Blog

Navigating the Apocalypse: 10 Essential Tips for Surviving in a Post-Apocalyptic Novel

Discover essential tips for surviving in a post-apocalyptic novel. From weapons and mutant alliances to spotting love triangles and brewing alcohol, navigate the chaos with expert advice.

Welcome to the end of the world, where the only thing more uncertain than tomorrow is whether or not you’ll have your skull bashed in by a mutant.

This post will guide you through this barren and desolate realm.

Here are ten tips to surviving a post-apocalyptic novel:.

1. Always carry a weapon, preferably one that’s also a musical instrument. In a post-apocalyptic novel, you never know when you’ll need to bash in a mutant’s skull or play a rousing rendition of “Eye of the Tiger” to pump up your fellow survivors.

2. Learn to speak “zombie.” The ability to grunt and moan like the undead can come in handy when trying to blend in or avoid them.

3. Learn to brew your own alcohol. Not only will it help you forget the horrors of the world, but it can also be used as a currency or a bargaining tool.

4. Learn to spot the signs of a love triangle. Love triangles can be as common as radiation sickness, and knowing how to spot the signs can save you from getting caught in the crossfire.

5. Learn to make friends with the mutants. Not all mutants are bad, and having an ally can mean the difference between life and death.

6. Trust no one, especially not the government officials. They’re probably the ones who caused the apocalypse in the first place.

7. Learn to survive in extreme environments, like super-markets and abandoned theme parks. It’s important to be prepared.

8. Learn to spot the signs of a bad guy pretending to be a good guy. Bad guys often disguise themselves as good guys to gain trust, so it’s important to know how to spot them. Look out for facial scars, an eye patch, or a train of people following them in shackles.

9. Keep a journal, but don’t write anything important in it. If it falls into the wrong hands, it could be used against you.

10. Learn to laugh at yourself. In a post-apocalyptic world, things can get pretty grim, so it’s important to find humour in the absurdity of it all.

Welcome to the End Times: 10 Signs You’re Trapped in a Post-Apocalyptic Novel

Explore the signs of a post-apocalyptic world with these 10 telltale indicators. From mutants to scarce resources, navigate the treacherous terrain of a barren realm. Welcome to the end times.

Welcome to the end of the world, where the only thing more uncertain than tomorrow is the air quality.

But don’t fret, because this post is here to guide you through the treacherous terrain of this barren and desolate realm.

Here are ten ways to know you’re in a post-apocalyptic novel.

1. The only clothing available is made from duct tape and old tyres.

2. The only way to tell the difference between a human and a mutant is that the mutants are slightly less human.

3. The local super-market only sells irradiated food and water from questionable sources.

4. The only form of transportation is a shopping trolly with a “borrowed” engine.

5. The only thing more dangerous than the mutants are the other survivors.

6. The only thing more scarce than food and water is toilet paper.

7. Every conversation starts with “I can’t believe this is happening” and ends with “We’re all gonna die.”

8. The only form of entertainment is staring into the abyss, also known as the “great outdoors.”

9. The only jobs available are “scavenger,” “raider,” or “cannibal.”

10. The only way to win is to not play (or to have a really good bunker).

Mayhem in Monsterland: The Commodore 64’s Last Hoorah!

There were few Commodore 64 games that pushed the system to its limits like Mayhem in Monsterland.

Back in the day, this game was awarded a 100% rating by Commodore Format magazine. In the months leading up to its release, the magazine chronicled the game’s production from its initial sketches to its completion.

On the front cover of each issue they would give away a cassette featuring a few games demos. I must have played the demo of Mayhem in Monsterland dozens of times. The game was only available by mail order, mainly because at the time of its release in 1993 the Commodore 64 was a redundant machine with most games stockists having long-stopped selling C64 games, with only occasional shops having a bargain-bin full of dusty cracked cassettes.

I saved up enough pocket money to buy the game, and I wasn’t disappointed. I remember thinking: ‘this game is awesome!’

Mayhem in Monsterland was produced by Apex Productions, a company that had already gained a reputation for creating innovative and bizarre games. Amongst their back catalogue is the fantastic and underrated Creatures, as well as its equally impressive sequel, Creatures 2: Torture Time. Both games boasted a wicked sense of humour, which was replaced in Mayhem in Monsterland by a sense of wonder.

In the game, you control Mayhem, a super-fast, super-cute yellow triceratops who happens to play and look a little bit like Sonic the Hedgehog. The narrative is simple: it is your mission to make the world a happy place by getting rid of all the monsters (note that yellow speed-freak dinosaurs are not considered to be monsters). Looking back at the game, it now seems like a generic platformer with clear nods towards Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers (even the title screen looks as though it was directly lifted from Super Mario World).

At the start of each stage, you are given a quota of Magic Dust and Stars to collect.If you don’t fulfil your quota, you are forced to re-explore the level in order to find the remaining collectables – this gives the game a free and open feel that later games would eventually capitalise on.

Magic Dust could be found each time you killed a monster in the usual platform fashion of jumping on their heads. Once you collected enough Magic Dust, the level becomes ‘happy’ and you are then able to find the Magic Stars. The Magic Stars are a little trickier to find, and feel important due to the musical fanfare that played each time you collect one.

Mayhem in Monsterland was a game that rewarded players who, for whatever reasons, had stuck with their trusty C64s. I did, and I loved it: the game looked fantastic; its colour-pallet and stylistic design were excellent, making the best out of the C64’s limited graphics.

Visually, it looked as though the designers had looked at the Green Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog and imagined what it would look like with some of the green pipes from Super Mario Brothers added in.

What made Mayhem in Monsterland stand out though was the game’s speed: this game was fast, and not only that, it was smooth to play and had great level design.

Though most Commodore 64 games were played using the keyboard or a joystick, to add to the console feel of the game, I tried out my Sega Master System pad (they had the same socket as the joystick port), and, lo and behold, it worked! There was something about playing such an advanced game (for the C64 at least) with a control pad that added to the experience.

A few years back, I had a drunken conversation with a guy who went into great detail about the little tricks and work-arounds that the designers utilised to make Mayhem in Monsterland play and look like a console game. I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, but it sounded impressive.

Games are released all the time today with countless bugs and glitches in them which are later ‘patched up’ by the game’s creators by downloading and updating the games. When Mayhem in Monsterland was released, I was surprised to find a sheet of paper in the box that required you to enter a few lines of code in BASIC before running the game in order to fix a bug in the game that made your life meter go all glitchy every time you earned an extra life.

1993 was probably the last gasp of the C64: the Megadrive and SNES had established themselves firmly as the home systems of choice, with almost instant access to the games (no ten minutes sat around waiting for the games to load (or not as was often the case)), with gameplay and graphics that made C64 games look tired and dated. Indeed, just over a year later, the Sony Playstation would come along and blast all of these systems out of the water with its arcade-quality graphics, awesome sound and its genre defining games like Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skateboarder.

In its context, this game as the C64’s last hoorah. It may not rate as one of the greatest games of all time, but it certainly has a special place in gaming history. Though it played beautifully, there was nothing particularly groundbreaking about the game-play, but its legacy is secured due to the sheer technical wizardry that the game’s designers employed in creating this title. The 100% awarded for the game seems laughable today, but we have to take this number in its context and ask ourselves: could the Commodore 64 do anything to surpass this? The answer is probably not.

