Holly Blue

Sent from my iPhone

Chapter 14 Roundabout

Lipton felt the ice cold rush of the good quality stone. This was freebase but whoever Beamer was working for had the sense to rinse the ammonia off thoroughly and then leave it to dry and for any remaining traces of the ammo to evaporate. When done correctly it was better than crack. When done badly those who were smoking it regularly would soon have COPD and usually on to emphysema. He’d had half a dozen freinds die from this. Tufty and Gena in Leeds. They’d had a successful antiques shop and a semi detached house they’d bought. This masked an even more successful heroin business. He’d got in early just as the UK was being flooded with Afghan brown heroin that funded the war. It had hit Leeds a little later than the epidemic in Liverpool and Edinburgh but Tufty back then could put up 200k on a deal, something very few could. And having contacts in other cities brought in the new druggy fashion. Speed freaks were worn out by the last few years banging the strong white powder and already used the works exchange scheme. Already had the fixation with hypodermics. For a few years, despite the far too frequent overdoses the city found a routine. A rhythm. Smack heads found their personal requirement and in general stuck to the amount they needed and rarely exceeded it. Back then cocaine was considered something of a yuppie drug then in the early noughties they clicked over to the rhythm of the junkies on the Wire. Brandy and Whiskey, East and West, light and dark, bees and wasps, b and w. Heroin was no longer enough. Once you have a pipe you want another. Tufty and Gena first lost the antique shop. He’d hustle the money together and get over to Bradford. The large Pakistani community meant that they could get good gear. He’d flip his first quarter, buy a load of crack, gather another fistful of cash and buy another q, sell it and by the end of the night he would have an eighth or more to himself. When he was tired he would pass out and the people in the room would scour the floor and area around him for pipes he’d dropped. Any small white chunks would be swiftly hoovered up by the crackheads who invariably followed him, like a pied piper. A crack piper. He’d give out the odd one but unless you were buying. Well. You know. Gena became bed bound and needed respiratory machines and oxygen around the time they sold the house. Nearly £200,000 they had but this didn’t last long. Frequently being robbed as the company they kept were fellow crackheads. Tufty lasted for a year longer than Gena. Both were fascinating and interesting people. He’d taken Lipton on his rounds many a time and he had punters from every walk of life from lawyers and solicitors, nightclub owners and exotic dancers, bare knuckle fighters and prostitutes. Through Tufty Lipton had seen a fascinating slice through the city. Finally his lungs packed in too.

Liptons mind had drifted off as Jesus was holding court over the young drug dealers with stories Lipton had heard a hundred times before. Back in town when Jesus had conjured up the wine and sold it to the Asian shop keepers and they’d linked up with the two shotters, Christ had got talking to a couple of street girls who were on the game. He’d invited them back to his secret roundabout sanctuary. Now Skree was dead Christ was arguably his best friend. He was great in small doses but he had the habit of getting the roughest dossers to come and share his free wine. Not much had changed since he famously pulled a dozen married fathers, working men, shepherds fishermen and amassed the gang of street drinkers history knows as the apostles. Apisstles more like thought Lipton. He’d have to move on now. The fire was now burning bigger and passing cars could probably see it. This would be one last party. Hopefully they’d not be disturbed by the police but by the morning shift word would have got to them. Lipton would have to find a new hideout. If JC was to be in tow he’d have to keep them on the move. He was a good crack and a party animal but he just couldn’t seem to keep it cool. It always seemed to come on too when he was around.

Christ was shouting out to anyone who would listen about his adventures.

Lipton heard a rustling in the bushes and thought it was probably the prostitutes. Christ had bragged about the free drugs and wine we’d be drinking. He had a thing for loose women. Lipton thought back to the massive free party they’d got together with the Clun lads. At the after party Christ had a bunch of slappers with him, easily a dozen who were enthralled by him. The reserections he could summon up from somewhere inside had them enthralled. Lipton had one night where he had a girl in the afternoon a couple of times and his new girlfriend twice also in the evening. That was his record. But Christ had twelve hot and hungry slappers who’d tagged along after the night clubs were closed and the whole dozen were satisfied.

Obviously, since the widespread availability of Viagra, Christs unique charm had taken a pummelling. But his reserrections were not just the rigidity of the tool, it was matched with the hungry enthusiasm he’d had for his first. He must have done all twelve four times each that night. He thought of where Brock had gone and left the chunks of his body and remembered something about crankshafts bird. It was always happening. Thinking back, when they’d bumped into him on the second hill fort, on their journey to Bury Ditches and the teaming up with the Druids there he’d arrived with some story from his staying in wales with Ianto and Gwenno. He’d spoiled their relationship too during his stay with them. Wherever you took him he’d crack on to somebody’s bird. And nine times out of ten, even if they couldn’t stand the filthy hippy, somehow it always happened. Some blokes just have that, he guessed. Christ had it in spades. Never leave your girlfriend anywhere alone with him. He was as hungry for sex as he was for drugs and drink.

The pipe had left him feeling dissatisfied and a bit paranoid. He could do with getting rid of these drug dealers and his impulse was to tell the working girls to fuck off once they’d done business with Christ. It was too much for him. He hadn’t been out of the mental hospital long and he stood up with hands on his hips and was about to lay down the law. After all it was his site. Granted it was a public space but he had fancied just chilling out with Jesus, having a few pipes and bottles of wine and a bit of gear and quietly staring into the embers and reminiscing about times they’d had with Skree.

Stacy and Shaz had a rough night on the beat. After they’d scored from Beamer and Magno they’d found a corner of the bus station and had a pipe each. Chacing the brown when you’re out is impractical unless you’ve got a public toilet and if they’d had a public toilet they’d have had a hit anyway. Stacy had taken to going into her groin. The smaller surface veins were long gone and she hated waiting for Shaz as she fucked about from place to place in her legs and congealing blood in the syringe made it a race against time and she’d seen her, after fucking about for half an hour or more finally have to abandon the hit and she’d throw it in anger and frustration. But she still wouldn’t use the big vein in her groin reasoning that an important artery ran very close to it and she might die. Some people just can’t be told. So instead they’d taken to carrying a second pipe, just for gear. They both had a few blasts and the warm and comforting heroin soothed away the rough edges of the crack and rounded off their self respect and readied them for the nights whoring.

They’d bumped into a squady the previous night who’d said that it was his mates stag night tomorrow which was now today and they’d be twelve strong, all wanting business. So when that greasy long haired bloke pushing a trolley full of wine bottles had said that him and his moody looking mate were taking Mag and Beamer back to a roundabout camp they’d just scratched it off. Squadys were usually good punters and if they caught them before they’d spent their money they could clear up. Twelve blow jobs in one place without having to walk the beat waiting for single men meant they could make a couple of hundred quid in an hour. Turned out there were only five of them and only three wanted business. Stacy had done one of her regulars but the beat looked quiet after that so they’d rang Beamer and asked him what he could do for a oner. The greasy bloke had promised them a few pipes if they came to his party and he said he definitely wanted business and he wanted a double so they’d both get paid.

It was fairly warm and Stacy knew a taxi driver would take them there. He wanted Shaz for a change so she sat in the back of his Volvo, counting the nights paltry takings. It was only about two miles out of town and she heard the slopping sound as Shaz tight ponytail bobbed up and down as the driver smoothly drove them through the night.

“Can you hurry up Shaz, we’re nearly there.”

Shaz gave Stacy a thumbs up and increased her speed. From 200 yards Stacy could see the light of the fire through the bushes and the driver was making noises of pleasure as he neared his destination and took his hand from the gear stick to hold the ponytail down. Shaz was left with no option and swallowed. As the car slowed to let the passengers out Shaz managed to free herself from his grip.

“That’s another 20!” Shaz snarled as she wiped a drop of jism from her lip. Without complaint the driver took his wallet from his pocket and pulled a note and handed it to her.

Affecting a manner of affection Shaz said

“Here love. Let me sort you out.” and pulled his trousers back to where they should be. She slowly zipped up his fly and rebuckled his belt while Stacy distracted him

“I told you she was good”

And Shaz gently slid his wallet free and slipped it down the front of her trousers and in a duet of chaotic confusion they jumped from the taxi and ran across the road and into the bushes in the centre of the roundabout. Both giggling!

“Did you get it?” Stacy asked

“Of course I fucking did. I’m no amateur. I’m a pro.”

So rustling a path through the undergrowth the two girls burst into the clearing laughing hysterically. The shaman, the messiah, the shotter and his apprentice all smiled along with them as the firelight warmed their faces.

“Welcome ladies! JC is in the driving seat tonight and any passengers on my bus can share in my windfall.” Christ informed the new arrivals to the party.

Bollocks! Thought Lipton. He’d hoped they wouldn’t come and the night would wind down sufficiently for him to get a few hours sleep. This looked unlikely now.

“Fancy a pipe ladies?”

“Aye! You twisted my arm.” Stacy answered for both of them. They had £120 plus whatever they found in the taxi driver’s wallet Shaz had still down the front of her trousers, currently slipping deeply into her knickers. They could pay but no one turns down a free pipe. Not unless they’re a straight goer or a Christian.

Christ slipped Beamer another £60 who handed him back three pea sized balls tightly wrapped in cling film.

Looking at his supplier Christ reprimanded “why do you have to package it so it takes twenty minutes to get in?”

“5 o! Then if we get pulled I can swallow it easily then throw it back up once they’ve fucked off.”

“That was my plan when Judas fucked off to the all night garage and came back with his Roman buddies.” He rambled on as he unwrapped the shots of rock, working his way through the cling film.

“But once I was shackled they didn’t take their eyes off me. My hands were behind my back in the bracelets so I couldn’t stick my finger down my throat. I just had to wait while my stomach digested it. It was top notch Lebanese hash and it was like coming up on a trip it was that strong. Then, just as I was peaking, Pompous Pillock, the high ranked Roman, starts questioning me, asking me if I was the son or god. I didn’t know who the fuck I was but I certainly felt like the son of god. Finally! Here, split this between you. You should get at least two each out of that.”

