The desperate acceptance of Mormonism. It doesn't have to be this way

The desperate acceptance of Mormonism, it doesn't have to be this way, is the title of this post.

What do I mean by the desperate acceptance of Mormonism? My parents became Mormons when I was ten years old. As a family we all had the lessons from the missionaries who all had those little portable reel to reel tape recorders/players with the small-sized tapes reels that fitted on the top. I remember that when their was a quiet passage on one of the tapes the electronics in the tape player (they must have been incredibly badly shielded!) would pick up short wave radio transmissions. Often, ironically, Radio Moscow!

We all believed, my mother more so than anyone, I think, and we were all baptised. But when I was baptised I felt a strange, unpleasant feeling in my chest. It was as if something was wrong, very badly wrong, but I did not know what. In fact, it was not the baptism so much as the Confirmation that made me feel this way. I later rationalised this by telling myself it was the power of Satan trying to disturb my, or something.

When I was 16/17 I began to notice things that weren't quite right with the Mormon Church. But, as people say, I put them on a shelf and ignored them. I became an elder, served as a primary teacher, became Ward Executive Secretary but when I was in my early to mid 20s, I began to have doubts, serious doubts. But I internalised these. It was, I felt certain, all my fault. If I pray, all would be well. But I felt that there was something wrong with me. I had what I can only describe as a desperate acceptance of Mormonism. If Mormonism was not right, then what was?

Then one day I received an answer to my many prayers. I then knew that Mormonism was a fraud. It was like a heavy weight being removed from my shoulders. Like a yoke filled with sacks of cement being taken off. That was in 1981/82. It wasn't until the late 1990s when I found RFM (I had realised I might not be the only ex-Mormon and searched using the term ex-Mormon, imagine my shock and joy when one of the first sites I found was RFM!) it was a long and continuing process of learning and discovery, of finding out that not only was Mormonism not true, but a deliberate fraud and the damage it has caused -and causes to this very day- in the lives of millions of people.

I gave up my quiet, desperate belief in Mormonism. It wasn't easy. But as the first man to swim the English Channel, Captain Webb, said: "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy."

Remember Save the Frogs Day!

SAVE THE FROGS DAY EVENTS PLANNED WORLDWIDE APRIL 29TH
Prince’s wedding coincides with the world’s largest day of amphibian conservation

Santa Cruz, California Was Prince William a frog in a past life? Quite possibly, since he chose his wedding to take place on the 3rd Annual Save The Frogs Day, a worldwide celebration of amphibians also scheduled for April 29th. Frog lovers and environmentalists of all ages are gearing up for what is expected to be the largest day of amphibian education and conservation action in the planet’s history. The goal of Save The Frogs Day is to raise awareness of the rapid disappearance of frog species worldwide. Events are being planned in at least 15 countries, including the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, South Africa, and Australia. The events are being coordinated by SAVE THE FROGS! (www.savethefrogs.com), a California-based nonprofit dedicated to amphibian conservation.

Amphibian populations worldwide have been declining at unprecedented rates, and nearly
one-third of the world's amphibian species are threatened with extinction. Up to 200 species
have completely disappeared in recent years. Amphibians are faced with an onslaught of
environmental problems, including climate change, pollution, infectious diseases, habitat loss,
invasive species, and over-harvesting for the pet and food trades.

“The goal of Save The Frogs Day is to get people worldwide educating their fellow citizens about the plight of amphibians and ways they can help” says Dr. Kerry Kriger, Founder & Executive Director of SAVE THE FROGS!. “We are certainly hoping that Prince William and Kate Middleton will become spokespeople for the frogs, which are the most rapidly disappearing group of animals on the planet.”

The royal pair are not the only British couple with nuptials scheduled for Save The Frogs Day.
Frog fanatics Sabrina Jayne Labrina and Simon Pittman of Bournemouth set their big day to
coincide with Save The Frogs Day, and have even asked guests to donate to donate to SAVE
THE FROGS! in lieu of gifts.

Some other events scheduled for Save The Frogs Day include a large rally at the steps of the US
Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. “There are 18,000 registered pesticides in
the United States. One of the worst is Atrazine, an endocrine disruptor that can turn male frogs
into females at 2.5 parts per billion” says Dr. Kriger, who will be leading the rally and speaking
in front of the White House afterwards. Atrazine was banned in the European Union in 2004,
but eighty million pounds of it are used in the USA each year, primarily on corn. “Atrazine is

the 21st century’s DDT. We want it banned.” A frog legs protest will take place at a New York-
based chain restaurant that sells frog legs. In San Francisco, SAVE THE FROGS! supporters will
gather at the steps of City Hall to call on the city to save the Sharp Park Wetlands. The wetlands
are home to endangered California Red-Legged Frogs, but San Francisco currently pumps the
wetlands out to sea to accommodate a public golf course.

On the less serious side, Toronto’s frog enthusiasts will be celebrating Save The Frogs Day
with their 2nd Annual Frog Leap-a-Thon, a 250 meter race down the city’s boardwalk. Students
at Texas Tech University will attempt to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records
by organizing the largest gathering of people wearing frog masks in planetary history. In
Bangladesh, a 2km Frog Run is set to take place in the town of Chittagong. Students and teachers
in several countries will be taking part in the SAVE THE FROGS! Art & Poetry Contests, which
received entries from 27 countries last year.

You can learn more about Save The Frogs Day and events in your area, at:
www.savethefrogs.com/day

(EDITOR: The formatting is still not 100% right, but it will have to suffice for now)

Posting on World Frog Day scrapped

A posting on World Frog Day has been scrapped as the formatting went wrong. I'll try to load it up, later.

Mormons that are pseuds

There are some Mormons that are pseuds. They pretend that they have great knowledge. I recall one idiot, sorry!, one General Authority (I can't remember who he was, save that he was from Utah) who said to a Stake priesthood conference session when he was addressing the Aaronic Priesthood that the boys there knew more than the most learned religious scholars (he used the term scholars in a mocking, ironic fashion) and had more power in their little finger than the Pope and also more power in their little finger than their own mothers.

This statement bothered me and when I mentioned this to my mother she said: "Perhaps he should remember who did his cooking, ironing and cleaning and who looked after him when he was a little boy?"

Looking back on it, I can see that he was going against Bible teachings: "Honour Your Parents, but don't bother to honour your mother" is not in any Bible I have ever seen. But then, perhaps it is in a spcial Bible for pseud Mormons who pretend great knowledge of af all things, yet know far, far less than even the most relatively unlearned Bible Scholar?

Have you watched or listened to the Mormon General Conference?

I must admit, I have not.

The last time I bothered with the Mormon General Conference was when I was a believing Mormon in the early 1980s.

Since then, I have not bothered. Well, why on Earth would I? I know there's an argument for bothering to keep up with it so you know what they are up to, but I really cannot be bothered, to br quite frank!

Spring is here!

The clocks in the UK and in Ireland went back last weekend. Spring Forward, Fall back is an easy way to remember what we should do with the clocks. (Incidentally, Fall was the original name for Autumn in the UK, but Fall (short for Leaf Fall) fell out of favour in the UK, but is still more common than Autumn in the USA. Which is good, because Fall is a very evocative word.)

Lighter evenings, and the typical March weather, high winds, sunny spells and a fair amount of rain. March, it is said, comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. And then? Why then we have April, which is known for the April showers. Mind you, never cast a clout 'til May is out is the saying. Clout meaning coat/garment, and cast to cast off, or remove said garment. It means you can get frosts until quite late on in the month of May.

Well, happy Spring, folks!

That old passive aggression trick again

Is there someone in your life who likes to employ that old passive aggressive technique in order to goad you into an argument?

A sibling, partner, wife, husband, child, parent, employer, church leader, boss or co-worker?

They ask you apparently sweet and reasonable questions, try to help you by pointing out your many and varied faults: "I am really only doing this for your own good. You DO understand that, don't you?"

They also act like master magicians, employing techniques of misdirection and the verbal equivalent of prestidigitation that would make members of the Magic Circle gasp with admiration.

You also get blamed for things that are not your fault, and you are blamed for events that are beyond your control or totally outside your sphere of influence. This can often involve a masterful technique known as blame transfer. If X makes a mistake they often feel unable to take responsibility so they will blame the nearest person for that mistake.

"If YOU had not been standing there, I would not have dropped that bottle. Therefore even though I dropped the bottle it was your fault!"

"I had an argument with someone whilst I was out. I did not feel brave enough to call them on their bad behaviour. So somehow, and although this does not seem fair or logical, I will come home and foment an argument with you so that I can take out my anger and frustation on you!"