In Praise of Neuromancer: Why Everyone Should Read William Gibson’s Cyberpunk Classic

There are few books that have been published in my lifetime that have had such a profound influence on not only literature, but on the world at large as William Gibson’s 1984 novel, Neuromancer.

 At its core, Neuromancer is a detective noir story set in a dystopian future. But this isn’t a novel that can be accounted for in simple terms.

Neuromancer is told from the perspective of our narrator, Henry Dorsett Case. Case is the novel’s reluctant anti-hero: a suicidal, drug-addled ex-hacker residing without work in Chiba City, Japan. Almost from the outset, we see Case as a world-weary cynic who bums around in bars trying not to let his past catch up with him. The last time he was caught, his captors destroyed his nervous system, making it impossible for Case to access Cyberspace, – a term coined by Gibson that has become part of our common lexicon:

“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.”

Though Gibson saw this through dystopian eyes, the word and the concept of Cyberspace is now an inescapable part of modern life. I’m not sure how true this is, but author Jack Womack argued that Gibson’s conception of Cyberspace inspired the structure of the World Wide Web, asking “what if the act of writing it down, in fact, brought it about?” If there is even a shred of truth to this assertion, then this alone surely secures Gibson’s legacy as one of the most important creative imaginations of the last century, and I say this without exaggeration.

The drama of the story begins when Case is tracked down by Molly, a “street samurai” who works as a mercenary for an ex-army officer who goes by the name of Armitage. Through Case’s drug-fuelled paranoia, he convinces himself that Molly works for his ex-employer; he outruns her through the sprawl of neon lined streets, only to be accosted by her in his hotel room, which is barely larger than a coffin. Molly had modified her body with all manner of cybernetic enhancements: a tweaked nervous system; retractable four-centimetre long razors that are hidden beneath her fingernails; and lenses implanted into her eye sockets which give her enhanced sight and allow her to be fed information about what she is looking at.

Prior to being a razor girl, Molly worked as a prostitute. Of course, this is the dystopian future, so she wasn’t your usual prostitute. Sex workers were given neural implants that turned off their memories and limited their ability to control and reason their actions. Thus prostitutes were nothing more than hired meat-puppets who acted upon the whims of their employers – no matter how dark or depraved. It was only when Molly began to experience and remember what she otherwise couldn’t that she was able to get out of prostitution by blackmailing a sadistic senator with a penchant for murdering women. The idea of women being turned into sex zombies I found very disturbing, mainly because it isn’t that far from the realms of possibility.

Molly takes Case to Armitage and a deal is struck: Case’s services in exchange for his neural problems to be fixed. Suffice to say, Case jumps at the opportunity. Armitage is an incredibly complex and ambiguous character: his identity, both physically and metaphorically, is merely of his own creation. Indeed, it seems as though the more Case gets to know Armitage, the more detached Armitage seems from, not only reality, but his own personality. It is never made clear whether Armitage is the main man running the operation, or whether he is acting as another middleman (there are subtle suggestions of both possibilities throughout the book, but they are always in the guise of speculation and conjecture).

Beyond the techno-fetishism and the cybernetic-dystopia of Neuromancer, there is also oodles of charm and humour. Neuromancer is not a funny book: it takes itself quite seriously, but with this seriousness, the wit and personality of some of its characters can’t help but add an extra dimension to the proceedings. For example, when Armitage arranges for the repair of Case’s nervous system he says, “You needed a new pancreas. The one we bought for you frees you from a dangerous dependency.” To which Case responds, “Thanks, but I was enjoying that dependency.”

Though the novel is set in the future, there are many points in the story that give a direct nod to popular culture of the early-1980s. Indeed, the concept of cyberspace is simply Gibson’s speculative extrapolation of early videogames. But it’s not just technology and science that Gibson draws on in his vision of the future. With the proliferation of Rastafarianism in the late-1970s, it is perhaps of little wonder that a band of Rastafarian outlaws are key to the development of Neuromancer’s narrative. Gibson draws on the imagery of the dreadlocked, dub-loving pot-smoker adorned with bright colours, and combines it with a space ship (called Zion, no less).

Case spends much of the latter part of the novel hooked up to the Matrix (sound familiar?). Sometimes he experiences the real-world, but from the perspective of Molly’s cybernetic lenses, at others, he’s interacting with Artificial Intelligence constructs, that end up forming a key part of the plot. One such construct is Wintermute, who spends much of the novel attempting to break its programme and develop a personality. It’s difficult to outline Wintermute without spoiling some key elements of the plot, but all I’ll say is that Wintermute adds a great sense of mystery and intrigue to the novel. Indeed, the inclusion of Wintermute (and other AI constructs) has a similar uncanny effect that Asimov and Dick capture, in that it raises questions about the nature of consciousness, intelligences, determinism and freewill – essentially, you empathise with Wintermute.

The novel is full of incredibly vivid descriptions that manage to capture a real sense of the world and its characters with a few well-chosen turns of phrase. “The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel”, as an opening line couldn’t be more perfect in conveying a feeling of the world. Or the description of a speed-freak’s eyes as “eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.”

The importance and influence of Neuromancer cannot be underestimated, even if we dismiss completely the idea that Gibson’s creative imagination was the catalyst for the invention of the World Wide Web. The term Cyberpunk was coined by a critic in reaction to this novel. The imagery, ideas and concepts associated with Cyberpunk have become a frequently visited well for creative people from fashion designers to TV writers, from game designers to musicians. I am in absolute awe that the residue of one creative mind has left such indelible marks on our world. It is a humble man, indeed, who can create such an important work of literature, and resist the urge to shout arrogantly from the rooftops: “I created this!”

Welcome to the Wasteland: Why I Still Love Fallout 3

With the news cycle’s barrage of death and destruction, one would be forgiven for thinking that the apocalypse has already passed without so much as a murmur. 

The apocalyptic wasteland of Fallout 3 is one that has embedded itself in my imagination since I first played the game around Christmas 2008.

Fallout 3 is set in the Capital Wasteland: the ruins of Washington DC and surrounding areas. The story begins in 2277 after a war between America and China has left America a desolate wasteland where the earth is scorched and dead trees remain, blackened and twisted. The game begins at your birth, the blurred and confused images and the immediate death of your mother in childbirth set the scene for what follows. Your character is raised in Vault 101, a radiation-proof vault (somewhat reminiscent of a Dhama station in Lost, retro computers and all) which was built before the war and is the permanent home of a number of families who have been told that nothing survives beyond the vault.

Over the next hour of gameplay you are taken through a series of key events in your characters development, including your tenth birthday (where you receive your first gun), and your exams (which help define your character’s key attributes), to the climactic scene where your father James (voiced by Liam Neeson) leaves the vault and you decide to find him. The first hour seamlessly blends character creation and tutorial aspects with storyline. The way in which you conduct yourself, how you communicate with other vault-dwellers and choices you make on your exam all have direct consequences upon the development of your character.

After you leave Vault 101 you realise that the world is a big and dangerous place. Everyday is a fight for survival for you and its inhabitants, who are as varied and intriguing as the Wasteland itself. The Wasteland’s residents have made improvised homes and communities out of what remained after the nuclear war. Communities are found across the Wasteland: from shacks built on ruined highways to old subway stations and the town of Megaton. Megaton is a community of shacks built from old aeroplane parts and surrounds an unexploded (and still active) atomic bomb.

