Taily-Po, Written by Veronica Byrd, Read by Daphne

ZZ Top was playing.  "Clean shirt, new shoes, but I don't know what I am gonna do."

Funny isn't it, how you can always remember those little details when something cataclysmic happens in your life?

One moment you are bopping along in your own little world, the next there you are, seeing everything afresh, seeing
every minute little detail and hearing 
every nuance in every chord change.

It's the same with "A Change" by Sheryl Crowe.  Every time I hear that song I am magically transported back to the 
M25 (the London Orbital) on the 
way home from Oxford University.  

What event happened to engrave that song into my mind?  The traffic I guess.  Anyone who has driven round the M25 
will agree that at the best of times 
it's like trying to pull a wishbone with a Tyrannosaurus Rex .

"Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man."  I think I will always remember those words.

It was on one of those little M25 excursions that I began to get tired and thirsty so I decided to find a nice little 
pub and have a drink and a rest before 
finishing my trip.

I had been in Birmingham with some clients and was on the last leg of my trip and hadn't stopped for a couple of hours.

I saw an exit and took it, heading towards the nearest sign of population.  This turned out to be Little Westwick, a 
small village on the outskirts of the 
London suburbs.

I drove down the high street and eventually found a pub.  It seemed dark and dingy but I parked the company Vectra and 
went inside.

It was like stepping back in time, but not too far back.  It seemed that I had just gone back maybe 10 years; back to 
the late 80's.

I guessed that it must've been a theme pub.  Lord knows there were plenty of them popping up in London.  Pubs that were 
turned into 50's style 
American diners, pubs turned into movie studios.   Hell, there was even a Jurassic pub!

This 80's pub seemed to be a popular place.  It was already three-quarters full and it was only 7.30!

I walked up to the bar and pulled out a fiver.  The barman came up and I ordered a pint.  That was when "Sharp-Dressed Man" 
started playing.  I turned 
to the source of the music and saw Carol Anne for the first time.

Carol Anne (yes I know what you are thinking and yes, my mind keeps coming back to Poltergeist now too), was a 23 year-old 
goddess and boy did she 
know it!  

She had red hair that positively blazed even though it was dyed that colour.  Her legs were long and they curved in just the 
right places, as did her body.

She had sauntered sexily onto the stage and was performing what pubs called "Exotic Dancing".  The rest of us public called 
it "Stripping".

I was sitting at the bar watching Carol Anne's performance with more than a little interest, cradling my beer in my right 
hand and cigarette in my left.

I was so engrossed by her performance that the cigarette burnt down to my fingers causing me to drop it with a yelp.  I took 
my eye off of the stage long 
enough to pick the cigarette up and stub it out in the ashtray on the bar.

When I looked up the act was drawing to a close.

After the performance I swung back to face the bar.  I had sat there for about 10 minutes when I got a tap on the shoulder.

"Gonna buy a girl a drink?" a soft, feminine voice asked.

Straight up, just like that!  I have to say that I was quite taken aback but I managed to stutter "S-sure, what would you like?"

"Vodka and Coke please, Mike" Carol Anne called to the barman.

I sat there in silence until Mike came back with her drink and I paid him.

"That was quite a nice performance" I said, after Mike had moved off to the other end of the bar.

"Thanks" she replied. "I haven't seen you in here before, have I?"

"No, this is the first time I have been in here" I told her.

"Yup, that's what I thought" she said, then pulled up a stool.  "You look a little over-dressed for this place".

I looked down at myself.  I was still in the suit I had worn to meet with my clients.

We talked for what seemed like 3 years but was only a couple of hours.  During this time I told her all about myself and she 
told me all about herself.  
When closing time came she asked me back to her place.

"Sure" I said.  What guy in his right mind would've refused?

"Ok, let me just get something from the changing rooms" she said and ran off to a little door next to the stage.

While I was waiting I walked over to the Juke Box and looked at the selections.

"Cool!" I thought to myself ".  They have even chosen 80's style music for the Juke Box"

"Ok ready" Carol Anne said behind me.

