Jim meets Alex, together they play dangerously, stalk a mythical beast and form an awesome band. What could possibly go wrong?
This is what I've mainly been working on for six months. It's a book and I'll be posting bits and pieces up now and then.
In this bit Jim's granddad, Charlie catches his grandson and Alex playing around in the farmyard and warns them to watch out for the Tigerfen.
Charlie asked Alex if Jim had told him about the Tigerfen. Jim hadn't. He knew what was coming and even though he'd heard it all before, he wanted to hear it again, so he kept quiet and listened to his granddad tell of the beast that had terrorised the villages of South Holland, Lincolnshire for generations. Nobody knew when it first appeared, Charlie thought it might have been when the Dutch drained the fen, but it was well-known dogs, cats, chickens and other animals were not safe on their own at night. Children were warned not to creep from their beds. But it didn't matter, because the Tigerfen would always be blamed for something and then the men would gather to catch it. Nothing ever came back, only apocryphal encounters in the boggy copses or snatched visions across flat fields. Nobody knew what it looked like, only that it was there, somewhere, out there. Waiting for you to go down and check the padlock on the woodshed at sunset.
'This all happened just before the spring, maybe February? And I'd have been your age Jim. I'd been helping my Dad – your great-granddad – pull up this big dead stump of a tree down by the drain junction. It taken us all day to get it out, bring it back and chop it up. Past the stable we used to have a lean-to made from wriggly tin where we kept all the wood for the winter. People didn't really nick things back then, but you had to be careful and it was a good idea to padlock the sheds. Not that it would have done any good with that old shed. It was so full of holes you could have bashed your way in. We eventually lost it in a big storm. It got blown clean through the yard, past our house and up the street before finally going over the wall into the cemetery. Anyway, my Dad couldn't remember if he locked up so he sent me down before dinner to check. It was just after the sun set. The sky was bright orange and the land, sheds and trees were all mixed together and black with shadow. I didn't like going down there with the light fading, it was always pretty spooky and cold, so I didn't hang around. I came around the side of the stables, looking through the bunch for the right key and there it was standing in front of me, no further than you are away from me now, stock still. Now, sometimes when I try and remember what it looked like, it has long shaggy hair that hung under its belly, sometimes its bigger than a Great Dane and sometimes I reckon no bigger than a Black Lab. But I'll never forget the steam rising from it's muzzle and those big, bright, flaming eyes burning straight into mine. I couldn't move could I, what would you do?'
'I don't know', said Alex, 'Was it the Tigerfen?'
'Who knows what it was, maybe it was the Tigerfen, but that's just a name. I believe there are things that walk the earth we know nothing about', said Charlie.
'What did you do?' said Jim.
'I stood as still as I could and watched its chest flex in and out, as if it just run all the way there to meet me. Eventually it turned round and buggered off into the field at the back there. Of course, I got my Dad and he came out with his twelve bore.'
'Did you shoot it?' Asked Jim excitedly. This bit of the story was new.
Charlie shook his head. 'The sun had long set by then and I don't think either of us wanted to go stumbling around in the twilight looking for it.'
'It was probably just a big dog', said Alex.
'Oh right – one with flaming eyes', said Jim.
'Maybe it was', said Charlie, 'maybe it wasn't.'
'Why is it called a Tiger then?'
'Who can say? But it does go to show that farms are not playgrounds. You two had no right up on those bales. If your Mum caught you Jim she'd have kittens. And I reckon your Mum, Alex wouldn't be best pleased if you went back home with a broken neck. Now go on the pair of you round the front, they've go something you should see.'
I know formatting isn't tight yet. More soon.
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