Bramble and Other Stories

By Dale Parnell

What if the world was a darker, stranger place than you imagined?
The people who live on Old Market Street have always taken the track for granted; an old decommissioned railway line that ran along the bottom of their gardens. But then one day, bramble vines start making their way through the gaps in their fences, and as one family discovers, this is just the beginning.
Bramble and other stories offers tales of ghosts, monsters and intergalactic refugees. Tales of technology just out of our reach and stories that show just how powerful an idea can be.
Bramble and other stories is the second short story collection by Dale Parnell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale Parnell
• Release date: Feb 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463317181

Dale Parnell

Dale Parnell was born and raised in Norwich and now lives in Staffordshire with his wife and their imaginery dog, Moriarty. Dale has been writing, in various forms, for most of his adult life and finds short stories the most enjoyable. His first collection, "The Green Cathedral" includes some of his oldest works along with more recent pieces.Following on from his acceptance in two charity poetry anthologies, Dale published his first collection of poetry, "If I Were Not Me" in February 2019. He has been reading his poems at a few local open mic events and festivals and enjoys being a part of the local poetry community.Dale released his second collection of short stories, "Bramble and Other Stories" in 2019, this time exploring science-fiction and horror as well as contemporary fantasy.

Book preview

Bramble and other stories

Copyright © Dale Parnell 2019

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by Thelma Parnell

All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is a coincidence.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any way without prior permission of the author.

For my wife, Thelma

With love, always

Dedicated to my parents, Sandra and John

I wouldn’t be the man I am today without you both

All my love and endless thanks

With thanks –

Thank you to everyone who bought and read my first collection, The Green Cathedral, and for all your kind words and reviews, it really does mean a lot to me.

Thank you to my wife, Thelma, for designing the book cover and for her endless help and suggestions with so many of the stories here.

Thank you to my sisters-in-law, Chelsea and Heidi, for their help with the story Due Date.

Thank you to Tom and Nick, for helping with the proof reading and for your feedback.

Thank you to everyone that has invited me to read at their spoken word events and to everyone that came along to listen.

And finally, thank you to you, for picking up this book. I hope you enjoy it.

Contents

The Swan’s Rest

Curse

Bramble

Hair

Memory of a Past Life

Hungry

House Clearances Available

Masks

Our House

Relations

The Last Train Home

How to End a Thought

Adam 2.0

Due Date

The Garden

The Swan’s Rest

It was March 25th 1976 when I went public. I gave a statement, submitted myself for all manner of tests and examinations, I was even interviewed by a representative of the Prime Minister – apparently trying to establish whether I constituted a threat to the general public. As for the public themselves, they couldn’t get enough of me and pretty soon they were queuing up around the block to shake my hand and have a photograph taken with me.

An immortal man living in a bedsit above a pub.

The Swan’s Rest has been here for just over three hundred years, it’s the oldest pub in the city. I helped build it, back when I worked as a carpenter, so I’ve always had a soft spot for the place. It has somehow managed to avoid any remodelling, so that apart from the television in the corner and an update to the electrical wiring, most of it is as it was the first day it opened.

In the early days, when I first started going there, it was about more than nostalgia. The place has always had a little bit of a reputation – dim lighting and small alcoves of dark, almost black wooden furniture made it the ideal place for private dealings. I’ve seen a great many things change hands in those rooms, some of them of questionable legality. There was an anonymity to the place, which for someone like me also gave a sense of safety. Before I went public with what I am, I was convinced that if anyone found out about me I would be hunted down and killed – either through fear or resentment. I always pictured a crazed mob chasing me down, demanding to know why I was so special, what right did I have to immortality? It took me a long time to realise that it’s not about being special. It’s not a gift or a blessing from God. It’s a joke, a joke that everyone gets except me.

The first question everyone always asks is, ‘how did it happen?’ I’ve told a hundred different stories; magic potions, ancient curses, I even had one fool believing I had met a unicorn. The truth? I don’t honestly know if I understand what the truth is. It wasn’t like it was made clear to me what had happened – there was no flash of light or great, booming voice. It was more of a slow realisation, that after years of living I wasn’t ageing the same as everyone else. My hair stayed brown, my back strong and straight, my eyes clear and focused. As everyone around me began to wilt and age, I remained the same. But it wasn’t until I buried my wife and then my children that I knew for sure that I was different.

I travelled when I could. I feared discovery more than anything else and always moved on before people could grow suspicious. I’ve never taken another wife. There have been other women, a great many women, but I could not bear to bury another wife. That pain never quite heals.

