Bournemouth Strikes Again
Sunday, February 15th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Penguins at Amazon World on the Isle of Wight. (C) T.A.R. animation
Just back from Bournemouth, and another wonderful weekend in the company of my top mate ‘Niles’. Frasier, the cleaning junkie, was away on holiday, which meant we could have spent the whole weekend causing messy havoc, bouncing on the beds and smearing chocolate on the walls, and not fear being reprimanded for it (so long as we cleared it up before he returns tomorrow). However, I’m pleased to report we didn’t spend the whole time rearranging the cushions or sprinkling bags of dust across the room. Instead, we knocked our creative heads together.
On Friday night, we popped around the corner from Niles’s flat in Boscombe, to a somewhat dark but delightful curryhouse, and stuffed ou faces with some of the most delicious curry I’ve ever tasted. While there, we started developing ideas for another fantastic animation series. I’ve said this before, but when my friend and I get together, ideas flow like creative diarrhoea, and we’d soon filled several pages of notes on his iPhone. The writing synergy that exists between us never ceases to amaze me; one day I hope we’ll manage to do something with it other than make our fellow diners think we’re a bit potty!
Because Frasier was away, I didn’t stay up all night talking politics and bemoaning the state of the world for a change, probably just as well as I’ve been exhausted all week. So, after watching a wonderful Morrissey performance on Jonathan Ross’s show, we had a fairly early night.
On Saturday, we arose early and drove to the Isle of Wight (or to the ferry, at least). Despite an altercation with a Chavmobile at the scary roundabout in the middle of Newport, we had a great time. Best of all was our visit to an animal park, which featured all kinds of creatures, including some rather friendly penguins and monkeys we both wanted to take home. I think Niles pulled, twice; an armadillo and a meerkat showed particular interest in him, and I’m sure he was trying to get the rather miserable looking monkey in his pocket.
Great amusement abounded when the anteaters decided to procreate, in front of a group of none-the-wiser children and their tittering parents. There’s always got to be one - or two, techincally - although Niles was adamant that they were just ‘having a cuddle’. Ah, how I pity his poor partner sometimes! 
Back in Bournemouth, we embarked on an epic mission to bake a chocolate cake. Though I firmly believe Niles would have drowned me in the dishwasher if he’d had to wash another spoon, five hours later we had a passable cake. However, it being almost midnight by the time the cake was ready, we decided to save it for the morning. Despite a small tiff, our creative synergy seemed to extend to our cooking too. Indeed, there’s nobody else in the world I can share a kitchen with without murdering.
Sunday morning was a day of epic cleaning, as fastidious Frasier would be returning at some point in the middle of the night. I dusted, vacuumed, helped Niles work the washing machine, and mopped the bathroom, en suite and kitchen floors. Possibly not the standard way to spend your ‘break’ and I appear to be in danger of turning into a 1950s housewife. The strangest thing is, I really don’t seem to mind too much! Great story ideas come when dusting your best friend’s rowing machine (really!) and while, sadly, I don’t think I’ll have time to extend The Greyhaired Monster to 20,000 words for the sexy shapeshifter competition due at the end of the month, I have nevertheless got some great inspiration to play with!
Novel goals
Monday, February 9th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 4 Comments
According to my horoscope, my 15 minutes of fame was meant to come today… Somehow, I think I must have missed it. Perhaps I was in the bathroom, or making a cup of tea, which is where I usually am when something important happens. Now there’s not much of today left, and I’m not expecting Morrissey to call me and promise to whisk me away from all this any time soon.
In my head, I have my Successful Novelist/Animated Film Producer life all planned out. Spend a couple of days a week in Tom’s Bournemouth animation studio (which will overlook the sea and have a tank of rays just for me) and the rest of the time in my writing room, producing a series of best-selling gay ghost novels in the Handsome Devils, Bastard Angels series.
Once a week, I’ll meet with fellow best seller Judy for Merlot and gossip, then off to see my Finance Director/Style Guru/Cleaner Gav, for more Merlot and Serious Political Discussion. Then I’ll take my Art Director Paul out for cider…
Now, all I have to do is finish that goddamn book…!
Holy moly, there’s white stuff falling from the sky!
Friday, February 6th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments
It’s amazing what a little snow can do. The Westcountry in its entirity appears to have ground to a halt. For two days in Bristol, all local trains and busses have been cancelled.
As a result, I’ve been forced to work from home and, contrary to what I’m sure some people who make it into the workplace think, I’ve found that I’m ten times more productive than in the office.
My mind has been much more focused, because I’m actually allowed to think creatively for more than ten seconds before someone else’s irrelevant chatter interrupts me and throws me off course. I can have the radio on, the heating at my own comfortable temperature, and what’s more I’m right next to the kettle. 
If the desire takes me, like yesterday I can do my entire morning’s work in my pjs. And I can squirt myself with Ugli fruit without anyone laughing at me.
The more I think about it, the more I feel someone’s trying to tell me something… The question is, where do I go from here to get to where I want to be, at least until Handsome Devils, Bastard Angels is published.
In 2009 I’m going to up a gear (and find reverse…)
Monday, December 29th, 2008 | Writing | 1 Comment
Just back from Bournemouth, visiting my multitalented friend Tom, who’s branching out from animation, journalism and game reviews and next year has resolved to tackle a book. It made me think, I really need to get my own creative arse in gear, starting with this site. Must update more, which means I must write more in order to have anything to talk about… I must also pin Tom down for an interview in the near future.
Whilst I was away, I also spent a couple of nights in the company of two good friends who I’ll call Frasier and Niles. They’re two of the people I enjoy spending time with the most, as we while away the hours drinking wine, talking politics and putting the world to rights.
Their apartment is pristine and the kind of home I aspire to, but unfortunately creative people aren’t always the best at keeping things tidy. The disorganised genius of our brains occasionally spills out into the real world and causes chaos… (At least, that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.)