"Your brother/sister is special. You are not. I will make you the sacrificial goat aka whipping boy/girl so that the bad behaviour of your brother/sister will not go unpunished. It may seem unfair that your brother/sister gets away with their bad behaviour whilst you are unfairly punished, but that's just how things are, here. And, in years to come, when we have turned your brother/sister in to a monster, we will work out some passive-aggressive way of blaming YOU for that totally predictable turn of events, too."

Jealous?

Are some Mormons jealous of ex-Mormons? Do they resent the fact that we are perceived, by them and their fellow Mormons, as being more free than they are?

That if we want to drink tea, coffee alcohol, or a decaffeinated drink, that we can do so, without breaking the somewhat weird word of wisdom?

Is that why? Readers, please tell me what you feel about this via the comment section of this blog. Thank you!

An update on St Patrick's Day

Reader and online friend Alexis raised an interesting point. She wanted to know if Ireland celebrates St Patrick's Day in a similar way to America.

From what I can make out St Patrick's Day parades happen as bonding rituals outside of Ireland as a way for people of Irish decent to celebrate not only St Patrick's Day but to remember and celebrate their link with Ireland.

In Birmingham, my home town, there's a fairly big St Patrick's Day parade and much Guinness is drunk all over the UK in commemoration of the day. My wife is Catholic so it's a fairly big deal in our home. Though we often celebrate St Patrick's Day in the company of an atheist and her Sikh boyfriend!

In Ireland they look askance at things like dying beer and pet dogs green as I am led to believe sometimes happens in America. I think they take it a bit more as a serious religious festival, though do know how to party. As I know to my cost having had to help a very dear but sadly departed old Irish friend drink a large amount of wines, beers and spirits that she found in her cupboard. A couple of years ago we drank Champagne at least 40 years old with the price on it in Pounds, Shillings and Pence, the old currency not used since 1971 when we went decimal!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Yes, Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all the readers of my blog!

Japan

What can one say? The situation in Japan is horrible. The Earth quake followed by the Tsunami and how many people dead and homeless?

And so many homeless people aching for the return of family members and little children sobbing because they'll never see their pet dog, cat, rabbit or guinea pig ever again. And yes, those things ARE important to children.

It seems that every country, even some of the poorest, are sending something, such is the horror at what has happened.

It's time to do whatever we can, no matter how small it might seem. I will be making a donation toward the weekend. It's a small thing that I can do, but apart from praying, there's very little else that can be done.

Mormonism

Why does Mormonism cause such pain and such confusion and problems?

Is it because it was founded in bad faith? Created as a way to generate income for Joseph Smith and his family and a group of key followers? And as a way to get them as much illicit sex as they wanted?

After all, how could something good come out of something that was rooted in something that was so base and immoral?

We finally bought a Nintendo Wii!

Yes, we finally bought a Nintendo Wii!

As part of my wife's birthday present, we bought her the Wii Fit+ with the balance board. We used one of these several times at a friend's house and we liked it very much, so it was an easy buy for this year's birthday present for my wife!

She set it up this evening whilst I was entertaining out parrot in the study (she comes out of her parrot tower every evening for a couple of hours time with me, listening to Michael Jackson) when I came down later I had myself weighed by the Wii and I have lost some weight, I am 95kg, 15.5 stones.

I tried some of the exercises, but got on best with the freestyle stepping, doing 800 of these for the first time to see how it went. Well, I think!

We also played some tennis later (against the Wii) and my game is improving enough that I actually won some sets!

If you need exercise and can't be bothered with a gym, buy yourself a Wii, but get the balance board and the Wii Fit+ stuff. It means that you can get exercise, but without the expense of a gym membership that you probably -if you are like me!- would never seem to have enough time to go to attend the gym sessions.

But just switching your Wii on at home? Well, that's easy. Plus there's no need to waste time travelling to and from the gym!

The situation in New Zealand

The situation in New Zealand is dreadful and my heart goes out to the people in Christchurch who are suffering so dreadfully.

Has anyone set up a fund for offering financial help? If so, please leave a comment containing these details. Thank you.

Oedd Mormonism gwneud gelwyddog allan o chi?

Oedd Mormonism gwneud gelwyddog allan o chi?

Wyf wedi gweld pobl a ddaeth yn Mormons fel gweddus, gonest bodau dynol yn dod yn gelwyddog. Nid yw'n dros nos, mae'n cymryd amser, ond mae hynny'n digwydd.

Mae'n dechrau gyda llaeth o'r blaen cig, ond mae hyn yn aml fel esgus i ddweud yn gorwedd amlwg i bobl.

Er enghraifft, Mormons wedi gofyn Mormons eraill: "Ydyn nhw'n wisgo i fyny mewn gwisgoedd y deml LDS?"

Bydd yr ateb fel arfer yn cael ei "na!" Pa un yw, wrth gwrs, yn gelwydd.

You will notice that the above post in in Welsh. This is because my family originates in Wales and I want to say something in the language of my ancestors. Sadly the last person in my family with any Welsh was my late grandmother, so I have used Google Translate to translate this post into Welsh.

It is a translation of the previous post.

Did Mormonism make a liar out of you?

Did Mormonism make a liar out of you?

I have seen people who became Mormons as decent, honest human beings become liars. It's not overnight, it takes time, but it does happen.

It starts out with milk before meat, but this is often used as an excuse to tell blatant lies to people.

For example, Mormons have been asked by other Mormons: "Do they dress up in costumes the LDS temple?"

The answer will usually be "no!" Which is, of course, a lie.

The weather

Well, it's 2.52am and we are not sleeping. Due to the storm force winds that are battering our house.

The storm force winds that the Met Office forgot to tell us about until 24 hours AFTER they started.

I am not amused by their ineptitude. Perhaps if they spent more time predicting the weather than running computer models of global warming, they might be able to do a better job?

Should we expect that?

There's a newspaper website that carries news stories. (Doh! What else would it carry?!) Last Friday it carried a story about a new bra company in the UK called Curvy Kate (it's for ladies with large busts) and it is running a competition for women to model these new bras.

The hits on that story is about 5 to 6 times higher than for the other stories that the website runs!

www.curvykate.com is the website involved.

Should we have expected that? Or not?

TV show on how cults can damage families

Richard Packham has posted that a TV producer has asked for people to contact her regarding a programme they are making.

Richard writes: "I have been contacted by a television producer who is planning to do a series for the A&E network on families where an adult couple are having problems with parents or in-laws due to differences or changes in religion. She is looking now for families where the problem is Mormonism."

You can find all of the contact details on this link:-

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,90691,90691#msg-90691

Mormonism... It's just so empty!

Looking back on Mormonism, I realise now that it is just so empty.

There's nothing to it. I remember a General Authority saying: "We have no theologians in Mormonism!" and he was so proud of that. Like it was something to boast about!

Well, it certainly was nothing to be proud of, nothing to be boastful about!

Because that statement pointed out the inherent flaw of Mormonism.

Mormonism is an empty vessel, filled from time-to-time with whatever stuff the present leaders of the Mormon church want to fill it with. The next leader comes along, pours out the content of the vessel and then fills it with something else.

That's why there is no real continuity in Mormonism. Whilst they claim it is the same Church that Joseph Smith founded, allegedly the same Church that Jesus Christ founded, that's not only nonsense, it is an arrogant and asinine lie! And those at the top of Mormonism (the powers behind the thrones of the General Authorities) must be full aware of this fact.

Baptists, Church of England, Catholics, Methodists, Mormons have little in common with these sects/churches.

Mormonism has more in common with Amway, Noni Juice, Nu Skin, Mary Kay, Nature’s Sunshine Products, Herbalife, Nutra-Smart, XanGo, Living Scriptures, 4Life Research, NSA, Pharmanex, Quixtar, Shaklee, Kirby, Unicity International, USANA Health Sciences, Inc., Bettaware, Kleeneze, etc., as it is more of a multi-billion Dollar corporate monster than a church.

Special video presentation for all California residents!

Help is available

If you are struggling with your faith in the LDS Church, perhaps you realise that it isn't what you were told it was, or fear that this is the case, then you are not alone.

Help is available. www.exmormon.org is one such place. www.exmo-social.com is another. There are others, please check out links elsewhere on Notamormon.

Good luck in your personal search for the truth about Mormonism.

Here is a video of someone channelling for Joseph Smith!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I trust that you and yours will all be as healthy and as happy as you can be throughout 2011!

You might have noticed a new feature on this blog

You might have noticed that I am now inviting people to make a donation to me to buy me a drink.

This is so I can raise a glass to you and salute you, with a drink you helped me to pay for!

I like the sound of the idea, and hope you do, too!