I spoke to some of Megaton’s residents, enquiring about the town’s history, and discovered that the town was initially set up by a religious sect called The Children of the Atom who worship the bomb and see the war as a positive and cleansing event for humanity. As my investigations deepened, I discovered that, far from being a cleansing symbol, the bomb was actually leaking radiation and polluting the town’s water supply. I spoke to the town’s sheriff, who commissioned me to deactivate the bomb. I agreed and went searching for information on how to deactivate the bomb and was offered 500 caps (‘Nuka-Cola’ bottles caps have replaced money as the currency of post-apocalyptia) to activate the bomb – I declined the offer and deactivated the bomb. This is what is so great about Fallout 3, you are given a number of moral choices, many of them not as clear-cut as this first one.

The core of Fallout 3’s gameplay involves exploration and dialogue, coupled with brutal violence and adrenaline-fueled action. You can charm, smarm, or lie your way through life, or you can try and be intelligent, helpful or funny – the choice is yours and you have to live with consequences. Fallout 3 evolves the moral causality of Fable (Xbox/PC), with its clearly defined ‘good’ and ‘bad’ actions having a direct impact upon the world around you being replaced in Fallout 3 by a more subtle and ambiguous ‘karma’ level, which has a direct baring on your reputation: opening up or closing dialogue options, information and available quests.

One such dilemma occurred at the small settlement of Arefu. What began as a simple delivery task developed into a complex storyline involving a town under attack by a vampire cult called The Family (they are not real vampires, just people who think they are vampires – visit a goth club and you will probably meet a few examples of these in the real world.) After a number of Arefu residents had been murdered by The Family and one of the settlement’s teenagers had gone missing I went to investigate.

Finding their hideout in a disused subway station, I quickly learned that The Family were not as evil or brutal as they initially appeared. They offered a place for outsiders and the misunderstood, living under a strict moral code which revealed that they had not actually committed the murders in question, but the murderer was actually the boy who had gone missing (and wanted to join the family). This being said, they still drank human blood. So you can see the dilemma that emerged: do I leave the whole thing alone, allowing The Family to continue striking fear and terror into Arefu’s residents or do I blow them to bits? But, of course, I want to do the right thing. Drinking blood is bad, but then again The Family do provide a home for the disenfranchised…

I ended up negotiating between the residents of Arefu that the residents would provide blood packs to The Family in exchange for their protection. Looking back, I’m not sure whether I made the right truth, perhaps a bit of shotgun diplomacy would have worked better, who knows? And who knows what consequences this had for the development of the game?

Fallout 3 is a game which has a very consistent and bizarre mythology. The game is set over 250 years into the future, but creates the sensation of ‘retro’: with large whirring computers, green-screen monitors and a graphic style which screams 1940s. One gets the impression that the game is somehow playing with the notion of an alternative history with its reality diverging from our in some time during World War II. The 1940s feel is reinforced by the game’s soundtrack which comprises of oddly sentimental Big Band tunes and vocal groups with songs by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Ink Spots.

 The music is played on one of the Wasteland’s many radio stations, Galaxy News Radio, presented by ‘Three Dog’ a tireless DJ ‘fighting the good fight’ to ‘bring you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts’. Three Dog reminds me of Super Soul, the blind DJ from the achingly underrated existential road movie Vanishing Point (1979), who’s role, as is Super Soul’s in Vanishing Point is to act as narrator and commentator on the development of the story, both adding to the mythology of the narrative and celebrating the protagonist’s achievements. Galaxy News Radio isn’t the only radio station in the Wasteland, occasionally you will stumble across localised talk radio stations, distress signals and the sinister Enclave Radio, which broadcasts a mixture of reactionary patriotic talk-radio voiced by the ‘president’ John Henry Eden (voiced by Malcolm McDowell) and American anthems such as Hail to the Chief, the Star Spangled Banner, and Yankee Doodle. All of these stations create a real sense of emersion in the gameworld which very few games can do (BioShock and GTA IV being two other examples).

If the action, narrative and mythology were not enough to secure Fallout 3’s legacy, then it is the vastness of its beautifully rendered landscape should do so. Visually, Fallout 3 is stunning. At one point in the game you are asked by Three Dog to help increase Galaxy News Radio’s signal to broadcast across the Wasteland. After scavenging a satellite dish from a lunar lander in the ruins of the Museum of Technology, you make your way up to the top of the Washington Monument. At the top you can survey the Wasteland in its panoramic vastness.

Bethseda Softworks created a game which perfectly fuses the elements of some the best RPGs on the market with the action and intensity of a first-person shooter and fluctuates between cheery hopefulness and a bleak sense of existential crisis. With its open gameplay, non-linear structure and a multitude of choices which directly influence the progression of narrative, Fallout 3 will stand as a defining moment in videogame history for years to come.

Bust-a-Groove: Was this the Best Rhythm Game Ever?

Forget your dance mats and plastic guitars, the best ever dance game was on the Playstation and it had aliens, robots and school girls to jive with…

Released in 1998 on the PS1, Bust-a-Groove is a game where you tap predetermined buttons in time with the soundtrack. However simplistic this sounds, it piles on so much fun and charm that it ranks as one of my favourite games of all time.

From its opening moments the presentation screams ’90s popular culture, scratch-mixed samples and quick video cuts transporting you back to a time when MTV wasn’t clogged up with reality shows about dopey teenage girls.

To begin, you have the option of choosing one of ten characters: the fat break-dancing burger-freak Hamm; a creepy, sexy-adult-baby called Kelly; the Capoeira Twins – a pair of dancing aliens lifted straight from the X Files; a 200ft high voguing robot – Robo Z; a school girl called Shorty who dances with her pet mouse, and many others. Each character is unique, with their own bizarre costumes, individual dance routines, and songs that echo the character’s personality.

After tweaking your fully-editable move set, it’s time to play through the game. Whereas modern rhythm games have a tendency to licence songs from existing artists, or provide a substandard cover version of a famous song with the moniker “as made famous by…”, Bust-a-Groove had its own original soundtrack.

The songs spanned the genres: from Funk to Hip-Hop; Disco to House. Each tune was infectious and memorable. And if you made a mistake, you weren’t punished for it in the way that you are on later games where you get hit in the ears by a horrible guitar crunch, or are simply kicked off for your ineptitude. Instead, your character shakes themselves off like a wet dog, and tries to get back into the rhythm – this feature made the game incredibly accessible. Indeed, the difficulty of the button combos performed can be chosen during play as you are given the choice of two options with each line of the song, meaning that a player has control over exactly how difficult they want their experience to be, without having to leave the round to tweak the game’s difficulty settings.

Though the game is entertaining in single-player mode, Bust-a-Groove really comes into its own in the multiplayer mode. The accessibility of the game balances perfectly with its depth. I first came across Bust-a-Groove through a mate of mine who owned a chipped Playstation. He brought it round my house and we played the Japanese version of the game non-stop for about a week. Ironically, the guy owned the biggest collection of pirated games I think I’ve ever seen, and now works as a Trading Standards officer – I wonder if he ever mentioned his games collection at work?

After stripping the skin off my thumbs on the game, I sought an English version and played it relentlessly, figuring out all the tricks and hidden dance moves and attacks that can be utilised in multi-player mode.

