On The Tiles
by Peter Mark May
“You, you madam are ugly.” Bill recalled his friend Joe’s rebuff to an amorous girl at the pub, as he crashed into his house at about one AM. He managed to turn; steady himself, close and lock the front door, while pissing himself laughing.
Bill puffed his red cheeks and blew out a long stream of alcoholic air and danced into the kitchen; shedding his coat on the floor as he lurched.
“You madam are ugly and in the morning you shall still be ugly, so get the fuck away from me.” Bill recalled Joe’s Churchillian like speech in its entirety and stumbled forwards towards the back door area and the downstairs loo.
Joe and he, plus their friend Peter from the shithole that was work, had all been down the Black Lion since seven and were totally inebriated.
Bill reached; missed and reached again for the door handle to the toilet, belched a kebab laced burp and tottered into the loo. He pulled the light cord and a harsh naked bulb above, made his bloodshot eyes wince.
Pulling down his jeans and boxers, he collapsed on the loo and held his old fella downwards to piss. He was pretty sure he only needed to urinate, but hey, what the hell, something else might pop out.
Bill rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his upturned palms and stared at the only recently laid floor tiles. Pete had come over and laid them last weekend: a married soul, so an expert in DIY and family evasion techniques.
The individual tiles were made up of nine squares of varying shades of sky blue to teal. They mixed and changed and had a cloud like appearance to them, which was quite soothing to the drunken eye.
As he sat while nature took its course; he fancied he could make out faces in the tiles, where the whitish splodges looked like eyes and open mouths.
“Cool, new game.” Bill muttered to himself and tried to clear his beer blocked nostrils by sniffing in and out in variable lengths and velocities. The more his booze addled eyes stared, the more faces he could make out, until every square seemed to have an open mouthed face in it.
Then the eight pints of bitter really kicked in; as the mouths began to open and close in silent cries and the head shapes writhed within the squares like they were in agony.
“Oh; not good.” Bill wiped himself quickly, pulled up his boxers and jeans and exited the loo without even flushing.
“Pete’s stupid scary cheapo tiles.” Bill muttered; staggered up to bed and collapsed, until he woke up at ten the morning.
Joe came round on Sunday after lunch because his girlfriend was working. Pete couldn’t make it because he had to visit the in-laws, whom according to him were a complete waste of the use of good oxygen.
Bill had the football on for a while as they chatted and drank bottled beers, but he switched over after fifteen minutes, because his team were already three nil down. Jason and the Argonauts was on Channel Four and they had only missed up to the one sandaled man bit: so they watched the rest with childlike glee.
“Those the tiles Pete put in?” Joe asked returning from a comfort break during an advert.
“Yeah, why?” Bill asked digging his fingers into a packet of Worchester Sauce crisps.
“No reason.” Joe shook his head and picked up his bag of twiglets and continued to watch the skeleton swordfight.
Joe left at six, after he had badgered Bill into making him a cheese sandwich. Bill washed up and then headed to the loo for a dump.
He was already into his second movement in S-minor, when his eyes went from the white walls down to the tiles. He suddenly remembered the faces from early Saturday morning and if by some subconscious trigger, he began to see the faces once more.
He watched as the faces in various shades of blue; wailed and cried like they were trapped in some infernal hell. Bill closed his eyes tight, trying to will reality back, but his ears began to pick up the faintest cries and screams in a language he could not comprehend.
Bill stood; wiped hastily, flushed and left the smallest room in his late-parents house, with great alacrity.
Monday arrived too soon and work occupied too much of his cognitive time. Even though Bill was a rational adult; who had no belief in UFOs or ghosts: he still used the upstairs bathroom loo for the rest of that week.
Saturday soon arrived; as it did every seventh day since the last one. Joe and Pete were coming round for an all afternoon and evening fest of PS3 gaming on Bill’s humongous flat wide super HD telly.
Pete was bringing the snacks and Joe the bottles of brown liquid refreshment. The day; gaming, beers and snacks went down all too well and Bill didn’t even notice that Joe always used the upstairs bathroom to pass-water.
Pete, who’s bladder was legendary in its beer capacity; finally succumbed to the dull ache in his groin and headed for the downstairs lavatory.
He came back ten minutes later, pale and with a quizzical look on his round face.
“Feeling bilious are we Pete?” Joe asked looking up from his half-eaten cherry bakewell.
“You okay mate?” Bill asked, still grinning from Joe’s last remark.
“Why have you got Chinese looking ghosts haunting your lavatory floor tiles Bill?” Pete replied in all seriousness.
Bill’s laugh died on his lips, when he saw the shock on Joe’s face – “Joe?”
“I’ve seen em too.” Joe simply replied without bullshit.
“God, I thought I was going mad?” Bill said with relief, “what you think Pete?”
Pete was the groups’ horror movie guru and had once been told to piss off, by Christopher Lee at a horror convention.
“Dunno?” He shrugged. “Plague pit or an Indian burial ground under your downstairs bog?”
“What am I gonna do?”
