Short Story Award Eligibility 2022

After my collection came out last year, 2022 felt like a quieter year writing wise. Moving house in the middle of the year meant that my attention was elsewhere for a lot of the time. However, I did have several stories published over the year.

On the Hills, the Knitters – Bourbon Penn 26

The knitters moved to the elephant five years after the plague ended. Sam and I watched them walk up past the village, carrying their possessions in rucksacks and wheelbarrows.

When the wheels caught on broken limestone, they helped each other, carrying the barrows between them over the rough ground.

The elephant wasn’t ours. We never asked for the three hundred foot knitted effigy to be dumped on the mountainside above the village. We didn’t put it there, but it had been sprawled across the rocks so long, longer than I’ve been alive, we felt it was part of the village. When the wind blew in the right direction, we smelled it in the street, the decay of the wool rotting in the summer sun like dead lambs. Sometimes lengths of orange yarn floated down the slope to catch in the gutters. As kids, we collected the strands and wove them into bracelets, telling ourselves that the elephant would protect us from evil, though we never knew what evil it could defend us against. Exchanging them and wearing them around our wrists as friendship bands.

On the Hills, is one of my knitting cosmic horror stories, inspired by a major landscape artwork in Italy and dealing with grief, loss, outsiders, and crafting.

You can read the full story online at the Bourbon Penn website.

Flowstone in Three Lobed Burning Eye 36

The sensation of damp gravel against his hand is exactly as Dave remembered, sharp and nauseating at the same time. He stands and brushes down his jeans, then looks at the tiny precise stones stuck to his palms by moisture and imprint.

The staircase rises above him like a concrete cascade frozen in a singular moment. His life still feels stuck around such a moment. He looks down at the path again, and is hit by the scent of pennies, but does not know if it is spilt blood or spilt money he is remembering.

The caves have changed since he was a child. Now many colors of bulbs highlight the stone wonders on either side of the walkway, where before there was only darkness and a fading torch. He touches the hardhat loaned to him by the attraction, and finds a safety sticker peeling away from the rim. He plays with the edge as he sits again on the damp floor.

Flowstone is a story inspired by two tourist attractions near my hometown of Harrogate. As with many of my stories it uses the frame of horror to explore grief and loss.

You can read Flowstone at Three Lobed Burning Eye.

The Ercildoun Accord in Lackington’s 25 – Prehistories

Small Finds Nos.034-082

A series of small metal coins, heavily worn through apparent use. Each coin is stamped on the reverse and obverse. Larger than standard coinage and heavier, with a golden appearance. During the preparation to remove the finds from site, the material was identified as: leaves (variously sycamore, elm, and ash), sheep’s wool, and bone dust.

-Extract from Small Find Report Excavations in the Lower Kingdom of the Seven Silken Ghosts

I pour the hot fat into the concentric circles and watch it settle against the stone. The winds across the moor are fresh, cooling the fat white and opaque. In the central hammerstone-chipped cup I pour the whiskey, the alcohol staying golden. For years we did not know what the cup and ring stones were used for until we found the Calkerdale Stone in a peat bog, offerings preserved by the lack of air and death.

The irony of using prehistory as a gateway to study prehistory does not escape me. I place my hand against the rock, feeling the grain shift beneath my touch. The surface softens and flexes against my weight and then I’m reaching through for another place.

For a few moments after I arrive my skin is grey and glittered with feldspar, then fades back to normal flesh. In this place I feel myself ageing as everything around me does not. I can feel myself rotting with life.

This was so much fun to write! How would you carry out commercial archaeology in Faery? With great difficulty it turns out. I love stories about the fae that deal with the complexity of whim, whimsy and obligations, but also deal with the visceral character of the world.

You can read the full version of The Ercildoun Accord in the Prehistories issue of Lackington’s.

The Taste of Sound in Analog Magazine July-August 2022

06:00

This is the Autonomous Population Emergency Broadcast System. This country has been disrupted by an unspecified event. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay calm and stay in your own homes. There is nothing to be gained by trying to get away. By leaving your homes you will be exposing yourself to greater danger. The safest place is indoors. We shall repeat this broadcast at regular intervals. Remain calm.

APEBS 0034 feels the microbes within its gut shift into a new configuration, allowing theflow of chemicals that activates the siren. The sound is intense and it retracts its aural canal, folding over the carbon fibre skin to protect its sensory system from damage. The sound will continue until all the sugar has been metabolised, before the broadcast is repeated.

The Taste of Sound is my second story in Analog and I’m so happy it found a good home. Again, this story came about from two ideas. The first was research for an article I wrote for Fortean Times about Emergency Population Warning Systems (there’s even a YouTube playlist I put together for the article here if you would like to be unsettled by strange sirens. The second inspiration was the living architecture work of Dr Rachel Armstrong (for example here).

You can read a Q&A I did with Analog about the story here.

Pellets in Not One of Us #70

I am scattered. I am fragments. I am separated. Hidden and distant from each other. 

Most of me has been digested, even as I rotted, but some morsels survive, scattered in the leaf litter for the dirt to do its work. 

Others are enwrapped in sparrow bones and rabbit tendons. Grit and dirt. I hear the bird’s wings against the sky. They rise into the air. I am spread between them, able to hear everything from within, as if my gristle lodged in their gullet becomes part of their vast elegance. Just for a while. Their feathers are a symphony and there are many feathers. Many scavengers feasted upon my corpse. Through their hunger I have become a multitude.

The inspiration for Pellets came from some research into which birds of prey make bone pellets, and the idea of fragmentation after death but awareness and identity remaining.

A copy of Not One of Us can be purchased via the website.

Dawn Caught and Dead in Not One of us #72

“Day 1

Dawn caught and dead, the fish laid in the bottom of the bath, vast below the shallow water. A single distorted eye gazed up at the discoloured paint on the ceiling above. Occasionally my uncle, (the one responsible for dragging the creature from the sea – the one who never ate seafood himself) walked into the small room to stare at the fish, as it lay there too close to the surface. Ash from his cigarette fell into the bath, smudging the scales grey. He continued to stare, taking a lungful of smoke that he looked barely large enough to contain. Dead, the fish continued to ignore him and I continued washing my hands. Smoke rose to turn the ceiling tiles an even richer yellow. He dropped the exhausted cigarette down the toilet and flushed.

This strange little story is based on true events from my childhood. My Dad used to go sea fishing and caught a huge cod. With nowhere else to put it in our small terraced house, the fish stayed in the bath until it could be divided between family members.

Issue 72 of Not One of Us is available at the website.

720° in Mother: Tales of Love and Terror from Weird Little Worlds Publishing

“Dog hair felted every inch of the carpet though the dogs the hair belonged to were long since dead. My mum sat across the room, a magazine folded upon her lap, open at some random story of misery. I did not ask how she was. I did not care.

“You got my message?” she said.

“Doris passed it on.”

She shifted in her chair, letting the magazine topple to the ground as if she still expected me to pick up after her. Behind her an old FM radio played, a barely audible brass band fading in and out so I could not recognise the tune.

“She was always good, Doris. Always did as she was told.”

“Not always.”

I’d seen the bruises myself. Worn my own too.

This is another story inspired by local history from where I grew up, as well as personal experiences growing up and difficult family relationships. Again, I want to use horror to explore subjects that can sometimes be difficult to approach directly. The whole anthology is excellent, featuring authors such as Sarah read, Dan Coxon, Hailey Piper, John Langan, and Ai Jiang.

You can grab a copy at the Weird Little Worlds bookshop here.

Gardening, not architecture

Since I was given a set of Oblique Strategies cards, (digital version here) I’ve been choosing one at the start of each writing day. Some I use to set the mood of my work for the session, and some I use to have a bit of snark. One has become so important to me I have separated it from the main card pack and display it above my desk. That card simply says ‘Gardening, not architecture’.

