Oddly enough, p.1
Oddly Enough, page 1
Oddly Enough
Tales of the Unordinary (volume one)
Kim M. Watt
Copyright © 2021 by Kim M. Watt
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Buy the book. Gift the book. Read the book. Borrow the book. Talk about the book. Share the book. Just don’t steal the book.
Book thieves will have sock monsters and demons of minor inconvenience wished upon them.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
But never underestimate how weird - and coincidental - life is.
For further information contact www.kmwatt.com
Cover design: Monika McFarland, www.ampersandbookcovers.com
Editor: Lynda Dietz, www.easyreaderediting.com
ISBN this edition: 978-0-473-61066-1
ISBN KDP ebook: 978-0-473-61067-8
ISBN KDP paperback: 978-0-473-61065-4
ISBN IngramSpark paperback: 978-0-473-61068-5
First Edition December 2021
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Before We Begin
1. The Chicken & the Universe
2. Dragons & Knights
3. Glenda & the Horsemen of the Apocalypse
4. Anatidaephobia
5. Understanding Fences
6. Curse of the Sock Monster
7. Coffee, Cake, & Ghoulets
8. You Can Get Anything at the Market
9. The Pie of Hate
10. All Wishes Are Granted
11. Plausible Deniability
12. An Unconditional Rescue
13. The Lizards are Anxious
14. A Demon of Small Frustrations
15. Organ Thieves
16. The Water Hazard
17. That Time of the Month
18. A Significant Debt
19. Spandex Always Fits
20. Autumn’s Done
21. Products of Unknown Origin
22. A Memorable Cruise
23. Stay Tidy
24. A Risk of Sexy Armour
Read On, Lovely People
Thank You
Meet Gobbelino London, PI
Mistletoe & Sneaking Unease …
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Also by Kim M. Watt
To you, lovely people.
The ones who see the weird side of things.
The funny side too, sometimes.
But mostly the weird.
These are your stories.
Before We Begin
Hello lovely people.
* * *
Thank you so much for stopping by. I don’t normally go in for forewords, or introductions, or prefaces or preludes or any of that stuff that happens before we get to the good bits. I mean, it’s not like anyone reads them, right? So I’m likely talking to myself here, but as I think that’s a pretty good description of writing in general, we may as well continue.
* * *
Herein are a few notes on what to expect from this book:
* * *
Chickens! Rubber ducks! Demons! Sea monsters! Pies! Apocalypses! (Apocalypi?)
* * *
But you already probably expected that, so let’s talk a few details.
* * *
If you’ve been around the newsletter and blog for a while, it’s likely you’ll have run across some or even a number of the stories in this collection. I’ve given them a dust off and a lick of polish, straightened their collars and brushed their hair, but many of these have appeared online previously. However, a number of readers have asked about having them in book form, which I completely understand. After spending all day staring at words on a screen, I’m definitely a fan of not reading online, but rather on a page, or at least a different screen. A nice ereader-type one.
* * *
So here we have nineteen older stories, some familiar, and some not. And we have five brand new ones, all shiny and startled-looking. And I hope you enjoy every single one of them.
* * *
Unfortunately, it appears I’ve written more short stories than I thought, so in order to stop this turning into an impossibly hefty tome I’ve not included all of them (and have, in fact, added an extra downloadable one at the end, just for you). I apologise now if your favourite didn’t make it this time, but I do plan to do another collection in a year or so, so I promise to include it then. Jump to the website or social media and drop me a message if you want to make sure I don’t miss it!
* * *
As for how this book works … Well, a Twitter poll (because this is the only way to gauge public opinion, obviously), convinced me that readers like to know a little about where each story came from. Or where I suspect it may have come from, as stories are their own strange creatures, full of erratic life, quick and slippery as fish in the night. But I have included notes, and please feel free to ignore them or read them as you wish. You don’t need them to enjoy the stories.
* * *
And finally, please read these stories any way you fancy. They’re in no way sequential or chronological. Devour them in one gulp, first to last. Read them backwards. Read odd numbers today and even ones tomorrow, or choose them based on star signs or days of the month or how many seeds were in your watermelon. Dip in and out. Keep the collection handy for when you need a quick read while waiting at the dentist’s or bus stop. Do whatever you will with them. They’re your stories now, and I only hope that you enjoy them.
* * *
Thank you once again, lovely people. Thank you for reading, for your lovely messages, for answering newsletter and social media questions, for suggesting titles and chapter names, and for being on this strange writing journey with me. Thank you for loving the possibilities of magic on the edges of our profoundly odd world.
* * *
Thank you for being you.
