Day 3 - The Carpet Crawlers

Run, run, just as fast as you can,

But you can’t run faster,

Than the carpet crawlers can.

The school looked completely different to how I remembered it. If you looked hard you could still see the parts of it that had been there when it was my school, but it had grown in all directions in the twenty five years since I had left it behind and now seemed to me to be more a random urban sprawl than a school.

I walked across a carpark that, if I remember rightly, used to be part of the playing field and threaded my way past a stack of modern red-brick two storey classrooms that hadn’t existed in my day. Once you were past that it looked the same though; the same main entrance, the same steps leading up to it. I felt a twisting in the pit of my stomach as I walked up them; this was the first time I’d attended one of the school reunions and it felt strange to know that I was going to be walking into a hall with a bunch of people who used to be my friends. Well, some of them.

To be honest, reunions seem a little bit of a waste of time these days. Sure, back in the olden days, this was your chance to catch up with everyone and to find out what they had been doing and who they’d been doing it with. But this was the era of social media; I already knew that Sean Simmons had put on weight and lost his hair, I’d already seen from Amy Burnham’s Facebook posts that she’d been through a really messy, and bitter, divorce. It wasn’t about catching up anymore; we were so caught up with everyone these days we didn’t even care.

I’d missed the ten year reunion because I’d been backpacking through Thailand at the time and hadn’t even seen the invitation until I got home and checked my email. I’d missed the twentieth anniversary because I was in LA and sitting by a pool and trying to persuade people to fund my script. And, let’s be honest, because I just couldn’t be bothered to fly all the way back to the UK to hang out with a bunch of people I hardly remembered anymore. And probably I’d have missed the twenty fifth anniversary just as easily if it wasn’t for the dreams starting again.

I paused at the door, one hand on the brass handle. I could still walk away from this, I could still turn around and get back on a train, and back on a plane, and back to my LA condo and forget all of this. Fuck the dreams. But I knew it wasn’t that simple; sometimes you have to go back and face the past. I opened the door and stepped inside.

The entrance hall was pretty much the same. Different paintings on the wall, and the old checked floor tiles had been replaced with some swankier hardwood flooring, but it was the same. It even smelled the same to me. I signed it at the table, said hello to a girl I supposedly hadn’t seen in twenty five years and who I still don’t remember, picked up a name badge and walked into the hall.

The hall brought back memories; memories of standing for what seemed like hours in assemblies, of having lunch here every day, of sitting at a desk and writing lines when I ‘forgot’ my gym kit in order to avoid a cross country run in the pouring rain. Heads turned as I walked into the room; a nod from a guy whose name I forget but who was on my Facebook friends list, a smile from a girl who I remember spending a whole summer infatuated with, and over in the corner, the three people I had come to this reunion to see.

“Chris fucking Mackenzie,” said Jon Evans, his hair still the mess of black curls I remembered. “I do not fucking believe it. I thought you’d moved to the States, Macky?”

“Long time no see Jon,” I replied, “yeah, I’m still living in LA but I figured I’d come over and see how you lot were doing.”

“Come to see how the other half live, eh?” said Mike Ellington, who was so big these days that it looked like he’d maybe eaten the old Mike Ellington I knew.

“Did not think we’d see you here, mate,” said Des Cummins, “and you still look exactly the same, you jammy bastard. We’ve all got old and bald and fat and you look the fucking same.”

“Nah,” I said, “I’ve put on some weight. And my hair’s going grey…”

“Well, at least you’ve got hair,” replied Des, running one hand over his now smooth head. “I finally admitted defeat five years ago and started shaving it.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I remember you posted the photos online.”

I looked around, it all seemed so familiar.

“Remember that first assembly we ever had here,” said Mike, “when Jackie Dawkins fainted and they had to carry her out?”

“Man, I still remember the sound she made when she hit the floor,” said Jon, looking around, “I wonder if she’s here tonight?”

“We had some good times here,” laughed Des, “some fucking good times. Remember when Mr. Pincher caught you with your hand up Kirsty Fletcher’s jumper and he went absolutely batshit and dragged you to the headmaster’s office by your sideburns?”

We all laughed, I had forgotten that. But now that I thought about it, I could remember how they’d ached for days afterwards. We swapped anecdotes that like for a couple of hours, pretty much ignoring everyone else who came over and said hello and then left the reunion to head to the pub down the road, where we continued the anecdotes alongside beers.

It was on the fourth beer that I asked the question that had brought me over five thousand miles to be here tonight.

“Do you remember James Benton?”

A silence descended on our corner of the pub. Des looked into his pint glass with a frown, Jon sipped from his beer without saying a word, and Mike stared out the window as though he’d suddenly seen something interesting out there.

“Do you remember James Benton?” I repeated.

“We said we’d never talk about him again,” said Jon quietly. “We swore.”

“I know what we said,” I replied, “but I’ve been having the dreams again.”

“Fuck,” said Des, angrily. “Why did you have to mention the dreams? I’d forgotten about the fucking dreams until you said that.”

Mike had continued to stare out the window, the colour seemingly drained from him so that he appeared to be almost made out of alabaster. He had one hand tightly gripping his pint glass, the other he was flexing open and shut.

