It’s October 1952 and Hull Fair is encamped on wasteland adjoining Walton Street. P.C. Whitty is looking for the ‘The Incredible Shrikes’. At the far end of the encampment he sees two human size paintings of birds on the side of a caravan. A poster depicting the shrikes and their human trainers, in bird costumes, reads: ‘The Shrikes. They said we’d never train the infamous Butcher Birds. BUT WE HAVE!’

He knocks on the caravan’s door – there’s no reply. He shouts, Anyone home? 
A woman opens the door. Behind her, inside the caravan, many shrikes swirl. 
I’m sorry, Whitty says, I can’t think straight with all them birds swirling about.
The woman puts her fingers to her lips and blows a high-pitched whistle; the shrikes perch where they can.
Thanks, Mrs Shrike.
We’re not married. What do you want?
To speak with you both about the legality of your act.
Best come in. Ollie’s out. I’m his partner, Polly. Our act is legal. 
Whitty retches behind a handkerchief over his mouth and nose. 
Yeah, they do shit a lot. 
Could we please open a window? 
Cut to the chase, constable.
A concerned member of the public has made an official complaint. This asserts that
our fairground sideshow, featuring shrikes, is disturbing.
What’s disturbing about it? Great Grey Shrikes are predatory songbirds known as ‘Butcher birds’. They live here with us. 
Good god. Why?
It makes us think like shrikes, sort of method acting; we get inside their heads, and they get inside ours.
So, they’re not pets?
No, they’re nasty; you wouldn’t want one as a pet. We’ve trained them to perform in a purpose-built big mesh cage by doing tricks before catching mice and hanging ‘em on barbed wire.
Isn’t that cruel?
It’s natural for the birds.
I was thinking of the mice. I must speak to you both. When’ll he be back?
I never know. I think the cheating bastard’s got another bit on the side. I’ve had enough. He’s got it coming. 
What’s he got coming?
Hell hath no fury …. Try tomorrow about four; he’ll be costuming up then.

The next day Whitty arrives and finds the caravan’s door flapping in the wind. He goes in. There’s no sign of Polly, or the birds, but the stink of shit remains.

Outside, to the rear of the caravan, he sees someone dressed in a large grey and white bird costume. Mrs Strike, is that you? he calls. 
Laughing, she takes off her costume’s head and says, He’s gone. On the ground, dressed in an identical costume, lies an inert body. She pulls off its costume’s head, revealing bloodied barbed wire tightly bound around the man’s neck cutting through his jugular vein and carotid artery. Meet Ollie, she says. Two shrikes peck at Ollie’s wounds. 

Subsequently, Whitty frequently ‘sees’ shrikes feeding on Ollie’s neck. He hears shrikes and Polly shrieking and believes this to be laughter. He takes compulsory retirement due to a mental breakdown.

I hope you enjoyed this story. Please feel free to pass it on to others who may be interested. You can read my previous 500 word stories on my website www.philcoskerwriter.com under ‘Writing’.>>>More

© Phil Cosker 2023
Phil Cosker has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved; no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any mean, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

George is a gamekeeper. His daily routine begins after an early breakfast with his inspection of the estate’s woodland. As ever, his old, increasingly frail, Border collie, Sam, accompanies him.

In a clearing near the main road, Sam barks as he hears a mewling sound from within nearby dense undergrowth. George holds up a finger and Sam is silent. They push their way past hawthorn and ash saplings. Good God, George gasps. A fallow deer, a doe, stands over the carcass of a stag. The doe, terrified, runs off. George studies the badly butchered body of the stag. Poachers, he says, buggers are at it again; no jobs, no money, no food on the table and hungry kids; It’s not right but nor is this. Flies swarm as maggots feast. Look at the poor beast; nothing deserves being cut up like that – no respect. Sam, stay. Keep strangers away.

It’s midday by the time George has dug a grave big enough for the stag’s body. He’s bloodied and tired by the time he’s buried the stag deep enough to prevent predators. As he rests on his spade Sam quietly growls. Turning, George sees the doe standing watching him. Hello, George says, I won’t harm you. The doe turns and disappears into the wood. She’s mourning, George says, adding, Don’t be daft, man, deer aren’t human.

The following night George is awakened by a haunting persistent high-pitched cry. He dresses and with Sam at his side sets off for the stag’s grave. Reaching it, they find the doe wailing like a banshee. George and Sam stand silently until the doe sees them. She doesn’t run for cover but continues to keen. She’s mourning, George says, I was right; I’ve never seen or heard the like of it.

On the following night George and Sam join the doe at the grave. On the way back to the cottage Sam stumbles and is unable to walk any further. George carries his dog slung across his shoulders. Back in the keeper’s cottage he lays Sam in front of the wood-burning stove and feeds Sam bread dipped in whisky – a remedy in which he has no faith; nevertheless Sam sleeps.

In the early morning light George sits on the floor by Sam stroking him, telling the dog that he’ll be okay, knowing full well that his dog is near death. He sits with him until the end.

It’s early evening when George gently lowers Sam into the grave. He looks up to see the doe standing just outside the garden fence. George smiles and says thanks. By the time George has completed the burial, he wants to say a prayer but the only words that come to him are, “Though lovers be lost, love shall not; and death shall have no dominion.” That night George visits the stag’s grave and stands with the doe. When George leaves for the cottage the doe comes with him. From then on deer and man are inseparable.

I hope you enjoyed this story. Please feel free to pass it on to others who may be interested. You can read my previous 500 word stories on my website www.philcoskerwriter.com under ‘Writing’.>>>More

© Phil Cosker 2022
Phil Cosker has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved; no part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any mean, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

December 1986

It’s a cold clear afternoon in Keldy Forest where Ben is lighting a wood-burning stove in an A-frame chalet he’s hired for a long weekend away with his newly pregnant wife, Frankie. Ben wants the chalet to be toasty when he returns from Malton railway station with her. Wife and husband are elated about the coming birth of their first child. Suddenly he’s overcome with emotion; choking back his tears, he makes a vow: Frankie, whatever comes to pass I will always love you. He laughs at himself for being so maudlin. 

It’s All Hallows’ Eve. The moon is new and the stars are bright on a cold clear night. Trick and Treaters are long asleep in bed. For a bet, Lucien, slightly drunk, is spending the night alone at the end of the pier. He’s not superstitious, but the stories of the haunted pier on this night of nights have left him on edge. He drinks from a whisky flask.

The tide is out and a vast expanse of glistening mud stretches beyond the end of the Victorian pier to the mouth of the estuary. For the first time, Lucien sees that the mud flats are not flat but full of ridges, hummocks and rills running with streaming water into gullies deep in the mud. He’s astounded that the moonlight is so bright and the mud is beautiful.

David, in his early seventies, is finally preparing his mother’s home for sale. It’s a great sadness to him that he never managed to persuade her to move to a smaller property rather than her large Victorian house. She’d been alone in it for fifty years since his father’s death until her own recent death in her nineties. Her loss still feels raw. No matter how hard David tried, she refused to move; there was always a good reason or an excuse that allowed a further postponement. David finds it ironic that he’s now in the same situation; his children are pressing him and their mother to downsize. He wonders if they know that the familiar makes life more comfortable.