Day 1,065

It was the 1920's and the lines between reality and otherness were a helluva lot blurrier. Tonight we explore the lesser know, but no less important, Americana artefacts that this period brought with it into the harsh glaring lights of the 21's century.



McGallaster's Bar was as dingy as it was smokey, the ceiling lights flickered in the cigarette-based miasma that drifted around the room within a series of unfelt air currents. Any patron would tell you they haven't been allowed a smoke all night and they're going half crazy with their cravings yet the air still reeks of Murad's finest.

In several places the smoke drifted gently down the walls, almost forming figures that held their vaporous arms out to anyone who came near. Occasionally a more inebriated patron will swagger up with all the confidence of a pint too much and go to embrace what's not-quite-there. The smoke seems to suck them in and spit them out right beside the No Smoking signs, asking the patrons to light one up and appease their cravings.

Nobody's had the guts to try just yet but some day, a pint too many will make a fool try.


-- -- -- -- -- --


Al that could be heard from Mrs Sharma's School For The Secretarial was the harsh clacking of rigid nails against unforgiving plastic as the same paragraphs were typed out by over a hundred students who all wanted that ideal secretary-style life. They aspired to aid the greatest in the country, giving whatever they could to achieve this.

As a result, few were the same as they arrived but not noticeably so. Food preferences were the first to change, whatever kept them from the typewriter was deemed unnecessary and blacklisted in favour of things that could be prepared with one hand or even both feet (which soon became as dexterous as any hand could be).

The next to change was always nails, louder sounds kept the administrators at bay. Last time anyone tried to hold an hour of silent typing for memorial day, Mrs Sharma's lost an entire class. All that remained were bloody fingernails, the skin roughly attached underneath as though whatever had tried to pull them off had used something narrower and sharper to pry them away from their owner's hands.

Nowadays the world is too full of noise for the administrators to survive, they cower in abandoned office blocks and wait for it all to fall silent ad long, long last but it never will again.


-- -- -- -- -- --

Day 1,064

I didn't think learning to type by touch would save my life but then again I didn't think the vent in my bedroom led anywhere, much less that it was large enough to fit anything larger than a starling. Judging by the size of the eyes that followed me around my room as I tried to reverse out of the door (and failed as it had somehow blocked me in from the other side), the creature must have been about eight feet tall, if it had human-like proportions.

I didn't see all of it - only the head and shoulders as it tried to cram its entire body into view. What little I did manage to see was covered in matted black fur that blended in surprisingly well with the interior of the vent. I only noticed it when I turned my bedroom lights on and saw the glow reflected in its eyes, eyes that only moved when I wasn't looking.

Didn't take me too long to work out how it moved, that weird snake-like twist that was slowly unscrewing the vent from the inside. Somehow it had planned this in advance, or collaborated with my family in order to trap me in there, perhaps my life in exchange for their safety? It'd be something they'd accept without question.

Thankfully I was able to text a friend while maintaining direct eye contact with it, convincing them to come up to my room from the tree that practically touched the hallway window. By the time they'd unblocked my door I'd wriggled myself into a corner I could safely duck down into and then shove them forward as they opened the door.

It worked better than I expected, they didn't even have time to scream as it leapt from the vent in that split-second that neither of us were watching it. His entire head fit into its mouth and it bit down sharply with a sickeningly wet crunch.

His parents, the police, everyone at school - they all ask me where he went after he left my house and I kept to my story. He turned left and never looked back. He never had the time to look back. He never told me where he was heading, only that he wouldn't be home for quite some time.

My family never mentioned the creature in the vents, we never had anything to discuss from their perspective except my missing friend. They seemed detached from the whole situation, cold and unfeeling like they were only present physically.

The creature is back again and I'm hoping that another friend will come visit me.

I don't want to die.

Day 1,063

The former charity shop was a Grade II Tudor building, a little crumbled and generally crumpled. Old Bible verses painted onto the walls in burgundy paint by people who meant well but failed to see how closely it resembled blood, or noticed and failed to care.

As such small, unheard of charities do, they remained for a year and then vanished overnight leaving their wares behind. They never sold anything of value, only donated junk with prices scrawled on in red biro and never worth even a fraction of whatever the labels said. It's a miracle they lasted for as long as they did and of no surprise when they left it all behind in search of more profitable trade.

It was almost three years before the council got the permissions to clear and renovate it all, having to hire an expensive private company who specialised in listed buildings and the like. As they were clearing out the junk they made little discoveries, remnants of the building's Tudor past tucked away under tattered romance novels and between clothes that stank of mothballs and urine.

Mostly they found mummified rats stuffed with lavender and rosemary - wards against misfortune.

Clearly these hadn't worked but there were so many of them that people began to worry about their removal, after all theirs was the fastest growing town in all of England and they wanted to keep it prosperous. Meetings were held in every pub that would have them until a decision was made.

The rats had to stay, for the greater good. Now while most people took to protesting outside of the old shop while the renovators ignored them in favour of digging up yet more rats, smaller groups with stronger opinions formed much harsher plans that were carried out overnight.

Come the following morning the renovation crew was witnessed choking to death on some kind of gas, blood pouring from their noses and mouths as they slowly collapsed to the floor in puddles of their own liquid life. Their hair seemed to fall from their falling bodies in great clouds, their skin blackening with intense internal bleeding as they drowned in front of the protesting crowd.