There are many, many metaphors for writing, and many, many metaphors for writing practice. For me, gardening, not architecture fits very well to writing fiction. 

Beeez

Architecture implies a plan, building materials, and permanence. In traditional architecture, the impression is one of a project that is built with certainty and is rarely revised when construction begins. Sure, some repairs might be made and issues addressed if they occur, but overall, what’s on the plan ends up being built.

Gardening, I believe, is a more flexible and useful metaphor for writing, and I think this works whether you plan out every paragraph or you discovery write. Let me explain what I mean. (Warning, this metaphor is going to get stretched atom thin, but stay with me.)

Good advice

If you’re gardening you take account of the seasons and the soil, the prevailing wind and the local conditions. You might have a plan for your flowerbed or allotment plot. What’s at the heart of this approach, is that when you plant seeds, bulbs or shrubs, you never quite know how they will turn out. Of course your plans may turn out perfect, and your fruit bushes may be abundant. Or it might go disastrously wrong. There may be major storms or drought. Parts of your garden might become waterlogged or the birds might strip the fruit from the branches of your cherry tree. Your potato rows might become overgrown with weeds. 

You have to be responsive and proactive in your management by constantly making decisions and adjustments. (Doing nothing and allowing it to go completely wild is an entirely valid decision). You might decide that the fuchsias are far too dominating in the back corner of the garden, so you trim them back. You might see a mysterious plant growing by the compost bin, research it, find it’s a rare orchid and decide to leave it in place. You might choose to sacrifice one blackcurrant bush to the garden birds, but net the others so you have them for yourself.

Gardens can grow anywhere

However, the important part of all of this, is that throughout all the decision making, the garden is still a garden; coherent, whole and intact. It might look very different from what you intended, with roses and magnolia dominating where you hadn’t intended them, but you will still have your garden.

I think this responsiveness, this flexibility is a more useful mindset to approach writing fiction than architecture or sculpture. Often we have an idea of where we want to go, but until we start writing, we don’t quite know what it’s going to look like, and in the same way as we can pull weeds up from amongst the potatoes, or thin out the bedding plants, during editing we can change elements of the story while still allowing it to stay coherent.

Even in the cold, something good can flourish

I also think that the gardening metaphor allows for the possibility of surprise, the chance that we can arrive at a beautiful outcome that we weren’t expecting.

The idea of gardening works whether you are a planner or a discovery writer. You might have more control as a planner, but the final story is probably still going to need some editing, in the same way as a planned garden will need management to get it looking how you intend. And if you’re a discovery writer? Well, you can throw seeds all over the place, see what comes up and work from there.

Can I stretch this metaphor even further? Oh yes!

What happens when a story just doesn’t work. If a garden doesn’t work, you can salvage seeds, ready to start again. You can dig up plants that are in the wrong place, put them in the greenhouse over winter, and replant them in better locations the next year.

In the same way, you can dismantle a story, find the elements that did work (because no story is a complete failure). You might have a good character, but not in the right narrative. A setting might be perfect, but not fit the particular chapter. You might have nothing to show apart from the way the protagonist holds her cup of coffee as she looks out across the city. What you can do if you approach this as gardening is take the elements that might work elsewhere and nourish them in the better soil of another story.

Architecture is different. The building might develop and age. You might be able to tinker. You might even be able to add to it, but the architecture has a solidity and coherence that doesn’t allow for much flexibility. The garden is constantly changing, and constantly changeable. You can beautify it, or make it more practical. Even with all this tinkering, the garden will still be the garden as a story will still be a story, and eventually, you can sit back and put your feet up, enjoying the beauty of it.

So when it comes to writing, my suggestion is, don’t be an architect, be a gardener.

There are even gods to find in the garden, if you look close enough

Subside

Although it does deal with grief, a subject I write about a lot, this short piece is very different from my usual style. Because of that I was a little nervous about sharing it. I hope you like it, but beware it does talk about death, suicide, grief and loss.

Subside

You remember that song we used to dance to? Said something about if I leave the world alive the insanity will lessen. Doesn’t though, does it? You went and the insanity intensified. Like a cutting diamond, faceted and precise.

I don’t know if you left the world alive. One day you were there, the next gone. 

There was no pile of clothes carefully folded on a tide strewn beach or note with my name written on the back of the folded paper. 

Sometimes I like to imagine the world cleaved in two and you fell through the fissure to another place where you live on, trying to find a way home. I know this isn’t true. You’re probably beneath some undergrowth, bones greening with lichen as time turns you to forest. Nothing subsides with you gone. Not the madness. Not the memory. Not the guilt. Only the chance that I might see you again. That’s what subsides, and it lessens me every single day.

END

Terminus Post Quem

Something a little different to start the week. Terminus Post Quem is an epistolary short story told using an archaeological report. As with a lot of my experiments it was first published in the much missed Mad Scientist Journal.

Daniel Benlainey BA MSc

Project Manager

Multivallate Archaeology

Unit 4 Sunray Farm

YK94 1SX

D.Benlainey@multivallate.org.uk

Simon Campbell BSc

Senior Archaeologist

Historic Environment Team

Callshire County Council

County Hall

Ostbarnton

YK56 4RF

Dear Simon,

Please find attached the interim site report for the Carrion Knoll Excavation. Hope everything is OK. We’re still waiting on some results from a subcontractor, but I’ll forward them as soon as they arrive.

Yours sincerely

Daniel Benlainey BA MSc

Interim site report of Carrion Knoll Archaeological Excavations 2017 September 8^th

Due to the position of the Carrion Knoll housing development in an area of known prehistoric and Roman activity, a planning condition for archaeological evaluation was required ahead of any groundworks.

Between August 1^st and August 25^th, a five-person team carried out the necessary work. Due to the low-lying nature of the site and anaerobic conditions found in certain areas, the quality of organic preservation was good, with several surprising results.

Three trenches, each 20m by 10m were excavated. These were distributed across the development area to give as wide a spread of results as possible.

Historic Background

Carrion Knoll lies in an area of known Neolithic, Iron Age, Roman, and Anglo-Scandinavian activity, though no known archaeological material has previously been recovered from the exact site location. Since approximately 900AD, there is no evidence of activity in the vicinity.

Trench 3

Context Record

[01] Topsoil. A layer (average 0.4m thick) of black hummic sandy clay silt. Very little evidence of recent agricultural activity. This layer covers the whole site, including all of Trench 3. The topsoil was removed by machine, and the spoil scanned by metal detector. Nothing of significance was found. The only finds recovered were eight clay pipe stems of various lengths and one incomplete clay pipe bowl, the incised decoration indicating a date somewhere in the early 19^th century.

[02] Subsoil. A brown silty clay with regular inclusions of small rounded pebbles. This layer contained several residual pottery sherds of all periods, including a non-diagnostic fragment of Roman Nene Valley Colour Coated Ware, and five sherds of Iron Age Black Burnished Ware. All were heavily abraded.

[03] was assigned for the underlying natural geology, though this was not reached during the excavation due to the depth of archaeological deposits.

[04] A thick peaty organic layer only identified in Trench 3. This consisted of a firm dark green organic silt with a very high proportion of plant material, vegetation, and charcoal flecks. Occasional small angular limestone inclusions. This deposit covered all excavated archaeological features.

[05] Cut of large pit identified in Trench 3. This large feature had a steep edge with a base sloping to the centre and measured 1.2m deep and 2m in diameter. When excavated, this pit was found to have cut through an earlier deposit [11] and truncated a Samian bowl. Pit [05] contained several fills. [06], [07], [08], and [09] seem to represent rapid backfilling of the pit. [10] is the primary fill.

