Three Mile Drove, Chapter One (standard:horror, 1380 words) [1/29] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Updated: Jun 11 2008	Views/Reads: 4332/2538	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
following on from the prologue, this is a story about a washed-up rock musician who inherits a smallholding in the English fens and soon finds himself regretting taking up the place. Chapter one of a completed work.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

off key. But try telling her that. 

It had begun to rain as he turned the Cherokee into his street, tiny
droplets at first but in the short time it took him to pull up outside 
his house they had increased in size and intensity. As he hopped out 
Goldwater believed they might be forerunners of an unwelcome storm. 

He had a reasonably sized four bedroomed house and a reasonably sized
driveway leading into it, which he never used, preferring to leave the 
Jeep out on the narrow tree-lined street where it often caused 
obstruction, much to the chagrin of his neighbours. 

The phone was ringing when he entered the house, tripping over the
hallway mat and disregarding a formal looking white envelope which lay 
upon it. 

Unbalanced by his encounter with the mat he stumbled across the
rectangular hall, before snatching the receiver from its housing by the 
door of the main reception room. 

‘Darren it's Jeff, I'm calling to tell you that Craig and me have had
enough of the antics, the band's sinking like the titanic and we're not 
going down with it. We're pulling out here and now.' 

Goldwater felt Jeff Foreman's words lodge sharply in the pit of his
stomach. So that was it, just like that. A ten year association split, 
and by way of a bloody phone call. Well he didn't really mind, he'd 
known it was coming in any case. What really riled him was that they 
hadn't had the guts to tell him face to face. 

He felt his anger rising like acid from his gut, ‘So why tell me now
Jeff, why didn't you tell me up front, after the show. Guess you didn't 
have the nerve eh ?' 

‘You were too quickly off the mark Darren,' Jeff Foreman said with quiet
sarcasm, ‘running away from Goldie I suppose.' 

‘Go to hell !' Goldwater slammed the receiver into its cradle with a
force that rocked the wall socket. Was that what they really thought - 
that he was scared of her, was that what they had been thinking all 
these years ? 

Well it was total crap, he just needed space, that was all. He needed
eternal space from her ranting and raving. 

Goldwater stormed into the lounge and yanked a bottle from the mahogany
drinks cabinet. They could all go to hell if they thought the split was 
going to bother him. The writing had been on the wall longer than the 
graffiti in Gladstone Street subway. He would be glad to be free of the 
lot of them. He could find a job as a lead guitarist with any band he 
chose, they would be glad to have him, he'd been holding this motley 
little crew together for too long. He'd earn more than enough money to 
keep himself and his place ticking over. 

Except that he couldn't. He knew it with all the bitterness he tried to
hide. Bitterness that threatened to erupt from the core of his head 
like discharge from a crater. 

His fingers were too shaky, too slow on the fingerboard these days no
matter how much he tried to hide it, sometimes he felt himself 
struggling to hold a G-chord. Why, even at this moment he was 
struggling to remove the top from the whisky bottle. The top eventually 
fell to the floor, he didn't bother retrieving it. His mind felt like a 
network of lines, none of which met. Face facts old friend, one and 
only self-effacing friend, you're finished, fucking washed up, a 
has-been at thirty nine, a potential vagrant in a smart, four bedroomed 
house. 

Goldwater took a big swig from the bottle, clasped his hand around it's
neck and crossed to the guilt edged mirror which dominated the room. He 
examined his black curly hair, matted with sweat from the performance, 
saw his blood rimmed blue eyes and ran his fingers around the hollows 
beneath his eyes. He could swear that the normally thin lines had 
doubled into folds since the last time he'd looked. 

He turned away in disgust, switched the stereo on full blast, then
headed through the hall towards the downstairs toilet. 

Then he remembered the envelope lying on the mat. 


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