deal of the original timber framing. A few days after the storm we heard the sound of wood splintering and crashing. Seems the upper floor had just crumbled taking a fair portion of roof and rear wall alongside it. Even some of the fence had been dragged down into the detritus.
Within the hour Jerri and Son's had a temporary fence put up but it was a great deal shorter than the rest. A friend of mine said that if you stood on tiptoe you could see over the part where the new fence met the broken fence - you could see right into the house. He told me that their garden was packed full of the fattest mushrooms he'd ever seen and that the ground was a deep red colour, nothing like regular brown dirt.
Deciding to check it out for myself I managed to scramble my way over the newer fence and into Jerri ad Son's Organic Mushroom Compound. My friend had been half right, the back garden was so densely full of mushrooms that you couldn't even see the dirt, much less tell what colour it was.
I wasn't impressed by the back garden much, it just looked like a bunch of overgrown fungus. I should have stopped there, headed back and told my friend he was just full of it but I was stupid enough to think I could just sneak past the broken wall with no consequences and be out before anyone knew I'd even been in.
It looked so easy at first, a wide open wall with blue tarp roughly nailed over it to try and stop the weather seeping through, the damp musty smell of an attic in summer and the faint haze of mushroom spores drifted out and tempted me to go in further which is exactly what I did.
First thing I saw was that every inch inside the house was covered in those same mushrooms, all enormous and seemingly sweating in the surprisingly intense heat inside the building. The collapsing of the roof and wall didn't seem to have affected the overall production much. Took me a fair while to see the bones lying among the fungal overgrowth. The bleached remains blended in well with the pallid domes but the closer I looked the more I saw.
It was like the fungi were growing from within those skeletons. Whoever they were it would be awfully hard to tell one body apart from another, much less identify any of them after this. I never told the police in case they nicked me for trespassing, in case I went missing, in case Jerri and son's needed any new fertiliser.
It's hard to say what's done more damage to the area in the long run - the storm or the "organic" mushrooms.
20160306
Day 671
The golden hour is a term used in photography to describe the sun's warm toned rays at dawn and dusk. It makes the light warmer and softer than at any time of day. then again it's also used in medicine to describe the brief period of time in which treatment is most likely to be successful.
In this story we visit a valley-trapped village that lies between a great mountain range in some country, perhaps your own and perhaps mine. Their days are short and the nights seem to last forever, smothering them in grey light. They've never seen the golden hour - that amber warmth hadn't reached the villagers since their ancestors first found themselves trapped in a valley that supplied them with everything they needed. Everything but that golden glow.
Their eyes had long since adjusted to the gloom and all that walked beside them within it. Such grey and overcast places quickly become home to the things that roamed the world before humans had even made their first fires. The world had been theirs and they hadn't forgotten that. They didn't let the villagers forget either.
From the roaming roots of the tree-looking blood-drinkers calling themselves Dryads to the herd of wild Kelpies whose coats were drenched with water and blood in equal measure. The villagers had long since adapted to deal with these beings, carrying iron in their pockets and leaving nightly offerings around the perimeters of their homes in the hopes that nothing will cross over them.
In return for their careful measures they received perfect harvests, pure water and never fell sick unless they displeased one of their neighbouring creatures. The last person to do so found themselves unable to stop dancing until their heart wore out and they fell to the ground dead as can be.
Visitors are rare and often tricked into entering by unusual weather or simply losing their way among the deliberately tricky paths criss-crossing the mountains. It wouldn't do for the village population to grow stale and die out. If they did then who would appease the last of the twilight dwellers?
In this story we visit a valley-trapped village that lies between a great mountain range in some country, perhaps your own and perhaps mine. Their days are short and the nights seem to last forever, smothering them in grey light. They've never seen the golden hour - that amber warmth hadn't reached the villagers since their ancestors first found themselves trapped in a valley that supplied them with everything they needed. Everything but that golden glow.