I turned to take her hand and shivered.  It was cold and clammy and for a split second I thought I was holding the hand of 
a corpse.

We turned and headed for the door just as one of the other customers slotted a coin in the juke box and set about selecting 
a song to play.

"Bye Mike!" Carol Anne called over her shoulder.

I thought I would play the gentleman so I let go of her hand and stepped ahead of her.  I walked through the door and held it 
open for her.

When I turned back to watch Carol Ann emerge my heart stopped!

The inside of the pub was in silent darkness and Carol Anne was nowhere to be seen.

"What the....?" I thought as my heart ponderously restarted.

I stepped back inside and looked around.

It was empty.  There weren't even any tables in the place!

I just couldn't believe what my senses were telling me.

Two minutes ago this had been a busy pub, packed almost to the rafters.  Now it was dark and empty, but worse that that, it had 
a smell of decay about it.  

And below that smell, a smell even more vile; a smell of putrescence so disgusting that I had to force myself not to be sick.

I stumbled outside and looked back at the pub.  The ground floor windows were all boarded up.  The upstairs windows, which 
weren't boarded up, were 
all smashed by young thugs with nothing better to do.

The sign above the door was age-dulled and the paint was peeling off of it.  It hung lopsidedly by one screw.

"What're you doing here?  Are you lost?",  I heard behind me and my poor heart skipped a beat.

I turned around and looked at the man who had posed the question.

The policeman who stood there now looked at me closely then said, "Oh dear heavens!  It's happened again!".

"What?" I blurted, bowled over by what had just happened and completely confused by the officer's words..

The policeman turned out to be a kindly sort and he took me back to the station to have a cup of tea.

He could see that I was shaken and he sat me down, pouring a little whiskey into the tea before handing it to me.

After I had stopped shaking he said, "You've been visiting with Carol Anne haven't you?"

I nodded numbly.

"I don't know how to put this", he said, "but if what I tell you gets out I will be for the high-jump so keep it to yourself, ok?"  

"My superiors like to say the guys that have been through what you've just been through are only attention seeking loonies, but I 
know different so I'll tell 
you about that place." 

"That pub has been closed for 12 years", he said.

"No it can't have been", I said.  "It was full when I was just in there"

He continued as if he hadn't heard me "Carol Anne died with everyone else back on October 31st., 1987.  

"Once in a while, when "conditions" are right, Carol Anne and the pub exist for an hour or so.  It's always a man in a nice suit 
that is found outside the 
pub, totally stunned by the experience."

My jaw hung open, unwilling to believe what he was telling me but knowing instinctively that it was the truth.

It turned out that there had been a Hungerford-style massacre in this little village.  

In Hungerford in Berkshire on 19th August 1987 a man named Michael Ryan went a little loopy, took his AK47 and went for a stroll 
into town.  

Along the way he killed 16 people and injured 14 more.  He eventually turned the gun on himself.

On Halloween night that same year, a man named Roger Twain must have thought that Ryan had a good idea and decided he would try 
it himself.  He 
walked into the pub at closing time and opened fire.  

There were 38 people in the pub at the time, including Mike the barman and a flame-haired dancer named Carol Anne.  Roger Twain 
shot and killed every 
one of them.  

Seems he outdid Michael Ryan in this respect because he took the time to wander around the pub and finish the job on those that 
were merely wounded.

It was quiet when the police arrived.  They found Roger Twain in the corner of the room with the gun propped between his knees.  
There was very little 
of his head left.

I asked the policeman about Carol Anne.  

It appeared that at the time she was leaving with a gentleman she had just met.  

"Good looking chap" the policeman said "about your age.  Had been on a business trip and had stopped in for a drink, so we gather.  
Poor bloke was still 
wearing his business suit.  Nice one it, it was.  Armani I think.  We found a bullet hole through the breast pocket."

When the police arrived, one of his hands was still clutching the door handle where he had been playing gentleman and opening the 
door for the lady.

The jukebox had been stuttering as the police entered, until a young bobby gave it a kick and released the stray bullet that had 
jammed the mechanism.

"Sharp-Dressed Man" by ZZ Top had been playing.

The End.

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