DEAD WINTER: A CRYPTIC Anthology

Just Jack • Shaun Allan

Accidents happen. It's a fact of life. No matter what you do or how vigilant you are, Fate likes to stick out her leg and trip you up. She likes to see you go flying and sprawl out in the spillage or fragments of whatever you were holding. She likes to scare the animal to make it run in front of your car and cause you to swerve. She feels for the tree you hit, but finds it difficult to particularly care. She's had her fun. She doesn't get much. Accidents are her playtime before she has to return to helping the world turn.

A weighty responsibility.

And I had responsibility which weighed on my shoulders too, so I empathised. When I slipped on the old, discarded newspaper, unnoticed in the dim light of the gloomy attic, my foot had hit the wooden wall, breaking it. My back had slammed down on the floor, knocking my breath from my lungs to tango with the thick cloud of dust which had leapt up into the air at my impact. I laid there, winded, hurting and stunned for a long moment while the haze of neglect threatened to clog my lungs and induce a prolonged coughing fit. My foot was jammed into a hole in the boarding which lined the loft, changing it from a cold, spooky space to a cold, spooky room.

I swore, loudly. Pulling my foot free, I swore again as my shoe came off and I heard it drop with a dull, flat, thud. The stark winter outside was seeping in through the gaps in the roofing and caressing me with its cold fingers. I shivered, a movement which encompassed the tremble of a shudder at the prospect of having to put my hand through and rummage around in the untouched darkness behind the wall.

Closing my eyes against the grimace on my face, I reached in and down. Luckily, I didn't have to probe too far before I found my shoe and started to pull it out.

Something crawled across my hand.

I recoiled, dropping my shoe and scraping my hand against the splintered edge. I swore. It was the third time in as many minutes. Perhaps the shadow soaked attic was unnerving me. The single bulb hung bare from the middle of the ceiling, a newborn Sauron's eye watching me closely. Mocking me.

OK! Spiders are just little creatures with long legs. We weren't like Australia and the like, where the spiders were little creatures with long legs and venom. We had the unarmed type, happy to scare you but unable to follow up on any threat. I gritted my teeth and reached back in.

Nothing ran across my hand this time but, when I felt something bulky and pulled it out, it wasn't my shoe. It was a box. Very old and faded, with a tiny latch on the front. On the top was carved an ornate 'J'.

My initial. J for Jack. I wondered if the box had belonged to my grandfather. I bore his name, after a fashion. He had been Joseph and my parents didn't like the fact it would be abbreviated to Joe so called me Jack.

It was also a tribute to the ludicrous allegations against my grandfather. Murderer. As if. From what my father told me, even though our lineage wasn't well known - having apparently sprung forth from the loins of a notorious serial killer wasn't something you advertised - his brief memories, distant of Joseph Barnett were pleasant.