Stacy handed Shaz her half, broke a chunk off and put it in her pipe. The two girls both sparked up lighters at the same time and took deep lungfuls of smoke. Wow! That ice cold feeling of utter stillness as the cocaine entered their bloodstreams and broke the barrier into their brains delivering the chemical high.

Christ looked on grinning. It was always comical how despite the best efforts of comportment, good crack never failed to silence the most babblesome of people.

Christ passed a chunk to Lipton and they joined the girls in their own rush.

Once the effects waned as they always did Shaz rummaged through her knickers and brought out the taxi driver’s wallet. A collection of crumpled twenties, tens and a few fives sparked Stacy to make her claim.

“He’s my John and I distracted him so we’re going halves on it. Shaz reluctantly conceded her point.

“Put it with the nights takings and see what we’ve got.”

“Theres £280. Can you do us a Henry of each Beamer?”

This was a wholesale deal and Beamer had been shotting JC who seemed happy to shop this way.

“What have you got left Magno. I’ll do it if we can, just for you girls and don’t tell your mates or they’ll think I’ve gone soft.”

Beamer and Magno kneeled either side of a flat rock the small time drug baron had been using as a seat.

“Make sure you don’t sell out and have to go reload.” Christ interjected. He’d been a loyal customer so far tonight and felt he deserved appropriate treatment.

“There’s plenty for you all mate. Don’t worry your greasy head.”

The minor insult was given no thought by the messiah or apparently so though it had registered and Christ, knowing Liptons penchant for a ruck, began to make a plan to make sure he came out of the night with his money back. Once they’d smoked all the white and brown anyway.

“You can return the favour now girls.” Christ said holding out his pipe.

“You’ve not finished working either have you? The white always gives me a stonker!”

Lipton dropped his gaze from his freinds face down to the front of his filthy jeans and saw the cunt wasn’t lying.

“Fuck mate! Can you not keep that thing in your kegs in check?”

Lipton admonished the pervert.

“Sorry Lipton lad! I’m only a red blooded man and these two ladies are just the sparkle this party needed.”

Placing his arm around Stacy’s shoulder, showing her he had the readies he led her off into the bushes.

“Payment is up front!”

Was the last thing he heard as the two lovers moved off to locate a private area to do their business.

Shaz looked expectantly over at him but Lipton shook his head but covered his potential insult.

“I’m alright at the moment sweetheart. You’re looking gorgeous mind. What about these two lads? They look game?”

Magno looked like he was about to bite but Beamer had been there more than once when the girls had been skint.”

“Nah! We’ve gotta bounce soon. Steph up in Glastonbury has sent some punter down I’m supposed to meet here. Soon as we’ve served him and sorted your mate out we’re out of here. Definitely have to reload by then. He should be here by now. Screamer or something he’s called.”

Liptons gear relaxed mind pulled to attention by the name.

“Are you sure he said Screamer?”

“Yey! Something like that.”

Nah. It couldn’t be. Lipton and Brock had sailed the stolen yacht over those waters for a couple of days making sure they weren’t leaving anyone. Skree was dead. It was a bummer but he’d have to suck it up. Just like Stacy. He chuckled to himself as he drifted back into the heroin glaze.

This had to be the place. Every other roundabout had been small and clear of any shrubs that you could hide a tent in. I’d learned the trick while hitching back from Stonehenge 82, my first free festival and what a wild mass of chaos that had been. 30,000 people and no toilets or native hardwoods. Only a couple of plantations of some sort of non deciduous trees so no fire wood unless you had a vehicle. I saw how the disorganised city kids like us had to watch the proper travellers in their vans and buses who dug latrine pits and brought wood to burn and drugs to sell. We had dropped acid within an hour of our arrival and the smell tent we had brought was very much a fair weather tent. The bloke I’d hitchhiked down with I hadn’t known too well. He’d lent me a sleeping bag for which I was grateful. During his trip he took it upon himself to get into his own sleeping bag and jump around wearing it looking like some huge grub. Unfortunately he jumped into some dog shit rendering it unusable. As we came down and started to get ready to sleep he’d decided that this was now the sleeping bag we wanted to lend me. I told him to fuck off and the festival got off to a disagreeable start. When we came to hitch back we’d had to make camp on the A1 near Mansfield and it was here that I had the idea of roundabout camping. It looked like I wasn’t the only one to have had the idea.

By now I was starting to cluck badly. The hyper real state, not unlike a trip but not a pleasant one. I’d been robbed before when I was desperate. While fitting out a part of the Deep, a vast sea water aquarium in Hull with sharks and rays and other marine fish, I’d been put up in a hotel with a load of rough builders staying there. I’d tried to find one of the prostitutes I’d seen plying their trade outside the hotel franchise. The night had been cold and I couldn’t find one to help me so I’d wandered into the town centre to try find some homeless junky who might help me out if I bought them something. I’d seen one lad who I thought might be able to help but as soon as I’d engaged him a friend of his materialised and together I walked with them. As the walk grew longer I knew I was going to be robbed I just didn’t know how. We ended up behind some flats and one of them went in with my money and returned with some soap powder. As soon as he gave me it I got away from them. It could easily have been worse. At least I’d only lost £40 and I hadn’t taken a beating. So I sucked it up, walked back to my van and headed for Leeds which was a bit of a trek but I knew where to score there and I was back at my hotel by midnight and I had a smoke.

This didn’t look like a set up. It was too weird. Steph would not have done the dirty on me, I knew and trusted her. I walked around the bushy perimeter, looking for an entrance or at least a thin spot where there weren’t too many brambles. By now I could see the fire and the silhouettes of a handful of people.

“Beamer!” I shouted. I’d spoke to him earlier and he’d promised to wait. Steph was a good customer and she’d vouched for me.

“I’m here, bro! There’s an opening just to your right!”

I found the thin spot where the undergrowth had been beaten back to form a small pathway and ducking down I scrambled my way through to a decent sized fire. Two young mixed race lads in classic sports wear. The three striped adidas track suit bottoms and Nike trainers. A cold looking girl stood holding her arms tightly around her thin clothing. A fourth figure was reclined on a sleeping bag with various drug paraphernalia spread out in front of him. I couldn’t toke it in at first. Surely it couldn’t be.

“Lipton! Tell me that is you!”

“Skree mate! Fuck! I thought you were dead.”

“I thought you were dead!”

“Come here brother!

And we embraced. I held him tight for fear he would dematerialise and just be some hallucination brought on by the rattle.

“Call me a cunt but I’ll be a whole lot more able to take this all in once I’ve got rid of this monkey on my back!”

Fucking hell! My best mate was alive. I rolled myself a tinfoil flute and greedily ran half a dozen lines from the vast beetle on his foil.

He had tears running down his face and his eyes, always warm and brown just stared at me and drank me up. He was lost for words just like I was.

“Fancy a pipe?”

The question required no answer. That question never does. I’d been convinced I’d been the sole survivor. I’d seen with my own eyes the boat go down, ripped deep beneath the sea’s surface with all my friends; the Druid lads from Clun, the witches who’d summoned up the sea demon, a creature from ancient times, a serpent so vast the whirlpool it created as it tore its way into Bunsens spaceship, hidden deep beneath. I’d watched as minutes passed before the boat had reemerged with all its crew lost beneath. No one could have survived that yet here he sat. Calmly round an open fire. His tear soaked cheeks and beard framing the broadest smile I’d ever seen on his face.

I looked at the seely bag that contained a good eighth, maybe even a quarter of brown and a scattering of white rocks on a saucer. His pipe looked thick with brown oil, there’d been some tackle through there tonight. I took it and selected a small chunk before Lipton shook his head and replaced it with far larger stone and passed me his lighter. I breathed in, then out, emptying my lungs then put the flame to the white lump that sizzled and liquified into the tight mesh that held it while the flame explored the bowl and I held the thick white smoke in before exhaling a plume that was caught up by the fire and carried aloft as my head felt the old familiar explosion of dopamine and all the other good stuff your brain enjoys.

“Phew! That knocked the cobwebs away. Fuck man! It’s good to see you. How the hell did you get out of that one?”

“I’m a shaman! It takes more than a mad entrepreneurs vanity project and a sea demon summoned up from the past to kill me.”

His bravado made me laugh. I’d missed the cunt. More than I could express. He frowned then and looked down before giving me the true story.

“I just closed my eyes and held my breath hoping I’d make it. The impulse to succumb to my body and its desperation was about to break and inhale sea water then I reached the surface and I was flapping around in the water looking for you and for the others. The boat came up first then Brock. He must have been the strongest. We managed to flip the boat over and we got aboard. We spent a couple of days, looking for bodies but I figured that sea serpent wasn’t as choosy as the girls had thought. By then Bunsen was sending out his own boats so we set off back. I felt his grief and I think he felt mine as we spoke very little on our journey back. I returned the boat. It was pretty battered by then. Brock took a sackful of meat up to my mates site and I slipped into madness. After being thrown out of every pub down Porlock I was sectioned. It’s worse than being in jail I tell you. Still, it might have been the best place for me to be frank. I was in a state. After they were convinced I was not a nutter anymore they let me out.

Somehow I rambled up here and found this quiet little spot. Well, it was quiet.”

“You better introduce me!”

“Here’s Beamer, your man, the guy fucking about on his phone is his mate, Magno. Shaz here we just met tonight. Oh! I better warn you. Those chunks of meat Brock threw in to Crankshafts spare trailer. He’s done it again. On the 35th day he rose again!”

“You’re joking! Quick, I’m off before he sees me!”

“Before he gets back, how did you do it? I saw no one on our side at all, bar Brocky of course.”

“Well, I wasn’t on your side and you’re not going to like this. I found myself near the jetty. The pallet we had from the boat came up and I used it as a float. I saw Rupert Bunsen floundering in the water, he clearly couldn’t swim. So I pulled him aboard and we made it to the jetty and I climbed up and pulled him out. All I could think of was to pretend to be one of the passengers he hadn’t known personally. Tried to talk in a posh accent and kept out of his way. He started to fixate on me I think. I saved his life. We’d accomplished what we set out to. I didn’t think another death would help anyone. I’d seen enough death to last me a lifetime.”

