On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 191, of 240 so far.

Natural Enemy

It was going to be a productive couple of days, Roland Garrity thought as he stepped off the train’s third-class carriage and looked around without much interest.

The station was elevated above the main street, and he could see a fair way across the low rooftops from his vantage point. Everything looked drab, and tired, and forgotten. But someone here had sent him an email, and so here he was, about to do what he did best.

Writing nonsense for idiots, he thought.

He sometimes had to pinch himself to believe that there was money, however modest, in selling pieces to the supermarket tabloids and junk mags, but there seemed to be endless demand for stories about absolute garbage. People were desperate to believe in anything that hinted of something bigger than themselves, and Roland’s special-interest stories routinely had the biggest reader response, online and in the crappy little mags themselves. It was even reflected in the ads they were able to sell through.

“Flying bloody saucers and all the rest of it,” he muttered to himself as he adjusted the shoulder strap of his trusty travelling bag. Most of the bulk was from camera equipment, with his personal items and his slim laptop weighing almost nothing. He was dressed in what he thought of as mid-way clothes: just barely good enough to look like a journalist and get through a door, but at the least possible expense.

The email had come through a week earlier, from an anonymous source too stupid to know about message headers, and IP addresses, and tracing. It wasn’t surprising, in Roland’s opinion. Anyone daft enough to believe in the paranormal and related subjects couldn’t be too bright.

The message had been a bit cryptic, but that was normal enough. Dim-wits trying to sound more intelligent than they really were. Mystery to mask a distinct lack of facts, or credibility. The sender had told him to check out something called Sam’s Mill, and promised him that he wouldn’t regret it.

As long as Roland got a story from the trip that he could sell to the junk mags, regret would be the furthest thing from his mind. His immediate concern before beginning his investigation, though, was to find somewhere to have lunch.

The little cafe near the station wasn’t too busy, and the fish and chips was passable but nothing special. Roland toyed with the idea of having a lunchtime pint, but that was a fool’s game and he knew it. The goal was to spend as little time here as possible, and there were only a few hours left before nightfall. He’d booked a refundable room for the night just in case, but there was a 7pm train back to the city that would have him in his own bed well before midnight. That was the ideal scenario.

There was still the problem of finding out where he was supposed to go. Roland was sitting at the counter instead of in a booth, the habit of a habitual solo diner, and the only other customer nearby was a man in a suit, who was reading a newspaper while finishing a cup of coffee. He looked like an accountant, or something like that. Roland caught his attention.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for somewhere called Sam’s Mill,” he said. “I’m not from around here.”

The man thought for just a moment, and nodded. “That’ll be Samuels’ Mill,” he replied. “It’s a historic kind of building, but really it’s mostly ruined now. Used to be a water-driven textile mill back in the day. There’s a cycle path through the woods just across the road from here. Follow that for ten minutes and you can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Roland replied, giving the guy a small smile before returning his attention to the remainder of his own meal. When he was finished and gestured to the woman behind the counter for the bill, the other man had apparently already left.

It took nearer to fifteen minutes for Roland to reach the old mill, and he had to admit that the place had its own rustic charm — or at least used to. Now, it was dilapidated, the once-red brick walls a faded brown, and covered in moss. Even the river level had fallen, and there were beer cans and other less identifiable pieces of consumer waste bobbing in the water which ran past the mill before dropping an unguessed distance into the valley below. The waterfall must have been spectacular, and probably still was from the other side. Roland made a note to stay well away from the riverbank just in case.

He glanced back up the path, but there was no-one else there, and the mill building seemed to be open to the elements. There was a warning notice affixed near the entrance, but it was scratched and covered in graffiti, and there were dozens of crushed cigarettes strewn around.

“Didn’t come all this way just to turn back,” he reminded himself, and he adjusted his bag on his shoulder before going through the crumbling doorway.

Wild birds and woodland animals had obviously been nesting in the place for decades, and whatever machinery had been left behind had long since been picked over and taken away. The building was a husk now, and should probably be torn down. There were a few piles of rubble, assorted enormous rusted beams, some of which had already fallen, and a carpet of leaves and twigs deposited by the wind.

Movement caught his eye, and Roland turned in the direction of the near corner. The accountant-looking man from the cafe stood there.

Whatever anxiety Roland felt at the unexpected reappearance — the guy was probably just gay, and looking for a hookup with a stranger — abruptly skyrocketed when two of the gigantic steel beams rose from the floor opposite, sailed through the air in silence, then dropped into position to block the doorway.

“Please don’t bother trying to run,” the man said. “There’s absolutely no point.” His tone was flat and calm, perhaps even with a measure of disinterest.

“You were the one who emailed me,” Roland said, making the deduction far too late to be useful, and the man nodded.

“Why did you bring me here?” Roland asked, his eyes darting back and forth between the man before him and the steel beams that he’d apparently pulled through the air without the benefit of any mechanical aid. Each one of them must have weighed hundreds of kilograms.

“I know that you’re not a person of principle, Mr. Garrity,” the other man replied, “and that you also don’t believe a word of the things you write about — until this moment, perhaps — but you and your kind nevertheless shine a very unwelcome spotlight into the lives of people who are different from you.”

Roland blinked several times, his mind somehow both blank and whirring with fragments of thoughts. The other man sighed.

“People such as me,” he continued, “who would much rather just be left alone. But as laughable as your standards of investigation and journalism are, you really do cause problems for us. You’re just another grubby little tabloid sensationalist, but you’re also our natural enemy.”

“I won’t write anything at all,” Roland said in a small voice. “I’ll get straight back on the train. There won’t be any story.”

The other man nodded, and Roland felt a momentary hope flaring in his chest.

“Indeed there won’t,” the man replied, straightening his tie. “But you’re not going back on the train, I’m afraid. You’re going for a much shorter journey instead.”

This is what Darwin was talking about, Roland thought, feeling his shoulder bag become weightless only a moment before his feet left the ground, and the whole scene before him seemed to fall away as he lifted into the air.

“Goodbye, Mr. Garrity,” the man said, and Roland’s last clear impressions were of acceleration, and rushing air around him, and the vista of the waterfall beneath his dangling feet. Then he fell.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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