[10] was the primary fill of pit [05] and was a friable dark grey organic silt with regular inclusions of vegetation. [10] also included several sherds of the Samian bowl identified in section and located in layer [11]. Whereas the ceramic remains in [11] are in very good condition (see below), the fragments recovered from pit fill [10] are not. The ceramic material has several bones accreted to it, which our osteological specialist (see Appendix Four) has identified as the phalanges from the hand of an adult human. In all cases, the bones press through the sherds and are visible on the other side. In places, the distinctive red slip covers the skeletal material. There is no evidence of burning on the bone, and as our ceramic specialist has pointed out (see Appendix Five), a vessel in such condition would not survive firing.

The ceramic sherds are clearly derived from the same vessel as that recovered from context [11] (see below), and date to sometime in the 2^nd century AD. However, carbon 14 dating of the skeletal material has given a date of 850AD±25, which is contemporary with other finds from pit [05], including a broken antler comb (see Appendix Seven) and several well-preserved pieces of fabric (Appendix Eight).

[11] was a thick layer of dark grey organic silty clay extending across most of Trench 3, into which the majority of the other features were cut, including pit [12] and graves [15] and [17]. The presence of a considerable number of Romano-British finds, including the Samian bowl truncated by pit [05] and several incomplete Nene Valley Colour Slip Ware vessels gives this a very secure terminus post quem of the 2^nd century AD. The Samian vessel is discussed in more detail in Appendix Five, and the contents in Appendix Six.

The high level of organic preservation has led to the recovery of vegetable material, which has survived to such a degree that examination in the field allowed initial species identification, including hyssop, fennel, and wormwood. All were found in bunches tied together with some form of nettle string, and all had been placed in a circular arrangement around the Samian bowl. It must be assumed that when the vessel was truncated, any herbs placed on the western side were lost.

Cut [12] was a pit located in Trench 3, and to the west of pit [05]. In contrast to pit [05], pit [12] was very shallow in depth (150mm), just deep enough to take the contents. The edges were uneven, with several irregular shovel scoops at the base. Pit [12] contained a single fill [13].

[13] was a loose light grey silty sand with few inclusions. The majority of the pit fill was taken up by a single adult human skull (see Appendix Four).

[15] was recognised as a single isolated grave in Trench 3, cut into layer [11], with vertical sides and rounded corners. This was clearly recognisable as a grave cut in plan, allowing careful excavation to enable the recovery of all human skeletal material.

[16] was the fill of grave [15]. The skeletal remains inside appeared to be of an adult human. The skull and phalanges of the left hand were absent.

Cut [17] was an additional grave identified further in Trench 3. The trench was widened by 2m to allow the full recovery of all skeletal material. The pit was 1m20 deep and contained fill [18].

[18] Very little soil matrix was recovered from fill [18], with most of the volume made up of butchered fragments of bone, including femurs, vertebrae, and ribs. A full discussion can be found in Appendix Four.

~

Appendix Four

Human Skeletal Material

Report by Adrian Anchancy

Several deposits of human skeletal material were recovered from Trench 3 of the Carrion Knoll excavation. Here I will go through them in context order and outline the physical evidence, followed by a discussion of the implication of the results.

[10] In an excavation where a large volume of skeletal material was recovered, the bones found in fill [10] are unique. A group of five phalanges were identified, all of them cemented to sherds of Romano-British Samian pottery. This in itself is not unusual. Post deposition processes, such as iron panning, can lead to the accretion of finds in the ground. However, there are several aspects to the recovered bone that this researcher has not seen before.

The phalanges are not just concreted to the surface of the Samian ware, but actually pass through the pottery. There is no evidence of cracking to the clay or burning to the skeletal material. In at least one example, the characteristic red slip glaze coats the bone.

Having spoken to the ceramic specialist, Diane Bansetten, whose report can be seen in Appendix Five, the presence of such a large intrusion in the body of the vessel during firing would have led to destruction. In addition, exposing human bone to the high temperatures found in a Romano-British kiln would lead to severe discolouration and diagnostic cracking on the bone surface. Therefore, it is the opinion of both myself and my ceramics colleague that the bone must have been introduced post firing. Carbon 14 dating of the skeletal material has given a date of 850AD±25, which is not consistent with the age of the Samian pottery, suggesting it was introduced six to seven centuries later.

There are other issues with the condition of the phalanges. All show evidence of small holes in the outer surface of the bones. At first it was the opinion of this researcher that these were the pathology of some form of disease. On further examination, it was found that each lesion displayed evidence of microscopic tooth marks, consistent with certain types of immature coral larvae. When submitted to x-ray analysis, the tunnels can clearly be seen passing through the bone into the marrow. The sinuous form of the pathways also suggests that this damage was created by the actions of a living organism.

Tree root action was soon discounted, as there is no evidence for that type of activity within the contexts excavated or surrounding area.

[13] The skeletal remains from fill [13] (pit [12]) consisted of a single adult skull. It is not clear if the head was removed from the body pre- or post-mortem. There are several unusual features about the condition of the skull. The eye sockets show damage from a bladed weapon, particularly running from the infraorbital foramen into the supraorbital margin. On the right-hand side socket, there is clear damage to the lacrimal bone, and on the left-hand socket, repeated shallow strikes to inferior orbital fissure, reaching as far back as the sphenoid bone.

The position and nature of the damage allows us to discount any consideration of surgery. The physical evidence suggests that a blade has been repeatedly, and without control, forced into the eye socket. The result of this would be for the soft tissue of the eye to be completely destroyed.

None of the marks have been made to the edges of the eye-sockets, only to the upper and lower bones. The position and angle of the damage allows us to make some more inferences. It is the belief of this researcher that the damage was self inflicted. The size of the cuts suggests the injuries were made with a small eating knife common during the 9^th century.

A second unusual feature of the skull is a series of lesions in the styloid process region. This displays similar characteristics as those seen in the phalanges recovered from fill [10], but the lesions are much larger in scale. Here the shape and form of the damage from gnawing is clearly visible to the naked eye, and suggests that the damage was created by a living organism.

[16] As noted above, the skeletal remains recovered from the fill of grave [15] were incomplete, lacking a skull, and phalanges from the left hand. When compared to the skull and phalanges recovered elsewhere during the excavation, and discussed above, it is clear they are from the same individual.

The lesions observed in both previous skeletal finds are also evident here. One of the jobs that became essential post excavation was the mapping of the route these lesions took through the body. This was mainly achieved using x-ray analysis, which allowed the tunnels to be recorded. The preliminary results are published below. It became clear that whatever created the voids within the skeletal material also travelled through the soft tissue, and as it progressed through the body, it increased in diameter.

At several points, the creatures entered the spine of the individual, with several of them following a final channel through the C1 and C2 vertebrae into the skull. It is not possible to confidently identify the maximum number of creatures which this individual may have hosted, but a conservative minimum count is 12.

All the ribs, femurs, radius, humerus, and ulna showed considerable damage. Having examined the wear pattern caused by the invading species’ teeth, it is my personal opinion the pain would have been excruciating for the individual concerned. No remains of the creatures were found within the skeletal material, or within the high organic content soils in the surrounding area.

[18] Fill [18] produced a large amount of human bone (205kg by weight). All types of human skeletal remains were represented, including femurs, ribs, vertebrae, skulls, and illium. All bones showed some form of damage from a bladed weapon. The evidence varied from precise butchery marks, particularly around the tendons of the long bones, to frenzied strikes. The cuts are consistent with the injuries seen on the skull in context [13], and it is my belief that the same blade was used.

In total, around 15 individuals were identified using the presence of diagnostic skull elements. Due to the fragmentary nature of the bones, this is a bare minimum, and the count could be much higher.

