Welcome To Hellville - Part 17 By Rich Mills

next page Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. 16.

29th November 2040 The information is coming thick and fast. The latest version of Arc-iSearch is a truly amazing piece of AI software. It sweeps across the huge net archives, sniffing out the smallest of references, eliminating the irrelevant with an intelligence that grows as it goes. I set it on its way yesterday, now it has started to throw up some interesting pieces of the puzzle. Arc-iSearch has just flashed up something that struck a cord with me from my childhood. It comes from the Hellville Community Net-News Archives.

Community Net-News Headline: November 6th Drunken Decapitation Drama, Dodgy Doctor Death Denies Death Deliberate Violet Phoenix (69) of West Hellville was found dead in the early hours of this morning. In what police describe as a truly gruesome scene, her head had been removed from its body. A police spokesman is reported as saying that this is one of the worst crime scenes they have ever witnessed.

A suspect known locally as 'Dodgy Doctor Death' has been detained for questioning within hours of the grisly discovery. It is believed that he currently helping police with their enquiries. An unidentified source told Hellville Community Net-News that the body had been seriously sexually assaulted before being decapitated, in what is described as seeming like some kind of occult ceremony. For a full report on this story and other news of the day, visit our website.

After reading this I remembered something. The story dragged up a memory, buried deep down. I spoke to Mum and Dad about this, and they remembered it as if it was yesterday. It was all big news at the time, and left ripples throughout Hellville and beyond for ages afterwards. What started as a supposed mercy killing, Dodgy span a tale that spun out of control. Euthanasia or assisted suicide? that was the burning question on everyone's lips at the time, and why had Dodgy Doctor Death decided to live up to his ridiculous nickname?

Videotape evidence presented in court, and shown nationwide on prime time television, had the catastrophic qualities required to satisfy the voracious appetites of peak time family viewing audiences nationwide, but proved nothing of any real consequence. People who had nothing to do with the victim, for she was known to be one of life's loners, all had a ready-spun media-twisted opinion to express, said airing the tape of the death went too far. That it was a slippery slope towards terminally ill termination TV. Death on television a question of taste, ethics and ultimately profits, but not one of law kept the channels in ferocious competition for weeks.

The death video could have been trouble for Dodgy, as over-the-counter DVD sales rocketed, he entered into a bitter court battle over image copyright violation. Dodgy eventually admitted to killing Violet Phoenix who he started describing as a patient of his, this all really being in order to win the copyright law suit he'd taken out against the video distributors. He concocted a more and more elaborate story around what was little more than a grainy piece of CCTV footage. No-one ever questioned where the footage had come from, who had released it, or why Violet had a CCTV camera in her bedroom in the first place. As sales started to decline, he had to come up with something new to keep the story in the headlines, and that all-important sales revenue coming in.

Continued ....next page,

Fiction - Complicity Part 5 By Nick Quantrill
	Complicity is the new crime-fiction novella set in Hull featuring Detective Sergeant Coleman and Detective Constable Maynard. The thisisull.com serialisation is accompanied by the stunning black and white photography of Roland Standaert, which illustrates the story and takes a unique look at the city. Complicity and other stories are available for free. Read more...

Fiction - The Guy Who Had All The Time In The World By Joe Hakim
	Sometimes it gets to be a bit too fuckin' much, I decide, after another day spent wandering the streets aimlessly. The sky is still bright purple - the colour of a fresh bruise - and the streets are still completely silent; not even the sound of birds chirping or distant traffic in the distance. Aside from that, everything seems to be much the same, at least on the surface. There's no visible Read more...

Fiction - Kat Out of the Bag Chapter Fourteen By Steve Rudd
	Yogesh, my abandoned guide on all things Nepalese, had said that the small yak-herding settlement of Langsisa was worth seeing if seeing meant believing, being as it is so isolated and yet further east of Kyangjin. Yogesh and I had discussed where I might like to trek on my trip before we embarked from Kathmandu, and he'd proposed the Langtang trek as being an ideal one Read more...

Fiction - The Burden - A Short Story By Joe Hakim
	I step out into the sun and close my eyes, letting the light wash over my face. It's cold, and the wind pinches my cheeks but I feel complete, for the first time ever. Today the world is different. Today is the first day of a new beginning. Everything feels real and vivid, and I bathe in it, taking it all in like a child seeing a painting for the first time, judging the angles and Read more...

Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 17 (1886: Hull, Yorkshire) By Frank Beill
	When we got further out into the Atlantic my companions became wary of going up on deck. When they did they scanned the horizon and talked in low voices if there were dark clouds heading towards us. The ocean swell was stronger but these weren't the rough seas they expected in repetition of the previous crossing. I was pleased we weren't enjoying the great sickness Read more...

