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[Previous Guest Writer]   John Travis   [Next Guest Writer]   [Chill Factor Index]

Simon writes:

John is another comparative newcomer, but already he's carving himself a niche for his distinctive, sometime surreal work. I don't know if there's some uncanny link here but John lives just a few streets away from where I spent the first seven years of my life near the fabled rhubarb fields of Thorne near Wakefield (reputedly the birthplace of Robin Hood). Keep an eye out for John's work; it will be stepping into your nightmares real soon.

His mother had told him of Pyjamarama when he'd been a child.

And until a few nights ago Slink had forgotten about it for over fifty years. It was one of those parental devices designed to get children to sleep, or so he'd thought. 'If you don't sleep really deeply,' his mother had told him 'they'll take you off to Pyjamarama. They will.'

Then, a few nights ago he'd woken in the early hours. None of the lights were working, in the kitchen his feet vibrated on the lino and the whole room was bathed in canary-yellow light; he didn't use coloured bulbs.

When it happened the next night he suddenly remembered. It was the look on his mother's face as she'd told him about Pyjamarama; he realised she was serious. She'd cited the disappearance of Uncle Arthur – vanished without trace, the Police said. He started to remember her describing the weirdest things, even taking his crayons and drawing them for him. Then two nights ago he'd found teeth-marks in the cardboard boxes in the basement; but he put that down to rats.

He remembered her warning most strongly; 'What they say is,' his mother had told him '"If we can't have you-"' ... at which point Slink remembered he was an adult. It was absolute rubbish, propaganda for infants, playing on their worst fears. Whatever was happening here would pass in a few days.

Slink removed his thumb and forefinger from his mouth, made a face and with his glistening fingers pinched out the flame of the candle. It was a mystery why the lights worked in daylight hours.

The bedroom was pitch black now. Carefully he set the saucer down on his bedside cabinet, the candle held firmly in place by the dripping wax from last night's episode. Next, he took off his glasses, folded them and placed them down next to the saucer, alongside glass of water he'd already left there. Last, he took off his thick furry slippers, pulled the duvet back from the pillow and climbed into bed, closing his eyes as he placed the sheets around his neck.

Slink knew he'd awoken at the wrong time. It was still, and no light squinted through the patterns in his curtains. Mumbling, he reached over for the illumination button on his alarm clock. Nothing. Tutting to himself, he eased his feet towards his slippers. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he reached over for his spectacles and hooked them on.

Still half asleep, he shuffled over to the light-switch and clicked it downwards. Tsk. The fourth time this week. Or was it the third? He couldn't remember. Sighing, he went back to his table and fumbled in the drawer for matches. The misshapen candle gave off a little heat as the match took, the flame wavering momentarily like a limbo dancer. He decided to go and get a drink.

On the way to the kitchen Slink flicked switches, but to no avail. All dead. At the top of the stairs he looked out of the window. All the houses were in darkness. All he could see were black geometric shapes sprouting up from the ground to the sky. The only light was from a pocked-marked yellow moon the colour of jaundice, very low in the sky.

In the kitchen the refrigerator hummed. As he opened the door it occurred to him it should be dead too. On opening it he saw that it was; its interior black, milk bottles standing upright like overgrown teeth. He took one and put it on the table, the door swinging shut. Where was that noise coming from?

Suddenly his feet started to get warm.

At the same time he heard an animal of some sort. He wasn't sure where the noise came from, but it made him think of the bite-marks downstairs. The noise was dragged out over several seconds, a bizarre wailing quickly followed by a low murmur. His feet tingled.

There was nothing in the cellar; only rusty garden equipment, a few boxes of bits and bobs and a dartboard. He looked at its door for a while. He had to go down there, he knew.

Lifting the candle from the table, shadows moved in all directions, the room swayed before him as he started forward. What was wrong with his feet?

He looked down stupidly. He suffered with bad circulation and the only time his feet were warm was straight after a bath. He started to feel sickish. Perhaps the power was trying to come on.

The rumble grew louder as he opened the door, flicking the switch on instinct. As he was doing it he remembered it was useless.