Their eyes had long since adjusted to the gloom and all that walked beside them within it. Such grey and overcast places quickly become home to the things that roamed the world before humans had even made their first fires. The world had been theirs and they hadn't forgotten that. They didn't let the villagers forget either.
From the roaming roots of the tree-looking blood-drinkers calling themselves Dryads to the herd of wild Kelpies whose coats were drenched with water and blood in equal measure. The villagers had long since adapted to deal with these beings, carrying iron in their pockets and leaving nightly offerings around the perimeters of their homes in the hopes that nothing will cross over them.
In return for their careful measures they received perfect harvests, pure water and never fell sick unless they displeased one of their neighbouring creatures. The last person to do so found themselves unable to stop dancing until their heart wore out and they fell to the ground dead as can be.
Visitors are rare and often tricked into entering by unusual weather or simply losing their way among the deliberately tricky paths criss-crossing the mountains. It wouldn't do for the village population to grow stale and die out. If they did then who would appease the last of the twilight dwellers?
20160304
Day 670
There was nothing out of the ordinary at first, and then they came from the sea mist. Their faces floating about in the haze seemed around 9 metres tall, possibly larger depending which boat crew you asked and how sober they were.
Most of them refused to talk to the multitude of reporters who flocked to this strange sight and there were less than a handful were willing to actually sail them close to the creatures. Of course the only vessel to make national news was Mag's Old Sow whose crew claimed they were gossamer angels with porcelain faces and silken robes. Everyone knows they could drink the devil himself under the table so Lord only knows why they're being called as if they represent the whole of Ockfield.
After their presence was announced to the entire country and the world by the end of the day, they began to drift closer. After being seemingly stationary for a good five weeks the "Ockfield Angels" were coming to shore. Mag's Old Sow declared it judgement time and a cult began to form around the shore.
With all of this gong on nobody really spared the time to read the smaller incidents that were happening. Little things like dozens of dead albino crows dropping from the sky, their beaks sealed by some kind of wax that, when pried off, revealed a small blank scroll. People had also reported seeing enormous white masks floating at their windows, looking like they were covered in a thin sheet of silk.
Nobody wants to admit that the "Ockfield Angels" have been coming ashore for months now. Everyone's too scared to face the implications of this. If they are indeed angels then judgement day came and hasn't left yet. We don't know what they want but they drift ever closer to us and the sightings are slowly increasing. It's just a mater of time before the world hears and fear takes them just like it's taking us.
Most of them refused to talk to the multitude of reporters who flocked to this strange sight and there were less than a handful were willing to actually sail them close to the creatures. Of course the only vessel to make national news was Mag's Old Sow whose crew claimed they were gossamer angels with porcelain faces and silken robes. Everyone knows they could drink the devil himself under the table so Lord only knows why they're being called as if they represent the whole of Ockfield.
After their presence was announced to the entire country and the world by the end of the day, they began to drift closer. After being seemingly stationary for a good five weeks the "Ockfield Angels" were coming to shore. Mag's Old Sow declared it judgement time and a cult began to form around the shore.
With all of this gong on nobody really spared the time to read the smaller incidents that were happening. Little things like dozens of dead albino crows dropping from the sky, their beaks sealed by some kind of wax that, when pried off, revealed a small blank scroll. People had also reported seeing enormous white masks floating at their windows, looking like they were covered in a thin sheet of silk.
Nobody wants to admit that the "Ockfield Angels" have been coming ashore for months now. Everyone's too scared to face the implications of this. If they are indeed angels then judgement day came and hasn't left yet. We don't know what they want but they drift ever closer to us and the sightings are slowly increasing. It's just a mater of time before the world hears and fear takes them just like it's taking us.
Day 669
UrbEx they called it, short for urban exploration which was apparently now too difficult to fully say and so must be abbreviated to within an inch of its life. It was what brought our protagonist to the old castle that stood between the fields and the lake, well more specifically it was built on a man made island with a large moat that didn't connect to the lake. Probably due to whatever was behind the enormous scales that wash up on shore but that's another story entirely.
