The Palpable Obscure - Chapter 1

Hi All, since it's been a while since I posted any fiction, I thought I'd share this. It's the first chapter of my new novel 'The Palpable Obscure' - a story that follows Edinburgh ex-detective Max Milligan on his journey to find a reason to live. Enjoy!

Who shall tempt with wandering feet

The dark unbottomed infinite abyss

And through the palpable obscure find out

His uncouth way

- John Milton        

pal·pa·ble/ˈpalpəbəl/Adjective

1. Able to be touched or felt.

2. (esp. of a feeling or atmosphere) So intense as to be almost touched or felt.

ob·scure   Adjective

adj. ob·scur·er, ob·scur·est

1. Deficient in light; dark.

Prologue

Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh

- February 15^th 1987 -

Faster than he could realise it, the world began to hurtle up towards the sky, and the boy was pulled into the green and blue demon’s lair that lay beneath the ice. As he plunged into the murky water, time began to slow down and he felt the icy lake’s long watery fingers gripping him, slowly working their way up his body. The water felt like blades, tiny shards of glass working their way under the boy’s skin. They slowly worked their way up his legs and pulled his body under, the searing cold hitting the boy’s chest and knocking the breath out of him. He reached his hands high into the sky in one last scramble towards his world, when he felt an icy finger take hold of his face and pull him under, choking for breath. He held on tightly to what little air was in his lungs as he sank deeper. The pain paralysing – his brain was telling his arms to swim, but his arms wouldn’t oblige. They lay limp at his side, paralysed by the cold. He would die here. The boy looked up towards the light at the surface, and as his body forced him to exhale, he watched the bubbles float gently up towards it. He could feel his vision fading now.

It was time to let go.

I

Marchmont, Edinburgh

- Twenty four years later -

‘Just do it, man! Stop wasting time.’

Max could only hear Virgil’s husky voice very faintly, gurgling through the thick blanket of water that covered his face. The lukewarm bathwater had stung his eyes for only a few seconds as he looked up, soaking in the last earthly sights he ever hoped to see. He could vaguely make out the mottled outlines of his bathroom ceiling swimming above his head. He fought the urge to cry – he didn’t want to go that way, weeping like a baby.

Death was the only thing he had thought about for a long while, and now, at last, he would be able to welcome it. His work was done; he had nothing left to care about – only death. He would embrace it at last, and let every last part of his miserable life slip away to nothing. He probably wouldn’t have chosen drowning - that was Virgil’s idea - but it seemed like an easy enough way to do it, and in the end, he thought, it didn’t really matter how he did it. In a few seconds he would be gone, and drowning would be as good a death as any. He had always imagined that the last few seconds would be filled with thoughts of his life – of the little beauty he had seen in his youth, but all he could think about as he lay there, holding his breath, was how his body would look when they found it. He imagined some detective, someone he had known, no doubt, strolling into his bathroom, notepad in hand, and finding Max’s body, all blue and ivory, bobbing in the bathtub.

Poor Mr. Milligan, they’ll say, he thought. What a tragedy, they’ll say. No one had any clue he felt this way! He imagined everyone’s pity. He despised their pity.

‘You’re stalling. Just let go, Max. Exhale and let your lungs fill with water. Let the pain all slip away.’ Virgil’s voice bubbled out from the distance, and Max could just see his head rippling above the surface in the corner of his eye.

Max held on tight to the air in his lungs. He was stalling. Just a few more seconds. Suddenly he began to doubt himself. He began to feel afraid. Was this the only way? He tried to find some thing to cling to, a reason to stay; some beauty so perfect that it could save his life. There was none, of course. There had been so many long ago, he thought. So many questions, so much beauty – so much life and experience ahead of him. Stop it. Virgil’s right – just let go. He had nothing to be afraid of - life was the terrifying place. Life was where the demons dwelt. But death would be different. Empty. He longed for the emptiness. He longed for the nothingness. He longed for nothing.

Max snapped his eyes tightly shut, and as the darkness enveloped him, he slowly let out the air from his lungs, and it poured out into a torrent of bubbles which disappeared above his head, popping away to nothing on the surface. He was ready now. He began to feel his body sinking ever so slightly deeper into the bathtub.

Just as he began to open his mouth, and prepared to let the lukewarm water course into his lungs, he began to hear something. A loud beeping noise was bubbling through the water, and he instantly recognised it as his smoke alarm. Without really thinking about what he was doing, Max instantly sat up in the bath and the piercing sound became instantly louder as the water drained from his ears.

‘What?’ Virgil looked down at him from his perch at the side of the bath, seeming undisturbed by the whole situation.

‘That noise,’ said Max, trembling. ‘There’s someone in my house.’

‘There’s no one in your house, Max, it’s just in your imagination, just get on with it, before you lose your balls.’

But Max knew what he was hearing – this wasn’t his imagination. He climbed to his feet and negotiated his shaking legs out of the bathtub and onto the bathroom floor. For a second he stood motionless, just listening to the piercing beeping which stung his ears, and the drip-drip-drip of his saturated suit depositing his bathwater onto the tiled floor.

‘For Christ’s sake, Max, it’s nothing,’ snapped Virgil. ‘Just finish it – now.’

But Max had already begun to make his way towards the hall, apparently with little care for Virgil’s pushing, leaving tiny pools of glistening water in his path.

There was someone there alright, Max could tell. After a thirty year career as a detective, Max had learned to trust his intincts. His flat didn’t feel right, it felt disturbed. There was definitely someone there. When he reached the hall, he began to slow his pace down, and he crept, almost tiptoeing towards the kitchen. As he reached the illuminated archway that led into the kitchen, he felt many emotions welling inside of him, but mostly he felt anger. I can’t even kill myself without someone breaking in and interrupting me. He looked around for a weapon, and after seeing nothing more suitable, he picked up a cane from the hat stand in his hallway. The cane had a real ivory handle and had belonged to Max’s grandfather – it had been his pride and joy and Max was certain that he would disapprove of him using it as a weapon.

Slowly he tiptoed into his kitchen to see his toaster spewing smoke, and a tall, dark haired man in dirty, ripped clothes standing in front of it, waving a towel to try to dissipate the smoke.

‘Who are you?’ snapped Max from the archway that led into the hall, his cane held defensively in front of him. ‘What do you want from me?’

The stranger instantly swung around, and stood, frozen on the spot looking at Max, before bolting for the door. Max could hear the squelch-squelch-squelch coming from underneath his feet as he ran after the intruder. A much younger man than Max, he quickly bolted out of the house, and left without explanation.