“Mike?” I asked.

He turned back to us, his eyes hollow. “I’ve been having the dreams again as well. They started a few months ago.”

“It’s a coincidence,” said Jon, quickly, “it has to be.”

“We are not going to talk about James Fucking Benton,” said Des. “Benton died when we were still thirteen. He got lost in the woods and he was killed by that homeless guy and it is not our fault.”

“Is that how you remember it?” I asked, “Is that really how you remember it? Have you lied to everyone for so long about what happened in the woods that you’ve even started believing it yourself?”

“I remember the shack,” said Mike, putting his glass down on the table. “That’s what I see in my dreams. And I hear his screams.”

“Will you two shut the fuck up,” hissed Des, “this is not what I came here to talk about…”

“You know in your heart what happened that day,” I said firmly, staring him down until he looked away. “We were responsible for what happened and we need to go back. If the dreams are going to end, we need to go back.”

Silence descended again, thicker this time, as everyone mulled over what I had just said.

James Benton had been one of us, one of the five musketeers as we’d liked to call ourselves. We’d played football together on the car park of the factories down my road, we’d ridden our bikes in a pack along the roads of the estate, and we’d gone into the woods together that day all those years ago.

I still blame myself. Maybe that’s why I had the dreams more than anyone else. I was a storyteller, always have been, and so when we found the old wooden shack in the middle of the woods I immediately came up with a history for it. Its windows were thick with dust and dirt but one small pane was broken and we had stared in at a small room with a wooden table and a rocking chair and an old red carpet, and I had immediately made up a story about how it was haunted and how no one dared stay inside it. That was the day I made up the story of the carpet crawlers.

I’d heard mention of them in an old rhyme, something about running fast as you can, and I just built up a story around the words. The carpet crawlers lived in the patterns of carpets, I told them. They were little fragments of shadow, of darkness, that disguised themselves in the patterns and only formed into their true form when it was dark and they could move freely. They lived in that red carpet and they waited, I’d said, for someone to come to them after all these years alone. Waited for someone to taste.

And James, James who was the smallest of us and the youngest of us, he was scared of the carpet crawlers. Oh, he pretended to laugh like everyone else, but I could see that the thought of the carpet crawlers, slithering silently in the dark and waiting for him, scared the hell out of him. I saw that and yet I didn’t stop. Or maybe it’s only in retrospect that I see it; maybe the man that I am today sees it in my memories but the boy I was did not. Some days I can almost believe that to be true.

A week later, when we were playing in the woods again, we became separated from James and we lost him in the woods. We ran home and told my mum and she called the police and there was a big search organised; it was on TV and everything. The police talked to us and we all told them the same thing, that we’d been by the shack and something had scared us and we’d ran away but James hadn’t kept up and by the time we realised it was too late.

I think, to begin with, the police were sceptical of our story and thought we’d done something to James. But then two days later they found Alan Matthews, a homeless guy, sleeping rough a couple of miles away and he had James’ bag on him and they arrested him. He was an alcoholic and they didn’t get much sense out of him, certainly nothing on what he’d done to James, and then a couple of weeks later he was murdered in prison and the case died there. James was never found, presumed murdered by Matthews.

But the truth was different.

The truth was that day we went out to the shack again and, maybe it was Jon’s idea or maybe it was Mike’s idea, but whoever’s idea it was we decided we were going to shove James into the shack and shut him in. It was going to be a laugh we’d all agreed, we’d shut him in there and only let him out when he’d peed himself. I opened the door to the shack and Des and Mike shoved him in. I still remember the panic on his face as Des shoved the door shut. I’ve tried to forget but I still remember the way his eyes opened so very wide and his mouth fell open as the door swung shut on him.

He screamed and banged on the door, pounding against the wood so hard that it took all of us holding ourselves against the door to keep him in there. And then he cried and started shouting about the carpet crawlers, and we laughed our heads off. And then he whimpered, and then he went completely silent. I remember Des laughing that he must be peeing himself but I felt something cold inside me, that instinct that something is terribly wrong.

And, of course, when we opened the door to the shack, James was gone. We went in, but there was no sign of him. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air. And so we ran home and told my mum the story about getting scared and separated in the woods – after all, who would have believed that a boy vanished into thin air?

When they arrested Alan Matthews, I was happy that they’d found an explanation for what happened even though I knew in my heart that James Benton hadn’t been snatched up by some tramp. The shack had taken him, the carpet crawlers had taken him. And even though I tried to pretend that I believed the official version, when I started to have the dreams I knew my instincts had been right.

I dreamed of standing outside shack and of James Benton waiting inside, except he had no eyes. And he screamed silently at me as the floor beneath his feet, the red carpet, swirled in dark patterns. Inside my head, I heard a voice begging me to come inside.

And eventually we all were dreaming the same dream; all four of us, that same dream. Now, maybe there’s a rational explanation; maybe the trauma of that day caused it, maybe whoever dreamed it first mentioned it to the others and they started having the same dream. But I don’t believe you can explain it rationally. It go so that we would have the dream every single night. And every night we found ourselves closer to the door, closer to stepping into the darkness.

