CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "My town has an old nursery rhyme called LICKETYSPLIT" Creepypasta

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Licketysplit comes for you...AUTHOR'S SUBREDDIT► https://www.reddit.com/r/Max_Voynich/CREEPYPASTA STORY- by Max-Voynich: ►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...►https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►Matheus Dalla: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8l...CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪-This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only-

Across the bridge, over the creek, and down to Beckford's Hollow. Mind your head and don't turn back. Lickety split will follow. The call is about one in the morning. I didn't know you were back in town. As a pause, I don't have a number saved, but I recognise the voice. The slight stutter, the round vowels. Sure, yeah, staying in my uncle's caravan park for a little while,

till I'm back on my feet at least. How did you know I was here? that I was back. Rain beats against the thin metal of the caravan. News travels in itch. Her concentration lapses for a second, as if she's seen something. Don't you remember? I do remember, at least some of it.

I'm trying to organise my thoughts into something that might actually make sense when a voice changes, grows lower, concerned. You're okay though, right? I don't know what she's out. asking about, if she's just checking up, or if she heard about my breakdown, about how I ended up chewing my lips until my pillows were brown, encrusted with blood, staring at the ceiling until they had to break down my door. Maybe she's just being nice. I'm fine, Blake, I'm all good. Sure, swing by tomorrow, yeah? It'll at least give me something to do. She hangs up before I have a

chance to respond. Good to know she hasn't changed. Still finding ways to get you to do what she wants. Little turns of phrase or actions that make us so hard to say no to. I wonder if she's changed as much as I have. If it affected her as much as it did to me, if she still has trouble

sleeping. I hear it then. In the dark. Someone off in the distance singing it. Probably drunk on their way to the camp toilets or walking back from the pub. The same song that's been sung in this town

since I was a boy, since my father was a boy. The verses changed with the times, but the melody never changes. Lickety split. My phone buzzes, a text, 1.28. Make sure you come tomorrow, have something to tell you, it's important. The drunkard gets closer, singing louder now, and I think they must have woken half the sight up

when they stagger and steady themselves against my caravan. The noise makes me jump. makes my heart start racing. They continue the song. Losing the melodies somewhere, but soldiering on, regardless, word slurred. Under the branches, through the trees, the flower are a touching.

Watch your tongue and hold it now. Lickety Split is watching. It reminds me of how we'd sing it as children in the playground, the woods, the creek. I wake early the next morning. Wash my meds down with cold coffee from the night before.

Stretch. On the walk to the showers, I see that whoever was drunk had vomited just behind my caravan. Damn, real nice. It's dark, almost the colour of ink, and I can vaguely make out the shapes of luffberries, a small dark berry that grew in the woods each bordered. I make a mental note to call my uncle, let him know. The walk to Blake's doesn't take too long, maybe half an hour, and it's nice to be out in the morning air.

despite the season it's cold nips my exposed skin between my fingers under my jaw as I get closer memories start to flood back half form things after school walks her first cigarette

I ring the doorbell stand back her house is huge imposing although empty I studied the vines crawling up the side the vast windows on the ground floor the small windows of our

room we used to open to smoke from. The top floor was apparent, although, I guess now, just a mother. It's hard to see, but for a moment, it seems as if there's something in the top window, against the glass.

Someone, I make eye contact with her mother, so much older than when I last saw her. Her hair, a white mess, her cheeks sunken, eyes fixed on me. I want to look away and focus on the footsteps that I can hear coming to the front door, but I can't.

I swear she's mouthing something, to me or herself. And just as I'm trying to decipher what it is, Blake opens the door. Damn, Isaac! I'm lost for words. It's been so long. Red hair still a mess. Glasses still perched so far down her nose, I'm not convinced she can see out of them at all.

Her grin, all teeth. Older, though. For a moment, I can see. see something in her eyes. A brief sadness. But she pushes through, pulls me into a hug. It's been so long. I hug her back. Too long. I know, I know. I should have moved out by now. But since Mom got sick, she's been bedridden. Can't even get up to dress herself or go to the toilet. I'm cheaper than a nurse, right? Rent's cheap too. She smells wide. But I can see she wanted to get this out of the way, that she had this prepared beforehand, maybe even rehearsed it, and that

talking about it is painful. I think about mentioning her mother in the window, the words she was mouthing, but I decide against it. It must be hard enough already. In the same way my body still knew the hills and the turns of the town, it still knew her. We knew the rhyme of each other's conversations, of our jokes, our silences, and, after five minutes, We're talking like old friends. She shows me into the kitchen, makes a cup of tea, offers me some food. We talk a while until she pauses, chewing her lip, concentrating on something. Then her mind springs into action all at once.

Upstairs, I want to show you something. I don't say much, nod. This way, I leave my tea on the table, follow her. I have no idea what it is she wants to show me. what it could possibly be, but it must be important. She's acting different, no longer all jokes and smiles. The stairs groaned underfoot and the landing is bare. She gestures to a door, after you.

I push it open slowly and take a second to absorb what's inside. Stacks of paper piled on the floor, on the tables, plates of food and mugs of tea dotting the floor, whiteboards covered in scribbles of black pen, corkboards on the walls, huge and ancient books stacked under the tables. She moves through the mess with a practiced ease, picking her feet up just before they knock something over,

bending at just the right time to avoid a stack. She turns to me. Look, I know it's a lot to take in, but I figured... Well, I don't know if there's a nice way to say this. I figured that you, out of anyone, would have a little more sympathy for all of this. I'm thinking about what she means, what any of this is for,

and as if to answer my question, she continues. Lickety split, the nursery rhyme. I remember the verse from the night before, the endless shifting verses of my childhood. Who do you think wrote it? She waits, expecting a reply. Look, Blake, I don't know. I don't know if this is,

She guts me off. The verses change year on year. They shift and they change and no one notices. It just happens. I think of the conversation we had downstairs of how she seemed a little preoccupied, tired.