The rest of my family hadn’t mastered the game like I had, but we could all sit around in my sister’s bedroom and play the game. I always won of course, but it didn’t matter because we all had fun playing it and it was neither here nor there who was the better player (but I was).

There are very few multiplayer games that transcend the generations and allow even the weakest players to have fun and play each level right to the end. Even family favourites like Mario Kart kick the losing players off the game before everyone has finished the course. Bust-a-Groove rewards competent players once the round is finished by the inclusion of Fever Time. Fever Time doesn’t activate if you simply beat your opponent, it comes into effect when you hit most of the beats in the song. Fever Time allows you to watch as your character flips and dances across the screen in celebration – it’s very satisfying to watch.

Two decades later, I still find myself occasionally humming the tune to Shorty and the EZ Mouse.

Why I Still Love Roald Dahl’s The Witches…

A story about the kidnapping and murder of countless children is the subject of today’s review. But don’t worry; it’s not one of those trauma memoirs: it’s a kid’s book!

Before rereading The Witches, I was filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation: I hadn’t read the book for almost twenty years, and I was worried that my cynical scoffery as a jaded 30-something would stamp on those rose-tinted glasses that served my fond memories of this book so well. Luckily for me, Roald Dahl is a great writer, and I was quickly reassured that I had absolutely nothing to worry about.

Witches hate children. They hate children so much, that they try to kill at least one child a week (“One child a week, is fifty-two a year. Squish them and squiggle them, and make them disappear!”). Why do witches hate children so much? Because, to witches, children smell of dog’s droppings. And when they are not engaged in the kidnapping and murder of children, witches spend the rest of their time obsessing about the best ways to do away with them: a crippling and debilitating addiction, you must admit. It must be a hard life being a witch, but I just can’t bring myself to empathise with the child murder bit.

The subject of child murder probably isn’t what most children’s authors think of when they start to write a book. But Roald Dahl makes the killing of children seem like something quite amusing. Perhaps it is because witches fear capture more than anything else that they have utilised all manner of creative ways of splatting and squishing children. One such death was administered by a witch turning a young boy into a slug, with the child’s own father flushing the slug away with boiling water. Another saw a child magically transformed into a mackerel and served up to the child’s unsuspecting mother, so that the mother would commit an unwitting act of cannibalism. When you start to think about it, this is all very sinister stuff.

In order to distract the boy from the grief of losing his mother and father in such tragic circumstances, his grandmother starts to regale him with stories of witches – only they aren’t stories, they’re real.

What I particularly like about The Witches is the warmth of the relationship between the boy (our unnamed narrator and protagonist) and his grandmother (a cigar-smoking, ex-witch hunter). After the boy’s parents were killed after driving into a ravine, he moves in with his grandmother in Norway. In order to distract the boy from the grief of losing his mother and father in such tragic circumstances, his grandmother starts to regale him with stories of witches – only they aren’t stories, they’re real. That’s right, in order to comfort a grieving child and make him feel safe, she scares the shit out him – as if the poor lad wasn’t traumatised enough. Witches, as his grandmother notes, look like normal women, but they can be spotted if you know what to look for: they wear gloves to hide their clawed hands; they wear wigs to cover their bald heads; their eyes change colour; and their spit is blue.

                                              The drama of the story really begins to build at around halfway through the story, when the boy and his grandmother are staying in the Hotel Magnificent in Bournemouth. During their stay, the boy becomes trapped in a ballroom filled with all of England’s witches and the Grand High Witch, at what is seemingly the witches’ AGM. Reading the tension of this scene back almost twenty years later, I can’t believe that this scene didn’t scare me half to death. The boy was hidden behind a screen and saw the Grand High Witch murder a witch who had interrupted her with sparks from her hands, and listened as she outlined her diabolical plan to turn the children of England into mice. At the end of the meeting , one of the witches smells dog’s droppings. The boy’s cover is blown, and he is transformed into a mouse.

I love the ending of The Witches; I’m not going to detail it here, that’s for you to find out. I recall that when I was about nine, a film version of The Witches was released. I remember that I really enjoyed it, except for the ending. They’d Hollywoodified the ending, and I hated it. For some tenuous and half-explained reason, the High Witch of England (the team leader of Witches GB) had a pang of guilt and decided to change everything back to how it was before the witches had turned the boy into a mouse. A major lesson in the book is that people can live and find happiness in even the most terrible of situations. The ending of the book is bittersweet, but the film took that away.

Revisiting The Witches was a lot of fun, it was weird how familiar each paragraph was, and how familiar each of Quentin Blake’s illustrations were. Blake’s illustrations ooze charm. They capture the childish simplicity and slightly sinister edge of Dahl’s work perfectly. The partnership between Dahl’s and Blake’s creative imaginations is absolutely perfect. I’d even go as far to say that not enough credit is given to Blake’s illustrations in creating the complete experience. Yes, the stories are excellent, but it is the illustrations that add that final magical ingredient to make them great.

Fans of Roald Dahl will already know that he has an incredibly dark sense of humour. Dahl utilises this dark comedy to espouse his very firm moral code that says that if you are a little shit, you will get your comeuppance. Look at the group of golden ticket winners in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Apart from Charlie they are all abhorrent: spoilt, greedy, lazy, obnoxious – and Dahl takes great delight in punishing them in ironic ways. For me, this is great moral lesson that all children should be forced to learn. Compare this with the moral code in a book like Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – a book which teaches children that if something’s remotely scary, then it’s not worth the risk. The Witches teaches children not to let fear win, to always look for the positive angle in a bad situation, and that sometimes we have to fight for something bigger than ourselves.

No Rehab for Wizards – a suburban fantasy tale

I cut off one of my eyelids today. It was definitely worth it.
“Now why on Earth would you want to do something like that?” Mum asks.
I shake my head, tut. “So I can control manatees,” I say.
“And what do you want to control manatees for?”
I shrug and turn the volume up on Match of the Day. Mum never gets me. She was banging on the other day about how I need to go into rehab. “There’s something not right about you, boy,” she said. “You’re always chopping bits off yourself. It’s not right.”
I tried to tell her there’s no rehab for wizards. Magic always has a price: a sacrifice of flesh always has to be made. A chunk of skin off your arm will give you control of a mayfly, but what’s the point in that? At least manatees have got a half-decent shelf-life.
I was telling her the other day about these wizards around Birmingham way who kill dogs and badgers for their magic. I asked if she’d rather me do that. She just cried.
The thing people don’t realise about using animals is that if you want to take control of dog, you have to kill about thirteen or fourteen of them. And even then, you only get to control one of those shitty little yappy ones. Seems pointless to me.
When Mum had a go at me for lopping off my little toe a couple of weeks back, I made a joke that I’d sacrifice her if she carried on having a go at me. She cried at that as well, and I really only meant it as a joke. Thing is, though, the more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea.
I’d have to work out how strong the magic would be if I did it, though. I’m assuming it would be a bit like with the dogs. Kill a whole bunch of people to take control of a shitty one? I’d get in trouble for sure. But I’m thinking it’d probably count for a lot more if it’s your own mum. It must do.
I turn off Match of the Day and go upstairs.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Mum asks. “You’re not going to chop any more body parts again, I hope? What would your father say if he could see you now with all them bits hanging off?”
I turn back and smile. “I’m just going for a wee,” I say. “Stick the kettle on will you?”
When the kettle starts to boil, I reach behind the toilet and pull out my blade. I run my finger across its edge and grin as a small cut opens along my fingertip.
“Your tea’s on the hearth,” Mum says, shouting up the stairs.
“Coming.” I tuck the blade under my hoodie.
Limping back downstairs, I see Mum has put Eastenders on. “You don’t mind me watching this on catch-up do you?” she asks. “You’d turned your football off.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
I stand behind her and look down at her grey-streaked hair. I take the blade and bring it across her throat. She makes a weird gurgling noise.
I panic and run to the kitchen to grab some tea towels and kitchen roll. I try dabbing at the blood, but it makes a right mess.
Mum always said that when I started to get into one of my panics I should stop, take a deep breath, and have a nice cup of tea. So I sit down on the opposite sofa and sip my tea, my eyes half on Eastenders and half on my mum bleeding out all over her nice cream carpet.
If I let her keep bleeding, it will stop eventually. Then it will dry and be easier to mop up. I really don’t want to ruin any more tea towels, so it’s probably for the best to wait.
Then I remember: I’d forgotten to do the incantation. What a complete waste of time.
I turn Match of the Day back on. At least I still had my manatee.