I had been travelling for a long time, moving from place to place; ten years here, twenty there. I saw a lot of the world and I watched it change, until finally I had had enough. I was tired and all I wanted most of all was to go home. When I got into town and found that The Swan was still standing it was as if it was meant to be. The landlord at the time; a tall, shaggy haired bloke named John, agreed to rent me a room above the pub. Soon I was helping out downstairs, taking in deliveries and scrubbing down the flagstones at the end of the night. When the locals started asking questions I moved on, for a while at least, but I always ended up back here. I think John may have had some inkling that something was different about me, although he never said a word. But when he died he left instructions in his will that my room be left vacant, and that anyone who could produce the key be allowed to stay and work the bar. The story became a local legend, but each subsequent landlord and landlady has always honoured the deal.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the past. So much has happened that sometimes it’s difficult to remember the details clearly. My mind is so full, that people and places get muddled up; was I in Rome in 1850 or Paris? I remember a beautiful woman in a yellow dress, but can’t recall if it was Rebecca in 1796, or Ruth in 1953? But lately a very specific memory has come back to me, stronger than any for a long, long time.

It is 1679. I don’t know what year I was born, but I reckon I was around my mid-twenties at the time. I was playing cards and it was late. There were four of us to begin with, old faces that hover just out of reach. And then a gentleman appeared. He was dressed finely, the buttons on his great, black coat gleamed in the gaslight. He dropped a heavy purse on to the table and was dealt into the game. He barely talked all evening, of that I am certain. His voice, when he eventually spoke, was like treacle; smooth and sickly. I don’t recall how the night played out, only that by the end it was just him and me – and the last hand to play. He laid down two sevens, I laid two jacks. The pot was mine, more money than I had ever seen, enough for a lifetime, or so I thought. The gentleman collected his coat and hat, and staring down at me he smiled; a cold, dead smile that flashed teeth for barely a moment. And then he was gone.

And so now, when the doors to the pub are pulled closed, and the few remaining drinkers sidle up to the bar to swap stories and tall tales, I tell them -

I beat the devil at cards, and he damned me for it.

Curse

My mother’s Aunt Lisbeth (never Elizabeth) is a hateful old cow. I know you shouldn’t speak about family like that, but there you go. When I was younger Mum would visit her once a week, taking groceries and whatnot round, and I was always put to work with whatever chores needed doing around the house. And not once did she thank me. She never offered me a biscuit or a cake, the way that most elderly relatives do, and she never showed the least bit of interest in any of the minor childhood achievements that Mum would relate to her. The house was old and damp and it always smelled musty. She had that painting of a crying child at the top of the stairs and it always terrified me – I mean who wants to look at a crying child every day?

As I got a little bit older I tried to rebel. I’d whinge and complain every Saturday morning, trying to convince Mum that I didn’t need to go with her. I came up with a hundred different excuses; homework, football practise, meeting friends, anything I could think of to stay at home whilst she went to visit Aunt Lisbeth. But Mum always insisted – she said it was important to look after family members, especially the older ones. I used to wonder if part of the reason Mum insisted I go with her was to make sure she didn’t have to go alone. It wasn’t like Aunt Lisbeth was nice to Mum either, no matter what she did for her.

When Mum got cancer, I moved back home to look after her. It didn’t take long, less than six months, and that was it. I was twenty-three and alone in the world, well, almost alone. During the last few days Mum had been pretty much completely out of it, but on one particular afternoon she suddenly became lucid and we managed to speak for a short while. She told me she loved me and I cried – I think we both knew that this could be the last conversation we had. She talked about Dad, something she very rarely did, and about her parents who I never met. And then she talked about Aunt Lisbeth.

I want you to promise me that you’ll keep visiting her, she said, her voice cracking, struggling for breath.

I will, I said, although in truth I didn’t really mean it. And in that way that all mums can, she saw through the empty platitude and called me on it.

I mean it Zach. She’s the only family left. I know she’s a pain in the arse, but she’s an old, lonely woman and it’s important. For me OK? Do it for me.

I squeezed her hand and nodded. She had me.

Aunt Lisbeth didn’t come to the funeral, but she sent flowers, which was something I suppose. After a few weeks of putting Mum’s affairs in order and sorting through the house, which had been left to me, I was still plagued by the nagging guilt of not visiting Aunt Lisbeth. Tomorrow was Saturday, Mum’s usual day, and so, reluctantly, I phoned and told her I would be popping round and asked if she needed anything.

Tea, she almost barked in reply, and not that awful stuff they stick in those little paper bags! Proper tea.

I asked her if she liked any brand in particular, but she had already hung up the phone. I stabbed the button on my mobile and swore angrily, searching the room for something I could smash or rip apart. Mum’s portrait smiled down at me from the mantelpiece, the picture we had used at the funeral, and I let the frustration out in a long, angry breath.

I’m only doing this for you, I told the picture, and went back to packing up boxes of clothes for the charity shops.

The next morning was clear and bright, and by nine o’clock it was already twenty-five degrees. We’d had a hot August so far and today seemed likely to be the hottest yet. There was a speciality tea shop in the city centre that I knew of, an old-fashioned place that sold loose tea from huge vintage barrels. My own tea drinking experience stretched as far as the occasional cup of Earl Grey, and an aborted attempt at trying a fruit flavoured concoction when the office kitchen ran out of the normal teabags. But this place had fifty or sixty different types, all with increasingly bizarre sounding names, several of which I couldn’t even hope of pronouncing, so there was no way I was asking the very pretty looking sales assistant for those. In the end I settled for a small packet of plain ‘Afternoon Tea’, and did my best to stay cool when the shop assistant charged me eleven pounds for it. I didn’t know what arrangement Mum had had with Aunt Lisbeth, but I suspected I wasn’t going to see that money again.

