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Stay tuned for the next tale of terror at 7:30AM (GMT) tomorrow. In the meantime, you can check out more of this year’s stories here.
The neodymium magnet cut a beautiful arc through the pale morning mist, followed by a black biro-scribble line. It faded to grey half a second before the quiet plop reached Hayley and Luke. Two breaths condensed into the fog around the empty bridge.
“I’ve got a bite.” Luke tugged on the dark cord.
“Better not be another rusty bike.” Hayley pulled her phone out of her black coat pocket and readied the camera. “The last three videos were just bike after bloody bike.”
“Nah. Too small for a bike.” Luke grinned. “Or a shopping trolley for that matter.”
“Good. I know no-one even bothers with bike chains any more but this river is…” She sighed. “It isn’t a bike chain, is it?”
Luke kept pulling. Hayley leaned in closer as the magnet rose from the fog. Nothing dangled. She exhaled. It took her a moment to notice the lump of pale brown rust clinging beneath it. She leaned against the railings as Luke hauled it over, letting it fall to the ground with a loud thump. He knelt down and flipped it over. His eyes widened.
“Jackpot! Oh yes! Are you filming?”
“Huh?” Hayley thumbed her phone. “Sorry. What is…” She knelt down and almost dropped her phone. “What the… There’s a gun? Here? Oh god, we’ve gotta report this.”
Luke waved his hand. “Later. This isn’t just any gun, it’s an M1911. Bit rusty, but I no-scoped someone halfway across the map with one of these in ‘Call Of Honor 7: Wraiths’ last week. It’s larger in real life than I thought, but this is so...”
“Dammit Luke, this isn’t a game. We’ve gotta report this. I’m calling nine, nin..” Her fingers were sweaty against the slick surface of her phone.
“At least let me…” Luke sighed before gripping the rusty hunk of metal and sliding it off of the magnet with a blackboard-fingernail scriiitch. Hayley took a sharp breath, about to say something, when she saw Luke’s eyes widen.
The early-morning redness faded from his cheeks. His eyes were wide and glassy. His lips moved and stuttered.
Hayley just stood there for a moment, her eyes almost as wide as Luke’s before something snapped inside of her. “This isn’t a bloody joke Luke! ” There was fury in her eyes. She dropped her phone back into her pocket and strode over to him.
He stood there, still as a statue, his finger clenching uselessly against the rusty trigger. In three furious steps, Hayley was beside him. “Give me that…”
She reached out. Luke’s fingers felt cold. Her palm rasped against rust. It was dry, too dry. It was like sandpaper. It was like tombstone saw-teeth. It was like… She knew she wasn’t dreaming. It was more like a vivid memory. Like deja vu. But not deja vu. She was somewhere else.
Mud and brown water, the smell of fire and excrement. Distant percussive thudding, drumbeats behind the barbed wire. A haggard man with a moustache and a khaki uniform kneeling in the squelching, sucking mud. Kneeling over another soldier. A shattered soldier. Warm fingers against cold fingers. Prying, pulling at the pistol. A tug and a snap. No words spoken. Three gunshots into no-man’s land.
Then the inside of a metal coffin. No, a small box. Even in the darkness, Hayley could sense old photographs and pieces of string. The smooth rim of a shiny medal. Then, beyond the thin metal walls, the sounds of sobbing and screaming. Muffled voices echoing off of old wallpaper, shouting at each other. A shrill intake of breath. Footsteps approaching, fast and angry.
Fifty hands and fifty faces, all in different places. Sometimes, the hands had gold rings on the fingers or letters tattooed on the knuckles. It was always night, always on a cold empty street. The faces were sometimes blank, sometimes frightened and sometimes angry. Each one crumpled and faded, followed a split-second later by a bright spraying halo. Ruptured watermelon, pale fluffy pulp gleaming amber below streetlights and falling onto rough ground.
Hayley blinked. Reality snapped back around her. Luke remained catatonic, squeezing at the dead gun. And the only thing she could think was “NO!”. It echoed through her body, it gave her strength to grab and pull and pry.
Luke’s fingers didn’t snap when she wrenched it free. Holding it fully in her palm, the images in her head got brighter and fuller. The taste of cheap lager, ten ear-splitting snaps, ten leather-clad arms flying upwards, ten sets of crooked, clenched teeth.
“No!” Putting her whole body into it, she spun and threw.
The rusty pistol cut a beautiful arc through the pale morning mist, followed by nothing but silence and bad memories. It faded to grey half a second before the quiet plop reached Hayley and Luke. Two breaths condensed into the fog around the empty bridge.
Both of them returned to life gradually. Both of them said nothing. Both of them walked away.
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