It's new episode day! Series Two, Episode Three is now live!

It’s Toasted Fiction Theatre Thursday!

Series Two, Episode Three is now live and it’s the second of our three Para Handy episodes! Have a listen below:

Toasted Fiction Theatre presents a No Nonsense Production of Para Handy: A Radio Play (Not) On Stage.

A radio play not on stage (on podcast) adaptation of Neil Munro's classic Para Handy tales.

The Master Mariner, Dougie the Mate, MacPhail the Engineer and Sunny Jim along with a host of other characters take to the airwaves courtesy of three plucky radio actors. This week's episode is The Malingerer

Adapted, directed by and starring Kevin Jannetts, along with Calum McVittie & Stewart Phillips.

Check out all things No Nonsense Productions on social media @nononsensepro and their website www.nononsenseproductions.co.uk

Subscribe, share and leave a review/rating of the Toasted Fiction Theatre podcast. Get in touch with us @toastedfictiontheatre or through e-mail on toastedfictiontheatre@gmail.com

You can also support the show via our Patreon page www.patreon.com/toastedfictiontheatre with as little as £1!

Created by Chris Patrick

Series Two produced by Chris Patrick & Ross Patrick

For all more content, including sketches and books, head to www.chrispatrickwriter.com

The End of Part One - What's Next? And When?

The end of Part One left us with a cliffhanger and a number of questions. Will they be answered? And when? What’s next!?

CLIFFHANGER!

Yes, Chapter Ten sees the end of Part I of The Quest For Perfection (Is A Damn Fine Thing) and it ends with a cliffhanger. Who is the mysterious man at the party? Where did everyone go? What is Fredrick Street? What’s going to happen next? WHY ISN’T THIS POST PART TWO, DAMMIT!?

Woah, calm down. OK, just me. But the above are all valid questions, and Part II: The World Beyond The Water, will be coming out in the New Year. It answers all of these questions and more. But for a few weeks, I’m going to leave you on a cliffhanger ending. Please feel free to post any ideas, theories, questions or hopes in the comments below or tweet me @dancingtoaster

I don’t have a TV show, and as such, I want to use this change to explore the cliffhanger ending!

Now, having said all of that, if you can’t wait to find out what happens, you can buy the complete novel on Amazon, in paperback and kindle, available here.

And if you have been reading each week, thank you. It means a great deal. I appreciate it, and until Part II, speak soon!

Part I: The Strangeness of Fredrick Street - Chapter Ten

In Chapter Ten, the final chapter of Part One, the residents of Fredrick Street come together after their nightmare day. Their lives are changed forever when a stranger turns up to the party.

10

Unloading the shopping, the odd tin escaping from the bag and spinning across the worktop, Sarah was now in a rush against time to get ready for the guests arriving. On coming home from her trip to the shops, she'd went for a nap trying to sleep off the weird feeling she'd had all day. Her little siesta didn't help however, as it was filled with water tanks and grey rooms and the tinkle of a song from a forgotten time. She was still feeling tired now. Perhaps she was overdoing the exercise; perhaps she was over-tired and needed a lie in. Whatever it was though, it would have to wait because tonight was a celebration for the residents of Fredrick Street and she wasn't going to let her tiredness get in the way of it. Hell, she may even have some of the chip and dip she usually avoided. It was about time she let her hair down a little. The shopping away, she poured herself a glass of water from the sink and watched her husband and kids playing out in the garden. Well, playing was a strong word. Morgan was trying to build the BBQ whilst the kids shot at each other with water pistols, occasionally hitting their father with some friendly fire. Watching them play, without a care in the world, always seemed to make Sarah's problems feel smaller and her worries seem futile. Turning away to get the final preparations for this evening ready she took a sip of the water – and immediately spat it out, coughing and spluttering. It wasn't water she'd drank, but what tasted like pure grain vodka. Her throat burning, she picked up the glass and smelled it, the smell of alcohol stinging her nostrils. She looked at the glass then to the sink. It was impossible. She'd poured it straight from the sink. There was no way. Pouring the glass down the drain, she poured another glass and drank. 

Water.

Her heart racing, she drank at the water long and hard. Something was happening. Something very strange was happening to Sarah Barr. 

*

The ride home for Mark and Kim was nigh on silent, without even the radio playing to fill the silence between them. The scan had went fine, Kim having spent most of the journey putting it away and taking it back out again, checking to make sure it was still there whilst Mark continually glanced over to Kim to make sure that it was her face he saw when he looked. Of course, when either asked the other what was wrong, they replied with the same words. "I'm fine. You OK?" with the answer coming back the same. They'd tried to start talking about baby names but the conversation had tailed off, neither making the effort to start it up again. 

Heading into the house, Kim stopped as they approached the front porch. Mark stepped forward to open the door when Kim grabbed his arm, stopping him suddenly.

Mark looked at her, worried. "What is it? What's the matter?"

Kim was quiet and staring at the porch. "Is it....you're going to think I sound crazy but, is it bad luck to walk where a magpie has been killed?"

Staring at her, silent & confused, Mark mouthed wordlessly. "What?"

Kim pointed at the porch. "It's just today, the cat brought a magpie to the door in its mouth. It was dead. He killed it I just...see the blood stains there and a few feathers? I cleaned up as best I could but...is it bad luck to walk where it's been killed?"

Mark thought for a moment. "For the cat, maybe." He smiled, and Kim managed to laugh. 

"OK." She said, nodding and the two of them entered the house.

They entered slowly, Mark checking the pictures that adorned the table in the hallway and the mantelpiece in the living room. They contained pictures of Kim and him, just as they should be. He turned to Kim. "Has there been any more mail?"

Kim shook her head. "Nope, just what was here this morning. Why, are you expecting something?"

"No, no. Just wanted to double check." He paused, thinking of something. "You still want to go over to Sarah's?"

"Course. You?"

"Sure. We can't pull out."

"No. She's doing a nice thing. I'm going to just throw something on just now and we'll head over."

Mark nodded and watched as Kim walked up the stairs. 

As Kim entered her room, and got changed, she picked up her handbag to look at the baby scan one more time. Finding it in the bottom of her bag, she looked at it. It was blank. Panic rising up in her, she sat on the bed, looking away and back at it. Where the image of her unborn child should be was an empty space. It was all she could do not to scream and she jumped as downstairs the phone rang.

Mark approached the ringing phone warily, startled by the sound himself. They didn't get many callers and after the day he'd had he was scared as to who would be on the other end of the phone. Letting it ring to voicemail, he listened as the caller came through the speaker. It was a female voice. 

"Hiya. I was looking to speak to a Mr. Mark Fleming. Or should I say Doctor Mark Fleming." The voice giggled at this and Mark swayed, hoping that Kim couldn't hear. The caller continued. "Anyway, get him to call me back. He has my number. Bye."

Mark held onto whatever surface he could, sweat pouring from him as the call ended. He looked up the stairs, waiting for Kim to come down with questions. Questions he couldn't answer. But she didn't. She was too busy staring at the empty space in the middle of the baby scan. 

Trying to remain calm, Mark cleared his throat. All he wanted to do was get out of the house. Away from whoever that woman was on the phone and whatever was happening to him. Calling up to Kim, Mark tried to sound normal. "Kim honey we better get a move on and head round to Sarah's. You ready?"

"I'll be right there, "Kim called back as she broke her stare with the baby scan and put it back in her pocket, swallowing down the panic and confusion and anger swelling in her throat, and putting on her game face to join Mark downstairs.

*

Arriving home at Fredrick Street, the events at the park pushed to the back of his mind, Albert checked his watch and knew they didn't have long to get ready and join the rest of the street at the celebration Sarah was planning. He was of a generation that no matter what he wanted to do or how you felt, a commitment was a commitment and you had to honour that, even if it was small thing such as this. 

Ushering Betty into the house, who was as smiling and effervescent as she ever was, Albert began rushing about until Betty put a calming hand on his shoulder. "Relax sweetie. They won't start without us. Besides I believe in being fashionably late as a rule of thumb. I'm pretty sure making my tardy entrance into the dance hall all those years ago was what won you over. You remember?" 

Smiling, Albert nodded. "How could I forget?"

"Good." Betty rubbed his arm and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Now, you've got time to make yourself a cup of tea and then we'll be on our way. I'm just going to freshen up." Leaving Albert in the kitchen, Betty stepped up the stairs & Albert flicked the kettle on and settled down for a quick bit of quiet time before having to join the crowd at Sarah's. As he started reading the paper again, from the article he had left it opened at, his mind glanced back over the events at the park earlier that day. It was just the strangest thing, and most distressing mainly because it wasn't something he'd ever went through before. He couldn't put his finger on what the cause was, whether it was the tiredness or something a great deal more sinister in nature. If it wasn't for the nice gentleman in the heavy coat and hat noticing his distress and finding Betty for him he probably would still be wandering the park making a fool of himself, looking like a mad man. It was a little too raw now but he was sure in the weeks to come he and Betty would find it worth chuckling over – she always could make the best of a bad lot, making the unfunny the funniest thing in the world. 

Turning to the kitchen counter to prepare his tea, he took a long hot sip and returned his attention to the paper. Flicking the page, he found the obituaries. Albeit a rather depressing section of the paper, Albert couldn't help smile as he recalled his own grandmother's morbid fascination for this section and was quite often her first destination when reading the paper. However his smile was short lived as his eyes fell upon an entry, which made his heart stop for a moment and his breathing become more erratic. Wedged in between the rest of the poor departed souls, written in black and white, were the words Elizabeth 'Betty' Molineaux. Beloved wife to Albert & mother of Andrew and Amanda. Albert must have stood and re-read it a thousand times, each time his pulse getting a little faster, his throat getting a little dryer and his palms getting a little slicker. He felt sick, the room spun dizzy around him. It couldn't be possible. It couldn't be. Shaking, he stood their frozen, staring at the words written in his wife's obituary, the wife he had moments ago felt touch his arm. Opening his mouth to call for her, the words just wouldn't come. But they didn't need to. Because Betty walked into the kitchen, all ready to go and smiling. 

