Tales From The Town #70: The Children’s Court (first session)

Topic: The Lodger And How Awful He Is And What We Know He’s Done So Far
Attendees: Claire, Ethel, Tina, Daniel, a doll, some dogs
Location: The Hollow On The Hill
Evidence To Be Presented: (verbal admissions only)
Ambience: Grasshoppers, contrails

Claire: …and he filled the freezer up with bread and I hate him. (pause) That’s the end of my evidence against the lodger. Oh and he broke the swing, remember?
Tina: That was ages ago.
Ethel: And he apologised.
Claire: What’s that got to do with anything? It’s still a crime. So who’s next? Daniel?
Daniel: He’s been trying to steal my dreams.
Ethel: What?
Tina: How?
Daniel: I dreamt he was asleep and dreaming he was me and when I asked him to stop he said no.
Claire: That doesn’t even make any sense.
Ethel: It does.
Claire: It doesn’t. Which makes it even worse. (pause) Good evidence Daniel.
Tina: I think he stole my poetry book.
Claire: No one stole your poetry book. It was exactly where I said it would be! In that drawer in your bedroom that you forgot to look in before for some reason!
Tina: Well, maybe he put it back there. Anyway, I still think he stole it. He definitely looked at it.
Claire: That’s not evidence. That’s supposition.
Tina: Well it’s better than insinuation.
Claire: It’s not!
Ethel: So why do you think the lodger stole your poetry book, Tina?
Tina: He quoted one of my poems back to me.
Claire: What does that prove?
Tina: My poems are a secret!
Claire: That’s stupid. Secret poems might as well not even exist.
Tina: Well now they exist and I don’t like it.
Claire: I hope Ethel’s evidence is better than that!
Ethel: It is! (pause) Wait, I mean, it’s exactly as compelling as that, Tina.
Tina: Thank you!
Ethel: So anyway… the lodger has been spying on Anna and Oya!
Tina: What? That’s awful!
Ethel: I know! And even worse, he’s been passing off Anna’s opinions as his own!
Claire: How’s that worse?
Ethel: They’re her thoughts, Claire! Not his! It’s plagiarism.
Tina: Plagiarism of the mind.
Claire: Maybe she’s passing off his opinions as HERS!
Ethel: She wouldn’t!
Claire: She would!
Ethel: Whose side are you on Claire? I thought you hated the lodger! I bet he’s never even read a book! Anna’s read loads of them!
Claire: I do hate him. But that doesn’t mean I should just believe anything you say about him. This is a court of law!
Ethel: Why can’t you agree with anyone, Claire? Just once. Please.
Claire: Because I’m right and you’re wrong! (pause) Although actually this time I do agree with you, Ethel. Because no one would pretend to have opinions as awful as his. Not even stupid old Anna!
Ethel: Stop being mean to Anna, Claire!
Claire: No! This is all her fault. If she hadn’t fallen in love with Oya and made Oya move out of her room and into Anna’s room then Mum wouldn’t have needed a new lodger and then the new lodger wouldn’t have moved in to the new rooms and the new rooms would still be empty and I could have moved into one of them instead and had it all to myself instead of having to sleep in the same room as all of you!

(silence)

Tina: What are we arguing about again?
Claire: EVERYTHING!

The court was adjourned until the afternoon.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on 22nd May, 2022

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from the archives of Essex Terror: Tales From Dimension Essex: The Movie

[Notes: One of the last few dregs from the Essex terror glass, this is a reprint of a transcript of a trailer for a film that never existed (from late 2014).]

***

Tales From Dimension Essex: The Movie

Title card: Tales From Dimension Essex!

Music: The Theme From Tales From Dimension Essex plays

Narrator: Welcome to Tales From DIMENSION ESSEX! A world unlike any you have ever known. But first, a message of warning from our Producer.

The Theme From Tales From Dimension Essex fades out.

The Producer is a fat bald man in an ill-fitting suit. The only way you can tell he is not Alfred Hitchcock is that he has a beard, and also is a coarsely spoken Essex barbarian of some description.

The Producer is standing in a nicely decorated middle class living room. Directly behind him is a window and outside we can see a beautiful view of fields and trees. The Producer speaks directly to the camera, as if he is talking to us, the viewer, personally.

The Producer: Hi, I’m David N. Guy, writer, director, producer and proprietor of Tales From Dimension Essex. Here at Tales From Dimension Essex we take our responsibilities very seriously. We know we make programmes that contain some of the most shocking, gruesome and downright terrifying scenes any human will ever see, and as such we’re aware that there will be a significant proportion of any potential audience who will be unable to cope with such demented visions of inhumanity and insanity.