None of the skeletal remains from [18] show the same pattern of internal damage as the skull, phalanges and skeleton recovered elsewhere in Trench 3.

~

Appendix Five

Specialist Ceramic Report by Diane Bansetten

The “Carrion Knoll Bowl“

In many ways, the vessel is typical Samian ware displaying the characteristic high-quality burnished red slip. The bowl has a slightly deeper profile than usual (300m diameter x 200mm deep).

The main difference is in the decoration. While the scenes displayed on Samian vessels are hugely varied, depicting everything from hunting to pornography, I can think of no comparative to the designs on the Carrion Knoll Bowl.

The same panel repeats three times. Each shows a group of humanoid figures. I use the term humanoid advisedly. While they display the proportions typical of 2^nd century AD figurative art, the humanoids are fringed with what I first took to be some kind of fur. On closer inspection and following consultation with a colleague (J. Sanders pers. comm.), they have more in common with certain types of coral. It appears to represent a series of cylindrical polyps emerging from every inch of the skin. The segmented form is clearly defined and, using a hand lens, the fan of teeth can be seen at the terminus of each strand.

Only the humanoid faces are clear, which are rendered in such extreme and precise agony that this author assumes the potter drew on something he witnessed first-hand.

I must also comment on the residual fragments of the bowl recovered from fill [10]. In nearly thirty years as a professional Romano-British ceramic specialist, I have never encountered bone and pottery fused together in such a way. During the firing process, the presence of an entire finger bone in the vessel wall would cause the bowl to explode. This would suggest that the finger bone has been introduced later. Yet once the bowl has been fired, any attempt to force the finger tip through the wall would cause considerable damage. The presence of the slip on the bone suggests that the pottery has melted somehow and then reset, trapping the fingers in the clay.

Conclusion

Due to the unique and extremely disturbing nature of the decoration, the Carrion Knoll Bowl is unparalleled, certainly in British archaeology. The presence of the herbs surrounding the vessel, as well as the as yet unidentified contents, suggest that it had a very specific ritual purpose.

NB. A smear of the gel-like substance still adhered to the inside of the vessel when it arrived. During the unpacking this slid out and fell onto a pottery sherd from my reference collection. The glaze and decoration of this other fragment dissolved in front of my eyes. There may still be traces within the Carrion Knoll Bowl, and I would highly recommend that any further work is carried out following Hazmat guidelines.

Further work

In addition to regular consolidation and conservation work, I would recommend approaching a marine biologist to establish the identity of the coral deforming the humanoid figures in the decoration.

~

Appendix Six

Organic material recovered from the Carrion Knoll Samian Bowl

The material in the Samian bowl recovered from layer [11] was recognised in the cut of pit [05].

When the overlying archaeological material was excavated, the substance was visually inspected before removal by staff from Danburn Archaeological Conservation Laboratories.

The substance had the appearance and texture of aspic. Transparent and gelatinous, several inclusions were visible:

1. A fragment of skin and intact fingernail. The whole fingerprint was recognisable. Hopefully when the material is back in the lab, this can be recovered and examined further.

2. Several flower petals and mushrooms. Neither could be identified from a visual inspection and will require specialist study.

3. Clustered around the base appeared to be 20+ sinuous, segmented polyps, none more than 10mm long. Without cutting into the substance, it is difficult to determine whether they are organic or mineralised.

[Handwritten note]

(These observations of the Carrion Knoll Bowl’s contents are from visual examination on site. The material was immediately shipped to the Danburn Archaeological Conservation Laboratory for analysis. In the last two weeks, there has been no further communication. At the time of publication, phone calls and emails have gone unanswered. If we have not received a response after the weekend, we will be in touch with emergency services to gain access.)

Bio of Daniel Benlainy

Daniel Benlainey was born in Fife, Scotland and got his BA in Archaeology from University of Sheffield, before completing an MSc in Archaeological Sciences at University of Bradford.

After working the commercial archaeology circuit for several years, Daniel joined Multivallate Archaeology and has been with them for a decade, starting as a site assistant and working his way up to a project management position. He is especially interested in vitrified forts.

When not working he spends his time seeing bands such as Blyth Power, New Model  Army and Flogging Molly, or playing for his local cricket team.

Short Story Collection On Its Way January 2021

I’m very happy to announce that my first short story collection ‘To Drown In Dark Water’ will be published by Undertow Publications in early 2021.

Undertow are a fantastic publisher, who are responsible for collections by Priya Sharma, Laura Mauro, Georgina Bruce amongst other wonderful writers.

I can also share the amazing cover for my collection. The artwork is by Austrian artist Stefan Koidl, with design work by Vince Haig.

Michael Kelly has done a wonderful job arranging the cover, and I’m so proud that this will be on the front of my book.

While I’d like to keep this blog updated far more than I do, you can keep up to date about my work by signing up for my newsletter at tinyletter.com/stevetoase. Coming out once a month, it includes bits of news about my work, some art related chatter, a bit on archaeology, and a free flash fiction story.

Flash Fiction Month 2019 Week 3

Week 3 already? How time flies!

Day 15

alive.radio.takeover

No-one in the village was left alive. All the buildings were still standing, the streets filled with the unmoving dead.

Gail landed the plane on the football field, and did her post flight checks while the inspection team gathered together their equipment ready to inspect the bodies. She watched them shoulder backpacks full of medical supplies and cameras. She watched them struggle under the weight and disappear amongst the trees.

For three hours there was nothing but silence, and Gail lost herself in the cracked spine book she held on her lap. When the radio creaked she dropped the book and looked through the windscreen.

The trees had gone, and the villagers had returned. They were getting closer, dragging the inspection team between them. Over the sound of a thousand rotten feet grinding themselves to paste, Gail listened to her colleagues whimper.

Soon they would complete their takeover of the football field, the plane. Of her. She glanced behind her. There was nowhere left to go.

Day 16

snapped.sting.dome

Covered in lichen the geodesic dome had long since started to rot, stained polygonal panels sliding free to collapse and shatter on the meadow grass.

Niamh knew what lurked inside. They’d heard the buzzing from across the valley and knew that if they didn’t clear out the nest, the insects would soon outgrow their squatted home and swarm for a new place to occupy.

With practiced hands she snapped the protective clothing in place, waiting a moment for the visor to clear. Walking toward the abandoned structure she wondered if the shape had attracted the creatures. Some echo of a memory deep inside their collective mind.

Sweat ran down her arms and collected in the tips of her gloves. She reached up and held the frame as she lifted first one leg, then the other inside, and walked to the middle.
The noise was overwhelming, shifting shadows against the green filtered light.

Undoing her bag, she primed the device that would bring silence to the hive, and barely noticed the first sting near the base of her back. The next few got her attention and, sensing blood in the soil, the insects swarmed until she was nothing but a blackened mound of shifting pixels on the meadow, tiny jaws tearing her apart to further build their nest.

Day 17

funds.stews.reheat

Sam sheltered in one of the bedrooms, no light to see by and no windows to keep out the cold. His sleeping bag was still wet from a bucket of bleach water chucked in his direction two days earlier, already starting to smell of mildew and mould.

The only heat came from the small stove in front of where he sat cross-legged.

His mum had taught him how to make stews when he was a child, him peeling the veg while she chopped them to chunks. “Always chunks Sammy, not too thin. You’ll lose all the flavour otherwise.”

How to put everything together and how to make the best of what was left over. How to let it simmer for hours until it softened and blended.

He didn’t have that luxury now. Hard to find the fuel for his stove in the city. If he did have the funds, the shopkeepers always thought he was going to settle his stomach with the fumes from the cannisters rather than with food cooked above the flames.

In front of him the pan warmed and the stew inside began to reheat.

