I don't think this story was written for his daughter. There was another one that definitely wasn't suitable for anyone's daughter. It will be made available under the counter upon your return...
The Shoreditch Ogre
By John Moore
On waking from his latest sojourn, the Shoreditch Ogre’s senses told him something was different. Without even getting out of his pit he could tell; the smell was different, rancid. The beautiful stench of petrol, sewage and spices blowing over from Brick Lane was now tinged with something else. These smells were not familiar to him and would need investigation. Even with his low intelligence and brain damage, he knew that something had changed. He didn’t like change, it made him angry.
He lay for a while listening to the noises coming from outside, carefully studying the new sounds for any potential problems that might have to be dealt with. He was disturbed by the mechanical hum of a road drill near by. The sound was quite familiar but none the less irritating. It’s angry vibrations loosened dirt and brick dust from the ceiling which showered down on to him, turning his beard ginger. When he pulled himself to his feet, he noticed the shape of his splendid body perfectly outlined in red particles. This confused him. To be on the safe side, he filled his lungs to their huge capacity then let out a fowl gale of righteous thunder, obliterating the apparition. Satisfied that he was now victorious and alone, he set about his toilet. Although he was for all intents and purposes a wild monster, he was a private beast and very fastidious about his personal hygiene. He only ever shat in the far corner through a crack in the floor that led to a deeper chamber, which he emptied when he could remember. He drank his own urine for a health reason which he’d now forgotten. He was almost a hundred and fifty years old so it must have worked. The vast elephantine tusks which protruded from the sides of his nose were cleaned and rubbed thoroughly with linseed oil which made them shiny and weatherproof.
The Shoreditch Ogre casually regarded his finger and toenails. They had grown during his hibernation to almost a foot in length, which he decided was ‘too darn ladylike.’ The best length for a nail was six inches. This enabled them to tear flesh to ribbons or climb things with out fear of breakage. Any longer and they could interfere with cycling. From an ancient doctor’s bag he produced a pair of scissors and began to manicure his talons. The nails were each cut to a fine point then filed for extra sharpness. When he was certain that they could not be any more dangerous or exquisite, he grunted contentedly.
For an Ogre he was rather narcissistic. He pulled and twisted the thick matted strands of his beard and scraped off the shiny flakes of mucous and brick dust that had accumulated. He scratched pensively at the itchy black bristles and considered what his day should consist of. At the top of the agenda was the acquisition of a new bicycle, followed by a good long ride to blow off the cobwebs and hunt for food.
Perhaps it was his age, but he longed to have a child. He was coming up to a hundred and fifty years old after all and as so often happens with those of advanced years, the teeth become loose and soft and the digestive system weakens, making the consumption of certain foods inadvisable. With children, the meat was easy to chew and unlike larger food, there was never that bitter chemical taste which bought on bouts of nervousness and constipation.
Throwing on his finest greasy rags, he pushed open the rusted cover in the ceiling and jumped out into the afternoon sunlight. He was not a fan of sunshine, preferring English weather - cloud cover and damp ground - a batsman’s wicket. The continental climate threw him into a fowl mood.
*
His postal address was Shoreditch High Street - beneath the petrol storage tank of the Texaco station - just by the junction of Rivington Street. He had been at this site since the first world war, when a direct hit from a German Zeppelin had knocked him unconscious. The location had served him well over the years. Although convenient for central London, it remained private and comfortable. The toxic vapors emitted from the tanks kept his air passages clear in winter and gave him vivid dreams. During these hallucinations he scratched deep furrows through the walls, which leaked gallons of fuel into the sewers.
*
Standing behind the main forecourt, he waited. As luck would have it, a cyclist spun around the corner intending to get some air in his tires. Dressed in a one-piece electric blue and yellow body suit and wearing a helmet and goggles, he sped across the forecourt, past the pumps and straight into the sights of the Shoreditch Ogre. ‘I need some air man’ wheezed the neon.
