Exclusive extract: Offcumden by Johnny Gaunt

Read the opening chapter of Offcumden, the haunting Yorkshire folk horror debut from Johnny Gaunt.

South Yorkshire, 1984. At the edge of a council estate, three outsiders are about to enter Black Carr — and uncover something their families tried to bury.

Rooted in soil, blood and old secrets, Offcumden is a devastating coming-of-age story about place, belonging and the horror that rises when the past refuses to stay hidden.

Read the first chapter below to be among the first to enter Black Carr.

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
—William Blake
(from The Romantic Poets: Blake to Poe, p.10, underlined in blue biro)

I know what they say about me at school. But truth is, that night at fair, it were me first time.

His smell is still here with me now in me bed. His taste, an all. Charcoal in me mouth, like them bits of burnt bread from bottom of tin. Bitter, but you eat them all the same. And down inside. Summats still there. A worm of him left over from that night when I stopped being sad Sadie Foster from Cattercliff estates. Laffed at by lads at school. Deadeyed by girls. Treated like a babby at home even though am turned fifteen and had me blood for over six month.

That night. Night Hoopers Field got changed into fairground
fiction. And me pulled into a story. A fairytale told to me so many times its edges had frayed and its loose strands would weave into me dreams at night.

Sat there in damp leaves with me back against cold tree bark, I could see them flashin fairground lights between wet trunks. Across wasteland fields through a rain so fine it blew like mist. I knew they were still there. Me mam. Me dad. Chrissy-boy. Poor old Rags. All of them piss wet through and frozzen to bone. Me mam castin about for us, trying not to worry, it getting later. Darker. But everywhere she looks theres only flashin lights, spinnin rides, dodgem sparks and shiny bags of goldfish hangin.

Buzzes. Sirens. Screams.
But no me. No Sadie Foster.

Sheed drifted away. Bit by accident. Bit on purpose. Followin some deep tug inside. Pullin her away. Down towards where FUNHOUSE rippled with a thousand lightbulbs. Rain dazzlin purple, pink, orange. A great castleshaped front. Loomin with caged turrets and shakin ramparts. A place of makebelieve med real. Where everything shifted. Everything changed.

She dunt go in. Thats not where tug teks her. She slips round side. Sees its not a proper building at all. Just a truck – a Wizard of Oz curtain – and for a second summat wells up inside her. Summat hot like gettin angry or sad. Summat hard to explain
about all things false. Things untrue. And the black holes behind them.

But then—
—there he is. Scarecrow still and standin in that trucks dark shadow. Tall. Certain. Hood drippin wet and all the nights blackness tucked in behind him. Starless. Moonless. A sheer endless nothin of night which he alone is part of. He holds her there in
cold hook of his eyes. Watchin her. Seein her like noone ever seen her before.

And she knows him straight away. This black prince from Grandas stories. Same stories told her time and time again. Fairytales stretchin back to her very first memorys. Tales of
warnin (all fairytales are warnins) just for her. Told to fill up the big black nights of her life. And for years these tales mightve been enough, but Sadie Foster int no bairn nomore. Shes grown.

Almost a woman now. And her fairytale, it has to grow with her. Become summat else. Summat new. Summat real. Those eyes of his, they pull and tug. They snare her as he turns and carves away into the night. Lopin with these strange long spider strides. Amovin away from FUNHOUSE light spillin pink, purple, orange at her feet like a line markin one sort of nature from another. A line shes allus felt runnin through her life, but now for first time can see.

A line she can cross.

Become part of her story.

Become part of his night.

And so shes following her prince. No choice really. Hitched by some invisible hook and line which tugs her out across that sodden wasteland, away from fairground and towards where those low trees stand.

Leaving it all behind. All fun of fair

But its twice dark in them woods. The night folds on her a second time. So sudden his breath in her ear. Damp sandpaper of his throat. Heat from his lungs, wetting her neck.

Fingers, sharp and stiff as barbs. Shes lifted like a doll. Feet treading thin air. One shoe lost. Knickers torn and hangin from her ankle like a clothesline rag. Skirt ridin high. The skin of her back scrapin cold mossy tree bark. Hands riving like he wants her split in two.

On and on it goes. Gropin. Pullin. Positionin. Until at last his hips shove and a gasp of no return rattles out of Sadie Fosters chest.

And summat forever lost rips raw. She feels his rockin, the crushin of her body against that old trunk. One word he utters with every push – tho it hurts too much for
her to think what it might mean. Hurts too much for her to cry.

To scream. Up above a moon breaks thru. Red and silver – the colours of pain – and all around her those trees trickle blood and metal. And beneath his sackcloth hood she sees scars shinin like birch bark. Eyes halflidded and ancient. He wipes his thick lips with the inside of a wrist. Moonlit thumbnails. Long. Black. Sharp. And then hes gone.

Her legs turn to paper. Give way. And she sits in wet leaves for who knows how long. A stink of mushrooms. Mulch. The air vibrating like standing too close to them pylons on Hoopers Field. Shes thinkin on them poems she reads to her tinker. Worms in the night. Worms in the ground. Holes they leave that travel right thru them. And for first time ever... shes not afraid.

She sits and stares across that wasted distance. To where lights from another world seep into February murk. To where she left it all behind.

Where she left old Sadie Foster. I wonder now – laying here in me filthy bed day after day, feeling that worm he left inside me grow – does ghost of old Sadie Foster still wander there? Fairground took up and gone. Nowt left behind but rutted tyre tracks and mucky puddles. Broken glass under dead leaves. Toffee apples rottin in brambles . . .

If not a ghost, then mehbe just a memory. Flickerin on, flickerin off. Out there. Somewhere. Cos what she had done had med him real. By livin the story, the story now lives. Everythin else just flickerin ghosts

Everythin but him—
He who I smelled and felt and tasted – bitter and beautiful.
He who I heard – a voice like damp wood creakin.
One word over and over and over in me ear as he filled the dark hole of me life.

Off—cum—den
Off—cum—den
Off—cum—den