Was the founding of Mormonism a 'political' decision?

The Church of England (aka Episcopalian Church) was founded in England. As were the Baptists and the Methodist Churches. Lutherans came from Germany and the Roman Catholic Church was, basically, an Italian church.

There wasn't much going for a home-grown church. So, could it be that the decision to found what became the Mormon faith was based on a desire to start a local church which would be aimed towards the American way of life?

Of course, for it to be truly local it would need some authority. So what better than a sacred text found and translated in America by a local boy?

Unfortunately they chose to use Joseph Smith who allowed his imagination to run away with him and the rest is, as they say, history.

Christmas time, again!

Well, here we are, Christmas time again.

My wife has made a Christmas cake, we have several bottles of Champagne laid in and some bottles of red wine, some white, some beers and lagers, some fruit juices and cordials and plenty of Cola and lemonade. We are expecting guests for our Christmas celebrations.

We also have a Christmas pudding, some Paski Sir Ewe's milk cheese (to die for!) fromCroatia and all the makings of a Christmas feast.

We will be making contributions to charities that look after the homeless in our town. Not everyone is as fortunate as us and we all need to do just a little bit to help alleviate the suffering of others. And in that way we can ensure that there is some Christ in Christmas.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, folks!

Choice

The great thing about not being a Mormon (or, one must suppose, of any religious cult) is that one has the freedom to choose what one does.

Let's take two example.

Mr Jones decides that he will have a carnal relationship with his girlfriend.

That is the business of Mr Jones and his girlfriend. Nobody else. Nobody else is involved.

However, if Brother Jones decided that he will have a carnal relationship with his girlfriend, oh dear! Who are involved here?

There's Brother Jones and his girlfriend. The Elders Qurom President, the Bishop, plus his two councillors, the two Home Teachers of Brother Jones, and if she is from a different Ward, her Bishop and his two councillors, the girlfriend's Home Teachers, her Visiting Teachers, perhaps, then there is the Stake President and his two councillors. All will, in one way or another, become involved in investigating the fact that two adults decided to become involved in a carnal relationship, with perhaps disfellowship and/or excommunication as the end result. Then there's the PEC and the Ward Council Meeting, with all of the people who attend those meetings.

Crazy way to treat two adults, isn't it?

A Very Dangerous Book

The Book: “Use the spells of the Ancient Ones” was a limited re-print of a book originally published some 350 years previously.

The advert in a Sunday tabloid received 500 enquiries, 100 of which resulted in orders which quickly exhausted the limited print run of 100.

Twenty were never read. Two were damaged in the post and never arrived at their destination. The remaining seventy-eight were read with lesser or greater levels of comprehension. But only one copy was read through properly and the implications of the contents fully digested and completely understood by the reader.

Andrew Grey. Even his name mocked him. A. Grey. “Grey by name, grey by nature” might have been said of him. If anyone had ever taken any interest in him.

Because nobody had ever taken any interest in Grey whatsoever. It was almost as if he possessed some kind of preternatural ability to suck the vitality and the interest out of the air that surrounded him. Like a self-harming Harry Potter Dementor, in fact...

There are some people with that ability who do not notice, because they are of limited intelligence and fill their empty, meaningless lives with hobbies that seem ridiculous obsessions to other people, yet are of all-consuming interest to themselves. Such as collecting different types of burnt matches, for example.

Yet, sadly, in the case of Grey, he was of reasonable intelligence. He knew precisely what he was. The antithesis of all things even remotely of interest. He was not a bore. For how could zero bore anyone?

In school he was very rarely bullied. Why would anyone bully a cipher, a nothing? He was not bullied because he was not even worth bullying. Nobody played with him, either. He was never picked for games, rarely asked to answer questions. To nothing, went nothing.

His father died when Grey was ten and when Grey was 16 he was able to walk straight into a job as a clerk in a large insurance company. He was fortunate that it was at a time of full employment and the company was expanding and needed to take on anyone that it could find. So ironically, even nothing could fill a space.

He had his own office and received annual pay rises because a computerised salary system reduces all people to zeros and ones, even a cipher such as Grey.

And because he was not noticeable even during times of major staff reductions his position was safe. He did his job competently, so nobody noticed him.

He had been a bitter disappointment to his mother so when his mother decided to marry an Australian businessman and move with him to Australia, when Grey had just turned 17, she decided not to take him with her.

In order to salve her conscience she made their small terraced house over to him. The fact that, in his mind, his own mother had turned against him, made him hate her. So perhaps not unnaturally, he declined to see her off at the airport.

She wrote one letter to him, but he did not bother to open it. Instead he wrote: “Return to Judas” on the envelope and sent it back. He never heard from her again.

Some 20 years had passed by. Grey had liked to spend his evenings walking through the old part of town, but a group of youths so drunk that even nothing seemed like an attractive target, had beaten him and mugged him.

He had not been out walking since that incident five years previously, He spent his time broodingly watching TV, listening to the radio and reading. He had always loved reading. For a time he was able to lose himself within the book, forgetting that he was nothing.

He saw the advert for the book “Use the Spells of the Ancient Ones” in one of the Sunday newspapers that he had delivered every week.

The advert fascinated him. Usually he ignored such adverts but someone who had mastered the skill of copywriting had written the copy. And had written it well.

“Are YOU Sick to death of being ignored? Bothered by the fact that other people seem to get all the glory, all the praise, or can do what they want, when they want? Whilst you are ignored or even reviled by your peers and family members?”

It hooked him, he found it intriguing. He read on and was immediately struck by the injustice of his situation. His miserable existence. The mother who had abandoned him. The gang of youths who had robbed him of his one pleasure of going on walks through the ancient streets of his home town.

Hot tears born of a misery that had festered within him for all of his life coursed down his cheeks. He must have that book! He sent his order and cheque off in time to catch the one Sunday collection of mail.

Four days later he tore open the padded envelope in a frenzy of anticipation. And he read through the ancient and difficult text several times.

If he had any colleagues to share his lonely workday with, they might have noticed that he was less grey, somewhat less of a cipher.

The one spell that fascinated him above all others was: “A defence against footpads and cutpurses.” From his understanding of the spell, if someone came towards you to mug you, then you intoned the words of the mantra that was contained in the spell and a glowing green Demon appeared above your head to frighten them off.

Madness? Perhaps. Yet Grey KNEW the spell would work. Trembling with excitement he left his house early one evening and walked to the part of town where he had been mugged. He doubted that he would meet the gang that had robbed him five years previously, but he wanted to find someone. Anyone for him to take his revenge on.

He was aware that since he had last been into town in the evenings, things had changed. And not for the better, in his opinion.

He had always liked window shopping. That was no longer possible as virtually every shop had now had to put up steel security shutters to protect the stock from what used to be called “smash and grab” robbers, but which were now called “ram raiders” where criminals used stolen cars to smash through the shop frontages.

After three hours of wandering around he began to feel tired, he was thinking about going home when he heard a commotion from a side street. He increased his pace, yet did not run.

Three young men came out of the narrow street. One looked at him and shouted: “You ain’t seen us, right? If you grass us up, I’ll ****ing kill you, right?

This was it! Grey’s moment to test out his hypothesis! He intoned the words of the mantra. Almost instantly the group of young men and the area around them was transfixed with a bright and sickening green light!

The leader of the group screamed like a terrified child and the sudden foetid stench that emanated from him was testament to the fact that he had fouled himself.

He and his two companions ran off, whimpering and gibbering with fear.

As the green light faded, Grey chuckled to himself. The laughter sounded strange in his ears. Not that he laughed often, to be sure...

There was nothing about the incident in the local paper the next day, but then Grey had not expected there to be. Seeing a glowing green Demon appear over the head of someone that you were trying to mug or frighten would not be anything any self-respecting would-be thief would want to tell anyone about!

Grey could not wait to go out again. He fretted all day at work until it was time to go out and see what he could do that evening. He could not eat due to his excitement and instead decided to make do with a cup of tea.

This time he did not have long to wait. He came across two young men who had been trying to sexually assault a young girl. When Grey arrived on the scene the girl was able to make her escape and ran off, when Grey told her to.

The older and larger of the youths turned his flabby and decidedly unhealthy looking face towards him.

He looked at Grey with utter hatred. “You stopped my fun. I will punish you for that. That’s right, isn’t it?” He looked towards his slightly younger companion.

His companion, who was a slightly-built male, copied, apishly,: “Yeah. That’s right. Punish.”

“You think so, do you?” Said Grey, a hint of mockery in his voice. He intoned the mantra and the bright green glow illuminated the area, once again.

