Maria was at the stage of her life where waking up was a pleasure. She woke up at the time was her please and bladder and hunger permitting was not compelled to prematurely abandon her bed sheets. To day had the added benefit of sunlight coming through the window and landing in a square shape around her pillow.

The silence that had reined was usurped by the high pitched wail of the cat, which had spent most of the night sleeping near Maria’s feet. The old animal, which could always be described as bedraggled however long she spent washing herself, walked up Maria’’s body. She came to rest on Maria’s chest, sat on her back legs and start to caterwaul. Maria had spent a long time trying to work out what this particular cry meant. She suspected it simply meant “here I am, pay me attention.”

After a few dozen howls Maria started to pet the cat, paying particular attention to the chin and behind the ears. After a few more meows, Maria sat up a little, looked the cat in the eye and said “meow” in the authority tone of a retired librarian.

Normally this was enough to stop the old beast stop complaining and setting down to a good sleep and pur. But today was different. Maria was staring directly at the animals face when it said “home.”it had to move its mouth in impossible way to make the sound, which was spoken in an obviously female voice and in tones that sounded to deep coming from such a small creature.

Maria stop. She stopped stroking the cat and for a moment stopped breathing. She had to be sensible she thought, she had the impossible.

“Alexa, repeat”

The speakers did nothing. Maria reached out over her own shoulder to reach her phone. It took her a moment or two to find the device as she didn’t turn her head away from the cat at any time.there was nothing on the phone that would explain the house.

The cat started to pur again, and jumped of the bed abs walked out of the room, her tail swishing in the air behind her.

A few hours later Maria was down stairs. She was sat at the wooden table in her kitchen, which some had designed to make sure it looked like and ancient family heirloom. The table had in built draws, one of which was open now, as Maria tried to pick a microphone. The table was spotless and only marred by a single dinner mat which her MAC sat on.

She did not have a busy day today. A little work editing the blog and a little recording. Then she would pick a meal, based more on what she would enjoy cooking rather than eating. Right now any third party watch would see her short thick fingers flying across the keyboard. Her hair was tidied back tightly into a pony tail. Every now again she would stop typing. She would bite her slight chapped lower lip and would use three fingers on hand to turn the ring on the other. She was so caught up in her work that she didn’t notice the cat leaping up on the table, something she was banned from doing. Maria did not notice the approach of the animal, which was old and fat enough to lumber rather than walk. The cat only got really angry though when Maria did not notice that she had slopped her tail over the top of the screen. When this failed to get a response the cat start to cry. A deep bell cry.

“I am sorry lovely” said Maria, tearing her eyes from her screen and petting the animal. The crying stop, the creature jumped on Maria and

“Take me home.”

This time Maria couldn’t she her cats mouth, but there was no doubt in her mind that the words had come from the cat. They had start a moment after she had stoped purring and the sound came from the cats mouth.

The fork cut through the quiche unleashing a bubble of mayonnaise and sending four dry pastry crumble across the plate. A long flute glass of champion sat close to the paper plate. It was then that the clown was shot. I had heard the first shot rather than saw it, looking up to see blood bulging from the forehead of the clown. I was close enough to see chunks of make up break away from his brow to make tidy white ice burgs in the blood. I remember the way his cloths seemed to collapse before his body, falling forward and clumping around his chest and waist. When he had feel, I had seen his face, including the moment when he died, for maybe 4 seconds. That was what made this memory so valuable to a certain audience.

I never found out why the attack had happened. I had only be at the party as part of the complex internal politics of the consortium. So middle manager had demanded extra tickets to the party to establish their important and that of their department. The middle manager then had to find people to give the ticket to, so there I want, to the party.

It had been its own special hell. Not the sort of hell that could be exchanged for credits though. It had been dull, white ( everything was covered in white sheets, giving the occasion

It was the movement of the clouds that gave the game away. The large open sky was covered in dark, grey, extremely slow moving clouds. In fact it would take several minutes close study for any observer to state with any certainty that they were moving at all. However in on sector of the sky, about 30 meters wide, the clouds moved from there steady crawl and started to zip across the gap at rapid speed. They sped like rapid waves rolling and tossing until they hit the other side and immediately slowed to another crawl.

When Ben saw this he pulled out his phone. It was an old battered thing, in a case that was stuffed with a map, for when the sat nav broke. Ben’s research found no record of the phenomenon so he decided to make a recording, but the video did not work. It appeared to be recording, but when he want back to review the footage, nothing was there.

This was enough to get Ben to stand up and put back on his mad caked red boots. He slowly did up his laces, staring up at the sky as he did so. He pulled on his rain coat he had been sat on and walked through the marsh towards the phenomenon.

When should have happened when he got to close is that a series of micro drones should have realised knock out gas. Then Ben would have woken up the next day in his bed. That should have happened but someone had disabled the security grid.

Next Ben should have meet an out post of guards, but the guards had gone to explore their difference of opinion with the people who had turned off the defence grid. All that was left was the guards small green and brown hut which Ben passed with barely a glance.