“Let’s dig it up and see what’s down there!” Joe cried and jumped to his feet eagerly.
“Dig it up?” Bill repeated dubiously.
“Only sensible recourse Billy-boy.” Pete nodded in agreement with Joe.
“I have a pick and some spades in the shed.” Bill found himself saying and then mentally chastised himself.
“Let's get to fucking work then.” Joe cried aloud with enthusiasm, fuelled by bitter.
“Cool, this is just like Ghostbusters two.” Pete stated to Joe, and Bill trudged after his friends towards the kitchen.
“Is that the on with the Marshmallow man?” Joe asked Pete as they headed for the backdoor.
“Nah, it’s the shitty one with the haunted pictures.” Pete replied; opening the backdoor of Bill’s house.
Bill pushed his wheelbarrow down the plank of wood on his back steps and dumped a load of dirt next to a pile of rubble, bricks and broken up concrete. It was six o’clock now and he now had a huge hole where his loo floor had once been.
The tiles had gone, as too the wood underneath, the concrete, the scalping, which finally gave way to sandy earth. They had dug down four feet and found nothing. All three were aching, dirt encrusted and sobering up to the fact they had done a majorly stupid thing.
Pete’s builder brother laughed for over an hour as he repaired the damage they had done; the next day. Joe and Pete guiltily agreed to come round and help and pay a third each towards the final bill.
Bill had the Thursday and Friday off the next week, so Peter’s brother turned up again to finish the job off, now the concrete had set.
“So you got any tiles then?” Pete’s brother asked, after he had finished his prep work.
“I got tons of the original ones left in the shed, “Bill thumbed backwards, “I’ll go and get them.”
“Good, cos you three are, and always will be the thickest trio of numbnuts I have ever encountered.” Pete’s brother stated from years of experience of the antics of the three younger men.
“Thanks for that mate.” Bill nodded, feeling like a stupid eleven year old school boy again.
Bill found the tiles sitting on an old coffee table, at the back of the shed, next to some slug pellets. Bill picked up the box of heavy tiles and read the label on the side.
TENTER TILE COMPANY (UK) LTD
AZUL/TEAL TILES
MADE IN CHINA
FROM NATURAL SUSTAINABLE RESOURCES
THE END
25th September 2008
A Sisters' Sweet Kiss
by Peter Mark May
It may have been June, but fine droplets of rain carried on the wind. The South-West London town’s sky was filled with slate grey and tarnished black clouds. The old bus garage hung over the street like an ancient airship hanger. Dark grey iron beams holding the huge ceiling up, matched the weather. A two faced white clock on high, ticked no more. For every day, every night and every hour it was permanently twelve o’clock. A topless girl’s picture in newspaper black and white was being blown on the wind, until it slipped and danced under the wheels of a vibrating bus.
A teenager in a grey jacket and glasses waited for the door of the bus to hiss open. He kicked at the tarmac; an easy time-waste. A middle-aged woman queued behind him; arms straining with full shopping bags of food. Her mind raced from dinner, to the ironing and to the washing up. Sadness filled her heart; she served a useful existence, no more than that. Behind her were two unemployed men in their early twenties. One was wearing a black jacket and jeans; the other being worn by a large brown coat. They stood, sometimes speaking, sometimes thinking depressed thoughts: going home from the dole office enthused melancholy.
A woman with nut brown flowing hair ran from behind some shoppers. Her face had the look of porcelain, her cheeks blazing a warming-red matching her glossed lips. Eyes sparkled in the gloom, greeny-blue with hints of autumn. The man in the brown coat turned, bemused. Then seeing her, his eyes and face rang out with rejoicing remembrance. She flowed forward into his waiting arms; nothing sexual was shown, only warm close love. She turned his face and kissed his lips. Then like air from a fridge on a hot day, she was gone. She disappeared back into the crowds of shoppers: hair bobbing up once, twice and then was lost from sight.
“Who was that?” Asked the man in the black jacket, brushing back his hair.
“My sister,” The man replied. Then seeing people were entering the bus, he clambered onto the first step.
“But you ain’t got a sister?” Questioned the friend, looking bemused. The man in the brown coat had reached the driver, but stopped and turned to his friend to speak.
“I love my sister.”
Bright yellow flame enveloped the whole bus, sending shards of metal and glass into nearby shoppers. Red flame and smoke curled up round the top of the bus station. People were thrown back by the blast, some by the bits of bus; some aflame. Even the horrific sound of the blast caused windows of nearby shops to shatter and send people scurrying for the safety of the pavement.
His so-called sister watched this with delight and the screams of the dying and hurt sent laughter reverberating from her lungs. She ducked, swinging herself into her black car and drove off home.
Ten years she had used her power. Donna Blake was a beautiful twenty-seven, still in a man’s eye a virgin. Everyone’s sister: but never to be anyone’s lover. She was cursed: cursed with the kiss-of-death.
------------------------------------
Donna parked her car outside her house on Rushett Road. The sun poked its head out from behind some clouds, sending light reflecting off puddles and her car.
