A Bog-Standard Blog Entry

Hello all. Things have been quiet lately. Too quiet for my liking. I’ve been dying, in a sense. Dying as in getting older, and slowing down. Don’t worry (or clap), it’s not terminal. Just something we all go through when approaching our late thirties, I assume. Still, it’s no excuse. There’s never any excuse for not writing (apart from maybe having no fingers). Anyway, I’ve been to a writing class tonight, and because I’ve not attended that particular group for absolutely ages, it seems to have had the desired effect. I’m now determined to compile and self-publish a book of shorts I’ve been working on for the last two years or so. It wouldn’t have occurred to me otherwise. They would have gone on sitting there on my flash pens if not for tonight’s class. I’d say hard drive, but baby, I ain’t got no hard drive. My computer crashed. Is there any bigger hindrance to a so-called writer? I lost heaps of work, because when it comes to backing things up, I’m about as efficient at that as I am at doing the dishes, or changing the bed linen, or paying the bills…which is not to say that I never do it, but that, if truth be told, there’s sufficient room for improvement. So, a goal. I’ll give myself a month to accomplish it. I’ve had no goals lately, nothing to aim for. It’s been pure limbo. Then again, without a hard drive, I’ve only had the pleasure of the television. The best thing I’ve watched lately was the Michael Jackson night on Channel 5. I have to admit I was enthralled. I used to think he wasn’t guilty but now I think he was. The plain fact is that none of us will ever know. It’s a shame how he went from being the one and only Michael Jackson who everyone loved into ‘Wacko Jacko’ with a load of question marks hanging over him. Quite sad, really. What I’ll remember him for is wearing an umbrella indoors, wearing his PJs to the courtroom, and dangling his baby out of a hotel window. Not to mention his dance moves in those pop videos of his. The whole sex charges fiasco is something his genuine fans wish never happened. It’s a slur on the genius of his legacy. Apart from that I’ve just had books to entertain me. I usually revolve between Herbert, Koontz and King, because they’re reliable. I find it a risk reading a new writer because some of them are bad. They start off promising but fade. I’m with Ian McEwan at the moment. His style is of the utmost but his content is dodgy. He’s the kind of writer who gets shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and crap like that. So anyways, just thought I’d drop by. I’ll be back in a month with my new book of shorts (it’s going to be called SHORTS), so you can hold me to my writing goals. We do need goals, no matter how pathetically small. They get us through the day.

And It Was All A Dream

The strangest thing happened. I was lying in bed and sleeping and oversleeping and then sleeping some more, half-dosing for most of it so not really sleeping at all. I could concentrate on the radio for much of it, and was aware of the author Dennis Lehane doing a charity event in my local public library. He was reading the entirety of his novel Shutter Island in one sitting, live on air. I followed much of the story during my snoozing, kind of dreaming along with it, and replicating scenes from the movie in my mind’s eye. I became immersed in Martin Scorcese’s cinematography. I really wanted to drag myself up and roll on down to the library, this was a fantastic and unheard of opportunity, but my medication had other plans. I simply could not summon up the will to get out of the pit! I was too groggy from my pills. Finally, after many hours, I managed to get up and shower. It was time to get into my special-occasion yellow dress (which I’d never worn before), and make the trip to the library. I was astonished by the set-up. As expected, it was a sell-out (I made a generous donation). The town’s press was there, a flood of photographers and journalists, with a tightly-knotted bunch of excited fans. There were illuminated waxworks of Ben Kingsley and Leonardo Dicaprio, a simple but spectacular touch, with the author sat up on a candlelit pedestal, calmly reading from his famous paperback. I’d made it just in time for the ending, my favourite part, and was ever-so-pleased that I’d made the trip. I never would have forgiven myself if I’d missed this. When it was over I stayed until the very end, until after all the autographs, handshakes, and signings. Then I approached him and told him how much I had fallen for the main character, Teddy Daniels. I said that to be so monumentally fucked-up was actually an endearing trait in a person, that denial is a very important aspect of life. We deny our own deaths every single day, I added. I even told Dennis that I myself had been diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic, something I very rarely disclose to anyone. I spilled my nervous heart out to him, unexpectedly. I have no idea why. Maybe because he looked so winsome and perfect while reading out his beautiful story.

