The Clean White Page

Velvet 7

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:10:00 +0000

For earlier episodes of Velvet, see the Story So Far page above.

Velvet lunged forward, grasped the girl’s arm and flung himself at the window. He crashed out through the glass and turned as he was falling. The girl screamed and through her flying hair, he saw Jones standing at the window, shouting over his shoulder.

Velvet twisted, holding the girl against him with one arm. Her eyes were tight shut. He aimed his boots at the side of the building and grabbed a ledge. The girl screamed again as they came to a hard stop. Velvet looked down and saw Jones’ men swarming up the side of the building.

‘If you want to get out of this, get on my back and hold on.’

She didn’t react for a moment, then crawled around, eyes closed and fingers digging into him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he leapt sideways as the first of Jones’ men grabbed at his legs. He made the roof of the smaller building next door and ran. He heard the sound of the others hitting the roof behind him but didn’t look back. As he reached the edge of the roof, the girl’s arms jerked against his throat as someone grabbed her from behind. He gripped her hands and jumped to the next building.

He knew in a flat out foot race with a burden on his back that he had no hope. He swerved to the side and leaped into the street, causing car horns and screeching tyres. He ripped open the door of the closest car to him and threw the driver onto the road. The girl scrambled in behind him and he was driving before the door slammed shut.

He smashed a cab out of the way and accelerated hard to the next corner. As he turned, he looked back and saw two of them cutting across the sidewalk towards him. He swerved sideways and crushed one against a building. Blood washed over the side window and thirst bloomed in his throat. The girl tried to climb over him to get to it but he shoved her back into her seat. Her head cracked against the window. The other man leapt onto the trunk as he accelerated away. He kicked in the back window and came in feet first. Velvet jumped on the brake and the man flew forward, his legs shooting between the front seats. Velvet seized his belt and flung him through the windscreen before driving forward. The car rocked over his bulk and Velvet sped away, with the sound of sirens in his ears. He glanced at the girl. She was staring at him, eyes big in her dirty face.

‘Where is my daughter?’ Velvet said.

On the Storm

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:26:00 +0000

The radio said there was a killer on the road. People had been lost in the bends and dark curves. They had disappeared under the overhanging trees in the rain. They had been taken from the wet slide of storm polished blacktop. People couldn’t stay home, so they were careful instead. In the wet night, standing in a straight stretch between curves that whipped left and right like a fleeing snake, I knew I was in a bad place.

Cars passed me; flying, lashing water in my face. Blind metal cages and warm dry oblivion. I held my arm out as far as I dared, thumb raised in a plea for salvation. I watched the lives pass me by on their way to better things, or worse. I saw small faces pressed against the glass, watching the rain and the night blur by. Maybe they saw the white oval of my face as a pale flash of something unknown.

Despite experience, to spite it or myself, my heart filled with hope with each new car taking the first curve. Each dirty wake took hope with it, splashing in the red taillights as they braked for the next bend. I don’t know how long I stood there but my clothes lay cold and wet against my skin and my hair plastered in my face. My pack pulled down my shoulder and my outstretched arm drooped against its own weight. My chin was resting on my chest and I believe I was almost asleep when I heard the squeal of wet brakes. For a moment, I remained stiff, hand still out. The car had pulled in onto the gravel at the bottom of the rocky wall, its red eyes making stars in the downpour. I started to run towards it and my legs almost betrayed me. I ran stiff and old, though I am neither. I slipped as I went around the back of the car and grabbed at the rough roots of trees sticking out of the bank. A window came down a few inches and a woman’s voice shouted to me to get in the back.

I grabbed open the door, my fingers frozen and stubborn. A blast of heat and cigarette smoke hit me and I felt my chest close as I struggled in. The driver flicked a glance at me and pulled out as I was slamming the door shut. His face was pock marked, the pits thrown into stark relief by the dash lights. The woman beside him twisted in her seat to grin at me. Her hair was beautiful, shining smooth and falling in sheets like water on either side of her face. She wasn’t pretty but that hair redeemed her.

‘I’m Sally. That’s Tom. The baby is Alice.’

I looked at the child in the car seat beside me. She was beautiful. Something about her suggested her mother’s genes but she was lucky. She was peaches and cream. She smiled at me and I saw four perfect little teeth. When I smiled at her, the child laughed and it turned into a cough. The air felt yellow with smoke. I turned back to the woman.

‘Jim. Where you guys headed?’

‘Wherever the wind takes us, Jim. You coming along for the ride?’

She reached out and put her hand on my wet knee. I looked at it and then at her. She laughed and I heard the child in it.

‘Sure,’ I said. I had nowhere to be and no-one to be there with. Sally turned around in her seat and slapped the radio on. The Doors filled the car, some shock jock’s idea of a funny joke after the news about the killer. Tom’s eyes met mine in the mirror and I tried to smile to reassure him. His eyes were narrow and hard blue in the light of passing cars. Sally’s hand eased back between her seat and the door and scratched along the seam of my jeans. She pinched me and took her hand back. I saw the flare of her lighter in the windscreen.

We travelled in the enforced silence of the music and the rain for enough miles to dry my clothes a little. The child fell asleep, her soft mouth open, breathing her mother’s poison. I watched her and I guess she put me to sleep because I woke under the orange lights of a diner parking lot. Sally was looking in at me, the baby in her arms.

‘You hungry?’

I nodded and unstuck myself from the seat. Facing them across the splintering formica, I half listened to Sally talk and Tom eat. I ate a sloppy burger and drank a soda. In the harsh light, Sally’s face was ugly. A rash of pimples tracked across her forehead and her skin looked thick. Her mouth was large and mobile, twisting with each new story and emotion. Tom only looked up once and he kept his eyes on the child. His lips didn’t smile but the rest of his face softened.

Back at the car, Tom got behind the wheel and Sally made me hold her bag while she put Alice in her seat. She bent over to do it and pressed against me. I didn’t move. When she took the bag from me, she brushed her hand across the front of my jeans and smiled close to my face. She smelled of meat.

Half an hour down the road, she started to moan and clutch her stomach. She writhed in the seat and cried out to Tom to stop the car. He slewed it sideways and pulled up, his wheels close to a drop above a wash. Sally threw herself out of the car. He made no move to follow her. I got out and found her at the back of the car, getting sick over the edge into the wash. I took her hair back from her face and tightened my hand in it. Even feeling as bad as she did, she recognised my intent. She started to straighten up, but the knife was quicker. Her skin looked thick, but it parted at the throat like butter. I threw her into the wash. It was too dark to see her blood colour the fast water.

I tapped at Tom’s window and he put it down, the glass moving with exquisite slowness. His cold blue eye beckoned the knife. He screamed and the child screamed with him. When Tom was silent, I watched the child. She cried for a while and put herself to sleep with the tears. I wiped the steel and touched the side of her face with it. She stirred in her sleep and I cut a lock of her hair before she could wake.

There was a cell phone in Sally’s bag. I used it to call the emergency services for the child then threw it after its owner into the wash. I walked on into the night and when it seemed safe, I put out my thumb again.

Love Remains

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:32:00 +0000

Friends, thank you for your best wishes and concern. I'll post a little about the situation I'm in at the weekend once I know more.

My great friend Kathryn asked for this type of story.

Her muscles jerked and her eyes rolled. In her dream, she ran from something. Small sounds of distress escaped her, but she didn’t wake. She was running through a field of long grass and the seeds were catching in her flying hair. She tripped on a hidden rise in the soil and tumbled forward, thumping her breath out of her. She twisted her head to look for her pursuer. It fled towards her, huge, unmistakeable, rushing death.

She woke and rolled her eyes to search the room. She felt darkness at the sides of her vision and the room was monochrome, grey. She closed her eyes and shook her head. When she looked again, nothing had changed. She raised her head and was assailed by a heavy wet blanket of scents. She smelled mouth-watering steak, all mixed up with sweat and chemical perfumes. She rubbed her nose hard, but the movement just wafted more smells into her face.

She lay still, eyes closed, trying to breathe through her mouth. She could hear voices, birds, cars, the wind. A mouse moved inside the wall. She was afraid to open her eyes.

Then the voices changed and she could hear someone walking towards her. A door opened and fresh air rushed in, bringing the scent of the outside and the unique smell of the person. She took a deep breath. Her heart began to thump faster and she felt a sizzle of adrenalin surge through her, making her feel weak and energised all at once. She opened her eyes and stood up.

The child at the door was the same grey as everything else in the room, but his smell was pink and warm. She ran towards him, her movement strange but fluid. The boy put his arms around her and she thought her heart would burst with love. She kissed him, unable to express the strength of her love. He laughed and pushed her away. She followed him to the couch, happy to be in the wake of his lovely scent. He flopped onto the cushions and turned on the TV.

She sat beside him and looked down at herself. She stiffened and a cry of distress escaped her. The boy put his hand on her head and she felt the warmth of it sink into her and felt better.

She didn’t know who she was before but she knew who she was now. She lay down and put her head on her paws to think.

The new days went slowly until the boy came home and then rushed past in a haze of games and love. She never left his side. Thoughts came to her of a different life, where she spoke and wore clothes, worked and worried. She still worried, but only about the boy. She waited by the window until it was time for him to come home. There was a woman who gave her food and talked to her during the day but she wasn’t the same as the boy.

She grew used to her sensitive nose and ears and learned to see colours in the world through the way they smelled. Then one day the boy came home, smelling different. He was pink all over except for a yellow smell from inside him. She yelped when she smelled it. She almost forgot it when they were playing but when he got tired and sat down, she remembered again. She tried to smell him all over but he told her to stop. She had to wait until he was in bed and then she sniffed him carefully. She found the yellow scent in his leg and raised her lip at it.

As the weeks and months passed, she smelled the yellow sliding through him, slipping into his bones and sneaking its way around his body. She wanted to tear at it, rip it out. She growled at it once, but the woman shouted at her. The woman’s scent had changed too and stank of fear, bitter and gritty.

She woke up in the middle of the night with the howl in her throat before she was conscious enough to think. It rose in the darkness of the room and made all the lights come on in the house. The boy didn’t move and she began to bark to rouse him. People pushed her out of the room and she sat in the hall, unable to stop little howls from trembling her lips.