The basement light clicked on. Not the usual cough-and-splutter routine it usually went through, but straight away, like one of the main lights.

Blowing out the candle he walked back to the kitchen table. What was going on lately? there seemed to be all kinds of things; animals making strange noises, smashing dustbin lids, power cuts. The electricity board said they knew nothing about that. He turned back to the steps.

Was someone playing tricks on him, was someone down there? The stair rail felt too thick in his hand.

Slink took small mincing steps like a geisha girl, each foot safely down before trying the next one.

At the bottom he looked around his cellar; soggy cardboard boxes filled with shadows and bite-marks, the dartboard haphazardly punctured with three feather-headed darts, a wall of dark beige plaster peeking between lawnmowers and brushes. Everything seemed to thrum.

Bright lights flashed all around him, a dazzling pink-purple colour. Slink swept his arm across his face in reaction. But the light was gone as quickly as it arrived.

He felt a cold shudder pass through him. Was this happening? He didn't believe in this sort of thing! A draught was coming through a gap in the bricks, and more lights, different colours at different points in the walls – a red on the left, an orange near the floor, a sludgy brown at the top, like pin-points coming through incredibly small gaps in the stone. He'd always wondered about that wall. What was at the other side?

'Aah!'

Turning around he listened to the rattling and rolling coming from the corner. He found himself walking slowly forward, watching as the pulley rope lowered the box with a little bump.

Slink rubbed his eyes. The dumbwaiter hadn't worked since he'd moved in years ago; all the houses in the street had them apparently, a quirky throwback to the past. It had evidently come down from the attic and through the hum he hadn't noticed.

The box's interior was blacker than it should've been; as though crammed full of some-

'What...?'

He watched as the dumbwaiter whirred into action and trundled up again.

He raised a shaking finger to his mouth and started to chew on the quick of a nail. He jerked his head away as something cut at his nose.

He looked at the nail, gagging. On the left hand a nail had sprung up from the finger from right to left like a hinged lid. The quick was almost half the size of the finger.

'I...'

He looked at the pink skin exposed by the nail. It had some kind of black mark on it, letters, a word-

are.

His gaze darted to the other nails, first one hand, and then the other.

At first they all looked bruised; black marks under each one, as though he'd slammed them all in a door; but as he looked closely he realised the black marks had some kind of pattern; and at the side of each nail the quick was elongated and raised, resembling a lever.

His heart thudded, he wanted to touch one of the quicks, take it out; his right hand shook above the little finger on his left hand, touching the quick. He whimpered as he touched it, feeling a small static charge run through him.

The fingernail snapped up quickly, as though on a spring.

Slink felt a knot in his stomach as the pink flesh beneath was revealed. It was one of those areas of the body you weren't supposed to see, under the nails. Imprinted on the flesh was another word;

as.

He realised the nails were acting as a protector for what lay underneath. It was like viewing something behind frosted glass; you only saw an outline, nothing was clearly defined. The dark patches under the nails were all different sizes, depending on the size of the nail. He jabbed the quick of each finger quickly, static shooting into him. He paused before moving to his right hand.

All ten finished, looked slowly from left to right;

as you are not asleep, the left hand read. He shifted his eyes to the right.

We are waiting for you.

Reading it through a fourth time, he understood.

Slink couldn't decide whether to flee or fall. He became aware of the room around him, the humming, low, but somehow more intense, almost a gasp now. The bricks slid before his eyes, and the points of light stabbed at his chest. He'd changed places with the room; he was dead and it was alive. He shambled for the stairs, his hand sticking sweatily to the rail, and at the top he slammed the door behind him, fumbling with the key, unused for so long, turning it in the lock, dislodging rust as it clicked. He stood against the door, the key drilling into the small of his back. His breath was swift and shallow, his head seemed to close in on itself, and his arms were all pins and needles.

The fridge door crept slowly open, landing with a gentle thud on the cupboard behind.

Slink took a deep breath and inched forward. A milk bottle glowed green from within, a message carved vertically down the glass – Onwards and upwards! – by its side the name of the dairy. The door swung shut abruptly, Slink having to jump back to avoid being batted by it.