“I’d have watched the cunt drown. He’d not given a shit about anyone bar the super rich.” Lipton was a far harder hearted man than me. I nodded.

“I know you would.”

With the minor disagreement out of the way I changed the subject.

“So where’s gods only son! Is he here. I know he won’t be collecting firewood when there’s still a load of drugs unsmoked. Hey Beamer buddy? Can you sort me out?”

“Your mate has bought me out bro. I’m sure he won’t mind sharing but I’ll have to go reload. Magno! Have you any left?”

The younger lad laughed. He was still engrossed in his phone.

“This brother Tobin mate. He’s piss funny. He’s following me now and reckons he’s coming to join the party. We’d best bounce bro. He’s got my location from the GPS. How many do you need?” He asked me.

“Just a couple of each will do me.”

He felt his way through the many pockets on his clothing before remembering he’d got it down his knackers.”

I handed him the notes and he the goods back to me.

“Says he’s a Witchfynder and he’s with the Witchfynder general and they’re on a mission to get two shamans and a pretender to the church! If these are for real I’ll be shocked.”

Me and Lipton were instantly alerted. We’d had all kinds of problems from the authorities but this was a secret part of the church and MI5 that was like the mafia. They didn’t exist if anyone asked. But we knew. We knew exactly what this meant.

“You have to tell us everything! I’m sorry mate but how the fuck did you meet him?”

“I’ve never met him bro. I just saw his face pop up on my instagram feed. He looked like a monk, you know them that shave their heads. He posts shite. Just what he had for breakfast. Selfies next to weird stuff. He must have noticed I was following him and he started following me.”

“What was his last message?”

“He posted a photo he must have done with a timer. I can’t believe he has any friends. He’s behind a black jaguar car with a pump action shotgun in each hand and it said ‘when you and the boss are closing in on the quarry’ that was about two hours ago. His location was somewhere on Salisbury plane, MOD land I think. He’s terrified of the boss so he must have taken it when he got a few minutes on his own.”

“What time was this?”

“A couple of hours ago but it just came up on my feed.”

I looked at Lipton and we both opened instagram accounts and sent him a request to follow.

“You don’t get five minutes with these cunts. If he really is with Bennett we’re in trouble.”

Lipton gathered up his drugs and started kicking the sandy soil on to the fire. It took him less than five minutes to pack up his tent, bungee cord the tent, bedroll and sleeping bag to his rucksack.

“Parties over lads. You don’t want these lot to catch you near us. Same goes for you Shaz love. Here, take a few rocks for your trouble and hopefully get to know you better next time.

Jesus! Get your cock out of her and come see who’s here. We’re in big trouble so don’t fuck about.”

Shit! Just discover that the best freind you have ever had, a brother in all but blood, a friend you’d thought dead is still alive but then to find out, through social fucking media, that the government and church department sworn to track down, torture and kill your kind, are on their way. It was too much to take in.

“Did you post anything on your instagram?”

“Just a little video of us round the fire. To show them I’m not just about the cars and nightclubs. You two hugging was in it so don’t feel like I left you out. I even tagged your names. Skree, is that right? And Lipton.”

It could not have been worse. If the Witchfynder general had seen this video short he’d be on his way now. The fucking church! The fucking government! Why can’t they just leave us alone.

Lipton looked steamed up, much like he did before his bare knuckle fights.

“Is he properly resurrected. He was in bits last time I saw him.”

Lipton looked concerned.

“He’s mostly there but he’s still got some festering flesh and I wouldn’t want to see what he’s hiding under his clothes. I think he just wanted to get away from Crankshaft. He can walk, mind. Not sure if he’s got the magic tricks going properly yet. Come on! Stacy we’ve got to get out of here. Shaz! I’m so sorry love but can you go get her to finish him off.”

Shaz went off into the bushes to find her friend as we had some firm words with Magno.

“Can you say it was filmed yesterday? Or change the location? Anything to buy us time. You may think he’s a comical prick but these people torture people like us. And they don’t stop at your confession. They used to burn us alive but if they find us we won’t be so lucky.”

He fiddled with his phone a bit.

“He thinks we left here an hour ago. I can’t change the date or location. Any help?”

“Thanks buddy! An hour might be a window we can squeeze through. Nice to meet you lads but I’d get going.

The two shotters wandered off into the night. Stacy and Shaz emerged from the bushes, “He’s just doing up his flies. Two of his fingers came off and we had a right job getting them out.”

I knew what Bennett and his kind would do to girls of the night.

“Please girls. I’m not being a dick but if these cunts get you I couldn’t live with myself. Is there a way back into town avoiding the main road? Better still, can you get a taxi?”

Shaz and Stacy thought a bit then Shaz said she knew a way. Massive groundwork was taking place at Hinkley for the new power station. It was not a through way to anywhere but there’d be security guards. Maybe even night workers given the rush to get it open. They’d wander down there. Bound to be some lonely guy who’d give them a lift home for a little comfort while he drove.

The two girls were gone. The boys were too.

From the bushes the filthy man appeared, zipping up his flies before selotaping two of his fingers back on to his hand. He took his own name in vain.

“Jesus Christ! We thought we had seen the back of you.”

“There’s no time to catch up. The Witchfynder general and his apprentice are on their way here and we need to get going, now.”

“Cool!”

After 2000 years here was a man who could take most things in his stride. The surprise of seeing his old buddy Skree, while clearly a surprise was not the near miracle it was for Lipton. They had never set out to become shamans. It was something they had stumbled into inadvertently through their excessive use of psychedelics in their teens. The knowledge that they acquired took them down life paths compounding their aptitude. They were not shamans that worked as medicine men, healing individuals. Instead they were concerned with the destruction of the Grey. The straight mainstream that was heading off into the doom of the species. Rather they took an overview. Steering culture where they could and stopping the aspirations of the super wealthy who were coming to consider themselves uber mench. Super men, able to do whatever they wanted regardless of the damage caused. Still recovering from the last mission to destroy Rupert Bunsens Noah project already those most opposed to nature, paganism, Gnosticism, and the humble acceptance that we are like any animal, not merely dependent on their environment but expressions of it.

“Ok boys! You can fill me in when we have time. Not in a gay way.”

“Just shut up!” I told the messiah and led my two friends to my Kia piquanto.

Sent from my iPhone

Stairwell moths

Yellow shell

Sent from my iPhone

Chapter 13

The Witchfynder general finds that his god can even intervene through social media

Skreebleton in the south west. Father Bennett, the Witchfynder general was quickly on to his connections in the police force and other government departments and he was close to locating his man. He’d been seen in the small town of Frome, mixing with the kind of scum his pagan sort was prone to. Sat behind the wheel of his black jaguar with young brother Tobin at his side he felt confident that he would soon find his man and following the ‘interview’ he had planned for the shaman would soon be onto the other shaman Lipton and the fraudulent apostate who was calling himself Christ. Bennett had spent his whole life in the various parts of the church and knew more about Jesus than anyone he had ever met. The messiah would one day return but he would not be mixing with the destitute, the street people and travellers, the prostitutes and sinners. No! He would make himself known to the pope and the Vatican and the world through the Catholic Church. Once he had this pretender a few questions on scripture would reveal him as a charlatan and one who would require subjecting to the tests and rituals of the Witchfynders who had rid the world of the cancer that the devil himself spread. Bennett gripped the steering wheel tighter, felt a stirring in his trousers as he thought of the punishment he would soon be dealing out. His right hand slipped into his pocket, the old trick father Erasmus had taught him, through the hole in his trouser pocket where he rapped a tuft of pubic hair around his thumb and finger be plucking his tuft of hair. The pain brought him back to earth. He pressed the button that lowered his window from where he threw the small bunch of hair.

“What was that Father Bennett” brother Tobin asked as he caught a glimpse of the small black nest of hair as it left the window and was ripped away by the speed of the car.

“Oh, just a little trick I was taught by the Witchfynder who was my mentor. Perhaps I’ll induct you into the small ritual one day.”

Brother Tobin knew not to enquire further and focused on the road ahead for a moment before asking his master a question he had always been curious about.

“I heard that you had studied your craft under father Erasmus. He is a legend to us younger Witchfynders. We hear tell he sent over three score demons and some hundred witches to boot.”

“Young brother Tobin. It is not by numbers alone that we can measure a man’s achievements. Erasmus taught me a great deal. I witnessed him as he applied his craft with an elegance that few could ever hope to match. You know the lances in the chapel?”

Tobin nodded. He had thought they were mere decoration.

“We’d discovered a cluster of harlots, heavily under Satans influence. Each was cleansed with those lances. Sharpened by my own hand. Eight feet in length they stand. Erasmus lay each strumpet down across the altar and smite them clean. Entering by the very orifice they had made their trade to sell. Full of the lords strength he rammed them clean of sin until the sharpened tips protruded a clear twelve inches through the top of their skulls. I was a young Witchfynder back then, much like you are now and I confess that the devil found me squeamish and I vomitted on to the chapel floor. Erasmus instructed me to clean up after his holy work was done. I learned a lesson that day. They were but a small coven of witches though all confessed to being in the employ of Satan before devil was driven out of them.”

Tobin swallowed. He wondered if he was up to the job. Of course father Bennett was testing the young lad, to make sure he was committed to the lord’s work and not just another who succumbed to the romance of the profession. He would need Tobin to be up to speed when it came to tackling the two shaman, both pagans and witches and the charlatan who called himself Christ. Father Bennett knew he had struck a chord with his young apprentice. Best reassure the lad.

“But Erasmus was old school. Weve moved on now. In the boot of my car I have two pump action shotguns. Both have been blessed by the pope himself. Last night while you were out for fast food. Yes! I saw you.”

Brother Tobin blushed. He thought he had got away with it. Nevertheless the Witchfynder general appeared to be in good spirits and did not admonish the boy.