Other people came and she could smell more sweat and panic on the air. She heard the boy say her name. The door was opened and she ran to his side. He put his hand on her head and she felt the terrible heat of it sink through her fur. She bore it and when the hand slipped, she tried to push it back with her nose until she felt his sudden absence.

She twisted her head and saw the pink of him around her. She felt the same rush of love as always and wagged her tail. The people started to cry, but she knew it would be okay. She had his scent and she would find him when the time came.

Roses, gathered for a vase,
In that chamber died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning.
This dog only, waited on,
Knowing that when light is gone
Love remains for shining.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Dedication

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:29:00 +0000

Time is a sneak thief, clever at stealing years. You don’t notice and you don’t notice until one day you look at a face that you might have assumed would always be the same and suddenly see the difference that time has wrought. This is a face that you have seen all your life from the years you don’t remember. It is a face made small and crumpled by age and pain. The once plump smooth skin is paper thin, the lips shrunken, the eyes deep. But it is the same face in the wedding photograph, firm white teeth, warm brown eyes, radiance. Time is the only difference. It is impossible to believe that this same person is physically diminished by disease and flattened by damn time. She is the same inside; the same child who took her shoes off walking to school in the forties, feet sticking to the melting tar in the hot summers. She is the same girl who went to the movies on Sunday and couldn’t wait for her favourite magazines, the Oracle and Miracle to arrive. She is the same young woman who went abroad and trained and fell in love with a man from her home town. She is the same woman who gave everything she had to those she loved without a moment’s hesitation. She is the same woman who would never start a row or continue one. She is the woman who loved the way a mother loves; utterly and without condition.

We have come to the moment where I am trying to give to her as she gave to me and I know I can only fall short, because she gave so much and so well. While she is still here, I can tell her that I love her. If there was power in words to heal, then I would dedicate all the words I know to that cause. As it is, I dedicate this to her.

I love you Mam.

Omega

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:01:00 +0000

She put the violin back into its cushioned case when he came into the room. He was utterly normal, a man in his early thirties with an ordinary face, a shade towards good looking, ordinary hair and clothes. But now, after the ceremony, she could see the blaze behind his eyes, could see little else. She threw a fevered glance at the Stradivarius before turning fully to him, her head bowed.

‘Look at me.’

She raised her head and met his gaze.

‘Do you like your gift?’

Although she did, she couldn’t say so to him. She had played the violin until her fingertips were ragged, despite years of training calluses. She had played more sweetly than she ever could have before. Before him. But with him in front of her, the bargain suddenly seemed too real.

‘That’s right,’ he said, though she hadn’t spoken. ‘It’s real. And now, to start, you can give me the first thing I asked you for.’

Her mouth opened without her volition and she said the name. When he had asked for it first, she hadn’t thought of anyone, but over the many hours of holding the violin tucked under her chin, breathing the instrument’s breath of the ages, it had come to her, repeating, whispering. The name of a good and decent man. A man she was destroying with the act of speaking his name.

When she was alone, she plucked the violin from its case and held it against her chest. Marcus was next, but she wasn’t sorry. Not yet.

Old Ethan finally let Leo lead him to a wash and the last bed. He followed Leo with the peculiar hitch in his gait that made one of his shoes shuffle on the linoleum floor. Step, slide, step, slide. Leo was silent, not wanting the old fellow to get scared and leave. After his bath, Ethan hurried under the covers, snatching his feet up as though afraid that something under the bed would grab his ankles. Leo saw a few more into bed and checked Ethan before he left. The old man’s breathing had deepened and settled into a muffled snore. Leo checked the heating, closed the door and went across the street to his apartment.

Marcus only wanted one thing. Every day, when he looked in the mirror and saw his father’s face looking back, he longed for it. He did his job and took care of his wife and family. Life was pretty good. He knew he should be happy, grateful even. But when he saw the grey starting to wind through his hair and creases etch beside his eyes, he swore that he would give it all up for what he had lost.

As a young man, he had spent the summer at Venice Beach; a summer filled with parties and great girls. He had plenty of money from his grandmother’s will and was tanned and fit and popular. Most of all, he had felt like he would live forever. All the rest of it came from that feeling.

But time had soured everything. He married one of the great girls and they had two great kids. His job wasn’t too boring and he enjoyed the company of his friends. Still his father’s face looked back at him from the mirror.

So he made the wish and opened himself to what he wanted. The dream flooded in and crushed reality. He remembered a man and something about a deal, but he couldn’t focus on it.

Instead, he looked down at himself and found the hard brown body that the surfboard and the sun had given him. He looked into the mirror and saw the unfaded eyes and smooth skin of his nineteenth year.

For a day, or a week, or a month, he enjoyed it. The feeling of eternity burst upon him and he was young again.

But it ended. He found himself in front of the mirror again, the old eyes looking back at him. He turned and saw the man who had given him what he had asked for, waiting for Marcus to fulfil his side of the bargain. Smiling and waiting. Marcus put his hands over his eyes but the other’s gaze burned away his resistance. His son’s name came into his mind and he swept it aside, seeing the face of his son’s friend Jamie instead. After the name was taken, everything else was.

Leo finished his meal and read for a while at the table over his empty plate. He glanced up sometimes at the cold beads of hail that touched the window.

Jamie killed the last of his opponents and turned off the game. He wanted a smoke before he put on something different. He picked a good butt out of the ashtray and lit it, scorching the yellow tips of his fingers. The weather was good and he could hear the little kids playing in the street. His mother had stopped nagging him to go out. She had pretty much stopped talking to him at all. She spent most of her time at her job or volunteering at some shelter. Jamie usually waited until she went to bed before going downstairs and eating leftovers straight from the fridge.

He went to the window to look down on the outside kids. Snowflakes of red fell from the butt and he brushed them away from his shirt. When the man turned onto his street, Jamie saw him right away. The little kids fell silent and still at the stranger’s approach. When he passed them, they cried and ran home.

The man reached Jamie’s house, opened the gate and walked into the yard. He looked up, smiling, his eyebrows raised in question. Jamie nodded. He knew what he wanted. Enough money to not have to do anything. Easy. And all he had to do in exchange was give a name and something that he didn’t believe in anyway. He thought of some guy his mother used to talk about, when she still talked to him, some do-gooder at the shelter. A nobody.

Leo tidied the bare apartment and carried his dishes to the kitchen where he washed his plate and cup. As he was reaching into the cupboard, he felt the presence behind him and carefully put the plate down before turning. He knew who the intruder was right away. The tiny hairs all over his body stood up in the static between them. The man smiled at him and spoke in a pleasant voice.

‘Someone mentioned your name to me, so I came. Aren’t you going to offer me something?’

Leo reached to one side without taking his eyes off the man who had invaded his home. He pressed the switch on the kettle. The intruder laughed, a real laugh, his head thrown back. Leo saw his back teeth. When he stopped, he let a little smile play about his lips.

‘I don’t want coffee, Leo. I want...’ He spread his arms wide and searched for a word.

‘You want everything,’ Leo said.

The man pointed at him.

‘That’s it. You got it. I want everything.’ He turned his pointing finger towards the kettle. The metal buckled and bubbled onto the counter top, forming a silver pool. Leo looked away from it and saw the fire and the desire in the other’s eyes.

‘And you’ll give it to me, won’t you Leo? Everything you have to give. And you get whatever you’d like in return. Everybody wins.’ The man shrugged, grinning.

Leo turned his mind from the things he wanted, so that he couldn’t be read. He put his hands by his sides and met the furnace blast of the other’s eyes.

‘So what do you want, Leo?’

‘Nothing from you.’

‘Sure you do. You just don’t know it yet. But I can wait. I’ve got all night.’ Tickled again, he laughed and walked out of the tiny kitchen into the main room. Leo waited for a moment, but there was nowhere to go. This had to be faced. Every since he was a child, he had known that a moment like this would come; a moment of terrible temptation, a violent crossroads in the simple path he had always walked. He stood for one last moment before the crossroads and then stepped forward.

‘I’ve told you. I don’t want anything you have to offer.’

The words swirled around him and he looked down. His feet projected over the edge of a chasm and the darkness down there was moving. He raised his gaze and worlds stretched ahead of him to the horizon. The voice reached him from a long distance, but rang like crystal in his ears.

‘It’s a simple choice. Everything or nothing. Which is it to be?’

Leo shook his head. ‘Nothing from you.’

The chasm disappeared and Leo sank into a chair. The table before him was set with a sumptuous feast. All his friends were there, smiling, eating, talking. Beautiful girls poured wine and looked at him with dark eyes.

‘No.’

The chair changed under him, turning to gold. His clothes changed to robes in royal purple. A vast court attended him. The room had no end and the courtiers abasing themselves were a multitude. Leo turned his face away from it and shook his head. He felt the cold night on his cheeks and looked forward again.

The street was before him. An old man was shambling along, walking with that odd hitch. As Leo watched, the old man was swept up by an unseen hand and dashed like a puppet against the wall of a building. His blood cascaded onto the dirty sidewalk.

‘I won’t hurt them if you give me what I want.’ The voice was reasonable and indifferent, a cool sales pitch.
Leo felt a new pulse in him. It beat at his temples and wrists until he thought he couldn’t bear it. He stood up and the image in front of him disappeared. His tormentor stood there instead, watching him with interest.

‘You won’t hurt them because I won’t let you,’ Leo said.

The other laughed again and Leo tasted the bitter stench of it.

‘You? What can you do to me?’

Leo took a deep breath and looked to the picture of his father. He knew what he was and what he was alive for, but for many years, that moment had seemed far away. But now, the moment had come to him as it always did.

He let his life drop like a coat to the floor. Everything that he really was surged forward and he felt the tremendous power that was his birthright. He was made of light. The apartment filled up with it and the intruder cowered away from him, his face changing to show the corruption beneath the skin. His back hunched, the son of the morning fled from the light to gather his armies about him.

Leo stood still for a long moment, the Lion of Judah before his destiny. Then He began.