He hoped the windowsill where he stashed the tupperware container had been cold enough to keep the food healthy. He still remembered the last dose of food poisoning, and how he’d nearly not made it through the week.

He watched the flames, smelt the warming food and thought of his mother once more.

Day 18

formless.shovels.overjoyed

Emily drove the mattock into the ground, watching spoil spray up as the blade bit into the dirt. When she had finished breaking up the pit’s fill, she stood back and waited while the other diggers climbed in with their shovels, letting them load up the barrow before taking it to the spoil heap.

They’d been on site for two weeks and the pit was the only interesting feature. Everything else was land drain or natural so she was overjoyed to finally have something to show in the trenches.

The pit was broad and deep. For the last couple of days they’d tried in vain to recover any finds but there weren’t any to recover. Then the remains started emerging through the dirt.

The skeleton seemed to be made of human bone, but globular and formless, as if fused together. Once the remains were completely uncovered, Emily taped up a drawing board and started to plan each rib and fingerbone, only getting part of the job done before the lack of light robbed her of the ability to finish the job.

The next day the drawing did not match the feature, and at first Emily thought she’d made an error. After dinner the bones had changed again.

Uncertain how to stop the shifting, she reached out and touched the skeletal material, stroking her fingers down a complex knot of bones.

The scorching sensation started in the tips of her fingers and soon spread up her arm like an infection. She looked down at her limbs. Her tendons were bare, fingers and wrist bones welded, both to each other and the bones in the pit. Slowly but surely, she felt herself dragged under the soil, the last of her skin scraped off against the soil as she became absorbed into the net of bone.

Day 19

simply.expansion.touches

The stones were crumbling. Every day more and more turned to dust to be carried away on the breeze.

Harry stood in the centre and looked around at monuments that had stood for millennia now simply disappearing with the breeze. No need for even the most gentle of touches. This was not the erosion of expansion or contraction, but the air itself stealing them from the world.

“Maybe we don’t deserve them anymore,” he said, sitting on the granite covered grass, his head in his hands, palms now stained with dirt and tears.

Day 20

rust.tests.revealing

Carlo had been investigating the infection for three days, crawling about under the tower block, carrying out tests, though he was not sure what he was looking for when he started. He knew now.

He stared at the screen revealing the results. The infection didn’t sound unusual. A series of holes edged in rust. Not exactly uncommon in steel framed buildings.

For three days he’d crawled around, breathing mask on to protect his lungs from dead pigeon dust and forgotten asbestos. Above the mask his skin bare.

He lifted the mirror and stared once more at the holes in his face, each one edged in rust. Inside there was no bone or muscle, just shuddering darkness as something hidden crawled its way through slowly but surely ready to scrape its way into the light.

Day 21

variation.definite.places

Violet had safe places, places she could manifest without becoming trapped in trees or stone. This was not one of those places.

She was definite the ritual had been correct, the projection exact. The visualisation specific.

Her arms did not move when she tried to change position, and she abandoned any attempt. Normally it was easy for Violet to transition from place to place; concentrate on her memory of where she wanted to go, and picture it in her head, hold that idea in her head and enwrap herself with the solidity of the location.

She tried opening her eyes, but they were as sealed in place as her arms. She felt the crust of corrosion inside her limbs at the point where they extended beyond the statue where she was trapped. The statue that had only recently been erected in the square, the variation that had caught her out. She felt the circulation stop reaching her fingers.

Somewhere people started screaming. One of them was her.

 

 

 

 

Flash Fiction Month 2019 Week 2

Hope you enjoyed last week’s stories. Here are the next seven.

Day 8

nasal.buzz.grape 

“I’m afraid you do not get any choice in the decision.”

When the Assessor spoke it was with a nasal whine that made Carla’s head hurt. A buzz in the top of her spine.

She leant over to pick a grape from the fruit bowl, saw the Assessor’s expression and cradled her hands on her lap.

“Do I not get any say in the matter?” She asked, already knowing the answer. He plucked the fruit that she had been going to eat only moments before. Slowly, he used his tongue to pop it against the roof of his mouth. A small amount of juice seeped between his thin lips and down his chin.

“Of course, you could have chosen not to attend this morning,” he said, grinning. She saw bits of skin between his yellowed teeth, but couldn’t tell if they were fruit or flesh.

“And if I hadn’t?”

He smiled wider.

“Please, Miss,” he said, the title spoken like an infection. “The door is open. Your only choice now is whether you go through voluntarily.” There was a moment’s pause. “Or not.”

Carla pushed the chair back, straightened her dress and placed her cloche upon her head, adjusting it until it sat just right. Slowly, she slid her gloves on. With one more look of defiance toward the Assessor she walked toward the open door, already feeling the heat blistering her skin.

Day 9

funky.shadows.snowmen

There was nothing funky about the nightclub any more. Damp had rotted all the cheap cardboard decorations and curled the floorboards like rotten petals.

Hannah wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to keep track of the shadows, but they kept shifting and twisting.

Around her were fifteen heaters, the only noise the diesel generator shuddering in the entrance. Beyond the circle of warmth were pools of water, floating in each one was a scarf, a hat, and blood clots from their victims.

Soon the generator would run out of fuel. Soon the circle would cool. Soon the snowmen would find their form again. Soon there would be nowhere warm left for her to hide.

Day 10

inhales.delighted.bulge 

The Captain stands delighted in the middle of the playground. Above him the moon is full and though he feels the cold he does not choose to acknowledge the way it chills his muscles.

There are scars in the Tarmac below his feet that he put there many years ago. He lets his feet scuff the lines to wake them up. The scent of bitumen rises into the air. He inhales the taste of cough sweets and burnt skin.

The pile of papers barely reaches his knees; old exams and school reports. The breeze flutters the pages and he catches sight of scuffed ink.

Starting quiet he begins to speak the words. Some he learnt in the playground where he stands, others in shadowed temples that smelt of copper and charred bone.

Below his feet the Tarmac glistens the green of compass pricked tattoos. He scuffs the ground again, feeling it start to bulge, reaching out to his words.

Turning his head to the sky, the Captain watches the stars brush the dark as they fall, delighted to hear the words they thought long forgotten. He does not tell the night what he has planned. The night will find out soon enough

Day 11

latter.wept.premises

Council garages always had a feeling of loss to Marty, as if those corrugated steel doors held back grief as well as forgotten engines and mummified rats.

He walked down one side, then back up the other, running his hand over the metal and prefabricated concrete, searching for something that could not be seen or touched, but he felt as a prickle inside his teeth.

At the end of the row there were three units converted into premises for a shadow garage, repairing cars for those who could not afford to pay men in matching overalls. Two ghosts lurked inside. The first was the shadow of something that had hidden here long before people cleared forests from the land, the second a child whose body had turned to yellowed bones between the pebbledash walls and grass bank that rose toward the distant towers.

The latter spirit did not want to be there. There was no vengeance or message to be carried, just confusion and fear. No one had found the body. No one had even noticed the child missing, apart from Marty, looking for one thing and finding something completely different lurking amongst the spilt oil and diesel stains.

Kneeling down on the floor between the two rows of garages, Marty closed his eyes and searched in the shadows for the fear clustered in upon itself, and when he found that bundle of confusion he did what needed to be done; wept and mourned a life lost and a child forgotten until the ghost that still lingered could see the cord and drag itself away from the council garages to somewhere better.

Day 12

reframe.hung.scouted

Faith spent weeks watching the gallery. Scouted out the guards, changing her appearance every day with wigs clothes and padding to alter her body shape. By the end of her preparation she knew where every painting hung, how often it was patrolled and when she could exploit the best window of opportunity to fulfil her client’s order; steal The Condemned Witch, a painting long lost and only recently restored.