Prisoner of the Wasteland – a story in the Wasteland universe

The filthy bedroll slips beneath him when David sits up. He squints at the thin lines of sunlight seeping between the gaps in the boarded-up windows, the damp glistening along the concrete walls.

“You awake?” he whispers, shaking the shoulder of a dark-skinned boy curled up next to him. “Mike?”

The boy glares at David through purple-rimmed eyes, cringing as he grabs the back of his head. “What is it?”

“I was thinking,” David whispers, looking over to the locked door. “We need to get off this stuff.”

Mike laughs, shaking his head, his mouth twisting. “This is it. There ain’t no getting off this.”

“That’s just what they tell you. Bree was say—”

“What does Bree know?” Mike spits. “Tell us, Bree.”

David leans over to the girl lying next to him and shakes her shoulder. “Bree?” He looks up at Mike. “She’s not breathing.”

Mike scrambles over and looks down at Bree, her long black hair matted into knots, and shakes his head. “She’s just high.”

“I tell you, she’s not breathing.”

Mike puts a hand near her mouth and waits. He drops his arm and shakes his head, slower this time.

David gets up and stumbles over the other sleeping children, sweating as he hammers at the door, calling out for help.

A couple of the kids groan and swear. The lock clicks and a bolt shifts across. David steps back as the door swings open.

A tall man, with a grizzled beard and scarred face, eyes David from the doorway. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s Bree. She’s dead.” David sucks in his bottom lip and nods towards her body, unremarkable among the other death-still children.

“Which one?” The man asks.

“Bree.”

The man wraps a leather strap around his hand and barges through the door, shoving David aside, his eyes darting around the room. “Which one?”

David scrambles across the prone bodies of the sleeping children and crouches next to Bree. “Here.”

The man stands over him and stares at the corpse. “What you waiting for? Get her up. Get her out of here.”

There’s a long silence, and David exchanges a glance with Mike, who shrugs.

“Come on, then,” the man snaps, clearing a path to the door with his kicks.

Struggling, David hooks his arms under the dead girl’s armpits and drags her across the room, straining against her weight as he struggles to get her through the door, her ankles catching against the frame.

“This way,” the man says, marching ahead along the corridor.

David holds back tears as he stares down at her grubby feet dragging along the concrete.

The man knocks on a steel door at the end of the corridor and waits.

Sunlight pours in as the door creaks open. “We got another one,” the man says, nodding back towards David.

A woman looks around the man and shrugs. “Sling it over there,” she says, gesturing behind her. David follows where she’s pointing and takes in a sharp breath.

“Well, come on. We’ve got a busy day,” the man snaps.

David steps outside, the stench of the floodwaters stronger in the open air. He looks around at the buildings looming above him, starting when he’s prodded in the side by the woman’s rifle-butt. “Get rid of it,” she says.

With a deep sigh, David nods and drags Bree’s body to the building’s edge. He glances back at the man, hesitating.

“What you waiting for? Get rid of it.”

David looks down at Bree’s knotted hair, the purple rims around her eyes, her sunken cheeks and bony shoulders, and shakes his head. “I…I can’t.”

The man curses and storms over to David. He grabs Bree around her neck and flings her into the water, her body bobbing on the surface for a minute, her inflated clothes sagging before sinking beneath the blackness. The man wipes his hands and turns to David, prodding a forefinger into his chest. “When I tell you to do something, you do it. Otherwise you’ll be next.” He points to the tiny white bubbles, the only visible marker of Bree’s grave. “We clear?”

David looks down at the flattening surface, and nods. “Yes, sir,” he manages, turning his attention to his feet. “Sorry.”

David sits cross-legged on his bedroll, staring down at a stale piece of bread.

“You going to eat that?” Mike asks.

“I can’t believe she’s dead,” David says, still staring.

Mike sniffs and snatches the bread from David’s limp grip, stuffing it into his mouth. “We’re all dead. I said you shouldn’t get close. If it’s not plez, then it’s the Family.”

“But Bree was a good person.”

“She was an addict and now she’s not.” Mike shrugs and brushes a crumb from his chin. “If you ask me, I’d say she’s better off.”

David sighs and shakes his head, starting when the door crashes open.

“Everyone up,” the man with the grizzled beard says. “Follow me.” He turns and marches out of the room. The other children look at each other, confused, and get to their feet, filing out of the room.

David follows the stream of kids as they meander outside. “What’s happening?” he asks, turning to Mike.

“Shut up,” Mike growls under his breath. “It’s probably about Bree.”

The children are lined-up at the edge of the building, the floodwaters still and silent behind them. David looks down to the place where Bree’s body was thrown and holds his breath for a few long seconds.

Three women stand guard with rifles as the man with the grizzled beard paces in front of the kids, stopping when a small boy, a head shorter than David, emerges flailing with a collar and chain around his neck. “Look at the face of this boy,” the man says. “We found this boy trying to steal plez. Do you know what we do to people who steal from us?” He makes a gesture to one of the women. “Pull him up.”

David and the other children watch in silence, not daring to move as the chain around the boy’s neck tightens and lifts him three-feet off the ground, his feet flailing uselessly.

“Watch,” the man says, pointing. “Any of you kids turn away from this, and you’ll be next.”

David turns in the direction of the kid, his eyes focused on something in the distance, the last few spasms of movement blurring at the edge of his vision.

A long tense silence hangs in the air before the chain is released, dropping the boy to the ground like a pile of dead meat.

“Get rid of it,” the man says, pointing at David.

“What?”

“Get rid of it. Put him with your friend.”

“But—”

“Disobey me again and see what happens,” the man says, narrowing his eyes.

David swallows and dips his head with a single nod. He staggers over to the dead boy and looks down at his vacant eyes. Shuddering, he unfastens the collar digging into the dead boy’s neck and tosses it aside. He drags the body to the building’s edge, gets to his knees and rolls it into the water, turning away before he sees the splash.

“We’re going to need a new cleaner,” the man says. “Someone who’s not going to steal from us. Any volunteers?”

David glances over to the other kids, all of them looking at their feet.

“No one?” the man says, shrugging. He turns to David. “You’re small. You’ll do.”

