Chris Dean’s Personal Website

The wind had begun to whistle through the trees more violently, and old Jack sighed, as he knew he was in for another rotten storm. He unleashed one more almighty groan as he swung the axe above his head and then back down into what was lying on the chopping block. Thud.

An almighty crack of lightning flashed furiously above his head, illuminating the dark, weird shadows caused by the trees around him. He shuddered as the breeze blew around him, cold, chilling him to the bone.

‘Bloody weather’ he mumbled as he gathered together the sharp slithers of firewood that lay around his feet. ‘Why does it always have to rain on Sundays?’ he asked himself.

He hobbled back into his small rusting caravan and placed the broken wood in a pile, next to the makeshift wood burning stove he fashioned from what once was an old gas oven, and some odd bits of piping he had previously found in the woods.

The wind really had picked up now, the trees were starting to bend back as if they were made of rubber, and the dead, brown, autumnal leaves flittered and flurried past the windows of his rusting hovel. ‘Yes’ Jack tiredly said to his pet dog Lucky – a stray he had come across whilst picking mushrooms in the wood – ‘we’re certainly in for another big one tonight’, and promptly slammed and bolted the caravan door shut.

He walked over to the oven, opened the flue and lit some of the firewood he had brought in from outside. Once the stove was nicely hot, he took a pan from the cupboard on his left, filled it with oil and began heating it. Once the oil began sizzling, he took a piece of dripping red meat from an old black bucket and threw it into the pan. The oil spat over the side of the pan, there were small sparks of fire and a little whisper of smoke floated up to the ceiling. As the meat began to fry, another streak of lightning flashed across the dark purple sky, and some large heavy drips made a dull beating noise on the roof. A large rumble of thunder bellowed fearlessly through the night air, and the caravan began to sway ever so slightly, with the motion of the wind.

A short while later, he removed the pan from the stove and tucked into the husk of meat he had prepared for his dinner, whilst Lucky chewed on a long bone, that appeared to belong to an animal with fairly long legs. As he feasted Lucky began to whine, ‘Ok, Ok, you can have some too’, he snarled at the dog, and threw down a rough, torn chunk of his meal.

Tired, Jack left the table where he was eating and walked across the room to his old stained bed, took off his boots and got in. The caravan wasn’t the warmest of places, and Jack often slept in his clothes.

Next to the bed there was a small cabinet with a glass door on the front. On top of the cabinet resided a large, heavy, bottle of whisky. The bottle was almost empty now, but Jack still struggled with the heavy weight of the glass, as he held the bottle to his mouth and gulped down the last drop of the brown, burning liquid. He replaced the bottle and cosied down under his putrid blackened sheets and slept.

As the night proceeded the storm worsened, and more and it rocked the caravan more violently on its rickety trailer. Jack’s alcohol induced coma meant that he wasn’t really affected by this standard event, which happened whenever there was a rough storm. Only Lucky was really distressed by the whole situation, and cowered under the table where Jack had eaten.

Unfortunately for Jack, this was a particularly bad storm. The caravan began swaying like it never had before and the whole right hand side of the trailer was beginning to rise off on the ground. This particularly violent swaying proceeded for approximately five minutes, until with one final gust, the caravan was swept up and onto its side. As this happened there was a large bang as the windows blew out, scattering glass everywhere and awaking Jack, who, in the last few seconds of his life was startled to see the huge whisky bottle hurtling towards his head.

Lucky whined as she saw her master dead in his bed, and although she was badly injured by the broken glass from the window, she licked the blood from Jacks face in what seemed to be a vain attempt to revive him.

It was only three or four days later that Jack’s body was found by police, who happened to be investigating a series of disappearances of people who were walking in this area of the woods, over the period of a few months. It was Lucky who attracted the police to the area where the caravan lay, in its unusual position. But what was even stranger from their point of view was what lay behind the caravan.

As well as Jack there were the remains of a second body, chopped and chewed up next to the old tree stump with the axe embedded in it. The left leg was missing, and so was a huge chunk of meat from the abdominal area, it was clear to the police what happened here, once they came across the remains of Jack’s gruesome dinner.

This was the end of the case as far as they were concerned; all that need to be tied up was the identity of the other body and what was to happen to the dog.

A fairly new young woman police officer took a liking to Lucky and offered to take her home, as she had been looking for a dog for a while, and this one seemed just right. On the way home from her long day at work, the young police officer had to drive home in torrential rain, similar to that of a few nights before. There was loud thunder, and particularly bright lightning. As she drove down one of the smaller country lanes on her way home, a bright flash of lightning momentarily blinded her, she lost control of the car and thud. Something hit the front of the car.

Shaking with fear she got out of the car, and to her horror there was the body of an elderly lady lying there in front of her. The body was obviously dead, what was she to do, this would mean the end of her new career. She thought and thought, but came up with nothing, until an irrational thought hit her. The only witness was the dog, and the old lady probably lived alone with none to care for her, and, more importantly, she probably wouldn’t be missed.

So with this insane resolve, she heaved the body into the boot of her car, sat back down in the drivers seat, and with a glint in her eye, she started drive home, and unusually for her she was feeling hungry…