Put On Your Happy Face

By Tim Mendees

Brian Campbell is a young reporter hungry for the case that will make his career. When a series of strange deaths start occurring in his home city of Manchester, he is drawn into a conspiracy older than the human race. Madness and death dog his every step as something unspeakable lurking in the world's waterways prepares to break free from its shackles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tim Mendees
• Release date: May 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005018238

Book preview

PUT ON

YOUR

HAPPY FACE

A SHORT STORY

By TIM MENDEES

Horror is the removal of masks.

― Robert Bloch.

I first became embroiled in the chain of seemingly disparate events that led to the dire circumstances that I currently find myself in, back when I was a journalist in Manchester. As is the case with all young, ambitious free-lance journos I was hungry for a decent case to get my teeth into. I began my journalistic career on the Manchester Evening News working on local interest stories. Community gardening projects, cats stuck up trees and the like. Finally, I earned my stripes and had worn through enough shoe-leather that I was moved up to the glamorous position of junior crime-reporter.

Sadly, the big case I was looking for when I got the promotion never came; and for three miserable years, I was stuck on burglaries, muggings and the odd drug-bust. The juicy murder or government sleaze that every good journo wants to use to springboard their career had never transpired. The initial rush of optimistic excitement that I got from my promotion quickly dampened, then soaked and eventually drowned. I felt like I had missed the boat, that I had missed my big opportunity. I was convinced that I was doomed to a career of depressing stories about drugged-up scally’s rolling old ladies for their pension money. Then slowly, a case of a strange, mysterious and terrifying nature unfurled right under my nose.

I was sinking the latest of several pints of bitter in a run-down boozer by the canal when a colleague came bursting through the door. The Eagle was the primary watering hole for journalists and a few of the looser lipped members of the Greater Manchester police force. The young lad was soaked to the bone by the omnipresent horizontal drizzle that was such a boon to the textile industry. His face was flushed from running, and he panted excitedly when he got to the table I shared with other MEN reporters. Flapping his arms like a demented pigeon, he blurted out, There’s been another one!

Another what? I asked. I had no knowledge of any ongoing cases and wondered what in Hades he was prattling on about.

Another drowning! … Just down the road.

So? Asked Jimmy, a surly old devil who worked in the copy-room. Just another bloody suicide lad, probably some fat cat banker who lost his bonus or summat. In the then-recent climate of banker-hate in the wake of the Lloyds and RBS bail-out packages, Jimmy’s quip garnered more than a few chuckles from the table.

Never mind that mardy old sod lad, I’ll get ye a jar, and you can tell me what you’re banging on about, I said, putting my arm around his sopping-wet shoulder and guiding him away from the table and up to the bar.

Charlie was a fresh-faced apprentice that covered the same tedious local interest stories that I once