Witch mark

Once these were believed to be protection against witches. We are hoping, against our better judgement, that they may, today, be protective against the many loathsome terrors of the early 21st century.

They seem to be effective, so far. We have seen several goves lurking behind hedges, groaning and creaking, and spotted the slime trails from several more. None, however, have dared approach.

The goves of course come mostly at night. Mostly.

But the goves are not the worst: far from that in fact. In the distance we sometimes catch glimpses of a vast bloated creature: with its horrible yellow parody of a small child's haircut, its many thumblike appendages perpetually in the air, pinprick eyes and banana grin, it is apparently wearing the ill-fitting remnants (no cloth cut to fit any human would cover more than part of its horrid, quivering surface) of a fluorescent coat torn from the still-living body of some poor innocent it was in the process of devouring to feed its insatiable appetite. In one of its many hands a champagne glass, in another a bottle, in yet others a silver straw and a mirror dusted with a curious white powder.

We can hear, even now, the endless idiot burbling from its terrible rotted mouth: the rehearsed latinate nonsense, the stream of superficial lies and dissembling. It is unwise to listen too closely lest it entrance you and lure you to a fate – well the term 'worse than death' does not describe the horror that awaits those who fall into its clutches.

It is, of course, deep in the rut: it is always deep in the rut. I will not describe its awful priapism: that must be reserved for the more secret writings, to be published only after my death. Suffice to say that the local women and girls do not go out without their shotguns, one barrel loaded with depleted uranium shot, the other with a normal round. The depleted uranium round, discharged at close range, can sometimes deter it for long enough to flee. If it does not the conventional round is used in the obvious way: death by shotgun is far preferable to the awful alternative. The local vicar has given an edict that such deaths should not be counted as suicides.

I believe a group of women are planning an all-out assault on it: napalm is being prepared in one of the barns. They will not accept my help for which I do not blame them. I salute their courage in the face of this rapacious monster. Their memories will live long in the annals of the resistance.

It is, of course, a mature johnson: one of the most horrible of creatures known to us and an increasing scourge in this land.

I do not know if the witch marks will deter it: we can but hope. We have shotguns and a number of shoulder-launched antitank missiles, modified to carry incendiary warheads. If all else fails we may have to follow Ripley's good advice: take off and nuke the site from orbit.