#AllHallowsRead #Halloween #UrbanLegend
// Here’s a little something I wrote last night for the fictioncrowd.com ( the brainchild of my friend @writeonmorgan ) which will be going live in November and I’m sneaking this one out early due to it being slightly time sensitive. I’m a bit new to this writing lark but there are some really talented people getting on board so keep your eyes out for it going live soon! You can get involved as a backer through patreon.com/fictioncrowd (to keep the website up etc.) or if you fancy submitting your own scribblings why not check out @fictioncrowd on Twitter. More importantly have a great Halloween and I hope you enjoy the story 🙂 //
I suppose finishing at midnight on all hallows’ eve had its benefits, at least it meant I wasn’t on the actual graveyard shift. As I passed the main gate of the button factory I shuddered and drew my collar in tighter as the gentle mizzle continued to seep into my bones. How many times had I done this walk? It was so familiar with the few nineteen forties lamp posts left on the street putting out their faint puddles of light at irregular intervals. They cast long shadows over the stumpy bones of the long demolished back to back houses that used to serve the many other factories that once populated the valley. No urban renewal here.
As I passed another pool of weak white light I glanced over my shoulder where the factory squatted imposingly at the end of the road. Victorian windows so exquisitely crafted filling the damp night air with a warm glow. Buttons, heh, how people chuckled when I told them where I worked. A job’s a job though and the pay was solid. -clack- My concentration came back to the road. -clack-clack- Another rat scurrying through the debris no doubt? I smiled as I thought of the many tales of the Button Collector from Victorian times who was blamed for every ill deed and even the state of the weather. As I recall it all followed on from a few disappearances and one murder where the victim had been found fully clothed but stripped of all buttons, most odd.
“I wouldn’t walk that road at night lad,” my manager used to say. “Grab the bus!” Yeah, the one that means you have to wait for up to an hour after you finish, no thanks… -clack- Noisy buggers, rats. -clackety-clack-clack- Ok, more than one then as that was ahead of me on my on the left. I kept my thoughts on the hot bath I was heading towards, that and some sleep.
The road slowly curved up the side of the valley, not too far to go now. A few newer houses started to speckle the roadside, the street lights here in better condition casting proper light. -clack- I stopped. A button was rolling towards me along the pavement, a shiny golden button. Curious, I stooped to retrieve it. It seemed to have a picture of a hand on it. Odd. I carried on. -clack-clackity-clack- Several buttons rolling and bouncing along the pavement coming from up ahead. My eyes followed them back to their source. Where the pavement should have been well lit was simply… gloomy, very strange. Cross over? Hmm… just tired. I walked on but as I passed the gloomy spot it resolved into a man, a short, round and very eccentrically dressed man. A top hat and tails and a huge overcoat, straight off the pages of a Dicken’s novel. The man’s eyes were dark and his face expressionless yet I felt no fear, no threat. The strangest thing of all were the buttons though, which were in a seemingly endless gentle flow from his every pocket and cuff.
I blinked a few times and then uncertain what to do I nodded to the figure, “Hello there.” With no response I carried on along the road. -clack-clack- I didn’t need to turn around, the gentle clatter of buttons let me know he was following me at a polite distance. Was this he? The Button Collector? I laughed silently to myself, this Victorian myth here and now? I really do need my bed.
It was a truly bizarre walk back up the final stretch of the road with my personal percussion accompaniment of clacks and dings behind me. I was just far too tired and too close to home to confront him and not entirely sure whether he was a creature of my imagination. The Victorian houses came up quickly, had I quickened my pace?. Fourth on the left, silly how that had been burnt in after too many trips to the pub. I went up the short path and fumbled for my key. The chap had stopped at the gate, even the buttons seemed to have stopped flowing from him. I shook my head, “Nice to meet you too,” I whispered and went in.
I threw my damp coat onto the rack in the hallway and flicked on the light, nothing. The electrics were so overdue a rewire, maybe next month. I’ll bodge it in the morning, far too tired now. A quick drink would be nice though before having my bath in the dark so I headed down the hallway to the kitchen. Empty? Not quite, the short man was there and I could see him more clearly now than under the street lights outside. -clack- This time his face did have expression: sympathy, sadness and weariness maybe. We stared at each other for what seemed like an age. As I stood there I slowly became aware that the button I’d picked up earlier was growing icy cold in my hand. I stared down at it. Ah… memory. I looked back at him, he smiled, I smiled back, no words were necessary. We headed for the front door and passed through, no need to open it this time though.
// Just as a quick note to finish: I really wanted to try and strive for a more pastoral Death figure than the usual depictions. Hopefully achieved here by reaching into the principal character’s life for inspiration and offering gentle guidance and reassurance. //
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