"What's the matter with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Albert stared at her, mouthing wordlessly before looking back to the paper. But the words were gone. The obituary he'd read wasn't there. It was like it never had been. He looked from the paper to Betty a few times before shaking his head. "I don't understand."

Betty moved closer to him and grazed his arm. "Honey what you don't understand doesn't hurt you. What's up?"

He looked into her eyes, the one thing about her that never changed throughout the years and smiled. "Nothing."

"Well good. Now tell me how radiant I look, finish your tea and let's get going Albie. There's late and then there's late."

Albert nodded, finished his tea and grabbed his jacket. Before heading for the door though, he picked up the newspaper and shoved it in the bin. For the second time today, he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind.

*

As Albert & Betty and Mark & Kim joined Sarah & her family to celebrate a year on Fredrick Street, neither of them were much in the mood for celebrating. Ushering them in with a plastered on smile, Sarah busied herself being host trying to distract herself from the day behind her, whilst the rest of them mingled, trying their best to keep those pearly whites flashing every so often so as to avoid any questions being asked as to how their day was, if everything was OK and why the long face. For the most part, being together as they were now, they all felt a little better. Something unspoken was flowing between them, between the clinks of glasses and passing of plates, the pulling out of chairs and the halfhearted toasts. Sitting down at the dinner table, placed outside to keep the BBQ feeling going, it was as if they all knew they had an equally strange day. A strange day that wasn't over yet.

It happened as they waited for Sarah's husband to dish up the burgers, BBQ glazed chicken wings and pork sausages. Where they had previously been standing or sitting, Betty, Morgan, Sarah's Kids all disappeared. And all hell broke loose. Sarah started screaming, Albert began yelling for Betty. Even Mark & Kim were panicking as they looked down to where Kim's swollen baby belly had been to find no baby belly at all, just a flat stomach. The place was chaos, screaming, crying, and shouting. Neither of them calm, all of them panicking until they stopped, spotting someone standing by the entrance to the French Doors. They all stood and stared silently as the man wearing the fedora and the dust breaker jacket slid out of the room with a saunter just short of a spring and picked up a plate from the buffet table. It was the delivery driver Sarah had shooed away. The man who Mark & Kim had seen at the hospital & the man Albert had seen at the park. Piling his plate high with food he had no business eating and certainly no chance of finishing, he glanced over them all with a smile, his blue eyes dancing and not a bead of sweat on his dark skin despite the heat and despite his get up. He surveyed the group standing around the table in the midst of their emotional chaos like they were standing in line at a burger van. The entire party stared at him as he chewed, swallowed and smacked his lips, before turning back to them and smiling and began to speak. 

"I know what your thinking. Who's the handsome stranger that's just invited himself to the party and started eating for a small family of four, right? One of the things I love about this place? Eat what you want and there is no lifetime on the hips." He laughed hard, until he looked around and found he was the only one laughing. Stopping, he finished off the burger and smacked his hands together. 

"So, you guys had one hell of a day or what?" 

They stared at each other, looking around to catch the other's gaze, while the man smiled at them and nodded. "That I thought," he said. Sitting down, he put his feet on the table, placing his hat beside it. Despite all their instincts telling them not too, the four of them sat down and listened. He looked at each of them in turn, nothing between them but the wind and the birds.

"So," he started, "which one of you would like to start asking the questions?"

Transcript of Interview with Sarah Barr. August 25, 2015. Conducted by J.P. McNair.

I stopped writing, my hand pushing through the pain and the cramp. I look at Sarah, who's stopped talking.

Are you OK?

Sarah shakes her head. "I'm sorry, can we stop for just a moment?"

Of course.

I don't want to push her too far. She's already told me more than I could ever have found out after a lifetime of research. 

Do you want a glass of water?

She shook her head. "Just, when I remember how perfect everything was, then when everything changed? It still hurts."

Do you want to stop?

"No. I want to keep going."

OK. Why don't we talk about something else? Why don't you tell me what you know of Tom & Isabel Wyatt, Ray Samson, Harold Wells. I've got a few other names here. Eh....

"Colin and Peter."

Yes. Can you talk about their side of it?

"Their side of it?"

There is a flicker of anger there, like I'm suggesting there are two sides to the story. But it quickly subsides. She drinks her tea. Composed. 

"I only know some."

As much as you can tell me. I can fill in the blanks and find out the rest.

She paused, thoughtful and looking at me.

"They won't let you access the court records. Nobody from The Wells Foundation are commenting."

That's right. I've found a few bits and pieces here and there on everyone. I'll piece together the rest.

Her lips pursued together tightly.

"Piece together? How much of this will be actually fiction?" 

I think about the next words carefully.

With a story like this, it doesn't really matter. It only matters what people believe.

She seemed to accept this without comment.

"You haven't been able to speak to anyone who worked at The Complex? None of the people involved in the Project?

I look at her, puzzled. 

There's nobody left to talk to. You and Kim Fleming are the only survivors. And you're the only one willing to speak with me. Are you saying this is wrong? I've seen the list of people who died – I've seen the death certificates. Are these false?

Sarah smiled again and nodded. She looked past me, somewhere in the distance.

"What about Ray? Have you tried contacting Ray Samson?"

I looked at her. I knew the name. He was the Head Analyst of the project, colleague and friend of Doctors Tom and Isabel Wyatt. He would know the other side of the story more than anyone. He was on the list of people who had perished after the incident at the Complex.

There was almost a whisper of a smile from Sarah as she read my face. "He's on the list of the dead, isn't he?"

Yes. He's on the list along with Tom, Isabel, Mark and Albert. Is that not the case?

"He's very much alive. I can only tell you parts, and mainly only what I remember or what I've heard or read myself. He can tell you everything from 'the other side', as you call it."

I can almost hear myself gulp. If what Sarah is telling me is true, then I'm on the cusp on a major breakthrough. 

Do you know where he is?

"I do."

Will you tell me?

She paused. I can see her mulling it over. Deciding whether or not to give him up. 

"I will. He may have saved us, eventually, but that doesn't mean he isn't blameless for all those people who died. For what we all went through. If I've got to remember, then so should he."

She took a pen and paper and handed me the information on it. I put it in my pocket for later. 

"You might want to go talk to him, get his version of events first. Then, you can come back and we can finish the whole story."

I nodded. Thanked her for the tea and left. I was going to find one of the key members behind the incident, the project and what happened on Fredrick Street.

Part 1: The Strangeness of Fredrick Street - Chapter Eight

In Chapter 8, Betty disappears from Albert, sending him into a blind panic. Where did she go?

8

Albert pulled into the car park of the local supermarket, and fought hard to find a space, finally threading the car into a tight spot between a black Range Rover and a White Sedan with the precision of an Olympic diver. Settling the car of the main road diving board and into his concrete pool, he looked to Betty sat in the passenger seat who had taken the 20 minute journey to carry on with some knitting of a tiny jumper. A pang of sadness shot through Albert there as he took in the miniature winter-wear that Betty was holding for an imaginary grandchild, both of them unable to have children of their own. But no sooner had that thought took place than it left his mind again and he forgot to feel sad and instead smiled at his wife's skill with a knitting needle. Of course it was for the kids, they had a four with children on their own. Why had he thought otherwise?

"You want to wait here while I go in and get the bread?" said Albert. The supermarket was handily placed right next to the local duck pond park where the two old timers had decided to embrace the cliché and have a weekly walking date while feeding the ducks. 

Betty folded away her wooly work in progress and stepped out of the car, popping her head back in before shutting the door. "I'll come with, I reckon you'll end up picking out some Gluten Free bread just to see what happens to the poor bastards if they eat that instead of some trusty white bread."

Albert laughed hard as the door shut. She was not wrong, he did have a slightly warped sense of humour and it wouldn't have been that out of the question if he were to do that. Although, it was more likely he would try out the Tippex on bread trick his friends in school had once boasted about, just to see if they could indeed turn their feathered friends into a feathered firework. But no, Betty would never allow it, and quite rightly so. She was never a fan of "fowl play". Chuckling again at his own pun, Albert got out of the car and took Betty by the arm as they headed into the supermarket, picked up a loaf of bread, a few snacks and drinks for themselves and then made their way over to the park. 

As they wound their way round the duck pond, stopping occasionally to throw in a few chunks of bread, Albert sucked at the air generously, favouring the cold nip of the October air. Winter had always been his favourite season. He loved it as a boy, staring out at the falling leaves making way for the falling snow from the warmth of his high chair. He even loved it from his judge's chair, glancing out in between presiding and ruling over court proceedings. Albert Molineaux simply loved watching as the year changed from warm hands to cold, from long bright summer nights, to dark cosy winter ones. Swimming trunks off, knitting gloves on. It was the time of the year he had most fondness for; duvet days in front of the fire & cosying up to his Mum as a boy and now Betty as a boy-grown. The season when the cold ran the roost, to Albert's mind, brought you closer to the ones you loved, emotionally, physically and geographically. When you had memories as warm as this, Albert thought, it was damn near impossible to feel cold.

Betty gave his hand a little squeeze just then, as the bag of bread's short life drew to a close. "What are you smiling about?" 

Albert raised an eyebrow, smiling. "Wouldn't you like to know, Mrs. Molineaux?"

Betty smiled back, meeting Albert's single eyebrow with a double eyebrow bluff (both raised to the top of her head and her head tilted slightly meant Albert's defense was broken). "Keeping secrets from me now are we Albert?"