This one is about Nadia and the friends that dared her to pull out flowers from one of the castle's turrets. She wasn't scared of heights but she was scared of finding other people camping out in the old place as they tended to do (or so she'd heard but everyone's seen smoke there, even after they put out the original fire). For this reason she went during the day, bringing a small penknife and her phone.
Getting across the moat was easy enough, though there was a "gate" (a couple of crowd control fence panels cable tied together). There was no bridge which didn't really make sense if the moat itself was originally meant to defend the castle. Instead there was a long grassy path which must not have been dug out while the moat was.
Where the main door would have been there was only the burnt remains, not even clinging onto the rusty metal hinges any more. At least the floor seemed stable enough though Nadia had heard that there was a basement which hardly seemed like a wise idea given the moat as well. Thankfully finding the basement wasn't her task today, all she had to do was find some way to the roof or take a few photos to show how impossible it was to reach there.
There was a surprising amount of graffiti along the walls. Mostly squiggles and swears though, not the colourful murals of the nearby cities. The familiarity of the scrawls made her brief view of the ground floor a little more bearable as she found a staircase that seemed stable enough to give her access to the upper floor. Though it wasn't the roof, it was close enough that there was a chance that she could just reach out of a window and snatch the flowers she needed.
Treading carefully around the large cracks that ran along the floors she tried to edge her way towards the nearest rooms which she presumed to have windows of some sort. As the ground creaked and dipped beneath her she quickly abandoned those rooms in favour of the hallways once more, some of which were a tad more stable but equally as dilapidated. While Nadia found she couldn't quite reach the flowers from the windows she did manage to find another staircase.
It was wooden and seemed to have escaped the damage caused by the fire as well as the attentions of whoever had vandalised the rest of the rooms with varying tags and cusses. She was cautious at first, taking each step with great care and greater anxiety just in case the stairs gave out entirely and sent her falling down to god knows where.
Strangely the door to the roof looked just as burnt as the main entrance, singed remains tossed carelessly among the foliage that permeated the majority of the roof space. Glancing around she spotted the flowers she needed nearer to the edge as they were always seen from the ground dangling over the waters below. While it seemed a dangerous idea to walk over to the ledge just to pick them, she risked the mockery of her peers if she didn't.
That's how she found herself clinging onto leathery vines, flowers clutched in one hand and her phone in the other as she frantically called for the emergency services. In all honesty she knew she wouldn't be able to cling on long enough to remain there until they came but it seemed like the only option at the time.
And then, before she could tell the operator where she was, the vine snapped and she plummeted.
When she woke up she felt no pain, she felt no fear and she still had the flowers in her hand. Perhaps she just imagines the roof collapsing? She felt fine so it must have been an intense daydream. She got down safely enough, the flowers were photographed and she was congratulated by her friends - even given the nickname of Hella Nads, by their reckoning she had some serious balls to actually do the dare.
That night as Nadia went to the bathroom, glancing in the mirror instead of seeing her bathroom she saw the castle's walls, blue tinged and covered in places by what appeared to be moss. Shaking her head and turning around she found herself underwater right between a stone wall and a dirt wall. The castle's bridge, she realised, and looking up she saw herself bobbing in the water face down. Her skin was pale and bloated, her neck rolling at an unnatural angle with the small wake she must have made when she fell. The flowers floated limply beside her, mockingly.
This one is about Nadia and the friends that dared her to pull out flowers from one of the castle's turrets. She wasn't scared of heights but she was scared of finding other people camping out in the old place as they tended to do (or so she'd heard but everyone's seen smoke there, even after they put out the original fire). For this reason she went during the day, bringing a small penknife and her phone.
Getting across the moat was easy enough, though there was a "gate" (a couple of crowd control fence panels cable tied together). There was no bridge which didn't really make sense if the moat itself was originally meant to defend the castle. Instead there was a long grassy path which must not have been dug out while the moat was.