The Producer: Usually as these are broadcast only as radio plays, we expect that those that would be offended or sickened likely lack the imaginative capabilities to turn our words into truly disturbing images within the mind. But as we have managed, for the first time ever, to bring our tales of gibbering unease to the screen, we now bear the responsibility of knowing that our visions will be imaginable by all.

The Producer: As a writer, I have to be true to my tales. I cannot water them down, or obscure the more unpalatable aspects of the story, just to adhere to notions of good taste or decency, especially considering how fluid those standards are. No, as a writer it is my duty to tell what must be told, in the manner that tells it best. If this is to contain untold gallons of viscera and the cacophonous screams of the innocent than so be it.

The Producer: But as a producer, I know that pleasing my audience is of the utmost importance. I want you to be scared, but only if you want to be scared. I don’t want to upset anyone, and I especially wouldn’t want to offend a single person. If shocking people was of any interest to me, I’d skulk around on the high street shouting at strangers. But I don’t. And I won’t.

The Producer: An offended customer is a failed customer. So, as this is the case, I would like to here outline the objectionable contents of the upcoming film. However, I understand and sympathise with those that find spoilers the most offensive possible thing of all. So as to be able to please both these groups, I will list the sickening happenings within this film in written rather than in spoken words. Therefore, those that do not want the film to be spoiled please close your eyes now and await further instructions. Those that wish to see whether this film may potentially upset them, please concentrate on the scrolling text that should begin appear at the bottom of your screen any second now.

The Producer falls silent, and a series of subtitles begin to be displayed across the bottom of the screen.

Subtitle: This film contains elements of the following:

Subtitle: Unease caused by a fear of the unknown

The Producer suddenly looks very scared.

Subtitle: Horror

The Producer starts backing away from the camera.

Subtitle: Terror

The Producer backs up against the wall and window at the back of the room. The camera starts to move slowly towards him.

Subtitle: Subtle manipulations of the psychology of the viewer, designed primarily to prey on the following aspects of the human psyche:

The Producer turns around, clearly panicked, and forces the window open as quickly as he can, nervously looking over his shoulder at the camera, which is getting closer by the second.

Subtitle: Such as a fleeting moment of relief designed purely to heighten the horror of what is to come.

The Producer gets the window open and climbs through, running across the field a bit before turning back to look at the window.

Subtitle: And then the dread

The camera reaches the window ledge, looks up and down slightly, and then passes through, into the world outside. The Producer looks mortified, and begins to stumble backwards

Subtitle: and a moment of near paralysing disbelief

The Producer continues to walk backwards, but more slowly, also peering forward slightly as if trying to get a really good look at the camera.

Subtitle: before an explosion of absolute heartbursting shock

The camera suddenly lunges forward towards The Producer, causing him to recoil in fear and fall backwards to the floor.

Subtitle: And a panicking weeping screaming pursuit

The Producer gets up and runs away. Sprinting away from the camera at an incredible pace for someone so fat. And bearded. The camera begins to follow after a moments delay.

Subtitle: through busy streets

The camera starts to catch up with The Producer. He turns sharply right and the camera follows and now they’re running across a road and down a residential street

Subtitle: amid the blank unconcern of the local populace

The people stop and stare at The Producer as he runs. They seem oblivious to whatever is behind the camera.

Subtitle: who couldn’t care less about your well-being

The Producer runs into a crowd of people, who start to part around him. And into the gap they leave the camera follows.

Subtitle: Through the woods

As The Producer passes beyond the people they are suddenly into the woods. The Producer ducks under a low branch, forces his way through thick undergrowth

Subtitle: and into the caves

And is suddenly into a cave. Rock walls taper inwards as he passes further into them, threatening to squeeze him tight enough he gets wedged and stuck.

Subtitle: and the dark

The Producer is having to run sideways now, panicking, looking back at the camera forcing himself through. The screen gets darker and darker

Subtitle: the endless dark

Until it is pitch black. From his huffing and puffing and the thudding of his footsteps we can tell he is still fleeing.

Subtitle: before finally entering the light

Up ahead there’s a sudden point of light that grows and grows and he steps into the blinding whiteness

Subtitle: And beyond

And tumbles out into the daylit void, followed by the camera as they fall and fall

Subtitle: And a final sudden moment of such shocking sickening violence

The Producer’s body smashes violently into the rocks below with a sickening thud, blood bursting everywhere. And then the camera lands and falls onto its side in a crack in the rocks just below The Producer and watches him there, the image rotated now at a weird angle, looking up at his shattered face.