Work ceased as the shop was cordoned off for a full investigation though the forensics teams soon suffered the exact same symptoms, all dying within a week of each other until the shop was sealed for good, thick sheets of metal covering every known exit.

It's almost a same they never found the original blueprints or checked for the basement where powdered rat poison covered everything with a fine white layer, several dust masks lying innocently beside it as though they there purely by coincidence.

Day 1,062

The roads hadn't been silent for almost eight years, the cars never stopped or slowed no matter what the rest of the world was becoming. People leap between the countless lanes full of cars, between the fuel tankers and those who have been pushed by the people behind them for too long to be safe.

Running out of fuel or breaking down in any way is a death sentence.

Everyone tried to get into the middle lanes at first, causing countless pile-ups and road blockages until it was firmly agreed upon that if there was a central lane, the drivers would switch between them regularly. Nobody wanted to be on the outer lanes - not with the way the shadows ran alongside their cars, waiting for them to slow down just enough that they could be caught.

Millions of lives have been lost already, the usable roads are growing fewer and fewer by the week as drivers get too tired to carry on and just let themselves drift off to the roadsides and into those blood-encrusted arms that have been swiping at them for longer than their exhausted minds can remember.

Nobody wants to consider what will happen when all the fuel finally runs out.

Day 1,061

My dear wayward friend,

    Please accept my humblest apologies for the vague and abrupt nature of my last letter. The eyes if our enemies were too many and their minions have even gone so far as to hide my writing implements!

    Fortunately this has been remedied and the culprits disposed of.

    Bless your sturdy nature and thorough research for your studies have led me to the doorstep of a man known only by the name on the toe tag he was found wearing at a morgue in Liverpool before he was found to be not dead but near comatose.

    Upon waking he described the following to me and I found it pertinent to report to your wise ears.

        Yours in faith,

            Midas Pen

MY DEAREST COMPANION IN ARMS STOP

THE VISCOUNT IS CLOSING IN ON ME STOP

I HAVE LEFT MY RESEARCH WHERE YOU BURNT YOUR FIRST LETTER STOP

PRAY FOR US ALL STOP

DRAKESMOUTH

My troubled friend and dearest lost soul,

    Your research confirmed my worst fears over the patient known only as John Doe. All symptoms match so perfectly I daresay he that, when our research is published (preferably, but not necessarily post-mortem), will be considered the textbook case that defined this disease.

    I have taken to naming it after your deceased brother (G-D rest his remains, please G-D let his remains rest!) in memory of his brave sacrifice in Geneva. We must never forget that his self-immolation gave us the time needed to hide our notes from our enemies, lest they take our creation and spread it further than our accident has already.

    Reports have come through my network bringing news both as bad and worse than we had previously hoped. I hate to be the bearer of such sorrows but it would seem that our pathogen has become airborne and has reached as far as northern Tunisia.

   Oh my last and truest friend, we must make amends!

        Yours in faith, as always,

            Midas Pen

MIDAS STOP

YOUR SOURCES HAVE BEEN LYING STOP

TUNISIA FELL JULY 29TH STOP

ONLY THE SEAS ARE SAFE STOP

I BEG YOU - JOIN ME ABOARD THE QUEEN CAROLINA STOP

WE WILL WAIT FOR 3 MORE DAYS STOP

DRAKESMOUTH

Day 1,060

When the city flooded twice a year, there was an exodus of its residents. The alleged reasoning for this was public safety and to allow the public sector workers to do their best to shorten the flooding period from three weeks to eight days. No matter how many official reports were released, no matter the photographs taken or the social media posts from the workers, nothing explained what they couldn't clean up.

The most noticeable were the claw marks embedded deep into the sides of the old war memorials, gauging the horses sides as though they meant to spill blood. Sometimes small iridescent scales were found inside these marks and have long since been considered a sign of good luck. Other times needle-thin teeth were found with gums still attached - these are taken to mean that the floods will return sooner, as the creatures that reside deep within it are too hungry to be sated by just two trips.

Locals never go so far as to say that these creatures are holding their city hostage, far from it. They are fond of the mild chaos caused by the biannual need to relocate to higher grounds and the clean-up period when they return. It's a matter of pride for them, their resistance to greater forces and things that they have only ever caught glimpses of.

They say you never forget your first sighting - the way those jagged spines glisten in the water like oil-slick rainbows on barbed wire and the trail of viscera left in their wake from whatever stray animals were left behind. Some even seem to play in it.

Day 1,059

The point where the city met the forest was controversial at best. The official boundary is where the concrete paths abruptly end though the residents say that it begins much farther back and that the apartment blocks right up to the main road are all fake, just fancy oversized pots to hide how far in the forest has come.

Everyone who has heard of the city understands that every alley leads to the forest eventually. Anyone who has been to the city will quite happily tell you that this isn't quite correct - everything leads to the forest eventually, some ways sooner than others.

They will tell you that if you peer into any apartment window you will only see the forest and that if you peer close enough or for long enough you will see exactly what lives inside those buildings. They talk about great shadowy things whose horns spiral into shapes that can't possibly exist on a natural being, humans who have their animal companions sewn to their fingertips so that they may never become lost, saplings who use their branches like clawed hands to drag themselves up their older and more established counterparts in search of sunlight.