The Realm of Katherine Vick

 This was written for the story prompts Horror and Spectre for a long ago internet writing challenge. Being my usual contrary self, I did something a little different with it. ;) The Spectre Cometh  She couldn’t remember the last time that she had been so deeply, utterly afraid. They were coming. They were coming for her. There was nowhere to run. And what good would running do? There was no escape, not ever, not for her, not for anyone who had trodden the path she had chosen, who’d taken the responsibility she had willingly accepted for she had always known that with the children would come Them. It was the price that must be paid for those happy little faces she watched over day after day, for the privilege, not the right, of watching them learn and grow and change, of keeping them warm and safe and happy until the day came when she was forced to bite her lip and wave them through the gates into the dark austere arms of the grim and tatty monstrosity that towered over ...

I have discovered in myself in the last few years a rather odd talent – I am very good at figuring out whodunnit in certain modern TV Detective shows. For example, until I stopped watching it a while ago (because the challenge had rather gone out of it), I had 100% hit rate on the long running murder of the week BBC series Death in Paradise . I figured out the murderer in the recent ITV series Holding in the first episode of four and was proved correct in the final show. So how do I do this? Have I missed my calling as a valued member of the police force? Well, no. Not in the slightest – at least not unless today’s detectives are solving their crimes via the art of narrative convention. I don’t choose my likely candidate by watching them intently, considering the evidence and weighing the probabilities. I make my selection generally early on in the programme, usually very shortly after the line up of suspects have been introduced. And I use very simple criteria. Who doesn’t the wri...