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Think you have what it takes?

Want to get some practice?

Just need an excuse to put pen to paper?

Then enter the Secret Attic Short Story Competition!

Each month you can submit an entry that will be passed onto our judges who will pick the best and award a winner. During some months the subject matter will be a 'free for all', where you can write anything you like, other months will have a specific theme.

Previous Competition Winners

February 2005 David Willshaw

April 2005 Christine Sutton

May 2005 George L Darley

July 2005 Robyn O'Hara

August 2005 Richard Adamski

September 2005 Hannah Southgate

October 2005 Heather Parker

December 2005 Feathers by Bob Lakin

January 2006 RD Larson

February 2006 Debra Spiller

March 2006 Nethi Sette

April 2006 Joe Louis

May 2006 Kim Montgomery

Love of Literature by Raymond Hopkins, Kronoby, Finland

Missing by Debra Spiller, Kent, UK

Diary of a Ghost by Suzanne Ralphson, Leicester, UK

Shreds of Love by Irene Edwards, Angus, UK

Lip Service by Will Orr-Ewing, London, UK

Red by Gary Campbell, Mount Gambier, Australia

Leaving The City In Ruins. by Trevor Nicholl, Manchester, UK

One For The Watercooler by Simon Maltz, London, UK

My Own Personal Time Machine by David Darlington, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK

Women and Me and My Mate Jamie by David Darlington, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK

