1

Perkins threw a skull at Frank. ‘Booo? Ha, ha ha, scared sunshine?’

Frank dodged the incoming projectile; he looked at Gregory without enthusiasm.

‘And you find it funny? Huh? Throwing a part of someone’s body at me? Prick’.

Perkins was a sarcastic full-of-shit bastard. Frank could not really stand him, but the money was good, a temporary thing anyway. And he missed London. Why bother with all that nine ‘till five shit. He had a better idea. Do a quick job with the Olympics, grab a few quid and make a move.

‘Oh, come on! Don’t be such a twat. Need to have some fun innit?

Frank picked up the shovel and continued digging. The diggers finished earlier, Perkins and Frank were just tidying up the dig.

‘All, right won’t do that again.’

Frank raised his head and laughed uncontrollably. Perkins was kneeling with his hands put together. His face was of a cherub. He was a prick, but there were times, When Gregory Jr. Perkins really made him laugh. Frank was not an angel himself. He spent a few years in The Institution as his dad used to call it.

  It all started when Frank was about thirteen. He remembered the whole thing vividly. He was lying in his bed trying to memorise a simple poem by William Blake. He kept closing his eyes to recite and looking at the open book every three seconds. After about thirty readings he only got to ‘who made thee,’[1] He was struggling terribly and eventually gave up. He couldn’t focus.

 He put the book down and turned his nightstand lamp off. He was imagining that he is a race driver. He just got his Honda up to 150 miles when something happened. He felt some presence in the room. He tried to turn the light on, but it did not work. He was staring blindly; slowly a strange shape started appearing in his room. At first it was just a little blue mist, which slowly begun to glow as if charged with electricity. A form was shaping, it was twisting around its own axis creating a frenzied tube. Frank, sitting firmly on the bed, started to scream. His dad came in first, mum shortly after. The presence disintegrated immediately. The same thing happened for a couple of weeks. The very last day he waited longer and regretted it since. The presence formed a kind of a huge blue worm with one bright eye. It was glowing with an incredible intensity.  The worm was blue, with little lightings of electricity surrounding him. He started moving towards Frank who could not scream anymore. The eyes were hypnotic. He forgot about the whole world, he wanted to touch it. The worm’s muscles were tightening up in short intervals, moving his tubular body.

 Eventually, the worm released two very thin tentacles, which penetrated his ears. Frank screamed. Parents run in again.

The room was covered in blood. It was everywhere: on the sheets, walls, pyjamas. Frank looked down and saw his right thigh ripped to shreds. It took three operations to put it back together.

He woke up a week later in The Institution. The cube was very stereotypical. White, soft walls, no doorknob. Frank suffered terribly, not from loneliness, which he would have preferred. His head was filled with a thousand of voices, telling him to do terrible things. He was covering his ears, but the voices just grow louder.

He spent five very long years in that place.

 They let him out after hundreds of one-to-one talks, when he was certified sane; and now the dig.

 Frank picked another skull and dropped on a pile of others. The builder did not want to advertise this revelation. He decided that a forty-million-pound job was a little bit more important than four-thousand-year-old bones. He did not want anyone to know, ‘Just put them to one side and I’ll take care of them later.’

 Frank had mixed feelings, he needed the money, but he was not feeling safe here. He could sense the presence again. It has been a while since the last time he felt like that.

  He spent 3 years in Thailand and loved the easy life, no blue glowing worms. Just sun, beach, and a lot of girls. He missed his dad though and came back a few months ago. During the week he stayed with family friends in London in a box room witch merely fit a bed. Weekends however, he was spending in his dad’s cabin at the Lake district.

  He kept digging, the shovel was uncovering new bones. Suddenly Frank felt really dizzy. He started to faint. The worm was lurking through one of the holes they dug. Frank dropped the tool and started climbing out of the crater.

 ‘Oi, where do you think you’re going, huh?’

Perkins did not sound amused, but Frank could not care less. He climbed out and looked down at Perkins. ‘Leave this shit and run, I am telling you, ain’t no good gonna’ come out of it’. This said Frank departed quickly.