Laughing, Albert shook his head. "Secrets are for those with no stories to tell. I've got plenty."

"Good answer."

"Always."

"What were you smiling for?"

"I was just thinking, about winter. I think it's my favourite season after all."

Betty laughed. "Do you? What's brought this on?"

Albert shrugged. "I don't know. I just think, I have a lot of happy memories from there. The scarf my Mum made me one Christmas, cosying up with you to keep heat, making snow angels and snowmen with the kids and—what are you laughing at?"

Betty gave him a peck on the cheek and screwed up his face in that way he liked, smiling that smile that made her eyes sparkle and she laughed. "Because you, Albert Molineaux, change your mind with the changing of the wind."

Albert eyed her quizzically, scrunching up the bread wrapper in preparation for the bin. "What do you mean?" he said. 

"I mean yesterday your favourite season was Autumn. The day before that, it was Summer and before that Spring. Pick one and stick to it will you!" She laughed. 

"Ah leave me be. I'm a happy guy, that's all." Albert, laughing now too, spun away as fast as his hips would carry and tossed the wrapper into the bin. Just as he was about to turn back round to take Betty by the hand, he heard a voice in his head that wasn't quite his own.

"How does she remember that? She shouldn't remember that detail." 

Holding the bin to steady himself, he shook his head, shaking the thought away. What did that mean? It was the strangest sensation. It felt like somebody else's voice inside his head and not one he altogether understood. Was he thinking about how she never had a good memory? No, Betty's memory had always been terrific – one that managed to keep him out of many a quarrel by ensuring he never forgot birthdays, anniversaries or any such event in his life. What was happening? Were the white hairs finally starting to become a burden? 

As Albert stood there, all of these thoughts racing through his head at an alarming rate, he felt a hand on his back. It was Betty's coming to make sure he was OK. He hated her having to see him in any signs of weakness no matter how many times she had given him a stern look in the eye and reminded him that what burden he carried she would carry also and he could be whoever he was going to be; even if that person was strong on some days and crying the next. Regaining his composure, filling his lungs with that cold air he loved so much, he turned to Betty, kissing her on the check. "I'm fine. Nothing but a little slip is all."

Then something strange happened. As he kissed Betty and pulled back from her to look her in the eye, to convince her he was OK, the face in front of him wasn't his Betty. He didn't know who it was. 

"Are you OK sir?" smiled the stranger, concern etched all over her face. Albert staggered back, crashing into the bin and falling over, the world starting to spin around him. The stranger he just kissed moved towards him to help him to his feet, other strangers started to descend upon him to give a helping hand while the ducks quacked a crescendo in Albert's ear. He pushed away the outstretched hands, violently, jerking out of their reach. 

"I'm fine. I'm FINE. Leave me alone," he shouted, anger twisting inside him like a black snake writhing. 

Dusting himself off, he tried to get up and look around the park for his Betty, but his legs wouldn't budge. He tried to breath and looked around for Betty. She was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere in sight. And he couldn't get up. The stranger he had mistaken for Betty had started to back off now but was eyeing him cautiously. Albert gave her one last look, the face so unfamiliar he could cry inside and die with the shame. His lips felt like they were burning, set alight by fire and poison all because the lips he kissed weren't his wife's. 

He tried again to get up, and this time his legs worked. Spinning away, Albert moved quickly through the park, limping and panicked, calling out his wife's name, scrubbing hard at his lips trying to wipe the poison off, trying to douse the flames, trying to stop the memory taking hold. He was running now, and his eyes had begun to sting; he realized he was crying now, the tears flooding his vision as he desperately searched every face in the park for signs of his Betty.

"BETTY! BETTY WHERE ARE YOU?! BETTY?!" he was screaming her name now, yelling it as loud as he could before his voice would become a hoarse whisper. He was shouting and crying and lost, hopelessly lost. And there was a voice in his head again, his but not his. Bring her back, where the fuck did she go? What's happening? We're not going to fucking lose another one in the same day fix this. Fucking find her god damn it! It sounded like someone else was looking for Betty too, or maybe it was just him. Maybe it was just his thoughts whirling around his mind as he searched frantically for the woman he'd loved for over 40 years but couldn't find. She'd always been by his side. Always. And now she was nowhere to be seen.

Reaching the park entrance, he stopped. If she were anywhere she'd still be in the park somewhere. Maybe she'd nipped off to get something from the shop. More bread for the ducks perhaps. Maybe. As he stood there, lost to his thoughts and in his panic, a man approached him. He wore a baseball cap, sunglasses and a scruffy beard. He had a friendly face, Albert thought, though fleetingly. 

"You OK sir?" The man asked. 

Albert looked at him, lost. "I've...I've lost my wife."

"OK. Why don't you just sit here and I'll go try and find her for you, huh?"

Albert sat.

"You got a picture?"

"Y...yes." He fumbled in his pocket and handed him a photo out of his wallet. "That's her there," Albert said as he jabbed the picture. 

"OK. You sit tight sir and I'll go find him." And with that the stranger was off looking for her, leaving Albert sitting there with no hope the man would ever return and he'd just lost his favourite picture.

Time ticked by and no sign. Albert didn't know what to do. Maybe if he just sat here on the park bench long enough and waited she'd turn up. Or maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she never would. Giving in, Albert started to sob. He put his head in his hands and sobbed hard. Part of him knew why he was crying, but the other part didn't, because she'd be along any minute now. She had to be. So he didn't know why he was crying. He never really knew why he cried, even as a boy growing up in Canada. Thinking back to his youth, waiting for Betty, he tried to remember if he cried a lot and why. Maybe it was because he was a pussy like the Old Lady Jane next door called him after she caught him pissing in her yard when he was 5 and he started pissing tears then. Or maybe it was because he was still the little boy inside not grown up a whole lot. Or maybe it was because someone once told him that your demons die in the rain and he liked the sound of it. If that's the case then he was going to sit here and cry good, cry hard and cry long until Betty came back. Because he was afraid. He was afraid that if he stopped crying and looked up then he would realized some of the demons survived and Betty wasn't coming back and he was going to cry all over again until he dried up dead and—

"Albert? Albert? Look at me."

Albert slowly, taking his head from his hands and wiping away the tears, looked up. Betty was standing over him, holding a carrier bag. "What's the matter? What happened?"

Taking a moment to find his voice, as croaked and grieved as it was, Albert answered. "I thought I'd lost you. I staggered and felt a hand on my back and thought it was you and turned round and kissed you but it wasn't you and I couldn't find you and I thought I thought.....I thought I'd lost you."

Betty sat beside him and pulled his hand in hers and brought it against her chest. "Feel that, you feel that?"

Albert nodded. "Yes."

Betty pulled it tight, letting the beat of her heart pulse through Albert's hand. "As strong as the day I was born. I'm right here Albert Molineaux. Stop being crazy."

"OK. Where'd you go?"

"I saw you stagger and told you I was going to get you a bottle of water and the nice girl that came to see if you were OK would look after you when I got back."

Albert searched his memory. "I'm....I'm sorry. I can't remember...I don't remember this." 

Betty gave him a concerned look. "Well, maybe your over-tired. You didn't sleep well last night did you?"

"I didn't."

"Well there you go. Nothing to go worrying about. You just got a little tired and took a tumble. You're OK now. Thankfully that nice man found me with the photo and took care of you."

Albert nodded, glancing up and seeing the man in question walking away giving Albert a little nod with his hat. Calmed almost immediately by Betty's re-appearance. Something was still niggling him though, yet he couldn't think to what it was. Not yet anyway. 

Betty stood up. "Now come on. Up you get. Let's get you home and rested. You don't have to go tonight if you don't want too."

"No no. It's fine. I'll go. Just need a little sleep before hand that's all."

Betty smiled. "Good." Then she nudged him. "And we'll address the fact of you kissing another woman later by the way. Little tiredness and you go all Casanova on me. Poor girl will never look after an old man again."

She laughed, her sense of humour as wicked as always and Albert did his best to do the same, but he still felt shaken. All he wanted was to lie down, and sleep and forgot today ever happened when tomorrow came around. 

Usually he did.

Part 1: The Strangeness of Fredrick Street - Chapter Seven

In Chapter Seven, a routine day turns into a nightmare for Sarah. Are those her memories? Who placed this order?

7

With the school run over and done with, Sarah's day opened up ahead of her like a California highway (or at least the way she pictured it due to the movies), but without the relative freedom that journey provides. She had much more menial tasks causing her a pit stop every half hour or so on her imaginary road trip down the coast. Driving into town, her To Do list for the day pinned to the dashboard in front of her, Dry Cleaners, Doctors, Butchers and Snacks - not listed in order of importance. Sarah permitted herself a few moments to bask in the intermittent silence afforded the car now that she'd dropped off the kids before the basking would turn to wallowing in the quiet and eventually the surge of guilt that she was enjoying a few moments alone of peace and quiet without the kids or her husband. Sarah was a creature of habit, who liked the idea of alone time more than actually being alone from her loved ones and whenever she was left in silence for too long her mind began to spiral, attempting to open doors to doomsday thinking. Quickly (trained in the art of quick distraction) she flicked on the radio and let the songs of the day fill the sullen and silent atmosphere of the car and push her thoughts of loneliness from her mind. 