Evolution of a Story

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:10:00 +0000

'Where do you get your ideas' sometimes becomes 'where do you come up with this stuff' when the story is horror. A few people have asked about my ideas, so I thought I'd break down the thought process behind one of the stories.

Writing the novel taught me not to wait for the muse but just to write every day. Writing the stories for the Page was habit forming though. Now I get the feeling that I need to write a short story every second day. If I can, I respond to it, although lately time and circumstances are preventing me from doing so.

So, I get the feeling that I need to write a story. I put my earphones in and open a new document. It works one of two ways. Sometimes, I write four or five questions to myself about what sort of story I want. Do I want some sort of ghost or vampire? If it's a ghost, how can I make it different? What if it was....? It usually only takes around five lines for the idea to materialise.

But sometimes and often, I write a sentence, which leads me to another and another and then there's a story that I didn't plan and hadn't had an idea for, other than the tiny seed of that first sentence that comes from nowhere. It's magical but it never happened when writing wasn't a part of my daily life. The more I write, the more I write. I love that.

There are stories that form in a different way. Tell Her was one of these. I was busy and didn't have time to sit with the laptop on my knees on the sofa and write the story into being. It's a freaky little tale and this is how it came about.

I was standing outside, waiting for my mother's dog to finish her business. It has been a very dark month and I never think of a torch. I walk blindly, finding my way only from knowledge of the path. I thought that if there was someone else in the dark night close to me, that a whisper in my ear would be a lot more frightening than a scream. The following day, I was driving home from the hospital on my own. For some reason, I thought of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies, peeling a disc of skin from his body and saving it, although tempted to eat it. I thought of someone eating their own skin. This is obviously the part that makes me crazy. Why would someone think that?! Anyway, I thought of why someone would do it. I thought behaviour like that might start in childhood.

What would make a child's skin peel? Sunburn. How would a child have skin peeling from all over their body? They were left too long outside. What sort of mother would leave a child to be burned all over, so badly that, having recovered, the child would be shedding drifts of skin? A bad one. So the bad childhood came to me in the image of the kid being shut outside. For a child to begin eating his own skin and for such aberant behaviour to go unnoticed and unhindered would require a disturbed child and an uncaring mother. Could the behaviour become a sort of security blanket for the child? When the peeling stopped, would he need to tear his own skin to continue? Would this then become akin to self harm, when at least the pain could begin and end where he chose and where the skin would be bloody? One thought led to another in a few moments, leaving me with a very disturbed character. What would I do with this poor fellow?

I threw some more rocks at him. I put him on the street and gave him another horrible experience in which he discovered he didn't have to use his own skin to satisfy his need. A serial killer is born. Remember that dark night waiting for the dog to finish? He stands close behind a woman and whispers in her ear, before biting..

The stepping stones came to me in the car. The journey takes half an hour. I don't think it took that long for the story to evolve, but it took no longer. I came home and wrote it down.

Thank you for reading my stories. I really hope that I can do this for the rest of my life. I want to be published and make my living from my writing but I am already rich in magic and joy, irreplaceable treasures.

Of the Night

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:51:00 +0000

She stepped out as he drove by, polished chestnut hair glinting red in the glowing pool of the street light. His heart hitched and his foot slipped. The car slowed and then jerked forward. He saw her smiling in his rear view mirror and he stopped in the middle of the street. She walked towards him, her hips moving in a familiar appeal. His work brought him to the centre of the city, where the discarded rolled and came to rest. He had seen hundreds of girls calling to him, walking with that hip-slung feline advertisement. None of them had ever succeeded. Word had spread and they had stopped trying. He brought what he could, shared a joke and left. If he was tempted he didn’t let them know. He managed his temptation and his loneliness the way he managed everything else in his life.

But there she was, alabaster and bronze, coming to his window. He lowered the window and she leaned down. Her top gaped and he tried not to look. She laughed softly and her breath and perfume were night scented flowers. He looked up into her sculpted face and was lost. She leaned in and kissed him, her soft lips pressing against his, her tongue teasing him. It felt like his heart was flying out to meet her. She broke the kiss and he watched her walk around the front of the car. She got in beside him, put his arm around her shoulders and put the car in drive. He drove, barely looking at the road. Sometimes, she pointed to a turn and he took it. The press and shape of her against him burned. He drove until she told him to stop. Her voice, in a whisper, made the hairs on his arms stand up.

She got out of the car and he followed her. There was grass under his feet and moonlight on her hair. She turned to him and pulled her top over her head. She was silk and stone under the white moon. He stared, afraid to touch her until she took his hand. After that, it was all about sensation and blind desire. She wrapped him up and took him in. If the night was cold, he didn’t feel it. If the grass was rough and damp, he didn’t notice. All he saw and touched and tasted was her. At the end, it felt like the whole essence of him was drawn out. He heard himself scream as a stranger, distant. He buried his face in the haven between her hair and her throat and pressed a kiss there. He felt her return the kiss on his own throat. He dreamed of pain but didn’t feel any. He dreamed of pleasure, of losing himself in her again, of turning her white skin red with his blood. He dreamed of the night passing in sensation and was unable to name it as pleasure or pain. He dreamed. When he woke, the sun burned him and he sought the shade and darkness of a wood. When at last the night came, he went back to the city, to the places and people he knew, bringing them what he could.

The Spectacle

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:19:00 +0000

Cheyelle Omar is freaked out by the word 'spectacle' and asked for a story with it. Here it is..

I know the field. It’s just outside the village and has been used for fair days and midsummer festivals for years. There’s no doubt that it’s the perfect place for the spectacle. In the old life, it was a natural gathering point. It slopes a little on all sides towards the deep pond at its centre. No one will miss any part of the spectacle.

The village is buzzing with excitement. It’s the first time they will all get together outside and enjoy themselves since the end of the old ways. The women are rushing about, gathering all they can to make a feast, even giving up some of the stores that are supposed to see them through another terrible winter. Bright spring days always make it feel like winter is a long way away and today is particularly fine.

The men watch the preparations and keep their cool, although one or two hands perhaps tremble as they light a pipe or stoke a fire.

The children run wild for once. Chores are overlooked. They are told to get out from underfoot, so they race through the village in a pack, driven by an excitement they don’t understand.

The old ones remember the old life. Everything went wrong with it, so they say in whispers that maybe the new way is better after all. But they only wait to see what will happen.

I can feel it now, the tingle in the air. I hear them coming. The lock is opened and the door flung open with delicious fear. It crashes against the wall and rebounds, almost striking the first man. I am close to laughing but manage to hold it in. I don’t want to deny them their special day by enraging them here in this room that is my prison.

Perhaps they sense the laughter anyway because they are rough when they grab me. I am dragged out, although I was willing to walk. The silent crowd that awaits me erupts when they see their men in control. The cheer causes the rooks to rise into the sky, their harsh cries seeming very like winter to me.

The village is small and the hands are many. It doesn’t take long for them to get me to the field. I am harried to the centre and left to stand by the pond. The newly made chair is there and I sit in it before they can push me down. They strap me in and then everyone just waits. I wait for them to have the courage to do it. They wait for me to do something to stop them, so they’ll have an excuse. But now, at last, I don’t want to make it easy for them, so I wait, looking from one avid face to another, searching out of interest for some objection or disgust. I don’t expect it, or even want it very much and I’m not disappointed. There is no one.

Finally, a man steps forward. I know he thinks of himself as the leader of the people, the chief of the village, although no one has ever said as much out loud. The fact that it is he who steps forward seals forever his position as leader and I can see the satisfaction in his face. He turns his back on me to signify his bravery and addresses them. I don’t listen. I know what it will be and it hardly matters.

When he finishes, there is a cheer and willing hands go to work. The chair rises in the air and swings out over the pond. I look down and see everything in perfect detail. There are fish and frogs in there. A heron has been frightened away by the crowd but it will return later, to stand in its favourite spot, creating its noble silhouette in the twilight.

The water is cold and the first plunge is a good one. I go deep and the water swirls murky green and brown around me. They pull me up and the crowd calls for more. They send me down again. Fish scatter away from me. As long as the crowd calls for it, they plunge me into the water. It is very cold.

I lose count, but this time when they pull me up, the crowd is calling for resolution. Punishment is no longer enough for them. They want to see what I am. The chair is dropped and I go under the water. They wait. They wait for longer than any person could hold their breath and then wait for longer again. There can be no doubt. When they finally pull me up, I am slumped over the arm of the chair, held only by the straps at my wrists and waist. The crowd makes a strange sound. It is made up of relief and horror at themselves. Until I straighten up and smile at them. Then the cry of terror rises the rooks from the trees again. It is nothing to me to free myself of the straps and then I am among them. They are the ones who are sorry. The spectacle gave them their answer. They know what I am. They know that I will destroy them. My laughter from earlier is gone. I remember only their avid faces.

Epiphany Update

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:56:00 +0000

I've put aside the novel that wasn't ready and started again. I had a little work done on the book that I thought was to be the third in the series. I've looked it over and checked my notes and it feels right. I wrote 1,150 words of fresh material and everything is falling into place. I'm excited to pick it up again tomorrow night. Thank you all for your kind words and best wishes for my mother.

Epiphany

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:11:00 +0000

Thank you for your support, dear readers. My mother has been very ill of late and I haven't always been able to reply to comments, but please know that I appreciate them very much.

Some of you have asked questions about my work rate and the first novel, so I thought I'd talk a little about both of those things.

Before blogging, I didn't write short stories. Before May 2009, I barely wrote at all, but, instead, talked about writing, read about writing and longed to write. On the 4th of May, 2009, I approached the problem from a new direction. I wrote.

It seems amazing to me now. All the writing advice I had ever read boiled down to that simple rule. Just write. I knew it, but didn't do it. It's like trying to lose weight. For most people, all that means is eating right and exercising and nothing more complicated than that. It's just hard to do!

