B: All Fall Down - Part II

There was a thud as someone dropped what they were holding. I don't
remember what it was, just the thud because it shook us all out of our
trance.

Sally was the first to speak, 'Bloody hell.'

Then there was silence for a further few moments.

'That's real is it?' I asked the engineer.

He nodded.

'It's a live feed,' he said. 'There's no chance to mess about with
it.'

'Atmospherics?' I asked hopefully. I didn't know much about the
technology of television and I was remembering watching the Big Match
on a Sunday afternoon where there would appear to be a team of
transparent footballers running around the pitch.

A weak smile crossed his lips. 'Not any more. What you saw there was
real.'

'So what did we see? There was no-one in that house, we searched it.
And number six was empty too.'

'Maybe they've really gone back to the sixteen hundreds,' said Sally.
'P'raps we've awakened a few ghosts.'

'Don't be stupid,' I snapped. 'It's got to be some kind of electronic
trick. Another feed coming in from somewhere.'

The engineer shook his head. The doctor was just staring at the
screen.

'You bastards!'

The screaming voice made us turn towards the monitors. Hayley Butcher
was once again in front of the camera.

She was hysterical. Her face was streaked and her eyes were red from
crying. A string of saliva hung from the corner of her mouth.

'You bastards ...,' she sobbed. 'She's dead and you did nothing.'

My legs went weak. I grabbed the edge of the control desk to stop
myself from falling. I noticed Sally had both hands over her
mouth.

'You just let her die ... even locked the door so we can't get out ...
Terry's bad now, you've got to help.'

Hayley collapsed on the floor, which took her out of sight of the
camera. Robert, their son came over towards the camera to comfort her.
I gasped as I saw him. He was coughing heavily, like a heavy smoker
before his first morning draw and his skin was pale and drawn. On his
face and neck there were black and purple sores.

We all watched in silence, feeling helpless, not understanding what was
going on.

'Oh God,' muttered the doctor. 'It looks like the plague.'

I looked at one of the monitors that was receiving pictures from the
external cameras. The market was in full swing. All the families were
there, getting their weekly provisions as usual, oblivious to what was
happening in number three. Everyone that is, except for the Butchers
and the Springs. No, wait, Eileen Spring was there talking to one of
the traders, a middle aged woman selling sewing materials.

I watched, somewhat relieved. Maybe they were round at another house
when we called. The conversation the two women were having was very
animated and they kept pointing at the Butcher's house.

The conversation finished and Eileen Spring made her way back to number
six. As she walked back I noticed that no one else seemed to make any
effort to get out of her way, or she theirs. A couple of times I
thought that there was going to be collision, but there never
was.

The trader then said something to the man running the next stall, to
which he nodded and she walked up the street towards the exit
gate.

I wondered what it was about number three that the two women had been
pointing at. I panned one of the external cameras round so I could see
the house.

The object that had been causing the commotion was then clear. Upon the
door of the Butcher's house, something was written in white paint.
Using the controller to zoom the camera in, I saw that the writing read
'Lord Have Mercy Upon Us' and below it was a large cross.

There was a knock on the van door. Sally opened it and I looked over to
see the woman trader that had been talking to Eileen Spring a few
moments earlier. She was about forty, with long dark hair flowing from
under the embroidered bonnet she was wearing. She was dressed in a
white smock that was gathered at the waist by some sort of apron come
money belt affair. Judging from her heavy breathing, she had run from
the street to the OB van.

'I think you've got a problem,' she panted.

'Everything's fine,' I said.

'Fine?' she shouted. 'You've got a plague house in the street, possibly
two. What do you intend to about it?'

'Sally, stop her shouting and get her in here,' I said, worried that
someone would hear the noise.

The woman came into the van and looked at the monitors.

'You can see them too,' she said, watching the monitor of the Butcher's
house. She looked at the monitor showing the door of the house. 'You
can't see that cross in the street.'

'What?' I said. 'Who are you?'

The woman apologized for being rude and introduced herself as Lysette.
She then told us that since she was a child she'd had an ability to see
things that other people couldn't. Initially I was skeptical, but then
I thought about the things that had been happening over the last couple
of days and I decided to listen.

'Like ghosts?' I asked. 'Like the kid in that film?'

'Not ghosts,' Lysette answered. 'Living people, only, it's a bit
difficult to explain. It's like looking through a door or window into
the past I s'pose. I don't really understand it myself, but that's the
best way I can explain it.'