On Tuesdays they spent the day on maintenance. Chose one piece of art to reframe. That way there was always a nearly full collection for the visiting public. If she got in before they removed that week’s painting to take it to their workshop, no-one would notice. Administration error would be blamed for long enough that she would be long gone.

On the next Tuesday she lurked around the entrance, Stanley knife hidden in her coat. The painting to be repaired that week wasn’t due to be taken from the wall until after lunch time. She waited and watched.

The opportunity came early, the exact pattern of the curators in the gallery just right to allow her to approach the canvas. She lifted the knife to cut free the painting, reached out, and on the wall the witch’s scarred hand reached out in turn and grabbed Faith’s wrist.

The blade fell from her numb hand, dropping to the floor. With more strength than paper and paint should possess the painting lifted Faith into the air, dragged her over the gold frame and slowly but surely her skin shivered to pigment until there was no sign of Faith expect on unused blade clattering upon the tiles.

Day 13

bubbles.grass.shadows

They caught him by the town ditch, pinning his arms against the crushed grass and thistles.

He tried struggling but there were too many of them, two or three to a limb with far more standing in the shadows.

With bubbles they sealed his eyes, blowing globes of shimmering translucency straight into his sight, then plucked sodden grass from the ground and stitched his mouth to silence.

Reaching into his coat they emptied his pockets until they found proof of his theft, several days clustered against each other, the hours scuffed and barely usable. They stretched them out, laying them on the ground in the hope the heat of the sun would fix them. Return the days to their pristine condition.

After seeing his vandalism compounding his theft, with many hands they carried him into the fields, staked him to the soil using his own bones to hold him in place, and with words first spoken by the now long dead they left him to the crows.

Day 14

pretty.flying.downward

The valley had never been pretty. This was not a place tourists came to take photos, balancing selfie sticks with one hand, their other grasping their loved one’s side. Instead it was a place of concrete and pollution, where any plants that could grow browned and wilted by the effort.

Nathan would try and take any other route into the airport that lay several miles further on, but that morning the choice had not been given to him, the instructions from Air Traffic Control clear, the navigation directions precise.

Flying over the ridge, he dropped the plane down a little, watching plumes rising from grates rusted into the slopes.

An eruption of fumes reached the starboard wing, and instead of just flowing around the engine the gas began to grind its way through the fuselage.

Nathan watched one side of the plane disintegrate, and no matter how much he tried to gain control the plane twisted as it fell downward into the valley where nothing grew.

Flash Fiction Month 2019 Week 1

Every year I set myself a challenge; to write thirty one flash fiction stories and post one a day for the month up to the Winter Solstice. This year I’m using the three word codes from what3words as inspiration (this follows on from my Three Metre Stories project). I post them on my Facebook page each day, but you can find each week’s stories here too.

Day 1

feast.hint.spoke

The hall was full of smoke and magenta dust, choking the diners as they shovelled in food from the feast. Figs in aspic with a hint of saffron sat on silver platters next to quail eggs drowning in truffle sauce, each dish tainted with the settled dirt of centuries.

Malin leant against the door watching the scene play out, the diners repeating the same actions again and again. Behind her the rest of the team waited in the tunnel, trying to avoid the stagnant water dripping between the stones.

“The food looks good,” someone said. The acoustics warped all voices and Malin did not turn to see who spoke.

It did look good. Supplies had run out three days earlier, their progress slowed by the need to stop and vomit poison from their stomachs after surviving on any water they could find.

“We can’t go in,” she said, pressing the meniscus separating them from the food glistening with juice and grease.

Inside the hall a server walked around the table pouring wine straight into the waiting mouths.

Malin heard them running before they got past her and breached the barrier. There was a sucking sound like bone emptied of marrow. Pushed against the algae covered wall she watched one after another of her team enter the hall of dust and feasting, and she watched one after another take their place amongst the never dead, gluttoned on food that anchored them to a place they would never leave.

Day 2

carpets.disclose.mouse

When the landlord showed them around the apartment the accommodation was frozen in a moment of perfection. Everything was freshly cleaned, the carpets dry and free of mildew.

Ben ran his finger through the condensation and drew a moist circle on the buckled floorboards. Of course the landlord didn’t disclose the windows never shut properly, or that the heater leaked carbon monoxide in the bedrooms.

With practiced fingers, Ben knotted the hair into a tight plait and placed it in the centre of the circle. The ant infestation was easy to deal with once they found the rotting food in the cupboard. The cockroaches? Not so much.

From his pocket Ben took out the mummified mouse and laid it on top of the stolen hair. The words were old ones. Family ones. Not his language, but they felt right upon his tongue. The creature that appeared was small and shimmered. Part rodent. Part rot. He leant down and whispered a name to the thing, watched as it chewed the hair, then shuddered through the floor to the landlord’s apartment below.

Sitting in the mould darkened lounge, Ben turned up the stereo and ignored the screams coming up from the floor below.

Day 3

rigid.festivity.down

Callie wasn’t interested in the festivity around her. She sat in the middle of the park as people danced to the bass erupting from the ramshackle sound system.

She wasn’t interested in the spliffs or the spirit paths that circled her, each marking the grass in their own way.
Eyes closed, she watched the people find their steps, find their euphoria, strands of energy glistening like dried fat in a cast iron pan.

The sun went down and the energy went up like they feasted on darkness and noise, but that was wrong. There was only one person feasting in the park.

Callie let her body grow rigid. Let the hunger search out the nourishment and with her unseen jaws chewing the joy from the night air she fed until every part of her was distended, not caring about the effect on those celebrating around her. They were food, nothing more.

Day 4

maybe.gather.moods

Maybe it had been a bad idea to come out. House parties were not Sophie’s thing but Frank had convinced her. She did not like to go where people were, but the house was familiar, as were some of the faces.

Though she didn’t normally go to events, she knew that most people would gather in the kitchen. Not this one. Everyone was out on the pavement, watching the cars race up and down the street.

She sipped her warm lager and watched the drivers reset the race, Frank in one car, and someone she did not know in the other. On some signal Sophie did not see the cars took off, careering down past the houses toward the temporary finish line.

Even at a distance she saw Frank’s car cross the chalk line second. He would be in one of his moods tonight. She took a mouthful of the now sour lager to hide the tremour in her hand and kept on drinking.

Day 5

segments.playback.testing

The room was in complete darkness apart from the glowing screen, segments of images flittering through the light.

Bernard was on his thirteenth cup of coffee, and he was sure by this point that his spirit was pure caffeine. The film was nearly finished but the sequence in front of him was testing his resolve.

He stopped the playback, a moment of explosion held in place. A flower of rubble and fire paused in blooming. He nodded in satisfaction, and let the film run on, picking up his phone and dialling the number.

Of course turning off the CCTV system so he had the only footage meant that the emergency services hadn’t spotted the bomb being placed, but the damage had been minor. Only a couple of casualties. Nothing life threatening. He waited for the call to connect.

“Hello, rolling news? I have some footage you might be interested in.”

Day 6

dunes.metals.blaze

The dunes had long reached from the coast to the city, engulfing rich and poor alike. The sands did not care about wealth as they filled throats and abraded eyes to blindness.

Some thought they could climb the towers and outpace the coming wave. The sand eroded concrete and metals alike, until the tower blocks and tourist hotels fell in lazy spirals to crumble and shatter. Trapped those who strived for air under rubble where they watched the sands accumulate even as the sand of their lives ran out.

For three days and three nights the beach found its way far inland. When the sun blazed in the sky on the fourth morning the city was silent apart from the whistling erosion of bone and building.

Day 7

lake.showed.foremost 

Frank had visited the lake many times but never seen it so shallow. Every trace of the former village showed through the thick cracked mud, shattered windows coated in pondweed and dead fish.