I noticed a flicker in his eye, and a stutter in his breath. Something told me that he had taken quite a shine to me. Maybe I imagined it. Anyway, I left the venue with ideas of romance on my mind. I was sure something had clicked between us. My hero had not let me down. I climbed out of my dress and back into bed a very happy girl. Then I drifted off back into my slumber as if nothing had happened. When I next woke, my dress was still hung up in my closet with the label on as if I had never donned it. The whole thing felt like a dream, but I wasn’t sure. I honestly didn’t know. It was so real. It was so vivid. I rang the library and they said they didn’t know what I was talking about, they had had no author readings for two months. I searched online and found the same result – no history at all of Dennis Lehane doing a charity event whatsoever. Dumbfounding. So I messaged him on Twitter. He emailed me his cell number straightaway, asking me to call him immediately. I did so. And the next minute I was talking to my favourite writer in person – in reality, in the flesh, in the actual living world.

You were the cute girl in the yellow dress, he said. I blushed. Cute! But the thing is, no reading event had ever taken place…he’d dreamed the same whole thing himself! He had dreamed he had a single session reading of his book Shutter Island at a strange library in a strange town, and I, somehow, had met him in his own dream, in our own connected dream. We, as people, had never met. Or had we?

                                                                                                                

 © Zombie Publications 2017

Moker 2

Moker was a deformed serial killer. She was an expert in astral projection, and could even possess dead bodies, bringing them back to life. Fortunately, she was dead. But her sister survived, and she had my – our – son. My wife was going hysterical. “She’s killed him! The bitch has killed him!” she kept repeating. Together we thudded on Moker’s sister’s front door. The menace – the thing – lived in a shabby council flat. I kicked the door in, sending it flying off its hinges, and my wife, Bethany, charged in screaming our son’s name: “Brian! Brian! Brian!” The first thing to hit us was the smell. There was simply no explaining it. Fetid, rank, wrong...the second was the darkness. Then there was the dampness. You could literally hear the dripping. I’m sure the finer details of the apartment would have sickened me, but my angst and adrenaline didn’t give me time to pause and wonder (newspaper clippings of her older sibling’s murders, however, tacked all over the walls, did not go unnoticed). Fortunately, some light came in from the kitchen window. Moker’s sister was escaping out of it. Our Brian was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. He was facing us, as if expecting us. There was duct tape over his mouth, suffocating his silent screams. His eyes were huge, massive, full of a terror I hope I never have to witness again. He was naked, and one of his legs was soaked in blood. In fact, part of the leg was missing. And when I registered the sizzling coming from the frying pan on the oven hob, I knew exactly where it was. The sick freak that was Moker’s sister had been about to eat him. Both my wife and I were struck dumb with shock for a moment. Then the moment passed and she tended to him. Knowing he was injured but safe and in the company of Mum, I clambered out the window after Moker’s sister and chased her through the surrounding woodland. Like her sister, she was deformed. Like her sister, she wore a cloak. And like her sister, she was clumbersome. I knew I would be on her within seconds. What I intended to do to her when I caught her...well, I didn’t know, though it would probably involve pummelling with fists and feet.

I rugby-tackled her from behind and ended up pinning her down on her back, me sat on top of her stomach. I raised my hand to clout the life out of her but stopped when she started to laugh at me. She was uglier than her sister. Much uglier. And believe you me, the original Moker had been no oil painting. Up close and personal, her countenance was not too dissimilar from the Predator’s. Her cackling was hissy and wet. She did something then which defied all logic and reason, and I know this is going to sound impossibly mad. Bear in mind, you are only reading and imagining this experience...I actually lived it. I’ll say it as simply as I can because there is no easy way. She bit all her fingers off, including the thumbs. Bit them off, chewed them into mulch, then vomited them up into what remained of the palms of her hands. She not only did this, but she did it quickly. She did it so fast that I barely saw her do it at all. It was like a DVD on fast forward. Her flesh was like candy. She stared back at me through the whole condensed speeded-up fiasco. And she was loving every second of it. The pulp in her fingerless palms moulded into the bloody stumps, only now it wasn’t flesh and blood, but a transparent misty substance, fusing into the form of her old digits but elongating and stretching far, far longer. It was then that I jumped up off Moker’s sister and maintained a healthy distance from the supernatural witch. I looked on in nothing short of amazement as fluid tendrils of steamy fingers glided their way back from where we had come. Moker had stopped laughing and was now sat up in stern concentration – she looked like she was playing an invisible piano. I dashed back to her rotten hovel and climbed back in through the kitchen window. Bethany was still untying Brian. When the smoky fingers came inside and started choking him, the three of us screamed as one. We clawed at the tendrils, and like smoke they momentarily disassembled, but they always reformed and began to resume their deathly clutch. Finally we both got him free and out of there, checking behind us as we went. We got in my car and drove towards the hospital. Moker’s energy could not chase us for miles – her power would wither over distance – but this realisation did not soothe my nerves.