At first, this made me flutter around like the character of Elizabeth in Keeping up Appearances, so jumpy and anxious of doing something that causes mess or offence that it ends up making things worse. But then it got me thinking; that should be another new year’s resolution. Try to master the chaos and work in a neater environment. It may even help up my creativity and productivity, in which case, I’ll know who to doff my hat to.
My third resolution is all about going backwards. I’ve recently started driving again, and while generally I’m getting on quite happily going in a forwards direction, when it comes to reversing, I often get myself in a pickle.
For some reason, when reversing, I often forget which way I’ve been turning the wheel, so that when I stop I can’t remember where to turn it next. This results in me ending up in the same or a worse position than when I started. Being watched only makes matters worse, because I can’t perform even basic human functions when anyone is watching, even if their watching is essential. This caused great amusement yesterday for my friend, attempting to watch me into a space. At one point I thought I’d run him over, but in fact he was just rolling around on the floor with laughter.
On the other hand, this afternoon I executed a perfect three point turn, while nobody was there to see it! So, while most of my resolutions are about going forwards, this one will be about getting better at going backwards.
That way, I hope that by the next time I see Frasier and Niles, I’ll be thinner, tidier, more productive, and going in the right direction (even if that direction is reverse.)
Missing my Mum
Sunday, December 14th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Earlier this year, I lost my mum to cancer of the oesophagus. She was 55.
My mum, Barbara Inglis, was more than just a mother to me. It was she who encouraged me to start writing, who embedded a love of words and language deep within me, and who gave me the tools (pens, crayons, paper, a typewriter) and the skills (reading fluently at 4, typing, storytelling) that made me what I am, a writer who can’t not write, who finds putting stories and characters and scenarios together more natural than breathing, whose subconscious will not stop whirring even on the rare occasions that there isn’t a pen and paper to hand.
More than that, though, she was also my biggest fan, and harshest critic. She’d tell me honestly what she liked, and disliked, about everything I’d written. I showed everything to Mum before anyone else. Though I have great friends to show my work to, it still means that every piece that I finish is painful.
Perhaps it’s because it’s the run-up to Christmas, which was always going to be a difficult time, but right now I’m feeling sad, missing my mum. I guess, just over three months since she passed away, the reality is starting to sink in.
One thing that I am pleased about is that I can look back at her writing and still hear her speaking to me. Not long before she died, her story, Out of the Night, came second in a competitions on the theme of Nightmares, run by Writing magazine.
Right now, a lot of things feel like a nightmare. But though I miss mum more each day, I am happy that I can look back on the gift that we shared with great pride.
Conkers
Friday, December 5th, 2008 | Creative writing, Horror, Samples of work | 1 Comment
Thought I’d post this here, an example of my work. It’s a short story called Conkers, the first in the Stories about Shane series, a set of loosely connected horror tales following a young estate agent who gets more than he bargained for with the houses he sells.
This story was used for an illustration competition by ImagineFX magazine, over at www.imaginefx.com. I hope you enjoy it.
Conkers
by Kay Inglis
Death stalked James from every angle. His time was short; he knew that. He had minutes, not hours left to live. As he stood in the middle of the cobbled path, James thought he should have been frightened; but he had no fear. The sweat that trickled down his spine was not caused by nervousness so much as by the sheer exertion of trying to lift his leaden legs and put one foot in front of the other.
Perhaps he should have been relieved: this hopeless battle was almost over. Soon death would take him in its cold arms and with one sweet kiss James’s pain, his suffering, his utter exhaustion would cease. Soon, he would be with Rachael.
But James didn’t feel relief. He knew that death wasn’t beautiful, or gentle, or romantic, far from it: death was gnashing fangs and spindly legs and a hundred soulless, malevolent eyes. It was a web of silk as strong as steel, the terror of finding yourself trapped, the realisation that your worst nightmares could be real.
Death for Rachael had been courage, valiance, the ultimate sacrifice to save her friends. For Briony, it had been at least in part vindication, proof that her fears were not, after all, unfounded. And for Shane, so far as James could see, death had been painful, a struggle, denied until the bitter end. James had watched his friends die and he knew the same fate awaited him. His destiny was sealed, but right now he wasn’t even sure he could stay awake long enough to meet it.
The only thing that James felt was tiredness, crippling, overwhelming exhaustion that made him want to do nothing more than lie down in the street and wait for the inevitable. In a way, then, death had already started. This was the way that zombies had to feel. Alive, yet not really alive; animated, but not conscious: brain dead. Driven on by a single, primeval desire – in a zombie’s case to feed, in James’s to fight, to avenge his friends and at least try to beat the monsters.
But he had no energy left: it took everything just to remain upright. His body was giving up on him, and he knew he had to act fast, before his mind started to follow. He had to ignore the fact that all he wanted to do was sleep.
Clasping his fingers as tight as he could around the small, cotton bag – Rachael’s bag – that he held in his left hand, he closed his eyes. Mustering every ounce of strength, he opened them once more and raised his head, turning to face the creature. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight. And he wasn’t scared of spiders.
*
One hour earlier…
“Oh my God, that’s ginormous!” Briony’s shriek made James jump as the Vauxhall Astra came to a halt. “It’s massive, Shane. A monster!”
As Shane chuckled and murmured about euphemisms, James rubbed his eyes. Turning to Rachael beside him in the back seat, he asked: “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Rachael shook her head. “Briony found a spider in the glovebox,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Thinks it’s going to eat us all alive.”
“I didn’t say that. I just don’t like them!” Briony protested, glancing over her shoulder but unwilling to take her eyes off the creature, which James could barely see even when he leaned his face between the headrests. “Anyway, who has spiders in their car? Shane, do you ever clean this thing?”
“Yeah. All the time,” Shane said, with a shrug. “I don’t know how that got there, it must have sneaked in last time I sold a spooky house.”