When I came out of the shop it felt even hotter, and I decided to walk the forty or so minute journey to Aunt Lisbeths, partly to enjoy the summer sunshine and partly to delay the inevitable. An hour later (OK, I had taken my time), I turned into Aunt Lisbeth’s road – a sycamore lined back street with a row of nineteen-thirties detached houses on each side. What had once been a fairly affluent area had started to slip in recent years, and I counted three cars supported on bricks in various driveways as I made my way down the street.

As I neared Aunt Lisbeth’s house, I started to hear it – whining and barking that got louder and louder until I found the source. A Labrador puppy was scrambling about on the back seat of a battered looking Ford Fiesta. The dog was panting heavily, and as I approached the car he practically smashed through the window to reach me. I looked up and down the street but couldn’t see anyone. I touched the roof of the car and had to pull my hand away, it was red hot – I could only imagine how unbearable it must be inside the car. Looking up at the house that the car was parked outside of, I spotted a lawn mower abandoned midway down the narrow strip of turf that made up the front garden, the electrical cable snaking away through the open front door. The dog was really barking now, possibly excited by my close proximity, and I tried to make reassuring noises through the closed windows to him. A noise behind me made me turn around, a middle-aged lady had appeared at the front door – a monster of a woman clad in ill-fitting denim shorts, a grubby looking white vest top and a pair of marigold gloves. She stopped mid stride and stared at me, then shifted her gaze past me to the dog in the car.

Shut the fuck up Tyrone!

I was shocked by the sudden outburst, but I pulled myself together and swallowed the knot that had formed in my mouth.

Hello, I offered, trying to sound as polite as I could.

Yeah, what? the woman replied, knocking the lawn mower over to replace the small plastic blade.

I just think your dog might be a bit hot, you know, it’s a bit warm and they say you shouldn’t keep a dog in a car without opening the windows.

The woman stood up, arms folded across her chest. Yeah? And who are you, fucking RSPCA?

No, I’m just… I just don’t think he’s very happy in there.

Yeah well, he can come out when I’m fucking ready, alright!

I could feel myself shaking, and I realised I was clenching my teeth. I just couldn’t believe that someone could be so dismissive, let alone so cruel. People like this just did and said what they liked, and no one could do a damn thing about it. The system was supposed to punish them, to make them stop doing it again, but I knew it didn’t happen like that. I could report the woman but by the time someone came out the dog would either be back inside and they couldn’t do anything, or worse, the dog would be dead and it would be too late. And in that moment something just snapped. Talking to the woman wouldn’t work, and shouting at her? Hell, she’d probably enjoy that. So I simply lifted the car door handle and opened the door. The dog bounced out of the car awkwardly and then sprinted up the short front garden and in through the open front door, hopefully to a bowl of water. The woman spun around and screamed after the dog, but it was too late. Then she was up and marching to the pavement, all swagger and bottled fury, ready to explode. And despite the impending violence I held my ground and stared her down. She stopped at the very edge of her garden, home territory I suppose, however nominal.

What the fuck did you do that for, you prick?

I couldn’t think of anything clever to say in reply, so I simply swung the car door closed, turned around and walked away, silently pacing across the road to the gate leading to Aunt Lisbeth’s house.

I’m calling the police, you twat!

I knocked on Aunt Lisbeth’s door and waited, for what seemed like an eternity, for her to answer and let me in. As the door closed behind me I could still hear the woman shouting after me, calling me ever more inventive names until she evidently ran out of the steam and went back indoors, her front door slamming loudly.

Good morning Aunt Lisbeth, I said, slightly out of breath and still shaking, feeling the anger dissolving. And for the first time in my entire life, she was stood there smiling at me, an actual, honest to goodness grin.

Cup of tea? she asked, before turning around and heading down the narrow hallway to the kitchen. I stood there stunned for a moment, and then followed after her, the only thought in my head being; I wonder what an eleven-pound cup of tea tastes like?

As it turns outs, the tea was very nice. Aunt Lisbeth had hers with a thin slice of lemon, and screwed her nose up a little when I asked for milk, but she didn’t pass comment. Whilst the tea was brewing in the pot she even laid out a plate with a small selection of biscuits. I was almost too scared to take one. And throughout the whole tea making ritual Aunt Lisbeth eyed me with a wry, half smile. When we were sat at the dining table she finally spoke.

So then, what was all that about?

I recounted the whole story, finally feeling brave enough to take a digestive biscuit from the plate and dunked it in my tea, careful not to drip any on the pristine tablecloth.

The worst part is, I added, "even if I did report her, nothing would happen. People like that always get