So with the great ephiphany that writing every day would eventually produce a novel and make me a writer (even if unpublished), I started. Every evening, after my 9-5 job, I wrote at least a thousand words. I usually finished 1,300 but I always did the thousand. On Saturday and Sunday, I wrote more. One Sunday, I wrote 5,000. Every three chapters, like clockwork, I would run to my husband and cry 'I can't do anymore! I don't know what happens next!' Sensible, wonderful man that he is, he would tell me to sit down and plan a bit. So, with pen in hand, I would sketch out a few ideas and be off again. It took exactly ten weeks to finish 100,000 words. I loved every minute of it. I loved when I had a plot problem. Thinking about it and figuring out how to unknot it was fun.

When it was finished, I left it alone for 6 weeks before looking at it. It took another three months to polish it, then I sent my first query letter which generated a request for a 75 page partial. That was unsuccessful, but I bounced it back out again straight away. The novel is called River's Edge and is a horror set mostly in Ireland. There are elements of celtic mythology and medieval history in it. I like it. I hope other people will too.

Then I thought I would like to showcase my writing with a blog. I started in October 2009. I discovered a wonderful new hobby, although I can feel it wanting to be an obsession. I learned to write short stories, met some great new friends and found an audience. It takes about an hour to write a 1000 word short story. If I don't know what to write, five minutes jotting notes to myself on the laptop brings the next idea along. Phyllis Whitney in her great guide to writing said that opportunity is a train. They come along once in a while, but you have to be waiting on the platform for them. Ideas are the same. Now that I'm on the platform all the time, I just have to grab the next one that comes along.

That brings me to the subject of writer's block. If I'm stuck, I know I'm writing the wrong story or riding the wrong train. There's a special magical feel to the right one.

I've been stuck with the second novel. Driving to work this morning, I realised that it is supposed to be the third novel in the series, not the second. So, I'm putting aside the 14,000 words already written and having a think about what the second story should be. I'll try to take the weekend to mull it over, but maybe I'll jot a few notes tonight and see if that magical train comes along. If it does, I'll be ready to jump aboard.

Dear Readers

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:05:00 +0000

I have been posting a new story about every second day when circumstances have allowed. Unfortunately, I must reduce this to two stories a week because I want to get my second novel done. I hope you will stay with me during this little slowdown!

The novel should take me about fourteen weeks and then normal service will resume. I'll keep you updated about the novel's progress and I've added a meter bar to show you where I am with it.

If you have any comments or questions, I'd love to hear them.

Tell Her

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:56:00 +0000

When I was only a little boy, maybe five or six, I wet my bed one time too many and my mother stripped off my wet pyjamas and put me outside the house. We didn’t have neighbours and it was a nice day. I guess I didn’t mind at the start. I think I played for a while. But then I must have fallen asleep because I got burned. By the time she came to get me, the damage was done. She brought me to hospital and I guess I was pretty sick. I don’t remember anything except pieces of crazy dreams about colours falling on me.
I suppose she had to answer a few tough questions when I was in there, but they let her take me home anyway. She was always good at convincing people.

My skin peeled. I must have been like a snake, shedding it all. I left skin behind me wherever I went. One day in my bedroom, I peeled a piece of my arm. I don’t know why, but I put it in my mouth. The crinkly feeling was sort of interesting, but when I sucked it for a while, it went all soft and I rolled it into a tiny ball with my tongue. Mom had never put the cream they gave her on me so it didn’t taste of anything.

I peeled off some more. It came away real easy. It was a big piece and I could see the marks of my skin in it, like the ghost of the real me. By the time I finished, I had a ball of soft skin in my mouth. I tucked it into my cheek and looked at myself in the mirror. You couldn’t even see it. I found out that I could talk with it in there without anyone noticing. It got so it was like a comfort to me. I couldn’t do without it. It was a little part of me that I could keep safe.

Anyway, I healed after the burn and the flaking stopped. But I was still pretty dry. It wasn’t hard to pick a rough bit from the edge of a fingernail and pull it. By the time I was sixteen, I had learned how to get my nail under a bit of loose skin and dig it backwards, tugging gently, controlling the deep strip all the way from the side of the nail back up the finger, over the knuckles and onto my hand. I had to be careful when I did it, but the weekends were okay. Mom was gone most of the time, so there was no one to see the blood. That was when I started to swallow it. I didn’t mind the pain. I could control where it stopped, see.

When I was seventeen, Mom went out and didn’t come back. It didn’t bother me. I sort of hoped she was dead. I did what I liked for a while until one day when I came back, the landlord was there with his sons. I ran away.

I survived. It doesn’t matter how. Don’t ask me. For a while, I forgot about my little habit. Then some guy tried to be too rough and I bit him. He tried to pull away but I hung on, my teeth buried in the soft loose skin of his arm. He screamed when a piece tore away. I didn’t mean to swallow it, but I did it all the same.

That started it all. I tried to peel some of my own, but it wasn’t the same. I started walking around at night, not able to sleep. One night, I saw a woman waiting for her dog to pee. I watched her while the dog walked around and around, smelling things, looking for a good place to go. The woman looked pretty nervous. So I walked up behind her and whispered boo in her ear. She actually jumped off the ground a little. I suppose you could say I frightened her out of her skin. I couldn’t resist. She was so smooth and creamy. That was the first time and even then I didn’t content myself with just a piece. She was alive when I was finished, but she didn’t look so good anymore.

There were others. Lots of them. At night, they were easy to catch. I thought I would grow fat on their skin but I guess I have a good metabolism or something. They didn’t stand a chance of catching me. No one knew me. I didn’t stay in any one place for long. The cops hadn’t a clue. The papers called it flensing. I never heard it before, but I liked the word. It felt good on my tongue.

But then the people found me. The ones I killed. They started talking to me in the dark. If I was walking in a park, looking for someone, I’d hear them behind me, beside me, somewhere, talking so quiet I couldn’t tell what they were saying. Little hissing whispers saying stuff about me. No matter where I turned, I couldn’t see anyone. Then I figured it out. They’re inside me. I can’t ever get away from them. They’re with me wherever I go. Even writing this, I can hear them, whispering away. I can’t stand it anymore.

I know what to do. I can make them stop. I’m going to make them stop. I’m going to do it now. If you’re reading this, find my mom and tell her. Tell her what she did to me.

Dried the Bitter Tear

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:39:00 +0000

The man at the bus stop looked normal; jeans, t-shirt, nice leather jacket, understated. He just looked like he had been cut out and superimposed on the scene, slightly crooked, with a black edge around him. I had to walk past him to take my place in the line. He smelled good. I never made eye contact with anyone if I could help it. It was a long ride to work and I didn’t like to talk to people. But I looked at him as I passed. I couldn’t help it; he drew the eye.

He wasn’t very good looking, or tall, or thin or anything noticeable. Just a normal man, a little tense. When the bus came, I went to my usual spot, about halfway down. I sat next to the window, headphones in, book on my lap, office skirt pulled tight around my knees. He was a few seats back, but I could feel him like a spider on the back of my neck. I rolled my shoulders and huddled around my book.

The bus jerked away from the kerb and he sat beside me. A wave of sensation washed over me. His mouth moved. I pulled the headphones from my ears.

‘Help me.’

He wanted money. I always kept a twenty in my coat pocket in case I got mugged. I didn’t want him near me. He made me feel odd. I pulled out the bill and held it out. He didn’t look at it.

‘Help me.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I...my wife is dying.’

‘Do you need an ambulance?’

‘I just need you to help me. You’re the only one who can.’

I looked around. The other passengers were chatting to their friends or buried in iPods and newspapers. I tried to stand but he grabbed my arm and his fingers bit into me. I opened my mouth to scream but he spoke into the tiny space.

‘Please. Please don’t. I need your help. I...there is no other way.’

His face was close to mine. I saw that he would have been good looking under different circumstances. He looked exhausted. Worse, he looked hopeful. Desperately so.

‘What can I possibly do?’

‘Come with me.’

‘No way. Let me up or this time I will scream.’

‘I can’t explain. You just have to come with me. It won’t take long.’

I dragged his hand away from me and stood up. I forced my way past his knees and he didn’t try to stop me. I walked up the bus and sat in the seat behind the driver. The man didn’t come after me, but I was aware of him. When the driver pulled in at my stop, I walked as fast as I could towards my building. I looked back when I got to the door. He was standing on the sidewalk staring at me, hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. I went inside. If he was still there later, I was calling the cops.

I could see the street from my office, but I kept my gaze averted all morning. The tension gave me a headache. Before lunch I asked for the afternoon off. I didn’t want to leave the building after dark. When I stepped outside with the lunch crowd, I scanned the street before leaving the safety of the doorway. He was nowhere to be seen. I caught the bus and breathed again when I saw he wasn’t on it. I exited the bus keeping close to a pair of chatting middle aged women. I got into my building and upstairs without seeing him.

He barrelled into me from behind when I was unlocking my door, clamping his hand over my mouth. He shoved me through the door and threw me onto my couch, winding me. He sat beside me and covered my mouth again.

‘Keep your mouth shut or I’ll hurt you.’

I kept my mouth shut, thinking of the baseball bat I kept next to my bed. I didn’t like guns but I had a swing that would hurt him if I could get to the bat. He took his hand away from my mouth and when I didn’t scream, he reached into his coat.

When he took out the hypodermic, I made a bolt for the bedroom. I had my hand on the bat before he reached me. He knocked me back onto the bed and held me down with his body. I saw the desire on his face and tried to kick him off.

He leaned down and put his mouth close to my ear.

‘I love you,’ he whispered. I bit him in the neck. He cried out and rolled off me but didn’t let go. He dragged me to the end of the bed and pulled a few scarves from my dresser drawer. I fought hard but he gagged me and tied me to the metal foot of the bed. He was panting when he finished. I kicked at him when he approached me with the needle but he looked so desperate that I think he didn’t even feel it. I stopped fighting when he tried to put the needle into me. I was afraid it would break off inside me. He filled it with blood and took it out, capping it and putting it into his pocket with great care. He put a piece of cotton on my arm and stuck it down with a strip of white tape.

‘I’m going now. I’ll untie one of your hands so you can get free when I’m gone. I’m sorry I had to hurt you.’

He untied one of the scarves. He looked at me for a long moment and then leaned over and kissed me on the top of my head.

‘See you soon, my darling.’

He walked into the room and smiled. He held up the syringe full of blood and I let out a breath that was half a sob. He sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand, careful not to pull against any of the tubes.