'And you can talk to these people?' said Sally.

'Sometimes. Often, they don't notice I'm there, it's like a one way
thing. That woman I spoke to today has no idea that anything is wrong,
except that she knows that the people in the house opposite are ill.
She thought the cross was in very poor taste. And one of her kids is
ill, with what she thinks is a very bad cold.'

'So what do you think is wrong?' I said.

'I think that somehow these people have gone through one of these
doorways and are now living back in the seventeenth century for real.
Somehow, your cameras can see back then too. I don't know how, maybe
its some atmospheric thing.'

I smiled and glanced at the engineer. 'Maybe.'

For some reason what Lysette was saying seemed to make some sort of
sense, at least. I couldn't think of anything better to explain what
had been happening lately.

'Is there anything we can do?' said Sally. 'Can we get them
back?'

'Yeah, can you bring stuff back?' I remember distinctively saying
'stuff' and I can clearly recall the thought I had of holding an
original Shakespearean manuscript in my hand.

Lysette absentmindedly fingered a brooch she was wearing.

'Stuff, er ... sort of. Its more a case of leaving it somewhere where
it won't be found and fetching it later. You can't do that with people
though.'

'We've got to do something,' Sally said her voice sharp with urgency.
'Have you forgotten, the little girl has died.'

'Died? Oh God! We have to get in and see what we can do.' Lysette was
still staring at the screens.

'Do you think we can help then?'

'Dunno, but at least I can talk to them, try and put their minds at
ease a bit.'

'So you think this is the plague then?' I asked.

'Don't you?' replied Lysette.

'But I thought it took longer to er ...'

'It does, but I don't think you're seeing real time through the
screens. Every time you look its like looking through a new doorway.
You just see a snapshot for a while, then another. They could be hours
or days apart. I don't pretend to understand it, it's just the way it
is. We must try and help them before its too late.'

'Come on,' said Sally moving towards the door. 'And bring a camera
along, we might be able to see what's going on.'

I grabbed a camera from the rack and followed Sally and Lysette out of
the van.

'What about the doctor?' I asked.

'Bring him if he'll come,' said Sally. 'But he doesn't look too
good.'

I looked back into the van. The doctor was just sitting in a chair
staring at the monitor and muttering 'Oh God, oh God.' I decided to
leave him there.

It was beginning to get dark. We walked on to the street. All of the
families were inside now, the windows of the houses glowed orange from
the candles flickering inside.

There were no lights on in number three. I turned to look at number
six. Its windows were dark too. As we got closer to the Butcher's house
I looked at the door. Lysette was right. There was no writing on it. I
looked through the viewfinder on the camera. The white cross was
plainly visible, and the windows glowed with the flicker of candle
light.

I spun round to look across the street through the camera.

'Oh shit.'

'What?' asked Sally.

'Another cross,' I replied.

'Number six?'

I nodded.

'Oh bollocks.'

I nodded again.

Lysette opened the door of number three and we all walked in. She
walked over towards the large open fireplace and began talking. I
looked through the camera and could see the rest of the family sitting
around the fire. Robert who, last time I had seen him, was covered in
ulcers and sores, was wrapped in a blanket and being cuddled by his
mother. Thomas was still sweating heavily and coughing.

Lysette turned to look at us.

'The young girl is upstairs,' she said.

Sally and I ran up the stairs. Looking through the camera viewfinder I
could see the body of Jenny Butcher laid out on one of the beds. A
sheet had been laid over the top of her.

'You don't need that,' said Sally pushing the camera away from
me.

I put the camera down. I could still see the body laying on the
bed.

'Do they come back when they die then?' I asked. 'Or have we gone back
too?'

Sally shrugged and began walking back downstairs. We could see Lysette
standing by the fire talking to thin air.

'I guess we're still in the twenty-first century,' I said.

I suddenly noticed that the camera I was holding felt lighter than it
should.

'Look,' said Sally pointing towards the fire.

In front of the hearth misty figures were beginning to appear. I looked
down at the video camera I was holding. It was beginning to lose its
shape, and was becoming translucent.

'Oh Christ! Sally. We've got to get out of here. NOW!'

Sally looked round, and seeing the camera grabbed my hand and ran
towards the door. She shouted at Lysette.

'I'm okay,' shouted Lysette. 'Get right out of the street as fast as
possible.'