Mike had the idea of burning the shack down and we all agreed. We stole petrol from Jon’s brother’s moped and we came back to the shack in the daytime and we sprinkled it around the outside of it and we lit a match. And as it burned, we ran. It caused a forest fire that the fire brigade had to come out to and damp down but it was worth it because the dreams ended and we swore that we would never talk about James or the dreams or the shack ever again.

But here we were, twenty five years later than and the dreams had started all over again.

“We need to go back,” echoed Mike and Des and Jon sighed and reluctantly nodded.

***


We met early the next morning, heads still a little heavy from the beer the night before, and we headed into the woods together. The atmosphere sombre and tense; I think we’d all had the dream that night and we all knew we couldn’t ignore this, we needed to go back and end this finally.

The woods were silent, not a bird or an insect to be heard, as we trudged through them and after twenty minutes of walking we emerged into a small clearing where we found a wooden shack. Its windows were dirty and dusty, and one pane was broken.

“This isn’t possible,” said Jon, “We burnt this down.”

“Someone must have rebuilt it,” said Des.

“Do you know how stupid that sounds?” asked Mike, “Who would rebuild a shack in the middle of the woods and make it as broken down as before?”

“Maybe we didn’t burn it then,” suggested Des.

“We burned it,” I said. “I remember watching the flames climbing up the walls before we ran. We burnt this but now it’s back.”

The door of the shack was ajar and I knew that we needed to open it, that we needed to step inside. Even as a small voice somewhere inside me was telling me to run, to run away as fast as I could, a far more powerful voice was beckoning to me to step inside.

All four of us walked into the shack. It was exactly as I remember it; a wooden table and a rocking chair. The old red carpet, thick with dust and grime. Except in the corner, there was something else. Something in the shadows.

Somewhere in the distance a door shut but I was looking at the something else, at the something in the shadows, as it turned and as James Benton shambled forwards. His mouth open in a scream that never came, his empty eye sockets spilling maggots onto the floor.

And as the fragments of darkness began to coalesce across the floor, as the carpet crawlers begin to rise from the darkness, I realised that I’d always known it would have to end here. We left James once and now we had to come back for him. And as they touched me, midnight blackness scurrying ice cold across my skin, I knew it could never be a happy ending…

Day 2 - What Is and What Should Never Be

It had existed in this limited form for countless aeons, ever since the Great War had been raged and its kind had been forced to seek out refuge in the deepest, darkest places of the lesser dimensions. This planet had been young then, a teeming cauldron of primitive life that provided it with little interest and even less potential, and so it had slept for long ages.

It remembered awakening for the slow rise of the dinosaurs. Buried deep as it was in the very roots of the planet, it still felt them as they evolved to dominate the land and the sea.  They were a disappointment; full of animalistic desire, their reptilian brains slick with reflex yet devoid of the necessary spark. And so, when the asteroid finally came, scouring them from the planet beneath swift decades of blackness, it was pleased that the event offered opportunity for more complex life to flourish.

It waited patiently as the small mammals scurried relentlessly to claim a reborn world, as the surviving descendants of the dinosaurs took wing and began to fill the skies. Their tiny minds buzzed with a flurry of simple thoughts that it listened to on occasion, for it detected the first seeds of development among them, but it soon grew tired of their babble. And so it slept again, content in the knowledge that its long wait to reclaim its place within the Multiverse would soon be over.

Finally, it started to rouse as the last of the Ice Ages began to subside and as a particular type of mammal began to rise to prominence. Their thoughts were still basic, still so very primitive to one such as it that had traversed the higher dimensions and that had seen galaxies born and die, but they offered a kind of crude promise. And so, after more than a billion years, the Eldritch God finally began to stir itself from its dreamless sleep far beneath the cold depths of the ocean.

It was still so very weak; escaping the Great War and the purification that had followed had proven difficult and it had been forced to fold itself in upon itself, bury its abilities so deeply inside that they could not be found even by itself, let alone by those who might search for it. It had conserved what little energy it had left over the aeons but where once had roared a furnace that devoured stars, there were only pale embers. But all that would soon change.

It waited a little longer, a mere two hundred thousand years; waited for the race to blossom and be fully ready for it. All that was needed was for it to be touched by one of them, to link with them and access the power of their imagination and fear, and turn them into a conduit that would unlock the theurgical might that it had closeted away for so many long Ages.

It used much of its remaining energies to push through the oceanic crust; ejected gratefully from the rock, like a splinter from flesh, to emerge into the midnight blackness of the abyssal plain. And then it drifted, stealing strength from the flittering dreams of fish as it slowly worked its way towards land and towards life. Its thoughts anticipating a return to majesty, and devising the horrors that it would then wreak upon this world that had been its prison.

The net of a fishing trawler briefly snared it but the thrashing of a dolphin, caught to in the mile long drift net, served to eject it before it could be hauled up to the surface. And so it drifted further, carried by ocean currents as it conserved the last of its energy for the moment when it could fashion the conduit.