Then Ben should have ran into a series of thick concrete walls and around 200 guards in machine gun nests, heavily armoured SUVs and several helicopters. But all Ben found was some burnt stone and few happily burning fires. This would have been enough to make him leave, and quickly, if it hadn’t been for the fact that right then it didn’t start to rain. Or rather, to be more precise it started to rain every apart from in the small circular area where it stayed dry and sunny.

Ben walked closer, through the reckage and around the now smoking remains of fires. He could feel the rain soaking into his short brown hair and sticking his tee shirt to his body. Now he was perhaps ten yards from the area. A humid heat trobed off the area, the edge of which was visible from this close as what seemed like bursts of smoked whipped around its perimeter and disappeared.

Ben didn’t know how long he stood their, but sooner or later there was a scream. Someone screamed something in Japanese, the sound of bullets hitting stone and flesh broke out, and Ben did the only thing he could. He stepped forward, and passed out.

It was dark outside and cold. When people breathed out they could see their breath, which was slowly lifted away by the gentle current in the air.

The papers were found in three bottles that had been sealed with cheap grey wax. This three bottles had been tide together with strong, which flapped loosely at either end.

Oliva nearly hadn’t walked this far down the beech. The clouds were turning an ominous black and that had kept Oliva walking. She had never seen heavy rain hit the sea and hadn’t minded the idea of getting wet. Even after she had decided to walk this far down the beach she easily could have missed the bottles. They were the same dirty grey as the sand around them and half hided by sea weed. But she’d been throwing stones along a head of her as she walked, turning them three or four steps before trying to skim the stone alone the sand. One of her stones had clipped the waxed ridges at the top of the bottle, making a strange sound as it struck. Oliva had followed the sound and sat cross legged before the sea weed. She was oddly comfortable considering she was sat on and un even and sadly beach. The ends of her black jogging bottoms rolled up slightly, the pale skin of her ankle coming into contact with the cold water. It was the work of a moment to remove the sea weed. It was that odd type with little pustules you could pop, which she did as she took in the sight before her. She had to untangle the bottles without breaking, and this took all of her consentration for a while.

Opening them required her to scratch the wax away with her key. The cork crumbled. Oliva stared down the first bottles, and flinched at the smell. If her nose was any guide this bottle had held both bad wine and bad whiskey in the recent past. She held clamped her hand over her nose and mouth for protection and had another look. The bottle was filled with paper. It was white plain paper, grabbed from a printer and stuffed so tight that at first it had been impossible to tell what it was paper. It was then that it started to rain, and Oliva automatically swung all the bottles into her green millers camping bag and stood up. She was, for a moment, truest happy. The rain was so heavy, with large blobs smashing into the sea, momentarily a indent seemed to appear in the water and then a thin miasma of water seemed to rebound back into the air. The water hit Oliva as well. One high drop smashed into the centre of her head, running through her thin blonde hair and down her forehead, breaking on her glasses

The concrete veranda jutted out above the river. It was here on a late summer evening in July that Andrew had last seen his brother. The had been sitting, with their feet just above the water. Tom had been kick his feet across the water, his old grey boots seeming to skim across the water and back again, until they slammed into the concrete that made up the dock wall. They’d had drinks then, cheap champagne that had been served late in the night as the celebrants had become less and less discerning.

“You still haunted mate,” Andrew said and immediately regretted the levity of his tone. The happy alcoholic haze that Tom had been walking around in for the last few hours dissipated leaving his cheeks red and his eye flittering from Andrew out to see. Tom was 45, but didn’t normally look it, he lacked Andrews grey hair and wrinkles, but for a moment he looked at least 75.

Tom’s hands had shock, he started to spin his battered wedding ring around his finger. He’d taken a deep breath and below it out so heavily that strains of his fringe stretched out to sea. When he spoke his voice was perfectly clear.

“I am scared Andrew. I am really fucking scared.”

Andrew listened as Tom spoke, the words pouring out quickly. Andrew had decided that his shadow was either someone he new, or had some sort of contact in his inner circle. He said this was the only way that the leather coated man could have found out that he was staying at a hotel in hull last week.

“This can’t go one,” said Tom. “I needed protection.” He nodded at a small red cloth bag that was leaning again his thigh. Tom reached over and opened it. At first he thought he was looking at a toy or a replica, but the weight of it told him the truth.

“Jesus Christ Tom” said Andrew passing the bag and gun back to Andrew.

Tom chided Andrew for blaspheming. Andrew over road the instinct to snipe back and asked instead

“When did you last see him?”

“Last night, 3 in the morning. In the street. When I got down to the street he had gone.” The ghost always got away, Tom had never been able to speak to him, which Andrew realised probably made it worst.

“Well at least you won’t see him tonight at 3” said Andrew.

“What do you mean?”

Andrew flashed his phone at him. It was three 01.

Tom never saw who pushed Andrew in the water, but of course he knew now.