Out in the Sticks

Carol shivered in the coldness of the thin tent. It was twenty days since the car crash, twenty days since the police station she had been interrogated in had exploded. Now death seemed to follow wherever she went. At first she had gone to a firend's house to stay the night and for company, in the morning she had awoken to find her friends eviscerated in the lounge, their blood used to paint strange and gruesome pictures of dogs tearing at small children on the wall. The house phone had rang soon after she awaoke and screamed herself hoarse - "They will think it was you. The crash, the bomb, this murder."
"What is going on?" she sobbed down the line.
"We tell you nothing but the truth. We give no answers, ask no questions. We command but one thing, get away from people. Get away from anyone and anything. You have a day."
As the line went dead Carol didn't spend more than a second in thought. Dressing quickly she gathered her things and fled.
She didn't know who was doing these things around her, but people were dying because of her. She took what money she had and went to the nearest outdoor supply shop. She bought a tent, a sleeping bag, several gas lamps and gas cookers, then drove her dead friend's car to the supermarket and stocked up on tinned food.


Now she was spending her eighteenth day in these woods. Alone, out of contact with anyone. She had no idea of what was occurring in the world and nor did she care. This day began as the other seventeen had, she awoke and dressed quickly. She had planned decently, but now all of the clothes she had brought were being worn for the third time and they started to smell. She had tried washing them in the small stream she had camped near, but the smell was beginning to linger in them.
Stepping out of the tent into the cool morning air, she limbered up and began to run. She had worked out five different routes to run already and this morning she wanted to find a sixth. Taking a left turn from where route three became route four she started to jog through overgrown and unknown parts of the forest.
Unfamilier tress flashed by on both sides, the sound of the stream, which she had started using to orient herself, had faded away so softly that it came as a shock when she realised she couldn't hear it any more. Slowing down, she began to think of how to get back to the camp. There was nothing else she could use to tell where she was, she didn't even know whether she was now North, South, East or West of her camp.
There was nothing for it but to try running back the way she had come, but she hadn't left much of a trail in her passing. Best as she tried, she could not find the route she had been running. Suddenly, while her eyes and mind were occupied searching for something recognisable, her fott slipped and she was tumbling down a steep slope. Head over heels, round and around she span until her head slammed into a large rock with enough force to leave part of her skull and brains on it. The world ended in her mind and her body tumbled on.

She never knew how many minutes, hours or days she spent in a black nothing at the bottom of the incline, but one day light exploded behind her eyes and she could see.
While she looked around, she still had no idea of where she was, in her mind it did not seem like long since she had started to fall. Then she felt a slight pulsing in her mind. As she turned her head the pulsing would increase or decrease depending on where she faced.
Turning so the pulsing was at it's most insistent she began to walk, changing her direction each time it started to fade away.
It took only ten minutes for her to reach a part of the forest she recognised, and now she could tell what was happening. Her mind was pulsing like a radar, directing her back to the camp.

When she finally stepped into the clearing, she saw another three tents had been set up next to hers.
A man stepped out of one of them, saw her and turned to yell "Hey guys, she's here!"

Mike, he's not a pleasant guy.

Mike watched Susie totter down the stairs on her riduculous heels. Long, sharp points that she was all too willing to use on his toes to make a point.
"Hurry up, you dumb cow." he snarled. The buzz from the coke was beginning to wear off and he wanted to get into the club before taking another hitm his supply was too low to waste another line on the journey.
"Sorry babe. It's these shoes."
Mike rolled his eyes. There was always some excuse, some reason for her to hold him back, hold him down. She never realised that things should just get done, minimum of fuss, maximum enjoyment. Leaving two hours after he'd planned because she wasn't sure her shoes matched her eyes or whatever stupid fucking reason she had this time, was not conducive to his plans.
He snatched at her arm and dragged her down the last few steps "We're late. Don't argue with me, don't whinge, don't say a fucking word until I have a glass of the good stuff in my hand and am sitting down. Understand."
Susie nodded, her eyes starting to wellup with tears from his tone.
"Fuck's sake Suze. No crying either, you ain't going back to redo your eyeliner. You fuck it all up and you get to go out looking like a melting panda. Now calm the fuck down."
She nodded and dabbed at her eyes. Dave rolled his, again, before stomping out of the front door.

Two hours later, everything was just that much better. He'd drunk and snorted his way to a happy place, was sat on a very comfortable sofa in the club and Susie was dancing in front of him. Her tight arse and pert tits wiggling just inches from him. Once again he reminded himself that she wasn't all that much trouble and the wild screaming monkey fucking she could perform was worth it.
Toby slid up next to him "Your bird's a bit tasty. How come I've never seen her before?"
Mike turned a glare on Toby "You've met her at least five tomes you doped out cunt. Now what the fuck do you think you are doing, disturbing me?"
Toby scratched at himself nervously "I was wondering if maybe I could nab a line or two off you. Just to keep me happy like."
"Why would I want to keep you happy?"
Toby looked at him confused "We're mates, ain't we? Mates share." At the last comment Toby's eyes slid back to Susie who just pirouetting in front of them.
Mike laughed out loud, Toby joined in, sycophantically, unsure as to why he was even laughing, Mike was sure of that. When he stopped and looked at the giggling prick beside him, Mike's eyes narrowed. He reached out and grabbed a handful of hair, yanking Toby's head back painfully.
"Now listen to me. I'm not your friend. You work with me and you still owe me money. So no, I don't have a line you can nab. And if you look at my girlfriend like that again, I'll pluck your eyes from their sockets and force feed them to you." Mike flung him forwards "Now get the fuck away from me."
Toby almost launched himself from the sofa and shoved his way through the dancing crowd before him. This time Mike roared with genuine amusement.
Susie slid on to his lap "What's so funny?"
He slid his hand along her thigh "Nothing honey. Just a bit of fun."