We had a bit of a struggle with the door, it was almost as if it was
nailed shut, but eventually we got it open and began to run towards the
end of the street and the gate in the perimeter fence. As we got
closer, I could feel Sally's hand losing its grip.

'I can't see the gate,' she shouted.

I turned to look at her. She was beginning to fade, I could see the
rest of the street through her.

'No!' I screamed, 'Sally! Hold on. Don't let go of my hand.'

By the time I reached the gate, however, I could no longer feel her
hand in mine. I looked through the viewfinder of the camera, and saw
her standing in the middle of the street, looking lost. After a short
while she turned and walked back towards the plague house.

I made my way slowly back to the OB van. The doctor had gone, leaving
just the engineer keeping things ticking over.

'We've got to stop this,' he said. 'Before we lose anyone else.'

Reluctantly I agreed with him, and phoned the station executives. It
took a while to convince them, I knew there was no point in telling
them everything but when I mentioned the dead girl, and the possibility
of other deaths from a potential plague, they quickly decided to cancel
the project and started talking about damage limitation.

Lysette arrived back at the van shortly after I'd finished the phone
call.

'What's happening?' she asked.

'We're shutting it down. We'll get all of the other families out and
checked over before sending them home. Once they're gone we'll see
what, if anything, we can do for the rest.'

'I don't think there is anything we can do. It looks like their bodies
will turn up when they die, but I don't know anything else we can
do.'

'Did you see Sally?'

Lysette nodded.

'I'm sorry, I wish I could think of any way we could get her and the
rest of them back. I explained everything that I could to the two
families, the Butchers aren't doing too good. It's only the mother,
Hayley is it, that is unaffected at the moment. The Springs are a
little better, but the disease spreads very quickly, so I don't hold up
much hope. They've almost forgotten that they don't belong there. It's
weird, but time seems to have adjusted their memories. It doesn't like
it when things are out of place.'

'What about Sally?'

Lysette shrugged.

'She said she was going to try and find somewhere where she'd be safe
from the plague, probably a farm or something away from the towns.
She'll adjust too I expect.'

'How did all this happen?'

She shrugged again.

'I dunno. I don't pretend to know how it all works. I've been able to
see these windows into the past since I was a little girl. Sometimes
it's just that; like looking through a window. Other times I can
interact a bit, talk to the people, sometimes even touch things. There
doesn't seem to be any rules.'

'How do these windows open?'

'I don't know, like I said, there don't seem to be any rules. Sometimes
they just open for a moment, other times they'll stay open for ages.
You know when something just disappears into thin air?'

I nodded.

Lysette raised her eyebrows as if to say 'do I have to spell it out for
you?'

'Bloody hell, that was quick.' The engineer was watching a fleet of
army ambulances turning up at the gate.

Lysette smiled.

'What?' I asked.

'They've bought in the army,' she said. 'They're gonna cover it up. You
wait. Next week it'll never have happened.'

'But why?'

'They don't want everyone to know that there are gateways to the
past.'

'You mean they know?'

'Of course they do. They probably caused most of them. You must've
heard of the Bermuda Triangle, Philadelphia Experiment and the
like?'

"Yeah, of course. Everyone knows about them, but they're not true, it's
just conspiracist fantasy, isn't it?'

'They do their job well don't they?' said Lysette, 'come on lets go
before they get here.'

I took a last glance at the monitors and saw the families being led to
the ambulances. The engineer nodded to me as I left. He began to shut
the equipment down.

Lysette and I wandered up to a local coffee shop. It wasn't long before
a suited figure approached and asked us to follow him.

We were taken in a police car to a local army base. I tried to figure
out where we were being driven, but it wasn't that easy as the car had
dark tinted windows that made it very difficult to see out. My
experience of the inside of police cars isn't extensive, but this
struck me as very out of the ordinary.

Once at the base, I was escorted to a small square room and
interviewed. It was fairly boring, the interviewer already seemed to
know everything and, once it was finished, I was made to sign an
Official Secrets document.

'Dunno why I have to do this,' I said as I was signing. 'No one would
believe me anyway.'

Then, after a bit of a prep talk I was told I could go.

'Where's Lysette?' I asked.

'She's still being questioned,' said the interviewer.

'I'll wait for her.'

'I'm afraid we can't allow you to hang around here. You'll have to wait
for her elsewhere.' Two soldiers took hold of my arms and began to
escort me out of the building. I shrugged them off.

'No. Look, you can't do this. She's my friend, I want to wait for
her.'