Max stood at his front door, which was still swinging open, and listened to the man’s footsteps echo down the stairwell. He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of catching him, so he stood there and listened until the footsteps died away and once again all he could hear was the drip-drip-drip of his soaking clothes.

‘No one here then?’ Virgil’s voice coming from the hallway startled Max. ‘I told you it was nothing.’

‘There was a man,’ snapped Max. ‘He was in here just now. His clothes were all ripped and he looked like shit. And he was making…’ Max walked over to the toaster on his marble worktop, which had now stopped spewing smoke, and pulled from it a charred slice of Hovis. ‘…Toast.’

‘Oh, come on Max,’ sighed Virgil, ‘you have to be kidding.’ He began to walk slowly towards Max, rolling his eyes. ‘You mean to tell me that at the exact minute you’re finally ready to do it – that precise second we’re gonna do what we talked about all these years, a man walks into your house and ruins it? Bullshit, Max – you’re full of shit. That’s just a little too convenient, mate.’

‘He was here, in my house,’ pressed Max. ‘I saw him; I’m not making it up.’

‘If you keep doing this you’ll never escape, Max,’ said Virgil, turning his back in disgust and walking back towards the bathroom, raising his voice more and more the further away he got. ‘There’ll always be an excuse; you’ll always find a reason to pussy out. This isn’t a game, Max. This is atonement.’

Max dropped the charred toast onto the worktop, and turned to follow Virgil. Maybe he was right. Maybe he did make this guy up. It was very convenient timing after all. As he turned, he noticed something lying there next to the toaster. It was a scrap of paper. He picked it up and read the handwriting that was scrawled across it.

          ‘Dear Max, d’

Dear Max? He was here. Max hadn’t imagined him. But who the hell is he? And how does he know my name?

~

Kathy Heath clambered up the stairs, struggling to keep the recently cracked plant pot in her hands held together, and to keep the banana plant which it housed from falling to the ground. She now cursed herself for lugging it all the way up to Marchmont; but when she had seen it at the office, she thought of her recently departed new boss and decided to return it. The detective under whom she had worked, Max Milligan, had left recently (she wasn’t quite sure if had left of his own accord or not - it was all a bit strange and sudden), and he had forgotten to take his plant, (which he adored), with him. He had always seemed such a sad and lonely creature, and Kathy thought it would be a good deed to return it, and also she wanted to wish detective Milligan all the best in the future.

Soil was beginning to leak from the cracks now; as Kathy began the last flight of stairs. Some idiot had come tearing down the stairs and through the close, knocking Kathy, and the plant pot, over in the process. He had stopped to apologise, but not long enough to help Kathy up, or to help retrieve the cracked plant pot. Bloody idiot, thought Kathy. Why can’t people look where they’re going?

Kathy scaled the last few steps and came to the third floor, panting for breath, and immediately spotted the door labelled ‘Milligan 3F/2’. As she walked over to it, she noticed that it was sitting slightly ajar.

Max sat in his armchair, still dripping wet, holding his ivory handled cane across his lap. The world in front of him was a blurred sea of colours, rippling in drunken waves. Suddenly, through the silence, Max began to hear creaking coming from the hallway. Yes… footsteps – he’s back, he thought. He took a tighter grip of his cane and stumbled to his feet, and before long, a figure appeared in the doorway.

‘What do you want from me?’ roared Max at the top of his lungs. ‘Why are you in my house?’ Then, as he looked closer, he saw that this was no man. As his eyes began to focus, he realised that it was a woman, standing timidly in the doorway holding a banana plant.

‘Sorry, Detective Milligan… I… I didn’t mean to disturb you… I was just bringing your… and … and your door was open…’

Max looked closer and recognised the girl. ‘Kathy?’

‘Yes, Detective Milligan. Sorry, I just wanted to bring you your plant… it’s just you always seemed to love it so much, I thought you should have it with you…’ Kathy eyed Max’s soaking clothes and the cane which he held defensively in front of him. ‘Are you… okay, Detective Milligan?

Max sighed and slunk back into his seat. ‘I’m fine,’ he growled.

‘I’m… I’m sorry about your plant… it got a bit cracked. Some guy knocked me over as I was coming up the stairs, and-’

‘A guy? What guy?’ interrupted Max.

‘I don’t know,’ said Kathy, still visibly quite afraid. ‘Just some guy… he came tearing down the stairs like the devil was chasing him.

Maybe he was, thought Max. ‘Was this guy wearing a green jacket and a baseball cap?’

‘Yeah,’ replied Kathy. ‘Do you know him?’

Max coughed and lit a cigarette, which obscured his face in a cloud of smoke. ‘No,’ he said, almost laughing, ‘but he seems to know me. He broke in here just now, to my flat.’

‘My god,’ replied Kathy, feeling the fear that had been welling in her slip away, ‘are you okay? Did he hurt you…what did he take?’

‘Nothing,’ growled Max, feverishly puffing at his smoke. ‘In fact it looked like he was leaving something…’

Kathy took a couple of steps towards her old boss, which clearly made Max uncomfortable.

‘Thanks for bringing me up my plant, Kathy...’ he said, ‘…but I think you’d better go now. I… I need to be alone just now.’

Still Kathy advanced ever closer. ‘Are you hurt? Was there a struggle? Is that why you’re all wet?’

She was getting far too close, and now, more than ever, Max needed privacy. ‘Please Kathy,’ he shouted, startling the girl. ‘I – need – to – be – alone!’

Kathy, ever the Good Samaritan, put aside her own fears of the ever more irritated, clearly drunk man in front of her, to ensure that he was okay. ‘But… detective Milligan… you’re soaked to the skin and out of breath…You’ve just had a break in! I need to make sure you’re okay before I-’

‘Leave me alone!’ roared Max, trying to get to his feet. ‘Don’t people knock anymore, anyway?’ He had to get rid of her. He couldn’t bear human company just now. He needed to be alone.

‘…the door was open…’

‘That doesn’t mean you can come waltzing in here, sticking your nose into my affairs!’ Max got up and began to stumble towards the hall, reaching for his overcoat, snapping again. ‘If you won’t bloody well leave, then I will. Show yourself out, Kathy.’ And with that, he left Kathy alone in his flat, slamming the door behind him.

Kathy stood, dumbstruck, still holding the cracked banana plant in Max Milligan’s hallway, desperately trying to make sense of what had just happened. How ungrateful, she thought.

Novel Cover Design Tips

You can’t judge a book by its cover.

