Tessera

Adrian Chills

@adrianchills.bsky.social

Short horror stories written for Bluesky directly inspired by the Guardian columns of Adrian Chiles. Created by @scsheil.bsky.social

82 Posts1407 Follower 4 Folgt

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 6d ago

#81: Driverless

A screenshot of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads "Driverless cars are taking us on a road to nowhere."

(Alt-text for next image)
It was just rotten bad luck, that was all. If I had been a little speedier in cracking Lady Hurlington’s jewellery safe then we may have been making our merry way back down the trellis when she and her brute of a husband returned from their late dinner. As it was, the Colonel caught us rather red-handed and it was only by the swiftness of my reactions that I avoided being run-through by the regimental sword he kept above the fireplace. Poor ‘Blinky’ Blenkinsop, my companion in crime, was not so lucky; the Colonel pierced him right in the breadbasket, with a triumphant cry of ‘Take that, you bounder!’ The pompous oaf’s celebration did however give me the moment’s grace I needed to grab a heavy candlestick from the table and deliver a hefty blow to his muttonchops. While he clattered to the floor and her Ladyship fell into a faint, I managed to drag poor old Blinky down the stairs and out the front door - straight into the midst of the thickest fog London had ever seen.
Blinky was bleeding heavily, claret colouring both his evening dress and mine. Behind us I could hear shouting voices and the whistle of a bobby. I knew I had to act fast.
A black shape drew up beside me. A taxicab. Without thinking, I opened the door and thrust poor Blinky in, then tapped on the cab window. “Piccadilly, driver, and don’t spare the horses”. Before I was even inside the taxicab’s door we were moving.
(Continued on next alt-text)

(Continued from previous alt-text)
Spared from the immediate attentions of the constabulary, I set about attending to Blinky. Using my silk scarf, I attempted to plug the wound in his belly. He groaned loudly at my touch.
“Hush now, Blinky,” I told him, “We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”
He just shook his head.
“No,” he moaned, “Deserve all that’s coming. Time to pay the piper.”
“What rot!” I scoffed, “The piper can go hang.” But I knew what he meant.
Our last job, robbing a diamond merchant’s in Hatton Garden had gone badly; a night watchman had surprised us and I, thinking only of our survival, had delivered him a terrible blow to his skull, one from which he had subsequently perished. I know that this was preying on poor Blinky’s mind.
“Be quiet now,” I said to him, “save your strength.”
While he rested, I peered through the taxicab’s window but could see nothing; mere shapes and shadows, insubstantial. At one point I sensed that we were moving over water, though I could think of no bridge that would take us to Piccadilly.
I leaned out of the window, tapped again on the cab.
“Driver?” There came no answer. Unnerved now, I stepped out onto the running plate - the road but a vague blur beneath me, almost like fog itself - and peered through the driver’s window.
No man sat at the wheel. We passengers, myself and Blinky, were the taxicab’s only occupants.
I lifted my head, looked out into the fog. We were no longer in London.
We were, it appeared to me, no longer anywhere at all.

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 6d ago

#81: Driverless

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · last wk.

#80: Miserable

(Continued from previous alt text)
Then I met Gary. New to the neighbourhood, he soon became a fixture at all social gatherings, due to his bright, natural smile, an outcrop of his inherent joie de vivre. He was everything I longed to be. Even when his cat, Eduardo, went missing, nothing could faze Gary. Though the eyes were sad, the smile was ever-present. He’ll turn up, it seemed to say, It’ll all be okay. (Meanwhile, Eduardo, who I had kidnapped precisely to stage this test, was befouling my basement with the most rancid excreta, not helping to soften my own sullen expression.)
What I had sought for so long was a donor. And so Gary was selected.
It was then just the matter of putting together the team that would carry out the transplant to my precise instructions, and securing a surgical slot at a nearby private hospital. To a man of my standing, child’s play.
All I needed then was to devise some way of persuading Gary to go under the knife. Which was when luck finally found me.
At a recent cocktail party, Gary asked my advice about a (clearly benign) mole on his upper lip. I told him to visit me this evening for a consultation.
I don’t believe I will have any trouble in convincing him that the news, I’m afraid, is quite bad.