“While you were soiling your body with saturated fats I emptied twenty cartridges, replacing the lead shot with silver shot and each I dipped in holy water. In the unlikely event that these fail us there is my trusty crossbow. The bolts I use are also engineered from silver. Should we be forced to engage in hand to hand combat I also have a pair of silver bladed knives one of which I suggest we conceal in our boots. You must follow my lead. Do as I say and our mission will undoubtedly be successful. It is crucial that we get confessions from all three of our targets. We will be working as a team and I’m hoping to catch them on the hop. As far as we’ve been able to establish the charlatan and the shaman known as Lipton are already back together. Lipton has recently been released from a mental hospital but don’t succumb to any complacency. He has been dabbling in witchcraft his entire adult life and may well have a few tricks up his sleeve. Skree may as yet be unaware that his partner in the dark arts survived their pagan mission that I told you to read up on. As for the fake Christ he could well be under the complete delusion of his identity.

So master Tobin! Do you feel up to the task ahead? Follow my lead and we should come out of this unscathed. Our names will go down in the history of our secret craft.”

Tobin felt a wave of honour spread throughout his body. Beginning in the soles of his feet and working its way through his legs, into his torso and deep into his heart and out through his head.

“Father Bennett. I am honoured to be chosen as your assistant on this mission. I grasp the magnitude and understand the responsibility being placed upon me. My whole life has been training for this day and the days ahead. It will be an honour to serve the lord god, our father. And to be a small part in the history of the Witchfynder. Long may our branch of the church continue to be the sword with which the father cuts down the devil’s ungodly work.”

Father Bennett felt proud. He had been right to place his trust in the young Witchfynder. He knew that brother Tobin was ready and would not let him down.

Once their conversation died down and the focus returned to the road Bennett considered the information he had gleaned from his many sources. A Mr Skreebletton had been pulled over by a police car three days ago near Frome in Somerset. The two coppers began to look through his details but were called away to a domestic violence incident before they had chance to study his details. It later proved to be a false name and a fake license. Skreebleton was the name that Rupert Bunsen had come to know his saviour as. His stay had been short following the disaster that saw the deaths of many of the most wealthy people on the planet. Glancing over at his assistant Bennett saw Tobin had returned to scrolling through his phone. Daylight was by now fading and it seemed likely they would have to find a hotel for the night.

Tobin had gradually slumped down into the jaguars leather seat but something he had seen on his phone brought him upright and focused.

“Father Bennett! Look at this!”

“Brother Tobin! You know how I feel about this socialist media!”

“No look! It’s them! I was just checking through my instagram followers. I have this troll who mocks me for my religious piety yet continues to follow! He’s called Magno! I just took a look at his instagram feed. There’s a short he’s posted! Only fifteen seconds but it has to be two of the pagans we’re looking for!”

Tobin replayed the video. It was of a camp fire. One guy dressed in dirty black clothes laughed as another guy spoke to the small group. AI had translated what the speaker was saying. A filthy looking man with longish hair and a beard. A chunk of his face was missing revealing a rictus grin of exposed teeth. “Anyway, I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten a whole quarter of Lebanese hashish but I tell you, I was well tripped out. This Pompous Pillock, Pontias Pilote, the highest ranking Roman of the occupying army. ‘Are you the son of god’ he asks. I got the giggles really badly and couldn’t help taking the piss. ‘What do you think? If you think I am the son of god then I guess I must be.”

A black teenager in designer sportswear laughed along with the pirate like character who was taking a deep pull on a glass crack pipe. “Do you claim to be the king of the Jews too?”

Here the short video looped and began again.

Bennett pulled the jaguar to a standstill in a lay-by behind a lorry.

“Play it again Tobin.”

The two Witchfynders sat through the video fifteen times. Pausing it occasionally to comment on background details. After a while Bennett sat back. God is pointing us towards them.

He knew Lipton had not long been released from a mental hospital close to Minehead. Opening a large road atlas Bennett took his fountain pen from his inside pocket. He drew a cross where Skreebleton had been pulled and another roughly where he knew the nut house to be. Using a strip of card torn from the atlases cover as a straight edge drew a line between the two.

“I can hear passing traffic.”

“They’re camped on a roundabout! We’ve got the bastards!” Tobin enthused.

Bennett looked him deep in the eyes.

“We’re not far off! Let the hunt begin.”

Sent from my iPhone

Chapter 12

Skree scoring again in Glastonbury

I hate getting paid at midnight. Which government knobhead came up with that one? The only things open at midnight out here in the sticks are drug dealers. It’s like during Covid. The coke dealers were unphased by it and it was business as usual. Only now they were delivering and once that pattern was established it never changed. But for gear it was slightly different. The North Somerset towns, Radstock, Frome and to a lesser extent Glastonbury had avoided the county lines model that seemed to excite the police and media. The smack scene was deeply established and dealers had been plying trade with out any trouble for two decades before the county lines became a thing. Each had a tight network of friends and associates and were essentially supporting their own habit. Personally I’d always rather score off someone who took the stuff too. How else do you know how good your tackle is? When the white came in, much later than back in Leeds where I was from where you scored both off runners. The number would be valued and sometimes sold. You’d order two whiskey and a brandy. So now that white had taken over in Somerset there were a lot of crackheads who didn’t do gear. And most bought powder and washed it up themselves. Either with bicarbonate of soda that binds to the coke to crack. Or using ammonia which is essentially free basing. Most would rinse it a couple of times to get rid of the ammonia but some pipes I’ve been given I thought my lungs were going to collapse. Ammonia is a poison. I can remember my grandad helping us out with our butterfly boards by putting them in a jar with some ammonia soaked in cotton wool that gassed them before we pinned them to our boards. Fuck! That’s so 70s. We had birds egg collections too. No one, well no one sensible would do that now. Instead I use an iPhone to photograph butterflies and moths.

So having just been paid all I could find was white. Five or six places. But no gear anywhere. I thought I’d sorted some down in Glastonbury but by the time I was there the cunts phone was off. I desperately rang around starting to rattle as the thought of no gear until tomorrow lunchtime when my usual dealers came on. Scrolling through my numbers I found Steph who lives in Glastonbury and though not a dealer knew what was where, especially if I could drop her a stone off. But even she struggled to think of anyone I hadn’t already tried.

“Are you in a motor?”

“Yes. Have you got someone?”

“Beamer down in Bridgewater. He’s usually on all night or one of his runners will be.”

“Will he serve me? I’ve never met him I don’t think.”

Fuck! It was a bit of a drive and it was already 1:45am.

“He’ll be fine. I’ll ring him first to let him know that you’re ok. Can you drop me something off on your way back for setting it up?”

“Yep! Ring me back when you’ve rung him.”

I was definitely starting to cluck now. I crossed my fingers as I waited for her to ring me back. A car slowly pulled past. The first I’d seen in the last hour. They looked shifty and definitely not police. Two minutes passed. Where the fuck had she got to? I was starting to think this was not a goer.

My phone lit up with Stephs number.

“What’s he say?”

“Sounded a bit weird. He’s on some big roundabout just at the Hinckley Point turn off. I could hear a few voices but he says it’s sound. Good gear and top white he reckons. I’ll text you his number. Don’t forget me in your will.”

“Thank you so much! I’ll not forget you. You’ve saved my life!”

Thank fuck! It was a good drive but if the quality was what she said I’d be happy. It was a trick of mine back in the day when I used to hitch hike a lot. Big roundabouts were usually full of thick shrubs and trees that gave you cover from any passing drivers or pedestrians and no one goes on to them apart from occasional council landscape gardeners. Made me think of Lipton. I’d shown him the trick and we’d spent a few nights camped out on roundabouts.

With the last traces of the gear wearing off I began to get a bit emotional. What a crazy mission they’d embarked on with the Clun Druid lads and their witches. We’d done it. Succeeded in smashing Rupert Bunsens Noah project. I felt survivor guilt. I’d seen Christ blown to pieces. Even he surely couldn’t survive that. And through the psychedelic haze I’d seen the rest pulled under as the demon eel hybrid the girls had summoned up , a seething mass of conger eels drawn together into a huge sea serpent that viciously tore its way through the hole blown into the side of the spaceship, eating all and everyone it could find. It was all a little hazy. As usual it was me that was using my shamanic condition to pull at the thin dimensional membranes to ensure the demon could maintain itself in our dimension. I’d held it for as long as I could and I could see the majority of passengers were eaten alive but finally the strength of my state was fading and I could hold out no longer. I climbed aboard a pallet that had been thrown from the boat Lipton was piloting and as it dawned on me that the people I loved most were now gone I saw none other than the architect of the crazy scheme flapping about, unable to swim and likely would have died had I not pulled him out from the frothing waters.

Stephs text came through and I rang the number she had sent.

“Beamer? Steph just gave me your number. Is it ok to see you?”

“Yeah man! We’re on that roundabout.”

“Yes. She said. I know where you mean. Have you got both still?”

“You’ll have to be quick. I’m with two lunatic crusties and they’re caining my load at a hell of a rate. I’ll keep some back if you’re definitely coming.”

“I’ll be about an hour, tops. I’ll leave the car in a lay-by and come find you.”

“See you soon boss.”

Fucking sorted. Now I knew I was scoring the clucking subsided and I continued to reminisce about that day of madness. I got Bunsen ashore. His project was fucked and there’d been enough death already that day. He’d been a decent host. I’d managed to pretend that I’d been a ticket holder on his ship. At first he seemed a little suspicious but I knew enough to lie my way into his heart. I was unfamiliar with the cutlery lay out but affected a nonchalant demeanour and built a back story in snippets, returning to my room to convalesce and read the books he had in the guest room. He’d appeared to grow fond of me even, introducing me to the few survivors as the man who had pulled him from the sea. He even provided a private jet to take me home. I’d promised to keep in contact but fuck that.

These were still fresh memories and they filled my mind on the drive down to Bridgewater.

I parked the piquanto in a lay-by a short distance from the roundabout. The bushes and trees worked well and if I hadn’t already known I’d not have noticed the flicker of fire and the smoke above their fire. There was no traffic hardly and it was close to 3am now. I could hear voices. One a gruff laughter that sounded familiar and two that joked together in the street slang and the homogeneous accent shared now by teens and twenty year olds. I circled the bushes until I found a thin spot in the overgrowth and made my way into the firelight.

Sent from my iPhone

chapter 11.