Unbuckling his seatbelt, he reached across and scooped the arachnid into his hand, holding it up for James and Rachael to get a better look as Briony squeaked and recoiled against the door. The ‘monster’ was approximately a centimetre long. As it started to scuttle towards the centre of Shane’s palm, he clenched his fingers down, crushing the spider’s body with a soft squish that made James grimace and Briony squeal.
“Anyway, we don’t have to worry about it now,” Shane continued, reaching into his pocket for a tissue, with which he wiped the spider juice from his hand. Holding his clean palm up to Briony, he smiled. “See, darling? All gone.”
Briony smiled now and nodded as Rachael mumbled “my hero!” sarcastically under her breath. But Shane ignored her and opened his door.
“Great. Now let’s get on with things. The real reason we’re here. People, I give you Sutton Manor.”
Stepping out of the car, James caught sight of the house for the first time. Standing at the foot of what had once been the driveway, now overgrown with shrubs and weeds, he drew a breath. The building itself looked abandoned, dilapidated and run down, with broken glass in the windows and graffiti tags sprayed across the walls; this was your archetypal haunted house on the hill. Even an estate agent as prolific, as persuasive as Shane would have difficulty selling this place to anyone who didn’t sleep in a coffin and only come out at night.
“That place is creepy!” Briony gasped. “I don’t like it!”
“Yeah, even you won’t shift that in a hurry,” Rachael said, reading James’s mind. “It is kinda cool, though…”
“Maybe it doesn’t look like it’s worth much at the moment,” Shane conceded. “But in a few months, this will all be parkland, and that spooky house up there will be 13 luxury apartments, each individual and unique, for the discerning buyer.”
Rachael glanced behind her at the motorway they had passed under to get to the end of the drive.
“Yeah, the discerning buyer who likes staring down at a traffic jam every day.”
“Easy commuter access,” Shane quipped, well-practised in moving in for the hard sell. “Gothic manor elegance, with all mod-cons, within a stone’s throw of the city. They’re even going to put a swimming pool on the roof.”
“Why is it that everything today has to be made into flats?” Rachael asked, unimpressed, and Shane laughed.
“What would you rather it become? A haunted house attraction?” He looped his arm around Briony’s as she shuddered. “Come on. I want to show you inside. Briony’s right, it is pretty creepy in there, even us guys might get a bit frightened. James? You up for it? James?”
James had only vaguely been listening to the conversation, knowing it was best not to get involved when Shane started talking shop. Besides, he’d been distracted as soon as he saw the horse chestnut trees that lined the path up to the house. While selling houses was Shane’s forte, art was James’s, and he was every bit as passionate about it. He incorporated nature into his work whenever he could, and already he had collected a handful of conkers to use in his latest project.
“What are you doing down there?” Shane asked, slapping him on the shoulder.
“Conkers,” James beamed, holding out his hands. “Fancy a game?”
Shane shook his head. “How old are you? Twelve?” he laughed. “Nobody plays conkers these days. What are you going to do with those?”
“Make them into a work of art, with any luck,” said James, and Shane just laughed some more. “Maybe I could sell them to the people who buy your luxury apartments; a genuine James Queen to hang on the wall.”
“Yeah. Right,” said Shane. “The difference is, I’m actually going to sell some apartments. You, my friend, are going to spend your whole life painting conkers and working in Tesco. You’re my best friend, James, but let’s face it, as an artist-stroke-supermarket checkout boy, you’re hardly going to do anything significant, are you?”
He smiled to indicate that he was teasing, though Rachael rolled her eyes.
“Here,” she said, holding out her small, checked cotton bag. “Put the conkers in this, James. Let’s get some more. I’d be proud to have a James Queen hanging on my wall.”
“Why thank you, I will,” James smiled. “You know, conkers have many uses – you shouldn’t diss them. Some people even say they repel spiders; maybe you should get some, Briony.”
“All right. Let’s stop the flirting and take a look at this place,” said Shane, signalling towards the house. As Briony shuddered once more, and pouted in disgust that he wasn’t flirting with her, he leant over to plant a kiss on her lips. “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll protect you from the bugs and beasties.”
When they reached the foot of the stairs that led up to the front of the house, Shane paused. Briony was hanging back, reluctant, swinging on his arm. Rachael looked like she was trying to maintain her bored indifference, but was unable to hide her curiosity. James, meanwhile, was still fascinated by the proliferation of horse chestnut trees, wondering who had planted them there, and when, and why… The house only caught his attention again when Shane drew the group to a halt at the foot of the stairs. Stepping around them, he pointed eagerly to what James thought, initially, was a moss-covered dent or recess in the wall. It was only after staring at it for a moment that he realised it was a window, of sorts, glassless and covered by bars.
“Oh my God, it’s a cage!” Briony gasped. “Shane, I don’t like it! Why has the house got a cage? What did they keep in there?”
As James peered through the bars, seeing nothing in the darkness, Shane laughed again and squeezed Briony’s hand.
“It’s not a cage, it’s a cell,” he said. “And so far as the legend goes, the people they most often threw in there were mad, screaming girlfriends.”
“A cell?! Oh, that’s all right, then!” Briony gasped. “What kind of house has a cell? Shane, I want to go home!”
Rachael had been leaning close to James, trying to see inside too.
“She has a point,” she nodded. “What was this place? Some kind of prison?”
“Yeah, who, or what, did they keep down there?” James asked.
“Monsters!” Shane quipped, and Briony squealed again as he poked his hand through the bars into the darkness. After a second, his face dropped and he thrust himself against the wall. “Argh, it’s got me! It’s got me, it’s going to eat me alive!”
Briony screamed as Rachael looked at James and rolled her eyes. Shane beamed once more as he pulled his hand free.
“And for your next cheap horror movie trick?” Rachael asked.
“Shane, you shouldn’t do that!” Briony chastised, whacking him with her handbag. “There could be anything in there… Even spiders, I bet there’s spiders!”