This has been keeping her up and I'm not sure how much good it's doing her and I've been talking to Michael. I don't know if you guys keep in contact but he teaches at Manchester Uni now for the linguistics department. The name Michael. calls brings to mind a face and sets of memories.

Jealousy. The three of us drinking in fields, the shed we built. He's specialising in local dialects and songs. He's been really helpful. She starts going through the stack of papers now, putting some in her teeth as she flicks through. We've been logging the appearance of verses as best we can when they crop up in home videos.

The yearly short film the school makes with the kids, which isn't easy to get, trust me. She shifts, collecting all the pieces of paper she has, now pushing her glasses a little further up a nose to read. These verses just change. One day, the kids are singing one thing, the next they're singing another. No one knows why they change, has any memory of changing them. It's like they come from a sort of collective unconscious.

Wrinkles a nose, choose her lips. Now, this is where me and Michael disagree. He thinks that they're a little. in response to events, that the readings we have aren't accurate enough, that they're an unconscious response to trauma, deaths in the town. This is, this is, she stammers a little. Her brain obviously working faster than a mouth. You need to trust me okay. This looks weird, sure, and the next bit will sound weird, but I'm not making it up. All the deaths that happen in this town and the forest, Hannah Blotten in 2003.

Jones 2007. All the rest. The rhymes predict them. She looks to me, her eyes wide now, as she just shared something private, a secret. The luck you give when you tell a friend how you really feel, or when you confess. The rhyme predicts the deaths, Isaac, and I don't know why. I don't know if it's a collective premonition, or if there's something, someone, out there, using us... It's my turn to cut her off now. Blake, this isn't fair. I can't do this. You know I can't do this.

I haven't been well. I'm not well. I tap on my temple, indicating where the illness is. I've just recovered. I'm meant to be taking it easy. All that stuff from when we were teenagers? I couldn't handle it.

I don't know if you could, but I can't do this with you. I don't wait around to see if she'll try and persuade me, to see if she's got some way of reeling me in. I thank her for our hospitality and head down the steps and out of the door. As I open a gate, I turn to look at the house one more time to see if she's watching from a window. Nothing. Except on the top floor, her mother, same as she was before, but closer to the window now,

as if she's desperate to see me, mouthing some words, almost shaking. Her eyes fixed on me, going through me. The walk home takes a long time. I wanted to help her I really did and I wanted so much to have a friend again but I know what I can and can't do what this will do to my mental health

but it stays in my mind the way she'd explained it to me not just frantic but almost pleading as if each new fact about her theory was a reason for me to stay not to leave her alone in that huge an empty house with the mother

I pass a playground on my way back and stop for a while. The swings in frame are the same. Fresh go to paint maybe. But I can still see where we'd climb, where we'd hide at night, drinking stolen spirit. And I listen.

A few kids are playing, climbing, and their parents sit on the sides, watching. And as they watch, the kids begin to sing. Through the gate and into the house, let your friends come near you, talk as if you know

What's right, Lickety Split can hear you. The last line makes me uncomfortable. Makes my chest ache. I have an image of her mother again. Her eyes wide, her mouth moving, as if on its own. I could hear Blake tell me about how sick she was. It didn't make sense. The room we were in was below her mother's room.

I knew that much. But no. The children continue. The day is new, the day is old. these thoughts are pearly crowning. Junk and rain and stuck in mud, blickety split is drowning. As if a cue,

it begins to rain again, gently. And as I walk, it picks up. The rain, thrown by wind, growing thicker and faster, until I have to lean into it. Thunder,

the path turning from grey stone to black. I hurry home, trying to stay as dry as possible, breaking into a little jog. My lungs hurt. and before long I'm soaked through and out of breath. I stop, leaning back, gulping down air. I haven't run in years, and my body isn't nearly as up for it as I thought.

I half walk, half jogged the rest of the way. Although, when I finally get back to the caravan park, there's a huge commotion. A crowd of people gathered around a caravan not too far from me. The caravan, I was sure, belonged to the drunken singer from the night before. I bused through them to get to mine, ignoring the faces they pull at me. That is, until I see him. The story they'd tell after was that he fell whilst blackout drunk, slipped on the wet metal steps holding a bottle.

Face first onto the glass had dislocated his jaw, torn his lips to shreds, and then when his face pressed into the wet mud, he'd been too drunk to pull himself out. The blood and the earth had made a sort of suction, and you could see the thin scores in the mud either side of him or he desperately tried to pull himself out. They'd say he drowned in that mud, not even a foot from his own home, but that he'd really drowned in the bottle 20 years earlier,

that he was waiting to die anyway. No kids, dead wife. But I saw the body as they pulled it under the stretcher. I saw the look in his eyes. Terror. The way his mouth was blurred. and his jaw hung loose. There's no way he drowned in the mud.

I'd seen faces like that before, Blake and Michael too. I'd spent so long in therapy, convincing myself, it didn't happen like that. It couldn't happen like that. And now it had happened again, right in front of me. There was no denying it. I thought on it for the rest of the day, until night came. I called Blake. She picked up instantly.

Has something happened? Are you okay? Blake, yeah, sort of. But it's complicated. Let's just speak tomorrow. I think I... She got me off. Hold that thought. Speak tomorrow.

