stranger in our town - the gun club

ok, this is officially weird. and ridiculous, but also unbelievable. there is something living down there in the basement. and, to be honest, i almost shat myself when i saw it.

yesterday, i mentioned that i'd found food - sandwiches, vegetable matter and bones in the back room. today i met who was responsible for them.

this is too weird. i saw it, it saw me. we stared, frozen, rooted to our respective spots. it was maybe four feet tall, stick-thin and spindly. dark eyes stuck out under a sloping forehead. a few wisps of hair floated around gleaming skull.

christ alone knows what it thought of me!

we stared at each other. the room felt as if it was tilting. this couldn't be happening!

slowly, it turned, moved away from me and half-scuttled into a corner, where it disappeared from sight.

after that, there seemed very little point in continuing sifting paper, so i sat down for a couple of minutes.

actually, i have no idea how long i sat there, staring into space and thinking about what i'd seen.

my phone buzzed against my leg, snapping me out of it. a text from elaine, a joke about someone i'd never heard of, but probably either a footballer or someone in the big brother house.

i didn't feel like replying, but it did make me realise i couldn't sit around brooding all day.

i texted tam. i didn't mention what i'd seen (actually, by then, i was starting to doubt i'd seen it myself) just tried to get a discussion going about "now you are Hers". anything to take my mind off what'd happened.

i got through the rest of the day - somehow and headed home. i'd texted Ms Simone sometime during the afternoon. when She didn't reply, i remembered that She'd said today would be a busy one and She wasn't sure She'd be in range of a phone.

isn't that always the way, though? the one time i really need my Mistress' arm around me, i can't lay hands on Her!

it's what aviation engineers call "the event cascade". six or eight things all go wrong at once, any one of which the air-crew would have taken in their stride. any two or three would have been hairy, but their training and adrenaline would've got them out of danger.

but when six or more of these micro-emergencies arrive at the same moment, it's all hands on deck. spinning plates until everybody dies.