His fridge magnets were glowing in the dark.

He recognised some of them; the small dog, a parrot sitting on a branch, a strawberry which was now upside-down; but others were new to him; a screaming face, its teeth all different colours; there was a pair of pyjamas similar to his own, but the stripes kept lighting up, switching off, lighting up, switching off; a small bed rocked about as though on a choppy sea. The parrot opened its beak and spoke.

'No!' Slink hissed, bending his face towards it. 'That's not true! Not true at all! He's dead!' As he shouted the strawberry burst along the white surface of the fridge door, dripping red. He looked back at the table, the word Pyjamarama! scrawled across its surface, raised from the wood like braille, each letter a different luminous colour. The clock above the door chimed; the minute hand was pointing north, expanding beyond the clock up to the ceiling. He ran into the hall and was greeted by a message on the wall: Keep going, Mr.Slink! the wallpaper glowing at him.

In a second it all stopped. He stood in the dark in complete silence.

A gentle mauve light appeared at the top of the stairs.

'I don't know who you are-' Slink shouted, making sure his voice was real. 'But-'

The colour changed from mauve to purple to yellow to orange, to mauve again.

He turned to the living room. As he opened the door something brushed his leg and shot past him. A moment later an oily wheel trundled up through the wall. He peeked around the door again, jerking back as a table got on its back legs and came at him. Thundering up the stairs he stood outside his spare room, its door swinging inward. He could only follow, but didn't want to.

The room pulsed gently into life; green light crept up from the carpet and up to the ceiling, casting a strange reflection of Slink on the roof.

From the corner of his eye he saw something crouched on a bookcase.

As he turned, the airing cupboard door sprung open, and a pair of his pyjamas sprang up alongside the other thing, which jumped off and scurried from the room. The nightclothes perched there, the wearer invisible. A stripy sleeve waved at him.

'Time to go!' said a voice coming from all places at once 'Destiny awaits!' they flapped past his head, causing him to duck as they landed on top of the clothes hook on the door, back facing him, squirming insanely like a twitching headless corpse hanging from a noose. Just as quickly they straightened and swept out of the room, Slink following madly behind. When he reached the hall they weren't there.

He was staring into the bathroom, bathed in a flickering orange light. The pyjama's squatted on the toilet bowl, facing him, seeming to stare. An empty sleeve moved, and the toilet roll started to spool off onto the floor. The other sleeve moved, pulling toilet's chain. Water gushed up through the empty nightclothes, spouting through the empty neck-hole, the pyjama's shuddering, water landing on Slink.

The green glow faded, and the normal light flicked on with a ping. We're waiting, the window informed him in shaving foam, the can on the ledge. The thing on the toilet pointed a soggy sleeve down towards the bath. Squinting forward, Slink watched as the liquid swilled around inside; he noticed all the bottles and jars and lotions were out of the medicine cabinet and had been emptied into the bath.

'Fancy a dip, Mr Slink?' the voice asked. He started to speak when he was pushed forward, feet slipping on the wet cushion floor. The mixture in the bath bubbled and erupted and boiled like potion in a cauldron.

Slink was at the side of the tub now, knees bashing the sides; then he was falling; the heat from the liquid stinging his eyes, bubbling froth-

He was snatched back by a soggy arm. He turned and saw the pyjamas land on the floor with a slap. He was moving out of the bathroom, the hall lighting up blue as he entered.

He looked longingly at his bedroom door. If only he could get to sleep, and stay there until the morning-

The door blazed with light. Shame on you! it said in dripping letters, sparks coming from the handle. He knew he had to see it through now.

The attic steps yawned down from above like a broken accordion. On each riser was a luminous word: this-way-slink-come-and-visit-the-in-laws! The steps landed only inches from his feet.

Tentatively he put a foot down on the steps. Heart pounding, he made his way up. He poked his head above the floor, screwing up his eyes against the fierce glow.

Where the abandoned fireplace should have been was a massive gaping chaotic hell.