Got it. Hold up. Sorry. Noises upstairs. Your mum? Probably. She doesn't walk anymore. Sometimes falls out of bed.

Have to help her get back in. Got to go. She hung up. Before I had a chance to interrupt her, to ask about her. mother to explain what I'd seen. It's probably nothing anyway.

I try calling her a couple of times but it doesn't go through. I watch news online with the volume as loud as possible to drown out the noise from outside. Someone's reporting from the local school on the roof that collapsed in a building in the storm. In the background a couple of

kids mill about waiting to be picked up by their parents. The reporter moves closer to ask them something. But they seemed engross in their game instead. Together, in their small voices, slightly out of tune, they sing.

Now you're here, now you're back, collected your composure, lock the door and hold your breath, Lickety Split grows closer. This town was built with bloody hands, and we are done with waiting. Keep it hush, bite your tongue. Lickety Split is escaping.

I find it hard to sleep. I can't stop thinking about the accident. what it did to all of us, the way it changed us. I think about Blake and her mother and that vast, empty house. Who made our three or four, and how much I wanted to apologize to her, how much I wanted to take it all back. I think of the black water, the oil slick of her blood on the surface, the way her teeth hung just below the surface like fishing lures.

It turns inside me, all these thoughts, these old anxieties, and I do the only thing I can do to control it. I hold my breath. I hold my breath until my lungs feel like they're going to burst until all the pressure inside of me builds up to match the pressure I feel from the outside. And, as I'm in this state, chest hurting, I swear to God, I feel as if something outside

is holding its breath with me. I feel as if, through the thin metal, something is on the other side mimicking me, breathing as I breathe Sometimes I think I can hear it It's breathing Slightly out of tempo with mine I hold my breath

Until I fall asleep Longs run ragged And I dream of mud Of broken bottles Songs half forgotten I wake early There's nothing in the way of sound Intillation in a cheap caravan

And I can hear all the sounds Of the sights starting up The spot driver generator conversations between neighbours, the faint hiss of the showers. It's only when I look in the mirror that I see it. Blood. In my sleep, I've chewed my lip, compulsively, and now my chin and pillow are brown with old blood.

I tried to centre myself. Try and think calming thoughts. I haven't done this in a while, sure. But I tell myself that this isn't a relapse, isn't a return to where I was before. It comes off in the showers, turning to a red puddle around my feet. I decide to head over to Blake's as early as possible,

slightly concerned by a message from the night before. I am lost in daydreams when someone calls out to me. An old man sat on a bench, both hands clasped over a walking stick. He smiles broad, shrunken gums, missing teeth. A lovely day for it I nod and keep walking,

hoping that passes for a greeting. He repeats himself, Lovely day for it, all things considered. That stops me in my tracks. I think of the drunk the night before, drowned, face caved in by the bottle. I think of the shallow marks in the soil where he desperately tried to pull himself up

as he felt himself drowning. The old man suddenly seemed less, friendly, less charming, and it's as if he knew. I realised then that although his face is fixing a smile, his eyes don't smile at all. They are level, probing, set in a face they were entirely at odds with. We stand like that for a while. I'm unsure whether to say anything, and he just stares back, hands shaking slightly on his stick. Then he stands and tips his cap before walking.

off, singing, just loud enough for me to hear. Pay attention, little ones, the morning is abating. We shall sing this song for you, for Lickety Split is waiting. It occurs to me that something might have happened to Blake, that she might be in some sort of danger, and I begin to feel my heart pound. I can hear it. It's beating so fast, and for the last minute of the walk I hold my breath again, until I feel my lungs swell

and I see spots in my vision. I stop outside her house. Breathe. I ring the buzzer and step back. Perhaps it's habit now or a morbid curiosity but I look up to a mother's room. From this angle I can see less of it

and I think for a second she's not there. But as I wait tapping my foot she appears again now looking down at me, still mouthing those same words. She looks stranger now, more hunched. Her face, meaner, and her mouth moves fast. I pressed the buzzer again.

Text her. Her mother is watching me more intently now, and I start hammering on the door. Images fill my mind. Blake dead on the kitchen floor, hanging from the rafters, half drowned and... I can't take my eyes off of her mother. As she speaks, it seems like something is crawling out of her mouth. Something is slow, a spider perhaps, with long white limbs. No, not a spider, but a hand, fingers.

Slowly, a hand is pulling its way out of a mouth, resting its fingers on a sunken cheeks, more and more emerging from the dark of a throat. I'm leaning on the buzzer now, banging the door with my fist and, It opens. Blake is in an old t-shirt with a cup of tea. Isaac? I was just upstairs, listening to her. I pushed past her. Your mother, Blake. She was at the window, saying something.

Has been before. And there was something in her mouth. I'm sure of it. Hey, hey, slow down. She speaks the way she did when we were hurt or upset, putting her hand on my arm. Easy. We have to go upstairs. Your mother Blake, she's been watching me from the window. I start up the steps. She follows, trying to reason with me to calm me down as we go up,

explaining that her mother never gets out of bed, can't get out of bed, hasn't walked on her own in years, and... I stop outside the door. I think I can see a shadow against it, as if someone stood on the other side, waiting. I feel sick. I can smell rot, an old wood.

Blake pushes it open. Her mother, lies, completely still in bed. The sheets tucked over her, as if they were made this morning. Her eyes, however, are wide open, staring, bolt upright, fixed on the ceiling. Happy now? I immediately feel a pang of guilt. I try and explain myself that I saw her by the window, speaking. I was sure of it.

