Horror stories

—and we've always filled the tags in the same way, that's the point, that's what I keep trying to tell you. Owner's name goes on the claim slip. Finder's name goes on the tag itself, tied to the…

THREE WEEKS AGO The laminate was still tacky when we found it, that new-plastic smell clinging to the corkboard outside the bus shelter. Our board only ever carries tomorrow's notices. That's the…

We keep the rules taped inside the cupboard where the winding handle lives, typed up by our gran in 1994 and added to since in three different hands. The tape's gone yellow and lifts at one corner,…

We were wrapping the good plates in newspaper, badly. Sue kept using yesterday's paper, the wet bit from where the milk had leaked, and half the sheets came apart in your hand before you'd got the…

We drain the pool the last Sunday of September, always, and for three nights after we don't go near the deep end. That's the rule. Dad never explains it beyond, "because your gran said so," and…

"—and I said leave it, Callum, leave it where it is, but you never bloody listen." That's Mam, hissing it across the mud while the headlamps swing between us. Gone eleven, and we're a mile out on the…

“—no refunds, love, it says so on the sign.” Denise hadn’t asked for one. She’d only picked the photo up to look at it properly, out of the plastic sleeve, and the woman behind the trestle table had…

He starts the way he's started it every time now, flat, like reciting a phone number. "It was a two-pence token. Off-colour, heavier than it should've been. I found it wedged under the claw machine,…

There was no second thirteenth floor. Priya told the fire warden that three times before he stopped nodding at her like she was concussed, and even then he wrote something in his little book that she…

"—so that's rule four, and I know it sounds daft, but you'll understand by Thursday." Maureen hands over the laminated sheet like it's nothing. She's watching Priya's face all the same. The sheet is…

Ray watched his niece iron the same sleeve for the third time. The crease still ran crooked, however hard she pressed it, and her mind was clearly somewhere else. She kept checking her phone on the…

—so I says to her, don't touch the cord, whatever you do, and she looks at me like I've lost it. I hadn't even started the story yet. That's the thing about Priya, she wanted the explanation before…

Marion heard the engine first. A narrowboat, she thought, some idiot running late for the Sallow Lock before the paraffin lamp went out at ten. The diesel chug carried flat across the water, the way…

The fitted sheet won't sit right. I've done this corner a thousand times, tuck under, fold up, tuck under, and tonight my hands keep losing the shape of it because my phone's going off in my apron…

I never read past the header line. Doesn't matter whose job it is, doesn't matter if it's a wedding invite or a court filing, I slide the ruler down and I only look at what's above it. Ask the others…

I never deliver to the Hollis place unless it's raining. That's the rule. Doesn't matter if the paper's soaked through and useless by the time it hits the step. If the sky's dry, I skip number 14 and…

"So you're saying it moved four metres in three weeks." I say it flat, because if I say it any other way my voice will do something I don't want it to do. Deko doesn't answer that. He never answers…

"No, I never saw him. That's the first thing you should know." Dennis says this before I've asked a single question, before I've even got my coffee off the counter at the Wetherspoons near Preston…

"—and I told her it's just a stain, Denise, everyone's got a stain like that on a rented carpet, it doesn't mean anything." Marion says this over the rim of her mug, not looking at me. We're at her…

I'm polishing the spoons wrong. Mam's good spoons, the ones with the roses worn thin on the handles, and I've done the same one three times because my hand keeps stopping halfway through the stroke…