Already Gone<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI told you your Uncle Charlie would get us all back to the city safe and sound.\u201d <\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And fast, I could have added. We\u2019d had to leave Dereham in a hurry \u2013 the BMW was hot \u2013 in every sense of the word. And you know how bad some of these bloody Norfolk roads can be. For fuck\u2019s sake, it\u2019s the Twenty-First century yet some of them are still hardly much better than cart-tracks! I mean, what are we paying our taxes for? OK, strike that last remark, I\u2019ve never knowingly paid a penny of tax in my life. <\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYeah,\u201d says Mikey, \u201cbut I never know whether it\u2019s Uncle Charlie driving the car \u2013 or the charlie that\u2019s driving Uncle Charlie. You certainly cut it a bit close when you overtook that Merc coming off the dual-carriageway.\u00a0 You sure we didn’t hit it?\u201d <\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAh shut the fuck up. Of course we didn\u2019t.\u00a0 We\u2019re back in our flat aren\u2019t we?\u201d I reply. <\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I say \u2018our flat\u2019 \u2013 actually we\u2019re looking after it for the owner who works out in Dubai. Or Delhi. Or Durban. Anyway, somewhere foreign. At least that\u2019s what we tell the neighbours when they complain about the noise, particularly when there\u2019s a Canaries game on. Did I mention the apartment block conveniently overlooks the Carrow Road football ground? Besides, we\u2019re doing it out of the kindness of our hearts \u2013 and not charging the guy a penny. In fact it\u2019ll come as a total surprise to him when he finds out we\u2019ve been staying here.<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I get some tinnies of Newky Brown from the fridge, pass one to Mikey and toss the other to Jezza, the third member of our little group tonight. \u201cHey, Jez, you\u2019re quiet \u2013 and as white as a sheet. What\u2019s up, you seen a ghost or something?\u201d I hear Mikey snigger in the background. \u201cGet this beer down you,\u201d I say, \u201cit\u2019ll put some colour back in your cheeks.\u201d<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not feeling too good,\u201d says Jez, as he fiddles with the ring-pull on his beer-can, \u201cI\u2019m feeling cold, really, really cold.\u201d<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mikey\u2019s switched on the TV.\u00a0 Boring. Just some Anglia local news bulletin bleating on about the A47 being closed by a traffic accident. \u201cFind something more exciting,\u201d I say.<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m trying to,\u201d says Mikey, stabbing at the remote control with his fingers \u2013 but the channels aren\u2019t changing. \u201cThere\u2019s something not right with the remote. Batteries must be dead,\u201d he adds, as he starts trying to pull open the remote\u2019s battery compartment.<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s also something not right with the ale,\u201d says Jez. I take a swig from my tin. It does taste foul. Like it\u2019s been left open for way too long and gone stale.<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And there\u2019s also something seriously not right with Jez. <\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As I look at him, his outline somehow changes, becomes less distinct, blurry I suppose. And then I see him begin to slowly fade before my eyes. I can even start to see the patterning, on the chair he\u2019s slumped in, begin to show up right through him. <\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I look down at my own hands. Do a quick double-take and look again. Like some nightmare X-ray I can see the beer-can through my own increasingly transparent flesh. \u201cWhat the fuck?\u201d I say.<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the TV, the yellow headlines ticker at the bottom of the screen is now displaying a report saying the emergency services have just recovered three bodies from the wreckage of a stolen car.<\/span>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I look back over to the couch where Mikey had been sitting. But Mikey has already gone.<\/span>
\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n<ends><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exciting news from IS&T founding editor Charles Christian:This is The Quickest Way Down is a new collection of dark fantasy, dystopian sci-fi and urban gothic ghost stories by Ink Sweat & Tears‘ founding editor Charles Christian. According to an independent 5-star review on Amazon… “Christian has put together an intriguing collection of stories here. Its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1853,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/1853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"file:\/\/\/Users\/helenivory\/Library\/Caches\/TemporaryItems\/moz-screenshot.png\")
![\"\"](\"file:\/\/\/Users\/helenivory\/Library\/Caches\/TemporaryItems\/moz-screenshot-1.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ink-sweat-and-tears.blogharbor.com\/FrontCoverSmall.jpg\")
<\/p>\n