Now that she'd planned the day, she was looking forward to the night's event more than she had been that morning. Maybe it was just over-exhaustion, her mental faculties and positive attitude run down with the lack of sleep and busy lifestyle. Despite her commitment to the early morning rise and run, she had found herself of recent nights tossing and turning, waking from strange dreams, the odd disturbing one, that ranged from round rooms, drowning in a tank of water and one particularly horrible nightmare wherein she seemed to be catching sight of her reflection in the bottom of glasses and in bar windows – the reflection a haggard, skeleton thin woman with skin the color of yellow pastel. It was perhaps this particular nightmare that made her push even further into her early morning routine and commitment to her self imposed healthy eating programme – the fear of becoming that woman gripped her all too strong. Although why the fear felt so prescient, she didn't know. She had no cause to worry that she was on that path or indeed ever had been. She never drank. She didn't do drugs. She didn't even eat fast food. But no matter how many times she told herself this, reassured herself about how fit and healthy she was, she couldn't shake that image she saw when she closed her eyes. And to make this fear even worse, the strangest thing had happened the day before which she had pushed to the back of her mind until now. 

Coming back from her morning run, there was a large delivery truck parked outside her house. Jogging toward the driver, leaning against the wheel wearing a fedora and a duster jacket (in this impossible heat no less), she unplugged her earphones and waited as he pushed himself away from the truck and moved toward her, breaking into a smile and taking off the hat. If it hadn't been for the slightly greying hair she would have sworn it was Idris Elba straight off the set of filming The Dark Tower (a fact she only knew because her son was such a huge fan of both King and Elba) complete with Gunslinger costume. He had a friendly face, startling blue eyes looking out from his dark skin. He took his hat off and checked his clipboard, still with that smile. 

"Sarah Barr?" he said, looking up at her from his clipboard. 

"That's me. What's all this?" Sarah asked, taking a swig of her water. 

"Looks to me like one hell of a party is what it is," he said, taking out a pen and passing over the clipboard. "Just give me a signature here and here and I'll get unloading all this party juice."

Sarah didn't take the pen, instead looked past him into the truck, confused. "Party juice?"

"My little word for it. Booze. Drink. Moonshine. You must be having the whole neighbourhood round."

Her heart had started to race, (which she accounted to the run) but nevertheless she started to feel a little woozy. "I didn't order any alcohol."

The man looked at her, taken aback. "You didn't?"

"I didn't. I don't drink. And the people coming to the party bring their own if they're so inclined."

The man scratched his head, looking back at the clipboard. "You are Sarah Barr though, right?"

"I am but I'm not the right one you're looking for."

He glanced back and forth at the clipboard and Sarah a couple of times and clicked his tongue. "Must be a mix up at the warehouse again. Mrs. Barr, I've very sorry to have troubled you with all this. I'll head back and find out what's what."

"It's alright. These things happen. I'm sure I'm not the only Sarah Barr."

He smiled wide then, in a way that made her a little uncomfortable. "I'm sure you aren't." He then leaned in conspiratorially. "You want one off the back of the truck? Nobody's going to miss one, see it as a token for all this inconvenience."

Stepping back a little, Sarah shook her head. "I'm fine honestly. Unless it's water you have back there, I'm not interested."

The man nodded and flipped his hat back on. "Right you are. You're a good woman Mrs. Barr. Apologies again."

And with that, he hopped back in his truck and drove off, leaving Sarah standing there, confused as all hell. It had been the strangest thing, the delivery turning up like that, right after those dreams had started. And even stranger was how thirsty she felt looking into the back of that truck, a thirst that, no matter how much water she drank couldn't quite be quenched. 

Her dream-like reverie on her nights of broken sleeps, the jaundiced food deprived version of her in the mirror & her weird moment with the delivery driver was interrupted slowly by the sound coming from the radio. As she pulled into the next lane and stopped at the red light, Sarah looked toward the speakers of the car and listened. Something about the song, the lyrics, stirred her into a hypnotic state. 

Bohemian Rhapsody. Queen. She'd been a fan in her youth. Had even cried when Freddie died.

All of a sudden, like a switch was flicked, images begun to flash through Sarah's mind, quick and violent, pulsing to the front of her brain and into the minds eye. Empty bottles. Syringes. Music loud. Powder on the table. A room full of pallid and paper-thin people. Cars. Traffic. An accident.

MMMMEEEEEHHHH.

Snapping out of her hypnosis, Sarah's mind rushed back to the present to the sound of pamping cars and angry drivers behind her. 

Driving quickly through the green light she'd been sitting idle at while the cars behind got angrier and angrier, she pulled over into the shopping centre car park and stopped the car, her breathing a little ragged and heart beating a touch too fast for someone who was only sitting in a car. What was that? She thought. She sat there for a few moments, wracking her brain as to what just happened inside her head. It was like scenes from a thousand broken movies, a film edit that was cut badly and jumped in places. Images, and scenes, playing in her mind like a memory. But from where? And who's? They're not my memories, she told herself, adamant. But was that true? The only way she could think to describe the experience was that it was like she was sitting down to watch a movie for the first time but as the opening credits started to roll, she realized she had already seen it. The empty bottles? Sarah didn't drink. And the syringes? She grimaced at the thought of a few painkillers and couldn't even bear to take a nasal spray, so why was she suddenly seeing scenes of excessive drug use in her head? And the accident, or whatever that was at the end. She had never had so much a parking ticket never mind being involved in any accident involving a motor vehicle. The whole thing happened so quickly and was so strange she couldn't wrap her head around it. One minute she had been sitting there, quite the thing thinking about the day ahead, about missing her kids and listening to a Queen classic. Then all of a sudden, it was like she was thrust into somebody else's mind to take an unwanted and unheeded trip down a particularly dark side street of memory lane. It made no sense to her. No whatsoever. 

Giving herself a quick glance in the mirror, Sarah touched her face. Healthy. Tanned. Just as it was supposed to be. Perhaps she was just fatigued. And, come to think of it, perhaps she'd not drank nearly enough water since her run that morning. Those two things combined with the fact she was filling her non-sleeping time with watching the 2am movies on the TV probably was filling her head with all sorts of images and her brain just was getting to sluggish about separating what was the truth from reality. She'd read about that in plenty of articles online about sleep deprivation and dehydration. That's itshe thought. That's the reason. No need to panic or run to Dr. Wyatt...no wait Fleming. She didn't have a Dr. Wyatt.

Popping open the glove compartment, Sarah took out a bottle of water and started to drink, trying to push that little wobble out of her mind. She was satisfied with her self-diagnosis and non-googled answers that she chalked it down to something that was nothing worth worrying about. She just needed more sleep and more water in her system. Nothing more. Nothing less. Stepping out of the car to the packed shopping centre car park, Sarah looked and saw that she was, somehow one of the lucky few to get a space so close to the door, despite the mid morning rush and the packed car park. Picking up her shopping list and locking the car, she headed toward the shopping centre, thinking no more of the images she saw and no more about the opening to that Queen classic that had started it all in the first place. She had a party to prepare for after all. 

Part 1: The Strangeness of Fredrick Street - Chapter Six

In Chapter Six, life begins to unravel on Fredrick Street, with Kim experiencing something strange.

6

The high pitched drone of the dishwasher as it finished it's cleaning cycle nudged Kim out of her mid-morning nap; a treat she'd grew accustomed to since falling pregnant. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she sifted through the pile of scripts on the coffee table for her phone to check the time. It was reading the scripts that had put her to sleep in the first place, the majority of them B-Movie slush that made Plan 9 From Outer Space look like Schindler's List in comparison. She didn't mind that she wasn't necessarily an A-List star strolling up red carpets with flashing lights and adoring fans. It was work and it paid the bills. But, with motherhood beckoning, she felt it was high time she made her way closer into the big leagues. Perhaps the wisdom, the inevitable adornment of crows feet and a few wrinkles that would be a result of impending motherhood could elevate her from straight to DVD-fare to more cinematic outings. Most mother's wailed about how their babies took away their youth, their looks and their figure but Kim was hoping that it'd take away from her almost Barbie doll sculpted features and let her get taken as a serious dramatic actor. She'd never tell the rest of the mothers this though; she liked them and liked that they liked her, which wasn't easy for Kim. She'd always found it hard to be friends with women, part of it was because they usually made an emotional bee-line straight to jealousy of Kim's looks and career but mainly because they probably found it hard to make friends with the woman who was on a poster in their teenage boys room wearing nothing but a bra and panties in her most popular film Even Zombies And Werewolves Like Strippers. As you could imagine, it wouldn't be easy welcoming the woman their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers fantasied about round for Sunday dinner. But hopefully, all of that was about to change. She had resolved never to do a film like that again, not with a baby on the way and certainly not after. 

Sliding off the couch, Kim left the living room and plodded into the kitchen to check on the dishes. After she gave birth, she should probably think about investing in a pair of sweats and some baggy t-shirts to walk about the house in, rather than in her underwear as she did currently. That kind of thing couldn't be good for a child's upbringing. Or perhaps it promoted a healthy body image and perspective on the human body? Kim wasn't sure, but she resolved to Google it later as soon as she got back from the hospital and pinned her new baby scan to the fridge, something that had become the favourite part of her day over the past few months. She glanced over at the 12 week scan that took pride of place in the centre of the fridge door and grinned so much she put the Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland to shame. Kim couldn't quite believe it. All Kim and Mark had ever wanted was to start a family, build a life together and be with each other; everything she asked for was coming true and more with her high school sweetheart in tow. It was almost too good to be true. Almost. 

She popped the hood of the dishwasher and had a peek inside, pulling her head back as the steam billowed out like she'd been keeping a Steam Engine train hostage in close quarters and it was now voicing it's protest. Once the steam cleared, she poked her head in to inspect what she hoped was a treasure chest of clean dishes sparkling back and for the most part it was, barring the odd straggling bit of food debris clinging onto the plate for dear life. It would appear that, no matter how expensive their dishwasher or how many times they put on the cycle, they just couldn't get every piece of dirt washed away. Sighing, she flicked on the radio pulled out the trays and emptied the dishwasher, whistling while she worked like a modern day Snow White. Putting the clean dishes and cutlery back into their cupboards she took out the still dirty ones, filled the sink basin with hot soapy water, grabbed the scrubber and got to work. For all the griping, moaning and arguing that she and Mark did over whose responsibility it was that the dishes got so dirty and whose turn it was to clean them (one of the reasons they bought the damn dishwasher in the first place was to bring a certain level of peace to the household, although they still argued about who should fill it and who should empty it) Kim rather enjoyed the process of washing them by hand. It was cleansing, almost meditative. It allowed her to disconnect from the world around her, all the white noise that the world had become and allowed her to focus on just one thing. Of course, there wasn't a chance in hell she'd tell Mark this or she'd find herself chief dishwasher for life and she wasn't ready to give him the satisfaction, no matter how much she loved him. It was much more fun to see him squirm just a little bit.