2

21st April, 2009, 23:00, radio news.

… Police is still looking for the man in connection of murder at a dig site. The incident took its place about nine o’clock this morning. One of the pedestrians noticed blood marks on the gate of a building site in Camberwell. Police found a decapitated body and a shovel with blood marks. The person of interest is about thirty, six feet, brown hair. The dig itself brough a wealth of interest from the local archaeologists, it contains…

Frank lied silently. He arrived at the cabin around 22:00, cleaned himself up (there was blood on his clothing for some reason) and listened to the news on his phone. The hut was close to the Scaffell Pike. It took him about 5 hours to get there on his Hayabusa. He never exceeded the speed limit.

  The shelter was his father’s fishing and hunting retreat. He used to spend most of his summer holidays there, mostly alone. His father liked the solitude, a time away from the overbearing shrew that his mother grew into over the years. Frank rarely accompanied his dad, but when he did, he loved it. There was so much to see here, all the hiking and stuff.  The key was still under a pretend rock by the flowerpots on the left of the entrance.

The cabin was really a large single room with adjacent toilet-shower.

There was an old power generator, but it was rarely used. The fireplace doubled as a cooking station with mesh over the fire. Best steaks ever. Frank started with well done as a youngster, but he was a rare fellow now.

  He was pissed off about the whole dig in London. He just missed the capital and wanted to spend some time there, but the fucking glowing worm showed up again and ruined everything. Now the feds think it was him, even though the bloody monster did.

  Frank went outside to get some fresh air. It was a beautiful evening, clear sky was painted with a multitude of glowing stars, it was full moon and the light reflected of the old luna. Frank studied Latin briefly when he was younger, and he fell in love with the word luna. It had a magical connotation.

  The backyard was covered with pieces of wood his father chopped up recently. There was the chopping block to the left of the entrance. Old, rusted axe was lodged in the middle of it. The rust shone in the moonlight giving the blade a bloodied appearance. Frank liked the rust. There was a big pit next to the chopping block, it was filled with slush.

Many a fire burned in that pit. Frank’s dad had a thing with grilling meat. That was the first time Frank tried game. His first meal was a little charred but tasted absolutely delicious. He asked his dad what meat it was; his reply was: long, wild swine. Apparently, there was plenty of them around, Frank wasn’t sure how they looked like, it didn’t matter really.

  The moon lightened up the door to the shed. His father built it himself; it was wooden but reinforced form the inside with plenty of insulation. Frank’s dad used to keep his best fishing rods and hunting gear there and didn’t want them to rot apparently.

Frank sighed, he knew he was going to have to change his name again, and maybe the appearance too. Hard fucking work it was, time and time again.

  Suddenly he tripped over something, he picked the shining piece of wood, it looked a little bit like a straight elephant tusk, so shiny. He dropped it into the pit. He thought about having a barbecue tomorrow again. The cabin was surrounded by thick forest, no one will notice. No one ever did.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket. It was dad. ‘Left you little something for the barbecue tomorrow sonny, check the shed.’ As if he knew what his son was thinking.

Frank smiled and replied with a black heart emoji.

He approached the shed and removed the heavy-duty combination padlock.

  He activated his phone torch. The light wasn’t enough to get to the back of the elongated shed. He walked slowly toward the back wall. He smiled gloriously. It was a blond this time! He loved blonds. Gentlemen prefer blondes – he thought and laughed out loud. The girl opened her eyes, they expanded slowly showing the blue irises. She had a ball gag, shackles and… nothing else. She tried to rattle the restraints, but they were very tightly attached to the back wall. ‘Tall this one is!’ he exclaimed in a Yoda-like voice. He loved Star Wars.

He caressed her hair gently with his left palm, the right one was already reaching behind his back to his belt. The dagger shone bright. It glowed blue. He put it aside for the minute. I’ll have me some fun with this piggy first.  

[1] William Blake, ‘The Lamb’, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Digireads.com Publishing (Stilwell, 2005) p.8.