Jesus Christ settles in with Lipton on his roundabout hide away

If Lipton was honest he had no expectation that JC would be able to resurrect so profound had been his latest death. He had no reservations, he knew the messiah well and knew that he was who he said was. Nevertheless he had witnessed arguably his second closest friend after Skree blown in to easily a dozen pieces by the deranged copper who had followed them. It was possible that the mission they were committed to would have failed were it not for the intervention of a lunatic ex policeman, armed to the teeth and hell bent on killing the crew who had forged their links at the Bury Ditches hill fort rave. The loss of his shaman brother hurt the most. He doubted that he would ever get over his loss. As he carefully observed the aftermath of the destruction of Rupert Bunsens crazed attempt to leave the planet he had kept the yacht he had taken from Porlock Weir just out of distance. Bunsen would have his minions out searching the waters, just as he was to finish off any remaining terrorist warlocks and after two days it was clear that just himself and Brock, a Druid lad from Clun were the only survivors. Brock had lost two brothers and three sisters and to allow the pain of his personal grief to mar the pain the poor Druid was going through was not in his character. So they’d collected up the meat that had once been Christ in a builders sack and had shared the silence of the seas as they returned home. By the time they were close to Porlock Weir Lipton had lost his mind. He had given the Druid directions to return Christs parts to the traveller site and from there had slipped into a deep psychosis. But now, having the debauched hippie back had raised his spirits. Following the first night together on the roundabout Christ had mocked the pathetic amount of drugs Lipton had been able to share.

“Come on man! Stop winging about Skree! He would have thought it a good death. He certainly wouldn’t want you moaning about it. If I wallowed in the grief for each and every friend I’d lost I’d be fucked! People come and go. It’s the nature of the game.”

Lipton considered the advice he was being given and had to concede it was true. Skree would have been proud to have had one over on the grey bastards. He was probably the one who was most committed to the project. Lipton recalled how he was just about to commit suicide to test out the archangel bollocks when Skree had turned up. He hated the way people said that things happened for a reason. Of course they did but the reason invariably preceded the event and never foretold the future.

“You’re right! Let’s celebrate his life and the times we shared.”

Christs eyes lit up and he knew he had made his point.

“I’ve got a plan. The lads you scored off? Can you see them again?”

“Aye! I’ve got their number. I’ve no money mind.”

“Leave that to me. We’re going to buy everything they’ve got and have a session here tonight that would do Skree proud!”

Lipton kicked a little earth on to the embers of the fire and throwing his arm around his mates shoulder led the way from the roundabouts concealed centre to the edge of the two lanes of the roundabout where traffic was now quietening as the night began to fall.

“Take me to a corner shop. The dodgiest looking one you’ve seen in this shit hole of a town.”

Lipton had noticed a few 7-11 type shops run by Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi people during his mooches in to town. He’d used his shoplifting skills for the last few nights but it was only a matter of time before he would get noticed. Consequently he had registered the kind of establishments that sold cheap, strong lagers and ciders. The type of drink he preferred.

“Nip down Lidl and get a half dozen shopping trolleys. You’ll need a quid each.” Christ rummaged in the pockets of his filthy looking jeans and came out with easily thirty pound coins which he handed to Lipton.

“Go try that one. There’s a premier store round the block if you can’t get him to bite.”

Christ grinned back at Lipton. “Come on brother! How long do you think I’ve been at this game.”

Lipton nodded. The bedraggled freak, whose greasy hair formed a semi curtain through which he could see eyes that were on fire and the smile of the expert hussler. Fuck! Lipton almost wanted to put a bid in on what ever he was selling so seductive was his manner. With the most sophisticated of conmen the punter was fighting to be taken in.

He can’t have taken ten minutes to procure the shopping trolleys and in that ten minutes the stack of wine bottles the messiah had conjured up looked like it would fill a skip. New world reds, whites, champagne and a couple of bottles of every kind of wine that Lipton had ever seen were stacked in crates on the pavement. While he began to load the hawk in to the trolleys Christ slipped away and soon returned with not one but three brothers who ran a chain of off licences in the town. Bridgewater would not be short of a drink tonight. While the hussler who looked like he had not seen a bath or shower in at least a year did the deal, Lipton selected a half dozen choice bottles and tucked them in to a basket he’d grabbed along with the trolleys.

“Fucking sorted!”

Christ was in his element. He’d already popped a cork and sunk a half bottle of Moët et Chandon. He wiped his soot blackened hand across his face leaving a dark stripe that to Liptons eyes took on a feel of war paint. He’d had many a session with the king of sessions and despite his own immense tolerance to all drugs and alcohol had never come close to appearing less than a light weight when up against a man who could literally drink himself to death and wake up with a smile and reach for another bottle.

“Who’d you score the shots off last night?”

Christ waved a fistful of some two thousand pounds. “ Let’s get fucking slaughtered!”

Lipton was already on his mobile.

“Beamer? It’s me, Lipton. I saw you last night. I’m looking for a bundle .”

Beamer considered it for a while. Perhaps he could offload his stock, reload and punt it out.

“How much you after?”

“Look, it’s not my money but it’s four figures. Any chance you could come out to the roundabout? You know, where I said I was staying?”

Beamer had been burned before but the crusty just didn’t look the type. Lipton heard some negotiations in the slang that was now a national language spoken by all the shooters in towns and cities across the country.

“Yep! I’m bringing my proby. Magno! Ok?”

“Yep! No problem. Just bring your stock. We’re not going to rob you. We’ve had a touch and….well the mate who’s turned up…he doesn’t have much value for money. It’ll be worth your while. I guarantee you’ll make twice what you would just shotting out bits in the car park. You might even enjoy it. We’ve got a fire. My mate will pay for the drinks and weed you smoke.”

Fuck it! Beamer thought. It was a Tuesday night and they had barely covered their costs last night. Could be a laugh.

“You’re on then bro. See you on the roundabout.”

“Magno! How much have you got?”

“I’ve got five half teenths weighed out. About a dozen twenty’s of light and dark and a load of powder. What about you Beamer? Have you got enough to cover it?”

“I reckon so. I’m sick of feeling bait, waiting for the 5O. We can make more with these crusties.”

“Did you see that guy he was with? Fucking tramp! He hadn’t seen soap in years. But if he’s got the reddies. Who gives a fuck?”

Magno was looking down at his phone. Laughing at something he’d seen on instagram.

“Hey Beam? Check out this knobhead. I’ve been following him for a couple of days. The guys a fucking nun or something! Proper prick. Slaphead! How do they do that haircut man? Last post he was smiling next to a homeless bitch. Corpse there smoking and the idiots smiling selfie with a sad emoji! Fucking unreal.”

“You ought to leave that shit alone. Them fucking priesthood have proper connections.”

“Nah man! You ought to check him out. Brother Tobin him called. Piss funny man!”

Beamer rumbled through his pockets. Various ten shots and bags of other powders were there. They’d take these two hippies for all they had.

Christ stood in his classic pose. Cruciform. His bare feet were protected by a leather like sole that could crush glass bottles with ease. His jeans had not left his legs since the chunks of flesh had reentangled and blended once more. The stench of putrefaction still hung around him as his reanimation was not fully complete. His bare torso was clothed only by a long faded denim jacket. His outstretched palms still showed the stigmata that were his mark of authenticity. His greasy shoulder length hair and thin beard led up to his convoluted grin and beaming eyes.

“Come on then Lipton, and any other fucker who wants to come aboard! Let’s fucking have it!”

Soon Beamer and Magno were with the messiah and his shaman brother, all hell bent on raising hell.

“I am the resurrection! I am the one!”

Lipton couldn’t help but smile at his mate’s passion for life. He bid the pompous prick hand over some cash, grabbed a fistful of dollars and told the two shotters to stick close. Come back to his roundabout home and join in a session the like of which they would be telling of for the rest of their lives.

Back at Liptons roundabout encampment the fire blazed though passing traffic were oblivious to the session now taking place. Christ was in his element. He’d provided more wine than could possibly be consumed and having invited the shooters back was handing over money for a further five stones to the bundle they’d already smoked.

“Come on Magno! Let’s get wasted.”

Lipton looked on as did Beamer and his young apprentice. Ripping open the clingfilm Christ soon had the rock which he split in half handing Lipton the smaller of the two stones.

“Load up your pipe Lipton! This one’s for Skree. We miss you brother!”

Jesus placed the white rock, the size of a petit poir pee on to the improvised Karpackie can, bent and punctured in the centre of the dip with a mass of tiny holes. The ash from the cigarette he’d just smoked sat in a small heap above the holes. Lipton had his glass pipe, now thick with brown oil he’d scrape once the crack was gone. A mass of burnt off pan scowerer served the same purpose as Christs cigarette ash; to hold the crack once it was liquified by heat. Both struck their lighters.

“Slange!” Lipton said as both men took a huge inhalation of the crack before holding it down deep in their lungs and then exhaled two clouds of white smoke that met above the fire and was carried up skyward by the heat.

Both Lipton and Christ sat in silence as the massive rush from the pipes hit them.

“Fuck me! That’s some decent stone!” Christ complimented Beamer on the quality of his product.

Once the hit diminished Jesus bought a couple of dark. Lipton ripped from his roll of foil, two 8 inch by 10 to run their beetles and two smaller pieces to make their tooters.

“I like it man who plays a tin foil flute.”

And soon both were running lines of brown and inhaling the soothing heroin to take the edge off the white.

Magno could not resist and took a sneaky photo that he posted to his instagram page.

“Fuck me! Pass me that wine”

The two shotters shared a bottle and sparked up a spliff to share.

“Takes me back to when I had my gang of followers who left their wives and jobs to join me in the street drinking.”

Lipton had heard the story many times but it was a fresh one for the young lads and he wouldn’t spoil it.