Subtitle: it makes you wish you’d stayed at home

Blood dripping down onto the camera until the entire screen is red. There are several minutes of silence, and then the screen slowly fades to black. As it does so a final subtitle is displayed.

Subtitle: But then you remember where this all began

Eventually, the lights in the cinema come up, the curtains begin to close.

Narrator: You can open your eyes now. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please leave the theatre as quickly and as quietly as possible. Goodnight.

Subtitle (projected onto cinema curtains): THE END

__________

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from the archives of Essex Terror: Tales From Dimension Essex #1: The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow

[Notes: This is a reprint of a transcription of a radio play that was based upon an overheard conversation recounting an urban myth about unreliable narrators, from February 2014]

***

In 2013 , the first (and so far only) episode of Tales From Dimension Essex aired across the county. Performed live and entirely improvised, The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow was veteran playwright Ted Vaaak’s first new work in some time. Unfortunately, due to a rights’ dispute with BBC Radio Essex, the play was transmitted unannounced on a largely inaudible frequency.

Although fog across the estuaries bent the radiowaves back into receivable wavelengths in a number of Essex’s coastal towns, huts and scientific research outposts, it was still only heard by an estimated seven people, none of whom had the presence of mind to record it. However, one of those seven listeners was Jennifer Mudchute, a compulsive stenographer from Tollesbury, and her notes have proved invaluable in allowing us to create a transcript of this work of monumental art.

Tales From Dimension Essex #1: The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow

Cast

The Narrator – an introducer of tales
Radio Announcer – a filler of silence
Doctor George Slime – a professional of medicine
Alan Pellow – a man of Essex
Tephany Pellow – a woman transformed
Martha Slime – a wife of a man

Location – This entire play takes place within the confines of the house and home of Doctor George Slime, a noted physician who lives in Essex.

Narrator: Everyone always says that marriage changes everything, but for poor Alan Pellow it changes even more than most. What follows here is a shocking, some may even say sickening, story that could only ever be a… TALE FROM DIMENSION ESSEX!

Title Sequence: The Tales From Dimension Essex Theme Tune plays

Narrator: Tales From Dimension Essex, Episode 4635 – The Terrifying Transformations Of Tephany Pellow, by Ted Vaak.

There is a moment of silence, followed by the sound of footsteps across a creaky wooden floor. Then the noise of a radio being switched on and tuned through static, until some light music plays for ten seconds, before fading out beneath the sound of the radio announcer’s voice.

Radio Announcer: Welcome to BBC Radio Essex, home of uninterrupted hypnotherapeutical music from 6pm to 6am, every single day of the week. As our slogan says “The working day may be stressful, but the evenings never should be!” That was The Sleep Orchestra with The Sensational Sound Of Snoring, and this right now is Toby Vok with his brand new track, The Infinite Undulating Note.

The Infinite Undulating Note begins to play. Throughout the rest of the radioplay it continues on in the background – except where expressly noted – getting more and more dissonant and horrifying as the play progresses, until the transcendent finale in which it transforms into the most beautiful sound a human being could ever possibly hear.

Doctor George Slime (talking to himself): Ah, Friday evenings! Is there any finer time. Work is over, dear Martha is upstairs washing her hair, and now a good two hours to relax, with nothing to distract me. What a marvellous feeling it is to be alone. No patients coughing across the desk at me. No Martha scolding me for my unfeeling remarks. Just me, my books and my whisky. Ah, to be alive like this, even if only for a few hours a week!

The noise of a bottle being opened, whisky being poured, the self satisfaction of a big strong gulp. And then a doorbell rings, and then rings some more.

Doctor George Slime: Drat and bother and drat once more! Who could that be, on a Friday for goodness sake? Oh well, I’ll just leave it to Martha. It’s bound to be for her.

The doorbell rings again, and then again, and then again and again, more and more urgently each time.

Doctor George Slime: Where’s Martha? God, that woman can never hear anything above the sound of her blasted hairdryer! I suppose I’ll just have to damn well answer it myself then.

Doctor George Slime places his glass back down on the table, rises from his comfortable leather chair and walks across the wooden floorboards of his study, down the hall (the sound of the radio fading away behind him as he walks away from it) and then opens the door. As he opens the door the doorbell rings furiously several more times.

Doctor George Slime: Yes! Yes! This had better be important. All this racket is giving me a headache!