‘You were right,’ he said. ‘I had to fight for it.’

‘Was I terrible?’

‘No, my darling, you were perfect and you will be again.’

I touched the years-old scar on his neck where I had bitten him. When he put the needle in my arm, I felt the rush of colour and life flood into my body. My own blood, my only hope.

A cure from the past.

Time and Grief, by William Leslie Bowles

O Time! Who know’st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile:
As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour,
Sings in the sun beam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:-
Yet ah! How much must this poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

Eye of the Needle II

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:03:00 +0000

‘You’re Finn.’

He laughed, a great shout of joy, and wrapped me in his arms. I breathed in the wild scent of him and felt his generous love burning away the years-old chill inside me, the ache left by my mother’s leaving, the anxiety of choosing the right path in life. All I could feel was the gleeful destruction of the old way and the verdant burst of new life, both strange and familiar.

He held me away from him. I clutched his arms in a sudden rush of vertigo. We were standing at the edge of a wide, rough river. The Eye of the Needle was buried under white water and a great plain stretched away on the far side of it. The river formed a border between the plain and a thick forest. Finn must have felt me tremble because he pulled me close again and cupped my face with his hands. I only half knew him but I could feel the old love flowering inside me. His eyes were kind, but he looked different, stronger.

‘You’re home,’ he said and kissed me, his hand slipping under my hair. He rubbed his thumb against my ear lobe and the comfort of that lost touch brought complete recognition. I kissed him back, feeling helpless. He trembled and I felt my power over him. The two feelings were all wrapped up in loving him.

When he pulled away, his eyes were dark.

‘We have to go. We’ve stayed too long. It’s not safe here.’

He took my hand and started for the forest. I threw a look over my shoulder and saw the horizon at the far edge of the plain darken with the forces of the enemy. I didn’t know who they were, but I twined our hands tighter together and ran with him.

Eye of the Needle

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:46:00 +0000

Brian asked for love lost or found or somewhere in between...Wild Celtic asked for something fairy tale-ish. This is the start of the fairy tale, to be continued.

The first time I saw him, I fell from the ledge with nothing below me but fifty feet of air ending in broken rocks.

I was very sick as a child and almost died. My mother left me and Dad when she couldn’t take anymore. Dad took care of me and after a long time, I got better. He homeschooled me and did a good job. I could have gone to college a couple of years ago but he said I should wait until I’m eighteen to get the most out of the experience. I think he meant boys but that’s the only thing we don’t really talk about.

So, instead of going to college early, I learned how to climb. It was healthy mind, healthy body in our house, especially with the memory of my illness. Dad had a big project at the lab so he wasn’t home much and I liked being outdoors. I always left him a note before leaving; back later, Aoife. He trusted me. We were pretty close.

I was fit but it took about a year to build the endurance and mental strength for me to feel confident within the type of climbs I could enjoy. I didn’t want to be competitive about it. It just settled my mind to concentrate on finding the holds and using my body with the rock on the way to the top. I liked to stand on the very edge and look out. It made me feel like I could fly.

On the day I saw him, I hadn’t even intended climbing. It was just a beautiful day so I set out for a long walk, carrying lunch and water in my little backpack. I walked without thinking but noting my direction all the same. When I came to the Eye of the Needle, I felt like it was my destination all along. I drank some water and looked at the entrance to the valley, a narrow gap broken in an outcrop of rock that gave the Eye its name.

I stepped through the Eye, feeling a chill as the sun was blotted out by the shelf of stone above me. I emerged in the valley and took in the view. The ancient river had cut a narrow section through the rock, leaving a sunny, tree-filled haven behind. The river itself had been reduced to a stream, fast running and clear. It was just deep enough for small fish to thrive. I took a step forward and startled a heron fishing along the edge of the stony beach. It took off, grey and ponderous, the deep sound of its big wings very loud in the gallery of rock. It scared me and I laughed at myself.

I made my way to the stream and found a mossy bank to sit on. Across the water, the wall of stone looked interesting. I thought I might manage it. Leaning back, I saw that the top was about seventy feet up and looked like it might be flat. I stood up and found a place in the stream with a stepping stone. I spent a few minutes assessing the wall and choosing a path.

Then I started to climb. It was an easy enough climb even in the wrong shoes. I was about twenty feet from the top and reaching for a good place to jam my fingers when I saw him. First, there was the rock and then there was him. I missed my hold and my shoes were no good for grip. I fell. I saw shock register on his face and his hand came out towards me. I see it sometimes still, missing me, as I fall away from him.

But he didn’t miss. He grabbed my t-shirt at the chest and yanked me back. He pulled me against him and put his arm around my back. I couldn’t tell what was holding him, but he was holding me. His eyes were dark blue and he had a couple of freckles hiding in his tanned skin. He looked angry but when I let out the breath I had been holding, he smiled at me. He turned me to face the rock and I took hold. He smiled again and was gone. It was like he became part of the stone. I closed my eyes and centred myself, breathing slowly. When I opened my eyes, there was no sign of him. I concentrated on climbing without thinking. When I got to the top, I sat on the grass. I felt something like a shiver and knew without looking that he was sitting beside me.

‘Thank you,’ I said, keeping my eyes on the view of the valley.

He didn’t answer, so I looked at him.

‘How were you holding on to the wall?’

‘It’s easy for me.’ His voice was pleasant, accented but clear.

‘How..how did you get up here? You were beside me and then..you weren’t.’

He shrugged and smiled. I wanted to hear his voice again. ‘What’s your name?’

He took my hand and stroked the back of it.

‘Don’t you know me Aoife? I’ve been waiting so long for you.’ He put my hand against his chest. I could feel his heart beating, too fast. I knew I should pull away.   I knew he was crazy, or I was. But I didn’t pull away. Instead I looked into his eyes and heard my voice say something I couldn’t have known.

‘You’re Finn.’

The Deepest Hour

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:22:00 +0000

Blame Robyn for this one.

The nights were never fully quiet. Even the nurses’ soft soled shoes seemed loud in the rarefied atmosphere of the hospital in the small hours. The ward was on the other side of the building from the accident and emergency, but I could still hear the sirens in the distance.

I was never a good sleeper. Night after night, I lay and listened to the snores and sleeping moans of my fellows in the ward. The room was too hot and filled with the smell of sick men. I lay there, in the deepest hour of the night, taking involuntary deep breaths, trying to get enough air into my lungs, wiping sweat out of my eyes. A nurse glanced into the ward and saw me awake. She disappeared for a minute and returned with a jug of cold water. I drank a little and when she was gone, dipped my hand into the jug and swiped the water across my face. It was cold enough to make me gasp and I felt a little better when I lay back down. The old man to my left struggled onto his side and gave a heavy sigh. I waited for him to take his next breath and was on the point of pressing the bell for the nurse when he finally hitched it in.

Someone across the ward coughed and made a gagging noise. I turned my head to the right and let my arm hang out over the edge to cool. The man on my right was new and the curtain was drawn between us. I stared at the faded stripes of the material and tried to think of something bland and peaceful that might help me rest. Instead, my tireless mind replayed the flash of lights and the sound of grinding metal and I felt clammy cold despite the muggy air.

The curtain between us moved as if caught by a breeze. I felt a static charge build and rise the short hairs on my arm, where it hung over the edge of the narrow bed. The movement behind the curtain disturbed a discarded chocolate wrapper that the cleaner had missed. It almost floated along the smooth floor, turning a small circle. I watched the wrapper spin to a halt and caught the next movement of the curtain out of the corner of my eye. It bulged out in a solid lump and I looked down, expecting white nurse shoes. There weren’t any. Then I heard a noise that wasn’t part of the normal night sounds. It was low and quiet, but distinct. It sounded like a child sucking on a soother, rhythmic and vacant. There was nothing especially sinister about the sound, but at once, I felt like the night was pressing down on me. It seemed hard to even move. Adrenalin rushed around my body and then drained away, leaving me feeling flat and weak. The bulge in the curtain shifted and the sound was like dry hands rubbing together. It moved down the stripes of the curtain and the material bellied out before falling flat.

There was a vacuum in the sounds of the night. I counted off five Mississippi before I heard the dry-hand scrape under a bed across the ward. I turned my head enough to see the hump that represented the man opposite. He moaned slightly and then I watched his shape grow smaller under the covers. When the sounds stopped, I tried to pull myself up in the bed as I had done earlier to take a drink, but my leaden legs felt weighted down.

I tried to call out, but my tongue felt swollen and my throat closed in panic. I could feel my heart pounding a jerky beat in all my pulse points. I wanted to get to my chair, but I had a craven fear of putting my legs out over the bed. If something touched them, I wouldn’t feel it. I began to get the idea that there was already something touching them, holding me down. I kicked out but the idea didn’t create movement in my stubborn legs.

I heard the scratchy sound cross the floor. When it reached the old man next to me, he took a deep breath and this time when he let it out, he didn’t take another one. There was a pause, followed by the crackly sound of movement in my direction.

Then I saw its hands grip the side of my bed. It gave a grunt of effort and the fingers bit into the mattress. The skin was the colour of old bruises, the nails long and yellow. I saw the top of its head appear, hairless and covered in pulsing veins, like leeches full of blood. I flung myself sideways and crashed onto the floor. The impact knocked the trapped scream from my lungs and I started to crawl for the corridor. I heard it come after me. I couldn’t feel it touch me, but it was suddenly harder to move. I saw a nurse’s legs appear at the door and then saw the floor approach fast.

When I came to, my head was pounding and a nurse was waiting with a pill. She murmured about bad dreams, not sleeping and a sad night on the ward. I was afraid to confess what I thought I had seen so I agreed with her, taking my pill as I took all the pills given to me. She rewarded me with a smile before going back to her brightly lit station where no one ever died.

I shoved back the covers and pushed down my pajama bottoms. I had to roll a little and look over my shoulder to examine myself, but then I saw a bite clearly. I couldn’t feel it, but it made me sick just looking at it. It had open lips like a fish’s mouth and the meat inside was raw. I put my hand out towards the bell to call the nurse back but before I reached it, I heard the sound.