Fiction - Welcome To Hellville - Part 16 By Rich Mills
	"What music are you into, man?" The American exchange student who had earlier introduced himself, without any regard for Alan's need to be alone, suddenly threw a curve-ball of a question like this in his direction. "Well I listen to..." What followed was a definitive list of bands from Alan's wide-ranging rare vinyl and CD collection, he even Read more...

Fiction - Zero and the Neighbours Part 1 - Demo version 0.1 By Joe Hakim
	Frank was one of the regulars. From the first day I started dealing poker on the tables, Frank was there. To look at, he was your typical moody old man - old in the Father Christmas sense - white hair, a huge white beard and a round gut that hung out of his shirt and over his belt. You could imagine him sat in a grotto in the bottom of Princes Quay with some mewling Read more...

Fiction - Just like Eddie by Bob Spence
	I don't know exactly when I got into it but there you are. Like most lads, I suppose it was the thought of being Bristol's answer to Elvis that was some kind of inspiration. Yes that was always there in the back of my mind, but the accent never sounded quite right to be fair. Anyway. The South Deans Village Youth Club was a right place back then and we used Read more...

Fiction - The Wall by Darren Sant
	Sometimes your best is just not enough. Panic stricken and panting I arrive. There it is, a fucking huge wall. An obstacle blocking my progress. A visible representation of all that I can't achieve. Nervously I look behind me. I lash out at it, kicking and punching but to no avail. It is rock solid. I jump but find it too high. I take a running jump Read more...

Fiction - Divine by Blair Ashworth
	"Mein Führer? Mein Führer?" The old man in the long grey coat was bent over the body slumped in the chair. "Give it a few more seconds, Henry," said the doctor. "Do you speak any German? It might lessen the shock." No, Henry didn't speak any German and he didn't much care about any shocks he might deliver. Behind the heavy oak chair, Read more...

Fiction - Scissors, Paper, Stone! By Bob Spence
	The Lord Nelson was your typical run-down seventies pub. The decor was in disarray, with half a mind to venerate the Royal Navy's biggest hero or to catch the eye of the potential clientele with the latest fashion. In this manner it achieved neither. Mickey was the prototype glass collector for every Read more...

Fiction - Drowning, Swimming By Joe Hakim
	Keith sat and stared at his wife, who was holding his daughter and staring at the 28" Philips Widescreen TV situated in the corner of his house, on his laminate floor, flanked at either side by his Sony sound system and his X-Box. He was sweating and his head was throbbing - the general effects of the weekend Read more...

Fiction - Any Instructions? By Denis Price
	It wasn't the first time he'd missed the bus. From the Mess to the monitoring hangar was only a quarter of a mile walk, something he relished during the central European summer as the airbase had been carved out of heavily wooded countryside teeming with wildlife. Read more...

Fiction - Second Chances by Nick Quantrill
	Available now, Second Chances is a crime fiction novella set in Hull that is already attracting praise from readers. Influenced by crime fiction heavyweights Ian Rankin and Hull's Robert Edric, Second Chances is set to be a great success. For a taster, see the extract reproduced below, only available Read more...

Fiction - Invasion By Bob Spence
	Moody just couldn't stop scratching. His shirt was far too stiff at the edge of the collar and the coarse material was driving him to distraction. You could also say that Moody was distracted anyway. He was waiting for a letter from his fiancee and there was none. Read more...

Fiction - The Death and Birth and Death of a Legend By Bob Spence
	Goober liked to be busy. Some people could handle doing nothing, not Goober Walton. Running the tidy but ancient gasoline concession suited. Suited well. It was orderly and everything clearly had its place. Some would say it looked almost military in its order and for that it Read more...

Fiction - Feller's in Cut By Maurice Fairfield
	Well that's her gone. You don't remember me do you? I'll have a pint while you're thinking about it. It's me Jack, Harry Fergus's son. Here for the funeral. Thought I'd see her get put under. Not sure why. It's always a laugh though, watching a parson doing a Read more...

Fiction - Firm but Fair By Mark Pollard
	Cry-Baby Jim Breaks. He pioneered it, they say. And the hushed, almost ecclesiastical tones of Ken Walton had heralded it's entry into Saturday afternoon folklore: the bright lights of Blackpool and Great Yarmouth, down to the lesser reputes of Ilfracombe and Skegness had all borne witness Read more...

Fiction - Puzzles By Denis Price
	I've got a really nice room, when the door's closed I feel ever so safe and warm. It's quiet as well, just the swish of the wind in the trees outside. I like the trees; they hide the big tall fence. My watchers say the fence is there to keep me safe, and that's their job too, they're always there Read more...