Sure – but we all do, anyway. We don’t have a choice. Aside from the hundred-or-so words on the back and the occasional review (if you’re lucky enough be reviewed), the front cover of a book is pretty much all a perspective buyer has to go on. So as the main tool that you use to market your magnum opus – the work into which you have poured your heart and soul, and countless lonely hours hunched over a keyboard – you had better make sure that it is the very best it can be.

So what makes a great cover? Hmmm… that’s a hard one to answer, as there is no one thing that makes any work of art great. And that’s just what your cover needs to be – art. It needs to be good enough to represent the potential Pulitzer prize winner it contains. Why spend all that time slaving over sentence structure and character arc, only to shoot yourself in the foot at the last hurdle by settling for anything less than a brilliant cover?

I’d like to share with you a few tips that I find useful when creating covers, and a few pitfalls to try to avoid, too.

• Don’t settle. I mentioned it above, but it’s such an important rule that so many self published authors over look, I felt that it needed to be reiterated. Never settle for any thing less than the perfect cover for your magnum opus.
• This one is really a personal thing – don’t put a clear image of your main character’s face on the front cover. I feel that this encroaches on the reader’s imagination and doesn’t permit them to build an image of the character through descriptions woven into the prose. If you feel you have to put a character on the front cover, I find that simply the suggestion of a character is much more effective. Think shadows and silhouettes, or even just a view where the face is obscured. From the back, perhaps?

• Perhaps the most important one of all, keep it SIMPLE. Bold, striking designs tend to catch the eye better than over complicated pieces. Many amateur-looking book covers fall into the trap of being overcrowded to the point of being undecipherable. In many cases, if it’s done right, you don’t even need to use an image at all. If the text is bold and impressive enough, it alone can make for a great cover. For good examples of this, see the covers of ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ’ by Phillip Pullman, or ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy.

• Make your title clear. It sounds obvious, I know, but all too often I see covers, and not just by self-published authors, where the title is crammed in to the very top of the cover in a tiny font, or placed haphazardly on top of a busy image that obscures it. Stay away from unreadable fonts, too. Within a split second of picking up your book, the customer shout know the title.
• For most self published authors, and indeed most traditionally published authors too; their main source of customers will be on the internet, though sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, so it is incredibly important that your cover looks good at a smaller size, as nine times out of ten on these sites it will be displayed as a thumbnail. This is where making it bold and simple becomes really important, as it will still stand out when reduced in size.

One of my favorite book covers of all time illustrates all of the above beautifully – the original Penguin cover for Anthony Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork Orange’, designed by David Pelham. It is Bold and eye-catching; it uses a character, but it is only the suggestion of a character, and with out a face to distract, and the title is clear and bold. I also love the way that the bright, almost comic-like effect contrasts so much with the dark themes of the book. But above all, this design works so well because it is simple and memorable. Follow these tips and you should be a lot closer to designing that perfect cover!

If you have any tips etc to add, I'd love to hear them!

- Kit

After the Revolution - Now Available at Amazon!

After The Revolution at Amazon.co.uk

After The Revolution is now available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com for the very reasonable prices of £4.49 and $7.20 respectively. Please stop by and check it out. My novella is also available from lulu.com at a discounted price (20% off!).

Thanks for all your support!

-Kit

When Alex gets a terrifying glimpse of the future, he sees what will become of his country. After the Revolution, Britain is a dictatorship at war. It is the year 2060 - London has been ripped apart by war, and the country is in the grip of Wilson, a dictator who bullied his way into power during the British revolution in the 2030's. As Alex, (a present day tourist to this time) investigates this strange landscape he is picked up by Wilson's secret police and detained as a potential enemy of the state. How will He cope when he returns? Can he cange the future? Will he?

Our Father - Part II

Good evening all,

Thanks for stopping by to visit my humble blog! The time has come for part II of my novella 'Our Father.' In case you missed it, part I can be found here. 'Our Father', follows the story of Yahweh, a God who lives within a community of Gods in the kingdom of Heaven, who is young and reckless, jealous and petty, and considered an upstart and a liability by all the other Gods. This tale follows him through the creation of a brand new world called Earth, and all the mistakes he makes along the way. And boy, are there a lot of them...

As ever, thanks for reading!

Eden

For the fist time in his existence, Yahweh felt worthy of his title, and his place amongst the Gods in the Kingdom. He looked down upon Eden, and all the creatures he had created with beaming pride and warmth in his heart.

The first man, whom Yahweh had crated from clay and named Adam, toiled away, tending to the garden, but Yahweh could see great loneliness in his eyes. So he commanded: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a companion fit for him.’

So once more, Yahweh descended into Eden, and upon his arrival caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. He leaned over the sleeping man, and from his chest he pulled a rib, out of which he created a mate for Adam. When Adam awoke he looked upon his new mate with joy, exclaiming: ‘This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh! She will be called woman, because she was taken out of man.'

The man and his new mate, who was named Eve, were happy in this paradise and Yahweh said unto them: ‘This is your home. Love it, tend to it – care for all the plants animals in it, for they are my gift to you. Be fruitful, go forth and multiply! Fill this land with your children! Work the land and nourish yourself with the fruits of your labour. From every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you may not eat. For the day that you eat from it you will surely die.’

So happy were the new pair, they agreed to their Lord’s commands and went of to enjoy the spoils of the Garden of Eden.

On the other side of the garden, from within the branches of a fig tree, the yellow eyes of a serpent watched as Adam and Eve toiled. But this was not one of God’s creations – this was an imitator. Venus had done as Jupiter had asked him and infiltrated Eden, hiding in the trees under the guise of a snake. He was ready to perform his test on Yahweh’s new creation.

In a shady corner of the garden, Eve, naked, though not ashamed of it, picked fruit from the fig trees when she heard a voice from between the leaves.

‘Eve,’ hissed the voice.

She turned and saw the serpent looking down at her from the branches. She wasn’t afraid. She knew no fear for she had no knowledge of good and evil.

‘Eve,’ the wheezing voice repeated. ‘Has God really said, "You shall not eat from any tree of the garden”?’

Eve replied: ‘We may eat from the trees of the garden, but of the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, "Do not eat from it, and do not even touch it, or that day you will surely die."'

The snake smiled. Venus was getting into character. ‘Surely you will not die! For your God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.'

Eve looked at the tree and trusted the snake. She pulled from its branches the most perfect apple ever to have existed and held it in front of her mouth.

‘Go on,’ hissed Venus. Though his words begged her to go on, Venus’s mind secretly hoped beyond hope that Eve would drop the apple and not give in to temptation. He hoped that his master’s creation was sound. He hoped Jupiter was wrong.

Alas, Eve bit into the apple and offered some to Adam. He too ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge.

Venus shed a tear and slithered off into the branches. His work was done.