When Blake speaks, I can hear the pain in a voice. It makes it thick and strained. She's looking at me now, like I'm not a friend, but an intruder. Like I'm mocking her. Isaac, my mother wasn't by the window, because she hasn't gotten out of bed in years. She hasn't said a word in years, let alone a whole sentence. I try and interrupt to apologize, but she can't stop. So, don't burst into my house.

at God knows when in the morning, telling me my mum's up and talking, talking to you of all people, when I've been here every single day, every single day in this town, praying she gets better, and she won't even look at me. It takes it out of her, and she deflates. Her shoulders slouch. She looks to the floor. Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't sleep, and... She shakes her head. It's all right. We're standing in a strange silence now. when I notice something on the window sill what looks like scratch marks in the white paint revealing the wood beneath

and then we hear it from downstairs something repeated over and over a voice several voices chanting lickety split lickety split lickety split lickety split lickety split

lickety split lickety split the sound carries itself through the empty house creeps up the stairs and hangs between us That word over and over again. And I don't want to mention her mother again, but I swear the expression on her face changes. Those comatose eyes suddenly seem to have intention behind them. A life.

Blake's eyes go wide and she runs down the stairs. I follow into the room she'd been conducting her research in. A needle had skipped on an old record of lickety split she'd had that had been pressed on vinyl. But there was something weird about it. Each time it skipped, the voices changed. Not just higher and lower, but different textures, accents, as if each new skip came from someone new.

She lifts the needle. We talk for a while. I try and be as understanding as possible. Give her time to talk to explain the theories and research, hoping to make up for upsetting her earlier. I explained about the drunk at the campsite, the way he drowned in the mud, the songs I heard before it. Hey, Isaac, uh, I hope this isn't weird, but Michael called me the other day. I should have mentioned that last time, but he's driving down to come see me, to help out.

I think, I mean, he's probably on his way now. I feel jealousy, nest between my ribs, under my tongue. She shows me a video he sent Of him talking He looks older Handsome Clearframe glasses The way he says he's excited to meet her

Makes my stomach turn He mentions my name Says he's excited to see me too All things considered And for a moment I forget about the jealousy I remember him as a boy The way he'd throw his head back when he laughed

This big yap of laugh So loud You couldn't have to help but laugh too, even if you were trying to sulk. She suggested we go for a walk around the woods, clear her minds, and that she's managed to pinpoint the rough locations of a few local deaths and disappearances. Can't hurt to check it out. The idea of spending the day with her wins me over, eager to make up for the way I'd barged

in this morning. I almost, for a second, forget about Lickety. Forget about the song. Offhand, I mentioned the strange man this morning. Blake freezes. Missing teeth, little hat? Wear it like this. She makes a gesture.

About this high. I nod. Yeah, that's him. She goes pale. Withdraws into herself for a moment. Runs her hand through a tangled hair. That's Jane's dad. He looks so different to how he did that night, I think.

and images flashed through my mind the claps, trying to get her out, the sound of metal on bone, doubled over heaving on grass. I remember how Blake held her until the ambulance came, how I could do nothing but sit and heave and heave until I thought

I'd run out of air to breathe. We leave the house, packing a few supplies for a walk, food, bottles of water. It's strange, but on our walk to the start of the woods, it seems as if, By coincidence, everyone in town is coming out to see us.

Old women and men are standing by their bedroom windows, watching us walk past. Children step out into the road. People sit still in their cars. A few children kick the odd ball down the road ahead of us, scattering leaves, singing. Be polite and well-behaved or they will be furious. He wonders where you're going now. Lickety-split is curious. Her phone buzzes.

It's Michael, trying to FaceTime. She picks up, putting him on speaker, but on his end, it's just black. We wait for a while to see if he'll realize, but nothing. She goes to hang up. Wait, listen, and so we do, putting our ears closer to the phone, and we can hear him talking, to himself. This frenzied monologue, speaking so fast, is like the words are pouring out of him, as if he has no control over it, and we only catch snippets of what is saying.

They're wrong, they're wrong, they're wrong, they're wrong. People assume language and reality are distinct, but they're the same. Always have been. We cannot understand it all without language. You must understand. Language changes. It is fluid. The dead dream and the thieves speak gutter, and this town, this town sings and sings.

We're shouting now into the phone, hoping he'll hear our tiny voices from his pocket and stop. Something about it freaks me out. The way the words just tumble out, the deranged stream of consciousness style of it. None of it makes any sense. The town sings has always sung, built with bloody hands, built with bloody hands. Which out louder and there's the sound of fumbling.

Michael pauses up. We can see his face now. He's completely changed from the man who sent the video a few days ago, to put it bluntly. He looked like hell. Bruised purple bags under his eyes. Hair greasy and face covered in sweat. When he sees us, his eyes go wide and he looks away.

I think he's driving? He looks back. You called? Michael, you called us? Pocket call. How long ago? I don't know. We've been listening to you ramble for what?

A couple minutes? If it was possible, his face grew a little paler. his teeth worked against the inside of his lip I was talking rambling he pulls over what was I talking about Blake what was I talking about

I don't know language singing it didn't make any sense I could see the panic spread across his face watch it as it reaches his eyes the corners of his mouth Jesus there's a

sound of fumbling, something being cut and he leans over. Blake turns to me, pulling a face. And then Michael sits back up, and covering the bottom of his face are two thick strips of black electrical tape. They cross

over his mouth, which he seems determined to keep shut. We have nothing to say, can say nothing, can only stare as he nods to us. Face now forcibly held in a state of panic and hangs up. He texts a second later.

