Looking After Granddad.

By John Vault

Billy's new job in the old folks home is going well, until he meets Leo McDonald, a former Christian missionary with advancing dementia, antisocial tendencies and a startling secret. Billy isn't too concerned with Leo's behaviour. After all he's just a harmless old man... isn't he?
Looking after granddad is the tenth and final story in Uncle John's bedtime Tales. Reader discretion is advised.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Vault
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458164612

John Vault

I'm an Englishman abroad in New Zealand, having moved here from the UK about four years ago. Writing for me has evolved from a means of escapism into something of an obsession. A subject that plays a major part in the content of many of my stories. Yes I'm pretty much infatuated with lunacy. It scares the hell out of me. It's all the unpredictability I think. My writing style is unorthodox and rarely sticks firmly to the genre for which it is presented, which is good because formulaic horror is like an 80's pop single. Same old, same old. I like to flip rapidly between gory horror and farcical comedy. I think that this kind of contrast amplifies the effects of both. It certainly affects me that way. I saw a film once, a long time ago, called 'The old dark house'. It was basically horror comedy but it was done so well that it just creeped me out for months! Another of my favourites (for all the wrong reasons) is 'Eraser head'. The atmosphere in this movie just blew me away. I've been criticised in the past for rampant use of expletives in character dialogue but I don't care. The characters that I write about actually live for me. I get to know them like friends and all my friends swear like troopers!I consider myself a normal man, having a wife, children and several household pets, but I have a real dark side and the best way to appease it is to write horror stories. I don't like stuff where the hero always wins out because justice has no place in horror either. Sometimes the hero and the villain are the same character. Sometimes the villains win and the heroes meet with ghastly deaths. When you see the villain/monster die in flames at the end of a movie, it's over. Why not let it live and enjoy the possibility that it just may turn up at your bedroom window in the middle of the night? Isn't that sooo much sexier?If you want to get in touch please feel free to do so. But no stalkers please. I'm fully booked in that department until somewhere around January 2025! I can be reached via my e-publisher at:[e-mail] - please put 'FAO John Vault' in the subject header and I'll get it.

Book preview

Looking after Granddad.

By

John Vault.

SMASHWORDS EDITION.

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PUBLISHED BY:

HiRisc Publications on Smashwords.

Looking after Granddad.

Copyright © 2011 by John Vault.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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HiRisc Publications has rated this work suitable for readers of 16 years or older.

It may contain frequent use of strong language, horror themes, violence or descriptions of a sexual nature. Reader discretion is advised.

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This work is dedicated to those who look after old people. Especially the poor unfortunate soul who may eventually have to put up with me.

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Contents.

Introduction.

Looking after Granddad.

About the author.

Also by John Vault.

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Introduction.

Elderly people are many things, ancient, impatient and slow to name but a few, and in a world made for the young we often hear these words in place of the more appropriate terms; experienced, bored and tired. Other cultures hold their elders in high esteem while we in the western world merely wait for them to move on, their wisdom disregarded, their achievements superseded and their belongings inherited. It is always refreshing to find therefore that the occasional 'wrinkly' just won't go down without a fight.

Looking after Granddad is the tenth and final chapter of Uncle John's Bedtime Tales by John Vault.

Enjoy.

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Looking after Granddad.

Billy Giles stepped into the large lounge and looked around him at the plain beige décor and the industrial grade grey carpet. There were several elderly people dotted around the walls in high seat armchairs. Some were chatting, though not necessarily to each other, and one particularly skeletal old woman was staring off into the distance sucking ferociously on her false teeth. The television was uncomfortably loud but no-one else seemed to mind.

'You'll have to get used to the noise.' Orlando informed him. 'Most of them are stone deaf so if you turn it down someone will just turn it up again. They may be old and infirm but they don't take any shit.'

'No.' Billy sniffed. 'I suppose that's my job.'

'Most of it, yes.' Orlando nodded. 'We like to refer to it as starting at the bottom, since that's where you'll spend the majority of your time for the first year.'

'Great.' Billy grimaced.

'Take it from me, we've all been there.' Orlando grinned. 'I've wiped more backsides than I care to remember. There was a time when I thought I'd never manage to wash the smell of shit out of my skin, but you get through it. You'll get your training fully funded by the nursing home but only you can put the work in, so until you're good at something all you get to do with these people is feed one end and wipe the other, okay?'

Orlando led him out of the lounge and down a wide corridor lined with pale grey doors. Beside each door was a small notice board displaying each occupant's name and main carer. They stopped at door number twelve. The notice board had the name Leo McDonald scribbled on it.

'In many ways you got a lucky break when you got Leo.' Orlando told him while pressing the doorbell. 'He's still quite young by our standards so if he shits his pants he mostly has the sense to tell someone about it instead of sitting in it for half a day.' He pressed the bell again. 'On the other hand, he's still strong