This time the effect on the 'audience' was even more dramatic. Years of having his mother stuff him full of everything that was bad for him had given the larger youth a very badly diseased heart. The report of the pathologist to the coroner said, in part: “I have rarely, if ever, seen a heart in such a poor condition in a person of such a youthful age. Much of the muscle material had already turned to fat.”

He had looked towards Grey, his eyes wide with fear. He screamed and his heart failed in an instant and he fell on his companion who had been rooted trembling to the spot by fear, knocking him out and pinning him to the ground.

Grey laughed as he turned in the street. Almost every business in the street had replaced their shop frontages with steel shutters. Except for one. A bank on the corner of the street. The frontage was made up of mirrored glass.

Grey suddenly realised that he had failed to fully understand the spell. The purpose of the spell was not to manifest a glowing green demon above the head of the person intoning the mantra.

The purpose of the spell was to transform the person intoning the mantra into a glowing green demon.

As soon as Grey saw his ghastly and utterly horrible reflection in the mirrored glass, he collapsed to the pavement, dead before he hit, the green glow fading rapidly as he returned to human form.

This time the story DID make front-page news in the local evening paper. And the nationals picked up on it the next day, too.

A girl had flagged down a police car and told them that a man had stopped two men who had been trying to assault her. The man had told her to run away, and she had done so. Not long afterwards, she had heard a terrible scream. She had looked back and had seen a weird, eerie green light in the area that she had ran from.

Two officers had taken the girl to the police station, whilst two others rushed to the scene. They found two men who were dead and another man who was unconscious, trapped beneath the body of his monstrously obese, dead companion.

When he regained consciousness, the survivor began raving and screaming about a green demon. The police were convinced that he had taken hallucinogenic drugs, a theory that was scuttled by the negative toxicological reports on both him and the two dead men.

Had they undertaken DNA tests on Grey, they might have found some rather remarkable results. But they didn’t and his death was ascribed to Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, brought on by fear.

In a cottage in rural Scotland, many, many miles from the nearest town, the only person who had really understood the book and the implications of its contents put his copy down on an elderly oak table. He spoke to his companion, a large, friendly-looking black cat, as he stroked her back. “Puss, I only hope nobody tries any of those spells. This book would be a very dangerous book if it fell into the wrong hands.”

The Harpies of Haycock County

I don’t know why I continue living in Haycock County. No, that’s a lie. Of course I know why I continue living in Haycock County. Like I ever had a choice, after the first day I arrived there...

How to describe Haycock County? Imagine the typical small towns in old episodes of The Twilight Zone. Then add something from one of the more bizarre episodes from the X Files and perhaps even something from The Land That Time Forgot. Excepting that the Dinosaurs in Haycock County were the fossilised attitudes of the majority of the inhabitants. And you might have some idea about what kind of a place Haycock County is.

I avoid going into what passes for the town of Haycock, the pretty much futile seat of government for the county for as long as I can. I only visit the town when I need to call at the bank to collect money from my Veteran’s pension –You know it, Vietnam, the war nobody cares to remember but that some of us can’t choose to forget? (damn! That sound like a Country Western song title, doesn’t it?) and to collect my supplies from what masquerades as the Haycock Mart. The bank only had one elderly PC and the Haycock Mart was… well, it just was. There was also a school of sorts, where the children of Haycock County were taught whatever crap the feckless teaching staff could be bothered to teach them.

My route into town passes by the Bligh farm. When I was driving back home, I saw the crows wheeling high over the top meadow, the one close to the farmhouse. I noticed the hulking form of Billy-Boy Bligh, outside the farmhouse. I sighed. Whenever I saw Billy-Boy Bligh I knew there would be trouble.

I was driving along the semi-dirt track that passes for the main road into Haycock Town itself, and I swung my truck off the road onto the farm track up to the Bligh place. Bligh Farm –secretly referred to as Blight Farm by most of the inhabitants of Haycock County, and not without good reason- squatted sullenly on a ridge of land above the town.

It was several years since I had last felt it necessary to visit the Bligh place, I had been able to successfully avoid it, but the crows gave me an uneasy, bad feeling. Crows are good people. I guess that’s why they were warning me about Billy-Boy.

Some background information on the Bligh family. They had been part of Haycock County since the very early days. Originally the Blighs had been part of what had been the intelligentsia of Haycock County. From what I could make out that meant a group of self-selected local worthies who had gotten together in various locations in the town, talked and spat on the floor. The “intelligentsia” part had come because they had managed to hit the spittoons and missed the floor, themselves and each other more often than the average Haycockian. Perhaps I am being harsh. Though I doubt it.

Jackson Bligh had been a newly-qualified lawyer back in the first decade of the 18th Century, when he settled down on farmland just outside the recently established town of Haycock. From what I could make out, nothing noteworthy had happened to the Bligh family until Zebulon Bligh came back from a stint in the US Calvary, having fought the Indians. He had been known as a bright young man, full of high ideals. Nobody had been able to figure out why he had joined the US Cavalry. Except that he liked riding and had a youthful enthusiasm for adventure. He had become ill with a fever that lasted many weeks, after he was wounded fighting a tribe somewhere out in the West. The US Cavalry invalided him out as unfit for duty.

When he came back, the people noticed that although he seemed to be the same Zebulon Bligh they had sent off to join the US Cavalry, an important part of him had been left behind.

He developed the notion that he was much better than everyone else and he began to become more and more isolated from the other inhabitants of Haycock County.

Zebulon decided to create “a unique and important experiment in social living.” In short he decided that he and his family would experiment with intermarriage and polygamy. Rumour has it that Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith had heard about the Bligh experiment and had enthusiastically taken it up for his newly established church.

Several others had copied Zebulon’s group marriage experiment and had introduced it to their own flocks. All with varying degrees of disappointment, heartache and humiliation. Preachers were tarred and feathered. And the leader of the Mormon cult, Joe Smith, had reportedly died in a fire fight for asking the wrong married woman to join his flock of wives, so Zebulon’s experiment even caused trouble for people hundreds of miles away from Haycock County.

The Bligh family experiment had been used for a study by a university back in the sixties. It had been called: “Bligh or Blight? A report into the genetically degenerative effects of the Zebulon Bligh ‘unique and important experiment in social living’ and the effects on subsequent generations of the family.”

Apparently the author of the study came back to Haycock County once too often. The people of the town believed that The Harpies of Haycock County dived down from the sky and had eaten him alive. But I didn’t believe that. Not for one moment. I suspected that if anyone had devoured him, it had been the Bligh family, and that his remains (such as they would have been!) could have been buried somewhere up on the ridge of Bligh Farm. Or even in the private cemetary Old Zebulon Bligh had established in a remote piece of the Bligh farm lands, unregistered, of course...

Oh. You want to know about the Harpies of Haycock County? That's a story that had been used since the early days of the settling of the area. Used to explain all sorts of mysterious events. And to frighten children into being good. And there's something else about the Harpies of Haycock County that I'll tell you about, soon...

When my truck rattled and bumped up the track to the farm, I saw Billy-Boy standing over something on the ground. He was waving a rifle around. He looked like he was drunk. Or maybe it was the inbreeding? Hard to tell.

I felt a twinge of pity for him. He was the product of 200 years of close inbreeding. Fact was it was a miracle that any of the last batches of Bligh kids had survived at all. According to rumour, many of them hadn’t. But -hey? Would you check up on them? I don’t blame Sheriff Harter and his predecessors for steering well clear of the Blighs.

Billy-Boy was a shambling wreck of a man. Every time I thought of his name I felt like laughing. I mean, who in the hell would want to call their child Billy-Boy Bligh? The same idiots who had decided to call his twin sister Billy-Girl Bligh, that’s who… Thank God, the family was dying out. Not as fast as many would have liked, but still, it was something, I suppose. Billy-Boy and Billy-Girl were the last rotten fruits of a poisonous family tree.

“Hey. That you, Dixon?”

I got out of my truck slowly and acknowledged that I was, indeed, myself.

“How are you Billy-Boy?”

“Not too bad. Doing better than sis, mind.”

“Oh, really? What’s wrong with sis?” I hoped I sounded sincere enough. I guess I had done, as he had not shot me with the old rifle he was holding. Billy-Boy was very, very protective when it came to the subject of his sister, Billy-Girl.

“She’s ill. Got the Little Family Problem, you know?”

The Little Family Problem? I thought. That would be the weird genetic disorder that basically shut down all of the body organs of the Bligh women, organ-by-organ, until they died. I merely nodded in response to Billy-Boy.

“But I reckon that I have the problem just about beat.” I did not like the way he said that. This was probably what the crows were telling me about.