Alan Pellow: Doctor Slime, it’s me, Alan Pellow, from across the road. Let me in. I need your help right now!

Doctor George Slime: Alan, it’s Friday evening. I’ve been drinking. I can’t help you. I could lose my licence.

Alan Pellow: I don’t care about that! It’s about my wife! LET ME IN!

Doctor George Slime: Okay, okay. Come in, then, come in. And shut the door behind you, will you?

The door slams shut and we hear them walk back down the hall and into George’s study, the radio rising back to its previous volume in the background. Toby is still playing his undulating note, which is by now slightly more unsettling than before.

Alan Pellow: Doc, look at this!

Alan Pellow clatters an animal cage down onto Doctor George Slime’s mahogany desk. There is the sudden sound of deranged gibbonesque howling.

Doctor George Slime: Good God, Alan! I’m a doctor not a vet! I thought you were worried about your wife? Did this… thing attack her?

Alan Pellow: No, Doc. You don’t understand.

Doctor George Slime: What is it, anyway? It looks like a baboon, but its face… It looks almost…

Alan Pellow: Sir, this isn’t a baboon, and it didn’t attack my wife. It IS my wife!

There is a demented shrieking from the ape, and the energetic rattling of bars.

Doctor George Slime: Tephany? But… wasn’t it only last week the two of you were married?

Alan Pellow: Yes. But ever since we got back from our honeymoon on Monday things changed. Doc, I don’t know what to do!

Doctor George Slime: Ah, sit down, son, sit down. Here, have a drink. You need to calm down as best you can and tell me everything that’s happened. And call me George.

Doctor George Slime pours a drink of whisky for Alan Pellow.

Alan Pellow: Thanks, Do- George. Everything about the wedding was wonderful. So wonderful it felt like a dream. And then our honeymoon – a weekend in Walton On The Naze – it was beyond imagination. Tephany – she was so beautiful. So perfect. The perfect wife in every way you could want. But then, once we got back home, she changed. At first she just wanted to talk, but then… George, she started wanting things. Demanding things. I didn’t know what to do.

Doctor George Slime: What sort of things?

The undulating note of Toby’s get’s increasingly fraught and disconcerting throughout the following outbursts from Alan Pellow.

Alan Pellow: Oh you know. Little things at first. “Alan, Alan,” [He puts on a french accent for the quoted parts] – she’s French – “Alan, I think I should get a job” and “Alan, I’m going to borrow the car for a bit.” What does a woman need with a job? Where would she be going in the car? I ignored her at first, sort of laughed along with her as if I knew it was a joke, but it wasn’t a joke. Then yesterday she said “I ordered a shed off the internet today for the garden.” A shed? For her “tools”. It’s madness. What sort of tools, I asked? She started talking about gardening, how nice it was going to be once we’d returfed the lawn and planted some flowers in the borders. Well, I just said “NO!” I admit I said it louder than I meant to, but the look on her face… It was as if I had slapped her. “You knew I was going to concrete the garden,” I said to her. So that I can park my van and the BMW out there side by side. She knew. She knew. It’s what I’ve always said. What I’ve always wanted. She knew this. I’d told her. We wouldn’t have to pay the council for that bloody permit anymore. She knew the money we would have saved. And it was the principle, more than the money. We already pay our council tax. Why should we have to pay another hundred and fifty quid to bloody park our van on the street?

Doctor George Slime: Then what happened?

Alan Pellow: She started shouting at me. About how awful I was, how I didn’t even see her as a woman anymore. It was absurd. I told her that I only see her as a woman. That’s what she is. I thought that would calm her down but it didn’t. Then she started screaming in French, like her fury couldn’t even be contained in our bloody language. Reverting to something more primal. And then that degenerated too, into something guttural that sounded more like growling than words. Probably German. Or Dutch. And then her posture began to change, her back bending oddly, her head thrusting forward. She went down on all fours and began howling and howling and then suddenly she just lunged at me and it took me by such surprise she knocked me to the floor. She started biting at my neck, snapping away, all demented. It was terrifying. I held her away from me as best I could but I could not get her off and we struggled away on the floor for a while, grappling and rolling around on the new carpet we just got fitted in the lounge. Her blouse ripped a bit in the tussle and I noticed how hairy she’d become. And then I glanced at her hands and by now they were paws. I knew I had to do something before her slowly forming claws were sharp enough to rip me to shreds, and so with one final push of strength I staggered to my feet and pushed her back into the hall. She made another lunge for me and I tripped her so she fell into the cage we leave the dog in overnight so he won’t ruin all the furniture. I quickly locked her in and then I collapsed in exhaustion to the floor.