“Ooh, spiders! How utterly terrifying,” Shane mocked. “Tell me, Bri, what exactly are a few little spiders going to do to four humans? I’d be more worried about the ghosts and goblins myself.” He chuckled as Briony looked ready to burst into tears. “Darling, I’m teasing you. There’s nothing to be frightened about. It’s just an old house, soon to be 13 new luxury apartments. Used to be owned by the family who built the zoo, if you must know; one of their old boys lived here for a while, back at the start of last century, and since then it’s been used as storage and accommodation for research students of the university’s natural history department. But it was too old and expensive to look after, and it’s been empty for about 15 years. It’s pretty cool inside, pretty spooky. I had a look around with the surveyor, but he didn’t show me the cells. I thought you guys might want to share the experience with me.”
Holding up a set of keys, he smiled. “So are you coming?”
James drew back from the window and nodded.
“A mad scientist owned it. That’s all right, then,” he chuckled, and Briony opened her mouth to squeak again.
“Shut up, James. You’re scaring my girlfriend,” Shane said. “Don’t worry, Bri. I promise I’ll look after you. And Rachael will do the same for you, James, I’m sure.”
James shook his head.
“Come on, then,” he smiled.
*
As soon as they stepped inside, James started to have misgivings. Unlike Briony, who whined still and dragged on Shane’s arm, it wasn’t eight-legged creatures that worried him, so much as missing floorboards, lack of light and two-legged tramps who wouldn’t appreciate a bunch of nosey visitors.
“Are you sure we should be in here?” he asked, as Shane flicked on a torch. In the bright beam it produced, he saw he was right to be concerned about the building’s state of repair, as wires hung from the ceiling and various, unidentified items of junk littered the floor. From somewhere above them, water dripped. It was hard to picture this place as Shane’s luxury apartments.
“Not getting cold feet, surely?” Shane asked, focussing the beam on a battered wooden door at the far side of the room. “Come on. I think the cells are down that way.”
He led the way across the room, shining his torch beam in front of him to negotiate the debris on the floor. Briony was all-but dragged along after him, not wanting to follow, but too scared to let go of his hand in case she was left alone. Because only Shane had a torch, Rachael and James had to follow on close behind, Rachael holding Briony’s other hand and James bringing up the rear.
“I don’t want to go in there!” Briony hissed as Shane stopped in front of the door, struggling to free his hand in order to open it. “I mean it, Shane. There’s going to be spiders the size of golf balls in that room.”
But Shane just shook his head and pushed the key into the lock. Turning it with a squeak that made James’s teeth hurt, he unlocked the door, pushing it open to reveal a set of narrow, twisting stairs.
“Look, no spiders,” he said, shining his torch inside. “Hello? Spiders? If you’re down there you’d better scuttle off now. Because you go near my girlfriend, and I’ll stomp on you, you hear?”
Smiling once more at Briony, who smiled nervously back, he led the way into the stairwell. Murmuring: “This place is cool,” Rachael followed Briony down. Glancing behind him, James shuddered at how dark it was without the torch, and hurried after the others.
Shane had taken about five steps into the corridor when he stopped dead with a gasp and let go of the torch. Briony crashed into his back and screamed as Rachael grabbed the torch from the floor. Shining it, she saw what had halted Shane. Wrapped around his arm and leg was a thick, translucent white thread-like substance. He struggled, perplexed that he couldn’t get free, as Briony gasped “Oh my God, oh my God!” The thick white thread continued into the distance, intertwining with others, woven together in a dense, sticky web that filled the tunnel entirely.
“Spiders!” Briony screeched. “I told you there’d be spiders! That’s a spider’s web. Quick, get him out, get it off him!”
James was surprised by the speed of Briony’s actions, not to mention the sudden streak of bravery that emerged as soon as she saw Shane’s predicament. As Shane struggled against the web and gasped: “What the…?” doing nothing but trapping himself tighter, Briony didn’t hesitate. She grabbed at thread around his arm and started pulling, trying to untangle it.
“Stay still, Shane!” she commanded. “We’ll get you out. This stuff’s like steel, like a snare. The more you struggle the more stuck you’ll get. Come on, guys, help me!”
James snapped out of staring at Briony and nodded, grabbing hold of the thread around Shane’s leg. As Shane obediently stopped struggling, James realised that the shaking he felt running through his body was entirely involuntary.
The thread was wound tightly, as sticky as it was strong, and it took James and Rachael’s combined strength to pull it from Shane’s leg. James grabbed the end of the thread that Briony was working on, and after pulling and twisting for some moments, Shane was free, staggering backwards, his face white as an eerie, unidentified rustling noise started somewhere deep in the tunnel. Briony thrust herself into his arms and kissed him hard.
“What on Earth made this?” Rachael asked, examining the broken thread that still stuck stubbornly to her hand.
“I don’t think I want to find out,” said James, peering down into the tunnel but unable to see much in the dim light of Rachael’s torch. What he could see was Shane, still shaking and with sweat on his brow as he clung tight to Briony.
“I told you there were spiders down here,” she repeated. “Hundreds of them, to make a web like this.”
“Or one very big one,” Shane offered, glancing nervously at the web that had entrapped him. “Either way, I don’t want to find out. You were right, Bri. We should never have come in here. I’ll leave it for the builders to clear out. Let’s go.”
“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all day,” Rachael nodded, and turned towards the stairs.
“No, wait,” Briony said, her confidence boosted by her heroics. “Just say that again, Shane. What you just said. You know, just for the record.”
“You were right, Briony,” Shane repeated without hesitation. “You were right. You’re always right, and I love you. Now come on!”
“Great. Now come on, stop flirting and let’s get…” Rachael turned back to them, shining the torch towards their faces. But her voice stopped abruptly. The light of eight enormous black pearl eyes reflected back at her, and she screamed. In the beam of Rachael’s torch, James saw that Shane’s ‘one big spider’ stood at least seven feet long and almost as tall, filling the tunnel entirely. Its huge, spindly legs were striped yellow and black and clicked when it moved, while its curved body reminded James of a giant, discoloured brain. At the front of its head, two giant, venom-dripping fangs gleamed in the torchlight.