Sitting down he rested his hands on his knees and watched the last of the water evaporate in the rising heat of the day.

He remembered running around the now drowned streets, and the rituals held as the sun set, the songs and screams echoing against the shuttered houses. He remembered the glances at those whose hands still wore the dried blood of those tipped into the graves of others. Foremost he remembered it as a place of secrets where everything was known and nothing was said.

He stared at the cracked mud and hoped the water would rise again soon to drown the empty streets once more.

 

 

 

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Week 4 and a bit

I’m a bit behind on this, because holidays happened, and Christmas, and birthdays.

Here are the last ten stories of my flash fiction month. Thirty one days and thirty one stories. I hope you enjoy this last collection.

 

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 22

On Wings of Fire

Lanterns lined the path through the snow, each glittering with a different colour.

She walked along the lane, bathing in the glow of each one. The multicoloured chrome of Goose Fair on a late autumnal night. Shades of a complete rainbow seen from a Canadian mountain. Sparse sunlight dancing through rain showers high in Nidderdale. The shudder of reflections on bicycle spokes. A single candle in a silent room, hiding wooden elves with its shadows.

Soon she reached an unlit lantern, balanced in a snowdrift, waiting for her to pick it up.

With no matches she ignited her memories. Castles at the meeting of three rivers, and labyrinths low in the grass. Wild boar hunting acorns in the mud, and snowmen with mohicans of sticks. The pride of Einschulung and the joy of poems read in a six year old’s voice. Kirsch Eis in the height of summer, and tiffin in the depths of winter. The clack of needles in the warmth of the night, and the sound of guitars in the dark of a wooden floored hall.

Using her memories she drew flames from last year’s lantern. Danced them through the sky on wings of fire. Sparked the candlewick to life. The final lantern lit, she raised it in the air and used the light of all her past joys to guide her into the coming twelve months.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 23

Dark Hearts

Sarah baked gingerbread hearts, each with a centre of jam covered in thick dark chocolate. In some the filling was the rich crimson of raspberries, though no raspberries were used. In others the dark blue of blackcurrants, though Sarah never harvested the canes outside her window.

Only on special occasions did she serve the soft baked confectionary, and only ever one type at a time.

For some the gift brought them to a new path, leading out of a darkness. To the sun until then only glimpsed through a forest of knives.

For others, who ate the hearts containing something as shadowed as that lurking in their own chest, the treat only led them to a future of dark water and thorns. The clasp of mud and of the choke of silt.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 24

Rising

The men drowned though they were nowhere near the depths of the sea.Their chests filled with salt heavy water. Bloated with ebbing seaweed that swelled in their throats.

The women tried to clear the lungs of the choking. Turned the men on their sides. The recovery position remembered from school. On their fronts. Ribs splintered against cobbles and kerbs.

Still the water came. Torrented past shattered teeth. In desperation the women clogged mouths with towels and torn shirts. Closed them with cotton wool and stitches. They no longer cared to bring the men to breathing. They were past saving. Now they just wanted to stem the flood they knew was coming.

The pressure was too great. Split the skin of the men’s gullets. Overwhelmed the gutters and backed up drains. Rose up the walls of shops and homes alike. Took breath from sleeping children and the women who could not escape until they floated above bones smoothed and polished by seawater far from the sea.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 25

Sun and Moon

The two showmen stood in the middle of the square. Backs to each other, faces turned out to the crowd. One wore makeup to disguise himself as the sun, the other the moon.

The crowds stood at a respectful distance, no barrier needed as the wolves circling the two performers kept them back, the fragrance of their pelts overpowering every other scent.

The people did not know what the entertainment would be, but the excitement was in the air. No shows ever visited their little town.

Once the magic tricks and tumbling were finished the crowd did not want the performance to end. When the two smiling men asked for the children to be sent forward parents pushed their precious quilted bundles toward the middle of the square.

The wolves parted and the two showmen stood aside to reveal a cloth booth that was not there before, the fabric embroidered with pear trees and snow drifts.

One by one the children walked forward, scrabbling past each other to pass between the billowing curtains.

The parents did not forget as soon as the showmen packed away the fragile tent, nor when the two strangers wiped the sun and moon makeup from their faces with cloths soaked in vodka, but once the showmen rode the wolves out of the town all the parents remembered was the sun and moon shining in the marketplace at the same time.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 26

In case you’re wondering, by this point in my annual challenge I have no idea what I’m doing. This was inspired by finding a feather under the radiator.

Pellets

The owls living in Paul’s radiators made their nests from rust. He only found them by the fall of feathers on the tiles. Bleeding the valve, the birds flew out and perched on top of the pipes. Every day he brought them mice and they brought up pellets of bones.

Over time the birds grew and so did the pellets, the ribs syruped together far larger than any rodent Paul laid by the bathroom door. He noticed the window smashed by the owls’ vast wings, letting them out to hunt the skies.

One morning leaving for work he saw the owls returning. Each carried a prone body, talons digging in between hip and spine. He watched them drop into the bathroom, turned down faces of the people scraping on the shattered window.

Going back into the house Paul stood by the closed door, listening to the vast birds chewing their food. Soon there would be more owl pellets and less neighbours. Each room of his house was now filled with undigested bone. The only person in the street not swallowed for food was him.

He did not know why the owls ignored him, and did not know if it was luckier to survive, or better to wish for a quick death at the point of the talon and beak. Going back downstairs he shut the door and walked through the silent town, smashed glass and giant soft feathers underfoot, and when he reached the entrance to his work he kept on walking.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 27

Today’s story was inspired by a photo artist Becca Thorne shared.

Instructions to Summon the Ancient Dead

1 Sprinkle powdered skull pansies into water collected upon the oldest stone in the circle.

2 Ask your familiar to breathe on the water until the surface cools to the temperature of Judecca. You will know when the right temperature is reached when you can hear souls screech as the ice scrapes the rock.

3 Lacerate the ice with a flint blade. The charms will form where the lines cross without any intent from you.

4 When the skull manifests from the trapped water, count the bubbles. If there are an even number, smash the ice and walk away. Do not return to the place until thirteen months have passed.

5 If there are an odd number take a single length of mildewed straw, ask your question, then pierce the ice allowing the trapped air to sigh out.

6 Listen to the answer. Do not let your bare skin touch the stone or your skull will be below the water and your brain will be encased in ice until the heat of your blood turns it to meltwater.

7 Leave one bubble untouched and one question unanswered.

8 Place your familiar on the ice and let it lap up the ghosts trapped under the surface.

9 Feed your familiar well. If it craves meat bring it the finest cuts. If it wishes for wine, open your finest bottle. If it returns in the early hours with things once living stuck between its teeth, do not question it about its night-time hunts. It may just tell you the truth.

10 Do not return to the site of the ancient dead until thirteen months have passed.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 28

The planet’s atmosphere pressed down like an old sodden blanket smothering everything green and living, the air thin and only caught in gasps.

Spoken words fell to the ground, heavy and unheard. To hold conversations people caught sentences in tree leaves. Held them out like gifts. Gossip collected against kerbs, windblown and rotted. Composted. Dense and pinned under that sodden alien air.

When all the trees were gone, the people wrote their messages on stones. They carried pockets of arguments and small talk down to the marketplace, piling them in cairns against the cross.

Searching for the words of loved ones, broken ribs became as common as reading. Mothers sat around tracing chiselled words with crushed fingers. Workers carried sonnets and proposals from home in shattered hands.

Finally, even the faintest trace of air was gone, their lungs scarred and heavy as if filled with gravel, and there was nothing left to mark their conversations except stone and silence and the splinters of bones.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 29

Melt

Melted snow marks the place the landers came to rest, rock below smoothed to mirrors by the heat.