Dipping her hands into the water, she started to clean the dishes and let her mind switch into a trance. Thinking about the baby, their own little bundle of joy that was just a few months away, a gift that was so close to unwrapping she ticked off the mental check list of things they needed to do before the baby was born. The nursery needed done, that was the main thing. Baby clothes needed bought (Kim was going to take up knitting but she couldn't get the hang of it – perhaps another problem motherhood would solve) and of course, the most important thing – the name. That was her favourite thing about this experience so far (even more than the scans) was lying in bed late at night with Mark, hand on her tummy and flicking through the book of baby names, or trolling the internet for ideas. Mark had found one he liked on a website for Greek mythology and near resolute that this was what the baby was going to be called. Even thinking about it now made her laugh. He'd sat bolt upright, and snapped his fingers. 

Mark. "I got it."

Kim laughed. "I bet you don't. But OK, go on then. I'll indulge you."

Mark. "I'm telling you, I 100% have it. You're going to hear it and think 'Mark, my god. You are right. You should be in charge of naming all the babies in the world from now. You should be Chief Baby Namer."

Smiling, Kim gave her best fake supportive stare. "Of course you will. Now are you going to continue to pontificate or are you going to tell me the name?"

"Pontificate? That's a big word for such a dainty little lady like you," Mark teased.

She hit him with a pillow then, knowing that he liked to wind her up like this. "Anymore of that and I'll pontificate you. Now are you going to tell me the name?"

He shifted, faced her straight on the bed and stared her in the eyes. "OK. You ready?"

"I'm sure I am."

Mark smiled. "OK. We're going to name our baby, wait for it, Andromeda. Andi for short."

The name hung in the air. Kim just looked at her husband, his big eyes pleading. "Well?"

Kim reached over and took the laptop from him. "Yeah I think you've had enough googling tonight."

"Come on. We can have a little Greek mythology set. Andromeda, Medusa and little Zeus."

She laughed so hard then that she thought she might break into early labour as he grabbed her and threw her back on the bed laughing and kissed her. It was a nice memory and she looked at those moments with such fondness that it was almost enough to convince her to name the baby Andromeda in order to remember the laughter and the kisses every time she called on her child. Common sense prevailed of course. Mark was always a little left field with names.

A scuffling, squawking and thumping noise from the porch distracted her from her trance and put her hazy eyed trip down memory lane to and end as she went to investigate. She knew it would be the cat, (it always was) and he started scratching on front of the door. From the sound of it, he had decided to bring them home a present, which usually came in the form of a field mouse or a robin red breast and always prompted the same response from Mark. "I wish he'd just get us a gift card." Not a joke that was all that funny but he'd worn her down with it that she couldn't help but giggle just a little whenever he said it. Approaching the front door, she could see through the frosted glass the outline of their cat standing over something that lay still, confirming her suspicions that it was indeed a little bird. However, opening the door, Kim took a step back and yelped out. In place of where she expected to see a robin or a mouse was a single, dead magpie. It lay there, it's black and white plumage stained with red and the blue green gloss of its tail feathers surrounded the dead bird in tatters. The cat looked from Kim to the bird curiously, wondering if she was happy with his gift. Kim simply stood and stared, her hand moving like a reflex to her baby-bearing belly. She wasn't the superstitious sort but even a tableau of this nature on her doorstep made her feel a little nauseous. It's just the pregnancy. Delayed morning sickness. She tried to convince herself. Pushing her worries to the back of her mind, Kim knew she had to clean it up before Mark got home, because he was the superstitious type. Pulling on a pair of yellow marigolds, Kim bent down to pick up the bird but before she could wrap her hand over the dead creature the cat had pounced forward, picked the bird up in his mouth and bounding off and out of sight. Kim watched him go and continued to stare as he found a little shading under the bush and plunged his teeth into the bird's chest and tore out the innards before ripping off the head. Tearing her gaze away, Kim shut the door and stepped back into the house, feeling a damn sight less calm than she had been moments ago. Throwing the marigolds into the cupboard, she returned to the kitchen, plunging her hands into the hot soapy water to soak off the bird, despite not having laid a finger on it she felt like the poor things blood was on her hands. As she washed, she tried to shake it out of her mind, the surrounding cloud of dark thoughts and worries. She wasn't superstitious but for some reason, this had shaken her a little. Was it a bad omen? About the baby? Something else? No. It couldn't be and it wasn't. It was just a cat being a cat, that's all. Nothing more than—

"Ow!" Kim retreated her hand from the basin as the water turned red. She'd slit her hand on a piece of broken glass, not that she remembered any glasses or mugs smashing as she washed them. Quickly, she ran it under the tap and wrapped it in a towel as she found the first aid kit and patched herself up. Emptying the basin into the sink, she gingerly picked up the piece of glass and tossed it in the bin. What a strange morning. She thought. But she could dwell on the thought no longer as she looked at the time and realized she had to leave for the hospital to make the scan in time.

Giving the sink a quick rinse, Kim put the rest of the dishes away and turned to give the baby scan on the picture one last look and a good luck kiss as she had developed a habit of doing. But it wasn't there. Frantic, she searched the kitchen high and low for the picture of her little baby. It had been there just seconds before, just before the whole incident with the magpie and the broken glass. Breathing, Kim forced herself to be calm. The picture would be there somewhere. And that's when she saw the corner of it poking out from under the fridge. It probably slipped under there in her commotion to patch up her cut. Bending down, Kim picked the baby scan back up and put it back in its place and gave it a little kiss. But before she turned to leave the kitchen, the sight of something out of the window staring back at her caused her to pause and look out. There, perched on the garden fence and staring into the kitchen was one, single magpie. Kim let her gaze fix on it for a few moments. There was something about the way it looked at her, like it was looking at her. After a minute, Kim forced herself to break eye contact with the bird and shake herself back into reality. She was being crazy. Maybe it was the hormones. Or maybe it was something else. No. It was the hormones. Her anxiety levels had increased due to the pregnancy that was probably it. She was looking for signs of things that weren't there. She'd ask the Doctor about it during the scan. Grabbing her jacket and keys from the kitchen's table, Kim started to head out of the kitchen and make her way out of the house to head to the hospital. Before leaving the kitchen though, she took one last look out of the kitchen window to see the magpie on the garden fence. But where the magpie had been moments before, perched on the wood and staring back at her, was nothing but thin air. Shaking any thoughts from her mind, Kim stepped out of the kitchen, out of the house and into the car, not giving the very strange events of her morning a single, second thought. 

Part 1: The Strangeness of Fredrick Street - Chapter Four

In Chapter Four, we meet Albert and Betty. Albert’s having trouble sleeping - the dream he keeps having, is it a dream at all?

4

Albert Molineaux slept like a baby usually. He would sleep a dreamless sleep and always woke to face the day with a clear head on his shoulders and a spring in his step. This morning, however, a Wednesday (or Hump Day as the youth of today called it, a term he found uncouth and harsh on the ears besides) he felt a touch more lethargic than he ought to. Maybe he'd had a bad dream or perhaps it was that extra glass of whiskey he'd afforded himself last night taking its toll. In fact, the more he thought about it he realised it couldn't have been whisky on the account that he never touched a drop. Perhaps it was because he'd cut himself a slice of Edam at twenty past the midnight hour and fell asleep in front of the TV. Yes, that'll be it, he thought, as he ground the coffee beans into the machine. His mind raced with more potential reasons why he wasn't his usual sprightly self just as Betty walked into the kitchen, lighting up the room and pushing all the worrisome thoughts aside, as she always did. Albert smiled at his wife as she practically glided over to him and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek and a gentle squeeze on the arm. She had always held such grace, which was why for the first 2 or 3 years of their courting he did nothing but question why she had deigned to fall in love with such an uptight rogue like him. When he asked her one day, she just laughed and said, "Somebody's got to do the devil's work, it may as well be me. Besides, it's not so bad." Albert laughed when she said that, he would ask her again every so often just to hear the response. Watching as she skipped around the kitchen, making herself a pot of coffee, he found her to look just as young as she did when they first met and he couldn't help but smile.

"Did you get the paper yet?" she asked.

"It's just there on the counter. Throw me out the sports pages and you can take the rest love."

"You don't want to keep up with what's going on in the world?"

Albert shrugged. "I don't like finding out about problems I can't fix. Besides, if it's need to know then I'm sure you'll tell me, won't you?"

Betty raised an eyebrow. "Sure I will. But what are you going to do when I'm not here to tell you?"

Albert thought for a moment before replying. "Well Betty, I guess when you do go, I'm just going to be a guy who knows a whole lot of nothing other than what's in front of him."

Laughing Betty hit him with the paper and passed him out the sports pages. Albert poured the freshly made coffee, the smell filling the room and unfolded the sports pages out in front of him. "Besides Betty, you're not the only one who has a deal with the devil. I've got that pact I made when we first started seeing so you aren't going anywhere less the devil's not a man true to his word."

"I knew you'd done some sort of black magic to keep me around this long." She smiled and took his hand. "You alright this morning?"