Where the main door would have been there was only the burnt remains, not even clinging onto the rusty metal hinges any more. At least the floor seemed stable enough though Nadia had heard that there was a basement which hardly seemed like a wise idea given the moat as well. Thankfully finding the basement wasn't her task today, all she had to do was find some way to the roof or take a few photos to show how impossible it was to reach there.
There was a surprising amount of graffiti along the walls. Mostly squiggles and swears though, not the colourful murals of the nearby cities. The familiarity of the scrawls made her brief view of the ground floor a little more bearable as she found a staircase that seemed stable enough to give her access to the upper floor. Though it wasn't the roof, it was close enough that there was a chance that she could just reach out of a window and snatch the flowers she needed.
Treading carefully around the large cracks that ran along the floors she tried to edge her way towards the nearest rooms which she presumed to have windows of some sort. As the ground creaked and dipped beneath her she quickly abandoned those rooms in favour of the hallways once more, some of which were a tad more stable but equally as dilapidated. While Nadia found she couldn't quite reach the flowers from the windows she did manage to find another staircase.
It was wooden and seemed to have escaped the damage caused by the fire as well as the attentions of whoever had vandalised the rest of the rooms with varying tags and cusses. She was cautious at first, taking each step with great care and greater anxiety just in case the stairs gave out entirely and sent her falling down to god knows where.
Strangely the door to the roof looked just as burnt as the main entrance, singed remains tossed carelessly among the foliage that permeated the majority of the roof space. Glancing around she spotted the flowers she needed nearer to the edge as they were always seen from the ground dangling over the waters below. While it seemed a dangerous idea to walk over to the ledge just to pick them, she risked the mockery of her peers if she didn't.
That's how she found herself clinging onto leathery vines, flowers clutched in one hand and her phone in the other as she frantically called for the emergency services. In all honesty she knew she wouldn't be able to cling on long enough to remain there until they came but it seemed like the only option at the time.
And then, before she could tell the operator where she was, the vine snapped and she plummeted.
When she woke up she felt no pain, she felt no fear and she still had the flowers in her hand. Perhaps she just imagines the roof collapsing? She felt fine so it must have been an intense daydream. She got down safely enough, the flowers were photographed and she was congratulated by her friends - even given the nickname of Hella Nads, by their reckoning she had some serious balls to actually do the dare.
That night as Nadia went to the bathroom, glancing in the mirror instead of seeing her bathroom she saw the castle's walls, blue tinged and covered in places by what appeared to be moss. Shaking her head and turning around she found herself underwater right between a stone wall and a dirt wall. The castle's bridge, she realised, and looking up she saw herself bobbing in the water face down. Her skin was pale and bloated, her neck rolling at an unnatural angle with the small wake she must have made when she fell. The flowers floated limply beside her, mockingly.
20160303
Day 668
It was originally designed as an eco-experiment - the perfect combination of a modern city and a forest with a fraction of the carbon footprint. Every minute detail had been planned out decades in advance, constantly being changed with new discoveries and advances in technology until they called it their Utopia. Of course everyone knows the word 'Utopia' is cursed to the point where anywhere calling itself this falls to ruin before the first day is up.
The only difference in this Utopia was time. It never moved, the hundred thousand or so people who'd been selected to live there were little more than bones now. Nothing could move them nor get past the dense undergrowth that had formed a thick fence around the place. Their only insight into the city were the security cameras dotted throughout.
Over the years they'd observed the slowing down, loss of communication lines and eventual decaying of their Utopia. There was nothing else they could do. Talks of terminating the study began, after all what results were they yielding aside from a study of decomposition? There were no unusual signals coming from within the city, no strange electrical readings and generally no reason as to why they froze in the first place.
The talks were put on hold when someone put together a timelapse covering the past five years. It focused on a few of the well known people as the last remnants of their flesh fell away. Though it may have been a trick of the light they seemed to be still moving about, gradually carrying on with their lives as though nothing had happened. Their jaws moved in gradual conversations,some that had been going on for longer then the five year period in review. They stood up, sat down and generally behaved like normal people.