* * *
Now come on in and meet the stories. It’s perfectly safe, I promise. They’re almost all house-trained, and they almost never bite.
* * *
Not hard, anyway …
* * *
Kim x
* * *
Want to be in touch? Find me via my website at www.kmwatt.com, or jump to the social media links below.
The Chicken & the Universe
The writer leans back in her chair and takes a sip of tea. “Of course, there is an endless well of possible ideas. So much to choose from, but one must consider the freight of meaning and message behind the stories. The symbolism. The weight of metaphor.”
The listener nods gravely. “So what do they mean, these stories?”
The writer smiles. “What do you think they mean?”
* * *
So … That writer is not me, evidently. But here’s a story about a chicken, because someone said to me that chickens are cool, and we should have more stories about chickens.
That’s good enough for me.
The sunset had been low and red, staining the stretched black clouds that littered the horizon the colour of cinders, and turning the leafless trees on the fells into blasted, skeletal remains. In the brooding darkness that followed, the fire on the peak was the only light to be seen, flimsy as it was. The wind whined and spat around it, stealing embers and flinging them aloft. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled, but up here was only bare rock and frozen earth, dimly lit by the fire and surrounded by a grinding, angry dark that seemed to resent being held at bay.
“Here, move the tablecloth,” someone said. “It’s going to catch light.”
“It’s not a tablecloth,” another man said, sounding irritated. “It’s the cloth for the altar.”
“Well, it were a tablecloth when I bought it. And it’s going to be a fire hazard in a minute.”
There was some grumbling, then someone emerged from the deep shadows around the fire and crouched to gather up the altar cloth (which still had a Tesco Home sticker on it), a bag of black candles, and a cardboard box that clucked in alarm as he lifted it. He tripped on the hem of his dark robe as he turned to move away from the fire, and almost dropped the box.
“Careful!” the man who’d been worried about the tablecloth said. “She’s a good layer, that chicken. Don’t want to lose her.”
Still clutching the box, Scott glared at his companion, a big man with thinning hair wearing a large plaid dressing gown over a worn winter fleece.
“Why on earth did you bring a chicken you don’t want to lose?” he demanded.
“She was easy to catch,” the big man said, and took a mouthful from a can of lager. “Not that she probably will be again after this.”
“Well, no. She’s – it’s a sacrifice, Glen. You won’t need to catch it after this, because its soul will have been offered to the Eldritch Ones.”
Glen frowned. “You didn’t say anything about a sacrifice.”
“I told you we needed to make an offering.”
“Yeah, but I thought we’d just sort of offer her up, and they’d say, well, thanks, but we don’t really want a chicken. No one ever really says yes to that sort of thing, do they?”
Scott put the box d own safely out of reach of the fire and pinched the bridge of his nose. What had he been thinking, getting Glen involved in this? The man was wearing a dressing gown, for the Old Ones’ sakes. He tugged on the sleeves of his own, rather more appropriate black robe and took some comfort in the heavy material. With any luck the Eldritch Ones would just eat Glen and his damn chicken at the same time.
“Glen—” he began.
“Have a lager. You’re very stressed.” The big man was holding a can out to him, smiling encouragingly. “Look, it’s a beautiful night and you’re all wound up. We can sort this chicken thing out later.”
Scott took the beer with a sigh. He may as well. It was only six o’clock. He was going to have to put up with this sort of male bonding ridiculousness until midnight.
Scott watched as Glen threw another log onto the fire, sending sparks belching up into the darkness. The stars were out, cold little pinpricks above them, but there was no moon. Not tonight. It was the perfect night to bridge the gaps between dimensions, to draw unseen terrors into being and send the world reeling into madness. He sipped his beer and smiled contentedly. The only downside was having to put up with Glen, but he had needed some extra muscle for carting the wood for the fire, as well as a Land Rover to get them here, and also the potential for a human sacrifice handy in case the chicken didn’t do the trick.
He’d been planning this for a long time. A long time. His grandfather’s old books had held all sorts of hints and conjectures, and it had taken Scott most of his teenage years to really understand what the old man had been hinting at. Power. Eternal life. Riches. Adoration. But most of all, yes – power. He’d spent the last two decades deepening his research, even earning a PhD in obscure religions and philosophies. It was amazing the material libraries and museums gave you access to as soon as you mentioned writing dissertations.
And now … here. Here, in the heavy night of the winter solstice, on one of those terrifying nodes of land where nothing wanted to grow, that even the birds avoided, here with the fire burning and the darkness pressing down around them, and he could almost touch the thin edges of the cosmos, almost taste the glory of—
“You want a sandwich?” Glen asked. “I’ve got roast beef and horseradish or cheese and pickle. I couldn’t remember if you were vegetarian or not.”