Suddenly both Adam and Eve became aware aware that they were naked and they felt shame. Their eyes had been opened. They hurried to find fig leaves which they sewed together to cover themselves.

High above Eden, in the kingdom of heaven, Yahweh looked down with burning fury at his new creations covering themselves with fig leaves. In a crash of lightning and a blaze of fire, he cast himself back towards Eden, roaring: ‘They are my creation! They may not disobey me! I am their Lord! I am their Lord!’

When he came to Eden, the voice of God rang around the garden. ‘Where are you?’ he called out to the man and his mate. Yahweh was furious.

When they heard the angry voice of their God appearing from on high, Adam and Eve hid themselves in the bushes, but Yahweh soon found them and saw the fig leaves about their bodies. ‘What are these, about your person?’ he asked, seething.

Eve replied: ‘We are naked – we have sown together fig leaves to hide our shame.’

‘Who told you that you were naked?’ commanded Yahweh.

Neither Adam nor Eve replied.

‘Have you eaten from the tree of knowledge? The tree from which I told you not to eat?’

Eve told Yahweh all about the serpent, and how it had tricked them into eating the fruit.

Yahweh could not contain his fury. ‘What have you done?’ he bellowed. ‘As punishment for your actions – for your disobedience – I will cause you great trouble during pregnancy, and when you bear children, you will have great pain. You will desire your husband, and he will rule over you.!’

Around them the sky over Eden turned blood red with Yahweh’s anger.

‘And you,’ he said to Adam, ‘You listened to your wife, and ate the fruit which I commanded you not to eat. I hence forth put a curse on the ground! You will have to work very hard for food. The ground will produce weeds and thorns to stand in your way. You will toil, sweat and work hard for food, and eventually you will return to the ground. You once were dust, and so shall ye be again!’

And so Yahweh made Adam and Eve clothes from animal skins and cast them out of the paradise he had created for them and sent them out into the wilderness east of Eden.

The Fallen Angel

Yahweh came thundering back to Heaven in a blaze of fire and lightning and burst into the Great Hall where his mother and father and the rest of the heavenly committee sat, paying no attention to the angelic guards posted outside.

‘Yahweh,’ said his mother, barely startled by her son’s sudden appearance, ‘what brings you to the Great Hall? Should you not be tending to your new flock?’

‘I am betrayed!’ thundered Yahweh in response. ‘I have been tricked and used! Somebody wants my creation to fail, and they have planted the seeds of destruction in my work!’

Jupiter rose to his feet, towering above his son and turned the flames that were coming from Yahweh into wisping, lifeless smoke. ‘If your creation is bound for destruction, then it is the fruit of seeds you yourself have sown – nobody else. The creation is only as strong the creator.’

‘But,’ said Yahweh, ‘an impostor has snuck himself into my Garden of Eden and tricked mankind into disobeying me!’

‘Your creation has been tested. Your people are not as controlled as you had hoped.’

‘What can be expected for a creation that only took seven days?’ The mocking voice of one of the elders echoed from the other side of the hall. ‘Some things cannot be rushed.’

The fury within Yahweh was visibly rising again, and he turned with his mouth open towards the elder preparing to respond, when a nod from his father told him to tread carefully. He turned again towards his father. ‘But who has tested my world? Who has dared to test the almighty Yahweh?’

‘I did, Yahweh.’

Yahweh took a step back. ‘You, Father? But why? Have you no faith in me?’

Jupiter sat back down next to his wife and turned to his son. ‘You have not yet proven yourself worthy of the power of creation, and it was certainly not my idea to allow you it. You have shown yourself to be short sighted, cruel, jealous and work-shy in the past - far too immature in many of our eyes. When you created this world in seven days – a short stretch by anyone’s standards, we wanted to be sure it was worthy.’

‘And you, father,’ replied Yahweh, ‘you snuck into Eden and tricked my Adam and my Eve?’

‘I did not.’

The rage began to boil as Yahweh hissed his words through curled lips. ‘Then who? Who has dared to test me? Let them feel my wrath!’

Thoah entered the Great Hall and bowed before Jupiter. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘the Angel Venus is here at your request.’

Yahweh looked into his father’s eyes and knew the truth.

‘Send him in,’ said Jupiter.

‘Venus? My own angel? My own servant?’ He heard Venus’s footsteps behind him. ‘He will pay dearly for this.’

Yahweh turned around and lit up in a blaze of fire and lightning. ‘Venus! How dare you test your master? What have you done? You have destroyed my creation! And you will pay! You will be sent to a lake of fire for eternity! There you will suffer in the darkness and brimstone with all your Angels for your disobedience!’

‘My Lord…’ stuttered Venus, ‘…this is hardly fair-’

‘Fair is not a factor in this, Venus, you have betrayed me! It is MY world! MY creation! I am your master and you will do as I command of you! Now be gone!’

And a pit as black as night opened underneath Venus and his angels, and they were swallowed into the hellfire.

Our Father - The story of a God who didn't believe in himself.

Hello all,

I realise it's been a while since I posted some fiction on kitfosterfiction, so I've decided to post an excerpt from the new novella I'm writing, which will be part of a larger work, entitled 'The Children of Disobedience' which should hopefully be complete by the end of this summer. This extract, which is from a story called 'Our Father', follows the story of Yahweh, a God who lives within a community of Gods in the kingdom of Heaven, who is young and reckless, jealous and petty, and considered an upstart and a liability by all the other Gods. This tale follows him through the creation of a brand new world called Earth, and all the mistakes he makes along the way. And boy, is there a lot of them - as anyone who has even glanced at a bible will know! The story will pretty much comprise of the tale of the bible, only told from a very different perspective.

Hope you enjoy - please comment and let me know what you think!

‘God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we — we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.’

- Friedrich Nietzsche


Yahweh

In the time before time, before the seas were filled and the mountains rose to touch the sky; before the sky even, there was born unto the heavens a race of Gods. Few among them knew where they themselves came from, but they had been around for a long time; perhaps forever – not even they knew. Such a trivial human concept as time did not concern them, anyhow; they were content just to be. As gods do, they had, by human standards, infinite powers and were capable of the power of creation. That was their crowning achievement, their greatest skill – the power to breathe life where is none. Each God carefully crafted the world of his own creation and watched as it bloomed millennium after millennium. Like gardeners tending to their allotments they watched and coaxed life into action.

