In my village, or at least near it, is this rickety old abandoned house. I never knew what it was at first, and then Brian told me. “An old lady used live there” he told me. “Then she was murdered and cursed the ‘ouse.” “Oh wunderbar!” I replied, making no effort to suppress the sarcasm in my voice. “How fitting” I added, seeing as we were in a graveyard, visiting Mama’s grave. The all familiar gold lettering standing out against the smooth white marble surface. “Here lies the German Klara Kräuse, wife of Hans König and mother of Kagan König-Kräuse.” It read. It is tragic, how she died. One day, as she was doing her job as a woodsman, the tree she was chopping fell down on top of her. My dad, Uncle Oskar or Aunty Amelie would tell me anymore.
It took a lot of pleading. I don’t know how, but Brian somehow got his way. “Come on Kaggy” he whined. “It’s just an abandoned ‘ouse.” “Just an abandoned house” I retorted. “Why do you think it is abandoned? I doubt they heard the ringing of the ice-cream truck and ran aimlessly for 15 years.” “Maybe they got ‘it by a falling tree!” That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Fine” I spat. I didn’t want to upset Brian. After all, he is the only friend I have. Everybody else addresses me as “Mein Fϋhrer”. “We’ll be in and out in eins, zwei, drei” he said. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
The door opened smoothly. We stepped inside. Brian sneezed, as he usually does when he is scared. I call it his disneeze. The cottage was pretty bare, only a shiny axe lying on the table caught my eye. It reminded me of Mama. We saw a strange door leading to an eerie basement. We descended the staircase. Blood everywhere. “Bloody ‘ell” screamed Brian. “Mein Godt” is all I managed to squeak out. To our horror, we saw where the blood was coming from. Headless corpses. 10 of them. Pumping blood. Freshly killed. I froze. I heard a creaking sound - the sound of the basement door.
Without thinking, I grabbed Brian and dove under the table. A woman entered in a white dress, just like the ones Mama used to wear. She was dragging an axe - the axe behind her. I was scared. So was Brian. I could tell because his disneeze came back. The woman stopped. I ran for the door. Locked. Brian’s disneeze stopped when the woman axed his throat and yanked out his oesophagus. Then a man entered the room from a backdoor. He had a grey beard and glasses and he looked like Jeremy Corbyn. He picked up Brian’s oesophagus, swung it around and placed it on the table. This man practically is Jeremy Corbyn - always bringing something useless to the table. I felt sick. The woman hadn’t turned around yet. She was more interested in finding Brian’s kidneys - or kidney. He only had one, just like Mama. Then the woman turned around. She stalked towards me. Her axe was at the ready. Then I saw her face. “Wass? Mama? Nein!”