“How’s that, Billy-Boy?” Speak softly, don’t antagonise him. I remember hearing about what he had done to Delany LeBouf in the Haycock Pub. They never did find poor Delany’s right hand. And Delany has resided in the Sumner County Mental Hospital these past ten years. Nobody had ever figured out what Delany had said or done to upset Billy-Boy like that. My theory is that Delany had, in a fit of drunken stupidity, told Billy-Boy exactly how ugly and misshapen his sister was.

Usually you can see an ugly person and say something like: “Yes, but they have nice eyes.” Or “they have such a nice personality.” There was nothing nice or even faintly redeeming about Billy-Girl. She not only looked ugly, when you looked at her you knew that her ugliness went way beyond soul deep. People in Haycock County think that Billy-Boy is dangerous. Perhaps he is. But I don’t believe he is nearly half as dangerous as his sister, Billy-Girl.

Billy-Boy licked his lips, eyeing me up and down. “You are a man of honour, aren’t you, Dixon? I mean, you served your country and all, over in Vietnam, right?

That wasn’t strictly true –the part about serving my country, but I let it pass. “Yes Billy, I fought in Vietnam. A lot of us did. Many people still seem unwilling to think about it and what it did to us. But you, you are different, somehow. You seem to understand what we went through. And I am grateful for that.” And strangely enough, I was.

“Oh, that’s ‘cos I read Zebulon Bligh’s diaries about been in the US Cavalry. He was in the US Cavalry, you know?”

“Yeah, I know that Billy-Boy. Fact is, I served with some members of the US Cavalry in Vietnam.”

“They don’t have horses now, though.” That was a statement, rather than a question from Billy. I nodded in reply.

“Billy-Boy, you said that you could beat Billy-Girl’s problem? How is that?”

He licked his thickened lower lip before speaking, dropping his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “I am going to make a human sacrifice.”

Oh, shit, no. There’d been reports and whispered rumours that the Bligh family had long, long ago left the Baptist church... but -human sacrifice? That surprised even me. A think trickle of sweat ran the length of my back. No wonder the Crows had been anxious for me to stop by. People misjudge Crows. And they’d know that I’d have to try to put a stop to this.

“Who you going to use, Billy-Boy?”

“Come and see. I got the little feller out back.”

I followed Billy-Boy round the side of the large, tumbledown house. In the back yard I saw a small, begrimed figure. It was staked out on a long rope. “Hey. Dixon, meet the boy. He is going to help me save my sister.”

At that moment I heard the mooing, bawling noise that passed for the voice of Billy-Girl emanating from somewhere within the house. Billy-Boy turned to me and said: “Don’t you even think about taking the boy with you, Dixon, if you got ideas of saving him. Because I know where you live. And I could sacrifice you, just as well as the boy.”

He shambled off, quickly, towards the house.

I looked down at the boy. His eyes were dulled with fear. He said in a resigned tone of voice: “You aren’t going to be able to help me, are you?”

I carefully replied: “Don’t be too certain, son. How in the hell did you come to be here?”

“My folks were driving along the State Highway just North of Haycock County when a rotten tree fell on the automobile. Mom, Dad and my little Sister were all killed outright, I escaped with a few bruises. Trouble is I have no other family and the old Judge living in the town signed adoption papers giving me to Billy-Boy and his sister.” He began to cry.

Shit. Now I knew what had happened. Judge Bannerman, that would have been. Some people believe he had been born senile. There was certainly no way that he should have signed those papers. And Billy-Boy had almost certainly known that. Though there was no reason for the boy to have known.

“What’s you name, son?”

“Peter Hewlett. You?”

“David Dixon. I am going to get you out of here, somehow.”

“You’d better hurry! Billy-Boy is the Harpy Master! He told me that! He’s going to stake me out and leave me out for the Harpies of Haycock County to come and kill me!” He was becoming hysterical.

“Stop that! Stop that right this minute! No Harpy is going to come anywhere near you.” I was going to say more, but held back, as Billy-Boy was returning.

“Peter here tells me you are going to leave him out for the Harpies. Sounds like a good plan, to me. How you going to get them to come down, Billy-Boy?”

He glared at Peter before turning his gaze on me. “I am going to keep his staked out and then, I am gonna cut his throat! The smell of blood will attract the Harpies and they’ll come and eat him.”

I sucked my teeth, feigning doubt. “You sure about that, Billy-Boy? I’d heard how the Harpies don’t like carrion. Now Crows, on the other hand, they do like carrion. But Harpies? They are different. They have to have their meat so fresh it, that it's still alive. You never heard that?” I made the last part of that statement puzzled, as if I was shocked that nobody had thought to tell him.

He shook his head. “No. I never hear that. What should I do, then?” Good. He thinks I am conspiring with him. Think, Dixon! You used to be good at that! Think!

“You need to leave him out in the open. The field halfway up your farm track should be OK, I’d guess. Just stake down him with that long piece of rope you got him on, but give him plenty of room to move. The Harpies like a bit of sport from what I have heard. They prefer a living, moving target.”

Billy-Boy was interested in this idea. “Sure. But how do the Harpies know where to go, if they don’t smell blood?”

“Don’t worry, Billy-Boy. The Harpies will know where to go. They always know where to go.” He was clearly howling mad. For some reason I thought about poor Sheriff Harter, probably sat in his office in town or more likely in the coffee shop across the street, blissfully unaware of what was happening.

“Well, Billy-Boy I guess I’d better be going. Got to put the groceries away.”

He nodded, lost in his thoughts, wandering back to the house.

I whispered: “Peter, listen to me. I’ll bring help for you. Just stay as calm as you can. And try not to be frightened, no matter what you hear tonight, OK? And say nothing to Billy-Boy.”

He whispered in reply: “You are coming back for me?” I nodded and returned to my truck.

Later that evening soon after dark I returned to the Bligh place. Thank God! I found Peter, safe, where I had told Bligh to put him. He was trembling like a leaf as I untied him.

“There were screams from the farm. I heard terrible, horrible screams from Billy Boy and that… that thing of a sister of his. It was her idea to sacrifice me! What has happened?!” He was a little out of it. But there was no wonder to that.

I looked at him. How to tell him? The truth. Same way as I had heard it, all those years ago. “Peter I knew the Harpies would not come to kill you. I also knew that Billy-Boy was not the Harpy Master. Not, as you’d think, because Harpies are mythical creatures, that don't exist. Rather, it was because I am the Harpy Master. When I told the Harpies what Billy-Boy had planned for you, they were very, very angry. We knew that Billy-Boy would be a continuing danger to you, so we knew that they, the Harpies, had to kill him and his sister.”

I called one of the Harpies over. She flew to us. It was Leliali. Peter looked at her and gasped: “But... she is so beautiful! Billy-Boy told me they were ugly, but he was lying! They are so beautiful!” I knew from the way she held her head that Leliali was also rather taken with Peter, so that was part of the battle over.

In the truck driving back to my place I told Peter my story. In a way, it was not totally dissimilar to his. “I am not even an American, Peter. I am English, though I have lived most of my life in America. My father was working for a large British firm; he was the director of their US operation, based in LA. I was of the age that, if I stayed any longer, I knew I would be eligible for the draft into the US Army and sent off to fight in Vietnam.

“It wasn’t my country and it certainly wasn’t my war, so I wanted to fly back to England to stay with friends. But my father would not let me. My mother was weak and my father kept prevaricating and delaying, until one day in the morning post, I got my draft papers. I was scared shitless, let me tell you. But I worked out a plan of escape. I managed to get together enough cash to buy a ticket to Canada. But my father found out about my plans and he told the Military Police about it.”

“What happened?”

“The MPs were very good to me, when they came. I remember that one of them, especially, was absolutely furious with my father. He said to him: “Why the hell didn’t you let your son go to Canada, you Limey jackass?” My father mumbled something about military service making a man out of me. The MP muttered something under his breath about better to be a boy in Canada, alive, than coming back as a man in an aluminium box, but I am not sure my father heard him. He made no outward sign of it.

“I was taken for my induction and basic training and then, a shockingly short time later, or so it seemed, I found myself in Vietnam. I was there for nine months until I received a wound that sent me back to the US and I recovered in a military hospital. I went to visit my parents but found out that soon after I had been drafted, they’d gone back to England, without leaving a forwarding address. I never saw them again. Never tried to contact them. Didn't care to.

“I signed up for a twenty year stint in the army, that was finished nineteen years in, when I received a medical discharge due to a helicopter crash. I was lucky. Only three of us survived out of 15.”

“How did you end up here?