David squirms against the electrical wire wrapped around his wrists, binding his hands together as he’s led across the plank of wood extending between rooftops. He stares ahead, trying not to look down at the floodwaters as the wood wobbles beneath his bare feet.

The man with the grizzled beard directs him through a door, one hand firmly clasped on David’s shoulder.

An expansive factory floor opens out before them. A thick chemical odour penetrates the stench of the floodwaters. Steel vats stand in rows along the concrete floor. Twisted copper pipes spread out in all directions. A purple haze lingers in the air.

The man turns to David and unbinds his wrists. “You need to keep this place clean,” he says. “Whenever there’s a new cook, you need to get under those and get rid of the gunk.” He gestures beneath the vats. “Try not to get burnt, those things get very hot.”

David looks around and nods. “You want me to get under those?”

The man ignores the question. “If you steal, you’re dead. Same goes if you try to escape, if you’re late, if you don’t do what whoever is in charge says.” There’s a pause. “We clear?”

David shrugs. “Okay.”

A prod to the shoulder brings David from his sleep, the last fragments of plez pulling at the edge of his consciousness. He looks around in the gloom as the others sleep around him, and starts at the sight of a man, dressed from head-to-foot in yellow plastic, standing over him, a carbine hanging at his side.

“Come on,” the man says. “Time for work.”

David staggers to his feet, confused. “Okay,” He follows the man outside, across the bridge, and to the factory.

“Wait there,” the man says, pointing to a patch of floor near the door. He returns a minute later carrying a sweeping brush, a gasmask obscuring his face. “Clean,” he says, his voice muffled through the rubber and glass.

Sucking in his bottom lip, David takes the broom. “What’s the mask for?” he asks, his voice little more than a whisper.

“Speak up,” the man says.

“What’s with the mask?”

“Cooking fumes are bad for you.”

“Can I have one?”

The man lets out a laugh and shoulders his way past, shaking his head. He stops and looks back. “You keep your questions to yourself. Get cleaning.”

David spends the next few hours sweeping the room, wiping down vats, and tipping trays filled with ash into the floodwaters. He stands on the water’s edge, looking down, and then heads back inside, his stomach rumbling.

The factory heats up as a roaring fire burns at the far end. A purple-grey haze fills the room as steam rushes from the joins of copper pipes along the ceiling. David wobbles as his feet grow light. He taps the man on the shoulder. “Can I eat?”

“Don’t talk to me,” the man says, his voice distant. “You can eat when you’ve cleaned up this batch.”

David nods and watches as the man pulls a tray of gleaming purple crystals from beneath one of the vats, biting his bottom lip as he takes in their twinkling forms.

“Don’t even think about it,” the man says, shaking the crystals. He picks one up, turning it in the low light. “You saw what happened to the last one.”

“Looks like a good batch.”

The man pulls off his gasmask and wipes his sweat-soaked forehead with a sleeve, frowning. “Don’t be friendly.” He hangs the mask from a hook descending from the ceiling and gestures to a crate. “Bring me that.”

David runs to the corner and drags the battered wooden crate to the man. “Here okay?” he asks, looking up.

The man nods. “Hold it still.” He pours the crystals from the tray, letting them cascade into the crate, filling it halfway. “Put the lid on it.” He looks around, rubbing his chin. “Still not enough.”

David gives a confused look. “What?”

Raising a hand, the man’s eyes flicker with rage. “Take the crate back to where you got it and cover it up. We need another batch.”

Flinching, David looks over to the corner and nods. “Okay,” he whispers, dragging the crate backwards. When he reaches the corner, he rummages around the other crates until he finds the right cover. He places the sheet of wood over the crate, adjusting it until it slots into place.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Get rid of the crap.” The man gestures to the tar-like substance clinging to the underside of the vat.

David picks up a cloth and bucket, runs over and crawls underneath, scrubbing at the gunk. He calls out in pain when his hand brushes against the metal, still hot from the cook, and rolls out, clutching it.

“What is it?”

“Burned my hand,” David says, tears filling his eyes.

“Let me see,” the man says, grabbing at his wrist.

A bright-pink oval stretches from David’s little finger to his wrist, his skin frayed where the flesh peeled off against the metal. The man turns away and shrugs. “I’ve seen worse.”

“But it hurts.” Cross-legged, David leans forward, gritting his teeth against the pain.

“Get up. Do your job. If you can’t do your job, you’re done. You understand?”

David swallows and nods, his left hand throbbing.

Streams of dying light punctuate the gloom as David sits hunched over on his bedroll. He looks up, forcing a smile as Mike hands him a slice of hard bread. “Thanks,” he says in a whisper.

Mike scrunches a blanket into a ball and sits down next to David. “Weird without Bree, huh?”

David looks at the area of bare floor where Bree used to sleep, and sighs. “Just life, I guess.” He tears a chunk of the bread away with his teeth, moving it around his mouth as he chews, licking his lips against the dryness.

“What happened to your hand?” Mike asks, gesturing to the long blister.

“Got burned on one of the plez vats.”

“Looks bad.”

“It’s okay.”

Mike nods. “Plez will sort you out. Hit of that, and boom! You’re out.”

Shuddering, David takes another bite of bread and stares down at his hands.

“Did you see them make it?”

David nods and swallows. “My head really hurts.”

“You get any?” Mike whispers.

“And get strung-up?” He looks down at his burns and winces.

Shaking his head, Mike makes a wide smile. “Man, if I was in there, I’d just get as much as I could…” His voice trails off at David’s glare. “What?”

“I’m done with it. I wasn’t kidding. I’m getting clean. It’s bad.”

Mike smirks and lies back onto his bedroll. “I’ll have yours when they bring it round.”

David looks up when the door opens. A woman and man enter, both with rifles over their shoulders. The other kids jump to their feet. “Don’t move,” the man says, patting his rifle. “She’ll bring your plez.” He shakes his head as the woman hands out crystals to the other children. The kids scurry back to their bedrolls with their drugs, some lighting-up without hesitation.

Mike bolts to his feet when the woman approaches, and she hands him a single crystal. “What’s up with you?” she asks, looking down at David, still on his bedroll.

“My head hurts.”

The woman tosses a purple crystal, no bigger than a thumbnail, onto the blanket to David’s left. His mouth twitches as he grabs the crystal, watching as the woman moves away.

Mike lets out a snort and grins at David. “You let me have your plez?”

David doesn’t respond, his hand squeezing around the crystal.

“Thought not.” Stuffing the plez into a finger-length steel tube, Mike lights a candle and leans down to it with the pipe in his mouth. He turns to David and smiles. “See you on the other side.” Turning back to the candle, he pushes the crystal into the flame, holds it for a few seconds, and then inhales. A shudder spreads across his back and up along his neck. The pipe flops from his mouth and he slumps to his side.

The chemical tang hangs in the air. David cringes. He looks around at the others, many of them now in a stupor, and sighs. The burn on the side of his hand itches and throbs.

Leaning back, he stares at the ceiling, listening, breathing. He loosens his grip and lets the plez roll from his hand. Closing his eyes, he takes in a breath, holding it in until his he hears his heartbeat. He exhales and snaps to an upright position, his hand shooting towards the crystal and his pipe as his mouth turns desert dry.