The DJ had begun the wind down when they got up to leave. Mike had his hand on Susie's tight arse and was whispering dirty things into her ear as they stepped through the door.

The bright light assailed his eyes, temporarily blinding him. Something wet dripped down his face. "Ah fuck. What cunt threw shit on me?"
He rubbed his eyes, trying to get better vision, wondering that they had stayed in the club past daylight when a voice yelled "Get your fuckin' hands up, buddy! Don't make me shoot ya!"
Mike rubbed his eyes again, that wasn't a London accent, that was a Yank. What the fuck was some Yankee twat doing trying to rob him on his own turf?
"Fuck off." He said.
"Jesus, it's a fucking Limey."
Mike blinked repeatedly, eyes starting to focus again. "Of course I'm a Limey. This is England you prick."
"Oh, a funny guy. Hands in the air, get them up."
Mike was beginning to be annoyed, both by the Yanks annoying voice and the wetness sliding down his cheek. "Susie, where the fuck are you girl?"
"That's it." Mike heard footsteps and a blue blur came before him. Sudden blows to his gut and the back of his knees dropped him to the floor.
"What the fuck?"
"Shut up. Just shut up, pal."
Strong hands yanked his arms behind his back and he felt handcuffs slipped around his wrists. "I'm being arrested by a Yank? What the hell is going on here?"
Finally his vision cleared from blurry to mostly clear. As he looked up, he saw a man in uniform pointing a gun at him. It wasn't an English cop uniform, he'd seen it before though, on various TV shows. "What are two New York cops doing arresting me?"
"For being a sick fuck."
Mike turned to look up at the officer putting the cuffs on him and then saw the city behind him. He wasn't in London. This wasn't the exit to Club Daiklo. He started to struggle before his eyes lit upon the shredded remains of Susie's dress, surrounded by red and purple lumps of flesh, it looked like she'd exploded. Suddenly he realised what all the damp and soft stuff clinging to him was, he was covered in Susie!
Mike screamed "What the fuck happened? Where the fuck? Why am I in New York?" He started thrashing around and the cop above him slammed the baton into his back, Mike screamed and stopped struggling.
"I don't know why you were here, but I know why you're gonna stay. Murder. Welcome to America, fuckstick."
The cops dragged the wheezing Mike to his feet. He tried to protest, to tell them it wasn't him, but they were having none of it.
They put him in their car and drove away. As they went, Mike slumped in the back seat. How had this happened? He hadn't been that out of it. Into New ork traffic they drove, and every passing meter scared and confused the London hard man more and more.

Blackpool Burns

The fire started at the point of the spire. Instataneous and unexplainable, it took a minute to crawl down to the observation deck. Within five the Blackpool Tower was completely engulfed in flames.
It was six in the evening and a fine July day, so the Tower was full of excited children and weary parents. Drunken teens and nostalgic OAP's, so full of life and hopes, memories.
Six minutes after the ifre started, they were all dead.
As the rest of Blackpool lit up light some lurid universe, families roasted alive in the famous landmark.
The fire crept down from the metal legs that it was warping and melting and began a slow crawl across the orad as if it were alive. A living thing with a malevolent mind that only wished to burn and consume.
The fire brigade were on scene within minutes. Minutes too late for the souls now cooked to a fine crisp inside. Their hoses blasted out water which was evaporated by the heat of this strange fire before it even got close.
As the Chief's tried to think of a solution, the first car exploded, the fuel in it's tanked heated and ignited by this unearthly fire.
In all, it took thirty seven minutes from the flames first appearance for all of Blackpool and the majority of it's citizens and vistors to be removed from the face of the Earth.

The next day, a charred and steaming hole was all that was left of the famous seaside resort. It was two days since the crash. One day since the explosion at the police station.
Investigators from around the globe began to fly in to this island that had shaped much of recent history. Experts in their field, fire investigators, crash analysts, bomb experts, all came, and all were clueless.
Soon after the cranks began to arrive. The UFO abductee believers, the paranormal investigators. The mediums and psychics, the spirit walkers. Even old wise men from various tribes across the globe.
They all came, and they were all useless.
Not a one could say for certain why any of the events had happened.
The explosion at the car crash was proved not to be a car. The detonation of the police station was not from a compound known to any of the bomb experts.
But it was Blackpool that scared the experts and the politicians the most.
Amateur footage of the burning tower ran on every news network across the world. People claimed they could see the face of Jesus, of Mary, of the alien that stuck the cold metal dildo with the words "Hug Me" up their arse. The flames crawled down and up the tower, as if seeking every potential scrap of flammable material, before snaking it's way to the nearest restaurants theatres and arcades.
All of the footage was taken by people in boats. Anyone with a camera in town was dead and their camera long since melted.
The screams of these filming sailors as the flames licked at the water's edge, raising a wall of steam that hid the majority of the carnage only added to the horror.
Then voices came through, claiming to see people with their skin melting away trying to get to the sea.


Horrific, devastating, unparralelled footage.
The DVD was available the next Monday and was an instant bestseller.