Finally, as the sun rose over the sea, the currents and the waves carried it up onto a sandy beach and left it exposed to the light. It focused its energies so that its form was now that of a coruscating rock, something that it was certain would attract the first person to see it. All it needed was one moment of touch, the barest fraction of a second, and it would expose them to a vision of its true self and drive them beyond the depths of insanity to where they were malleable enough to be of use. For so many aeons, it had waited for life of sufficient sophistication and now all it had to do was wait a few moments longer…

***

Derek Dawson strolled along the sands of Redcar with a Tesco carrier bag swinging from his arm that contained one egg and cress sandwich (wrapped in clingfilm), a packet of smoky bacon crisps (Walkers) and a kitkat (two sticks). It was the same lunch that he had every day on his break from the office as he was very exacting in his demands. There had been, he remembered with a shudder, one occasion when he had accidentally purchased beef and onion crisps (due to the shop being dimly lit) and it had almost ruined his entire week.

It was 12.34pm. He knew this without looking at the Casio watch on his wrist because it was always 12.34pm when he got to this point of the beach. Another three and half minutes and he would reach the concrete steps that led up to the small bench upon which he would sit to eat his lunch. Unless someone was sitting there, which happened on rare occasions, in which case he would sit on the sea wall instead. It wasn’t ideal but it was an acceptable compromise in an emergency.

He was lost a thought a little, thinking of a set of tangible constructed assets that would need to be assessed and depreciated upon his return to the office, when his right foot struck a rock. He looked down.

The rock was oddly shaped; or, at least, its angles seemed somehow wrong and it glittered brightly beneath the rays of the pale sun that was currently poking its way through the clouds. I’ve never seen that before, thought Derek and – despite himself – was seized with an overwhelming desire to bend down and pick it up. So he did.

***

It felt hands enclose it, pick it up, and it summoned its energies; ready to connect and to project itself into a mind inadequately prepared for its infinite madness and evil. In mere seconds it would have seized upon the spark within this one and used it to ignite an inferno that would lay waste to this world, this Solar System, this whole galaxy.

***

Derek looked at the rock in his hands, turning it over as he did. It was definitely quite shiny, he thought, nodding to himself absent-mindedly.


***

It poured forth its rage and its malice in a torrent, but something was very wrong. It was if it was pouring into a cup that could not be filled. It strained harder, wrenching forth energies from within its depths that had remained untapped since life had walked across this pitiful globe.


***

Yes, thought, Derek. Quite shiny indeed. Worth picking up, even if his hands were a little sandy now.


***

It raged impotently. It was a God. It was Death incarnate. It was a being of a magnitude and dimension utterly beyond the one who held it. But, despite all of that, nothing was working. Its energies were slipping desperately away. It had gambled everything on this moment, on this moment of rebirth, but everything was now slipping away from it. The pale embers inside slowly being extinguished one by one. And in one final moment of clarity it realised that it had somehow connected to a being with no spark, with no imagination, a being with such little capacity for wonder that all of its attempts were destined to fail. And, with this last thought, the Eldritch God faded from the Universe with a whimper not a bang.


***

Although, thought Derek, it wasn’t quite as shiny now that the sun had gone in. And his hands were rather sandy. Which was a bit silly because now he’d need to hold his sandwich in the clingfilm and wait until he got back to the office to eat his crisps.

He took one last look at the oddly shaped rock, which curiously enough seemed far less odd than it had first seemed, and then tossed it back into the sea. He looked at his watch. It was 12.36pm. Derek Dawson sighed to himself; he’d just wasted two minutes on a rock. I really should have left that alone, he thought, as he walked away wiping his sandy hands on his trousers…

Day 1 - Death On Two Legs

“Mr. President,” said General Renfield, his voice ever so slightly strained, “we really need you to make a decision on this.”

President Douglas Moore ignored him, and continued to stare in silence at the array of screens, at the swathes of data and maps laid before him, and felt a singular bead of sweat begin to trickle slowly down his left temple. His very first week in office and he’d walked into the biggest crisis the USA had faced since Cuba in ‘62. The fate of the country rested on the decision he would reach in the next few minutes. He turned to look at the faces at the table, all staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell them what to do.

“And we’re sure that it was the Chinese who were responsible for the cyberattack on our infrastructure?” he asked.

“90% certainty, sir,” said Eveline Chambers, Director of National Intelligence.

“90% certainty, Eveline?” said Arthur Ellis, Secretary of State, twisting in his chair so that he faced her, “Which means that there is a 10% chance that you’re intelligence is completely wrong. What if all this is just a coincidence?”

“That’s 90% certainty, plus we have unexpectedly lost contact with one of our satellites, a satellite that just so happens to be the one we should have over China right now Mr. Secretary” replied Chambers dispassionately, “Mr. President, China has just delivered a devastating attack on our infrastructure from coast-to-coast and now they’ve blinded us.”

“But these could be two unconnected things, isn’t that right?” continued Ellis.

“They could be,” said Chambers, her green eyes boring into the Secretary of State, “Or China could be fuelling its missiles right now and prepping them for launch. We know they’ve been conducting full trials on the new DF-35A hypersonic missile in the last year, this could be their play.”

