The canisters clunked together in his backpack, and he felt a little shiver of anticipation. He could only be ten, maybe fifteen minutes away from the target. Quarter of an hour until his fortunes started to change, and he cemented his place in history.
The plan was elegant in its simplicity. He would head to the Ardnamurchan Lighthouse, one of the most popular tourist spots in this part of the country.
He would set the camera on his phone rolling, and clearly identify himself for the benefit of those watching. Ideally, this would be a live stream, but assuming he didn’t get a signal, he’d upload it to his YouTube channel later.
Then, when the coast was clear, he’d spray paint the biggest dick he could on the side of the lighthouse, and run like fuck before anyone caught him.
Herbert laughed out loud at the thought of it. Spray painting a reasonably well-loved tourist attraction so it resembled an enormous penis? That was gold. If that didn’t go viral, nothing would.
Twenty-four hours from now, he’d be up there with the best-known names on the internet. Rebecca Black. Charlie Bit My Finger. That fat lad who thought he was in Star Wars. He’d be bigger than them all!
And all it would take was a couple of cans of paint, a steady hand, and an extendable ladder.
Herbert stopped and drew in a breath so sharp he inhaled a score of midges. Even as he coughed them back out, he realised his error.
The ladder.
He’d forgotten the bloody ladder.
Herbert turned to look back the way he’d come, but the prospect of hiking all that way back to where he’d parked the van would’ve been a daunting one even if he’d known how to get there. Given that he had no idea of the van’s whereabouts beyond somewhere roughly in that direction, going back for it wasn’t an option.
“Fuck it,” he grunted, trudging on before the cleg from earlier had a chance to catch up with him.
How tall was the lighthouse? About thirty-five metres.
What was that in feet?
God knew. Ninety? A hundred? Something like that.
And what was he? Five-eight or five-nine, depending on footwear. At full stretch, with his arms up, maybe seven feet.
A seven-foot-long schlong on the side of a lighthouse was still funny, obviously, but was it viral video material? Maybe. If it was detailed enough. Veins, and ball hairs, and all that. Maybe some flying droplets of spunk.
It would all be in the selling of it. He knew, despite all the many comments on his channel to the contrary, that he could be funny and charming on camera. That was half the battle. Win them round with the banter, then seal the deal by spray painting a seven-foot penis on a relatively popular landmark.
This wasn’t a disaster. This could still be a success. He could still make this work, ladder or no ladder.
It was thirty seconds later when Herbert fell in the hole. It was quite a large hole, as holes went—more of a sudden dip in the ground several metres wide than a narrow drop into a confined space—and he really should’ve seen it coming.
He slid and rolled down one of the steep sides, wet mud soaking through the back of his trousers until he looked like he’d suffered an explosive bout of diarrhoea.
He landed at the bottom with a squelch and a splat, and the world came alive with insects. Even more so than it already had been, which was saying something.
Herbert spent a terrifying few seconds batting them away and shaking them off, then he jumped to his feet, made a mad dash for freedom, and fell once again.
He landed in darkness. Soot. Ash. His sudden arrival woke the smell of fire, and of smoke, as he struggled to push himself back, away, up.
But there was something beneath him. Something hideous. Something wrong.
A face grinned up from the remains of the fire. A skull, the skin and flesh charred away, the eye sockets hollow. Mostly.
Lost, alone, and miles from home, Herbert Gibson scrambled backwards through the mud, and the heather, and the bugs.
And then, he wiped his tears on his blackened hands, vomited down his front, and screamed.
CHAPTER TWO
Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan of Police Scotland was suspicious. This was not entirely unusual—most of his days were spent being suspicious of one thing or another—but right now his finely-tuned polis instincts were making their presence felt even more so than usual.
It was the suddenness of it that had first set him wondering. His girlfriend—a word he was only just getting used to using—Shona Maguire, had sprung it on him at eleven o’clock the night before. They both had a day off—him from the polis, her from the mortuary—so they should take a wee day trip to Largs, she’d said. They should go and eat ice cream at Nardini’s, she’d said.