Oblivious to the towering beast, he dismounted and began inflating his tyres. Rather dazzled by the fluorescent attire, the Ogre approached and surveyed the crouching man. He was small and compact with sun-tanned arms and muscular legs. Not surprisingly the Shoreditch Ogre took a fatal dislike to him. His bicycle on the other hand was very much to his liking. A complex contraption of chromium pipes, springs and fat tires, quite unlike anything he’d seen before. It had a downward sloping crossbar and straight handlebars that pointed upwards at the end. For a moment the Ogre was lost for actions, a small boy transfixed by the wonder and beauty of a new machine. A tear formed in his eye and trickled down his cheek. He marveled at the ingenuity of it’s engineering, his hot meaty breath exhaled in fevered grunts.
In a matter of seconds, the Ogre tore the dispatch rider to pieces. The ferocity of the assault all but vaporizing him. All that remained was a rucksack containing a parcel of photographic images for the urgent attention of the graphic artist Rio, a pair of goggles and a splendid new bicycle. The Shoreditch Ogre surveyed his work and sighed contentedly. He put on the goggles and eased his vast frame down onto the bicycle. Having adjusted the saddle he peddled off in the direction of Old Street.
*
Jasmine and Elliot Harrington held hands as they walked along the main road. Their latest au pair was deep in conversation with a young painter who’s exhibition she’d helped organize. Although only seven years old the twins were wise enough to know that Katka and this man were involved. The two children giggled at the sight of Katka and the paint-flecked man kissing. Elliot Harrington looped the forefinger and thumb of his left hand, pushing the finger of his right in and out of the aperture. His sister poked her tongue out and imitated sexual noises.
The Shoreditch Ogre spotted these tiny creatures several hundred yards away. This was to be his first substantial meal for quite some time. Tweaking the tips of his tusks and pulling his beard he made the last intricate preparations. Pointing his superb new bicycle towards the youngsters, he inserted his newly manicured feet into the pedal straps, being careful not to slice through them and prepared for blast off. Letting out an appalling battle roar that could be heard miles away, he exploded into the traffic at enormous speed.
To anybody witnessing the scene, it appeared that the children vanished into thin air. All they could report was an enormous gust of wind accompanied by a noise not dissimilar to that made by an express train or a supersonic jet, preceded by a bloodcurdling howl.
Had anybody had the presence of mind to be pointing a high speed camera at the scene, they would have acquired a perfectly sharp photograph of a ferocious giant with wild black hair and beard, riding the very latest top of the range mountain bike at well over five hundred miles an hour, skewering a pair of children on his tusks then tossing them- with enormous precision and grace - through the air into his rucksack.
*
‘They’re all little bastards’ yelled the tramp. Attempting a bow, he sunk to his knees then sat on the ground, warming himself with a fresh flow of urine.
Tessa Harrington ignored him and ran frantically towards Hoxton calling out for her two lost offspring.’ Jasmine, Elliot?’. Her athletic body and anguished shouts attracted the attention of passers-by. Within minutes an army of searchers scoured the neighborhood, chanting the names into a mantra of desperation. Building sites, workspaces and cafes were turned upside down- a community spirit struck up, or at the very least a truce. The search party broke off into several socially mixed groups, fanning out to cover the widest possible area. Mobile phone contact was maintained. The Police arrived. The tinny amplification of loud hailer voices rung out like Daleks. Tracker dogs picked up scents and pulled their masters into traffic. New recruits boosted the uniformed presence.
Another public relations disaster and heads would roll. *
By nightfall the attractive faces of the Harrington twins were giving it attitude from every lamppost in the area. The police would have preferred a more naive image but had to be content with this. There were no cheap funny photos of these children, they were only photographed by professionals. Perfectly groomed, looking hard at the camera, the nonchalant pose already perfected. The graphic artist Rio put on hold the Pulp CD booklet he’d been busy with and designed and printed five hundred posters free of charge, which were pasted round the neighborhood alongside flyers advertising upcoming events at The Electricity Showroom and the Comedy Café. He felt sure that the record company would give him a little more time under the circumstances, especially since the photographs had not arrived.