“Our belief Mr. President,” said Renfield, “is that China is going to use this as an opportunity to conduct a pre-emptive attack on the Seventh fleet and our base in Okinawa. If that happens, thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese, will die and we’ll effectively be removed as a power in the East Pacific.”

President Moore gripped the sides of his desk until his knuckles were white. Hundreds of thousands of deaths, on his watch. How had he ended up in this position? He found that he couldn’t even remember his election campaign, couldn’t remember the inauguration; all he had was this moment in which the whole nation depended upon him.

“We have a full range of responses available, sir.” said Renfield, “as I stated, we believe a limited nuclear strike of key Chinese military targets and bases will result in a positive outcome for us.”

“A positive outcome?” said Ellis, “how in the hell do we spin millions of dead Chinese as a positive outcome, General?”

President Moore ignored them, tuned out their voices, and sought guidance from his conscience. Could he give the order which would start a nuclear conflict and kill millions? On one hand, the thought troubled him; on the other, he remembered the words of the Bible his father had taught him.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” he whispered the words, barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

“Mr. President?” asked Chambers.

“Jeremiah 29:11,” replied President Moore, “Those were words my father told me to live by. Trust in God, he said, trust that God has a plan.”

“With all due respect, sir” said Ellis, “I hardly think that this is the time to be quoting scripture. If we make the wrong decision here today, we run the risk of throwing this country into World War 3…”

“I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying Arthur,” said President Moore, “we are all God’s children, we are all part of God’s plan. The decision I make today is part of that plan, don’t you see? If it is to be that World War 3 starts today because of our actions then that is because God has decreed that it must happen that way. It will be for a greater good.”

“I have to call a vote of no confidence,” said Ellis, pushing his chair back and standing up. “Think what you are suggesting here, Douglas.”

“I know what I am doing,” said the President, suddenly seized with a certainty of his actions, “I have never been more certain of anything in my life. And you will do well to remember to refer to me as Mr. President, Arthur.”

“Are you all just going to let him do this?” pleaded Ellis, looking in turn to each of the members of the National Security Council, none of whom would meet his gaze. “This is insanity!”

“Get him out of here,” ordered Moore, and two secret service agents approached Ellis from behind, roughly taking him by his arms and half dragging him out of the command centre. The heavy doors shut behind them, leaving the room in silence.

“Do I have permission to begin the limited strike?” asked General Renfield.

“No,” said the President, staring off into the middle distance, “you do not, General Renfield.”

“Sir?”

“I want a comprehensive strike on every Chinese military target.”

“We have an option for that sir, but the collateral damage is going to be extensive.”

“It’s alright,” beamed the President, “God knows what is best for us; he has put me here today to enact his plan. We only have to put our trust in him. Prepare our forces.”

He motioned to the secret service agent beside him and a black suitcase was laid out on the table in front of him. He held his palm against the sensor on its lid until the case clicked softly open and then passed it back to the agent, who opened a laptop that was inside. President Moore then reached inside his jacket pocket and removed a credit-card sized piece of plastic which he then esnapped in two with his hands.

“Gold code; Alpha, Lima, Three, Zero, Five, Bravo, Eight, Zero, Four, Three.”

“Authorisation confirmed, sir.” said the agent at the laptop, “I now need confirmation from the Secretary of Defence.”

All eyes turned to Miranda Mayhew, seated at the far end of the desk. She had stayed silent throughout the discussions and now was deathly pale, her gaze fixed resolutely on the papers that were spread out on the desk in front of her.

“Miranda,” prompted the President.

“I don’t know whether we should do this, Mr. President,” she said, her voice trembling. “We are authorising the deaths of tens of millions of people.”

“I want you to remember the Bible, Miranda. Remember Isaiah where it is written: Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”

“I’m afraid,” sobbed Miranda.

“Give me the code,” said the President firmly. “Give me the goddamn code, Miranda.”

She took the card from her pocket, eyes welling up with tears and broke it in two, reading out the digits and numerals with a voice so small it was hard to hear.

“Gold Code: Tango, Alpha, Seven, Six, One, Zulu, Nine, Nine, Three, Five.”

“Authorisation confirmed. Nuclear codes have been accepted.”

“Are we ready to launch?” asked the President.

“On your command,” said General Renfield grimly, “we have missile boats throughout the Pacific, B2 bombers in the air and our silos are fully prepped.”

President Moore steepled his fingers and looked up to the ceiling, imagining the plumes of fire that would soon be rising from the sea and from the land, of the destruction that lay ahead. He took comfort from his faith, certain that God would not have led him wrong in this moment.

“Fire.”


*   *   *   *


“Senator Moore?” The voice was distant to begin with but grew louder. “Senator Moore?”

He blinked, disorientated by the sudden bright lights. He was lying down looking straight up at the lights and a man in a white coat was looming over him, detaching some kind of wires from his temples. Where in the hell was he? What had happened to his orders?

“Sir, it’s natural to be a little confused at this time,” said the man, “You’ve just undergone a fully immersive experience.”