My wife called the police. We reported abduction and grievous bodily harm. It was all we could do.

© Zombie Publications 2017

Music - Lyrics

Clamped

My dad was ill. It was terminal. He said he wanted to do one last thing for me, which was buy me a van. He did so. From nothing, I had now become a ‘White Van Man’. I would never have considered buying a van myself. For one, I couldn’t afford it, and for two, I just didn’t see myself as entrepreneurial enough. But my old man had the vision to see the potential wheeler dealer in me. It was now up to me to realise my newfound calling. As a White Van Man, aside from making money by moving furniture and doing dodgy car-boot sales, I now had the authority to cut people up, hurl foul-mouthed abuse and obscene gestures in the heat of argumentative road-rage exchanges, and swill the faces of anyone who thought they were hard enough to get out of their vehicles and approach me with cups of cold sugary coffee (I remember once seeing a White Van Man do just that to another motorist – the coffee must have been loaded with sugar because it clung to the guy’s face like a mask of syrup). Was I up for being that kind of carefree don’t-give-a-monkeys madman White Van Man? You better believe it. The vehicle needed taxing though. I was working on it, but you know how it is when it comes to getting things done. I’m a last minute kinda guy, and a few days slipped by. Plus, before I could do that, I had to renew my licence. That would take a week. I thought the vehicle would be fine parked on the road outside my property until I sorted this stuff out. I live in a peaceful close, after all, so it wasn’t bothering anyone. So imagine my dismay when one morning I came out to see it being loaded onto a noisy beeping tow truck by beefy dudes in florescent yellow jackets! Hey! Hey! I shouted, asking them what the hell was going on! There were some other nosy neighbours having a butchers and it was all a bit embarrassing. I felt like I was getting shafted in public. I suppressed the urge to berate them and acted all innocent and engaging instead. In the end I persuaded them to put the vehicle down and grant me an hour to raise the money. I forget how much it was – some obscene sum – and I had no idea what I was going to do in the meantime. I was simply buying myself some space to think. They clamped it and disappeared. I had sixty minutes.

I rang my dad and told him. This was his special last gift to me and I had gone and ballsed it up. The disappointment in his voice was saddening. I didn’t expect any extra help from him, he had done enough for me, but it was just a case of letting him know. So be it, he said, so be it. He accepted that the van was gone. When I hung up the phone, I punched the wall. Now that bleeping hurt, and did nothing to help this already stressful situation. I paced up and down, all pissed-off in Shit Creek. And then I had an idea. It was a long shot, but there was a chance. I rang my friend, Mr. M. Now, he might be busy working, and if so, miles away, but it was worth a try. Hell, he might not even answer the phone. But he did. And he was close by. And he’d be right round. The clock was ticking. Mr. M pulled up in his own white van just minutes later (it's true that the amount of dependable friends you get in this life can be counted on the fingers of one hand). He said he needed a power outlet. I got him one rapidly. Then he plugged his angle grinder in and fired it up. The clamp was incredibly close to the wheel so whizzing it off without popping the tyre wasn’t going to be a piece of cake, but I had seen him cut lengths of marble as straight as a dye so I had every faith in his ability. I scanned around the close for witnesses because this was no doubt a crime taking place...and so exciting it was too! Before you knew it the damned contraption was rid and Mr. M was shaking my hand and getting off to his own business again. I took the heavy evidence in my arms and run off to the local park, feeling like a smackhead with a leg of lamb in Asda, where I dumped it in a bush and ran back full of giddy nerves. I parked my van around the block where it wouldn’t be seen and went back and put the kettle on. When the clampers knocked on my door I acted all dumb and gutted, as if they had already taken it. “What do you want now?” I asked them. “My underpants?” They went away without a word, beaten. I drove the van straight to my dad’s. When he saw me pull up in it, the beaming smile on his face sure wasn’t the beaming smile of a dying man.

© Zombie Publications 2017 (events from 2009)