The Pestilence That Walks By Day

The creature's view of the landscape took on the whole valley.

It looked up and saw birds flying across the distant Skirrid Mountain.

It looked down and saw a valley of white snow.

And dotting the landscape here and there small farms with sheep.

The creature growled and snarled- an unnaturally and in a certain sense unholy growl and snarl.

The creature raced down from the Black Mountains range where it had observed the valley.

And as it raced, a cold wind blew and raged behind it.

The cold wind seemed to follow the creature.

The creature raced by the Skirrid Inn Pub in the tiny Welsh village of Llanvihangel Crucorny.

"Wolf," a startled group of bystanders braced themselves against the walls of the medieval inn.

The creature turned and snarled.

It raised its paw and stroked the white snowy ground several times like an angry stallion about to charge...

And it would have charged too...

A woman grabbed her toddler son who had run to embrace the wolf thinking that it was just a big puppy dog.

As she picked up the boy, the wolf charged...

A Cross around the woman's neck glistened and shone as the sun momentarily burst through the clouds at that moment.

The glare of the Cross stopped the creature in its tracks.

It snarled an angry snarl and then turned and ran towards the Skirrid Mountain.

Up and up and up it ran.

Already it could smell the blood of the nearby sheep.

Blood that was soon spilling all over the white snow below the Skirrid Mountain as the creature ravenously tore sheep apart.

A couple of farm hands approached with rifles and fired at it.

But they were not using the right type of bullets for this particular kind of wolf.

The creature charged and snapped one of the farm hands' necks in its huge jowls.

It then turned to the other farm hand and did the same.

It sped on down the valley.

And stopped at a parked car.

The creature's vision seemed to change. It was not able to view things distantly so well. It seemed to gasp as it tried to growl and snarl.

It fell backwards in the snow.


* * *

The man got up in the snow.

He then approached the car.

And unlocked it.

He then glanced around and felt dizzy.

Why had he stopped here?

He did not know.

He entered the car and drove the long distance to Cardiff.


* * *

A group of unemployed miners sat in one of Cardiff's trade union halls waiting for the guest speaker.

A huge bearded man approached the platform.

Normally guest speakers at the hall were given an introduction by the local trade union chairman.

But this man needed no introduction.

Nor did he want one.

And one did not argue with a man the size of Magog Rhys Petley.

"I have been called the Last Bolshevik," the man's voice boomed into the microphone, "it is an epithet I'm proud to carry. I'm sure many of you in this hall may even recall the days when the Labour Party in Britain was the party of labour- the party of the worker- the party of the common man. But that Tony Blair came into this party and this movement in the '90s with his own brand of neo-conservatism and neo-globalization that he called the Third Way. Those financiers and investors in the City of London prospered under Blair and Brown and are currently prospering under Cameron. But are you prospering? Have most of the mines of Wales re-opened? And those mines that have- are the workers who work and toil in them- are they being paid a living wage?".

"No," the men in the hall shouted.

Rhys Petley soon had them whooped up into a frenzy.

At the end of his blistering speech, they stood and sang that old Communist anthem the Internationale with such fervour that it would have brought tears to the eyes of Lenin's embalmed corpse in his mausoleum tomb in Moscow's Red Square had the embalmed corpse been able to hear it.

After the meeting, the group retreated to a nearby pub where talk of Marx and Engels soon turned to talk of who could throw the most perfect array of darts after drinking three straight glasses of ale.

Magog Rhys Petley's gaze followed after the young barmaid who had just finished her shift.

When she walked out into the street, he followed her.

She stood at the street corner smoothing her black skirt and then wrapping her long blue winter coat around her, she crossed the street.

Magog Rhys Petley felt the pangs of carnal desire stirring within him.

And as he felt them, the desire seemed to bring forth another desire out of nowhere.

What sort of strange desire was this?

Magog Rhys Petley steadied himself against a lamp post.

He felt dizzy.

His vision seemed to change.

It seemed to see great distances away.

He slipped down on to the sidewalk.

And started foaming at the mouth.

* * *

The creature got up from a tangle of men's clothes on the snowy sidewalk and growled and snarled.

It ran down to the street corner.

And up to the next street.

With its excellent vision, the creature caught sight of the barmaid in the blue winter coat.

It chased after her.

Hearing the commotion, the barmaid turned.

At what she saw, her hands let go of the winter coat she held tightly around her showing her delicate white blouse and exquisite black skirt through the openings of her coat.

The creature lunged on top of her.

The barmaid screamed.

And after a few seconds, she screamed no more...


To be continued.