*
The drama unfolding in London’s most fashionable enclave made it to the television news reports by late evening. Tessa and Gideon Harrington appeared composed and dignified, acquiescing with police instructions to placate whoever might be holding their lambs. They spoke purposefully. Tessa’s exquisitely manicured nails dug into her palms while Gideon’s muscular arm cradled her gym toned body. They looked like a decent couple, anyone could see that. A bit stuck up maybe; but under the circumstances...People were asked to search cellars and out buildings.
Surrounded by friends and experts in child abduction, Tessa and Gideon Harrington sat up all night, drugged to the eyeballs.
*
In a pit not half a mile from where they sat, the last remains of the twins were being noisily consumed by the Shoreditch Ogre.
He feasted heartily on his catch, eating ferociously. Much of the meal ended in his beard and had to be picked out a bit at a time. Some he would leave there for a later snack. Bones were crunched and sucked for marrow. Arms and legs were picked licked and discarded once they had nothing left to offer. Taking the empty heads, he placed them onto the upturned handlebars of his bicycle, one each side. With a hard tap, the bars broke neatly through the bone, protruding through the crowns of golden hair, securing them as ornaments. When he was finished he stopped to admire his work. He let out a slow contented grunt then lay down on his bed of torn clothing, flesh and newspaper.
As he slept, he began to dream the same dream he always had. He’d never been able to understand its significance. The recurrent images of white men surrounding him and hurling projectiles pricked his memory. He enjoyed these fantasies, as if it were some form of game. It seemed that whatever was thrown at him he could strike back. On some occasions he refused to let them stop.
In his pit, the Shoreditch Ogre snored and rolled and roared, grinding his teeth and scratching deeper gashes into the wall. Gradually this dream subsided and turned to more familiar pursuits like perfecting his action for catching children on his tusks. He particularly loved the disemboweling and running through on his magnificent ivory spits. He adored the sound it made. He disliked the squeals the children expelled. It was a joy to him to make them stop. If he was extremely lucky he’d have the heart while it was still beating. He’d feel it throbbing on his tongue until it stopped. Although he wasn’t very good at counting he liked to play a little guessing game with himself which involved predicting the number of beats before the heart would come to a halt and could be chewed. Usually he got it right but on the occasions he didn’t, he cheated, telling himself that it’s last beat was not actually a beat but a murmur.
*
Before the mid nineteen nineties he had woken rarely.
On the occasions he did, he found the area hardly changed. He survived by feeding himself on whatever was available: the tough gristly meat of teenage runaways or the gnarled bones of geriatric tramps. This had never caused a fuss because these people were never missed. It was just accepted that something unpleasant had happened to them and left at that. Often they were never reported missing and their giro checks continued to be cashed. All remained well until some Bangladeshi’s, mistaking him for an ancient deity, took to feeding him at their house . He had quite enjoyed the hot yet subtle flavours of the dishes offered to him and had recognized the ambience of friendliness and goodness emanating from his hosts. His carnivorous appetites were never far from the surface however and on the occasion his host’s youngest daughter danced for him, he’d assumed her to be part of the feast. Hoping this to be some kind of necessary sacrifice they said nothing of it and waited for their luck to change. It was this misunderstanding that led the Ogre towards his now favoured delicacy. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever tasted
*
After a good long sleep, the Ogre was woken by the gushing sound of new petrol filling the tank on the other side of the partition. Fuel squirted out through the many puncture wounds as the level rose... He felt vexed and rather sorry for himself when he considered all the work he’d have to do. Yet again, his nails would need cutting and his hair would need doing His tusks needed oiling which would take several minutes and his beard was practically solidified with mucous and gunge. Now there was a flood to tackle Luckily his bicycle was still there, looking as beautiful as it had on the afternoon of it’s procurement. This calmed him down somewhat. He remembered the fun he’d had on that day and the superb meal that rounded it off. The heads of the Harrington twins, which hung decorously on the handlebars, were now completely white, picked clean by maggots and lice. Although he was for the most part a selfish violent character, he did not mind these creatures who shared his home. He recognized them as useful servants.’ Over the years, these companions have done me well’ he thought. ‘Much better than a wife’. He let out a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a roar.