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2w ago

#79: Beast

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads: 'It took me 10 years to read this beast of a book - but it was worth it"

(Alt text for next image)

24th July 1842
The road to the monastery was winding and treacherous, crumbling away on the side which dropped to the dark valley far below, grasping with hawthorn fingers on the other, so that it was in a tremulous state that I first met the abbot. His vow of silence and unfamiliarity with the English language made communication a little difficult but I was able to convey that I was the scholar who had written regarding the rare tome that was in his possession. He showed me to my quarters - simple, bare - and indicated that I might begin my study in the morning.

(Continued on next alt text)

(Continued from previous alt-text)

9th September 1842
The Liber Bestarius continues to confound me. The pages - thick and grimy, reputedly made from the skin of a goat, sewn together with its entrails - make reading difficult and the language is like no other I have encountered. My quest to discover its secrets may take longer than I had imagined.

11th November 1844
After long months of frustration, a breakthrough. I begin to discern the arcane secrets of the book. A compendium of beasts, from our world and beyond. Incredible, impossible creatures.

15th March 1847
The book seems to recognise me as I approach it. Its pages grow warm to my hands. I hear soft noises - like those of a snuffling animal - from within. Its words no longer sit unknowable before my eyes, but seem to dance through my mind, creating the most astounding visions. Whatever magic this book holds, it is powerful, and seductive.

22nd June 1850
Came upon this morning the body of the abbott. Throat ripped, guts torn. With hands thick and grimy I delivered him to the valley below to join the others. I no longer need to read the book. It speaks to me in animal tongue, whispers its secrets directly into my thoughts. Day by day its voice grows stronger.

1st August 1852
I begin my descent from the monastery, leaving its blood-soaked walls behind. I walk at night, like the other beasts, alert for any prey to be found on the trail. The book is now part of me, and I am part of it. Its words cover my skin like the thickest fur. I cannot wait to reach the village below, to tell of its power with every gnash of my teeth and slash of my claws.

Neither animal nor man am I, but something other. Something fiercer.

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2w ago

#79: Beast

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2w ago

#78: Kitchen

A screenshot of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads: What did I learn in the kitchen this week? The longer it takes to cook, the less you want to eat it.

(Alt text for next image)
You’re so ungrateful. I suppose I’ve always known that, but this last week has really brought your lack of grace to the fore. I honestly don’t know why I bother sometimes.
(Continued on next alt text)

(Continued from previous alt text)

If I can remind you, it was you who came to me. You and your colleague, that odious little fellow with the suspicious eyes and judgemental air, came to my door - what was it? Six weeks ago now - and asked for a few moments of my time. It was only my innate politeness that led me to allow you in. Almost immediately your colleague began to spout some nonsense about ‘reports of peculiar noises’ and ‘complaints about odours’. What was I supposed to do? Just let him proceed with his vile accusations?

You, I thought, had a much more agreeable air, and even though I had to subdue you in order to transport you both to my private kitchen through the trapdoor hidden beneath the carpet in the living-room, I thought that once you revived and we had a chance to get to know each other, I would find a willing recipient for my culinary gifts.

Instead, I was faced with at first refusal - the turning up of your nose at such delights as my roasted cheek with tongue puree - and then, after a week or so, when your hunger had really begun to bite, a weak acceptance accompanied only by sounds of retching disgust.

I’ve tried hard to please you, creating ever more elaborate and time-consuming recipes, but when I presented you this evening with my pièce de résistance - a slow-roasted leg, seasoned with onion and rosemary on a bed of deviled kidneys, a dish which took me six hours to prepare and cook - you only turned your nose up at it.

I admit that your colleague in the intervening weeks has turned from odious to odiferous, due to my kitchen’s lack of refrigeration space, and that each new cut from him has been a little more ripe than the last, but I believe that my skills as a chef are very much up to the task of making silk purses out of sow’s ears.