Albert plastered a reassuring smile on his face (all his own teeth despite being 70) and squeezed his wife's hand. "I'm good like a kid on Christmas morning. What makes you ask?"

Betty's brow wrinkled in concern, seeing right through the smile. "You were tossing in your sleep last night, muttering away to yourself."

Albert's smile faltered. This was perhaps why he didn't feel his usual self this morning. And, thinking on it now, he was restless during the night. He must have been in the grips of a nightmare but he couldn't think now what it was that'd shaken him up so bad. Something about a circular room and, yes, a few of the neighbours had been there too. But no Betty. There was no Betty in sight. 

"Albert? Are you OK?"

Bringing his mind back to the present, he squeezed Betty's shoulder and busied himself about the kitchen. "I'm fine, bad dream is all. And dare I say it was only bad because you weren't in it Betty Boo."

Unconvinced Betty rested a hand on Albert's chest, stopping from the kitchen tidying frenzy he was in the grips of, something he knew (and Betty knew) he only did when we was worried or stressed about something. 

"Albert Molineaux? Is there something you're not telling me? Cos you know I'll find out. It's a gift I have."

"One woman's gift is one man's curse," said Albert. 

"Less of the poetics. You got anything on that old mind of yours?" said Betty. 

Albert, doing his best to push the topic aside, took her hand off his chest and kissed it. "Betty, I can assure you there's nothing on this old mind but thoughts of you, a want to read the sports and the desire for a good cup of coffee and a plate of toast. I had a bad dream and it's gone now. If it happens again, you can lay me down on that couch there in the living room and go all manners of Freud on me. But believe me when I say I'm absolutely fine."

He placed Betty's hand back in her lap and took two slices of bread out of the packet and into the toaster. Well OK. But maybe you should speak to Dr. Fleming across the street if your restless nights keep up. I don't want to lose you before I'm ready." 

Albert laughed. Betty had one wicked sense of humour; she'd have done just fine on the gallows. "OK Betty. But I'm sure he doesn't want the worries of a couple of white haired fools who think anything out of the norm means Death's come a-knocking. I'm fine. Just shouldn't eat cheese so much before bed and watch so much TV." The toast popped. Albert took out the butter knife and started buttering, sliding the plate over to Betty. 

"Now drop this Florence Nightingale talk and have a slice of special Molineaux toast."

Taking the plate, Betty inspected the toast and looked up at Albert. "Albert?"

"Yes?"

"You afraid you're going to run out of butter or something?"

"I miss a bit?"

"More than a bit. Give me that butter knife. I'll show you how it's done."

And taking the knife out of Albert's hand, Betty carved out a chunk of the butter and started slavering it over the slice of toast. Watching her Albert couldn't help but think back to every breakfast they'd ever shared and smile. The thing he feared most was that she'd be the first one God would pick to join him upstairs. Not that he'd ever been a Godly man, but it was a nicer way to frame it than the alternative. 

Finishing her fix-up job, Betty slid the plate back, taking a slice for herself. 

"There, that's a proper piece of toast. Not a bit of the surface untouched."

Albert took a slice and bit into it, crumbs falling onto the counter. "Betty, I don't know how I ever took breakfast without you, do you know that?"

"Honey, I don't know how you did anything without me. Now go upstairs and look out your clothes for tonight."

Taking another slice, Albert raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Betty. "What's tonight?"

Rolling her eyes, Betty stood and took the plate to the sink and started on the dishes. "The BBQ Sarah's throwing for the street."

Albert nodded. "Sure, that's right. We got to stay long?"

Betty laughed. "Now Albert, be kind. It's a nice thing she's doing. But no, we don't. That's the great thing about growing old. We've got an automatic get out of jail free card."

Albert smiled and gave his wife a kiss. "I love you."

"Good job I love you too. Now move and get ready. I have a list for you. And it's growing by the second. The quicker you get ready the shorter the list."

"Will you be coming with me on this shopping mission you've prepared for me?" 

"I've not decided yet. I think I want to play at being a kept woman with a house husband today."

Albert bowed "As you wish, Madam."

"Less of the Madam. It makes me feel old."

Albert bit his lip which Betty frowned at.

"Don't even think of making a single comment, buster."

"I wouldn't dream of it," smiled Albert. "Besides, I always find it painful pointing out the obvious."

And with that Albert took his leave, skipping as quick as his hips would allow out of reach of her magazine. Heading up stairs, laughing all the way to the bedroom to get ready, Albert thought about just how dull his life would have been if he didn't have Betty along for the ride the whole time. He didn't know what he'd do without her and, praying to whatever God was listening, he would never have too.

Part 1: The Strangeness of Fredrick Street - Chapter Three

In Chapter Three, we meet Mark and Kim. Do you notice the change, that not even they notice?

3

The crackle of fat in the pan, accompanied by the smell of French toast and bacon wafting up the stairs, woke Mark Fleming from his sleep that Wednesday morning as it tended to most mornings when his wife Kim rose before he did. A quick swipe out with his left arm confirmed that she had indeed stepped out of bed before him this morning and was the conductor of the breakfast band playing downstairs. Mark lay there for a few minutes, letting the warm rays shoot through the slats of the blinds, giving him a few gentle slaps into the land of the living. Turning over, he opened his eyes and smiled as he looked at the alarm clock, which read 7:59. If there was anything he loved more than waking up to the smell of bacon or the sound of his wife singing downstairs it was beating the sound of his alarm. It had been his sworn enemy throughout his teenage years and now, approaching 40 as Mark was, he took a real pleasure in beating the little wake-up box to the punch and not giving the snooze button the satisfaction of that early morning control over him. It was the small things Mark lived for. 

Waiting till the digits turned to 8.00 and turning the alarm off before it had the chance to bleat, Mark rose out of bed, his feet hitting cold on the wooden flooring (sometimes he wished they were carpeted, particularly this current moment) and threw on his dressing gown. Stretching, he opened the blinds and squinted outside at the rest of the houses in Fredrick Street. It was quiet, always had been but recently it had been more so. The only other families he had seen was Sarah Barr's across the street, Albert Molineaux and his wife Betty and the Young's, although he only ever spoke to the youngest Jessica, purely because she was interested in following in Mark's footsteps for a career in medicine. He was just a surgeon at the small hospital in the city but he had promised he'd do his best to give her all the advice and help he could, and his best was what he was going to do. As for the rest of Fredrick Street, he hadn't seen The Guthries, The Hendricks, The Murphy's or any of the other residents for a while, not since Albert's 70th a few months ago and even then, some he hadn't seen since they all moved in precisely a year ago. 

He was still looking out onto the street when he saw Albert come out of his house to pick up the paper from his grass and looked up. Mark gave him a little wave, which Albert returned with a wave of the paper before returning into the house. He watched Albert go, thinking of how he'd quite like to be as happy, agile and nimble as Albert was when he himself reached 70. And he'd love a good head of hair like the man himself with all his mental faculties in tact. 

Moving away from the window, Mark made his way into the bathroom for a quick shower. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he couldn't help but give himself a little smile. He'd been a fat kid, from what he remembered, with a bad case of bacne but now, he had skin fit to feature in an advert for L'Oreal and a slender physique that wouldn't go a miss on the cover of Men's Health. The first flecks of grey were starting to threaten the deep black that currently crowned his head but he wasn't bothered. I'll just let this bit of stubble grow into a bushel and that'll distract the world from the grey. Not that anyone was as bothered about his hair as he was; even Kim wasn't bothered – she was looking forward to him becoming a silver fox. And by the looks of it, he was on track to being just that. Still smiling, he jumped in for a quick shower and started to get ready for the day.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, and picking up a small one to dry his hair, Mark headed back into the bedroom. As he finished drying himself off, and threw on his work shirt, suit and tie, he stopped. Looking around, he couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right; something was different. Pulling on his socks, he sat on the edge of the bed and listened as Kim entered the room with a plate. 

"Don't get used to this honey. It won't happen every day. You want any sauce?" Kim said.

"Hmm?" Mark was distracted, he still wasn't sure what it was that was bothering him so much. It felt like something in the room had changed in the time it took him to go for a shower. "Have you been tidying?"

Kim raised an eyebrow. "You think I'm you're cook and you're cleaner?"

Mark shook his head. "No, no. It's....nothing."

"What's the matter?" said Kim. "I know that look and that is not a good look."

Shaking off the feeling, Mark smiled at Kim and took the plate. "It's nothing, there's no look."

Kim yanked the plate out of his reach. "There is, there is a look. It's a something's wrong, look. It's an I'm thinking look. That's always dangerous for you."

Mark laughed. "Kim, I'm a surgeon, thinking is part of my job. I can't just pick up the scalpel and go to town."

"Yeah, work thinking is fine. Any other thinking is just bad for you. Fess up, what's on your mind? Why were you giving me the my spider sense is tingling look?"

"I wish I never told you about those comics."

"Well too late, ya did. I can swing with Spidey, I like him. What I don't like is when you come over all Peter Parker on me."

Mark stood up and gave Kim a kiss. "It's fine. I just had this weird feeling is all. Like something had changed but I don't know what it was. Maybe I stood up too fast from picking up my socks, I don't know. It's nothing, trust me."

"Hmmm. OK then."

She gave Mark a little smile and a nose wrinkle that he just loved. She was a bona-fide movie star and she was happy to stay at home every weekend with him when she could be out on the town. Mark took the plate and sat down with Kim as she started to look out her clothes. 

"How come you were up so early this morning?" Mark asked.

"I wanted to catch Sarah before work to find out about tonight." Kim said.

Mark thought for a moment then remembered. "The BBQ?"

"Yeah. Poor soul's worried nobody's going to turn up."

"I'd be too, I haven't seen half the street in a few months." He finished his breakfast and put the plate on Kim's dressing table before she gave him a "Get that the fuck off of there" look and he moved it back onto the bed. 

