Excerpt: Silver in His Tracks

It doesn't start here, because he's always been not quite right in the head. She's always told him as much, and it's held him off quite well, but lately her silence have invited the thoughts back in to play. They're like wisps of smoke in his head – they dance and tease and tickle the part of him that his mother tried so very hard to smack out of him.

They want him to join Them. It is very difficult to say no. Especially now, with this drooling, drooping, half dead spectre of a mother on the sofa and no callous hands to bring him back from Their lurid dance: it is a mesmerising series of motions and more often than not he allows himself to drift away, to be gently cradled in Their suggestions and carried forth into the warm cocoon of horrible and delightful insinuations.

It doesn't start here, but this is where he gives in: the thoughts are not new or fresh, shackled for so many years that they've almost lost the ability to shock and excite him, but now that they're free of their bonds (flooding his mind and unfolding themselves to show their true depths), they're exhilarating. It's like breathing for the first time in years, like he's lived underwater his entire life.