Merry Christmas, Here's A Present (2/4) By Nick Quantrill

(1/4), (2/4), (3/4), (4/4),

'Aye, that's us.' 'Good. What I need from you then is two grand by five o'clock tonight. That two grand will get you enough stuff to at least triple your money on the street.' They looked at each other and tried to keep the growing fear and excitement off their faces. 'Not a problem, erm...Dog.' Two thousand, Razor thought. He knew ways of getting that kind of money. 'Right, let's go for a walk and I'll explain what you need to do.'

Mad Dog and his two young associates made their way out of the pub and towards the market. Snow was starting to fall and the temperature was dropping rapidly. The city centre was at its busiest, with shoppers moving from shop to shop like ants, laden with carrier bags full of presents. 'Waste of money, eh lads' said Mad Dog. 'What's that, then?'

'The screen' he said, pointing upwards. The city's Big Screen dominated the square and was dressed up for Christmas with an oversized wooden advent calendar neatly place between its supporting pillars. Traditionally, the city received the gift of a tree from Norway, but presumably the Norwegians had felt it necessary to cut their expenditure this year. The locally sourced tree was nothing short of pathetic, with its tired and shabby appearance.

'How much was it, half a million pounds or something so we can watch whatever's on BBC1 as we walk down the street? Load of bollocks, if you ask me.' Razor mumbled his agreement. It was still just an oversized television to him; he barely noticed it any more. 'What's that?' asked Razor, pointing to a small wooden hut. Mad Dog stopped to have a look. 'That?' he said.

'Aye, that. What them people are drinking.' 'That's mulled wine.' 'What's that, then?' 'Hot wine.' Razor looked across to Stevie and pulled a face. 'Hot wine?' 'Yeah. People drink it at Christmas time. Try it sometime.' The party moved on down the street. Razor and Stevie looked on with astonishment at the variety of unusual sausages and cheeses on display, amazed that people actually ate them.

'Here we are, lads.' They moved away from the stalls and lent back onto the window of a near-by shop. 'That's Jurgen over there. See him?' Brett and Stevie looked over to where Mad Dog was pointing. Jurgen looked slightly older than Mad Dog. He was muscular with closely cropped hair. They could see the tattoos on his hands and face from where they were stood.

Continued... Next Page (3/4)

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Big Slaughter By Kate Askin

	As Big Slaughter housemate 'Little Wee' Jim gave a final tug on the garrotte round the neck of the only other remaining contestant, he knew he had won...he knew... He knew by the sound of that last gurgle...It came from the throat of six-feet-six Thai hermaphrodite Om Lui (whose height was enhanced by foot-long calf extensions, no less). He knew, by the last desperate, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Debit Column By Patrick Henry

	Raymond, abrasively-witty, biography-reviewing journalist, worked during endless pub-going; volumes under arm; notes mental or beer-mat-jottings; from Five AM. around Smithfield Market, through mid-day Fleet Street, Soho; to evening Chelsea, exhausting his trail home. Early hours meant snatched sleep and eating; columns grittily-written: cold turkey! Five A.M. his taxi Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The 1st One Hundred Words Are The Hardest By Rich Mills

	He'd started that first sentence many times, deleting it and starting over again. The cursor blinked in the corner of the screen, taunting him, daring him to write something. He stared at, became hypnotized by it. Time ticked by, blink, blink, blink. His mind was just blank, blank, blank. Then in a sudden rush to fill the white expanse with black he started banging away at Read more...

Fiction - End Of The Line By Nick Quantrill
	This is how it happened... I was driving down Lowgate. There's got to be a better way than this, I thought to myself. But then I saw her, clinging to a lamppost, holding her hand out as her friend tried to stop her from falling over. I indicated and pulled over; she would do nicely. Her friend bundled her into my car. No respect for anything, least of all herself, I thought Read more...

Fiction - Another Brick In The Wall, Another Man In The Crowd By Steve Rudd
	'It doesn't look any different on this side,' the disembodied voice yelled over the void. 'I never said that it would look any different. But I bet it feels different,' ventured an old man's voice on the Eastern side of the wall. 'Not really,' the disembodied voice declared. 'At least not from where I'm standing.' To some people, the momentous fall of the Berlin Wall signified freedom Read more...

Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 2 Chapter 2 By Frank Beill
	It was too late in the day to visit Tweed Street school - the children and their teachers would be long gone by now. This left only the address I'd been given for George. Hessle Road was not a long walk from Princes Avenue but a tram ride was quicker or to be precise two tram rides were: one into the city centre and one back out again to get me to my destination. All the old reactions Read more...