The vehicles are long gone now, trundling through the town, searching in the wooden buildings for any survivors. Families crouching in basements and behind locked doors.

In the twilight sky the transporter waits for the landing party to return. Monitoring their progress. The crew are hungry. Tonight they will feast.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 30

The Coat of Waves

When Muirreann stripped off her sealskin to walk on land, she wore a coat of waves. Vast teal curls that fell over her shoulder to drape on the pavement and leave seawater pools between with each cautious step.

The coat was vast, wrapping around her, knitted together with fine skeins of coral and krill. Each fibre pitted with shimmering algae that danced in the day and glowed blue at night.

When the cold winds came, because she did feel the cold winds without her sealskin, Muirreann fastened the coat of waves shut with buttons of sailor’s bones, and when she slept the waves within the coat rocked her to sleep in a way no blanket ever could.

Once she tired of walking the land on her unfamiliar feet she returned to the coast, and cast the coat of waves back into the tide. As the fibres fell apart they whispered stories of bright lights and cliffs of clay embedded with sheets of vitrified sands. Stories carried on currents through the oceans, far further than Muirreann would ever swim.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 31

Happy Solstice!

Here’s a cheery* story to celebrate the Solstice.

Pale Sun

At the winter solstice the surface of the sun was cool enough for the dead to enter. They scraped out of the dirt, shuddering free from mats of white roots. Ate worms to sustain them on the journey through the atmosphere.

They said nothing, but sometimes the wind howled through their rot hollowed throats and the crowds gathered below heard words in those sounds. Words that comforted or horrified. The dead did not care. They turned their gnawed eyes to the rising sun and continued to float toward the destination.

All flights were cancelled to allow them to make their journey. The corpses climbed through the sky, though never in columns. Each one took their own path, as they had done in life. As they rose they got smaller and smaller, folding in on themselves until they became like apples of marrow. Compact and hollow.

Of course some of the bereaved tried to stop their lost ones leaving the earth. Chained down their burial plots, or covered them with old ghosts nets. The dead did not care. What compelled them to rise could not be stopped by rusted iron or hemp rope. Minced and diced by the obstructions, the dead floated up toward the sun, the memory of who they were holding them together. The mourning below shattered by the spectacle.

And when the pale sun set on the night of the solstice it absorbed its new congregation into its heart, their thoughts, memories, skin and muscle fuel to brighten the world in the coming year. A sacrifice to bring light and heat to the world once more.

*I lied about the cheery bit.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Week 3

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, but I’m still on course with my flash fiction challenge. Here are the next seven stories.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 15

(Nearly halfway through!)

Two paths led from the lake back to the house, and Rachel knew almost straight away that she had chosen the wrong one.

Concentrating on placing her feet upon the riverbank’s wet grass, she ignored the teeth glistening in the water until there were only rocks and jaws.

Kneeling, she tugged out a lock of hair, draped it across the mud choked shallows and watched the dead grasp at the strands. Become tangled up in the follicles that knotted into rotted gums.

With the other end wrapped around the fingers of her left hand, she dragged their corpses from the water. Scraped them along the path back toward her apartment, ready to render them to paste. There were some advantages to taking the wrong route home.

 Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 16

This was inspired by a place name I recently spotted on a map.

The glitteringstone floated six feet off the ground. Each time geologists approached with their hammers and curiosity it rose further out of reach. With every attempt to rise higher (chair, step ladder, cherry picker), the glitteringstone responded staying beyond human hands.

Feldspar and quartz, caught the sun, reflecting the shine across the marketplace. When someone in a flat let the radio play a bit too loud the glitteringstone began to spin, keeping time with the music.

The parish council turned spotlights on the glitteringstone, and as the light danced so did the people. Local DJs took turns playing tunes, the whole marketplace becoming a dancefloor. They danced until the day faded and until it began once again. They did not stop to eat or drink,
And though the dancer’s legs weakened they could not stop.

Feet swelled and bruised with exhaustion, until one by one the dancers slumped to the floor, legs still twitching.

Then the glitteringstone stopped spinning and descended from the sky.

Hovering along the floor it absorbed each broken dancer one by one, expanding with the addition, faces picked out in feldspar and quartz. Once no more bodies lay on the floor the glitteringstone rose into the sky, the last of the music playing on to an empty town.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 17

The Boat

The boat was river wrecked, timber rust-stained from the steel of his staples and sutures. We dragged it up the bank and shattered the planks with blunted axes, building a fire that sent smoke up through the damp trees above us.

He found us. Sat down on the edge of the circle. Sparks shadowed his skin so we could not see where it slid off in strips.

Greyed flesh underneath came alive in its own way with the twist and flex of those who make their home in the already dead.

He did not eat, though the meat on the spits was fresh.

“I have more in common with them than you,” he said, pointing to the roasting rabbits dripping fat into the glowing ash.

By morning he had left us, the timbers nothing more than charcoal and the rabbits nothing more than bones.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 18

Traces

A single filament of glass draped from the moon, kept soft and pliable by it’s constant movement through the atmosphere . At night it would filter the reflected light from the cratered surface down toward the Earth, sliding across mountains and forests. Each place the filament touched it left a trace of glass.

Simon knew the locations it brushed the land were not random and he set out on an Autumnal night to chase the filament as it marked its orbit upon the ground.

Seeing it approaching he steadied himself. As the narrow thread of slightly molten glass passed by Simon reached out with gloved hands and grasped it in two tight fists.

First the filament slowed, then stretched, and as Simon held on longer it cooled. He tried to let go. Too much lay in his hands. The moon hauled across the night sky, and the filament paused. Stretched. Shattered. Coated Simon in shards of glass.

The filament no longer draped from the moon to leave traces of molten glass upon the earth, and the world was less beautiful for its loss.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 19

Branches from the willows clattered the water, spreading ripples and leaves downstream.

No-one paid them any attention. Didn’t notice the way the buds slicked under the surface, soaked and hungry. Children still swam nearby. Families and dogs.

Each fragment that the trees absorbed was too small for the victim to notice, but over time the swimmers were lessened and the willow grew broad on the souls it sipped.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 20

Carol-Ann sat in her front room and watched the rain rivulet down the window. Erode in channels and deltas. Testimonials of mistakes made a generation earlier.

The glass bubbled and slid down the outside walls, pooling into the gutter. Three days more and the walls would be gone again.

She picked up the phone and rang the repair company once more as rain-drop by rain-drop the house dissolved around her.

Flash Fiction Month 2018 Day 21

I took the photo this morning, and it inspired today’s story.

Snowscape

Campbell was stood by the window when the ice shifted, giving a glimpse of the world outside. Distant trees were cracks in the sky. Other houses erased by the weather.

The snow had fallen for thirty eight weeks straight, pausing only occasionally as if catching its breath. Coating the house in a silken coat so vast that the world outside was a forgotten shimmer.

Campbell glanced out again. The trees seemed closer now. Each one larger, though it could have been a trick of the light. Perspective. He hadn’t seen anything further away than the other side of the room for months.

Going to the kitchen, he made tea from stale water, then went back to gaze on the outside world once more. One last time before snowfall encased the house and sealed him off.

Whether through weight or pressure, the tap root smashed the window, covering Campbell in splinters of glass, and ice just as sharp. Finding purchase on his legs and arms the tree dragged him out of the house and lay him on the snow. Roots rasped away skin scalded to blisters by spilt tea.

It took time for the trees to force their roots into his arms and legs. Find the minerals hidden in his bones.

By the time they were finished he was powder and skin and covered by the next snowfall.

They still felt the gnawing emptiness the never-winter had brought them, the weakness in their branches, but they were not done for yet. There were still many houses hidden under the snow, and many minerals hidden in the bones of those within.