Yahweh wasn’t like the other gods. It was clear to his mother and father and all of his older siblings that he wasn’t the same as them. He lacked the foresight that his elders had, and of all the Gods in the kingdom of heaven (his own father included) considered him to be an upstart. He was quick to temper and was rarely given any responsibility because of his recklessness. His older brother, who had, like his father and his father before him, been entrusted with the power of creation used to tease him about his shortcomings, telling him that he could never amount to anything. The power of creation was a right reserved only for those who had shown their maturity, and Yahweh was still not deemed worthy.

But rather than contain his temper and recklessness and further his maturity, deprivation of the power of creation only frustrated Yahweh further. He would watch as the elders boasted their fine creations – beautiful, thriving, harmonious worlds which they tended to with great care and attention. How he longed to care for a world of his own, how he longed to do what he was intended to do.

His mother saw the sadness in her son’s eyes and decided to take pity on him, so she called him to her side and said: ‘My son, you are young and you still have much to learn, however it is your right as one of us, that you should be trusted with the power of creation as was your father and his father before. May you use your gift wisely an may it bring you happiness and maturity.’

And so it was that Yahweh, much to the disapproving disgruntlement of his father and others amongst the elders of the Gods, was given the gift of creation.



Creation

And so Yahweh thanked his mother for the pity she had shown him, and went to create his new world.

First he created the earth. It was a dark, vast pool without form. Then he commanded through the darkness: ‘Let there be light!’
And there was light. Yahweh saw the light and he separated it from the darkness. He called the light day and the dark night. And so the darkness came – and so too came the light. This was the first day - and it was good.

On the second day, he commanded that there should be something to divide the water, and so the water split in two, with a body of air in the middle. He called this the sky.

Then he commanded: ‘Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear!’
And it was so. Yahweh called the land earth and the water seas. And it was good.
And Yahweh looked down upon his newly created earth and said, 'Let the land produce seed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees of every kind.’ And it was so. From the barren earth shot up thousands of plants and trees all over the planet. Yahweh saw the fruits of his work – and it was good. This was the third day.

On the fourth day, he created lights in the sky to separate night from day. These would be the markers of the seasons, years and days. He created the sun to warm the days and the moon and stars to mark the coming of night.

Yahweh observed his new world with pride: the flowing oceans, the sky full of burning trophies of his work, and the land, rich with fruit and seed bearing plants. It was good, but still incomplete.

On the fifth day, Yahweh called out across the land: 'Let the waters swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the sky.' And it was so. All over this new land, animals of all kinds sprung up and took their lives. The seas filled with fish and other sea creatures, the sky filled with birds and other winged beasts taking flight for the very first time, and the land bore cattle and insects and all the other wild creatures of the land.

He looked down upon the new beasts of the world and saw that it was good, before calling out to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the seas, land and sky alike!’

On the sixth day, Yahweh crated someone to watch over these beasts. From the clay in the ground, he moulded a creation in his own image – Man, into which he breathed the gift of life through his nostrils. The man took his first breath and sprang to life before Yahweh’s eyes. He saw the man – and it was good. Then he said unto him: ‘Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every creature that moves on the ground. I give you every seed-bearing plant and every fruit-bearing tree on the face of the earth to be yours for food. And to all the animals of the earth, all the birds of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground, I give every green plant for food.’

Yahweh looked down upon his completed work. It was good. He was so proud; he could not wait to show his mother and father.

He was pleased with his works, and on the seventh day he rested.

Venus

Jupiter, Yahweh’s father looked down upon his son’s creation with great interest and sighed as he turned to his wife. ‘Never before has any God completed creation in seven days… he can’t have done a thorough job.’

His wife replied that it was essential that they trust him, and that ‘He can only begin to grow if we allow him to spread his wings – he has to be given responsibilities. He is still young-’

‘He’s irresponsible,’ he snapped back. ‘He’s irresponsible, quick to temper, and he has no foresight. You should never have trusted him with creation. Not yet at least.’

‘He has to learn-’
‘Never before in the whole kingdom has there been a child like him.’

Suddenly, Thoah - one of Jupiter’s archangels, came striding in and bowed before his superiors. ‘My Lord,’ he said, addressing Jupiter. ‘Venus seeks an audience with you. He is waiting outside.’

‘Send him in,’ replied Jupiter, nodding towards the angel.
‘Venus?’ said Hera, Yahweh’s mother. ‘He’s one of Yahweh’s angels… what news has he?’
‘I called for him.’
‘You called for him…? What have you planned…?’

Moments later, a beautiful angel with flowing blond hair and a face like lightning came striding in towards Jupiter.

‘Venus!’ said Jupiter to the angel.
‘My Lord,’ said Venus bowing at the feet of his superior. ‘You sent for me?’
‘I did. You are assigned to my son, Yahweh, are you not?’
‘I am indeed,’ replied Venus.
‘How do you find him?’ asked Jupiter, ‘as a master?’
Venus rose to his feet and stood two steps back, his head still bowed in reverence to this elder of the Gods who had invited him to his audience. ‘He has always been good to me and my angels. He was very glad to be granted the power of creation.’
‘This lack of power,’ interrupted Yahweh’s mother, ‘it frustrated him in the past?’
Venus hesitated before replying. ‘Yes,’ he said at last.
‘Did he speak to you about it?’ asked Jupiter.
‘On occasion. I believe he felt somehow inadequate before he was granted this power. He felt as though his peers had little faith in him. After a while he began to lose faith in himself.’
‘And you,’ said Jupiter, ‘do you have faith in him?’
Venus hesitated. ‘He is my master,’ he eventually replied. ‘I have faith in any God – and when all is said and done he is no different. It is not my place to judge any God, my lord; I am but an angel – a slave to your grace – Yahweh’s worth will be proved by his works, and not by words of mine.’
‘You are a loyal servant,’ said Yahweh’s mother.
Venus bowed in appreciation.

‘I have a job for you, Venus,’ said Jupiter. ‘I wish to test the strength of my son’s creation, to see if he has created a world fit to be inhabited.’
‘And what is my task?’
‘You will go down to this place Yahweh has created – you will find the Garden of Eden - that is the paradise that Yahweh has given to this 'Man' of his, and you will give his 'Man' a choice.’

After the Revolution - Paperback and eBook now available!

Hi all!

As you can probably tell from the sexy link to the right of this text, my novella 'After the Revolution' is now available to buy on Lulu.com for the low low price of £3:59 for the paperback and £2:39 for the ebook. That's only the price of a cup of coffee, so you can't lose! Buy your copy today and follow Alex on his journey through London in the year 2060, as Britain is a country at war in the grip of Wilson, the ruthless dictator who bullied himself in to power during the British revolution in the 2030's.