Months after this discovery someone was airlifted into the city square, equipped in a full Hazmat suit and carrying a small pistol just in case. Up close to the skeletons he informed his superiors that he could indeed see movement. Though the walkie-talkie's signal was patchy they made out most of his words, understanding that everyone's heads were gradually turning towards him, arms outstretched and beseeching. It wasn't long before he called into them desperately begging for the helicopter to come back for him, saying they had him cornered.
Meanwhile back on the main base they could only observe this on the cameras. The skeletons movements had increased dramatically since they'd dropped that poor man down there. Feedback from cameras outside a courtyard showed that they had him surrounded by a broken fountain. He'd managed to climb to the top but they were relentlessly trying to join him. Judging by the bleeding tears in the suit they didn't mean him well.
The only difference in this Utopia was time. It never moved, the hundred thousand or so people who'd been selected to live there were little more than bones now. Nothing could move them nor get past the dense undergrowth that had formed a thick fence around the place. Their only insight into the city were the security cameras dotted throughout.
Over the years they'd observed the slowing down, loss of communication lines and eventual decaying of their Utopia. There was nothing else they could do. Talks of terminating the study began, after all what results were they yielding aside from a study of decomposition? There were no unusual signals coming from within the city, no strange electrical readings and generally no reason as to why they froze in the first place.
The talks were put on hold when someone put together a timelapse covering the past five years. It focused on a few of the well known people as the last remnants of their flesh fell away. Though it may have been a trick of the light they seemed to be still moving about, gradually carrying on with their lives as though nothing had happened. Their jaws moved in gradual conversations,some that had been going on for longer then the five year period in review. They stood up, sat down and generally behaved like normal people.
Months after this discovery someone was airlifted into the city square, equipped in a full Hazmat suit and carrying a small pistol just in case. Up close to the skeletons he informed his superiors that he could indeed see movement. Though the walkie-talkie's signal was patchy they made out most of his words, understanding that everyone's heads were gradually turning towards him, arms outstretched and beseeching. It wasn't long before he called into them desperately begging for the helicopter to come back for him, saying they had him cornered.
Meanwhile back on the main base they could only observe this on the cameras. The skeletons movements had increased dramatically since they'd dropped that poor man down there. Feedback from cameras outside a courtyard showed that they had him surrounded by a broken fountain. He'd managed to climb to the top but they were relentlessly trying to join him. Judging by the bleeding tears in the suit they didn't mean him well.
20160302
Day 667
She arrived early to her shift, noting absent mindedly that she seemed to be the first person to come in despite the half full car park. Now it was only 07:30 and they officially opened half an hour ago but the breakfast rush was one of the things that kept them busy for a good couple of hours.
Usually by the time she got in things were in full swing and she'd barely have the time to hang her coat up in the staff room before being rushed out to the kitchen. Today the lights were on, the tables were neatly stacked to one side and there wasn't a single sound to be heard. Even the air felt empty and cold.
As she went to the kitchens she saw that the ovens hadn't even been switched on. Those outdated behemoths took a good hour or so to warm up. Taking initiative she flicked them on, not checking inside and not realising they were occupied until screaming and thumping filled the air. Throwing the oven doors open she caught sight of charred uniforms before she turned away to vomit on the freshly mopped floor.
By the time she turned round the screams had stopped, replaced by crackling and the smell of roast pork. Once she was sure she had nothing left in her stomach she turned around to assess the damage. Two mostly cooked people,her co-workers, were half in the oven and half out. It seemed like they'd been trying to crawl away (or towards her) as her back was turned.
Holding back tears she walked as quickly as she could to the owner's office, intending to ask what the hell was going on but first she checked the rest of the kitchen. If people were hiding in the oven then who knows where else they were, or why they were there.
The fridge was fully stocked, all looking normal until she opened the vegetable drawer and found a small child stuffed in there, limbs bruised and at odd angles. Poor thing's skin was that pallid bloodless colour that let her know they'd died long before she got there.