“I was driving through, just going from place-to-place, drifting along on my military pension, when I found an old man, lying at the side of the road. I stopped my car and I took him to his home, which was a couple of miles outside of town. His name was Brewster Haycock, the last member of the family that had founded the county and the town two hundred years previously. I nursed him back to health. But there was always something that seemed to niggle at him, something that he wasn’t telling me.

“Eventually, he told me that he was the Harpy Master. He introduced me to Leliali, and the rest of the Harpies. He trained me to become the Harpy Master. And that’s what I am going to do for you, Peter. Train you to be the Harpy Master.”

He said nothing, his eyes still fixed on Leliali. I knew he’d do it, accept the training, I mean. Then he’d take over from me and continue the tradition of Harpy Master of Haycock County.

Later that night, while Peter slept soundly in his new bed, I set fire to Bligh Farm. I didn’t want any questions. After all, Harpies do make a hell of a mess when they feed…

Haunted by Lisa. Or a modern ghost story

Again, I was dreaming of Lisa. We were on a beach. She was looking at me. She looked sad. So very, very sad. As sad as only a dead person could be. I shouted: “Lisa! Tell me what’s wrong! Let me help you!” But all she did was point to her head.

I knew Lisa was dead and that I was dreaming about her. It had been a recurring dream for the past several months. Usually when I awoke it was due to the tears that flowed down my face. This time it was the phone ringing.

When I grabbed the phone from the bedside table all I could hear was hysterical shouting. I tried to get their attention, but whoever was on the phone was so far gone I could make no impact on them. All I could disentangle from the shrieking was that something terrible had happened in Laboratory D5 at the Hansen Institute. I heard the word “Dead” screamed several times before I slammed the receiver down.

I was head of security at the Hansen Institute and the safety of the staff, students and patients at the facility and the attached hospital was my ultimate responsibility. The house I had shared with Lisa was on the other side of the campus from the main buildings that nestled against the mountain just outside Harperville.

I quickly dressed and put on my shoulder holster and gun and decided to use my car to travel the short distance across the campus, with lights and sirens. The hysteria of whoever had made the call had scared me, to be frank. Everyone at the Hansen Institute was a professional in whatever they did, so to rattle one of them that much, something bad must have happened. Something very bad, indeed.

I opened the door with my electronic key and used a tramcart to get to D5. When I arrived, Professor Mikki was waiting for me. He was Head of Research at the centre and was also in charge of the pathology department.

He was leaning against the wall by the door. He looked 100 years past his age. He looked at me and said: “Thank God you are here, Steve.”

“What the hell has happened? An accident? How many are dead?”

He shook his head. “No... not an... accident, Steve. The entire team who were working in D5 are all dead, however. They were Murdered. Every single one of them.”

“How?”

He looked haunted. “They were cut to pieces, Steve.”

“Everyone? A knife attack?” This couldn’t be right. It sounded impossible.

“No, Steve. Without seeing for yourself, you could not believe. They were not knifed. Hell. Maybe they were. It’s not possible to tell. You see, when I say they were cut to pieces, I mean that they were all quite literally cut into tiny pieces, Small. Like little, tiny pieces. In effect, they have been turned into piles of Human Sushi.”

It was not until I walked through the doors of the outer entrance to D5 with Professor Mikki and saw for myself that I realised Professor Mikki had not been exaggerating. There would have been ten to fifteen people working in the laboratory on the might shift at the time of the attack.

Now they had been turned into nothing put neat piles of Human Sushi, as he had said. In handy, bite-sized morsels.

I felt sick. I turned to the sluice sink on the left-hand side of the room. Professor Mikki screamed: “No!” I saw, just in time that there was a head in the sink. My heart lurched when I recognised the face of my sometime lover, Mary Davenport. She had helped me get over the death of my wife, Lisa. Now I had only been seconds away from vomiting over her mortal remains. Or rather, some of them…

I glanced up at Professor Mikki. There were tears in his eyes. “I know, I know,” he said. “Poor Mary. Poor all of them. The other heads are over there, behind the lockers. I am supposed to be a pathologist. How in the hell am I supposed to be able to try to sort this mess out? They are my friends and colleagues. I know Mary meant a lot to you. Trying to separate and identify their remains would be bad enough, but I have never heard of anything like this! What do I do? What can I do?” He was close to breaking down.

“Nothing.” I said, quietly. “This is not a job for a friend of the people who worked here. We need outsiders who can do the job with professional detachment. No offence to you, Professor Mikki, but I think we need outside help.”

He nodded. “No offence taken, Steve. You were thinking of the police?”

“Not the police. As the Hansen Institute is a Site of Federal Interest under the 2020 SFI act, it’s got to be a job for the FBI. I’ll call them now.”

The two duty officers from the Harper FBI office had been in the FBI for years. They had that careworn expression of people who had seen too much, done too much and been in too many places. The Harper FBI office should have been a nice, sleepy sinecure for them. A place to investigate next-to-nothing and make plans for a well-deserved retirement. Now I had got them out in the middle of the night.

The older of the two, who looked like a veteran of more than one branch of government service, whistled when he saw the contents of D5. “Holy shit! How in the hell are the path boys gonna deal with this?”

“Beats the crap outta me,” his younger companion replied. “Guess they’ll need to do some DNA profiling on all the people who were in the room and then use a Gamma Positive DNA resonance scanner on each piece. It’ll take ages, but it’ll be the only way.”

They used their Personal Satellite Communicators to call their regional office and arrange for the work to be done.

In the meantime, I went over the evidence of what had happened with Professor Mikki.

“Steve, how did this happen?”

“Yes, Professor Mikki, I know what you are getting at. No way out other than through Spinal Corridor 4, we are up against the mountain wall here, so no way of getting through that way. The cameras in the SC4 show nothing.”

“You checked the cameras in D5, of course?”

“I looked at the video records, but the security cameras ceased working at midnight.”

“Broken?”

“No, I don’t think so. It looks just as if someone had told them to go into “sleep” mode. They just were not recording.”

“So, we have a mysterious killer who can somehow get past 1,000 staff, murder 15 people and not be seen. Knows the codes to control the security cameras and can chop 15 people up into tiny pieces without anyone noticing that there was anything amiss? This is freaky!”

“You are right, Professor Mikki. It is freaky. Who found the bodies?”

“That was Will Kant. He missed his chess buddy Femmi Matiba at their 3 am break time. He called down, got no reply so he and one of the guys from security went down. They are both under very heavy sedation.”

“FBI will want to interview them, eventually, of course.”

“Yes, of course.”

We parted company with a hug and did not meet up until later that morning. I was feeling like a fish out of water. The FBI had got into full swing and were responsible for investigating the murders of 15 people. I was, I realised, totally superfluous. After all, I was head of security and 15 people had died. Some head of security...

I was sat in my office pretending to work when Professor Mikki tracked me down. By that time he was looking a little better. He accepted my offer of a seat by, as usual, ignoring the seat and sitting on my desk.

“Steve, I have been thinking. That attack was not possible for one person. But technically it was impossible for any person. That could only have been the work of a Mobile Robotic Surgeon.”

“But there are no Mobile Robotic Surgeons!” I replied. “I recall Gort built a prototype, it worked fairly well, but it never really worked quite as well as expected. Something to do with not being able to get the right type of Central Processor Unit. Certainly not one with enough “umph” for the job.”

“Well, with Gort taking a two-year sabbatical to visit relatives in Europe, we can’t ask for his expert help, can we?”

“No, that’s true. Funny, I never thought of Gort as having relatives. He ever mentioned any to you?”

Professor Mikki shook his head. “Not to me. Did you know that Gort had some warped idea about using a human brain as the CPU? My Buddhist principles balked at that idea, let me tell you!

"He was on the point of asking for volunteers to donate their brains, but the Standards and Ethics Committee of the Institute knocked it back. Of course, not long afterwards Gort announced his decision to go and visit his relatives on sabatical. The board of governors could not refuse his request as he didn’t appear to have had a holiday, ever.”

I had never liked Gort, but he had been with Inar Hansen for over 30 years, so he was as much a part of the founding team of the Hansen Institute as Inar or Inar’s daughter, my beloved wife, Lisa and Professor Mikki.

I decided to broach the subject of my dreams about Lisa with Professor Mikki. “Would you think it strange if I told you that I had been dreaming about Lisa?”

He looked round at me, sharply. “You too? I have been dreaming about Lisa, also. What are your dreams?”

Before I could answer he said: “No! Don’t tell me, Steve. Write them down. That’ll be a more scientific approach to this.”

I wrote down my recurring dream and handed it to him. He read it aloud: “I am always with Lisa on a beach, somewhere. She is sad, she points to her head, all she does is point to her head. I feel so sad I awake myself by crying.”