The hurried brush of dry skin against the underside of my bed.

The Fall Of Light

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:24:00 +0000

My friend Kid in the Front Row asked for a story featuring bacon, a Jack Lemmon poster and crazy hamsters. All right, Kid, here you go!

The smell of the bacon burning woke Jack up. The sunlight making slatted shapes on the wall was in the wrong place. Jack’s model airplanes slowly turned on the breeze from the window, flying in trapped circles with the dust motes. Even though the smell of the bacon burning was horrible, his stomach growled.

He sat up.

‘Mom?

There was no answer. Jack threw back the sheet and stood on the bed, holding his pyjamas with one hand. He walked to the end of the bed and measured the distance to the door. As always, he tried to build up his energy to explode across the dangerous space near the end of the bed where cold hands or tentacles could wrap around his ankles. He jumped and waited when he landed for the sound of his mother downstairs. The thump of his landing usually generated a shout from the kitchen. Silence.
He opened his bedroom door and looked up. He saw a hamster’s feet and belly pass over the top of his door. The hamster tubes ran all through the house. His mom didn’t know how many there were now, because they were breeding in there. In the strange silence of the house, the noise of their feet racing through the tubes was creepy. He hated the hamsters. He was old enough to know that his dad had hated them too.

He stepped out into the hall. Even though he knew they were all contained in the tubes and hutches, he still watched where he walked. Sometimes the tubes came apart at one spot or another and some of them escaped.

The smell of burning was stronger out here. He hurried down to the kitchen. The room was full of smoke. He opened the back door and turned off the cooker and went back into the hall to wait. He was standing there for a few minutes, listening to the hamsters scurrying over the walls before it came to him that his mother might be lying on the floor, sick or knocked out by the smoke.

He opened the door again. The room had cleared enough to show him the whole area. She wasn’t there but her bag and keys were on the counter. He looked out the window over the sink. The car was in the driveway where she had left it last night, one wheel on the grass. Beyond it, the tiny road led away into the trees.

She never cooked breakfast anymore, even on Sundays, not now there was just the two of them. Jack opened the fridge. There were eggs, sausages and milk. He stared at them and then at the still smoking bacon, blackened in the pan. Fear, up to now only a flicker in his stomach, blazed up and he yelled for her.

The silence was total. The shout had made the hamsters freeze. When they started moving again, it seemed like the walls were breathing.

Jack hitched his pyjamas higher and ran into every room in the house, afraid to call her, searching in silence. He approached her bedroom last and slowly. He wasn’t allowed in there unless she called him in. He put his hand on the door and pushed it in. There was a funny smell, like aftershave and rust.

The door opened onto darkness, made deeper by one slash of light falling across the tumbled bed. The cream bedspread, caught in that fall of light, was red, like a bloody wound on pale skin. Jack backed away and felt something soft under his foot. He screamed and fell against the railing of the stairs, almost missing it. He felt the empty air pull at him and clung to the rail. A hamster ran for the darkness of the bedroom.

Jack ran downstairs, his bare feet trying to trip over themselves. He went into the sitting room and leapt onto the sofa, pulling his knees up to his chin. The television was on with the sound muted, familiar images playing.

When his dad was still around, Jack used to lie awake listening to them fighting. His mom would turn up the sound of those old movies she liked but Jack always felt the vibration of the fight, even if he couldn’t hear the words. Hours of darkness passed in the company of black and white voices from the TV.

He hugged his knees tighter. His mother’s favourite looked down at him from a framed poster. Jack was named for him because The Apartment was her all time favourite movie. Jack sat there looking at the poster for a long time but no one came. There was only the silence where his mother had been and the sound of the hamsters running.

Time Is A River

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:03:00 +0000

Readers, my good friends Angie and Bendigo asked for particular types of story. I've combined them below.

Berkeley cast the line, flicking from the wrist as he knew his father had taught him. He focused his mind on the small things; the creak of his wrist, the whirr of the line feeding out, the ripples bracketing the float, the lap of the water against the boat’s flanks. Years of training and education allowed him to focus this way. Nothing could get in the way now.

He hadn’t fished in the fifty years since his father died, but his muscles remembered the rhythm of it. He set himself comfortably on the little seat and hooked his arm around the rod. The boat drifted but his mind did not. He watched the water skaters on the surface and did not think of the process he was attempting. He drifted with the flow of the river back towards that which he had forgotten and which he desired to know.

He had been over and over the memories on the edge of the last fishing trip countless times, in leisure, in therapy, in frustration. He had become interested in time during his efforts to recapture it. As a scientist, he had hidden his obsession but never escaped its grip. Einstein’s theory that time was like a river had the taste of synchronicity for him. He knew his father had always taken him fishing. He knew that chunks of his life had been torn from him on one of the fishing trips. So much of what happened seemed to be tied to the river. Now that he was nearing the end of his career, the moment seemed propitious.

He drifted with the flow of the river. He had walked its banks for years, seeking the memories that eluded him. If he could reach what he had lost, reach it by releasing his mind to follow the river into the past, then maybe he could rest at last.

Now, although he turned his mind away, he noted that the banks were different. The path was a track worn by people walking and not laid neatly out as a tourist trail. At the curve where he would have expected a new house, there were only trees. He drifted on, his back to the bow of the boat and the flow of the river, the rod held loosely, the line trailing.

He knew that the loss of his father so early had to have affected him. Counsellors had told him. Women had told him. He knew that they should have been right. In his heart, though, it was the loss of the time, the loss of the memory that affected him. He was eight when his father died and in the fifty years since, the itch of the missing was still with him. He had been scratching at it so long that it had become an agony. He could barely remember his father’s face, but the hole, the vacuum in his mind, was a greater torment to him, he who had spent his life in pursuit of knowledge.

Something pulled at the line but he didn’t move the rod. It didn’t bite again and he felt no weight on the line. The boat drifted in the middle of the stream.

He remembered watching the woman who said she was his mother, so anxious about him, cleaning and crying and telling him stories about his life. After a while, he remembered almost all of it. But not the fishing trips. Not the last one, ever.

He felt the boat curl around another bend in the river, bringing him closer to the past. He heard the voices, at first too distant to be recognised. The timbre of the man’s voice echoed in his mind and he remembered the smell of his father, so close, remembered the bristle of his moustache.

The other voice was high and full of unshed tears. His throat tightened. The voices, one deep, one high, came closer and the boat bumped against something and stopped. Berkeley turned and saw the island. It divided the stream of the river and, although tiny, was covered in trees. He knew that there was a clearing at the centre. He put the rod in the bottom of the boat and stepped out.

The voices stopped but then he heard a sound that he knew. The rattle of keys in a pocket as trousers were dropped. He walked on through the trees and into the clearing.

The man was sitting on a tree stump, his trousers down, his big hand on the back of the child’s head. Berkeley’s throat muscles contracted and a sound escaped him, half curse, half sob. They turned to look at him, a frozen and dreadful tableau. The boy’s face was wet with tears.

Berkeley didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t. He lunged across the small clearing, fury tasting like blood in his mouth. He swept the child aside and fell on the father. The struggle was vicious, frenzied. The child sat where he had fallen and stared in silence. When it was over, Berkeley stood up and looked at the blood on his hands, looked at the crumpled body at his feet. He turned to the boy and tried to speak to him, but there was nothing he could say. The boy’s face was waxy, his eyes blank. Berkeley carried him back to the boat and rowed him to the side. With the boat trying to escape from under him, he put the boy on the river bank, being careful not to step out himself.

There was nothing else to do. He left the boy there, knowing that he would be found soon. He brought the boat back to the centre of the river and set his mind on his life and his work. He started to row and, in time, made his way home.

Dear Readers

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:33:00 +0000

Would you like to be involved more in The Clean White Page?

If I were the piped piper of stories, what music would you like to hear? For example, Angie recently asked for a camping story, so I wrote The Tigers Come At Night. I'll be writing a something-under-the-bed story for Robyn. Perhaps you might like a continuation of an existing story? I have lots of tales waiting in the wings, but I want to know what you guys would like. Put your requests in the comments. I warn you, you may not get what you expect!

The Mark

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:14:00 +0000

It was so convenient for everyone. When it really got going, there was no need for anyone to carry cash or cards anymore. No one bothered because the readers could take their payment, or recognise their identity immediately. After a while, it was only the old fashioned mom and pop places and the thrift stores who knew what to do with real money. The new system was easy, clean and quick. Convenient for everyone. Just like the Prince said it would be.

Stephen Baker didn’t like being told what to do. In the early days, lots of people didn’t have the inserts, so he went unnoticed. But it didn’t take long for things to change. Stephen realised that he was the only one in his group of acquaintances who didn’t have the insert about the same time that the big stores forgot what to do with cash. Stephen had lived in the city for a long time and knew where to find the little places, the ones where you could feed yourself for a few dollars. He managed. The backstreets and alleyways welcomed him.

He found new friends in the corners of the city. Some were like him, refusing the insert for their own reasons. Others were the city’s castaways, unnoticed and unwanted. At first, Stephen didn’t like them and tried to keep to himself. Later on, he couldn’t remember why that was. They were just like him.

He was fired from his job when they refused to recognise him at the gate. He had worked as an accountant in the factory for fifteen years but they said the system couldn’t recognise him without the insert. His boss came as far as the gate to tell him to go. Stephen looked over his shoulder at the security guard. They had been in the same high school in another life, another world. The man wouldn’t meet his eyes.

So Stephen retreated further into the recesses of the city, surviving. Then the word came down from the Prince that everyone was to comply or face the consequences.

They came into the slums in riot gear. Stephen was wandering along a narrow side street when he heard them break down the first door. He hid. They got hundreds of people that first night. He saw the mark on their right forearms when the morning came. A lot of people said it could have been worse. It only hurt for a minute. The word spread. That night when they came, people were waiting. A moment’s pain was better than having your door smashed open, especially with winter coming. At least they would be able to go to the market again, maybe get jobs. Maybe things would go back to normal.