"Good boy. And I know. Sarah and I were saying how we hadn't seen anyone in a while."

"Think we should go over and check on them?"

"I've a free day, just a scan and I was going to go round the doors and make sure everyone's coming tonight."

Mark smiled. The scan. They'd been trying ever since they had gotten married but as soon as they moved in but it had taken just 1 week before they found out and now they were expecting their first. "What times the scan at?" asked Mark. "I'll make sure I'm there."

"12. I'll give you a text when I arrive at the hospital."

"Make sure you do. I can't wait to add another picture of baby Skywalker to the fridge." 

Grinning Mark looked up as Kim stood shaking her head, with her eyebrow raised. "Yeah keeping dream Jake. But we are not naming our child Skywalker."

"Just you wait. I'll change your mind."

"Oh yeah? How you gonna do that?"

"I convinced you to marry me didn't I?"

Kim laughed, a real hearty one but the one where Mark knew it meant she had the upper hand. "That you did Marky, but you had a secret weapon then. Lots of wine. No dice here baby." She patted her tummy.

They looked at each other and laughed. Mark got up and gave her a kiss. He then held her and they had a little a slow dance. "Yeah, I'll think of something."

Kim glanced at the clock behind Mark and gave his bum a little squeeze and his lips a little peck. "Move and get to work or you'll be late."

Mark straightened his back, brought his feet together and threw his hand into a sharp salute. "Yes ma'am."

Kim raised an eyebrow at Mark. "You know I'm glad this baby isn't yours because then at least he won't think he's funny like you do."

Laughing Mark gave her a kiss on the cheek. "You know you think that's funny now but in about two days time I'm going to come bitching to you about how mean that was."

"I know. Now move."

"OK." Giving the room a quick survey, Mark turned back to Kim. "Have you seen my shoes anywhere?"

"By the front door. I don't want you ruining our nice new carpet now do I?"

"I wouldn't dream of it" said Mark, not realizing his question from a few moments ago had just been answered. "See you later." 

"See you later. Oh, and this came for you. I nearly forgot."

She handed him a small envelope from her back pocket, and Mark took it without looking at his name and address handwritten on the front of the envelope. 

"Who's writing to you then?"

It was Mark's turn to haze. "Oh it'll probably from one of my many other lovers, you know how old fashioned they get."

"Oh you're gonna pay for that one later too."

"I call it even. Don't you?"

She laughed and nodded. "OK. Even. Have a good day, you son of a bitch."

And with that he gave her tummy a quick pat, a kiss and he whirled out of the bedroom door and made his way to work, smiling, thinking of how lucky he was. 

The Deadlands: The Best-Selling Short Story

A Message From The Author

Hello!

If you're reading this, then thank you. For stumbling across my page and deciding to click read. I really appreciate it - so thank you. 

I wanted to write a quick introduction about The Deadlands. You may see the title and think "best-selling short story? How?" Well, it's true. I swear! I was absolutely delighted to have The Deadlands selected to be included in the horror anthology Twisted 50 Vol.1, as part of 50 writers who contributed to the book. It was one of those moments that come along that say "keep doing this, keep going, you're a writer and people want to read your stories." Sometimes, those moments are all we have as writers and we have to grab them and hold onto them because it keeps us writing even when we think we're no good at it - never stop writing, always keep going.

The most exciting part? Upon release the anthology became a best-seller, topping the Amazon charts and taking the No.1 spot from the absolutely excellent The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by the master storyteller - the one and only Stephen King. Yes, so The Deadlands, really is a best-selling short story. I still can't believe it.

It's very cool and a huge honour to be part of that anthology. For those who haven't read the anthology though, I'm excited to finally have the chance to publish it for everyone and anyone to read. And I hope you do. It's not the traditional zombie apocalypse story, and is a world I would really like to explore. One reader on the Create 50 community did say that this felt like the opening of a novel, or a larger story. Maybe it is, maybe it will be. If you read it and think that you'd like to see more of the world created within and the characters, please do comment and let me know. 

Anyway, that's enough for now. If you've gotten this far, I'd love it if you keep reading. If not, thanks for taking the time to stop by. I hope to write something one day you can't wait to read.

Best,

CP x

Gordon's mind had already switched to auto-pilot by the time lunch-time came around, his brain numb from the endless stream of paperwork that showed no sign of letting up. No matter how long ago the world had ended, the paperwork never stopped. If it wasn't for the sudden rustle of sandwich wrappers or the tap-tap of stirring spoons, Gordon would have missed the lunch call altogether. Taking the chance, he slid away from his mahogany prison, grabbed his lunch from the drawer, headed over to the window of the office and looked out onto the Deadlands. 

The Deadlands seemed to stretch out forever, far beyond the tall, wired wall of The George Town Sanctuary and the endless stream of dead it played host too. Looking out, Gordon felt strangely captivated by the dead as they shuffled over the dirt, reminding him of a painting his grandmother used to own. It was a portrait of the end of the world; a cracked beauty, life and death blurring together in one brushstroke. The Deadlands were scarily reminiscent of this; the only thing the two lacked in common was the endless stock of  meat, bones and dirt that the picture failed to contain.

Taking a bite of his sandwich, he caught sight of his own reflection and was surprised at how different he looked. His face was drawn, his cheeks, once plump, had made way for what could now pass as a strong jawline and his dark, evenly kept head of hair was now thinning with flecks of grey. The thing that struck him most, however, were his eyes. His mother had always said he had old eyes looking out from young skin but, looking now, it seemed that this mismatched symmetry had evened itself out, his face as old as his eyes once been, a thought that made him force his gaze away from the view and onto the rest of the office and his fellow survivors.

As always, Gordon was the only one wearing a suit, a fact that was met with a great deal of scorn and eye rolling from his colleagues, something that didn't bother him too much anymore. There was a reason he wore the suit. It was the same reason he took two teabags in his tea, and wore an overly long Barbour jacket around the sanctuary no matter what the weather. He did all of these things because it reminded him of his father and this made him feel safe. And safety was the only currency worth having in this new world. At least according to him, a belief that that demonstrated how out of place he was in the safe zone, which came down to one simple fact. He had no right being here. 

The sanctuary wasn't built for the likes of him it was built for the 1%; for those whose names meant something or whose bank account meant more. And Gordon was neither, he was simply a guy who had been dating the daughter of an MP at the time of the outbreak and she refused to go anywhere without him. Reluctantly, her father put Gordon's name on the list and he was welcomed with open arms. That was until the relationship broke down, the apocalypse proving to be far from the aphrodisiac. A couple of years later, and he was well and truly the outcast.

Gordon didn't like the way things were ran here. He didn't like that safety had come down to nothing more than inheritance and he'd made his opinion known several times at the community meetings, before they stopped letting him attend. He was of the view that survival wasn't a birthright and he wanted to open the doors to those still out there fighting for their lives, offering the sanctuary to whomever, no matter their circumstance. In his protestations, he'd made a fair few enemies and the nickname "The Lobbyist". It was only a matter of time before he was thrown out onto the Deadlands and given over to the Shufflers but as long as he was here he'd keep trying to make a change and try his best to make his co-habitants see the wrong in how they were acting, or rather, not acting. 

It wasn't the lack of humility or the indecency of the George Town Suburbanites that bothered him; it was their lack of awareness, self or otherwise. Nothing of the outside world seemed to effect them anymore, the wall separating the sanctuary from the chaos had created a seemingly impenetrable bubble that only Gordon seemed to be on the outside of. There was no shock or horror anymore; there was just the mundane. It was like the world was still turning just as it had been, the dead rising nothing more than a generational shift that had to be acclimated to and another expense to budget for. The apocalypse had become routine and a new way to find entertainment. Last Christmas, for example, Donny (a man who insisted on calling Gordon, "G-Man" and despite everything still only concerned himself with the "3 B's" (Beer, Bitches and Ball Games) had brought into the office a shuffler they had captured, dressed him in full Father Christmas regalia and hung him from the ceiling with a set of Christmas lights, illuminating the swinging corpse like a piñata at a David Lynch party. 

He shuddered at the memory, staring at the spot on the office carpet where the sack of meat and bones had once dripped blood and flesh. And of the poor cleaner (her name may have been Margo) who had been left to clean it up later that same night, and who strayed too close, not realising the Shuffler hadn't been put down but was still very much "alive" and kicking. That had been a dark time, even for the end of the world, and it was standing, hands clasped together and head bowed that Gordon had decided that things needed to change and that he would be the man to do it.

Gordon was so busy thinking about his place in George Town, Donny's Christmas cadavers and the ill-fate of Margo that he didn't realise that a crowd that had gathered around him at the window until he heard them gasp, derailing the train of thought he'd embarked on. It was only then that he realised that something was happening. As he followed the gaze of his colleagues out onto the Deadlands, he started to think that the audience had formed to watch another game of Shuffle-Streak - the rules of which were to run through the Deadlands without a stitch of clothing on and attempt to come back wearing that of a shuffler's – and that was when he saw them.

It was a young family, slap bang in the middle of the Deadlands. There was four of them, the daughter about 16 and her younger brother, no older than 8 or 9, were wedged in between their parents as they slowly made their way across the burned ground, George Town only a few well-placed steps ahead of them. Gordon heart's picked up the pace as he watched them, quickly crossing his fingers and muttering a quick prayer to whatever God was listening.

All work had stopped in the office now as everyone gathered around the window to watch. The family hadn't yet been spotted, moving at a snail's pace. No need to run, no need to rush. The phrase "Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey" echoed in Gordon's ears as he did his best to ignore his colleagues who, with Donny leading the charge, had started making bets as to whether or not they'd make it across and who'd be the last one standing. The sense of hope that had filled him seconds ago vanished and he felt sick climbing up the back of his throat and was made only worse as he turned back to the window.