Collecting Footsteps by Annemaria Cooper, Glasgow, UK

The Burning Tree by Daniel Michael Manning, Bath, UK

Mark Faust opened his eyes to a darkened space. He rubbed his sweaty palms on the duvet and rolled over; content with sleeping off the groggy feeling he’d woken too. The schedule he’d planned with Euripides wasn’t until after lunch, he had time to prepare. He lifted his face towards the bedside table, keen to see a ridiculous time flashing back at him from the travel clock he’d positioned there nights ago. Instead there was a blurry, unfocussed black; which was odd for two reasons.
Mark sat up instantly.
He’d replaced the batteries only a week ago, before his meeting in the Czech Republic. The mechanism was Accurist guaranteed and claimed never to break, he must have knocked it off the table in his exhaustion last night. He frowned, flipped the pillow to its cooler side and dumped his head back onto its square surface. The early morning of the European summer hadn’t graced the backside of his curtains and the streams of light were yet to cast shadows across his unfurnished hotel room. Unsure of how much time he had he closed his eyes and slept, deep and without dream.
When he woke again it was still dark. His throat felt raw and his muscles ached with fatigue. He was sure that many hours had passed and couldn’t understand why the sun had not risen. He clambered out of bed onto the strangely cold floor, a wooden floor that had yesterday been carpeted. He was standing naked, devoid of his Calvin Klein.
He had woken to a different room.
He clenched his jaw as waves of fear rippled through his thoughts. He must have been drugged. He would not get to attend the meeting with the organisation today. Perhaps he never would.
Instinctively he dropped to his knees and began to feel his way to the corner of the room. After a few feet he located the cold surface of a wall, pressed his hands firmly against it and slid upwards until he was standing. Calmly alert he stood listening for signs of movement within the room. He noted the sound of a high speed train in the distance and felt suddenly intimidated by the crude stench of something rotten, hanging on the close air, its source hidden amidst the darkness. Without hesitation Mark moved his fingers laterally across the wall until he found what he was looking for. With an almost inaudible click light blasted the room, forcing him to snap shut his pulsating eyes. When he opened them seconds later the expensive looking décor faded into existence and the face of a young woman stared dully across the room. She was slumped naked in a wicker chair, her wrists slit and blue mouth in a horrific droop. She’d been dead for days, bloated and fragrant. He tore the duvet from the bed and slung it across the room. It crumpled over the corpse and left only a bloody hand to show that she still existed.
Mark felt sick.
Most of the corpses he’d gazed had deserved it; some of them had even wanted it, but not her. He flicked his vision across the room. Next to the wicker chair was a dresser and over it were black jeans and a polo shirt slung neatly. He jumped over the bed and grabbed the clothes, pulled the trousers on first and checked the pockets. Inside was a note. He un-crumpled the paper, it was apparently from her; a suicide letter dated three days ago, though her slack-jawed pose hadn’t struck him as self inflicted. He looked towards the long terracotta curtains. ‘Where on earth am I,’ he almost shouted, suddenly halted by the intruding noise of a doorbell. The sound resonated endlessly as he stood frozen to the floor. Long seconds passed before he dared move and a second ring shattered the eerie tranquillity of the room. Forced to make a sudden decision he darted across the room to the curtains and pulled one aside: nothing; blankness. The windows were blacked out and probably reinforced with lead. He was in serious trouble. He shuffled left of the window, toward the exit and expected it to be locked, but the heavy hardwood door opened and he was out into a wide corridor cluttered with simple furnishings. Copies of Monet hung off the beige walls, old books were stacked on shelves above the stairs and a placard on the door in front of him read ‘Tim’s room’. He was in a god damn family house and a massacre had the potential to be behind every door. Somebody had taken him to this house and their purpose was as yet unclear.
The door bell rang again, this time followed by a quick succession of knocking.
‘ Shit,’ Mark whispered.
‘ Parcel for Mr Faust.’ A deep Russian accent echoed up the stairs, followed by a squeaky letter box and a loud thud on a laminated floor. He recognised the sound from his own house in Vienna, the exhausted mornings when unless he had expected post, he wouldn’t answer the door. He stood thinking. He had an idea who might have instigated his kidnapping and if he was right, going down the stairs would not be advised. But depending on the contents of the package, standing upstairs might also lead to a less than pleasing fate.
Amidst the shadowed, Baroque architecture of the town of Eger, Yols Struber lurked and watched. His binocular gaze intently fixed on the corner house of the terraced street, more specifically the green door of house forty two. His eyes were fixed and his objective clear. It was the early hours of the morning and apart from the odd drunken traveller he would be left alone with little need to watch his back. He knew this street too well, he’d worked here before. He left one hand on the binoculars and reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a mobile telephone, pressed his chubby index finger on speed dial three and held it up to his ear. He didn’t even hear it ring.
‘ Everything is good?’
‘ Yes,’ Struber replied, steam on his breath.
‘ Then we will begin the second phase. Wait for my call Mr Struber.’
Struber grunted.
‘ Mr Struber. You do understand the precise details I have given you?’
‘ Yes sir,’ Struber replied. He paused, ‘I just want…’
‘ I know what you want Struber. After tonight you will have it.’ The voice was distorted and far away, probably computer enhanced. ‘Soon you will get to leave Hungary Mr Struber. You will fly to the motherland with a bank balance that before you met me, you could only dream of. I trust I can rely on you until then.’
The phone cut off. Yols Struber returned it to his pocket and never shifted his stare.
‘ Soon Mr Faust,’ he said. ‘It will be you who regrets defying us. Your precious company will fall. Euripides is doomed.’
He gripped the Makarov in his belt, smiled and waited.
At the top of the landing Mark Faust crouched and peered down the hall towards the door. The whole situation didn’t make sense to him. If they’d wanted to kill him they could have ten times over already. This led him to surmise that the parcel didn’t contain the simplicity of a bomb. He moved quietly down the wooden stairs, unsure of his purpose in the strange situation he’d been placed in. He contemplated the source from which this all started and immediately ruled out any American or Chinese intervene. This was a localised job, somewhere within Eastern Europe there was a man waiting to speak with him, this he was sure. He had good idea what they wanted; the stamp on top of the brown parcel he’d been posted confirmed this: a dark brown phoenix, outlined in gold. This was the insignia for Szekszard, a company in Poland. The company he’d completed his last job against.
He picked up the weighty parcel, ignored the rest of the house and moved into what he assumed to be the lounge. This was definitely a family home. Coloured crayons lay strewn across a table in the centre, surrounded by two sets of expensive arm chairs splattered with blood. A picture of a burning tree hung above the fire place. It was the centre piece of the room and Mark admired it for a moment as he clutched the package under his arm and tried to ignore the gruesome details, focussed solemnly on that one picture. Then, on the other side of the room, on a small antique looking table, the phone rang. It was louder than the door bell and sent shivers down his spine, he knew it was time. He ignored the phone and ran out of the living room and into the hall. His intention was to search the whole house. He checked the front door; it was locked from the outside, probably with deadbolts.
The phone continued ringing.