I just need you to have an open mind, an adventurous pallet, and to consider, for once, my feelings in the matter.

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#77: Wind

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'I am used to hot days now. But the warm wind has really panicked me.'

(Alt-text for next image:
Dear Peterson, My Brother in Magic

I can only hope this missive finds you. I have prepared the parchment on which I write with a protective hex which should shield it, at least temporarily, from the all-seeing eyes of Professor Deacon, The Black Mage, and entrusted it to the hands of Archibald, the young boy whom I rescued from the burning ruins of a local orphanage. I myself am still hampered by my physical deformities and unable to travel freely—though your spell to free me from the pigeon curse wrought on me by the Professor was mostly effective, I still possess, from the right knee down, one pink, four-toed foot which makes walking extremely difficult and quite extraordinarily painful.
(Continued on next alt-text)

(Continued from previous alt-text)
I wish so that we had not been parted, but when the demented Deacon cast his Grand Enchantment and plunged us—and thousands of other innocents beside—into this bleak and fiery shadow realm which I have named Infernal Albion, both time and geography seemed to turn topsy-turvey. I find myself now in some shadow version of Slough, populated by a few disoriented survivors alongside roaming hordes of Deacon’s monstrous demon hogs. I pray that you are still in the environs of Rathbone Street. If you are, and Archibald manages to find you, please return with him to find me. I fear that it is only by employing our combined arcane knowledge that we will be able to combat Deacon’s pestiferous sorcery.
The fires which burn eternally here are now just part of the landscape—I no longer even feel their heat. What worries me more are the warm winds which have begun to waft through the abandoned church in which I have taken temporary sanctuary. The winds seem to emanate from no meteorological source—no sun or moon shine in Infernal Albion, no clouds drift, no rains fall—but instead bear the whiff of an animal’s fetid breath. I fear that the prowling demon hogs, some of them as large as houses, have tracked me to my hiding-place and nightly come to toy with me.
I still have some defenses—my magics and some spears newly whittled from the pews—but I sense I do not have much time.
Please hurry to me Peterson, and let us once more take the fight to the Dark Mage!
Yours, A

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#77: Wind

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#76: Video

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'In the bizarre world of short-form video, nobody is allowed to take a breath.'

(Alt-text for next image)
I shouldn’t have clicked on the link, I know that now. But I did, and now it’s too late, the seven days are almost up. And there’s nothing I can do, nothing.

A dark image, barely lit. An industrial space; concrete floor, windowless walls, a ceiling crossed with pipes. The camera’s point of view floating slightly, as though handheld. A low hum that you almost feel more than hear. It runs through your bones, shudders your blood.

There’s something wrong here.
(Continued on next alt-text)

(Continued from previous alt-text)
A light flickers somewhere overhead, out of sight. A sickly green glow, sputtering into life. In its spasmodic flashes we glimpse the architecture of the space; three columns, left (near), right (near) and centre (far). The light paints blocks of thick shadow across the grey concrete. Three columns, three pitch black trenches.

With each flicker comes a buzz of sound, an electrical crackle, embedded in the low hum like barbed wire in flesh.

Your throat already feels tight, your windpipe constricted as though a hand were gripping your neck.

And then, behind the centre column, a glimpse of something moving. A hand, little bigger than a child’s, crawls round to grip the column’s edge. Above it, the corner of a face, a single eye beneath a curtain of long dark hair. The eye stares at you, unmoving, unblinking.

The light begins to flicker again. The barbed wire buzz grows louder. In the stutters of illumination, more hands appear, now on the left and right column edges, closer to the camera, closer to you. The thin white fingers grip the concrete, fingernails scraping back and forth against the surface. You can feel the tips of them against your throat. Your windpipe is little more than a thread, not wide enough to hold a single breath.

In the last second of the video, all goes dark again. The low hum fades away. All you can hear is the scratch of the fingernails. Skritch, skritch, skritch.

I only saw it once, but every second of it is imprinted on my retinas. There’s no way to escape it.