'I've told you sir, you'll have to do that elsewhere. We haven't the
facilities here for you to wait.' He nodded at the two soldiers, who
tightened their grips and began to march me forcibly from the building.
As I was being hustled through the door, I turned to see the
interviewer enter a room a few doors along from the one I was in.

'Tell her I'll meet her in the coffee shop,' I shouted to him as the
door shut and a red light above it came on.

Once outside, I was put into the police car with the tinted windows and
driven back to the centre of town.

I made my way back to the coffee shop and wondered what was happening
to Lysette.

After several hours I gave up waiting and went back to the room in the
local hotel that the production people had been staying in. It turned
out that I was the last one left, the others had booked out
earlier.

The hotel, the White Lion, was an old coaching inn on the High Street.
It dated from around the same time as Dede Lane, and claimed that the
infamous highwayman, Dick Turpin, had stayed there on his ill-fated
journey to York. I found myself thinking that if he had indeed stayed
at all the inns that claimed 'Turpin slept here', then he would have
died of old age long before getting north of Watford.

The hotel also claimed to be haunted, and after my experiences of the
past few days, I was quite prepared to believe anything.

A little later, I made my way from my room to the hotel bar. It was a
fairly small affair, and the selection of local regulars and hotel
guests in there made it look busier than it actually was.

I ordered a whisky and sat on a stool next to the bar and thought about
Sally &; Lysette. One of the regulars, an old man whom I'd seen in
the bar almost every night made his way over and sat down next to
me.

'You stayin' here?' he asked.

'Mmm.' I hoped that maybe he'd get bored and go and pester someone else
if I attempted to ignore him. But it wasn't to be. He had obviously
decided that I needed to know the local history much more than I needed
a quiet drink.

'Dick Turpin slept here you know.'

I told him I knew.

'And the Witchfinder General,' he continued.

I made some noise that I thought gave the general impression that I
hadn't know that.

'And we've got a ghost.'

'So I gather.'

'Have you seen her then?'

'Who?'

'The woman in white.'

'Who?' I asked.

'The old woman,' he said.

'In white. Yes, you said. Is that the ghost?'

'Nellie Flowers was her name. She was the landlord's wife a hundred
years or more back. Then one night....' He paused for effect.

Unfortunately the only effect it had on me was to make me more annoyed
that my quiet drink had been disturbed.

'Yeah I know. She was murdered by a jealous lover and her ghost wanders
the corridors moaning and shaking chains waiting to avenge her untimely
death.'

'Nah mate, she just disappeared. No one knew what happened to her. The
general opinion was that her husband had done her in but they never
could find a body so he was never tried.'

By this time, I'd decided that he wasn't going to leave so I gave up
attempting to ignore him and thought I might as well make
conversation.

'And she haunts the hotel does she?' I asked.

'Yeah. She's been seen in several of the bedrooms and the cellar. Just
appears out of nowhere like, and then leaves the room.'

'Have you seen her?'

'Me? No. But young Phoebe there,' he nodded at the barmaid. 'She
has.'

He called to the barmaid. She came over.

I ordered another scotch for myself and bought the old man a
pint.

'The old man says you've seen the local ghost,' I said to her as she
pulled the pint.

'That's right. I weren't scared neither. She was just like a normal
person, not what I thought a ghost would be like.'

'Tell him what happened Phoebe,' said the old man.

'It were about a year or so back,' began the barmaid. 'It was near
closing and I was down in the cellar sorting something out, can't
remember exactly what, I think one of the barrels needed looking at,
when I heard a noise behind me. I spun round and saw this woman appear.
Not like you see in the films, she didn't fade in, she just appeared,
like she'd just come through a door. She weren't see through or nothing
neither. She were solid, just like you and me. Four pounds fifty
please.'

'Eh?' I had been listening so intently that I'd almost forgotten about
the drinks. 'Oh, sorry,' I continued, handing over a tenner. 'And have
one yourself.'

'Thanks, I'll keep it for later if you don't mind.'

'Yeah, fine. What happened next?'

'Hold on a mo', I'd better serve. I'll be back in a minute.' She handed
me my change and went to serve a group of businessmen who had just
entered the hotel.

I watched as she made her way along the bar. She was obviously well
liked as she had a word for everyone, regular or guest. She finished
serving the waiting customers and returned.

'So what happened then?' I asked her.