“Is that the Judas cunt story?” Lipton encouraged Christ to get it rolling. He might be a proper wreck head but he span a good yarn. “Most of the gang were lightweights to be frank and after a gallon of wine a piece and a whole bunch of Lebanese bifters they crashed out. My best fucking mate! Or so I thought was the only cunt still awake. He looks at me, all shifty like and said he off down the all night garage to get some skins. I said there’s a load of skins; green, blue, small and large size kicking around. But he says he wants some munchies. I said I can summon up some bread if you want. He says he wants some snickers or something. I said I can come with you but he tells me to chill out, have a lie down, I’ll bring you something good. Then he slips off. I should have seen it coming but I genuinely considered him my best mate at the time. See, Lipton here, and Skree when he was alive, I know they wouldn’t grass me up. Half an hour later he comes back , offers me a star bar and the cunt kisses me on the cheek. At first I thought I’d read him wrong, perhaps he was a shirt lifter, but out of nowhere about a dozen Romans appear and had me against the wall. I swallowed the hash, about a quarter which proved to be a big mistake when they took me to their boss who had a whole bunch of questions. By now the hash was starting to kick in, big time!”

Beamer was distracted by a call.

“Yes bro! I’m on that roundabout just outside Bridgewater. If you’re coming down from north it’s the one that has a road off to Hinckley Point and the other off into Bridgewater. Tell him we’re round a fire in the middle of the bushes.”

“Are you listening to my story or what?” Christ asked.

“. It’s just another punter who can’t score anywhere.”

“That’s cool! The more the merrier.”

Lipton knew now he was in for a party and his privacy on the roundabout was done.

The messiah took a swig of wine and got back to his story.

“Pontias Pilate! Pompous pollock more like!”

Sent from my iPhone

Stairwell moths

My brother is the real authority on moths who I consult when confounded. He says my micro is a scoparia ambigualis. These micros are a whole new world to me with countless slight variations. Some are only identifiable by dissection of their genitalia. This is obviously beyond my basic moth dabbling. They light up my life and the buzz of seeing a new one gives me a natural high that lasts for up to three days. I have a moth identification app but it’s through looking at the books that provides most learning.

Sent from my iPhone

Stairwell moths

Eudonia mercurella

Sent from my iPhone

Stairwell moths

The yellow shell. It’s been a great week in the stairwell and also the Shark at the cash machine the other morning

Sent from my iPhone

Stairwell moths

Eudonia Mercurella

Sent from my iPhone

ATM moths

The Shark

Sent from my iPhone

Chapter 10. Bunsen Island

Rupert Bunsen felt cursed by some witchcraft, voodoo or pagan god. His saviour and a gentleman of a quality he had grown to believe no longer existed had left his private island before he had chance to properly reward him. He was amongst the passengers who had bought tickets who he did not know socially. He struggled to place the accent and not being from his Old Etonion friends, indeed not even from Harrow but from Shrewsbury, a perfectly respectable school though it was rare their alumni amounted to much. Michael Heseltine had been a decent enough politician. John Peel had been one of the first DJ’s to pick up on the Tuberous Bellend when he’d first released the album being told that, having no single suitable for the popular music charts that it would not sell well well. How foolish they had been? Yet he’d felt a kinship develop between them before he had left. Bunsen had not had a freind since pushing his last from a treehouse to see what would happen. He may have foregone friendship as a consequence but at least he had learned not to jump from tall trees. Skreeblton intrigued him. The man was clearly of substantial financial means as he simply would not have been there had he been otherwise. Money therefore would be no reward. Could he arrange a knighthood perhaps? He didn’t seem the type to be impressed by that sort of honour. Order of the garter perhaps? He recalled that he had said that he had made his money in IT. Presumably he was some sort of Zuckerberg wizard. He

would plug his laptop in and search to discover more about the man. He would be dead now, this was a certainty, had he not have been pulled aboard the pallet and safely taken ashore following the terrorist attack. He still was struggling to understand how a bunch of new age pikies had ruined the greatest project of his life. What made it worse was that his saviour had left him alone with the only other person he knew well. Ginger Fortescue! The man was clearly mentally unstable. Whether this was due to the pagan terrorists, an amalgam of Witches, Druids and Shamans who were now either dead or being hunted down by the most secretive of MI5 departments or brain damage incurred prior to this. He had been of use during his successful campaign to reinstate the genius of Oldpastures and the various remixes of his masterpiece the Tuberous Bellends that was even now a streaming bestseller. It looked like he was stuck with Fortesque for the time being.

Bunsen felt his mobile ringing again and took the call.

“Father Bennett, Witchfynder General here. Is that Rupert Bunsen?”

“Yes! How may I be of help?”

“This chap who pulled you from the sea?”

“Ah! Indeed! I’ve been thinking of how best to reward him.”

“Was there anything about him that seemed….unusual?”

“Quite! He was a unique individual! Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know him well. Given his sea damage he said that he felt quite unwell and retired to the room I allocated him. Spent most of his time there, convalescing in bed. I caught the scent of insense as I passed by his door one time. The only time I saw him out on the island he was hunting for mushrooms! He said that he had an interest in fungi.”

“And where was he headed when he left you?”

“I put him on my private jet. He was heading back to Blighty. Said he had a few business loose ends to tie up.”

“So he’s in England! Any idea where ?”

“As far as I know he was headed to the south west . If you hear from him before I do, please tell him to get in touch. Never got the chance to reward him for saving my life. Any news on capturing the remaining Devils henchmen?”

“I’m hoping to bring you good news on that front shortly.”

“Toodle pip!”

Bennett cut the connection on his in car phone. Ginger Fortescue was ambling over toward him. Another bothersome conversation no doubt.

“What is it G string? Won’t your loved ones be wondering where you got to following the disaster?”

Through his many media connections he had managed to pass the explosion that a number of sea vessels had noticed as a secret nautical project though word had got out that there had been some sort of private shipping disaster.

“What up, nigga! Ma folks dun forsaken me brother. The streets is my only home and my brothers ma sole fam.”

What on earth was he talking about? Bunsen knew his family well and this…persona he had adopted was a complete delusion. Despite reality Fortescue was only communicable with through the artifice of self that a concoction of synthetic drugs and the downward mobility a certain character type had been complicit in creating.

“I knowd dat dread did whisk you outa da ocean. Him not what ya tink, bro. Him deep in wit dem duppy!”

Bunsen could make zero sense of the chap. He just wished Skreebleton was back. His mission to leave the planet on a privately funded spaceship alongside his peers, the planet’s financial elite his ticket paying passengers, had been sabotaged and now he needed a friend. For the first time in his life he needed a friend.

Sent from my iPhone

chapter 9

The Witchfynder general and his apprentice begin their mission to seek out, torture and kill any surviving witches, shamans and Druids.

Henry Bennett detested mobile phones and the persistent ringing had annoyed him in equal measure to the stimulus its vibration created in his pocket. The hole he had cut was only small, providing just sufficient access to his pubic area. The fact that this cursed device triggered an erection confirmed that it was the work of the devil. He was reminded of the hitchhiking Hussey whose opting to wear no bra and the jiggle of her breasts had ensured that he was left with no choice. What satanic thinking had possessed the child to clothe herself with no regard for the natural, Christian impulses the lord had bestowed on him. A priest. A man of god. The hand of god that had used him as his tool to deliver righteous judgment. The memory had filled his shaft against which the phone vibrated causing it to point heavenward.

‘I’d best take it’ he thought. It could be information from Porton Down with further developments on the chunks of demon flesh he had been shown, writhing about in their tanks.

“Bennett” he never answered with his religious title in case it was a work call. His work as Witchfynder General was top secret. “To whom am I speaking?”

“It’s the PM. We have good news. Bunsen survived. Pulled from the waters by one of us. Granted, he attended Shrewsbury but publicly schooled none the less. He is back in communication and two dozen survived the demonic terrorism.”

“Undoubtedly great news. I need to speak with this Bunsen. Find out exactly what type of pagan nominations we’re dealing with. Can you arrange a meeting. Or at least a zoom call. Did he say anything that might be useful in our endeavour. Brother Tobin is yet to taste the lord’s joy when one of Satans minions is cast back in to the hell where they belong”

“Not yet. He’s only spoken of the young entrepreneur who saved him.”

The Witchfynder general smelt something was amiss. The passengers had all been self serving billionaires. It struck him as peculiar that one of these sort of whose lives had been spent driven by a greed beyond that of even the mid level of the premier league. An elite of a few hundred who had climbed to the very peak, something only achievable through sociopathic self interest.

“The man who saved Bunsen, any more information on him?”

“Not much. Bunsen said he didn’t recognise him though there were a number who had little social connections. He’d earned his money in IT. I guess those computer types generate fortunes without having to engage in the hob nobbing at social functions and dinner parties that the rest of us had to network at to gain the connections necessary for a comfortable life”

“Did he give a name?”

“Peter Skreeblton. It’s not a family name that I was familiar with but good on the chap! We all thought Bunsen was dead!”

The name was like a bullet in the gut for Bennett. Skreeblton! The past decade had been a cat and mouse game. Skree and Lipton were the two most powerful shamans in the British isles. Each time he’d felt close to capturing this pair they somehow slipped away. He had come close when they had teamed up with a delusional crusty who believed he was Christ. Passing oneself off as the messiah was sufficient reason to be tortured until the charlatan confessed his fraudulent lies and only death could be appropriate punishment. But Skree and Lipton! They had engaged with pagan gods; spent time in the underworld. It all began to make sense. Who else would be so motivated and jealous of the good Christian wealth? They claimed a pursuit of the true teachings of Christ. The envy of wealth. But the true Christ, the one that had ascended into heaven and was only accessible through the priesthood of the Catholic Church welcomed the donations of his devotees that supported the Vatican and the channel through which he was bestowed with the divine right to extinguish the fakers and worshipers of pagan gods. It had become the goal of his life. His name as the Witchfynder general who brought these two agents of lucifer and the fraudulent messiah to be tortured until they renounced Satan and then a slow death to send them on to hell where they belong. His name would be talked of a century from now as among the greatest Witchfynder generals of all time.