Before Briony could even turn her head to see what Rachael was screaming about, the spider struck. With incredible speed it shot forwards, ripping Briony from Shane’s arms and lifting her towards its great chelicerae before she had the chance to make a sound. Even as it took her, Briony didn’t scream, she just looked somewhat shocked, and uttered the tiniest squeak of surprise as the spider plunged its venom into her neck. Immediately her body, her expression froze, her eyes boring into Shane for an instant, and the spider shot away backwards, wrapping her in fresh steel-like thread as it went. The whole attack lasted just seconds; there was no time for the others to react.
For a moment, Shane remained where he had been standing, his arms still clasped as if Briony was in them, his jaw dropped, his eyes bulging. Then he started screaming, lunging forwards and becoming snared in the sticky thread himself once more.
“Briony! No! Briony, Briony!”
Rachael screamed again, shining the light into the tunnel in an attempt to see where the spider had gone. But she was shaking so hard that the torch wavered up and down, and they could see nothing but an ever-spiralling expanse of web.
James grabbed for Shane as he stumbled forwards, trapped entirely off the ground by the web. With strength that surprised even himself, he pulled his friend’s arms free, calling to Rachael to help him untangle his legs. Shane struggled and kicked as they dragged him back away from the edge of the deadly mesh.
“Briony!” he cried. “Get off, get off. It’s got Briony. We have to help her!”
“We can’t help her like this. Did you see the size of that thing?” James shook his head. “We’ve got to get out of here, go and get something to kill it with. Get more people who can help Briony. Come on, we’ve got to go before it comes back!”
He and Rachael started to drag Shane back towards the stairs, and though he struggled and kicked for a moment longer, by the time they reached the foot of them, he was still and sobbing quietly: “She hates them… Spiders… Briony hates spiders and now she’s down there with one…”
“We’ll get her out, you’ll see,” James said, but one glance at Rachael showed she believed that as little as he did.
The rustling came again as James pushed Shane on to the stairway. This time, the three friends knew all too well what the noise was – the rub of fine-haired spider’s legs against the floor and walls of the tunnel. It was not the sound so much as where it came from that startled James, for the noise was not coming from behind them, but from in front, at the back of the stairs.
Rachael shone her torch around them and gasped. The tunnel didn’t stop at the stairs, but continued under the other side of the house. Here, too, it was laced with thick, white strands of web, and the eyes of the spider that had built it glinted in its centre. It seemed to be staring at them, holding them in its gaze, and as they stared back, Shane began to whimper.
“Is that the same one?” he breathed. “The one who took Briony?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care!” Rachael grabbed his arm. “Just get moving! You’re blocking the stairs.”
But Shane had other ideas. He pulled himself on to his feet, still shaking but able to stand on his own.
“You killed her!” he screamed, lunging past Rachael at the spider. “You took my Briony. Give her back, give her back, I’ll squash you flat!”
His foot crashed down on top of the nearest strand of web, trying to crush it but only succeeding in making it shake. This movement caught the spider’s attention and it shifted its legs in Shane’s direction, looking for its next meal.
“Get him out of here, now!” Rachael spat, and James didn’t take a second telling, grabbing Shane under the arms and pulling him backwards up the stairs. Shane struggled and swore but James wouldn’t let go. Rachael followed them up backwards, keeping her light trained on the spider for as long as she could.
At the top of the stairs, Shane swung his arms violently, knocking James over on to his back. As he crashed down among the debris, he saw a flurry of blonde hair, then Rachael’s hand appeared at the door, grasping it, pulling it towards her.
“Rach!” James cried, tumbling over and grabbing a broken table to pull himself up.
“I’m sorry, James!” Rachael cried. “Take the torch, and my bag!”
Reaching out her other hand, she hurled the torch across the room. It hit the floor and bounced twice, and James saw the shadow of a set of spindly legs on the wall behind Rachael just before the light went out. Then the door banged shut, a half-scream muffled behind the wood, and everything was dark.
By the time James had scrabbled around on the floor and found the two parts of the torch, the spider’s legs were scrape-scrape-scraping on the other side of the door. That and Shane’s sobbing seemed to be the only sounds in the world.
“Rachael?” There was a lump in James’s own throat as he spoke. “Rach?”
“She’s gone,” Shane sniffed, shuffling towards him, closing his hands around the soft fabric of Rachael’s bag. “Rachael’s gone, Briony’s gone. It’s all my fault…”
He stopped abruptly at the sound of splintering wood. James swallowed hard, turning back towards the cellar door in time to see the spider’s two front legs breaking through it. A second later and the door gave way entirely, the full form of the spider’s body filling the frame.
James pulled himself to his feet once more, reaching his hand out to help Shane up too. But as he grabbed hold of him, his fingers brushed Rachael’s bag, and he remembered the conkers.
“Shane! The conkers! Spiders hate horse chestnut,” he gasped, grabbing the bag and ripping it open. “Shane, we can use these!”
But Shane wasn’t listening. His face had contorted into an expression of pure rage, and he shouldered James out of the way as he charged at creature, screaming: “This is for Briony!”
The spider struck him just above the left shoulder, stunning him but not instantly knocking him to the ground. Instead it shot a trail of sticky thread towards him, fixing him to the floor.
“No! I’ll kill you! I’ll stomp you!” Shane screamed. “I’m not scared of spiders!”
James pushed his hand into the bag and pulled out a handful of conkers. Running his fingers over their smooth surface, he raised his arm and took aim, firing them at the spider. The first two missed, landing near Shane’s tethered feet. But the third struck the spider square in one of its eight eyes. Hissing, spitting, the spider recoiled.
Shane, watching from where he was shackled to the floor, threw his head back and laughed manically as James rushed towards him to free his feet.
“Conkers!” he laughed. “Saving the world, with bloody conkers!”