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After the Revolution - Part 9

Good morning, all! This is the final part of 'After the Revolution' - the (hopefully) thrilling conclusion. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and thank you again to everyone who has taken the time to look at it. If anyone would like a hard copy of the book then please contact me through the comments section. Thank you again.

After the Revolution - Part Nine

Nineteen

(After the Revolution)

Alex’s heart raced as he darted through the war torn streets of the city that had once been his home. Desperately running, trying not to think about the agonising pain in his back, his mind set on one thing. Home. He needed to wake up from this nightmare, and he needed to wake up soon. He kept to the darkness, hiding in the shadows of the twisted remains of buildings for fear of being picked up by Wilson’s POLA again. Ralph was gone. He thought about the child’s body, lying so still on the cellar steps. He was an innocent. What had he done to deserve that fate? He was just a child; another innocent casualty of Wilson’s regime.

As Alex approached the abandoned school where he had left his machine, the fist few flakes of a snowfall began to drift silently through the dark air. Even the snow here looked grey and bleak. It looked polluted… had Wilson taken that to? As the snowflakes drifted towards the ground, they landed in thick piles of ash from the air raid and rested in puddles of grey slush.

Alex looked left and right. They’re watching me… They’re waiting for me… Stoltz was right… they’re always watching. When he was sure that all was clear, he began to climb across the rubble towards the school.

Bernard flipped the switch on the television, stunned that the power was still running, and watched the screen come to life. He had been hiding out in this classroom, next to some huge metal machine for two nights now and this was the first time it had occurred to him to try the television.

No signal, of course. Just static.

He picked up a DVD from the teacher’s desk and looked at the cover. It read ‘Britain after the Revolution: How Wilson reclaimed Great Britain for the people.’ Bernard actually laughed out loud as he read the title to himself and looked at the artist’s impression of a gleaming and prospering London on the front cover. He’d watched these kind of videos at school as a child; Wilson’s standard classroom propaganda.

It’s not exactly primetime entertainment, he thought as he slipped it into the player, but it’ll do under the circumstances.

As Alex approached the door to the classroom, he began to hear something coming from inside. Talking. He stood for a minute, listening to the sound through the wall. He couldn’t pick out any individual words, just a mumble of sounds. He knew he had to go in there, people or not. His only chance of escaping this world lay on the other side of that wall; and he had to escape. Slowly he pulled the gun that he had seized from the POLA guard up to his face and turned the corner and into the classroom through the hole in the wall. As he stood on the threshold, pointing his weapon into the dark disused classroom, he saw his machine, illuminated only by the glow of the blaring television that stood next to it. In front of the television, he saw a man sitting with his back to Alex in the teacher’s chair watching the screen. Before he even had time to think about what he was doing, the words bellowed out of his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’

The man jumped up and turned around to face Alex, eyeing the gun in his hand. ‘Whoa, mate… take it easy. I found this place… I found it fair and square. Let’s not do anything rash.’

Alex coughed, and snapped through pained breaths. ‘Get out of here. Now.’

‘Come on mate,’ replied the man. ‘We all need a place to hide these days… I found this place… Just let me be.’

‘You found this place… but I’ve got the gun. Now move.’ Alex began to walk towards the man, any fear he would have once felt now soaked in adrenaline. ‘Move!’

The man began to walk towards Alex, shuffling towards the other end of the room with his hands raised. ‘Okay, mate,’ he said, ‘you’ve got the gun.’ When he had passed Alex, he began to run and darted out through the hole in the wall.

As Bernard stood on the mound of rubble and looked out towards the decaying city, he shivered and pulled his collar around his neck, anticipating another night of the bitter cold. He turned back and looked only once towards the school.

Idiot.

Alex felt comforted to see his machine. It was something comforting… something he knew; something from his world. He glanced briefly at the television screen as he leapt into his machine, ready to return home. He pulled the door closed and prepared to leave, but as he tried to power up, something was wrong. Shit. It wouldn’t go. It couldn’t get enough power up. He leapt out of the machine, barely even noticing the searing pain in his back anymore to assess what the damage was. As he circled the machine, he suddenly felt a terrible feeling of claustrophobia. He felt trapped. Would he ever return home?

Then he saw it. One of the side panels had come loose and it looked like something had been chewing the wires. Stupid bloody rats.

He immediately dropped to his knees and began to repair the damage as best he could with no tools. His heart began to pound in his chest as he anticipated being stuck in this world forever. As he worked, he listened to the television that was still blaring in the corner of the room.

‘… and then thirty years ago, the world changed forever, when Wilson led the Great Britain to victory, defeating the Conservative government who were crippling the country, and restoring power to the people in the British Revolution. But our great leader came from humble beginnings. He was born in London where he was raised by his mother…’

As Alex worked, he glanced up at the screen. As he did, his blood turned to ice and his stomach turned to lead. There, on the screen, looking out through her big dark eyes, was the face he had seen all week, every time he closed his eyes. Looking down at him from the television screen was his wife. He froze and stared intently at the screen.

‘…Wilson adopted his mother’s maiden name from birth, after his father…’ Alex felt physically sick as he saw a photograph of himself flash on the screen. ‘…was locked up in the Stewart Mental Institution for attempting to kill his wife when she was pregnant with Wilson. Many speculate that it was because of this trauma to his life and his mother’s life that led Wilson to have such strong morals regarding leadership and guidance…’

Alex was numb as he replayed what he had just heard again and again in his head. Tears began to stream down his face. All of this… It’s my fault… It’s all because of me.

Still he kept tweaking at wires, trying to repair the loose connections as his world crumbled around him.

At last he finished, and unsure if the thing would even work, he replaced the panel and began to climb back in. He clutched Ralph’s scarf tightly as he pulled the door closed, taking one last look at the terrifying nightmare that he had travelled to, and began to power up the machine. This time it felt different, he could feel that it was working better. He set the coordinates for the exact point in time that he had left from and took a deep breath as he prepared to engage. Suddenly there was a flash of blinding light, and a deafening roar. Alex snapped his eyes tightly shut and tensed every muscle in his body as the machine began to shake underneath him.

Then, just as quickly as it had come, the light disappeared and Alex tentatively opened his eyes. All he could see was smoke; thick smoke. Did it work?

With the little strength Alex had left, he pushed the hatch door open and fell on to the ground. He lay on the floor, shaking and taking deep, exhausted breaths, trying his best to see anything through the smoke. Then he heard a voice, slipping through the grey fog.

‘A… Alex?’

As Alex turned, he looked up and saw her, and just before he lost consciousness, he managed to speak.

‘Annie? Is that you, Annie? I… I’m back…’

‘…I’m back.’