He tried to make sense of the words, his memory was foggy, his mind sluggish.

“Senator Moore,” a different voice this time, coming from his left and he tilted his head to see Arthur Ellis, Secretary of State standing beside him.

“What happened?” he croaked, his throat rough and dry.

“You just underwent the Presidential Suitability test, Douglas” said Ellis, a pained expression on his face.

“How did I do?”

“You failed Douglas,” said Ellis. “You failed, thank God.”

Short Story Challenge - Song Guide

So, with just one week to go until my Short Story Challenge, I decided to write up a little on each of the tracks to explain why I picked these particular albums...

1. Death on Two Legs
Growing up, there was a row of vinyl LPs that sat, neatly stacked, between the book shelf (which also held the black and white TV) and a short brick cube upon which the record player was positioned. It was an eclectic collection of music spanning a couple of decades and, as a child, I'd often listen to them. A Night at The Opera is considered by many to be Queen's definitive album but, for me, it was just the first Queen album I ever heard and its wide range of styles are possibly responsible for the fact that my own musical tastes are fairly broad. I listened to this album an awful lot...

2. What Is and What Should Never Be
If Queen served to ignite my love for music in a plethora of shapes and forms, then Led Zeppelin surely ignited what has become a lifelong love for the guitar. Among that same row of vinyl LPs, was the Led Zeppelin II album and I am not ashamed to say that, by repeated listening to tracks such as Heartbreaker, I became a highly proficient air guitarist at a very early age. While the UK charts may have been home to acts like Buck's Fizz and Abba, this was an era where I discovered the joys of amplified guitars...

3. The Carpet Crawlers
At the age of ten or eleven, I went through a huge Genesis phase. My dad had been (indeed still is) a fan of Genesis and I remember that the one album I listened to more than any other was The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, which was an epic double LP of progressive rock filled with all manner of strange music and even stranger lyrics. My music tastes at this point were, frankly, about as far out of sync with my peers as they had any right to be but I didn't care - in this era of Genesis there was a complexity of construction and rhythm that I found infinitely more appealing than Culture Club and Duran Duran...

4. Call on Me
This album, Straight Shooter. hailed from a similar era in my musical development as the first three on this list and I thought Paul Rodger's voice was just brilliant - I would sing along to the album when there was no one else home. And probably a few times when there were people home. Truth be told, I've sung along to a few of these tracks more recently as well as I'm still of the opinion that Paul Rodgers has a great voice for classic rock...

5. Perfect Strangers
Perfect Strangers was, as far as I can remember, the first album I ever bought for myself. I can still remember heading to WH Smith, armed with a voucher that I'd received for my birthday, and wandering around the aisles looking for something interesting to buy. I'd had a chance to listen to the Deep Purple in Rock album at the house of a friend of the family and knew that I wanted to own some Deep Purple myself. This was their new album and, while maybe it wasn't one of their classics, I played the cassette tape on the little black cassette recorder I owned until the print wore off the plastic...

6. Social Disease
I still remember when Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet album hit and, suddenly, guitars and guitar solos were cool again and my musical tastes - which had been considerably different from that of my friends up until this point - suddenly were aligned with those of my peers. For a while at least. This became another album I sung along to quite a bit and I dreamed of being able to play like Richie Sambora, who seemed to my teenage ears, to be an utter Guitar God...

7. The Animals and Me
I remember, by the time I got to 14 or 15, I'd become friends with a completely different bunch of people from High School and this saw me introduced to 'alternative rock' in the shape of bands like Pixies, The Cult, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, and The Wonder Stuff. I had a copy of The Eight Legged Groove Machine on one side of a C90 tape and, for a couple of teenage months, it was the most listened to cassette in my collection.

8. Your Emotions
Delving into alternative rock led me to discover a whole range of other bands that I'd not been aware of before and also into hardcore punk where I discovered the Dead Kennedys; music that was loud, relentless and with vitriolic lyrics. It was a combination that fitted perfectly alongside 15 year old me and I bought the Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables LP (as well as others) and played them at volume...

9. Mystery Train
By the time I was 16, I was beginning to grow tired with alternative rock and found myself going back to listen to older classic rock and early metal; one album that I stumbled across (and I'm still not quite sure where it came from - possibly from a family friend that loaned it to us) was UFO's No Place to Run and the air guitarist in me enjoyed the wealth of guitar solos - with the hard rock version of Mystery Train being a favourite to 'play along' to...

10. The Riddle
I still remember the first time I heard Steve Vai. It was in an Art Class and I was listening to that UFO album I just mentioned and one of my class mates - Jon Dimmock - told me that if I wanted to hear fast guitar I should have a listen to this and played me the solo from Fool For Your Lovin' from Whitesnake's Slip of the Tongue album on his walkman. Steve Vai blew me away. And the heavy metal magazines of the time were full of the news that he was about to launch an instrumental album, so I bought it as soon as it came out. Passion and Warfare changed everything. It redefined my expectations for what was possible on guitar and persuaded me that listening to guitar just wasn't enough - I needed to learn how to play guitar...