1123. We'll explain, have brought books. And then, 1123. Stay safe. The overcast skies cast a dim light on the forest, and the roots and earth seem to merge into one, as if the whole forest is this one, dark organism. We pick our way across it,

following a well-known path, Beckford's Hollow, until we find the sight of the first death, Hannah Blotten. The sights now covered in wildflowers, lilac and pale blue against the stone. We stand in silence for a while, unsure really of what to look for,

of what we expect. Hey, Blake calls me over. I like the way she speaks outside, the way she makes a voice a little quieter, like she's trying to respect the forest around her. She's crouched down and pointing at something. I follow her thing.

There, planted in the earth like a seed. Was a tooth? Milk, white. Blake picks it up and drops it in a pocket. And as she does so, we see an older couple walking down the path, heading out of the woods. They nod. And as they pass, I hear the song they're singing. This new season, these new seeds, bold and white and bony, don't.

get lost, stay on the path, Lickety Split is lonely. I feel this need to get out of the forest. The verses feel as if they're following me, as if they match the world around me, and as the melody fades, I feel like the forest turns on me. The trees swell and the shadows grow darker.

We need to go. Blake nods. As we make our way out of the forest, we see more and more teeth on the ground, enamel shining through dirt and realise that the whole of the forest floor is covered in them these new seeds

we pick up our pace sounds echo in the spaces between the trees rustling and humming I feel my back stiffen fear works its way up my spine and into the base of my skull when did we walk so far in I feel as if there's something else out there

something watching us peering from the spaces under roots, from beneath stones, hidden in piles of leaves. We push on. I swear I can hear it occasionally. The sound of a foot breaking on a twig, or a foot on bark. Something behind us, keeping its distance. Eventually the woods thin, and we find ourselves back in the town.

We both take a deep breath, and I think, secretly, don't want to admit to the other how scared we were. It doesn't take long for us. to find our way back to her house, eat, spend the afternoon discussing the teeth, the recordings she has. We decide that we need to take a deeper look into this town's history, see if we can find anything in the local library or online, and she gets a text. 1925 at Bickford's Road.

Must be Michael. And then... 1926, help. And then a phone doesn't stop buzzing, and its message after message, text after text, all just one word repeating himself over and over and over. 1926, help, 1926, help, 1926, help, 1926, help, 1926, help, 1927, help. We have no choice. We run out the house.

What's the fastest route? She takes a moment. Look to me in the eyes. winters, through the woods. Damn, and as we make our way back to the woods, we see them. Figures coming to their windows, peering around corners, endless pale faces in the half-light. We hear what they're singing as they move forward, all in unison. You've heard the words, you know it's true, it's starting to be clear now, watching, waiting, and coming for you.

Lickety Split is here now. Our mind has depth we don't forget, born from the embers. Try as you might you cannot hide. Lickety Split remembers. We move towards the woods. The night is heavy, the shadows and oil slick on our skin. As we draw closer to the woods, the tall black trees, the new seeds that winked us from the earth,

I feel my chest tighten. I brace myself. I can't help it. it, images of Jane come to mind. The situation plays itself out in slow motion. Drunk, cheap cider, locking her in the shed, making noises, telling her something was locked in there with her, unable to get out. I remember the way she hammered against the door, begging us to let her out. We start trying, we can't. Lock stuck. She's saying it's not funny, it's not a joke, there's something in there with her. She's sure of it. It's getting closer

the dark and we're shouting back that we're trying, we're trying, we're trying, we actually are now. We actually are trying. But the door stuck and the woods are a different kind of dark, imposing. Try as we might, we can't help but shake the feeling we're not alone. No birds. I want to say something to Blake. Say something that might make this better, easier, but I'm mute. We pick her way along the path by the light of her torch And then slowly make her way down a hill Trying to move as quickly as possible Scanning the earth for roots or stones

All we can see His teeth She's kicking the door now and it swings open Jane stumbles out Younger than us by a year or two And the momentum carries her She staggers to her right Slips on the edge falls into the river

Her head catches on the edge of the boat with a brief, sharp crunch. Then, silence for a moment. The sound of water lapping against the hull, against the shore. We push on. Blake's talking out loud periodically, reassuring herself, reassuring me, saying that we're not far now, that we're getting closer, as she hopes Michael's okay.

Doesn't know what's gone into him. I can hear the slight shake, the tremor in the longer words. She's just as scared as I am. Occasionally I can hear twigs crack in the distance, the sound of dislodged soil, something's following us, at least shadowing us. Whatever it is keeps its distance, chooses instead to watch us, both following this white circle, panting, plate goes first to help her, leans over the edge to try and grab hold of her,

but she stumbles, sted herself against the rear of the boat, which starts to drift away. She shouts. Michael and I, too drunk to react for a second. Then we come over, both grabbing the back of the boat, taller, heaving it towards shore. Blake joins in two, and for a second we think it's okay. Jane comes out of the water,

head against the lip of the shore, a cut on a forehead. She's gasping for air. It happens in slow motion. It's too late. The boat's in the water. There's no further. friction, not really. Tons of metal and wood that we've managed the pull. The boat won't stop, slowly gliding towards the stone shore. The only thing between the two is Jane's head. We can

see streetlights through the trees, Beckford's Road. Blake begins to shout Michael's name, sprinting now, stumbling but steadying herself against the trunk of a tree, running out onto the grass, and then we can see his car expensive, black and Michael doubled over the hood as if wretching boat won't stop tons move slick over water