He looked worried. It was several seconds before he began to speak. “I, too, have been dreaming about Lisa. I have seen her in a number of locations. Maybe in the park, at a concert or somewhere similar. It’s been happening for about two months. With my dreams, too, she has problems with her head. Always with her head. But I always feel so sad, as there’s nothing I can do.”

I shivered, even though it was not cold. “My dreams are being haunted by her, Professor Mikki. What can I do?”

He said: “I don’t believe in coincidence, Steve. We both start having very similar dreams about Lisa and then 15 people get killed. Some people, some colleagues, would mock me, but I am sure there must be some kind of link.”

“Could it be ESP, from Lisa?”

“I doubt it, Steve. Technically, Lisa has ceased to exist. She is deader than most, Steve. You recall that when it was discovered that she had Rickenbacker Syndrome she was keen to be allowed to be the first to use the experimental Stasis Unit so that time could be stopped for her, until a cure could be found?”

I shuddered at the thought of what had happened only two years previously, when Lisa had so suddenly and catastrophically fallen ill with Rickenbacker Syndrome. It started out with severe tiredness, which then became muscular weakness and eventual degeneration.

Dr Timmins, who was virtually the family physician, had diagnosed the condition –there are less than five cases each year- and revealed that the prognosis was not good. The disease was invariably fatal, taking anything from six months to two years to cause an agonising death.

It had been Gort’s idea that Lisa could use the experimental stasis unit which had been a brainchild of him and Inar. After 20 years they had managed to create just one unit which used 3 Giga watts of power to run.

And that unit had been the home to Lisa for almost two years. Time was not passing for Lisa. Did not pass for Lisa. Time could not pass for Lisa. She was hidden away, safe from the ravages of time.

I was glad, because I had seen some of the photographs of other victims of Rickenbacker Syndrome and they had looked awful. Pitiful, physical wrecks.

But as I knew there would almost certainly be no cure for Rickenbacker Syndrome within the next 50 years, that Lisa was “Dead” to me. I’d had to come to terms with that many months previously.

Mary Davenport with her wicked sense of fun had helped. And I had a sneaking suspicion that Lisa had put her up to it before she had died. Or rather, before she had gone into stasis…

I walked back down to D5. The blood had been cleared up, it had not been decided whether the lab would be used at any time in the future, if at all.

How the hell could the murders have been committed? And who had undertaken them? Why? What did they hope to achieve? Had they achieved it?

The FBI crime scene tapes had been removed and the remains of the victims was undergoing DNA testing at their main facility in New Washington.

I walked into the laboratory. The next thing I remembered was waking up on the floor. My head was confused, dizzy. A voice. A voice I knew. “Welcome, Steve. How nice that you could join us.”

It was a cruel, hollow voice. Gort?! What in the hell was he doing here?

I stood up, a little unsteady. I did not recognise where I was. It was a laboratory. It looked similar to D5, but larger. I had never seen this facility before.

“You seem confused, Steve. Allow me to welcome you to D5, Main.”

D5 Main? How in the hell didn’t I know about D5 Main? Then it hit me. Gort had been with Inar Hansen since the days when the facility had been a military research hospital, with extensive tunnels and underground facilities. This was before they had raised the money to start up the Hansen Institute. The early days had been a little thin, but Gort had stuck with him.

If anyone knew about the part of the facility that had been the former military base, then it would have to be Gort.

But why?

“I expect you are wondering why, aren’t you Steve? And also where, too? Where is simple. D5 Main was the main facility, D5 in the hospital was just a relatively small ante-room. It was a simple job for me to change the electronic plans of the hospital. Though I expect you are wondering why, mainly?”

Play for time. Analyse the situation, establish an appropriate course of action.

“Yes, Gort. What made you murder your colleagues?”

“Merely a means to an end, Steve. This is the pinnacle of my hatred for you and Lisa. Did you know I hated you, Steve? I wanted Lisa. For myself. But she chose to marry you, a security guard! I had been plotting this for years. I have some interesting news for you. Lisa never had Rickenbacker Syndrome. I was able to fake the symptoms, with drugs that I had given to her.”

“But Lisa’s Doctor, Doctor Timmins, gave us the diagnosis. He told us…” I then realised that there must have been a conspiracy between Gort and Timmins.

“Why did Timmins help you, Gort?”

“Because Timmins always did what I told him to."

“Did?”

“You are quick to notice that, Steve. Yes. Everyone thought that Timmins retired to his family home in New Mexico. He didn’t, poor soul.”

I looked at him and I noticed that he was wearing a small metallic cap on his head.

“I have been living and working down here for almost two years. The fools on the committee thought that they could stop me from developing my Mobile Robotic Surgery Unit. Idiots! Fools! I needed a human brain for the prototype. You might be interested to know that Timmins’ brain was the first to be employed in such a way. Didn’t last all that long, however. A problem with the support mechanism. Though, of course, Timmins should have felt honoured that I had selected him for such a fine sacrifice! Poor Timmins was not happy when he found himself inside the Mobile Robotic Surgery Unit. Not very happy at all. There was, though, nothing he could do about it. As I was in total power and, after all, I had incinerated his body.

“However, the second unit I constructed has worked well. Remarkably well, as you will have seen for yourself. Did you like the way that I had all those fools cut up into Sushi? Especially for that Japanese scum, Professor Mikki?”

Racism was so old fashioned that whenever I cam across it I found it difficult to comprehend. It was especially pointless, really, as Professor Mikki’s family had not even come from Japan. But I decided to let that pass for the moment.

Gort continued: “I think you might wish to meet the second unit. But I think you have already met, in a way.”

A chill went through me.

Gort said: “Lisa, come here.”

A Mobile Robotic Surgeon, it’s metallic shell splattered with dried blood, came into view, from behind a screen. It seemed as if it was trying to hide from me. My poor, poor Lisa!

“What do you think of your lovely wife, now, Steve?”

I ignored him. “Lisa. I want you to know that I’ll always love you, no matter what physical form you take. We’ll be able to work this out, after I have dealt with Gort.”

Gort looked at me. “You do not understand, do you? Just look at the scalpels, cutting tools and bone saws on that metal and plastic thing. Lisa killed everyone in D5, she then, under my direction, cut them all up. I had her place the head of your lover in the sink. A very appropriate act, don’t you think?”

This could be tricky. How to play this one?

“Gort, you are a damn fool. Lisa set the whole thing up with Mary before she died. She wanted someone to look after me, to help me. You may be a fine surgical engineer, but your lack of understanding of human psychology will be your downfall.”

“Shut up!” Anger from Gort? Good. Now I have a way in. A way to deal with him.

“Lisa, kill Steve. Kill Steve, now!”

I looked round. The only thing I could see that might serve as a weapon was an old-fashioned solid scalpel lying on a worktop. I picked it up.

“That’ll work Steve! Why not lunge at me with the scalpel? Lisa will have you sliced to pieces within seconds.”

“Is that right, Gort? Strange that Lisa is not moving, isn’t it?”

The wheels were trembling, but the unit was shuddering, as if there was a battle for control.

“This is not possible!” He was getting angry again. Good.

“Why is not possible, Gort? After so much practice, it is likely that Lisa is able to resist the influences from your control device. For all your intelligence Gort, you really are a very, very stupid, very little man, aren’t you?”

“I am not stupid! I can make Lisa feel white-hot pain. Pain such as she has never felt before!”

Lisa ran into a wall, momentarily stunned by the pain that he had inflicted on her. I knew I’d have to act fast.

My two-year secondment from the US Navy SEALS To the Royal Marine Special Boat Service in Plympton, Devon, would really pay off. But not, perhaps, in a way that I would have ever considered possible.

At first I thought about throwing the scalpel so that the blade hit Gort in one of his eyes. Then I knew what I’d have to do. I held the scalpel like a dart, and I aimed it so that the solid metal shaft of the scalpel buried itself deep into Gort’s right eye.

He gave an agonised shriek of pain and fell against the wall. “I’ll kill you for that!” He growled, through gritted teeth.

Next, he made the mistake that I had trusted he would make. He grabbed for what was sticking in his eye and by reflex, took a firm hold of it, as blood and ichor ran down his face from his ruined eye.

I had hoped that he would cut himself. But I was not prepared for what happened next. The middle three fingers on his right hand fell to the floor as a fountain of blood spurted from the raw stumps, as he inadvertently sliced off his own fingers.

He squealed and fell to the floor, in shock. I could tell that Lisa was now totally free of his control.

Within a second I was standing over Gort, looking down on him.

“You are a fool, Steve.” He gasped out. “I am always going to best you. You can’t defeat me. Because I am a genius.”