But then came another rustling from the cellar, louder, faster, heavier than before, as a second and then a third spider appeared at the doorway. Shane gasped. Swore. And reached his hands out to shove James hard in the chest as something sharp caught him in small of his back.
“Get out!” Shane screamed. “Get outside to the conker trees. That’s what they’re there for! Get out now, before…”
His last words were caught up in a scream as the first spider returned, angry now as well as hungry. It plunged its fangs into his body and James heard Shane cry out for Briony one last time as he turned and fled, out through the front door and down the stairs to the cobbled courtyard that led to the horse chestnut drive.
But there wasn’t enough of Shane to feed all the spiders, and the slight forms of Rachael and Briony would hardly have provided much of a meal. The second creature saw James’s flight and swiftly followed him down the stairs, moving at impossible speed as James struggled against a sudden, rapidly increasing sense of weariness.
It was as he reached the centre of the cobbled path that he realised why his back was hurting. Glancing down, he saw that part of the spider’s venomous fang had snapped off in their battle and was impaled to the right of his spine. That was when he knew he was as good as dead; a zombie walking on borrowed time.
But he couldn’t go down without a fight. For Briony, for Shane, and especially for Rachael, James had a duty to battle these creatures. Raising his head and raising the bag of conkers, he gazed at the creature. As drew back his hand and hurled a conker with all of his might, he felt his legs fold at the knees. James crashed on to the ground as the spider reached him, its one good fang dripping venom on to his upturned face.
As it moved in for the kill, the last thing that James saw was an army of giant spiders pouring from the door, running across the courtyard and past the cell-like window. Within the darkness of that barred room, James could just make out the shape of three human sized cocoons in white silk thread, food parcels that had been stored for later.
Pink eye strikes again!
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | Writing | 2 Comments
Sorry for my somewhat lack of activity on the site of late. I’m suffering from possibly the worst afliction a writer can imagine (even worse than writer’s block).
I’ve got some form of conjunctivitis, otherwise known as ’pink eye’ (or ‘poo eye’, to my other half) and it’s a particularly resiliant strain, by all accounts. It developed from a humble cold, from all accounts, and I’m going into my third week of it, stuck behind spectacles and looking rather demonic. Which might be the look some horror writers are aiming for, but somehow I don’t think it suits me. And it certainly doesn’t fit in well with my day job, on CrossStitcher magazine.
Not only am I unable to look at a computer screen for long periods without my left eyeball feeling as if it’s been pressed in a lemon squeezer, I’m also unable to read books or magazines for more than a few minutes at a time. I can’t swim, which has thrown my fitness routine out of the window - there’s no way I’m going to be lovely for the Christmas party in two weeks time now.
I’m now on my third course of eyedrops, which will last ten- ten - days. I’ve got two stories to write in my Stories about Shane series (the first of which can be seen as part of an illustration challenge on www.imaginefx.com), both destined for competitions that are due in in just over a week, while Jim Suttcliffe, the protagonist of Handsome Devils, Bastard Angels is calling me to write about him. There’s nothing for it, I’m going to have to buy a new notebook or two (for some reason, I need a new notebook for every writing project) and resort to the old-fashioned pen and paper.
Old blog posts
Saturday, November 29th, 2008 | News | 1 Comment
I’ve imported my old blog posts from Blogger, including Matt, The Not Particularly Good Vampire Hunter, a story for ImagineFX.com. Do let me know what you think.
Write here. Write. Now.
Monday, November 24th, 2008 | Resources, Writing | 2 Comments
Hello, and welcome to my new blog, on the website set up by my good friend (and very talented writer) Judy Darley.
My name’s Kathleen - Kay to my friends - and I’m a writer, editor and proof reader based in Bristol, England. I’m also known as Bad Bunny on various online forums.
I have to confess, despite being addicted to several blogs and forums, I’ve never been much good at maintaining my own blog. Trying to balance the time between creative writing, a full-time editing job, proofing other people’s work and being involved in writing sites such as YouWriteOn means that my blogging has been somewhat neglected. Here, I aim to change that…
I write horror tinged with fantasy, but with a firm realistic grounding. A lot of my characters have turned out to be gay, I’m not sure why: I write what they tell me about themselves. So… gay horror soap operas? Hey, it could work…
I’m currently finalising a novel packed with ghosts, demons, devils and angels, and enter as many short story competitions as I can. I’ve had some success in the past year, with two poems, Tom and Gloucester Road Girl published in anthologies, and just today I received a copy of The Cat magazine, featuring my winning story in the ‘Comical Cats’ category of the 2008 Cats Protection League short story competition. The thrill of seeing Catulence in print was massive.
I also write scripts and have collaborated with talented writer and animator Tom Rudderham on our own animated series. I’m still sulking with the BBC and Channel 4 for turning us down.
Just yesterday, I was rejected from the Red Planet script writing competition. It’s often said, but rejections are one of the major parts of any writer’s life. That doesn’t, of course, make it any easier when you receive one. To me, it’s akin to being told your children are ugly.
The important thing is to dust yourself down, accept your feelings of disappointment, and see if there is anything you can learn from the experience. Unfortunately, you very rarely receive feedback as to why your piece was turned down. But if you do, take it on board and move on: don’t dwell too long.
Most importantly of all, keep writing!
Matt The Not Particularly Good Vampire Hunter
Friday, March 14th, 2008 | Creative writing, Horror, Samples of work | 1 Comment
“I know how bad this looks.” Matthew Felix pursed his swollen lips and tried his best to form them into smile. Clasping his hands in front of his bruised and battered face, he glanced nervously at the policewoman staring nonchalantly back at him. Pulling himself to his feet and wiping his bloody hands on his trousers, he tried desperately to ignore the bloated corpse on the floor in front of him.
“But honestly. I can explain.”