Through the hissing and shushing and screaming was a mass of spiralling colours and melting shapes. He saw legs moving to and fro, objects of all shapes and sizes leaping out at him; carpets, cooking utensils, umbrellas, arms, claws, at one point a set of teeth in a glass; Slink ran his tongue around someone else's mouth. 'Give them back!' someone else's voice shouted.

A voice answered him, vaguely familiar; 'Come on now lad, there's nothing to be afraid of. It's lovely in here.' Uncle Arthur! 'I'm lonely in here lad... you remember me, don't you? Used to buy you presents when I came to stay? Your mother and father were too sensible to here... they all abandoned me. Now, come on Albert...'

Behind him the dumbwaiter groaned. He turned.

Sat in the hatch he saw a small, furry creature with one purple eye, and one green eye. Its fur was gorilla-black. It had three hands, not claws, and jumped from the box and scuttled past him like a medicine ball, making a ridiculous whinnying noise.

'What's in here can't be any worse than what you have now, can it?' Uncle Arthur asked. 'Don't have much of a life, do you, old son, hmm?'

'My life's fine!' Slink shouted back into the riot in front of him. 'I never did like you!' he shouted childishly. 'Why don't you show yourself?'

'All in good time,' the voice answered. For a second Slink thought he saw the outline of a man. A flame passed across it, and it was gone again.

The creature shot forward, grabbing the front of Slink's pyjamas. The small hands clasped the pyjama's cord and pulled him to his knees. He slid painfully across the rough wooden floor to the chaos beyond.

'Don't be shy, Albert,' his uncle said as the creature brayed and tittered, its miniature mouth gnashing open and shut as it pulled.

Slink tried to jerk back, but the three hands held firm. His eyes bulged as he saw the cord of his pyjamas expand, the thing grabbing armfuls of it and heaving, the slack piling up behind it, dragging Slink further forward. A callused hand from the chaos touched his face. Despite the flames dancing around it it was ice-cold.

'It's a dream!' yelled Slink, shuddering. 'I'll wake up!'

'No!' Uncle Arthur hissed back. 'You won't! This is real!'

It was no use. He was being pulled further and further forward, the chill air breathing all over him. He wheeled his hands around frantically, touching something on the floor. He scrabbled around for it and held it up to his face. A Stanley knife he used for cutting bits of carpet, its blade rusty.

He grabbed the cord and started sawing at it, the creature making a noise somewhere between a cry and a shriek, Uncle Arthur yelling at them both. He slashed at the cord frenetically and it started to fray here and there.

'No!' his uncle yelled as more threads jumped from the knotted cord. Slink strengthened his grip. 'Albert –' the voice called desperately, '– you remember the saying – If we don't have you then –'

Slink grunted as the cord cut in two and the creature and Uncle Arthur were sucked back through the blazing hellhole and up the chimney, the fireplace returning. The last thing Slink heard was a long-drawn out yell of someone falling as he flew backwards, his head thudding hard against the attic floor.

The first thing he noticed when he awoke was the pain in his head. He was on his back, looking up at the arched ceiling timbers. Gazing around him, the attic was a mess. The dumbwaiter was here instead of in the basement. He moved his tongue around his mouth. Thank God... he was safe.

He looked again at the hatch.

Inside was a short piece of cord. As he got to his feet the box shot down towards the basement.

He looked down at his fingers. The nails were okay, no quicks showing. Under each one was a black smudge.

It was over.

He let go of his breath and tramped down the cellar steps towards his bedroom. He instinctively knew he wouldn't be bothered again. At his bedroom door he stopped. Uncle Arthur's word's came back to him.

If we can't have you-

He flung the door open, ran at the curtains, and threw them back.

A block of ice settled in his stomach. Where his neighbours' houses were supposed to be, he now saw nothing but rubble; every house as far as the eye could see had been reduced to grey piles of brick and fire, everywhere swimming in brick-dust.

At that moment a police car parked in front of his house, its occupants looking up to his bedroom window.

'Then we'll take others,' Slink whispered, finishing Uncle Arthur's sentence for him.