The Bogeyman by Steve Wade

Jamie was now in the bogeyman’s house. The bogeyman had a wife. And there was a boy. The boy was smaller than Jamie and crazy. He had long hair like a girl’s. Jamie had heard the boy laughing and talking to himself during the night. Jamie had been locked into a room next to the crazy boy’s. Morning time now, and the crazy boy wanted to play with him. He called Jamie by a different name: ‘Wiley’. But the bogeyman called him ‘Riley’.

 “Pa, Pa,” the boy called out. “Wiley won’t play diggers with me.” He ran out the door into the scary place where the bogeyman hid in the shadows. 

Through the open door came the cold. The cold had fangs. And the skeleton hanging in the porch rattled. 

“Riley,” the skeleton said. And Jamie felt in his tummy that feeling he sometimes got when he needed to go to the toilet. “Riley,” the skeleton said again, only this time it was the bogeyman stepping into the house. He spoke with the skeleton’s voice. 

It’s okay, son,” the bogeyman said. “No one is going to hurt you.” White hairs grew down from inside his nostrils.

Jamie grasped the curtain, and pulled it round him the way he often pulled his Dracula cape over his shoulders in his own house.     

“What are you doing, the two of you, to the frightened lamb?” he heard a woman’s voice go. The bogeyman’s wife: the woman who had spoken to him on the street when he was trick-or-treating - the woman who had taken him to the bogeyman’s car. 

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The Annual General Meeting of the East Kent Macumba Society by Michele Sheldon

“They’ll not be welcome here again,” says Dad as we watch the convoy of cars speed away. 

They approach the bend, their brake lights flashing red like devil eyes. I wish I could believe Dad but I can’t. So I scrunch mine shut, willing our departing guests to crash and die. When I open them again, the cars have disappeared. Dad sighs heavily.

“Shall I start with the sitting room?” I ask.

“Most definitely not after last year’s fiasco,” says Dad. ‘You can start on the top floor. I’ve already had a quick look and it’s not too bad, considering."

 I drag my feet along the corridor, slowing outside the sitting room door, my hand reaching for the door knob.

“Ryan James!” says Dad, smacking my hand away. “We’ve got a lot to do before your mother’s home.”

“What if I find another?”

 “Pick it up with a plastic bag and put it in the wheelbarrow at the bottom of the garden. I’ll dispose of it as soon as I get a chance. Now, don’t forget to wear gloves. Work your way around and we’ll meet on the first floor.”

“On my own? But that’s six bedrooms... five en-suites.”

“Less complaining and more cleaning, young man. Your mother’s back at 6pm and you know how upset she got last time.”

I stomp up the stairs. How could I forget? The screaming. The tears. Then the side effects from the anti-depressants.  

“She shouldn’t go on her stupid anniversary trip then should she?” I shout.

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Snow by Ian Inglis

Whenever the snow fell, he remembered a time from his childhood.  Alastair Beech was fourteen years old when his parents decided to move from their three-bedroomed, terraced house near the town centre to a four-bedroomed, double-fronted, detached house in a new housing development on the site of an old convent just half a mile away. For Alastair, it was an uncontentious move. He welcomed the fact that the new house had a large garden, that his bedroom was twice the size of the one he was leaving, and although the journeys to and from school might take an extra few minutes he was relieved that he would be able to walk or cycle there with the same group of friends.

      Within days of their house appearing on the market, his parents received an offer several thousand pounds above the price they had been told to expect. The prospective buyer was a young woman who was keen to complete the purchase as soon as possible. Following the advice of their estate agent, they immediately accepted her bid and looked around for somewhere to rent for several weeks until their new house was completed.  They quickly found a furnished bungalow in a village two miles outside the town, placed their own furniture in storage, and moved in to their temporary home at the end of January. 

      For the next few weeks, Alastair was dropped off at school by his father on his drive to work, but on those days when their timings did not coincide he used the recently constructed Metro system which ran along the lines of the old suburban rail network and connected several of the small towns in the region. By and large he preferred this option. The journey was quick, the service was regular and reliable, and the large numbers of university students who used the system to travel between their outlying halls of residence and the town’s central campus gave him the opportunity to eavesdrop on what he fondly imagined to be exciting and bohemian conversations. In addition, one of the stations on the route was close to St Dominic’s School for Girls, and the crowded carriages provided opportunities for fleeting and unfamiliar physical contact with the opposite sex.

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