Well this is starting to become something of a pattern isn't it? Putting sod all on this blog for months (or in this case, YEARS) on end only to pop up again in time for Hallowe'en with some random weirdness. Ah well, who am I to fly in the face of tradition.
EXCEPT.
For some reason known only to my brain, this year it's come up with poetry. Well, doggerel for the most part. I'm not laying claim to any kind of artistic merit here. Little fragments of strangeness that get lodged in my brain, too small for a story, too itchy to ignore. If you like them, cool. If you don't - meh, go buy some of my books so that I get another novel contract (because it has been a GRIM three years, let me tell you), and I'm forced to do something more productive with my time.
I've got, like, ten or so of these things, and I'll post them throughout the month until Hallowe'en. Collect the set!
Here's the first.
The Thing Under the Bed
I can hear it breathing: Long, slow, snuffling in-breaths And the occasional giggle I can smell it Stale, cabbagey farts Sewer breath And something sugary Like old sweets found in a coat pocket Sticky and furry with lint. It's scratching lightly on the underside of my bed Not because it's trying to get through Just to let me know it could if it wanted to It plucks at the springs: spunng! spunng! spunng! I can't move I feel something pulling the edge of my mattress down And I know that it's reaching up From underneath And its hand or claw or whatever Is crawling like a spider towards me And any second now It will touch my face And I open my mouth and I scream MUUUUUM! So hard my throat hurts. There's running footsteps up the stairs And the bedroom door opens And light streams in from the hallway, Making me blink And my mum says "For God's sake, James, stop terrorising your brother!" And my big brother in the bunk bed below me says "But I wasn't doing anything!" He always says that.