'Where was I? Oh yeah, well it was odd. She looked sort of embarrassed,
walked across the cellar and up the stairs to the door.'

'Through the door?'

'No, she opened it and walked through like any normal person.'

'Not like your normal, everyday ghost,' chipped in the old man. 'You'd
expect her to walk through it.'

'Yeah, does sound a bit odd,' I agreed. I turned to Phoebe, 'Where did
she go?'

'Dunno. No one in the pub saw anything.'

'That's right,' said the old man. 'I was here and I never saw
nothing.'

'You're always in here Del,' laughed the barmaid. 'And by that time of
night you wouldn't have noticed her even if she was dancing naked in
front of you.'

The old man raised his pint and winked.

'So,' I said. 'What did she look like?'

'Middle aged, long hair. Pretty normal really, 'cept for her old
clothes. A bit like the people in your programme.'

We continued chatting for a while. The old man, Del, got more drunk
perfectly qualifying the barmaid's earlier statement and eventually I
retired to my room wondering if Nellie Flowers would pay me a
visit.

When I got back to the room, I had an idea. I took out the camcorder
I'd been using in the Lane and looked through the viewfinder as I
panned it around the room. I'm not sure if I was expecting to see the
room full of Tudors, or Nellie Flowers waving at me, but if I was, then
I was disappointed. I saw nothing through the viewfinder that I
couldn't see normally.

Maybe it only works in Dede Lane, I thought and decided to take the
camera along there tomorrow to see if I could see anything out of the
ordinary. I was hoping that maybe I'd see Sally too, if she was still
there. As I lay on the bed, I realised how much I was going to miss
her.

The next day, after breakfast, I made my way towards Dede Lane, looking
for somewhere I could film from. As I approached the gates I saw a
military police car pull up. Two red caps and a woman got out. They
escorted her to the gates. It was Lysette.

I had to stop myself from calling out. I pressed the record button on
the camera and pointed it towards Lysette and the policemen. As they
went through the gate I crept carefully to where I could see what was
going on.

As I watched through the viewfinder I wished that I had one of those
long range mikes. You know the ones. They look like a strange furry
animal on a stick. Lysette and the police were having a fairly heated
conversation and Lysette was shaking her head vigourously.

Suddenly the argument stopped and the policemen started looking around.
Lysette began walking away from them. I lowered the camera and stared
at the policemen. There was no sign of Lysette, and yet, through the
camera viewfinder I could see her entering one of the houses.

I stopped the camera and walked briskly back to the town centre before
the police had the chance to notice I was there.

I spent the afternoon in the town library looking through the local
history books and records to see if I could find any mention of Sally,
Lysette or Nellie Flowers. There was a record of Jonathan Flowers as
the landlord of the White Lion, but there was nothing about his wife.
There was no mention of Sally or Lysette either. I remembered what
Lysette had said about time adjusting things and figured that no one
going into the past would be able to do anything that would influence
the present.

I did find out one other thing while looking through the records.
Apparently while they were building the hospital that is not far from
Dede Lane they unearthed several skeletons. There were several theories
that it was a burial site for plague victims. Apparently the law at
that time required that the bodies should be carried to their burial
place by a route other than a busy thoroughfare. Judging by the maps,
Dede Lane would have been perfectly situated.

As I wandered back to the hotel, I had a new appreciation of the High
Street. Having spent the afternoon looking at old drawings, photographs
and maps, the place just oozed history. Above the modern shop fronts,
the architecture gave away the age and original purpose of many of the
buildings. It was amazing that, despite the new shiny metal and glass
of MacDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and the like that, today, seem to
be making every town look the same, above the eye line, the
individuality of each building was still recognisable as it had been a
hundred or more years ago.

I got back to the hotel, had a meal and a drink and retired back to my
room. I took out the camcorder and began to look at the footage I'd
shot earlier of Lysette and the police. It was quite strange to see the
two policemen gesturing at each other and ignoring Lysette as she
walked away from them.

Suddenly I became aware of someone else in the room and looked up to
see a middle aged woman dressed in seventeenth century clothes standing
by the door, looking at me.

'Lysette!' I exclaimed, 'you frightened the bloody life out of
me.'

'Sorry. I wasn't expecting anyone to be in here.' She reached for the
door handle.

'No. Wait. They'll be looking for you.'

'They don't know where to look, but I don't want to give them any leads
so I'll lay low somewhere and keep out of trouble for a bit.'