He and brother Tobin had been forced to spend the night at a premier inn. Tobin, a constant irritant had appeared overjoyed to be staying in a generic room in this chain of cheap hotels. Father Bennett was reluctant to sleep in cotton sheets preferring a hessian sack he always brought on missions of Witchfynding that could often disrupt his schedule. He only hoped Tobin had had the sense to refrain from using the overly large television screens these places invariably had. The hotel, if one could stretch the word to include these ghastly places was largely full of building contractors. This of course meant that ladies of the night could be seen huddled together as their car had approached. Father Bennett had taken a mental note of this but was pleased to see brother Tobin continued to be mesmerised by the smart phone that he had something of an addiction to. They had shared a formal meal he had prepared with some goods he had the foresight to purchase from a farm shop near Porton Down. He had washed the three carrots and the lettuce they had shared with his own hands, removing any small patches of earth to ensure the meal was pleasant. He had even given Tobin one of the two russet apples he had bought as a treat for the young apprentice Witchfynder. Tobin had smiled and thanked him though unbeknownst to Bennett had made a brief journey out to a convenience store and bought himself a star bar and two cans of red bull. Bennett waited in his room for a couple of hours so the young Tobin would be asleep before making his own venture out into the night. The young witchfynder was not yet ready to take the autonomous decisions to rid the world of those under Satans spell who were only too common in this country. It was close to 1am when he walked to where he had seen the gaggle of harlots as they had arrived. Now only one remained plying her unholy trade.

“Do you want business love?” she had asked. Bennett had responded with a single word, “Oral.”

He roughly maneuvered the sex worker into the darkened shop doorway.

“Steady on love!” she had reprimanded him as he had pushed her to her knees.

“Bathe the unholy child in the water of your mouth.”

This strumpet was clearly well schooled by whatever demon had possessed the child.

“Cleanse him deeply” Bennett instructed as he took the woman’s head in his hands. From here forward he spoke only in Latin as he thrust his holy sword as deep as he could. Despite the choking sounds she had begun to make he was able to deliver his cleansing seed. As he began to wilt his hands slipped down to her neck and with the full rage of the lord, disgusted by the act the temptress had brought about he squeezed. He could not say how long for only that her body had been limp for some time before he stopped. The road was quiet. No one could have seen him nor how he rolled her crumpled body into the deep shadow. Nipping across the silent street he made his way toward the all night garage. The young Asian lad who worked nights there could only describe him as a tall white man in a long trench coat. He bought a green canister and filled it with unleaded explaining the unasked for reason as to why he needed petrol was that his taxi had run out on a long distance fare. He smiled and confessed to being an idiot from out of town. The death of a working girl was not unusual and seldom attracted the ever diminished funds of the police force.

Once back to the body he doused it in the petrol and making sure that the road was quiet he lit the bundle. It always gave him satisfaction knowing he had done the lords work.

The following morning the two men of the church and MI5 met early for breakfast. Father Bennett had his usual porridge with salt and looked disappointed at brother Tobins full English breakfast. “The Lord God in his earthly form frowned on greed. And his father sees everything.”

Reprimanded Tobin blushed before tucking into the sausage, eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and hash browns. “I’m going to the washroom and will be in the foyer in fifteen minutes.” Bennett’s stomach rumbled in envy despite himself as he took his leave. “Don’t be late!”

Once he’d gone brother Tobin felt able to enjoy his breakfast. Once the older man was out of sight he took out his phone and took a snap of himself and his stacked plate, a broad grin was a thumbs up. Excitedly he posted the photo to his instagram page with the caption ‘when the company is paying for breakfast.’ His followers were now in three figures. There’d been a jump over the last twenty four hours. Social media could go like this, he thought. Start with your friends, then their friends then anything can happen. Tobin finished his meal and couldn’t resist a second post of his empty plate held up next to his contentedly smiling face.

Sent from my iPhone

Stairwell moths

Common plume

Sent from my iPhone

Skree 52

Booklet from eight years ago

Sent from my iPhone

Stairwell moths

Ruby tiger

Sent from my iPhone

chapter 8. The last survivor

I long ago learned that what Lou Reed had sung, ten years before I would come to understand as a pearl of wisdom, as accurate and succinct now as it had been in 1967 where his band, a collective of misfits, arranged together like a collage, a piece of art by Andy Warhol spearheading a counter culture to the counter culture, the Velvet Underground, when waiting for your man you always have to wait. I’d rung her (here my man was a woman) half an hour ago and spoken to her where, impatiently she’d informed me it would be ten minutes. I knew that this meant at least twenty minutes. She told me she’d be out as soon as she was reloaded. This meant she had to pop upstairs to the flat above where her man lived. This was a secret that every punter who scored there knew. I pictured her, back home, returning from her short journey with the goods and perhaps some hanger on in tow as she boiled up the cocaine and sodium bicarbonate in a soot stained desert spoon. Is there a junky musician who hasn’t thought of naming their new album The Dark side of the Spoon? Surely some fashionable dandy, a Pete Doherty or Kurt Cobain had used such an obvious yet beautifully simple album title.

Sorting me out would come as a low priority until she’d had her pipe. Crack is prioritised before everything else for a crackhead. A rock star.

Quite why I’d fallen back in to my addiction that I thought I had long left behind I couldn’t tell you. Following the long journey home after our assembly of witches, Druids, Shamen and the messiah had done the dirty on the super rich I’d made my way back to England. I was the sole survivor. No one could have survived the explosion. It just wasn’t possible. A crazed ex policeman had ultimately proved pivotal to our success in taking out Rupert Bunsens Noah project. Had it been worth it? The loss of so many beautiful people. But I couldn’t think about it now. People I’d loved dearly. Stop! I crumbled each time I thought about it.

Parked up always looks bait and I’ve never understood why drug dealers leave their punters waiting. It looks bad. It brings it on top. I tried to look nonchalant. At ease with myself. A guy on a tea break who never felt one of the boys and chose instead to savour their fifteen minutes of freedom alone, in their car.

The steady flow of traffic stopped for a couple of minutes and piercing the silence it left came the bark of a crow. ‘Car, car, car!’ It shouted. Even the urban wildlife was illuminating any surveiling copper that might be studying the coming and going of bedraggled, unemployed, chemically dependant individuals who made their way to her flat, to check out the dodgy looking bloke sat doing nothing in his car. Drug dealing can be invisible to the untrained eye. The street can appear normal. Junkies have the super power of the chameleon. Blending in to the background wallpaper as they waited on benches and bus stops. Or sat like myself, in cars waiting.

“Alright if I jump in? Won’t look so bad if any filth are on the prowl.” Simon, a long term smack head I’d known for years interrupted my anxiety zen. I hadn’t seen him coming. Perhaps he’d been in the bushes that grew alongside the entrance to the stairwell. Biding his time. Much like myself.

“Eh yup Si! Get in. How’s life treating you?”

“Shite. Same old. Didn’t know you were still doing it Skree. I thought you packed it in long ago.”

“You and me both! I had a long break from it. Went travelling with Lipton to get some distance.”

“Lipton! How’s he doing? Owes me 20 quid he does.”

“I think he died. We were down the Caribbean islands and there was a bit of trouble. Pretty sure he’s dead anyway. Long story but I think he drowned.”

“Fuck! Sorry to hear that. Did he give you the 20 quid for me by any chance. Before he croaked, obviously.”

I didn’t answer him. I’d just told him that I’d lost my best mate and all he’s worried about is a 20 spot he’d lost. This is the mentality of the crack and smack head. A complex game of burning people to see if they’ll react and if they don’t they quickly go down the food chain. Irvine Welsh once said that all junkies had the same personality. This is completely untrue and perhaps illustrative of the relatively small period of time and the singularity of location that he took part in the game. I’ve met people from the whole spread of society from the homeless beggar smackhead through tradesmen through it workers through architects, lawyers and into the class that doesn’t need to work being born in to families that hobnob with the most wealthy and royalty. And within each of those layers I’ve met people of incredible intellect, amazing creativity who have fascinating minds. The match of any who choose the straight path. It really is no measure of a man or woman. Granted most of low income are continually on the hustle and solely focused on making the money to score. But once they’ve scored and settled often reveal amazing character. There is a common need there. And the fact it is a shared affliction can mean that an alliance where two work in tandem in the understanding that it is a temporary arrangement that could dissolve if a better situation becomes possible that one can’t bring a second. There is also a lot of lying and bullshit. This charade takes place in all of society where equal dirt is ubiquitous. I was with a middle class girl with money for a while. I moved down south to renovate a derelict cottage I assumed that we would be living in. She never came, sold the cottage the renovation of which had taken a year. Of course I never thought of pay. A years labour was what I was able to contribute. Then she moved to a small town in Somerset and I followed her down there. I developed freinds of my own class and she had a circle of which I believed I was a part. And then she dumped me. Ok, I had developed a heroin habit and needed £30 a day which was nothing, I was successful in my business at the time. And also about an hour a day when I was out scoring. Following our split I assumed that the freinds I had in our circle would still be my friends. But no. She turned the entire group against me. Spread lies about me. She was still visiting me and we discussed everything; all aspects of her life. But she had told them that I was a bad person who was stalking her. And bar a couple they all turned away from me and never asked me my side of the story. I have never seen a junky lie that was so destructive of a persons world. So get this right. Junkies might lie to get a hit but it’s over then. It was just business. There was no intent to destroy a persons friendship circle, just some bullshit to get a tenner. It isn’t personal. It isn’t done to destroy a person’s world and claim all the players as their own.

I have never gotten over losing my second wife. Only once in any humans life do they fall in love to the extent that they open their souls completely and in the movies it is reciprocated and they live happily ever after. In my case I exposed myself completely and fully expected that we would be together for life. Take this and the emotional and spiritual pure exposure that you experience in heroin withdrawal once the bits that films show you, climbing the walls and wailing in pain. Heroin stops the emotional suffering. Morphine is used for pain but it doesn’t exactly stop pain, it lessens the emotional relationship you have to pain. It nullifies all emotional responses that, of course combine with our reason and learning. Once this is taken away the ex junky finds himself with the pure emotional rawness felt by babies. Hence the suffering I was delivered by my ex wife filled me during this kind of emotional rawness. The pain and disillusionment from that is a horrible twisted mass I am past yet I haven’t overcome it. Merely thinking about it like this hurts to the point of psychosis if I linger. So I can only try refocus. I am sat in my car waiting to score with Simon at my side.