Jane's head services resting ahead against the stone for a moment a wet crunch as the boat makes impact her teeth like popcorn scattered over the shore blood and clear liquid burst from her nose

I don't remember much else I remember coming too on the ground grass, tasting bile and hunched over. Blake, with something in her arms, some wet and red mess. Sirens. Michael pacing up and down, tank, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. The stones at the shore slick with something as black in the moonlight, white teeth scattered, and Michael bent over the hood of his car, his retching, something's coming out of his mouth, hanging there for a moment, A hand with long and grasping fingers Slowly pulling its way out

And then a wrist and a forearm Reaching And we can see that Michael's eyes are wide in terror And he's shaking And he can't hear us now We're both shouting his name as loud as we can Maybe 20 seconds away He staggers

Falls behind his car We can't see him There's a wet tear A sound like stones against the car door Then as we draw closer to the the car, we see it. Some shape, white and hunched, all bone and joints, and it's running off into the woods. We find Michael, glass-eyed, and the other side of the car. Dead. His throat popped like a ripe fruit, his jaw in two. He stares up at us, motionless, as if to say, too late.

This isn't like when we were teenagers. I don't wretch. Blake doesn't cry. We stand there in silence, stealing ourselves. We can see the paint of his car scratched, four long trails dragging from his door to the hood. The CD he was listening to has caught, like the vinyl. And so quiet we can hear it now. It says,

Nickety split, neckety split, Nickety split, Nickety split, Nickety split. Blake brings her sleeves to her eyes, leans forward, and takes a bundle of letters and papers from the front seat. She bends down, takes his phone from his pocket. No passcode. She thumbs in 999, calls them, reports an accident, then drops the phone, still on the call, into his lap. We need to go, now.

I tried to protest, but she cuts me off. We don't have time to explain. She looks to Michael, his corpse. What would we even say? Try explaining, she gestures to the state of his face. That. And so we move back through the forest in a grim and determined silence now. And Blake's saying that we have to get to the library,

to read Michael's notes and to hold up there and see if we can figure out what this is, what's happening. That thing. I raised a point that it might be out here following us on our trail. It went the other way, Isaac. At least, I hope it did. Cold sweats. Chewing my lip now so much, my mouth begins to taste like iron.

My hand's shaking, even in my pockets. I think of the way rabbits react when picked up. Stiff and terrified, but helpless. I am a rabbit, I think. Caught in the headlights of something I do not understand. Whatever it was has not followed us through the forest. We emerge in town, picking away through the streets, silently. Found the library, an old building. Stacks of books, leaning against dust-grey windows,

paint peeling on the door. Blake moves ahead. Follow me. We hop the wooden fence to the side of it, find some bins, a small stairway that leads to the basement. They never lock it, Blake says. I must look confused, because she follows up with, look, you don't spend your life here without picking up a few tricks. Good point. I think Michael's death hasn't hit either of us yet, that our bodies are running on pure adrenaline. We make our way down the stairs, open the door. It creaks, a staggered, lonely sound. The room stinks of old books, of mothballs, damp wood.

Blake shuts the door behind her. Her torch is the only light now, giving our faces a white glow and casting long shadows in the rest of the room. She walks to the corner A single desk Facing the wall She flicks on a dim lamp Sit here Start to Michael's notes

I'm going to She pauses Head upstairs A few books I think might be important Stay quiet Remember We're not meant to be here And with that she's gone

I'm alone In a room I realise I do not know the size of That's completely dark Except for one dim lamp in front of me. I start reading. There are bundles of academic papers, pages and pages of handwritten notes that are, I assume, Michaels, photocopies of older books, of nursery rhymes written in old English, images of old wood itchings, of witches and beasts with goats' heads and men's

bodies round fires, women with horses' legs and hanged men, newspaper clippings. I don't know where to start, and all I can do is flick through them. trying to absorb them to see if I can pick up on what Michael and Blake seem to know, this hidden thing that links all of these. I read about a language called gutter, that thieves and tramps speak, that it can mean two things at once, that they use it to communicate, that with it you can say things that aren't possible in the tongues we speak. I read an old text from some group in the 1800s called the Next of Kinn,

at least a member of the Next of Kinn, called M.T. M.T. who suggests that the dead speak a language of their own, that they dream, and that if you could somehow harness these dreams, you could... My attention wanes. It makes no sense, the ravings of mad people. A noise behind me, the flicking of a page, as if someone stood behind me in the rows and rows of books, watching me, casually, slowly leaving through a book, waiting. My breath grows shallow.

I can feel their eyes on me and the room suddenly feels so huge. Blake? My voice is hoarse and quiet, too scared to commit to normal volume, instead only offering a half-whisper. Footsteps, something moving behind me.

I turn around, trying to see what it is, but the lamp only goes so far and most of the rows and rows of books are completely obscured in shower. For a moment, like something swimming in the corner of your eye, I think I see a shape, something pale, humanoid on all fours. I tried to collect myself, tell myself I'm just imagining it. But there it is again. As I feel my heartbeat rise, I can hear it.