The policewoman opposite at last raised an eyebrow. At least twice Matt’s age, with greying hair and a hook nose and a stare that gave her the appearance of an aged school teacher, she didn’t look like she believed him, and he could see why. Covered in bruises, cuts and bites, both fresh today and older ones hidden behind bandages, with blood all over his hands and hoodie and trousers, he didn’t look like a man who had much of an explanation.
That he had broken into a nervous sweat and was talking in a high, shaky voice didn’t help his case. Then, neither did the fact he’d just been caught in the act, hammering a wooden stake into the chest of a portly, swollen vampire.
“I’ve just walked in on you stabbing a sleeping man with a sharpened piece of wood,” said the policewoman, as she reached out and snapped one half of a pair of handcuffs around his wrist, attaching the other to the doorframe of the cellar room where he stood. Matt knew better than to protest. “You’re a dangerous, probably deranged young man. That’s all the explanation I need. But go on, while we’re waiting for backup. You might as well give it your best shot.”
Matt nodded, and smiled once more as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, the thing is, this is going to sound crazy. I appreciate, this isn’t your normal, run of the mill police business. But the thing is, I’m not the bad guy here, I’m not the one who’s breaking the law. Not completely, anyway. See, this guy here, he’s not a person, not a tramp or anything. He’s a vampire. And that’s why I was killing him. I’m not a murderer, cos I can hardly murder someone who’s already dead. Anyway, I was only doing my job.”
Matt knew he didn’t fit well with the conventional idea of a vampire hunter. He was too young, for starters, having only just celebrated his 20th birthday last week. He guessed he was a little too weedy, though he was working on that, but right now he didn’t exactly have a warrior’s physique. He wasn’t an aged, learned professor who’d studied the vampire for years, or a half-vampire with a vendetta; nor was he, for that matter, a feisty female with a penchant for karate kicks.
In short, he was none of the things that films and comics would have you believe vampire slayers looked like. Matt was a typical lad from a council estate, most often found in hoodie and jeans. He was a pretty, charming young man with good looks that meant people thought he was a model, or an actor, but never an eradicator of the undead. Indeed, he thought he could have been a model if it wasn’t for the cuts, and the bruises, and the bites – the bites were the worst thing, but they went with the territory. They spoiled his looks a little and made people think he was always looking for a fight, and always losing. But Matt liked to think they gave him that ‘rough diamond’ edge. People could think what they liked. After all, he could hardly tell them the truth about his constant stream of injuries: they were an occupational hazard in his line of work, killing vampires for Bristol City Council.
Matt had never wanted to be a vampire hunter. When he’d answered the advert in the local paper asking for ‘Pest Control Officers’ he’d expected to be killing rats and mice and cockroaches. When they’d explained he could earn extra money in the Special Division, he’d jumped at the chance and was packed off for two months’ training and assessment. At first, this had only consisted of playing video games, watching home made horror movies and taking ‘self defence’ lessons, and Matt thought he had found his dream job. By the time he’d realised just how ‘specialist’ his new role would be, he was told it was too late to change his mind.
Being a vampire hunter sounded pretty cool. It was certainly an original line to use on the ladies when they asked: “And what do you do?” Though, of course, he couldn’t actually tell them. The ladies in question would look at him like he was insane, and it was part of the terms and conditions of his job that if he ever blabbed about what he did, he would have to face the consequences.
People with a vampire infestation didn’t really like talking about it, much like a takeaway with a cockroach problem would like to keep things hush-hush. So Matt kept his silence, and went as quietly as possible about his business of killing vampires. The trouble was, he just wasn’t very good at it.
Vampires weren’t much like they were in films or comics either. They weren’t the beautiful creatures literature would have you believe; they didn’t have superhuman strength, and neither garlic nor crucifixes had any effect on them. Matt didn’t even think they got burned up if they went out in the sun; it was just easier to bite people’s necks and drink their blood under cover of darkness. Being immortal held none of the romance people might imagine. Vampires’ bodies continued to age; they just didn’t die.
When they were hungry, vampires were little more than shrunken sacks of skin and bone with dark hollows for eyes and prominent, hungry teeth. When they were sated, like the one Matt had been staking to the floor when the policewoman turned up, they were swollen, purple bulbous creatures who swelled so fat they could do nothing but wallow for days in their own filth, giant, pseudohuman ticks filled to the brim with blood.
The good thing about finding them when they’d fed was they were easy to catch. Stumble upon one who was hungry and you risked a severe beating, not to mention some serious bites. That was what had happened to give Matt his freshest set of teeth marks and bruises. When he’d tracked down this vampire to its lair in the basement of a condemned building two nights before, the creature had been only half full. It still wanted to feed, and it wasn’t going to lie down and let Matt stick a stake in its chest. So he was battered, and bitten harshly on the neck – it sucked a pint or two for sure before dumping him semi-conscious in the street.
That was the other thing that wasn’t commonly known about vampires. It was very rare for them to kill for their dinner. They didn’t drink more than a couple of pints at a time, and they didn’t leave two little telltale holes on the neck of their victims: they left dirty great tearing bites with ragged, jagged edges, like the one Matt had concealed under the hospital dressing on the left side of his neck. He had bites on his face, arms and legs too; piss off a vampire, and the chances are, it’s going to bite you.
His first encounter with this vampire had led to Matt spending a night in hospital. He was no stranger to the casualty department, staff there would look him up and down and shake their heads that Matthew Felix had been fighting again. The neck wound, the face wound and the deep cuts on his arms were, they assumed, caused by a knife.
He didn’t know why he’d decided to tell the young nurse who cared for him the truth. Perhaps it was because he was in trouble at work already – his kill rate wasn’t good. Half the time when he did manage to perform a staking, he’d miss the heart and do nothing but deflate the swollen creature, covering himself in half-digested blood in the process. Often he didn’t get that far: they’d bite him and beat him and throw him on the street. Only three out of ten successful kills in the last six months: improve, his bosses had told him, or face dire consequences.