Her long thighs could be seen as she bent her legs out of the driving seat of her car. She shut, locked the door and then walked up the garden path to her house. Roses; a variety of colours and hues lined the path. The key from her purse fitted and she opened, entered and turned and closed the front door behind her. She put her white purse next to the phone, kicked off her shoes and hung up her damp coat. Her cardigan was taken off as she went upstairs and left on the banister. Reaching the sanctuary of her bedroom, she peeled off her blouse and let her skirt drop to the floor.
Her body ached for the satisfaction only a man could bring, but she could never have. The constant death only added to her lust. Her eyes closed reliving the explosion: as her hands reached down under the elastic of her panties.
The hammering on the front door brought relality back in a second. Pulling back her net curtains, she peered embarrassed by her near nudity out of her bedroom window. Donna Blake screamed in terror!
Below an older woman in her early thirties looked up at her and smiled. Her time was over and death was knocking on her front door. Donna put her hands over her ears, but the knocking came again: once again she screamed.
At the front door, her sister waited patiently.
The End
10th October 2008.
Written over twenty years before........
Peter Mark May
Another Society Short Story:
Cairo by Night
by Peter Mark May
And so we ran, through the dark streets of Cairo, past the University and the Zoological Gardens. Only when we reached the banks of the Nile did Mrs Winchester and I pause for breath: hands on knees.
She was dressed in gothic black, with a scarf covering her long jet black hair. Only her shocking red lipstick provided any colour and intrigue to her dark clothes. Well it would have been, if she had not been carrying a silver plated Winchester rifle in her hands.
“I wonder if Mister Sphinx or Mister Delta are having better luck than us?” I asked her between wheezing breathes and pained sides.
“I am sure they must be fitter.” She smiled, which illuminated up the moonlit riverbank like a flare.
“Do you think we’ve lost it?” I asked her, my eyes looking towards the El Gama’a bridge, wondering if our foe might have crossed the Nile to escape us.
“Not yet, my unfit English friend.” She smiled again, “let us walk up along the Embassies and pick up the trail again.”
Mrs Winchester began jogging off into the night again, I was impressed by her fitness and I placated my unfit self with the fact that she was far younger than I. I followed behind her, struggling to keep up at times, as we passed the Saudi Embassy and then doubled back on ourselves. Thankfully, because if was four in the morning, the streets were nearly devoid of life.
A cry came up across the wide road in front of us and we saw our Society companions running towards us from the direction of the El Urman Gardens. They were waving their arms in fright, trying to get our already caught attention.
We ran; with renewed speed across the road towards them, as our prey came round the corner behind them at break-neck speed.
Rearing and snorting fire from their nostrils came two astral horses, pulling behind them a spectral chariot and it’s corpse like charioteer: dressed in the ceremonial armour of a general of the Two Kingdoms of ancient times.
“Oh shit!” I heard myself curse as our companions dived out of the way of the revenant’s ghostly attack.
Mr Winchester turned her head and smiled widely, even with a glint of madness in her beautiful eyes.
“Run Mister Metal.” She shouted, as she steadied her stance and raised the rifle to her shoulder.
She was in charge here, this was her country, her city and I was only an observer from Headquarters London. I had no weapons that can stop this phantom charioteer: only a wildly beeping EMF sensor. The ghost of Egypt’s past was now bearing down on us and I suddenly knew my place; I was the bait.
“Oi prune features over here.” I waved my arms like a lunatic, suddenly thinking of my wife, daughter and cousin back home. The dead faced, charioteer saw me and whipped the reins of his horses and charged towards forward. I was behind Mrs Winchester’s position and I knew it would reach her first. I turned my head to see what would now transpire: as she met the phantom charioteer, head-on.
On the ghost general, whipped its nightmare horses until, their heads were either side of the Winchester rifle armed; Egyptian Society Cell leader.
The sound of her rifle firing and the supernatural screams of Cairo’s nocturnal revenant charioteer, sounded as one. The head of the ancient general of old Egypt, exploded out of existence, followed by its spectral body and fast fading chariot and steeds.
Only the echo of the rifle retort and the faint braying of scared horses, was left on the silent road.
“Are you alright?” I asked running back to her, as she lowered her rifle.
“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” She smiled wickedly at me, like I was some new Initiate.
“What was in that bullet?” I asked, as her fellow winded colleagues joined us.
“My own concoction. One part cordite: one part salt, one part ground pyramid stone and one part embalming fluid.” She replied matter-of-factly, putting the rifle up to rest of her shoulder.
“I need a coffee.” Stated Mr. Delta, mopping his brow.
“I need a beer.” I exclaimed, and a long bath and bed rest would help.
“No, it must be coffee, after fighting evils.” Stated the tall Mr Sphinx sternly.
“Why?” I asked perplexed.
“Because it is the Arab way.” Mrs Winchester replied, as we walked slowly back to Cairo HQ.
.
The End
Peter Mark May
17th June 2008
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