A flood of tears catches him off guard when he looks over to the bare space where Bree used to sleep. He holds his breath, chewing on his fist. Cold sweat gathers along his back, seeping from his forehead. Dry heaves contract in his stomach, tearing at his throat and chest. Squeezing his eyes shut, he drives the plez into his pipe, leans towards the candle, inhales, and fades.

Shadows stretch beneath the vats as David scrubs the dull metal surface, taking care not to burn himself again. He slides from underneath and looks up at the man standing over him.

The man’s breath clicks and wheezes through the gasmask, his yellow plastic suit crackling with movement. He gives David an unsure look then glances over to the door. “I’m going for a pee,” he says, his voice muffled. “Stay here. Don’t move.” He pulls of his mask and hangs it from a hook.

David gives a nod and rubs the sweat from his brow as the man leaves. He looks towards the crate of plez and bites his lower lip for several seconds. The gush of foul air from the open door clears the lingering chemical fumes. He goes over to the door and leans outside, the light fading from the day.

Scanning the rooftops, he sees no signs of other people, no movement. The man stands on the edge of the rooftop with his back to David, urinating into the floodwaters below.

David looks towards the sunset, to the blotches of purple and orange smearing the sky. His eyes rest on the shoreline. He follows it south, tracing its shape with his finger, his gaze lingering on the end of the highway that winds its way west, fading into the hills.

“What you doing out here?”

David takes in a sharp breath and swivels on his heels. “I need to pee.”

The man eyes him for a second, and then nods. “Be quick. Nearly done anyway.”

Hesitating, David steps past the man and heads over to the building’s edge. He looks over the side and into the water as it sloshes against the bricks below. The rooftops around him stand empty. Firelight pours from a window in an opposite building. He flexes his burnt hand and looks over his shoulder, shivering at the chill wind, listening as it blows around the buildings in a low ghostly hum. He looks back down towards the water, staring for several seconds before sighing and heading back inside.

The man stands leaning against the doorway, waiting. “You took your time. We’ve got to get this shipment out first thing. Let’s get cleaned-up and get these crates out.”

“I think I can escape,” David says in a hushed voice, rolling on his side.

Mike stares back at him for several seconds, his face contorting into a smirk, and then a laugh. “We got it good here.”

David leans on his right elbow and sighs. An empty bowl of sour-tasting soup rests on the floor between them. “Good? You think this is good?” He waves a hand and Mike shrugs. “We’re going to die here.”

A sharp breath shoots from Mike nostrils. “We get beds, we get plez, we get food. I mean, yeah, the work’s bad, but we’re alive.”

“For how long?”

“You think things are better in the wastes?” Mike lies on his back, looking up at the ceiling. “No dogs, no raiders, no scavenging.” He counts the points on his fingers. “If you think being out there is better, you go ahead.”

“I want to be free.”

Mike sits up and looks back at him with purple-rimmed eyes, his face etched with deep creases, sweat glistening along his forehead. “So you can swim?”

“I don’t know.”

“So what’s your plan?”

David shrugs.

Another laugh splutters from Mike as he lies back on his bed. “Keep dreaming. Plez will be here soon. That’s when I’m free.”

The next morning, a man with a rifle strides into the room and sweeps his gaze across the children’s faces. “We’ve got a shipment to prepare, so you all need to stay in here.”

“What about work?” a boy asks.

The man turns and glowers at the boy. “Are you thick? I just said you all need to stay in here. That means no work.”

Mike rests his hands behind his head and leans back, grinning. “Happy days.”

Leaving the room, the man closes the door, bolting it behind him.

David frowns. “I need to pee,” he says, getting to his feet. He steps over the other children, his feet finding tiny islands of concrete among the sea of bedrolls and limbs. When he reaches the door, he knocks it and waits.

“What?” a voice asks after a few seconds.

“I need to go.”

“There’s a bucket.”

David glances at the bucket in the corner overflowing with urine and faeces, and wrinkles his nose. “It’s full. Please, I really need to pee.”

David staggers back as the door opens. A man leans in, looks at the bucket, and eyes David up and down. “You know where you’re going?”

David nods.

“Be quick.”

David slips past the man and makes his way to the roof. He looks over the water as the sunrise flares across the sky. He steps to the building’s edge and goes to pee, watching as a pair of dealers walk around a canoe, checking its hull for damage.

He goes to the other side of the roof and relieves himself. When he’s finished, he glances over to the shore, the shape of a campervan just visible at the end of the highway.

Looking around, he takes in a deep breath then jumps into the water. A shock of cold runs through his body as the water hits.

His head drops below the surface and he takes a mouthful of the foul water. He bobs up, gasping, kicking his legs frantically. The water covers his head again, stinging his eyes and filling his ears. He claws and scrambles, reaching towards the wall, trying to pull himself up, trying to breathe.

“Help,” he calls out, his words obscured by the water filling his mouth. Reaching out, he grabs a metal bracket jutting out from the wall and calls out again. The water pulls at him, tugging him down. “Help!”

With weak muscles, he tries to pull himself up, his arms bending halfway before giving out. His head falls below the water again, and he kicks his feet against the wall, trying to gain purchase. He reaches for the bracket again, gripping it with trembling fingers, his biceps throbbing with the cold. “Help. Anyone.”

“You,” the man calls down from the roof. “What you doing down there?”

“I…I fell in.”

The man lets out a mirthless laugh. “You tried to escape, didn’t you? You can’t even swim, can you?”

“I tripped.” David looks around, gasping. “Honest. I fell in.” He looks over his shoulder at the water. “I don’t want to leave.”

“Right.” Nodding, the man steps away from the edge, returning a few moments later with a length of blue rope. “If you’re lying…”

“I’m not…I didn’t…I wouldn’t…” David manages between coughs.

With narrowed eyes, the man lets down the rope until its end dips below the surface. “Grab on.”

David takes the rope, flinching as it takes his weight.

The man groans above, heaving the rope, bringing David up to the roof. Breathless, David rolls onto the roof, soaked and shivering. The water’s stench fills his clothes.

“Get up,” the man says.

David turns and vomits, the sick bursting from his mouth like black lava. Sweat and tears streak through the filth.

“Get up,” the man repeats, his voice colder, lower.

“I…I can’t.“ An explosion of vomit erupts from David’s mouth, and he flops onto his side. The man yanks him by the arm, dragging him to his feet.

“You’re lucky I don’t string you up.”

David swallows, trying to focus, trying to catch his breath, his heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears. “I didn’t mean to fall.”

“Get inside.”

Hesitating, David looks down at his clothes, sopping wet and coated in filth. “I’m too dirty.”

“You addicts are all dirty,” the man says, spitting on the ground. “Get inside.” He prods David with the rifle-butt.

“Okay.” David dips his head in assent then shambles forward, making his way back.

“This isn’t over. I’ll deal with you properly later.”

When the man closes the door behind him, David squints at the gloom as the other children stare up at him, wide-eyed. He stumbles over a few bodies on his way back to his bed-roll.

“Damn, what happened?” Mike asks.

David tears off his clothes and huddles into his blanket, still trembling. “I tried to escape,” he whispers.

Mike lets out a loud laugh. “You’re good,” he says, shaking his head. “You nearly had me there.” He slaps his thigh. “No, really. Why you wet?”

“Seriously.”

Mike sits up, raising his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“I thought I’d be able to swim, but I can’t.”

“So, what? You just jumped in the water?”