Twenty

(Present Day)

The trial didn’t last long. It was pretty much unanimously agreed that he was guilty. Even Alex knew that. And then there he was, back in a cell again. Back in the darkness, only this time he didn’t have Ralph by his side to comfort him. Ralph wouldn’t even exist for another forty years. Forty years… and it seems like just yesterday.

He looked up at the grey walls that towered around him; it could be fifty or a hundred years from his own time. How would he know? There is no way to keep time in this cell. They thought that he was a madman… they thought he was dangerous… so they threw him in here for the rest of his time on this earth. What did time really mean, anyway? It could be the very dawn of time or the end of the world and it would be all the same to Alex. No windows… no contact. They’ll turn me into a madman…

But he had done what was right. He had done what needed to be done. They didn’t know it… they would never know it… be he saved them all. Now there will be no revolution. He thought about that seed; that seed of evil that was growing inside his wife. He had stopped it – for the greater good.

He laughed as he found himself muttering the same three words over and over to himself.

Power… Strength… Freedom.

Power… Strength… Freedom, Power… Strength… Freedom.

Not anymore. He had saved them all… and all it had cost was his life and freedom.

How had this all begun? Alex though back to his messy workshop and the device. Only a matter of weeks ago it had meant everything to him… But now it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Alive or dead… free or incarcerated… none of it mattered anymore.

How could a heap of metal cause so much trouble?

Some things are too great for man to cope with. No man should know what lies ahead. It’s enough to send him mad.

Alex jumped as the metal shutter on his cell door screeched open and a long shaft of light poured into the black room. A steel food tray was pushed through the opening, and the guard on the other side hissed through.

‘Hey,’ he said, sneering, ‘I just thought you’d like to know… she’s gonna be fine. Your girl? The one you beat up? She’s gonna be fine… you failed, you piece of shit.’ The guard slammed the shutter closed and cell was once again in darkness.

No… It can’t be true. He had left her for dead. He thought she was dead. All my work could be in vain! The baby couldn’t survive… It can’t have.

Alex stood up and began to pace the tiny cell, hoping and praying that all he had done had not been in vain; that he had stopped the revolution.

He began to get frustrated and started banging on the wall, shouting at the top of his lungs to anyone who could hear him.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing! He’ll kill us all!’ he banged louder on the steel door. ‘Everything will change after the revolution! Can you hear me? Can you hear me you vile pigs? Power! Strength! Freedom!’

* * * * * *

‘It’s a miracle!’ said the nurse, turning to her colleague, who was washing her hands. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it in all your days?’ She looked down as she placed the newly delivered baby into the incubator. ‘He’s a little fighter.’ As she turned around to take a wristband from the highest shelf, she caught a glimpse of the mother, lying on the bed with a sheet over her head. ‘What a shame the poor soul lost his mother, though… what did she say her name was?

The other nurse wiped a tear from her eye as she dried her hands. ‘Annie. Her husband beat her up - nearly killed her. They locked him away for a very long time. It’s a miracle she survived long enough to deliver this little fella.’

‘…what a shame.’ The nurse pulled a tiny wristband from a box on the highest shelf and flipped the lid from her pen and sat poised. ‘What’s the mother’s maiden name?’

The other nurse checked her notes and looked up.

‘Wilson…’

The End

After the Revolution - Part 8

Good Morning all, time for part eight of 'After the Revolution.' Recap below - Enjoy!

Whilst testing his newly developed time machine, Alex finds himself in the year 2060. London, his home, has been ripped apart by war, and the country is in the grip of Wilson, a ruthless dictator who bullied his way into power during the British revolution that happened in the late 2030's. As he investigates this strange, yet familiar landscape, he is picked up by the POLA, Wilson's secret police and detained as a potential enemy of the state. He is held in a dark cell with Ralph, a young orphan who is trying to survive in war torn streets London. The officers discover that Alex has no identity chip (a necessity for all citizens in 2060) and take him to see Wilson in person, suspecting that he may part of the counter revolution that is planning to end Wilson's rule. Wilson orders that Alex is made an example off, and sends him to the infamous Room Ten, where a man called McCarthy, a man who gets answers, waits for him. After suffering torture at the hands of his oppressors, Alex and Ralph escape the prison during an air raid. Now they are free on the streets of London - but they are hunted...

Back in 2010, Alex has returned from his trip to the future, and his wife is left to deal with the silent terrified shell of a man that he has become. Gradually he becomes more edgy as he tries to come to terms with his experience. Slowly his silence and fear turn to anger and resentment as the marriage begins to fall apart. When Annie tells Alex that she is pregnant, everything changes. Alex becomes violent and in the middle of the night creeps into Annie's room to attack her and the baby growing inside of her...

Seventeen

After the Revolution

‘How’d you get out?’ Stoltz peered up though a tiny window that looked out on to the main street, the amber glow of flames reflecting on his face.

‘The prison was hit,’ mumbled Alex, still in too much pain to function correctly. ‘They blew a big hole right in the wall of our cell.’

‘From the looks of things,’ Stoltz said, pointing to the long scars at the top of Alex’s neck, ‘they took you to see McCarthy.’

Alex looked at the ground and nodded.

Suddenly, Stoltz lurched forwards towards Alex and snapped accusingly. ‘Did they get to you? What did you tell them?’

Alex didn’t reply.

‘They got to you… didn’t they? And you blabbed… you told them everything… you coward.’

Ralph stepped out of the darkness and snapped at Stoltz, protecting his friend. ‘He didn’t tell them anything! For seven days straight they took him to Room Ten, they brought him back battered and bleeding… but he didn’t say a thing… not a thing! He’s no coward!’

Stoltz stepped away from Alex.

‘Who’s the kid?’ he sneered. ‘He your boy?’

Alex looked round at Ralph and smiled appreciatively. ‘He’s my friend.’

‘Well,’ replied Stoltz, turning back towards the window, ‘I guess a man can use all the friends he can get these days.’

‘How did you escape?’ said Alex between pained breaths.

Stoltz grinned, turning back to Alex and squinting across the dark cellar. ‘They can’t keep me for long… no, I’m too good for them.’

‘Were you in the prison when the bomb hit too?’ asked Ralph.

‘Don’t be silly… They never even got me to that place. I’ve been out for days now. When the guards were taking me back to the transport, I beat them both… both at once… and then I was free.’ Stoltz smiled demonically. ‘So I guess it’s true, mate. It’s true what they say. Power… strength…’ He waved his arms in front of his face a conjurer would at the climax of his trick ‘…Freedom.’

‘Thanks for helping us back there…’ Alex paused as he tried to remember the man’s name.