Maybe it was because she was blonde and busty and beautiful, and she’d talked to him gently as she cleaned his injuries and patched him up: “Now then, they tell me you’re a regular in here. What’s a handsome boy like you doing getting his pretty face all scarred and bruised?”
Or maybe it was because he was sore and shaken and light-headed after being attacked. Whichever it was – and probably it was a combination of all three – he’d caught the nurse’s hand as she cleaned his neck wound, and said: “You’ll think I’m crazy, but here goes. I’ll tell the truth.”
And he had told her everything. He’d told her all that he was telling the policewoman now, and as expected when his tale was told, she’d smiled sympathetically and patted him on the head.
“Oh dear, my love. You have such an overactive imagination. It’s a shame it keeps getting you into trouble.”
The next day, he’d been called to work early and told his record was causing “serious worries” for his superiors. If he didn’t finish the vampire whom he had been attacked by, then the council would have to think about termination.
So Matt, the not particularly good vampire killer, had vowed to prove himself. He had one last chance to overcome this creature, and one thing was for sure; he wasn’t going to get beaten up and supped from again.
“…And that’s it, basically,” Matt concluded, as he noticed his chained arm was starting to ache. The policewoman was still looking at him coolly, and he didn’t think she’d believed a single word he’d said. But still, he shot her a wide smile and a wink in a last-ditch attempt to convince her. “I know how crazy it sounds. But that’s what I am, that’s what I do. I’m Matt the vampire hunter.”
The policewoman regarded him for a moment more, watching as Matt tried to maintain a look of innocence. Keeping his cool, however, was far from easy in the circumstances, especially as he could feel the blood from the slain vampire soaking into his trainers, into his socks and up between his toes.
“You may have an overactive imagination, granted,” the policewoman said. “But you certainly have a big mouth. And that’s what worries me, and more importantly, worries your bosses. I know what you are, I know what you do. You’re Matt, the not particularly good vampire hunter. And now, thanks to that big mouth, half the hospital knows about you, too.”
Matt lost his smile. He blinked his eyes a few times as he stuttered: “I… don’t know what you mean.”
The policewoman took a step back as something wet and cold brushed against Matt’s ankle.
“You see, that young nurse you talked to was concerned; a ‘fantasist’ like you was an easy target, she thought; she thought you were a bit simple, which was why you keep getting beaten up. She took her concerns to her superiors, who eventually got them back to your bosses. And your bosses contacted me.”
“The police?” said Matt. “But why?”
The policewoman smiled, as the cold, wet thing clamped around Matt’s ankle. Looking down, his eyes bulged as he saw the face of the ‘dead’ vampire smiling back at him, its now half deflated body still dripping regurgitated blood. He’d missed, again.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest with you, Matt. Though to be fair, if you’d actually paused to read my card, you’d know. I’m not a police officer. I work for the council, just like you. I’m a supervisor and it’s my job to check pest control officers are doing their job effectively – and act appropriately, in cases like yours, when they’re not.”
She nodded at the vampire as it clawed its way up to Matt’s knees, pulling itself slowly to its feet.
“Termination, Matt. Pest control officer, unfortunately killed in the line of duty. You had been warned.”
She stepped back to leave the room as Matt twisted hopelessly against his handcuff and the vampire straightened up.
“Let me go,” he mumbled. “Please. I’ll do better. I promise.”
“Sorry, Matt,” said the woman. She turned to leave, and Matt screamed as the vampire’s cold fingers clawed under his hoodie.
“No, please! No, don’t leave me! Or at least untie me, let it be a fair fight. It’ll be more realistic, if I look like I’ve been fighting him…”
The woman looked thoughtful, then shrugged.
“By the time he’s finished with you, you won’t look like much of anything. He’s not only hungry, he’s quite pissed off, since you hammered a pointy stick into his gut. Edward here is one of our best vampire double-agents, and so he should be; he’s been doing it for 400 years.”
But she smiled as she reached up to unfasten his handcuffs.
“But for once, you may actually be right. No-one will think it strange you’ve been in another fight.” She unchained him, and his hand fell to his side. “But go on. Give it your best shot.”
Matt shook his arm and smiled too.
“Oh, I will.”
Stretching his arms above his head as if in a yawn, he’d bared his fanged teeth and caught her throat before she could even put the key to the cuffs back in her pocket. Before she could scream, he’d torn his way to her jugular and drunk a couple of pints. He shoved her towards Edward and let him do the same before she passed out, and Matt broke her neck with a swift move he’d remembered from his self-defence lessons.
One thing that was true about vampire legends was that to become a one, you had to drink another vampire’s blood. Matt’s dreadful aim and poor memory of anatomy meant he’d had enough mouthfuls in his time, even before the incident last week when Edward had tapped a little too much from his neck. Matt had drifted close to unconsciousness, until Edward had taken pity on or a shine to the pretty boy, and opened a vein to feed him some back. His own blood, mixed with countless splashes of vampire blood, mixed with Edward’s, was a strong concoction.
“Join me,” Edward had beseeched. “I’m old, and lonely. I could use a handsome young companion. And the conditions as a double agent are far better than working for the council.”
Matt had thought about it for a moment, and agreed. It was either that, or stake himself. The beating had only been for show, though the bites were real enough.
It was that beating that Matt was thinking of as he coolly, calmly turned back to Edward, still grinning and slavering over the woman’s corpse. With a lightning move, Matt bit through his neck at the same time as pulling a stake from his pocket. He drank just enough to keep himself looking healthy, not too bloated and not too thin, before hammering the stake into Edward’s chest – accurate, when he wanted to be. With the inside information he got from the council, it was easy to track down his rivals when he got hungry – feeding on his own kind would make him far stronger than sucking on a regular human neck.
As the old vampire crumpled to the floor, Matt shrugged.
“Sorry, Ed. I’m afraid that’s just what I am, it’s what I do.”
He smiled as he stepped over the corpses and walked out. He was Matt, the vampire hunter. The trouble was, he just wasn’t very good.