Scott almost crushed the half-full can of lager, then forced his hand to relax, not without difficulty. “You realise this isn’t a picnic?” he snapped.
Glen regarded the sandwiches, one in each huge hand. Scott could see thick slabs of white bread through the clingfilm, and his stomach grumbled unhelpfully. “I don’t see how you can do your ritual thingy on an empty stomach,” Glen said. “I mean, it must be tough work, summoning ancient gods and so on.”
Scott peered at him in the uncertain light, not quite sure if his cousin was joking or not. He was such an uneducated lump that it was hard to tell sometimes. Still, at least he hadn’t objected to Scott’s ‘experiment into the beliefs and rituals of certain early cultures that inhabited the area’.
“Cheese and pickle,” he said. “Too much red meat is bad for you.”
Glen handed him the sandwich, and sat down cross-legged on the rough ground. “Maybe. Probably more so for you office types. The rest of us burn it off.”
Scott opened his mouth to point out that it was less about metabolism and more about arteries and cholesterol, then took a bite of sandwich instead. There was no point arguing with someone like Glen. He’d be irrelevant before long anyway.
Midnight took a long time to arrive. Glen marched around their perch high atop the moors, dressing gown flapping about his legs in the wind, pointing out favourite constellations and talking about some irrelevant local history, while producing a seemingly never-ending variety of snacks from the cooler in the back of the Land Rover. He even started singing at some point, and Scott seriously considered making some sort of pre-sacrifice of him, just to shut him up.
But finally the alarm on Scott’s phone went off, and he scrambled from the front of the 4×4, where he’d been sheltering both from the cold and Glen. Thirteen black candles already circled the fire, nestled into tall glass sleeves to protect them from the wind (Glen had called them ‘very designer’, but Scott figured the Eldritch Ones wouldn’t mind too much), and he crouched to light the first of them. He was surprised to find his hand shaking, and it took three attempts with the long kitchen lighter before the wick caught. Blood was roaring in his ears, and he started to mumble the words of the chant under his breath. They worked like a mantra, the harsh syllables focusing his mind, his tongue struggling with the familiar yet clumsy shape of them.
“Bring the chicken,” he commanded Glen, drawing an ancient stone knife etched with ugly engravings from under his robe.
Glen looked unimpressed. “I thought we were offering her to them? What’s the knife for?”
“I told you it was a sacrifice. What did you think – I was going to put a bow and a gift tag on it?”
“She’s not an it. Her name’s Elsa.”
“Elsa?” Scott managed to ease his grip on the knife’s cloth-wrapped handle. He didn’t want to damage it. If this didn’t work, he was going to have to smuggle it back into the museum in Alaska. But it would work, if his cousin would just stop being such a pain and give him the damn chicken.
“The girls named her.” Glen picked up the box and cradled it protectively.
“I’ll replace her. It.” Scott beckoned impatiently, and his phone beeped. Five minutes.
“You can’t just replace her. It wouldn’t be her!”
“It’s a chicken!”
“It’s Elsa!”
The men glared at each other across the ring of firelight, the candles guttering in the wind and smelling faintly of liquorice.
“Give me the chicken,” Scott said, in the manner of someone who knows he will be commanding dark forces within the hour.
“No,” Glen said, in the manner of someone who loves his chicken.
“Glen. I need the chicken.”
“No.” Glen took a step back. “I did not agree to you slaughtering Elsa.”
“Stop calling it Elsa! You’re making it worse!”
“Stop calling her an it! And put the knife down. You always were a weird little sod.”
“I’m not weird. And at least I’m not some uneducated farmer!”
“You’re trying to kill my chicken. You’re weird.”
“I am not weird!” Scott forgot all about preserving the ancient knife and ran at Glen with it raised over his head, shrieking the guttural words of the summoning spell as he went. The night shivered and pulsed. Glen, half-turned to run for the Land Rover, stopped mid-stride and stared in horror as colours writhed across the sky. They were greens and purples and reds, but not like any the men had seen before. They were the colours of putrefaction, of old bruises and rotting wounds, but worse, much, much worse, and they moved with unseen life, as if something terrible pushed against the sky from beyond.
“Yes!” Scott screamed. “Yes, yes, yes! Come to me, ancient ones! Come to me!”
“You freaky little—” Glen threw himself out of the smaller man’s way, losing his grip on the box as he stumbled over the rough ground. He fell to one knee, catching himself on his hands, and the box tumbled end over end twice before the seams split. A pretty but bedraggled bantam hen squeezed herself out and bolted, swerving drunkenly from side to side as she ran. “No, Elsa!”