Doctor George Slime: But she doesn’t have claws now…?

Alan Pellow: No. When I awoke she had transformed again, or further maybe, from that initial dog beast into this monstrous ape. She was busy ripping the last remnants of her clothes into shreds when I came round. Clothes I had bought her, I’ll have you know, at great goddamn expense. That was when I decided I needed help and came rushing over to your door.

Doctor George Slime: And I’m very glad you did. It is fascinating. Look how she watches us intently from behind her bars. As if there is still intelligence left somehow. I wonder what triggered these changes? Did she get bitten while you were on holiday? By a creature? By a local, even?

Alan Pellow: I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have noticed.

Doctor George Slime: Then I’m flummoxed. It’s as baffling as it is interesting.

Alan Pellow: Can you not change her back? Even how she was before is better than this.

Tephany begins screaming again in her baboonish way.

Alan Pellow: At least sedate her, so that I don’t have to listen to her babbling screams any more.

Doctor George Slime: Sedation may help, but it would be but a temporary solution. To cure her permanently, we must operate… ON HER BRAIN!

Alan Pellow: Her brain?

Doctor George Slime: Her brain! By lobotomising both the Megalithic Lobe and Verin’s Region we should inhibit the production of the transformic and enfuriation hormones, the excess production of which in combination with her unsettling sense of self as an autonomous being beyond your control must have triggered this episode.

Alan Pellow: If this is the only solution then you must do it. Not just for her but for me and for the good of our community. Can you imagine if I have to take this baboon with me to my parents at Christmas? To my work’s New Year’s do? It would be mortifying.

By now Toby’s note is so terrifying the dread is congealing around the listener in ways beyond adequate explanation in words.

Doctor George Slime: Then let me get into my medical robes and we can begin.

There is a knock at the study door.

Alan Pellow (hissed): Who’s that?

Doctor George Slime: Oh don’t worry, it’s just my wife Martha, I expect. She must have heard us talking.

Doctor George Slime walks across the room to the door, and slowly opens it with a creak.

Doctor George Slime: What is it Marth-aaaaaaaargh!

There is a terrifying startled cawing of a huge crow, and the sound of gigantic flapping of wings.

Alan Pellow: Is that… that gigantic crow… Is that your wife?

Doctor George Slime: It is. Look, she’s still wearing her shower cap. And her slippers. Get back, Alan. Let me deal with her. If I can just get to the fire and retrieve the pokeeeeeeeeeeeerrAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGH ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHH ARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Doctor George Slime’s screams are joined by the terrifying screeching caw of the enraged ultracrow.

Alan Pellow: Oh no, poor George. Pecked to death by your own wife. It’s just not right!

We can hear the ripping of flesh as the crow strips the meat from her husband’s bones.

Alan Pellow (to himself): I must get out of here. But I can’t leave Tephany behond. Oh god no Tephany! Do not change again.

Tephany’s baboon shrieks change to a higher and higher ever escalating pitch.

Alan Pellow: Is she becoming a… an octopus? Tephany no… no! Don’t open that cage Tephany. You’re in there for your own good.

We hear the clicking of a lock, and the creaking open of the cage’s door.

Alan Pellow: Tephany, no please don’t, you’re choking me… with… your… tentacles… Tephany… I…

We hear the slump of Alan Pellow’s body to the floor. There follows a moment of silence (except for Toby’s music on the radio) and then there is the slithering of feet and the shuffling of tentacles as Marsha and Tephany cross the floor of the study, open the door, and shuffle fadingly away until the front door opens and then slams close and they are gone. There follows thirty seconds of Toby’s note, now reaching a transcendent climax of pure beauty.

Radio Announcer (over the top of the music): We are sorry to interrupt this broadcast but we’re getting reports, urgent reports, from across the county, from everywhere that men’s wives are… transforming… attacking their husbands. Relentlessly and without mercy. It seems that they… they want to be free. Outside I can see flocks of wives in the sky – and, is that, is that an octopus on one of their backs? I have never seen anything like this before. It is beautiful. So beautiful. The sky is alive. More and more are joining them every minute. They are singing… such singing.. I wish you could hear them sing. I wish you could hear them. It is… I’m crying. I’m crying. There is so much happiness. So much joy. Just sheer untroubled joy. I wish you could hear them. I wish I could join them… I wish…[sobs and then silence]

Toby plays on.

THE END

__________

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