11. Walking By Myself
School was over, it was the summer holidays prior to my starting college, and I'd taken on a part-time job at the DIY store, B&Q - which meant, for the first time ever I had money. Money! More money than I had ever had in my life. So, I did what any 16 year old boy would do, I blew my wage instantly every month as soon as I got it. The first month, I imported a Sega Megadrive from Japan, and the second month I got myself my very own CD player. And the first CD I bought was Gary Moore's Still Got The Blues...

12. Judgement Day
I'd heard one track from the Slip of the Tongue album earlier in the year, but my Whitesnake phase was really kickstarted on 18th August, 1990 when I went along to the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington. This was my first real concert and it was one attended by between 75,000 and 100,000 people. My mind was blown. So I bought the album and would do my best David Coverdale impression when no one was around (or when I thought no one was around, at least). A special mention must be made for the truly horrendous level of innuendo on this album - it's up there with Spinal Tap in places!

13. Red House
I was slightly unusual in that I had heard Steve Vai before I heard Jimi Hendrix and the first CD I got was Jimi Hendrix Concerts which featured Jimi at his pyrotechnic best. It was rawer and less technical than the likes of Steve Vai, but there was a kind of power in that rawness and in among the fuzz tone and the divebombs. I'd listened to a lot of Gary Moore, that was obviously blues, but this album was the starting point for me diving into blues much more and led me to discover people like Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, BB King, and more...

14. Fuel to Run
I remember getting this EP, Love/Hate - Live EP, free with an issue of Kerrang! magazine and I just loved how raw it was. Quite simple stuff, but there was such an energy to the band. Even if, in retrospect, they had more than their fair share of questionable lyrics...

15. Phantom Lord
I still remember the visceral shock of hearing Metallica's album Kill 'Em All for the first time - this was metal at a 1000mph; an unrelenting aural attack with crushing power chords and ripsaw lead guitar. I remember going on a coach tour of California in April 1991 and listening to this almost non-stop throughout the two and a half weeks.

16. The Phone Call
I'd been introduced to Joe Satriani due to the fact that he taught Steve Vai how to play guitar, and listened to his Surfing with the Alien album, but I found that I enjoyed his Flying in a Blue Dream album more (which may put me in the minority). His music was a lot more accessible than that of Steve Vai, who had such complicated arrangements and melodies, and the lead guitar often seemed to just take the part of the lead vocal. At this stage of my life, I dreamed of being able to play this kind of space-age guitar (although this particular track is pretty much the antithesis of that!)...

17. Voodoo Kiss
I have my sister Lora to thank for introducing me to Mr. Big and the album Lean Into It, although I didn't realise at the time that I'd already listened to both Paul Gilbert's previous band (Racer X) and that of Billy Sheehan (Dave Lee Roth). Mr. Big ticked a lot of boxes for me - great rock voice (check!), songs to sing along to (check!), and plenty of instrumental virtuosity (check!).

18. Give it Away
I remember borrowing a copy of Blood Sugar Sex Magik from a friend (who actually, if I remember rightly, also introduced me to Joe Satriani) and just loving the funky rhythms, the playfulness, and the underlying humour of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was something quite different to everything else I was listening to at the time...

19. Up in the Sky
I have Philip Dunne from Rare to thank for introducing me to Oasis. When we are at Rare, we used to take turns to play our CDs in the office and, one evening, he popped on Definitely Maybe and I was taken - much like I had years earlier by Love/Hate - by the band's raw energy. There was something special in that first album, like catching lighting in a bottle, but - for me at least - the band got less and less interesting as they become more and more over produced. But, this first album was listened to a lot...

20. Wake Up
I'm guessing it was also at Rare that I first heard Rage Against The Machine. Wow. Just like Dead Kennedys had amazed me with the power of their message, this album was just an attack on the status quo wrapped up in a far more sophisticated blend of musicianship. Blending together elements such as Beastie Boys (whose License to Ill album, in retrospect, should have been on this list!) with complex metal riffs and guitar virtuoso solos, this album saw many late night plays as I debugged our game.

21. Dirty Pool
I bought the Texas Flood album towards the end of my time at Rare, and Stevie Ray Vaughan rapidly became the biggest single influence on my guitar playing. There was just a majesty in his playing, a combination of tone and technique and fire that I'd never come across before; it was like he played constantly on the edge and yet nailed it every time. I cannot tell you how many times I've listened to this, headphones on and eyes closed, just enjoying the sound of one of the finest blues guitarists of all time...

22. Dr. Glee
I'd heard about Richie Kotzen years ago from my guitar teacher, Des Sherwood, but never really listened to any of his stuff before running across a copy of Electric Joy in a record shop. He had great legato technique and his playing had this organic feel, but never ended up being predictable. Later, I'd find out that not only was he a superlative guitar player but he was also in possession of a fabulous rock voice. The git.

23. Guardian Angel
I was working at Sony Computer Entertainment and, one of the perks of the job was buying CDs at a reduced price. I remember going through the catalogue and picking out about thirty different albums - with one of these being an acoustic album I'd remembered hearing about somewhere called Friday Night in San Francisco that featured an acoustic guitar trio of Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia. It was a mix of jazz, flamenco and fusion and was - and still is - just a masterclass of acoustic guitar playing.