By the end of that week, he was the only one left. He heard stories of resisters being killed. He didn’t believe the stories, but he was still afraid. When even his backstreet friends started to look at him like he was an outsider, he shoved a few clothes in a backpack and walked towards the border. He thought he might still have a chance to get out. Most people had not fought so they weren’t on the lookout for resisters. Not yet. If he walked at night and hid during the day he might get far enough away to find other people without the mark.

The feeling of the night was different. The billboards and giant neon images of the Prince’s face were everywhere, impossible to ignore. He kept to the grimy narrow streets. Most of the doorways had the mark painted on them. He kept his hands in the pockets of his coat and walked at a steady pace, trying to look normal, just an average guy on his way somewhere.

He stayed in the shadows when he got there, watching. Three guards, but all sitting in a hut, smoking. The dim light in the hut hung on the layers of grey smoke. They were talking and not looking. Stephen waited as long as he could, then moved down the line and slipped through. He forced himself not to run. Halfway between the border and the trees, he came to the bodies. The night was moonless, but their white flesh seemed to glow against the black ground on which they lay. They were staked out, naked, an example to other resisters. He put his hand over his mouth and picked his way among them, turning his face away from a family, father, mother, boy and girl.

He was almost through when he heard it. A groan, then a voice. He stopped and listened, holding his breath. When it came again, he followed it. The woman was pinned to the ground like the rest. She looked at him and he stared back. She took a breath and became real to him. He fell to his knees and tore at her bonds. When he freed her, she tried to stand but hadn’t the strength. He lifted her and ran to the trees.

Once under cover, he dressed her in his spare clothes and turned up the sleeves and cuffs. He took care to check her right arm for the mark just in case. She watched him with dark eyes and when he pulled the sleeve down again, she managed a smile, then started to cry. He pulled her against him to muffle the sound and when the worst of it was over, helped her to get up. They walked deeper into the woods, being careful, keeping watch and getting further away from the city, the mark and the Prince. They couldn’t run forever but for now, getting away was enough.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Book of Revelation 13

Velvet - Part Six

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:41:00 +0000

Bartholomew Jones walked into the room, his body held straight and stiff. Velvet pulled the girl back and stepped out to meet him. Jones had no expression on his face, but Velvet knew him well enough to see interest in his black eyes.

‘Velvet, would you like to have her?’ Jones said.

‘No.’

‘A moment ago, it looked like you wanted to.’

‘It was nothing.’

Bartholomew smiled. His teeth were very white and made the smile look like a snarl.

‘We have everything here that you want and yet you resist us. You resist me.’

Velvet didn’t move. Jones walked closer and studied his face.

‘You don’t hunt very often. You smell thirsty to me. Desperate perhaps? Is that why you’ve come?’

‘I came because of Fox.’

Jones laughed and his breath smelled of the hunt; excitement, terror, blood, all churned into a scent that made Velvet as desperate as Jones wanted him to be.

‘Fox is a fool and nothing to worry about.’

‘He’s different. More determined than before. He wants to kill all of you.’

‘How sweet of you to warn me. But of course it’s the innocent ones you want to save, isn’t it?’

Jones reached behind Velvet and grabbed the girl. Her face said that he was hurting her, but she remained silent. Jones threw her into a chair and went to the window, turning his back on the room. Velvet knew there were guards all through the building even though Jones seldom had need of them. He was afraid of no one.

‘Fox would like to use you to get to me. Wouldn’t it simply be the easiest thing to kill you?’

‘I’m no danger to you. I won’t help him.’

‘But you won’t join me either. I think I’m tired of it. You have been interesting to me but you are the most troublesome of my children.’

Jones faced Velvet again.

‘It's time to rid myself of the nuisance.’

The girl got up and stood between them. Jones raised his eyebrows.

‘He’ll leave the city. I can make him.’

Jones smiled and leaned against the edge of the table, his expression indulgent.

‘You are merely an abstract to him. Some life he thinks he wants to save even though he knows you are nothing. How do you suppose you can make him leave?’

‘I know where his daughter is.’

Little Interview from Life at Willow Manor

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:38:00 +0000

I got tagged by Willow at Life at Willow Manor to answer some questions about my writing. I had previously been tagged by the wonderful Gavin over at Insanity's Musings so I have now updated my answers. I have enormous respect and affection for Willow and her blog, so I really wanted to participate in this tag. If you are not following her already, do! You'll love her too.

The requirements for being tagged are simple ones. I just have to answer the following questions and then tag other people who then do the same.

1) What's the last thing you wrote? What's the first thing you wrote that you still have?

The last thing I wrote is the story below, The Tigers Come At Night. Angie at Original Pyrographic Art asked me for a camping story so I did one!

I write a new story about every other day. I'm querying agents about my first novel at the moment and starting chapter four of the second one.

I always wrote stories in school instead of essays if I could get away with it. My mother has some of those still! The first thing that I wrote outside of school that I thought was special was a hand written epic poem about tortured but heroic adventures at the end of the world. Light hearted stuff...It still exists in a hard back book.

2) Write poetry?

I used to. I would still if the mood took me, but I'm in the thrall of fiction.

3) Angsty teenage poetry?

I was a teenager. I sometimes wrote poetry. I think some angsty stuff was unavoidable! For my favourite apocalyptic poem, see Seachange.

4) Favorite genre of writing?

Supernatural/horror fiction. I don't know what to call what I do. Would anyone like to name it for me?

5) Most annoying character you've ever created?

I try not to create annoying characters. That is, they don’t annoy me. I try to write strong characters so that both protagonist and antagonist are interesting with a reason for choosing either good or evil. If they annoy me, I fix ‘em or kill ‘em.

6) Best plot you've ever created?

The plot of my first novel, although I think the plot of the second one might be the new best. It’s the one occupying my mind at the moment at least!

7) Coolest plot twist you've ever created?

Can’t say, as the novel isn’t published yet. Wait and see? I like to put a twist in most of my stories.   I like the ending to be unexpected in short tales.

8) How often do you get writer's block?

Never. If I get blocked while writing a short story, I am writing the wrong one and another one wants to come out instead, so I let it. When I get stuck writing novels, I plan by hand for a page or two and then I’m off again. Thank God!

9) Write fan fiction?

No

10) Do you type or write by hand?

Type. I’m a touch typist and I can type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. I do take pen in hand to sketch out some rough ideas while writing long fiction. For stories, a couple of lines are usually enough to give me the story if it hasn’t come fully formed.

11) Do you save everything you write?

Yes

12) Do you ever go back to an idea after you've abandoned it?

I don’t think so. The ideas I had before didn’t work because they weren’t right for me. Onwards and upwards!

13) What's your favorite thing you've ever written?

My novel. I’m very fond of the story Nine Lives

14) What's everyone else's favorite story you've written?

I don’t know. Perhaps people will nominate their favourite?

15) Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?

I have written some romance but it wasn't for me (except in real life). There is love in my novel, because that's what people are about.

16) What's your favorite setting for your characters?

Whatever is appropriate for the story. Sometimes America, sometimes Ireland.

17) How many writing projects are you working on right now?

Always stories for the blog, but working on the second novel too.

18) Have you ever won an award for your writing?

In 1985, I won a Europe wide competition for an English language review of a German language novel, based on the Threepenny Opera! And then I have my awards from my great blogging friends.

19) What are your five favorite words?

I couldn't narrow it down to five. I love every word in the language. English is wonderful, mysterious, beautiful. The written word is magical.

20) What character have you created that is most like yourself?

None but I suppose there has to be a part of me in all of them.

21) Where do you get your ideas for your characters?

Idea pollen is everywhere.

22) Do you ever write based on your dreams?

Not exactly, but the feeling of dreams gets translated. I often dream of stories that don’t have me in them. It’s like watching a movie. I still remember a crime drama dream from years ago that I might use some day.

23) Do you favor happy endings?

The ending has to fit the characters and the story. I try to write a satisfying ending, happy or otherwise.

24) Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

Very much so. I never post without reading over and checking for mistakes, although I suppose I might miss some. Why ruin a piece of work with an embarrassing, unprofessional typo that could have been avoided? Obvious mistakes pull the reader out of the story and make them mistrust the storyteller.

25) Does music help you write?

I write with earphones in, listening to music. Certain music helps with the emotion of particular scenes. I write in the sitting room because I can’t bear to miss any part of the life of the house and the music lets me do this.

26) Quote something you've written. Whatever pops in your head.

How could she have ever thought the moon was cold?

She turned to him and his eyes were full of its red light. He held out his hand to her. She took it and electricity snapped through her, making her hair fly. She was leaving everything behind but she couldn’t help it. She laughed and ran with him into the night.

Now I tag the following people who are marvellous:

The Internal Makeover
Teacher Writer
Mr. London Street

Thank you Willow!

And the Winners Are...

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:47:00 +0000

I've been given an award by Ian at The Daily Dose Of Reality. Check him out, he's a good guy with a good blog! I'm passing the award on with great pleasure to the following people whose blogs I love.

Angie at Original Pyrographic Art. I had never seen work like hers before and it's really beautiful.
Claire Marie at Tea Breaks because the girl likes beautiful things.
Lidian at The Virtual Dime Museum for her amazing snapshots of New York history.
Brian at Way Station One for his writing and unusual angles on life.
Danny at Conservation Nation for a great blog about important stuff.
Willow at Life at Willow Manor because I can't resist her blog.
Petty at Pen and Paper because she's great and always has something funny or weird from the world to tell us.
Leah at The Weather in the Streets because she is lovely and her blog is very moving and gorgeous.
Grumpy at UberGrumpy for making me laugh!
Spot at what passes for sane on a crazy day for being awesome!

Thank you for the award Ian!

The Tigers Come At Night

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:32:00 +0000

It was fully dark by the time they got the fire going well. The tents were up and Jo started to cook. They feasted on overcooked sausages wrapped in buttered bread and worked on the beer. When Jo was finished, she went into the bushes to take care of business, using her pen light to look for poison ivy. They had started when she came back. She never knew whose idea it was to start telling the stories but right away she felt wrong about it. Danni was telling a ghost story when Jo sat down, holding her torch under her chin and grinning. She had loved to be the centre of attention since she was a child, but no one resented it. Danni’s place was naturally in the sun.