*
.
He cycled through Shoreditch feeling unusually happy. The bicycle responded efficiently to his every movement. Each minor adjustment of sitting position or flick of the handlebars made him go even faster. It was perfect weather, wet, grey and miserable with a strong following wind.
Cycling at speed requires quite a bit of practice. A few times he had come off and rolled into the road hurting his pride quite badly. For a while he had considered wearing protective clothing but had rejected the ideas as ‘too darn ladylike’. Gradually he had become an excellent rider and had learnt to pull wheelies and stand on the saddle while weaving in and out of traffic. He had never studied the Highway Code and even if he had, it is doubtful whether he would have obeyed it. He did not really need to worry about crashing into cars or buses because at the speed he traveled he would tear through them as if they were paper
An elderly lady made her way along Bethnal Green Road struggling with shopping and an umbrella. He watched her for a while delighted by her predicament. As he was in such a good mood, he decided to cheer her up by playing a trick on her. He’d always loved practical jokes.
Taking a long run up, he cycled towards her, gathering momentum as he went. Pulling level, he snatched the umbrella from her brittle wrist and sped off with a full-throated roar. She saw nothing. The tail wind sucked her along the paving stones for several hundred yards, snapping her bones and killing her instantly. The Ogre shrieked with glee. He’d have loved to have seen an action replay because he knew it must have looked priceless.
Clasping the umbrella, he held it in front of him and let the wind do the work. He sang to himself as he gathered speed. He was hardly peddling now but was traveling faster than he could ever remember. By the time he was level with Brick Lane, he was thirty feet above the ground. His hair and cape flowed about him. Beneath, people went about their business, unaware of his trajectory. A queue stretched from the Bagel shop - they were always there, night clubbers and taxi drivers, whatever the hour.
As an even better jest, the Shoreditch Ogre removed the two skulls from his handlebars and hurled them down at the queue. His over arm throws were deadly accurate, the first knocking a man unconscious, the second smashing the window and coming to a perfect rest on the counter. The screams were music to his ears. He made a safe landing at the junction with Vallance Rd. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the whirring oscillation of electronically generated sirens advertising the arrival of emergency services.’ Why don’t they use bells anymore. What’s the matter with them’? he wondered.
*
A crowd was gathering in E2. A torch lit procession progressed slowly and somberly through narrow streets flanked by television crews, emergency services and stray dogs. The torch flames threw extravagant shadows across the dreary brick facades; the scene reminiscent of James Whales Frankenstein. At the head of the procession walked the ghostly figures of Tessa and Gideon Harrington, their faces sucked dry by sorrow and insomnia. The television lights picked them out providing an unforgettably harrowing image before cutting effortlessly to a report on England’s batting collapse against Australia.
The Harringtons were due to give a press conference from the Lux Cinema which would be broadcast on the Nine o'clock News. The place had been donated by the owners and was now a snake pit of cables. The backdrop consisted of the children’s faces; the same photograph circulated on the afternoon of the disappearance, but now photoshopped to give a less precocious attitude and blown up to ten feet by six.
*
The Shoreditch Ogre paced about his toxic sarcophagus in a state of agitation, kicking the walls and hawking up large oysters of phlegm. He’d been cooped up for days with a chill and was hellishly bored. Although he was usually quite happy with his own company he felt the need for social contact of some sort. Somebody to grunt with rather than at. The rats, mice and maggots who shared his dwelling had finally succumbed to the noxious vapors emitting from the tank and he was now completely alone. On his last few cycle rides, he’d been saddened to find the streets empty. He’d returned with nothing in his rucksack but a cat that he’d had to chase for miles. It had been cunning and evasive and if it hadn’t been for the complete lack of other options, he wouldn’t have bothered. ‘It might even have made a good companion’ he mused. It was after consuming this mangy beast that he had begun to feel ill. It crossed his mind that the cat might have been deliberately tainted by an ill wisher to act as poisoned bait. ‘Why should anybody want to do me harm’? A cocktail of paranoia and fever kept the Ogre huddled up for days, shivering and leaking beneath a filthy rug and piles of rat skins, soaked in four star premium.