In no voice I recognize, a voice that's somewhere between a child and a man, as if some alien voice is forming around words not many, for it. We've tasted now, that hidden fruit, trust me, we will free you. Stay where you are. Don't go now. Lickety split can see you. Then, before I know it. I'm running. Running towards where I think the stairs are, as fast as I can, not caring if I slam into something or knock something over, only wanting to be out of here, to be back with Blake, not to be so alone. And I can hear whatever it is running after me, uneven and scratching footfall. I keep running as fast as I can, and the books never end. It's as if there are now thousands of shelves, stretching on for so much longer,

and the room seems to be endless, and I just keep running as it grows darker, barely able to see now, except for in the gaps between shelves. When I come to the end of one, and just before another starts, in that gap I can see something bounding after me only separated by rows and rows of books

that's keeping pace with me taunting me the room cannot be this big cannot be this long I want to turn back to see if the lamp is still there only a few feet away but I can't I have to keep going

not allow whatever this is to catch up with me to get me to find me it's playing with me I know that and then it's gone from the gaps and I think for a second I might have lost it but then I hear it

and I know it's changed lanes is now behind me grasping from my heels and I slam into Blake knocking her books everywhere the two of us over her back hits the wall I stumble through the doorway

and skin my elbows on the carpet lie there for a moment what the hell she stands up towards her in my face and I can tell she's angry, but then she sees my face. How real the terror is. I sit up, trying to explain in short sentences.

I can't help but shake the feeling that it wanted me alone, that it's gone now, at least for a while. We walk around the room with the torch. It's tiny. I don't know how I could have run for that long. We check each corner. tea. Blake sits at the desk, takes out a pen. Hey, get some sleep. She gestures to the carpet, better than nothing. Sleep takes me almost instantly. I want to stay awake to keep watch,

but my eyelids are so heavy and I wake to Blake shaking me. She meets my eyes, speaking too quickly. I know what it is. She leans back, looks around as if she can't believe it. She looks around as if she can't believe it. Isaac, I know what Lickety Split is. She starts to stack the books on the desk, takes a few pieces of paper, and puts them in a pocket. And I know how we stop it. Try as they might. They can't escape. The truth is drawing closer. Of blood and fire and guilt and song. Lickety splits not over. We walk this land in bolts and chains. Oh, what pain these men bring. Our skin is torn, our body's tired, for lickety split we sing. Before the Romans came to this wet spit of rock, before they brought their endless roads and

numerals and sweet wines, the land belonged to someone else. Before they called it Britannia or England, it belonged to them. Tribes who roamed and bred and painted and fought, who sang and moaned on the salt rocks of the coast, who knew the land and its gifts. The deer, the wolves, the small red berries that grew to your shins, the thorns and thistles and wild dogs, who prayed to things that had no name and needed no names. Things that moved in the dark, at the edge of the glow of the fire, things that lived in the streams and trees and earth beneath their feet,

things that lived in song, that were song. And when the Romans came, to the town, now known as itch, and made cattle of its people. The men's throat slit on hungry earth. The women and children made slaves, the weak and old thrown into cold water and told to swim. They thought they could banish what the tribes sang to. But the tribes would not stop singing,

even in shackles and marched away, marched to the coast and to slave ships, and they would not stop singing in between gulps of muddy river water or when flogged until their skin was raw and wet and ragged. They sang even when their lips bruised When their throats were so dry it hurt to breathe They sang into the storms and the sea spray Even when the wind stole their voices and threw them back

The words changed from man to man From woman to woman They changed as the world around them changed But the melody stayed the same And even once they were driven out The Romans could not lose the melody It was stuck in their heads, leering at them from the dark corners of the forest,

in the chattering of rodents, the quiet roll of thunder. And the melody knew them. It knew this strange and cruel invasion, and it would not let them forget. They tried to control it, tried to ban the song, but it failed.

It was not their song to finish. They found men dead, jaws and throats popped like wine skins, men who had taken the sword to themselves, men who would sing the song to anyone who would listen until they drank themselves to death, men who had been singing the melody on top of cliffs and then never seen again.

This land was not theirs, and they knew it. That's what it is Isaac. The song, look at his split, they're the same. I try and wrap my head around it. Something, a spirit, a fey creature, ancient, that stayed in the minds of this town. They uses the town and lets the town use it. Something unpredictable, powerful.

But the thing we saw, the thing I saw, she cut me off. It's the song. They're not distinct things, Isaac. The thing can only exist with the song, and the song needs it to exist. But it's the town's conscious. It uses people, works through them. In its own way, it thinks it's defending the town, the same way it's defended the town for years.

But the murders, the death, they didn't do anything, at least, not that we know of, no. But I don't think Ligity Split works like that. I don't think it weighs things the same way we do. It feeds when it wants to feed, it protects who it wants to protect. Old pagans believed in spirit in rivers, in trees. Well, this is the spirit of song. It falls silent for a while. Blake speaks up.

If it's the town conscious, Isaac, you know what we have to do. I did, but I didn't want to admit it. We have to go to the shed to where Jane fell. I closed my eyes, tried to steady myself, and we have to hope it forgives us. There's a pocket of time we have before we leave, as we brace ourselves.

You both know what this means, what it might cost. I think of my breakdown, of waking up in a bed, face-crusted with dried blood, having chewed a hole in my lip, of the numbness that spread from the centre of my brain to my toes. I thought of Blake, here all these years, with no one but a mother, comatose and silent, only a mile or so away where it happened, left in some small village in England. Before we leave, Blake turns around and puts her arms around me. Rest her face against my neck, and I can feel that it's wet with tears.

We stand like that for a moment. Amongst the old books, the scattered papers, wet with sweat and rain, clothes dirty, and just breathe. In... Out. Then she pulls away, and we're off. As we make her way through the streets, more and more people start to emerge. Not just old and young now. but everyone. Faces we

recognize and faces we don't. Crowding windows and doorways that peer at us, singing. And now we know why, that they know what happened, have always known that this song has to happen. This time, there is no other way.