“Are you ok Skree. You just drifted off and began crying! Have I done something wrong? Lipton can keep that 20. I know you’re close and it was ages ago.”

“No Si. I’m sorry. I just got thinking about a life I once had. Me and my ex wife had a house just up the hill from here. You might remember. I think I remember you scouting through the gardens, looking for stuff to chore. I was fitting a front door if made, remember?”

“Aye I do. I’d only ever seen you scoring over in Radstock, at Woofy’s, and Rosie’s ! Both dead now.”

So looked down thinking of the lost freinds they had in common.

“I remember that bird you had too. Fit as fuck she was. Straight gower though, wasn’t she?”

“She was mate. Both. In the end she couldn’t do with me having this hobby.”

“Which hobby is that Skree?” Si asked looking genuinely confused.

“The gear….and the white. She’d have her truck load of coke and pills and we’d come back after we’d been raving and fuck for hours. You can’t have both though. The straight bird and the gear”

“You’re not wrong. I got my Mrs in to it and kept her that way.”

Having pretty much exhausted all we had in common we fell in to a silence, waiting for our connect to turn up.

I shouldn’t have got back into this. A habit I felt sure I’d beaten. But you never truly beat it. Only hold it at bay. Once you’ve had a heroin habit your biology is changed. And it only takes a couple or three days, just soothing yourself, and it’s got you again. After all the gang we’d put together did? I doubt I’ll ever feel that camaraderie again.

Lanya had walked up and got into the back of my car without me even noticing her approach. “Drive” she told me and I complied.

“It’s been crawling with filth down here since that young twat died.”

I’d not heard this bit of gossip so I asked who it was and how.

“Johnno, you know that young gypsy lad. Hangs around with big Donald.”

Surely not the teenager he’d had in his car no more than a week ago.

“It’s this gear. Fentanyl in there. I told him to smoke it and not use a pin but him and Donald cooked up a hit. In my fucking stairwell! Anyone could have seen them. They under that bit where the stairs hit the ground floor and there’s a sort of triangular space. I’d served them but I told them to get out. I didn’t want them in my flat in the first place. Donald said he had his hit and went unconscious for half an hour or so. When he came round he found Johnno dead! The cunt only goes and leaves him there. Makes an anonymous call for an ambulance and fucks off! Didn’t think to tell me what had happened. Said he didn’t think they’d connect him to me. He’s only three floors down and he’s got the audacity to have a hit on my stairs. Anyway there’s been coppers everywhere. Knocked on my door. Asking if I’d heard or seen anything. The gypos have put a hit out on whoever tells him where he was buying drugs. Five grand!”

That clearly wasn’t true as Big Donald would have been first in line to dob her in. He’d have done it for 500. A fiver probably. Poor kid though I thought. He was barely out of his teens. I understand why some people who have suffered severe trauma use heroin but the kids who grow up in these posh southern towns have such a great life that I don’t get it. I suppose it’s not that. Who knows what the kid has been through.

“Have you got anywhere you can go stay for a bit. I’d get out of town until things settle down.”

“I’ve only just got to see Rocky again. It’s only a couple of hours every fortnight but it’s something. I have to be here. Have to prove I’ve got a clean flat he can come stay in.”

She’d had her young boy taken off her by social services. She’d already lost a girl she’d had in her teens and now was the other side of the country and she had no interest in getting to know her junky mother who she couldn’t even remember the name of.

“Aye. You don’t want to fuck that up now you’re finally allowed to see him again.”

It begged the question, if her priority was being able to see her son again why was she selling crack and smack to scumbags like Si and Donald…..and me.

Lanya wasn’t a bad kid really. We’d all fallen into it for our own reasons. I honestly felt for her. Must hurt having a child taken off you, for a second time. As smackheads went she was fairly together. Selling it to her small circle of punters meant she was seldom caught short. She made enough to buy decent clothes. Nike trainers, adidas tracky bottoms. Black with the three white stripes. The most popular at the moment. Of course she could be as shifty as any of them. And her apparent complete lack of remorse for the young Johnno who had drifted off to a bliss he never returned from. I couldn’t help but think that the heroin overdose deaths were the easiest of deaths possible. I’d brought a couple of friends back from going over. They never thanked you for saving their lives. Only moaned at how you’d spoiled their hit. Fortunately fentanyl and nitazines were very rare despite the scare posters that were always on the wall of the drug services. The trouble with these new, synthetic opioids was that being so powerful only experts were able to bash it well. All drugs are cut before they get to the likes of us and a crystal the size of a single grain of sugar was enough to kill. Lanya had been given a batch and a couple of people had gone over though this was the first death.

“My phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the kiddie died.”

It was a fact there was no better advert for your product than someone dying from it. Every junky in town would be ringing her.

“You’re lucky you caught me. I’m going to be off for a while. Until the coppers are done round here.”

It was the least painful death possible. Just floating off into a cloud of bliss. I thought of how I had seen Christ blown into a number of pieces. Surely no one could have survived what that mad copper had fired at them. I was deeply tripped out at the time the mass of conger eels had entered the hole the coppers torpedos had created. I saw the boat pulled under by the riptide the demon had created in its hunger for the wealthy bastards inside Bunsens Noah spaceship. The team we had put together were pulled under too and I couldn’t see how anyone could survive that. I’d found myself clinging to a pallet that had been thrown my way from the deck of the stolen boat. In my state I was able only to hold tight and hope that the current would take me towards land. Fortune favoured me and as the chaos unfolded I somehow found myself close to the shore. What followed was one of the most cruel twists of fate that life has ever presented to me. A figure was floundering in the water. Clearly unable to swim the man was flapping his arms and was losing his battle to survive. Rupert Bunsen was about to drown before my eyes. I had seen the people who I loved more than any others on the planet die in the whirlpool created by the eel demon. We had set out to stop the hideous project and certainly the witches and Druids wanted to kill the rich elite who were ready to leave the planet for good. Now the man whose dream it was now despite his fight was sinking. Instinct took over. Laying flat on the palet as it bobbed and rocked I reached down deep and I grabbed the super rich architect of darkness hand and pulled him up. Conscious that if he guessed that I had been amongst the pagan band who collectively had succeeded in ruining his life’s work I put on the most plummy accent I could summon and through the psychedelic shamanic powers I pulled it off. Once safely on sure I managed to pass myself off as a public school boy. I knew Bunsen was an old Etonion so I spun the story that I’d gone to Shrewsbury, a lesser rung of the tower but still a respectable past. I explained that I was one of his clients and due to the funds I’d amassed in the IT boom had been rich enough and more to the point within the most secret of social circles that had been privy to the Noah project. I’d lost my fellow astronauts in the chaos. There were very few who did survive. Most were already aboard and ready for takeoff and only the last few who were still making their way down had come out of the wreckage alive. I felt a sense of guilt in losing those I loved and rescued this most evil of men. Perhaps I should have let him drown. But our mission had never been to kill the rich passengers, only to destroy the project. Of course I knew we would be causing the deaths of many people and I recall the Druids relishing the thought but for me and Lipton, the two shamans whose plan it had been, their deaths were a side effect of the destruction of the spacecraft.

In the days that followed I found myself a guest on Bunsens island. His gratitude in my saving his life found him offering me the run of the place for as long as it would take me to recover and the flight back to England aboard one of his private jets.

For the first few days there I just slept and ate when meals were served. I did not see all of the survivors though I gathered there were over a dozen, perhaps as many as twenty. The mood was dark. I kept my secret well hidden in the full knowledge that were I to be identified as one of the ‘terrorists’ who had ‘murdered’ the friends and associates of the elite super rich my death would have been certain and not quick. A dictator from an African country I had never heard of was unable to contain his anger and four of Bunsens security team who were assembled from ex SAS and similar backgrounds. He was taken away forcibly and no one spoke of him again. Any further complaints were kept quiet. It was not, after all Bunsens fault though I could sense that there would be no refunds.

Most kept to their rooms and only at mealtimes did they gather as a group. They really were a bunch of cunts. A Russian oligarch sat next to an aging rock star. I heard them talk about what had happened but no one really knew what had happened other than some crazy bunch of nutters had come close on a boat followed by another boat piloted by a single highly armed lunatic. In his attempt to torpedo the first boat he had blown a hole into the Noah craft. What took place next no one could describe. As if forming a single creature a vast mass of conger eels powered through the hole consuming the human flesh within. It was as though the eels formed a single slimy mass creature that had a single mind or no mind and just the hunger for flesh.

Weirdest for me was that Bunsen was forming a fondness for me having been the person who saved his life. Despite my reticence he would not leave me alone. So I went to my room. I had lost a girl who I was falling in love with, her friends, the Druid lads from Clun who had become like brothers to us. And Lipton. My best friend. My fellow shaman. We all knew that we might not, further, we were unlikely to survive. And during these quiet moments, despite their loss, I thought “Fucking yes! We fucking did it.” We had pulled off the near impossible. Luck had played a hand. But was it luck? Through a mystical anomaly me and Lipton had been blessed briefly and become the archangels of Poseidon. The gods of old were surely there. Tweaking reality to allow our mission to succeed. And there I lay. Caught up in the ambivalence. Morning my lost friends yet in the full knowledge not one of them would have had it any other way. If I was the only survivor then I must engage with the glory, for all of them. Each had played their part.

When I was sufficiently recovered to be able to travel I bid my goodbye to Bunsen. He implored me to remain in touch. I bid the cunt farewell and boarded his private jet and was soon back on English soil. I had nowhere to go so after hot wiring a van in Surrey where Bunsens plane had landed I returned to Somerset. Here I found the only people I knew were the addicts and street people and was soon back on heroin. I could blame my relapse on the grief for the people I had lost. But deep down, if I’m honest I just like drugs.

“Can you drop me by the train station?”

Si brought me back to earth.

“Course mate. What about you Lanya? Where do you want to be?”

She looked around and for a moment I thought she was going to ask to come with me but she directed me round a loop of roads and I dropped her off close to where I’d picked her up.

“Take care of yourself.”

She said nothing, just smiled and wandered off with her phone ringing. Another punter after the strong gear that had done for young Johnno.

Sent from my iPhone