Finally well enough to venture out, he lifted himself and his bicycle through the trapdoor and commenced what he hoped would be an excursion to lift his spirits.
Having checked the pressure of both tires and inflated them to their correct level, he gave the machine a squirt from the water hose, removing the dry flesh from the chain. Once satisfied that it was a credit to his cleanliness, he shot off at high speed, ranging through the gears with a deft flick of his razor sharp talons, achieving maximum torque on the subtly changing gradients.
The night air cooled him as he peddled through the thoroughfares. He lowered his head and pushed out his tusks into an aerodynamically efficient posture. With wind resistance eliminated to a minimum, he built up speed until the sides of the road became blurred into mist and the scenery was passed before it could be seen. This was the way he liked it. Life became simple again. Nothing to worry about except moving forward. At this speed, major concerns shrunk into oblivion. Cats, colds, boredom and misery could all be forgotten. The Shoreditch Ogre bellowed a hearty roar which lasted for several seconds and was audible for a radius of four miles. At enormous speed he cycled along Great Eastern Street towards Hoxton Square. *
The press conference proceeded in the way that press conferences of this nature always do. The recently childless couple sitting centre stage spoke of their nightmare. and shared their grief with a shocked and grateful nation. Even now, they remained painfully articulate, describing the unbearable vigil, the complete mystery surrounding the disappearance and their utter horror when confirmation of murder was so horribly delivered. Tessa Harrington, now a media celebrity, soldiered on, determined to finish before tears reduced her to a beautiful blubbering wreck. Her expensively elocuted voice maintained a steady volume and rhythm throughout, faltering only towards the end. The overall delivery was only slightly less accomplished than the rehearsal. By the time tears brought her to a halt, Tessa Harrington had appealed for parents everywhere to love their children more, obliterated the reputation of the metropolitan police and demanded the return of the death penalty. All that remained was for the Chief of Police to be ambushed by the newspack and the vast crowds outside.
As he stood to leave, an ear-piercing howl rang out through the night, through the auditorium and through the television sets of Great Britain. A supersonic rush of air sent chairs cameras and people flying to the ground. They screamed for their lives and scrambled for the exit as the express train force of the Shoreditch Ogre tore through the wall of London’s newest cinema. He got among them, skewering crushing and slicing as they tried to escape; braggadocious display of stunt cycling and slaughter. All the tricks he’d learnt were displayed. Wheelies, jumps, standing on the saddle. Blood monsooned, covering the floor in a viscous pool. The Ogre herded his audience like sheep, lashing out at anybody he cared to lash out at. He exhibited a fine array of wheel spins and skids through the crimson slick, spraying viscera and offal as he applied the brakes. He roared with delight; this was the excursion he’d wanted, his spirits were most definitely lifted now, what more fun could ever be had?
Sparks shot up from the tangle of electrical cables and small fires burst into existence. The room filled with toxic perfume and black smoke, choking, overpowering and delicious. The Ogre watched blissfully as the flames danced to life, licking faces that contorted with pain and melted like wax dolls. This surpassed his wildest hunting dreams. He realized he’d never better this moment. All that was needed was a grand finale and a graceful exit - to go out with a six. Pointing his treasured top of the range mountain bicycle towards the heart of the fire, he paused momentarily, as if taking in the full enormity of his plan. Having carefully inserted his exquisitely manicured talons through the foot straps and made final intricate adjustments to the saddle, he leaned forward into an aerodynamically efficient posture, emitted an earth-shattering howl, then kicked the pedal to the ground, with all the force he could muster. With the acceleration of a jet fighter, he launched himself through the flames, emerging at well over six hundred miles an hour, smashing straight through the outer wall and out into the night. As the Lux Cinema collapsed on the crowd, a chain of violent explosions erupted throughout Shoreditch and Hoxton, laying waste to the entire area; reuniting the Harrington family, creating many job vacancies in the police force, which were not filled, and many in the art world, which were. The Ogre, now a raging fireball, howled one last victory roar, then was gone.
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