He was still telling me how very clever he was when I broke his neck, without saying another word to him.

Six months on and Lisa is still in a mobile paraunit, although the prognosis for a complete recovery once the toxins that Gort had used to replicate Rickbacker Syndrome were removed from her body, is very good. For some reason, Gort had left her body in the Statis unit. God alone knew what that freak Gort would have done with it. The thought made me sick.

Correcting the nerve damage caused by Gort's operation to remove Lisa's brain from her body was somewhat more problematical, but also well on the way to as near a full recovery as possible. Any lack there would, in time, be compensated for by implants and physiotherapy.

The psychological damage of what Gort had done to her would take longer to repair, but it was already starting to kick in, I knew.

I had offered to resign from my position, but the Foundation wouldn’t hear of it. As Professor Mikki said: “You thought you had all the information that you required for the job as head of security. Quite clearly, you did not. Nobody knew about the existence of D5, Main, or the rest of the complex that Gort had kept secret for God knows what reason. I really do wish I’d seen you kill the bastard, though.” Professor Mikki, man of surprises.

It's not too late!

Help for Mormons is available here

http://www.christiananswers.net/evangelism/beliefs/mormonism-overview.html

Nothing is dangerous (Another fictional story)

Dave Blake looked like a heartless thug. The kind of shaven-haired creature who would rob old people of their savings and use violence against them if he felt it necessary.

You have, of course, heard that appearances can be deceptive? Not in this case. What you saw was what you got. A cruel, evil, heartless, vicious thug. He did rob old people and he did hurt them if he felt it necessary. Or if he wanted to.

His mother claimed to believe that he never did anything wrong. She did not really believe that. Mrs Blake’s attitude was “as long as he hurts other people and robs them, why should I care?” She was frightened of him, but could not understand that it had been her upbringing of him that had, in the main part, resulted in her son becoming what he was.

In the pub one evening he had heard an interesting tale. The story of an old man who lived by himself in a quiet suburban road. The old man was a mystery to his neighbours as he had always seemed to have been an old man. In the pub they had tried to guess how old he was. 80? 90? 100? 120? More? No! Not possible!

They could not decide. The one thing that they had decided on was that he was a very wealthy old man and that he kept something of great value in a large, locked wooden box in his living room.

Blake decided that he wanted it. And what Blake wanted, he generally got.

He staggered from his bed after his mother had left for work, and he got dressed and left the house. The road where the old man lived required a brisk walk of ten minutes. Suddenly, it seemed, he found himself in front of it, looking at the house.

Some criminals who prey on the elderly use subterfuge, fraud or distraction. Blake didn’t. He relied upon the fact that most old people never bother to chain their doors. They would trustingly open them and Blake would rush the door, using his strength and bulk to knock them backwards.

He would slam the door shut behind him, grab the terrified occupant and force them to hand over their valuables.

Generally the whole sordid operation would take only a couple of minutes. By some evil luck, he had never even been questioned by the police, never mind charged with any offence.

Something in the back of Blake’s mind warned him not to enter the house. There was something foreboding and mysterious about it, even though it looked just like the other houses in the avenue.

But Blake was scared of nothing, so ignored this warning from his own sub-conscious. The last time that Blake had felt frightened was when he had been 12 years old and his mother had woken him in the middle of the night to help her bury the corpse of his drunken lout of a father, after he had given her the last beating he had been able to mete out to anyone.

Blake had helped her dig the hole and by the light of a simple lamp made from a candle in a jam jar, they had readied themselves to push the body into the hole in what had been the flower bed in the middle of the garden..

Then the 'corpse' of Blake senior had gasped and the eyes had opened wide in terror and it had grabbed the ankle of Mrs Blake with an iron grip. Before he had had a chance to think what he was doing, Blake junior had smashed the spade down on his father’s face and skull again and again, until it was a flattened, unrecognisable jumbled blur of bloody mangled flesh, gristle and bone.

They had tumbled the body into to the grave, thrown the soil over it. They then tamped the soil down. Scrubbing and washing off the dirt and the blood and attempting to scrub away the years of mental and physical abuse. But there are some types of dirt that just can’t be washed away, no matter how much soap and water you use.

Even now, 16 years later, Blake always spat on the flower border whenever he went into the back garden. Some hatreds never die.

But now he was outside the house of the rich old man. He steeled himself –strange. He never usually felt nervous- and knocked on the door.

When the old man opened the door, Blake’s experience kicked in. Suddenly he was in the house and bundling the old man into the living room of the house, which was just to the right of the front door.

He grabbed hold of the man in a tight grip, placed a knife at his throat and said: “Where’s your treasure, you stupid old git?”

The old man –HOW old was he?- gasped out: “I have no treasure. Please leave us alone.”

Then Blake saw the box. It was an old wooden box which actually occupied one of the corners in the room. “There’s your treasure, you old liar!” He thrust the old man across the room.

It was then that the old man’s dog came into the room. It was a moth-eaten Alsatian that seemed as ancient as the old man. But the dog saw what had happened. She gave a deep growl and launched herself at Blake. The old man screamed something in a language that Blake could not understand. Before the dog could do any damage, Blake had plunged the knife deep into its chest. The dog fell to the floor with a cough.

The old man was surprisingly fast, but not fast enough for Blake and within seconds he, too, was lying on the floor beside his beloved companion, his life ebbing away.

He looked up at Blake and said: “You want the contents of that box? Very well, then. You may take them. But know this… the consequences will be upon your own head.” He slumped onto his side, dead, lying against his dog's corpse.

Blake walked over to the box. It seemed to hum with a sort of energy. He touched it and it was as if he had received an electric shock. He began to feel a sense of unease, almost as if he was sickening for something, as his mother would have said.

He shrugged the feelings off and tried the box. Pity! It wasn’t even locked! He opened it.

Nothing was in the box.

Nothing came out and wrapped itself around Blake like a blanket.

Nothing had ever frightened Blake so much.

Nothing made him gasp in fear.

Nothing made him fling his knife across the room, be-gripped with a nameless dread.

Nothing made him run out of the house and nothing made him run as fast as he could, away from the house.

Nothing was following him. Flee! Run! Escape from nothing! Escape from nothing or nothing will get you! Run from Nothing!

The shaven hairs on his head stood up, the hairs on his body stood up. Nothing was scaring him like nothing ever had.

Eventually, he stopped running from Nothing. He leant against a wall, gasping as his sweat-soaked body pulled in lungfuls of sweet, fresh air. He could taste blood in his mouth.

It was then that he heard it. The sound. It was like no sound he had ever heard before. It was like thousands of knives been drawn across the flesh of thousands of bodies. He suddenly knew that Nothing had been replaced by something. Fearful, almost against his will, he turned round and saw, walking towards him, but at a distance, the old man and his equally ancient Alsatian dog.

They were coming towards him. Purposefully. With a bleat of fear Blake began to run again. He did not know where he was running. He did not care where he was running. Every so often he would glance back over his shoulder. They were still there. Still following. Even though they were walking slowly, they were still catching up with him, slowly. Implacably. Relentlessly.

Blake fell down numerous times, but he always bounced back up, scrabbling to his feet.

Passers-by saw a wild-eyed young male, bloodied and battered, running as if his life depended upon it.

Eventually he glanced round and saw… that they had gone! He sobbed with joy, and turned round to see if he knew where he was… and he saw them, in front of him. Waiting for him.

He got ready to run again, but his heart literally exploded in his chest and he fell to the pavement at the side of the road, dead before he hit.

“We are getting too old” the old man said to the Alsatian as they sat in the living room of their house. The box that had contained Nothing was no longer there.

“We should not have allowed that creature to get in here. Still, no real harm done. Nothing saw to that. Someone will come and deal with Nothing in a short while.

“I have sent a transmission to home. They’ll be giving us a new assignment, soon. A period of regeneration and then another world to act as overseers, on. Who knows? Maybe on our next assignment we can serve in a true forms as man and wife.”

The Alsatian wagged her tail. She would miss her tail, she decided. After all, she had had it for such a long time.

Meanwhile, as Mrs Blake mourned her son by drinking whisky in her lounge, Nothing was in the back garden of the Blake house. Something began to stir, deep beneath the flower border…

Will they see the truth?

Will your TBM family members ever see the truth? Will they ever depart from Mormonism? Sometimes you think that they have almost made it out. That they have finally grasped "it" and now are aware that Mormonism is a fraud.

But then, they recoil from that knowledge in horror, and run away from it.

Why? Perhaps the fear that it is not true and that they have wasted their lives persuing what is, in essence, the dreams of someone else? The rotten, horrid dreams of a 19th century conman?