When she finished, everyone laughed, shuddering. Danni passed the torch to Pete and let her fingers touch his as he took it. Jo didn’t miss the look between them. She had an idea she would be sleeping on her own tonight. The thought of being alone in the tent made her feel cold but she didn’t mind about them really. It was years since Pete had been her boyfriend.

He told a werewolf tale, growling at all the right places. Danni grabbed his arm at the scary parts and he slung his arm around her shoulders and somehow forgot to let go.

Gray was next. Jo had heard the story before but she shivered anyway. She wanted to look over her shoulder. She felt like something was watching her from the darkness outside the circle of the firelight. She liked Gray well enough but when he tried to hold her hand as he gave her the torch, she carefully avoided his touch.

Then it was her turn. She had only one story to tell and she didn’t want to tell it.

‘Go on, Jo,’ Danni said.

Jo looked up. They were all staring at her and their eyes looked yellow in the light. She tilted the torch up under her chin and looked into the darkness beyond Pete’s shoulder.

‘When I was seven, I saw a tiger. The circus was in town and my dad brought me. It was the last thing we did before he died. The circus was great. It smelled different than anything else, all animals and sawdust and candy but the smells all went together and became something that meant the circus. I was so excited. My dad held my hand and I kept trying to pull away to look at things. I remember that a lot, me trying to pull away from him.

‘The show was great. There were three rings and I didn’t know where to look, there was so much going on. There were trapeze artists and horses and clowns. I was eating cotton candy and it was sticking to my face. Dad was laughing at the clowns and it was really fun.

‘Then they brought out the tigers. There were three of them, two normal ones and a white one. The white one was the biggest. They did tricks and even I could see that they didn’t want to. They were snarling at the trainer and lashing out at him but the white one was the scariest. You could tell that it wanted to kill the man but he just kept going, cracking his whip and making them do things. I saw a little kid, smaller than me, down in front, crying. There were big fat tears rolling down his face and he had gone red. But he wasn’t making any noise. I think he was afraid to in case the tigers looked at him.

‘It was almost over. The man was making the two normal tigers circle around him and he took his attention away from the white one for a second. It didn’t make a sound; it just leapt at him straight away as if it had been waiting for its chance. Its paws hit his shoulders and it took his head in its mouth. Everyone screamed and the other tigers crouched down, snarling, afraid of the noise or the white tiger, I’m not sure which.

‘My dad tried to turn me away and get me out of there but I saw it. I saw everything because it was so fast.

The white tiger tore the man’s head off and his blood coloured its white face.

‘We ran for the exit then with all the other people, a lot of them screaming and crying. I heard later that they shot that tiger and the other ones too.’

Jo stopped talking and looked at the others. Gary muttered something and looked away from her. Danni rubbed Jo’s arm with her free hand. The other hand was resting on Pete’s thigh.

‘Great story, Jo. Gross, but great. Are there any more beers?’ Pete said.

Jo got up and went to her tent. She hunkered down to get another six pack and saw something move between the trees. It had been a long time since she had seen the tiger. Dr. Bloom had helped her to not see it anymore. She knew telling the story might bring back something unpleasant. She would just have to deal with it. She stood up with the beer and turned her back on the image in the trees.

She drank more than she wanted. She couldn’t let go enough to feel as drunk as the others but when they all stood up to go to their tents, she felt like she was floating. Danni gave Gray a quick hug and lingered over the one she gave Pete. Jo got into the tent and crawled into her sleeping bag. When Danni came in Jo pretended to be asleep.

After about an hour of staring at the roof of the tent, Jo heard Danni start to move. She left the tent and Jo lay still. Her imagination was playing images on the canvas. She squeezed her eyes tight shut against the memory of the tiger’s face covered in blood.

Then Danni screamed. Jo heard Pete shouting, his voice high. He made a gargling noise and then silence fell. Jo sat up and stared at the tiny gap in the tent. After a moment, in the light from the fire’s embers, she saw the white paws pass the gap. She stopped breathing. She heard Gray’s voice and heard him struggle out of his tent. He was swearing but then he stopped. He didn’t have time to scream when it took him, but Jo heard his bones crunch.

She was frozen. She sat in her sleeping bag and waited for it to come for her. All the affirmations that Dr. Bloom had taught her were useless. The tiger was here. She heard it dragging Gary’s body towards her tent. It dropped him outside and his head flopped sideways. His eyes were open and staring at Jo. The tiger lay across him and began to eat. Sometimes, it turned its head sideways and looked at Jo. She knew she was crying but like the little boy, she was silent.

When it had eaten its fill, it put its huge head down and went to sleep. Jo wasn’t aware of sleeping but she woke up lying crooked in the tent, freezing. She sat up slowly and looked at the gap. Gary was there but the tiger was gone. She slipped out through the gap, trying to look everywhere at once. Her eyes felt like they were straining out of her head.

There was no tiger. Instead, there were the bodies of her friends, strewn about the campsite. Dr. Bloom’s words came back to her, repeating over and over, there is no tiger, there is no tiger. Jo looked at her red hands and remembered the weight of the knife and her father’s bloody face on his pillow. She started to scream and didn’t stop even when they found her.

The Tide Falls

tina@thecleanwhitepage.com (Tina) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:41:00 +0000

The tide brought the barrel to shore. It washed in and out until a wave first cracked it against the rocks and then deposited high enough on the beach to lodge. A milky substance flowed through the crack onto the sand, forming a thick paste. The patch spread, sucking more sand into itself. The storm clouds cleared and sun began to bake the paste into clay. By the time Gary found it, it was a large moist area, pale brown and malleable.

He put down his metal detector and poked the clay with his toe. It yielded under the pressure but reformed when he took his foot away. He felt a curl of excitement in his belly. He had spent the winter combing the beaches for something good. He had found coins, random misshapen lumps of metal, a pair of handlebars and a scratched and broken silver pen. His best find so far had been a silver cigarette case which he sold for enough to buy a better metal detector. It was also his first find and responsible for the obsession which brought him here day after day. It was also easier to get out of the house than to listen to Lucy going on about him trying to get a new job, or moaning about the bills they could have paid with the price of the new detector.

He liked to get out near the end of the storms that washed this beach. The other pickers would come, but not until the rain and wind had finished with the coastline. He didn’t mind it and it meant that he had the first chance at the good stuff. It didn’t matter to him what he found, so long as it was interesting. He liked to feel the items and imagine where they came from and who last held them. He didn’t really have much else to do.

He cast a glance around the bay and saw the first of his rivals in the distance. He stooped quickly and gathered up a chunk of the material. It formed into a ball in his hands. He tossed it from one palm to the other, finding it heavier than it looked. He put it into his back pack. By the time the newcomer reached him, he had disturbed the sand, scattered some over the rest of the patch as though he had thoroughly searched the area and found nothing. He spared a few moments to chat before moving on.

When he got home, he went straight into the garden shed, where he kept all his precious things. He slid the bolt across and sat on the barstool at the high counter. He pulled his microscope over and sliced a little piece off the ball, put it on a fresh slide and leaned into the eye piece.

He stared at it for a long time, constantly refocusing. The particles inside the tiny piece were in flux, twisting and reforming under his gaze. Instead of swimming, they were knotting and mounting, forming shapes. He readjusted and thought he saw teeth. He jerked his head away fast enough to hurt his neck. When he looked again, the illusion was gone, but he had had enough. He took the large ball of material, noticing that it had filled out to smooth the cut edge, and locked it into the cabinet under the counter. He wiped his hands on a rag afterwards. The stuff had begun to feel too much like flesh.

Gary spent the evening in front of the television. Lucy held the remote control and they watched a succession of soaps and sitcoms. Gary didn’t see any of it, although he stared at the screen and laughed when Lucy did. He was seeing the ball of flesh and feeling its weight in his hands. He kept trying to turn his mind from the idea of the lump as flesh, but without success.

It seemed a long time before Lucy started getting ready for bed. She did it on purpose because she knew he was restless, wanting her to go. He found himself pressing his lips tight together and had to stop. When she kissed him on the head, he managed to sound normal and told her that he would be up in a minute.

Instead, as soon as she was out of the room, he was up and heading for the shed. He didn’t put the light on because she always kept the curtains open and she would see. He knew the place blind anyway. He unlocked the cabinet and put his hands into the dark. He found the clammy lump and lifted it. It weighed more than he remembered. As he was lifting it out, he thought it moved. He jerked his hands backwards in fright but still held on to it.

He caught the back of his hand on the metal tongue of the lock and swore, but managed to get the lump onto the counter. He reached out for a rag to wipe the cut and felt the atmosphere in the shed change. There was a low level of light coming from the lump. He could see that he had dripped blood onto it. As he watched, the ball started to shift, the fleshy stuff squirming and jerking.

He stumbled backwards against the wall and stared at it. It rolled towards him and he saw its empty glowing sockets and its teeth. After a moment, he went forward and picked it up, although the teeth snapped at his hands. He had to hold it against his body with one hand to open the bolted door and he knew he was crying but he couldn’t stop. It wasn’t far to the beach but it kept moving in his hands, twitching and changing. By the time he stepped onto the sand, he had the head pressed against his stomach with his arms cradling it close. He could hear a keening sound and was almost at the edge of the water before he realised that the noise was coming from him.

The sand he had scattered was thrown off the patch, which was writhing and bulging, forming fists and elbows pushing against thin skin. He put the head down and took two giant steps back. He wanted to run, but he felt like he was stuck. The patch roiled and then sucked free of the sand. It rose and then slapped down beside the head, taking shape and thickness as it wriggled closer. Fully formed, it stood, the glowing eyes now staring down from three feet above Gary. Its great hand grasped him and squeezed. Gary opened his mouth to scream and in the light of the creature’s eyes, he saw his blood splash against its fleshy mouth. It sucked in hard and his head flew forward. His face went into its mouth and it squeezed him one last time.

Lucy waited in the dark for Gary to come up. She knew she had been nagging him a bit lately and wanted to make it up to him. She sat up when heard a noise downstairs that didn’t sound right. She was afraid Gary was sick. He had been very quiet tonight. She put on her dressing gown and started down the stairs.