'So what happened to you? I assume you went through one of your time
windows or something.'

'Yeah,' she said. 'Something like that.'

I was about to ask her to explain what she meant, but she had the air
of someone that knows that their listener is incapable of understanding
any fuller explanation, so I left it.

'Why don't you stay here, and then leave with me tomorrow. I've got a
cottage up north you can use for a while, until things die down.'

She looked thoughtful. 'I was planning to leave straight away. Can't we
leave tonight?'

'I suppose we could,' I said. 'I'll have to see if I can make
arrangements to settle the bill, but I'm sure I can sort something out.
Don't go away.'

I went downstairs to the reception and explained to the night porter
that something had come up and that I had to leave straight away. It
took a while to settle all the details, as he was more used to sorting
out requests for extra pillows or sorting out faulty radiators than
with guests checking out, but between us we figured out how the credit
card machine worked and did it all eventually.

I went back to the room, half expecting to find it empty, but Lysette
was sitting on the bed looking at the footage I'd taken earlier on the
camcorder. She looked up and smiled.
'I can't believe they took me there,' she said. 'I'd already told them
I could talk to the people in the past, and they gave me the perfect
chance to escape. Idiots.'

'Come on then, help me pack my stuff and we'll be off,' I said picking
up my suitcase and opening it. I began gathering up the few clothes
that I'd unpacked and started stuffing them into it.

'How much of the programme have you got on tape?' Lysette asked as she
handed me the video camera.

'Not much. It was all in the van, which I expect has been cleared out
by Jay and Kay.' Lysette looked me quizzically. 'The men in black,' I
said. 'From the film.'

'Oh. Yes.' She nodded.

'I've only got the stuff of you and the red caps,' I continued. 'But
that isn't particularly convincing if you don't know what's happening.
After all, it just shows you walking away while the two policemen are
arguing.'

I fastened the case, grabbed my coat and made my way, with Lysette, to
the car. Very soon we were on our way to my cottage. Lysette kept
looking round to see if we were being followed, but once she was
convinced that we weren't, she settled down and relaxed.

'So where's this cottage of yours?' she asked.

'Northumberland. Not far from Hadrian's Wall. It's nice and quiet, no
one will know we're there. There's a map in the glove compartment. It's
marked on there.'

'Oh right.' She took the map and studied it. 'Is this it, where you've
drawn this circle?'

I nodded.

'I've got some friends near there,' she continued. 'I'll see if I can
stay with them once we arrive.'

'Okay, but you're more than welcome to stay at the cottage.'

'Thanks, but you've been more than kind enough already. Besides if they
are still looking for me, I'll only get you into trouble.'

As the sun began to rise I pulled into the drive of the cottage. I
hadn't been here for a while and both the house and garden definitely
needed some attention. I paid a local couple to come in once a month
and keep it clean and tidy, but it looked like it needed some real hard
work. It wasn't a very lavish affair, but it was a great place to relax
and get away from everything between jobs.

Once inside I switched the TV on. I wondered if there would be anything
on the news, and what excuse the station would come up with not to show
the weekly omnibus. There was no mention of anything to do with Dede
Lane. I flicked through the programme schedules. The 1600's Street had
been replaced, but there was no mention of why.

'You won't hear anything about it,' said Lysette. 'I told you, they do
their job well when they have to.'

She was right. There was nothing in the papers, on the television or
the radio. The public happily accepted that the 1600's Street had never
happened.

Lysette left to meet her friends shortly after we arrived at the
cottage. I made her promise to say hello to Sally if she ever saw her
through any of her 'time windows'. I went to a few re-enactment days
and medieval fairs hoping that maybe she'd be on one of the stalls, but
I never saw her again.

I've returned to Dede Lane a few times since, out of curiosity. The
last time I was there it was still intact, and surrounded by a fence
with 'Tesco' written on it. The locals, convinced that another huge
supermarket is going to be built, were sending petition after petition
to the local council. Security guards, who looked rather too much like
the soldiers who evacuated the place, were stationed at the gates and
every so often a van would turn up and remove what appeared to be a
body. I suppose they'll knock it all down eventually, and maybe build
on the site.

And me? I couldn't get another job in the UK. All of the positions I
went for were suddenly filled, or I was under or over qualified, so I
moved to Europe, where I had no problem finding work. At the moment I'm
working on some ads, but I've got an idea for an endurance show where
contestants are locked in a replica of the Great Pyramid...

THE END