Fiction - The Service By Joe Hakim
	I'm a professional. I get the job done. It's already getting dark as I arrive at the station. I make my way past the perimeter fence and park my car in the shelter. So begins the process of shedding everything that makes me who I am, in order to become somebody else. You can never tell what kind of night it's going to be, so even now after all this time the anticipatory adrenalin Read more...

Fiction - The Emporium of Illusions By Andy Bilton
	I cannot decide which foam bath to put in to the tub. Mood, I feel, is an important player in a first date situation and I do not want to fold at the first hand by getting in to the wrong one before tonight's encounter. So do I pour in some of the Marks & Spencers 'Tranquility' that has an unnerving resemblance to Rowntree's Lime Jelly and 'treat myself to an indulgent bathing Read more...

Fiction - The Horrible Death of Tony Clare: Retribution and Revolt By Sean Davey
	Tony Clare, British Premier, bringer of war, pestilence, famine and social impotence, died today. Killed by an unknown man. A man driven not by his hatred for the Prime Minister, but by his own need to right the wrongs that Tony Clare's society was responsible for. A society which neglected its own people, raped the land, taxed the workers and killed the innocent. Read more...

Fiction - Dig Your Own Hole By Joe Hakim
	Things were going well. We were on schedule and under budget, Chris Chambers, so my boss was chuffed to bits. "It's going to be a good year," he said slapping me on the back, a huge shit-eating grin plastered across his face. As he looked around the building site, he tipped back his hard-hat and his chest expanded like a proud father watching at his children running around. Read more...

Fiction - Load the Cards By Sean Davey
	Loading up the cards and I start thinking. I think about casino's, and all that is. Imagine a building dear reader, where degenerate, and often eccentric behaviour is not only the norm. its positively encouraged. Heavy drinking and gambling is as much a part of the punters mind as work, or going for a meal. Its just what they do to get their kicks. Read more...

Fiction - Charity Begins in the Toilet By Shep
	Like most stories this one starts at the beginning with a middle aged man kissing a middle aged woman on the middle of the lips. I'm not sure where the middle starts or ends but I'm fairly sure its centre is an equal distance from these two extremes. The man's head jacks back and forth like a mother bird trying to vomit out some nourishment to her Read more...

Fiction - Goths in Denim (I only dress like a Goth!) By Jason Ince
	'That can't be the time!' I scream, staring at the clock-slash-radio-slash-CD player. This is the last time I try a DVD marathon within one day, I'll kill Stanny for suggesting it to me. The phone starts to vibrate before the ringtone kicks in. It's Clark's tone...again, 'damn you, Clark!' I charge across the room and leap over the chair and snatch the mobile. Read more...

Fiction - Absinthe - A Cautionary Tale By Sean Davey
	In pursuit of the perfect high, man invented absinthe, and I among others regularly enjoy its powerful effects. But on some days, store-bought brands are far too timid for the task at hand. On these days we need the homemade stuff. Created in garages and lofts, jam packed with wormwood and all those other alpha-terpenes to get the brain synapses into full gear. Read more...

Fiction - Punishment By Nick Quantrill
	Punishment by local crime-fiction writer and thisisull.com contributor, Nick Quantrill, has won a nationwide short-story competition run by HarperCollins. Entrants were invited to submit a story of no more than 1,000 words in the crime-fiction/thriller genre. Here's what the judges had to say about Punishment : 'We were impressed with the use of Read more...

Fiction - Friday Feeling By Nick Quantrill
	Friday 3pm It was building up to being another busy Friday afternoon shift. It was probably no busier than any other shift, but the extra tiredness that Detective Constable Maynard felt by this point made them feel that much longer. He had been sent to Young's general store in East Hull straight after attending a suspicious death over on the other side of the city. It was Read more...

Fiction - The Morning After By Joe Hakim
	They'll be here soon. There's nothing much to do other than wait, so I make another strong cup of coffee and light up another cigarette. Even these seemingly arbitrary actions are cast into a new focus now. This patch of time I'm occupying is a bridge - a bridge that spans the space between the way my life used to be and the way it's going to be. I look around my living room Read more...

Fiction - In A Room By Joe Hakim
	I wish there were bars so I could hold them, wrap my fingers around the cold steel and press my face in between them, but it's just a room, I'm in a dark room with no windows and no features, so I just sit and think and think and think. I am a captive, a hostage in a foreign country. I'm apart from my family and friends and I don't know if I'll ever see them again. Every so Read more...