24. Solution
Another job move, this time to Acclaim, that - for several months, before relocating - involved a 210 mile drive on a Monday morning and on a Friday afternoon. Particularly on a Monday, leaving at 5am in the morning, I depended upon a good selection of music to keep me going (and awake). I'd been a fan of Tesla for some time and listened to this, their final album (until they later reformed) on repeat for hours on end.

25. Bad Meets Evil
Another album from my driving period; I remember hearing Eminem on a late-night radio show one Friday when I was driving back and loved the quirky style of his rapping, that was so different to the work of more traditional artists. I bought the Slim Shady LP and - at one point - knew pretty much the whole album back-to-front...

26. Anxiety
I came across the Elephunk album thanks to my wife, Anna; her students were doing a cover performance of the song 'Let's Get It Started' and that got me listening to the album. I remember a series of six hour long drives to and from the airport when my wife was still living in Moscow in which this album was played fairly constantly. It was a fun album; the sound of a band enjoying themselves and not taking themselves too seriously (although, this wasn't to last!) and it is always an album that will have positive memories for me. This was the toughest track to actually find a link to...

27. Girls Who Can Read Your Mind
I had been listening to Paul Gilbert in bands like Racer X and Mr. Big for many years but Beehive Live was the first solo album I'd bought and this was just a perfect introduction to his solo material. Quirky, humorous, and possessing truly monstrous technique, Paul Gilbert was another big influence on my own guitar playing (even if that is more in spirit than ability!)...

28. Dirt in my Pocket
I'd be listening to a lot of blues, by people like Matt Schofield and Robben Ford, and really enjoying it - but I'd not come across anyone who really blew me away for a long time. And then I came across Joe Bonamassa. Possessing a style that echoes that of Eric Johnson in places, he was just a breath of fresh air and I particularly enjoyed his Sloe Gin album. Provided another influence on my playing and got me excited about the blues all over again...

29. Uncle Skunk
I'd being aware of Guthrie Govan for years as he wrote articles for Guitar Techniques magazine and I knew that he was an excellent guitarist. What I wasn't prepared for was just how excellent. Listening to his Erotic Cakes album made me reconsider the boundaries of electric guitar all over again - he could play things that seemed impossible but managed to wrap it all together into something melodic and musical. This wasn't shred, this was just superb musicianship...

30. Flatlands
The Aristocrats brings together three truly virtuoso performers in an environment where they can make the kind of music they want to make. I've enjoyed all three of their albums but their first album, The Aristocrats, occupied more time on my playlist than anything else when it came out.  This wasn't po-faced virtuoso prog-rock; this was the sound of people having fun and enjoying their sheer command of their instruments. Listening to it always induces a strange combination of smiling and jaw dropping simultaneously...

November Short Story Writing Challenge

November is, as many writers will know, the National Novel Writing Month - a time when thousands of writers attempt to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, at least) and create a fully fledged novel in the space of only thirty short days.

But, in amongst this explosion of literary creativity, please spare a thought if you will for the humble short story. With all the hooplah of Nanowrimo, with novel writing front and centre and getting all of the attention and all of the fuss, who takes the time to give some consideration to the poor old short story? A medium that rarely gets anywhere near the kudos or the acclaim of its lengthier brethren, and yet a medium that has been the staple of great writers such as Bradbury, Asimov, Hemingway, Kipling, and Dick (to name but a few!).

So, I decided to create a writing challenge for November that would be all about the little guy, all about the underdog, all about creating reams of short stories to exercise the creative muscles in all manner of ways. Thirty days, thirty titles, thirty short stories.

Now, I'm not sure how many of those thirty stories I'll be able to complete. I think I'd be happy with a .500 batting average come December 1st and if I manage to create fifteen short stories, then I think I'll slap them all together into an ebook of some kind and let them loose on the old interweb.

The prompts themselves are musically derived. I decided to use the title of a track from thirty different albums that have meant something to me over the years. So, without further ado, here are the thirty prompts.Use as many of them as you like:

1. Death On Two Legs
2. What Is and What Should Never Be
3. The Carpet Crawlers
4. Call on Me
5. Perfect Strangers
6. Social Disease
7. The Animals and Me
8. Your Emotions
9. Mystery Train
10. The Riddle
11. Walking By Myself
12. Judgement Day
13. Red House
14. Fuel to Run
15. Phantom Lord
16. The Phone Call
17. Voodoo Kiss
18. Give It Away
19. Up in the Sky
20. Wake Up
21. Dirty Pool
22. Dr. Glee
23. Guardian Angel
24. Solution
25. Bad Meets Evil
26. Anxiety
27. Girls Who Can Read Your Mind
28. Dirt in my Pocket
29. Uncle Skunk
30. Flatlands


If you fancy joining in, please do. In fact, I'd love to read the stories you come up with in response to the thirty prompts that are listed above; I'm certain that your brain will take them in an altogether different direction than mine might suggest to me. Alternatively, feel free to make your own thirty day list from thirty songs titles from thirty albums that meant something to you!