David nods. “I figured it couldn’t be hard.”

“How far did you get?”

“I didn’t. I just went under. The guy outside sent down a rope.”

“They know you tried to escape?”

“No.” David shrugs. “I said I fell in.”

“When you were having a pee?”

David smiles. “I think he believed me.”

Mike shakes his head. “If they knew you were trying to escape…”

“I know.”

“Get up,” a man’s voice growls in David’s ear.

“What?” David looks around, confused as the other children lie sleeping.

“Get up.” The man drags David to his feet, yanking him free of his blanket. “Come on. We’ve got to load the shipment.”

David rolls his shoulders, bones clicking in his neck. He follows the man outside, rubbing his eyes through the fog of sleep and plez. It’s still dark when he gets outside.

The man leads the way with a flaming torch, stopping when he reaches a stack of crates. “I need you to lower these onto those boats,” he says, pointing.

“It’s too dark. I can’t see.”

The man looks the kid up and down, his torch held out at arm’s-length to the side. “You saying you’re not going to follow orders?”

David sucks in his bottom lip and takes a step back, shaking his head. “It’s dark. What if I mess-up?”

“If you mess this up, you get strung-up. Is that clear?”

Swallowing, David nods and goes over to the crates, a coil of rope resting on the ground next to them. Among the crates, he places his hand on a blue plastic barrel. “Do I need to send this? It’s empty.”

“Does that look like a crate?”

There’s a long pause and the kid nods. “Just the crates?”

The man gives no response, only watches.

With fumbling, trembling hands, David takes the rope and secures it around the first crate. He looks back at the man, still standing over him, the torchlight providing the only source of light. “Where do I take it?”

“Lower them onto the boats. It’s not that difficult.”

David rubs sweat from his brow as the first hints of sunlight reveal themselves. “Sorry. I’ve just woke up. It’s the plez.”

The man stares at David for a long moment, a curl creasing the left side of his upper lip. “Addicts,” he spits, shaking his head. “Just get on with it.”

Taking the first crate in his arms, he ambles slowly to the roof’s edge and looks into the black waters. His eyes linger on the rippling of the waves, the tiny shimmers of reflected gloaming, before shifting them to the boat. A woman looks up at him, staring impatiently. “Well?”

David looks around. “Here.” He lowers the crate, the rope rubbing against his blister when the woman tugs at it with a sudden jerk.

She unfastens the rope from the crate and looks up at him. “Well? Don’t just stand there. Get the rest.”

David runs back to the crates, secures them with rope, and lowers them one-by-one to the woman, now distributing the shipments between four different boats. “Is that the last one?” she asks, after a while.

“That’s it,” David says.

“Good. Go see your boss.”

David looks around but sees no signs of the man. He wanders back to the blue plastic barrel, leaning his hand on it as he waits. After a minute, he yawns and looks down at his drumming fingers. A few of the Family’s dealers drop into boats, pushing out on the water towards the shore. He watches them for a minute or so, then turns back to the barrel, considering its shape, its hollowness.

The rising sun sends red light flooding across the rooftops. A breath catches in his throat as he takes the barrel, rolls it over the edge of the rooftop, and follows it into the water.

The cold shock hits him. He scrambles wildly, gasping as his head bobs beneath the water, its acrid foulness filling his lungs and burning his eyes. The barrel bobs on the surface, just out of reach. He leans forward and plunges beneath the water, kicking his legs and flapping his arms.

Turning, he grabs onto a rusted bracket and pulls his body against the wall. With a thrust of his legs, he shoots forward, grabbing around the sides of the barrel. A shout comes from above, echoing around him.

The barrel sinks low into the water when it takes his weight. David waits, and the barrel holds. The voices comes again, louder, more urgent. He ignores them and kicks his legs, moving forward, cutting a course through the freezing water.

He grabs the opposite wall with one hand, his other clasped to one of the barrel’s handles. A bullet whizzes by, the gunshot’s snap deafening. But he keeps going.

By the time he reaches open water, his legs move with slow, jellylike kicks, his muscles seizing against the effort and cold.

Teeth chattering, he smiles as the sun grows warm, its light soothing against the back of his neck. He heads northwest, away from the direction of the Family’s campervan, now no more than a speck in the distance.

A few gunshots ring out from the direction of the dealers’ boats, but he keeps pushing, keeps swimming.

He cries out when something sharp catches his left foot. Kicking weakly, he feels the land beneath the water.

A minute or so later, he reaches the shore, drags the barrel from the water, and flops to his side, exhausted.

It’s dark when David stirs. He looks around at the jet black sky, squinting as hunger and plez pull at his thoughts. His clothes hang damp and tattered from his body as he hugs his arms around his knees.

The need for plez pushes away the hunger. Sweat seeps from every pore, coating him in a layer of cold. He coughs and cries, looking back out over the water towards the Family.

Getting up, he wanders along the water’s edge, shingles clattering beneath his bare feet. He picks at long-dead bushes, sniffing their branches. His mouth grows dry and the need for water is almost as strong as the need for plez.

He wanders aimlessly until long after sunrise, coming to rest among the stones, curling into himself, sweating and crying as he rocks himself to sleep.

Grasses with stringy yellowed stems rest flat against the ground. David picks at them, sucking at their moisture, chewing them before spitting them onto the dirt.

Following the shore north for a few days, he staggers in a daze, stopping at the edge of the water to feel its wetness against his lips as the hunger tears through him.

He turns south, retracing his steps along the shore, heading towards the highway.

The smoke from the factory rises in black curls against the morning sun. David wipes the sweat from his brow, shivering, cold, hungry.

Crouching next to the floodwaters, he cups his hands and dips them below the surface.

“I wouldn’t drink that water if I were you, kid,” a voice says.

David stiffens and looks around. A man stands over him. A long leather jacket hangs past his knees, his face obscured by a kerchief, goggles, and a tattered red baseball cap. “It’s okay, kid.”

The man removes the goggles and kerchief, offers David a smile, and reaches out, offering him a water bottle. “I’m Abel.”

THE END

 

TheWasteLandSeries-Boxset (1)

Host – a dark short story

  The tunnels around me are dark, dark. I yearn for the hum of the strip lights, the drip, drip of the pipes. It’s cold down here. I lie, weighed down by my sac, as a dozen babies claw and writhe inside me.
It never used to be this way, but when the plague came, we all changed. Those that survived were never the same. A new norm emerged.
I whisper to the children. They’re not my children. They grow inside me, but they grow from the seeds of men and women. I am not like them. I am a host.
The men bring me food and water. The women bring me stories and blankets. They fear me, but they need me. Like soil, they need me to grow their seeds. Through their worship, their reverence, I can still taste their fear, bitter on my tongue. They look upon me as something else, something neither here nor there: a host.
I’ve heard whispers in the dark of “necessary evils” and “unfortunate realities”. Without me — without us — they cannot breed.
When they bring their offerings of sperm and ovum, I eat until I can eat no more. A desire to swallow the men and women, to tear them apart limb from limb — like a mantis extinguishing her mate — is only expunged by their restraints, their binds.
I know there are hosts like me who roam the tunnels and the wastes, feeding on their mates once the impregnation is complete. They aren’t like me — they are free.
There’s a tear in my sac. Amniotic fluid seeps around me, soaking my flesh. Men and women arrive. The first child is born a host. The child is cast to the flames.