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Steve Blum scowled in pure hate as he heard the cackle of the old woman. How he hated her. He hated her more than he hated the roaming dead. They had an excuse for what they did. They were dead and, if the scientists were to be believed, simply acting on instinct. She, however, did it because she was senile. The hag was a drain on their resources, and Steve had made this very clear many times. Not only did she take up room in the already crowded refuge but also she wasted their supply of food and water. Not to mention the time it took to look after her. As long as she was awake then someone had to be with her at all times.

He said a small prayer of thanks to whoever may be listening that it wasn’t him today. She seemed to be acting up more than usual. Making stupid noises and, no doubt, causing trouble for whoever was unlucky enough to have to keep an eye on her. (more…)

The tightrope walker places one foot upon the high wire.

The audience draws in, eager to witness his feat.

He presses down with his right foot, testing the line.

Would like more rope tension…

Would like a drop in the breeze …

Would like a safety harness…

………but the audience is waiting. (more…)

Jim Bramer, Minister of Special Circumstances, stood and gazed out of the grimy rain-slick window of The Houses of Parliament office that was his home. Casually he picked at the damp peeling paint on the window sill, and dropped the flakes onto the aging, stained carpet. The office was once opulent in the seat of government, now faded and ruined as the city around him. He looked out into the night, and the further he looked west, the more dread snatched at him. He could feel the rising panic in the city below, queues of shabby workers rushing down Abingdon Street towards Westminster Bridge and the Isle of Dogs. They moved together in the vain hope there was still a boat with a friendly Captain. In his office he could hear the murmurs and shouts of the crowd, people shoving and arguing, fear barely concealed as they hurried along. Bramer knew that all the boats were gone, and that Death was coming. He knew this because The Minister had phoned him and told him so. (more…)

Waking at 6.00am Daniel usually struggled to open his eyes, but this morning he felt fresh. Last night had been a nightmare. Trying new tactics had worked well at first but soon his small band of fighters had been split up and went down like rookies. Daniel was the last man left to fight off the incoming horde and the adrenalin got him through the first few kills but there were too many. Just before he was wiped out though the server went down and X-Box Live was out for the rest of the evening. As a result he’d had an early night and with tomorrow being Good Friday he looked forward to meeting up with his friends in the pub after work and a long weekend. (more…)

Mummy and Daddy have stopped shouting at each other and now I am just bored again. My DS has run out of battery and Dad didn’t pack the charger for the car. He shouted “There are more important things than your bloody DS!” at me when I asked if it was in the boot. In fact this is the worst car journey I have ever been on. We have been stuck on the motorway for hours with nothing moving, and the girl in the car next to ours keeps making faces at me and sticking two fingers up at me. Spotty cow. (more…)

John had always been impatient. He hated waiting. Not just the “Oh I can’t stand waiting around” type of hate, but the physical, makes you want to punch a wall in anger, hate. He just couldn’t stand the thought of waiting around for anything. If he needed something, it had to be straight away. (more…)

Marcus awoke at the sound of the alarm. Waking quickly he hit the stop button and removed the batteries. Lying back down he checked his watch.10.40. He looked over at his wind-up alarm clock and saw the time showed 8.24. Damm. How drunk had he been last night? Drunk enough to forgot to wind his alarm clock but not so drunk that he had put batteries in his digital clock. Still, he had twenty minutes to spare. (more…)

Please see Verse 1 of The Minister

The Minster: Verse 2

Against the gentle whump, whump, whump, of the helicopter blades, Paul Jollie listened to the last thirty seconds of the mp3 over and over again. He’d put the earpieces of his ipod underneath the bulky headphones to try and drown out the noise of the ancient Huey he was now sat in. He was studying the photographs of the living room of the old croft where the attack had happened. He tried to visualise the knock at the door, the surprise of the occupants, that final desperate struggle and what had happened after the tape stopped, after the bloody violence ended. He had listened to the MP3 over and over again, studying to every nuance of Joe Wyndhams voice as he described the Minister and that final line, the voice of the Minister himself; that drawn out Scottish brogue dripping with menace. No matter how many times he listened, he couldn’t gather any further information from it and yet every time he listened to the recording the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. (more…)

Really, it is only when one comes to write ones memoirs that one finds oneself in remembrance of things that previously were forgotten. Perhaps ‘forgotten’ is too strong a word. Perchance, I had chosen not to relive the memory of those terrible days. Perchance, subconsciously I had chosen to push them back into the rear of my mind, to cover them over with memories of happier times: Garden parties and long firelight discussions with good friends, fine port and cigars: British summers and the resonant crack of leather on willow in a good game of cricket with which I used to occupy my life. Now, as I sit here in my London townhouse, recounting tales of excitement and derring-do on which I have occasionally embarked, I find I must tell this tale to complete my story. Although my hands tire easily now and I occasionally forget the spelling of words as old age seeps through my body, my memoirs will not be complete without the retelling of this ghastly tale. So I give you, (with more than a little reluctance for fear you think I should be sent to Bedlam), ‘The Island of the Ungodly Dead’. (more…)