‘Stoltz.’

‘Stoltz… yeah. Thanks.’ Alex took a good look around the dark room. ‘What is this place?’

‘This place is safety. For you at least. If you want to survive in London these days, you only have to know one thing. Where to hide.’ He walked back over to the window and surveyed the street above them once again. ‘They’re watching us. They’re always watching us. You have to know where to hide… where to hide, if you want to stay free. They can sniff out a defector… that’s what they do. That’s all they do. That’s all the POLA have ever done.’ He scratched his chin as he looked wistfully out at the collapsing city above him. ‘I remember this place. This street. There used to be a church over there, on the other side of the road… and big oak trees used to swing in front of it. I was only a child then of course…’

Stoltz turned around suddenly, looking up at Alex with his head bowed. ‘After the revolution, everything changed. Wilson took charge, and bit by bit our country began to decay. Do you remember what it used to be like, mate?’

Alex stared vacantly into space, thinking about what it used to be like, as Ralph crept out of the darkness and sought comfort by Alex’s side.

‘Of course not… you can’t be older than forty… you probably weren’t even born until just before the revolution.’ Stoltz took a seat on an oak barrel and stared at the dusty concrete floor. ‘Life was a different kettle of fish before Wilson seized power. I remember Lying on beaches…’ He half laughed to himself. ‘Sunday dinner… my old mum made a blinding roast.’ He looked up at Alex and Ralph. ‘And what do we have now? This…’ he gestured up towards the window, ‘…this burnt out shell of a home? This twisted graveyard of a city? We’re always on the run. We always will be on the run. For ever… for the rest of our life. What the hell is life anyway?’ He lurched forward towards the pair, gesturing wildly. ‘What is death? Does it even make a difference now?’ He looked around the room. ‘We’re out. But we’re only out for now. They will find us. They will find us! All of this… all of this… shit… and for what? For Wilson’s glorious dream of rebuilding the empire!’ He raised his voice to the point of nearly shouting. ‘For power…’ Stoltz saluted, ‘Strength… and Freedom!’ He began shouting at the top of his lungs. ‘Power, Strength, Freedom! Power, Strength, Freedom!’

Alex looked up at the window and heard voices outside as he began to try and calm Stoltz. They’ll find us for sure.

Still Stoltz kept shouting at the top of his lungs, repeating Wilson’s mantra again and again. He began to laugh hysterically as he shouted.

‘Power, Strength, Freedom! Power, Strength, Freedom!’

‘Be quiet!’ snapped Alex in a loud whisper. ‘They’ll hear you! They’ll find us!’

‘Let them come!’ Shouted Stoltz. ‘Let them capture us! Let the game continue! What else is there to do?’

Alex jumped as he began to hear footsteps at the top of the cellar stairs, and immediately fell back into the darkness, pulling Ralph with him. They crept into an alcove buried deep in the darkness at the back of the cellar and watched as two armed POLA officers marched down the stairs and held their guns up at the screaming Stoltz.

‘Put your hands up!’ Shouted the officer in front, as Stoltz jumped forward, and with one lightning fast swing of his fist, knocked the officer to the ground. The second guard lurched instinctively forward towards Stoltz, and as he tried his best to restrain him, Ralph turned to Alex and whispered through the darkness.

‘Now, Alex… now’s our chance… let’s make a run for it whilst he’s got them distracted…’

As soon as the words were out of his lips, Alex felt Ralph begin to slip towards the door. Alex whispered as he reached out to try and stop him.

‘Ralph! No!’

But he was gone. Alex’s fingertips brushed the edge of Ralph’s coat and his left index finger caught the boy’s red scarf, causing it to stay in Alex’s hand as Ralph fled towards the cellar door. Alex watched the boy, knowing that coming out of the alcove would be a very bad idea, praying that he would make it out safely, and then, just as Ralph made it to the stairs, going apparently unnoticed, Alex heard the loud crash of empty paint tins coming hurtling down the steps behind him.

Shit.

Suddenly, the guard who had been knocked out rose to his feet and swung around, pointing his gun at Ralph, and Alex snapped his eyes tightly shut as he heard the deafening roar of gunshot echo throughout the cellar.

No… Alex didn’t dare open his eyes for several seconds, and when he did, he felt his heart shatter. He watched as Stoltz pulled at the guard like a wild animal as Ralph’s body lay, lifeless on the cellar steps. Without even realising what he was doing, he felt himself rising to his feet and marching out of his hiding place towards the guards. Whilst Stoltz was busy with one of them, Alex sprang out and knocked the other unconscious. Then he turned to the other guard, who Stoltz already had restrained, and slugged him in the stomach, before wrestling his gun from his hands. ‘What have you done?’ he shouted. ‘He was just a child! What kind of animal are you?’ Alex held the guards own gun to his head and felt his finger tickling the trigger. A demonic smile came across Stoltz’s face. ‘Do it!’ he laughed. ‘Kill him… kill the vile pig!’

Alex looked the guard in the eye, his grip growing tighter on the trigger, tears streaming from his eyes.

‘You deserve to die,’ he said. ‘But I don’t deserve to be a killer.’ And with that, he marched up the cellar steps, gripping Ralph’s scarf tightly in his hand, and headed off in to the night.

It was time to go home.

Eighteen

Present Day

He sat in the park in the cold morning air, warming his hands in his pockets as he looked across at the glowing blue lights shooting out across the misty dusk from the ambulances and police cars outside his house. He had nowhere else to go… nothing else to do. As Alex sat on the bench, he didn’t even think about what he had done. His mind was clear; he just sat and breathed in the morning enjoying the little freedom he knew he had left.

They would find him. Of course they would find him. And he deserved to be arrested for what he had done; he knew that. He was out, but only for now.

They will find me. Let them come. Let them capture me. Let the game continue… what else is there to do?

In the meantime he sat in the safety of the park across the street from the crime scene. They’ll probably just think I’m some bum. I’ll hide in plain sight. If I want to escape I only have to know one thing; where to hide… where to hide.

For a fleeting second Alex thought about Annie. It was for the greater good. I could not bring a child into this world… and I could not suffer to see my wife go through the pain…

Then he saw them. Dressed in fluorescent yellow jackets and entering through the park gates. His entire body went numb as one of the two police officers pointed at him, and began to jog quickly towards him. Everything slowed down as the two men approached him and shared a nod with each other. They grabbed Alex by the shoulder and as they pulled him to his feet, his vision faded into a wash of colours. He was sure one of them was speaking to him as he felt the cold steel of handcuffs around his wrists, but he hid didn’t reply.

It was for the greater good, he thought.