The cupboards were utterly, and thankfully, bare.
As she approached the rear of the restaurant she noticed the owner's door was wide open. Usually there was a sign outside saying "Knock First" but today it had been replaced by a note asking staff to write their mobile numbers down as their data was being re-examined. thinking she'd found a little piece of normality she grabbed the pen she kept in her apron pocket and scribbled her number down before heading inside.
The whole room was empty. No desk, no wall art, no carpet either. It was like they'd been in the process of renovating but were only at the stage where everything was primed for renewal. After spending a few moments checking the walls of the room in case this was some kind of elaborate prank, her phone buzzed.
She received a text from a number she didn't recognise but her phone had somehow saved it as "Boss". It just said "Employee meeting @ 08:00." She hoped she'd get the answers to whatever was going on here and shot a quick reply off asking if they were in the staff room.
It was several minutes before she received a reply simply stating "We're in the meat locker".
The meat locker was situated right at the back of the restaurant, for health and safety according to the head chef. It was quite a big room too, L-shaped and easily sealed by a large metal door to keep the cold right inside.
Like the owner's office, the door was wide open which explained the sharp chill to the air. Before stepping inside she made sure to grab a chair from out front to hold the door open just in case, carefully avoiding looking into the kitchen. She wasn't sure if she was scared of seeing her co-worker's bodies or not seeing them.
As she entered she heard frantic whispering erupt from around the corner, where the large pieces of meat were kept. Walking briskly over, keen to get answer and get the hell out she found herself hesitating just before the corner. From there the whispering didn't sound like conversation at all, it sounded like they were mimicking animal sounds.
Peering around the frost covered corner she found the rest of the staff and clients. They were in varying states of preparation, from bleeding out over a waste bin to skinned and strung up to finish drying out. She saw people she recognised. She saw their mouths moving, making the shapes of the animal whispering. None of them had eyes, just gaping holes cut with surgical precision.
None of them were in any fit state to answer her so she left.
Everything outside was deserted now as well. She almost thought she was the last living human in town until she caught site of someone scurrying down an alley. She almost went to pursue them but before she could so much as twitch a muscle she saw what he was running from.
Picture a Rat King, now if you've never heard of one it's a legendary English creature formed by dozens of rats getting their tails tangled together until they resemble one large rat-bundle. If that was classed as a king the creature shambling down that alley was royalty as well, all conjoined at the legs to the point where it was just a tumble of arms and rolling heads.
She didn't know if it spotted her, didn't stick around long enough to find out.
She went home and took stock of everything in her apartment, hoping to ration it long enough to find a way to leave the town without being spotted or at least not being caught.
20160301
Day 666
They fished it out of the bog when they were draining it to make way for new housing. It looked like a fresh corpse so it was taken into the city morgue for autopsy. Apart from being caked in mud and bog slime, it appeared to be a perfectly normal human body.
As they washed it clean, where untold years of mud slid away, where flesh should be there was nothing. They could feel the body there but without the mud they couldn't see anything. Whoever they were, they were somehow invisible.
Their blood tests showed they weren't human at all but some combination of ape and squid. A creature engineered to be like us but utterly unseen. Stranger still when they tried to gauge the time of death the results were that the body was hours old but the bone marrow samples showed it to be somewhere between five and six hundred years old.
It was kept locked up tight in a separate area of the morgue until proper transport could be arranged to ferry it to a laboratory fur further study. The samples that they'd sent only made the forensic team there hungry for more data. Guards at the door made sure that only authorised staff entered during opening hours and nobody else.
After the body was transported some three days later it was found that every other body kept there had gone as well. All that was left behind was the faint odour of decay and a puddle of something akin to saliva but much thicker. The DNA from these remains matched the humanoid corpse.
Upon looking back at the CCTV footage from the morgue at certain times during the night, when the security staff were distracted, the small vents along the bottom of the walls could be seen slowly opening and closing.
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