My throat has already begun to close. I can feel the grip of the hands, the sharp point of the fingernails against my skin. I desperately try to suck in a breath, but there’s no longer any place for the air to go.

I see the light above me flicker, hear the electrical buzz, and I know that it’s nearly over. I let myself succumb to the darkness.

From out of the darkness, three columns appear in front of me.

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#76: Video

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#75: Survey

A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads: "I started filling out a survey-and was plunged into serious soul-searching."

Alt-text for next image:
“Do you have time to fill out a short survey?” She was on my doorstep, a woman in her late forties, swamped by a yellow hooded cagoule, her washed-out face a picture of resignation.
“What’s it about?” I asked.
“Attitudes and opinions,” she said, flatly.
“You’ve hit the jackpot,” I told her, “I’ve got both.” She gave a thin smile, humoring me. I invited her in anyway. To tell the truth, I felt sorry for her. Can’t be an easy job.
The form she handed me was filled with questions and a grid of dots. Mark according to the strength of your feelings: Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neutral, Somewhat Disagree, Disagree.
She passed me a pencil, surprisingly weighty and solid. “Just fill it in yourself,” she said.
(Continued in next alt-text)

(Continued from previous alt-text)
I did as she asked. She sat opposite me, perched on the edge of the sofa cushion, still wrapped in her cagoule. I began to regret asking her in. It was hard to put my finger on, but there was something about her which seemed to suck all the life out of the room, a kind of dark cloud. It was like she was the company that misery loved.
The questions were peculiar. Mostly pretty inarguable, I’d say.
The innocent should suffer. Disagree.
Evil should be punished. Agree.
A man’s life can be wholly dictated by his actions in one single moment. Neutral.
I didn’t think about it too much, just tried to bounce through them as quickly as possible. Any attempt at friendly chit-chat, meanwhile, seemed destined to fail.
“You live round here?”
“No.”
“Been doing this job long?”
“Long enough.”
“Married? Got family?”
“Had a husband. Three kids. All gone now.”
Finally I was done. As I looked over the sheet of filled-in dots, I noticed that they seemed to make a kind of pattern. Almost like a symbol of some sort.
I handed her the sheet. As she looked at it, relief seemed to flood through her.
“Finally,” she whispered.
“I thought I was pretty quick about it,” I said, somewhat put-out.
She shook her head. “The curse” she said, “Finally lifted. Finally passed on.”
As she spoke, the cloud around her seemed to dissipate. At the same time I felt the air around me thicken and grow dim.
She stood up to leave. “Get another to draw the sigil in your presence,” she said, “That’s the only way to free yourself.”
As she walked out of the house, a hollowness began to manifest itself within me, while all hope, all joy, all positivity faded away.
I still gripped the pencil between my fingers, and realised only now why it carried so much weight.
It was my only hope to regain my soul.

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#75: Survey

Adrian Chills @adrianchills.bsky.social · 2mo ago

#74: Annoyed

$A screengrab of a headline to a Guardian column by Adrian Chiles. It reads 'My neighbours and I were left with no water this week. Why was I the only one who seemed annoyed?' Alt-text for next image: It’s been fifteen days since the heatwave first began, fifteen days of cloudless, pale blue skies, of an unrelenting sun cooking city and town alike. For me, it’s been close to unbearable. The night before the heatwave hit, I returned home with my ankle—broken that morning while jogging around the park, victim of an errant Dachshund pulling its lead taut across my path—encased in a fracture boot, with orders not to place any weight on it for at least two weeks. Luckily I’d had a big Waitrose delivery come in the day before, so I was stocked and ready—all I had to do was to see out the next couple of weeks. Then came the heat. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, not just the intensity of it, but the whole feel of it. It was like the sunlight had a texture—thick and heavy, soupy. I could swear it had an odour too. Though I kept the windows closed and fans on during the day, I could smell it seeping through, intoxicating like a perfume. Come to me, it seemed to say, worship in my presence. (continued on next alt-text)$