In the end, it was the boy that was the last one standing. The thing that Gordon would never forget was that the boy didn't look scared or upset, he just looked lost. Confused. He was probably waiting for his Dad to get back up and lift him the rest of the way or for his sister to get up and tease him for being too slow. Or maybe he was just waiting for his mother to hold him close and tell him everything would be alright. He probably didn't know what was happening as the cloud of corpses floated over and began to shower down on him like dead rain.

The office was silent as they watched the boy being torn apart, the only sound coming from money as it exchanged hands. Everyone went back to work with pockets as empty as their souls. But Gordon stood there for some time in a daze, still staring out of the window as the cloud got up and moved onto their next feed. Memories of the bedtime stories he grew up with came back to him then. The ones where the heroes saved the world and rescued those in danger; he realised that these were just stories after all. War isn't won by bedtime stories, he thought. No, they weren't. The reality was very different. Reality was people betting on a life and watching death as a sport. Reality was that Gordon's plan to change things in George Town had just caused the death of four people.

As Gordon continued to gaze out, he didn't know whether he was grieving the family, the death of his heroic plan or because he was the reason that the family had gotten there in the first place. There was no question that it was because Gordon had leaked the George Town co-ordinates to those beyond the wall that the family had found themselves stranded in the middle of the Deadlands. 

There was no question that, in his foolhardy act of bravery and nobility that when he had sent a message beyond the walls (it was easy, they still had electricity, and wi-fi – what more do they need to survive?) to tell the world that there was a safe place for them and they'd be welcomed with open arms, that he'd just sealed the fate of anyone who would try and brave the Deadlands for the opportunity to enter George Town. 

He thought then of the father he'd just seen torn to shreds and his wasted sacrifice, wishing more than anything that he could trade places with him, away from the world of desk-bound dreamers he lived in and foolish acts of heroism that got people killed.

But instead, Gordon turned away went back to work, his heart weighing heavy as he took his seat, sliding out another form and letting his brain go numb again, telling himself that at least he tried. And that was enough, right?

Part 1: The Strangeness of Fredrick Street - Chapter Two

In Chapter Two, we travel to Fredrick Street to meet the residents and their perfect life. But is all as it seems?

2

Sarah's feet crunched the soft gravel as she jogged gently into the drive, finishing her morning run. Leaning forward, palms resting on her thighs, she started to feel the thin blanket of sweat that the morning run had wove on her back; like the foil for the runner who had just finished the marathon. Glancing down at her watch, she smiled. It was 7:45 and she'd just smashed her personal best. Not a bad start to the morning. Maybe even a perfect one.  Unclasping her sports bottle from her running belt, Sarah drank, the liquid was like a mini-waterfall wetting the dry rocks at the back of her throat. She felt good, like she did every morning. This was pretty much her routine every day (except a Sunday which was sacred for a quick morning cupcake before a walk with the dogs) but it never got old how good she felt. Looking around the street, each house semi-identical save the few personality flourishes from their individual owner, she could feel the calm of the early morning just on the brink of disturbance. It was one of the reasons she liked to get up so early; she liked rising with the morning and feeling the first weak rays of light struggle to conjure up a little warmth. That, and she had always found that when you woke up before everyone else there was a smaller chance that they could ruin your day from the start. It was something her father used to say. 

"Get up before the world honey. Because by 11 O'clock, chances are strong that somebody will have ruined your day." She liked to heed her father's advice and it hadn't steered her wrong yet. 

Letting her earplugs dangle and pump the surrounding air with a little music from her running playlist, she took in Fredrick Street. She breathed in the white picket fences and the front lawns as smooth as the icing on a wedding cake. The road looked fresh and free of cracks, as if it had only been laid this week. There was a cloudless sky overhead and the sun shone down, as it did most days, on the rows of houses like a family would their properties on a Monopoly board. It was, quite simply put, sheer perfection. Dreamland 101.

It was just over a year since they'd moved in, Morgan, her and the girls, but some days it felt just like yesterday. Today was no different. It had been a no-brainer really, the house had come on the market at a cut-price & they'd always dreamed of growing up in a little cul-de-sac where the kids could play in the garden, ride their bikes down the street and everyone waved at them in the morning. Regular house dinner parties, book clubs and civilised living with a civilised neighbourhood. Most times, when people came to live out in one of these little pockets of Suburbanity, away from all their family and friends and the memories of their past it was because they were running from something. But for them it wasn't the case. Moving to Fredrick Street, they were running toward something. A brighter future, the one they had dreamed of, complete with their picket fences and BBQ's on a Sunday. It was perfect.

Her jog down memory lane was just about complete when she saw one of the neighbours from across the street (you could see them all really, there only was the 12 rows of houses in this little slice of Suburban Solitude). It was Kim. She was taking out the bins. Sarah waved and Kim flashed a smile before making her way toward her. Watching Kim cross the street, Sarah noticed the slight sashay in the way her body led her forward, still looking so glamorous without a dot of make-up and her morning sweats on. She had the looks a movie star would most likely kill for and, being that Kim was a movie star, she half wondered if this wasn't the case. In a past life, Sarah was sure she would have been hit with that sickening and unpleasant rush of jealously, followed by a crippling guilt and anxiety about judging another human. Jealousy was nothing but an ugly shade on a person, even on the nicest of people, which Sarah considered herself to be. She was sure that jealously would grip the nicest person tighter because they don't know what to do with it and don't understand what it is. It was nothing but the mind playing tricks on you, because it doesn't understand life (and love) the way the heart does. Sad really. But it was OK, because Sarah wasn't the jealous type.

"Morning Sarah. Day and a half am I right?" said Kim.

There was a twang to the way Kim spoke, like she was trying out all the accents she'd acquired at acting school all at once. Sarah, still a little breathless, opened up her arms and breathed in. 

"Hell of a day to be alive Kim. Although every day is like that around here, am I right?" said Sarah. 

Kim nodded. "Better believe it. Think it'll hold for tonight?"

Sarah took a little glance skyward and squinted at the sun, more for show than any weather reading ability she had, and nodded. 

"I say it will, we've not had a bad day in a couple of weeks, Mother Nature's not let us down yet. You guys coming?"

"Wouldn't miss it. 7.30?"

Sarah nodded. "On the button." 

She paused, wanting to frame the question so as not to broadcast any party host insecurities, but Kim seemed to guess and gave her that movie star smile.

"Relax, Sarah. Everyone will turn up. It's a nice thing, celebrating us all moving in. And who doesn't love a free BBQ?"

"I've not seen The Hendricks or The Murphy's for a while. You heard from them?"

Kim shook her head. "Not seen either, but I'm sure they got your flyer. Just relax. It'll go swimmingly." 

Sarah smiled. "You've never seen Morgan try and cook a burger on the grill. If it's not tasty, it'll at least be entertaining."

Kim laughed and started to walk away. "I'm sure he'll do fine. See you tonight." And with that, she sauntered back across the street, her hips moving back and forward like the pendulum on a grandfather clock. 

Sarah almost regretted suggesting the idea of the BBQ now that the day was upon them. It was a year since the Fredrick Street housing estate had been finished and opened up for them all to move in. Well, all 12 of the finished houses anyway. There were still a large number of the secluded community homes to be built and the current inhabitants of Fredrick Street were anxious to meet their new neighbours, each and every one of them hoping the newbies wouldn't disturb their tranquil life. Although recently, it had seemed that all work on the unfinished houses had stopped and they were all now living a stones throw from a construction site. She had hoped that the houses would have been finished and tonight's anniversary celebrations would double-up as a welcome party. Regardless, Sarah thought it would be a nice thing for all the current residents to get together, raise a glass (for her a non-alcoholic cocktail – she wasn't putting on hold her clean living, not even for this) and celebrate the day they all met and started this chapter of their lives. So far, she'd only had RSVP's from 5 of the other residents. The Hendricks, The Murphys, the young newlyweds a few doors down (Pete and Liz Guthrie), Old Lady Charles from round the corner, Mr. and Mrs. Kingston and Gordon the Gopher (on account that he was the handy man of the neighbourhood) had all so far failed to get in touch. Perhaps they were too busy or not interested. Either way, Sarah was understandably anxious as to her hosting abilities and the lack of response for tonight wasn't doing much to fight her insecurities. First world problems she thought and shrugged the thoughts from her mind as easy as they'd come, replacing them with thoughts of how fantastic the night was going to go. 

Tearing away from the early morning calm, Sarah made her way back into the house ready for the chaos of the day to begin and into the kitchen to get the breakfast ready for the kids. The school run was a pain for some mothers, but not for Sarah, particularly today when it would take her mind off her worries for later on. It was the second reason she loved getting up so early. She got the chance to spend time with the kids before they went to school; kids incidentally that she never thought she would have. It's not that she felt like she loved her children more than the other mothers who griped at the school gates or was a better mother because she didn't use a nose peg to clean a shitty nappy but because she never felt the desire to moan about the things her kids made her do everyday. She never acted or felt like it was something she didn't want to be a part of. They were a gift as far she was concerned; a cheesy cliché but one she liked to roll out anyway. As Sarah prepared the lunches, she thought that some days she lived only for them. They were the centre of her little universe, and one of the main motivations behind her fitness regimes was the desire to be around long enough for them to grow up and start a family of their own. She smiled at the thought that in 10 or 20 years time, it might be the mother of their children doing what she was doing now; a thought that filled her with an enormous amount of hope and sunshine that shone stronger than the rays outside.

The breakfast bar armed and ready; Sarah retreated to the bathroom for a quick shower and gave her kids a little shout as she went, smiling as she heard the familiar groans of people who'd fallen in love with their duvets over night and didn't want part from them. It was the same start to the day she always had and something she wouldn't change for the world.