Things end as they begin. You can't halt the past or your guilt. Let lickety split in. We keep moving, and as we draw closer to the river, we noticed the crowd change More and more and more of them Hundreds now

Coming from all angles From the roads Walking from the woods All looking at us Some dressed in torn suits Some in what seemed to be sackcloths and leather Some with war paint Dubbed on their faces

Some in tunics and robes Some lurching drunk Some smoking pipes Some naked Some carrying tools in weapons and books And they're all looking at us singing the same song, the same melody. And between them, occasionally, we see flits of colour, of white,

a creature, all bone and joints and all fours, scurrying between their legs, over their shoulders, peering from between their teeth, from the darkness of their throat, something that thrives on the song they all sing, that needs it, that is it. And as we step foot on the grass and can see the shed, where we use the tie up the boat. The singing cuts go silent. We move across the grass, wet with dew, hand in hand. And it plays out in front of us again, in agonising detail.

We see the four of us drinking. Jane, not noticing the faces when she turns her back. Hear the stories we tell about what hides in the shed on the shore, what horrid and monstrous things live there after dark. And we see her walk in, on a dare, desperate to prove herself, to be our friend. We can do nothing but watch as we lock it behind her, as we hear her scream, pound on the door to be let out.

I wanted to turn away, want to pretend this never happened, but I have no choice. The fall, the sound of her forehead against the boat, the panic, desperately trying to reach her, the boat gliding in so heavy, the sound of her skull fracturing, her teeth breaking, the top of her spine failing. And I can't take it, can't handle watching it again, knowing I'm powerless to stop it, until I run forward to the edge of the river, leaning over, trying to push these apparitions away,

to help her myself, and I can hear Blake calling, and I'm unsure whether it's her ghost or her. I lean over the small gap between the boat and the shore where the blood is an oil slick on the surface of the water I try and grab Jane, desperate to pull her out. But it's not Jane. What grabs my hand from the water is bony and all joints and teeth and leering at me. Lickety split.

They have my wrists now, tugging me, pulling me harder and I'm trying to scramble back but I can't Two hands down my wrist climbing up my arm gripping me so tight my fingers are going numb and slow and I can hear the melody now

coming from underwater and I can see what Lickety Split wants Me lungs filled eyes glazed over It tugs sinking below the surface and I feel myself come with it

losing my grip my centre of gravity shifting And then I'm falling in unable to stop myself. All I can see is the churning water in Lickety splits mouth and teeth and eyes fixed on me and there's a moment of stillness underwater. It is silent. I do not yet need to breathe and I can see nothing.

I am alone. There, in the darkness, I see it all play out before me, around me. I'm in those ancient fires. dancing at the edge, singing the same song that my ancestors song, joining hands leaping over hot embers. And with the centurions, sick and freezing in these new wetlands, the melody stuck in our heads, trying not to sing it, eyeing the swords, the height of the cliffs. I'm in the rivers, in the woods, so many places, so many wends, and the people change.

But the song stays the same. melody that's just as much a part of this land as the earth as the roots or the valleys. I'm generation after generation a niche. I'm all their secrets, their worries, their private guilt and hopes, their loves, their songs, their regrets and dreams and... I'm Jane's dad. Silent and numb with grief. Anger like a wound.

I'm Jane's mom, who can't take it anymore, who stops eating, who refuses to to drink, who lets go and fades. I'm Blake, younger, with Jane in a lap, her face bloody and unrecognisable, and I'm singing Jane a song, stroking her hair, despite it all, trying to keep her conscious until the ambulance comes, until her parents come. I'm Michael, pacing up and down, my heart hammering my ribs, guilt so intense it's like a coal under my skin, my mouth dry, hot tears and my eyes. face, but I don't know whose.

And, for the previous moment, I'm Jane herself. Terrified. Desperate to make friends. To impress her somehow. For us to love her like she loves us. To have us doad on her, the way she doads on us. And I'm her terror as she stumbles out. The cold shock of the water,

the sensation of a skull fracturing. Lickety Split wants me to know. wants me to know all of this and more, wants me to see my place in the song, wants me to understand that it is not my song, but I am just a part of it, that the song has been going for so much longer than I have, and will continue for so much longer after,

that I am just a small part of it, and that this part, this part of the song that's so horrid and pained is partially mine, and that no one else can own that for me. I do not know how long I've been underwater. I do not know much who I am anymore. I open my mouth to breathe.

You've come so far, reached the end, gone as far as you can go. Ancient songs in fresh new gilts. Lickety split nose. Lickety split nose. Lickety split nose. I come too in bed. A familiar sensation, my chin, my throat, coated with dried blood. I've been chewing my lip, staring at the ceiling.

I think I'm alone. I think it started again, that I've been comatose, forgotten the exact events after impact, lost it again, covered in blood and mind-broken. And I realised, I have no idea how I got out of the water,

that Blake may have come in after me, may have hurt herself, that the town may have to go to her, or lickety-split. And the feeling of not. not knowing makes me so powerless, makes me realize that anything could have happened, that I'm alone again, and I let it happen, happen as it did all those years ago. That Likdi split got what it wanted, has always wanted, and...

You're awake. Blake comes through the door, hair down, holding a mug. Been out for a while. Whatever it was, it's finished with us. The questions I want to ask must register on my face. because she nods, takes a seat next to me, takes my hand in hers. It's done now. Over. A bores, birds outside, the wind in the leaves.

I'm here, though. The morning sun flitters through clouds. She squeezes my hand. I'm here. You've come this far. You've seen it all. The singers take a bow. These things so old that will not go.

It's all over now, it's all over now, it's all over now. It's all over now.