Location: Wiltshire Music Centre. 19th December 2001.

Tony looked around with his usual laconic stare. Another presentation evening. Another force-fed couple of lectures on how great we are, on how great the school and the teachers are, and the interminable presentation of certificates which could just as easily have been posted. Joy of joys. At least, he thought, there will be people to re-meet. He remembered them carelessly, with the attention to detail which painted them as Dickens characters rather than the protaginists of a proper novel. The sot, the painfully sociable upper-middle class yuppy, the fat bloke, the sci-fi freak, the viciously pleasant boy-next-door, the maddening pessimist. These people, who were his friends, had now faded to being no more than grotesques. Whether the evening would re-inforce the stereotypes or merely re-introduce everyone as the likeable people they once were, Tony could only imagine.

In the long walk from the car park to the foyer, (where people milled like anaesthetised liquid particles), Tony noticed the penultimate of his stereotypes, the generous, kind-hearted and infuriating Pat, striding on his cue-shaped shanks towards the door. Tony realised almost instantaneously that his stereotype had been entirely fair, and he had remained as he was; charming, unattainably nice. 'Hello' called Pat unpossessively. Tony nodded back in the ambiguous way in which he did most things. He enjoyed giving Pat a feeling of discomfort about whether he enjoyed his company or not. But as they walked together into the foyer, a nasty feeling of ill-ease started instead to permeate Tony's conciousness.

Pat and Tony's last meeting had been for a drink or several score after A-level results. It was before this that the repressed nightmare that had been haunting both their dreams had taken place in multichromatic reality. The stench of decaying bodies still emanated from their mind's nose, and the sight of innocent children dying, and thousands of pounds worth of musical equipment taking flame was still in there somewhere. An awareness of the events of the past had been with Tony ever since that night in mid July, but the feeling of malign presence was stronger now than at any time since. Pat, of course, Tony thought, would not be affected. His benevolence and shining good humour would create a Patronus-like shield against the signs which he now felt strongly. But how could the arch-villain Stevie, a combination of the Dark Lords Sauron and Voldemort, and Goldfinger himself, have infiltrated this building, and why should she still be smelling blood?

In mid-July, Pat had been nursed back to health after an appalling e-number attack by the Queen of Hades herself. With a cynical but at least palpable concern, Tony had been helping. For this reason, they had been a little further away from the centre of the inferno in the Norwegian school. Throwing Pat over his shoulder in an act worthy of the brain-addled boy-next-door himself, Tony carried Pat away from the blaze, as almost everyone from the little year sevens to the immense Jim Winterbury burned to death.

The return to Bradford-on-Avon had been an easy one, but plagued with nightmares about who had been to blame. There had been a lot of mafia-esque behaviour going on. Bobby Boy Nicefield had gunned Steven down, and Tony was suspicious about the whereabouts of Rebecca, who no-one had seemed to notice was missing. Ultimately, however, Tony's sharp as a needle, generous as a Yorkshireman mind settled on The Evil Witch herself, who had evidently been plotting something.

'I was most impressed by the singing of Ave Maria, The Cloths of Heaven and'... Tony's mind returned from an extended evemare to listen to Mrs Hood, the head of the Sixth Form, inexplicably babbling on about musical achievement, most of which he had been involved in. As had Pat, who, due to the proximity of the two's surnames, was sitting next to him. 'We were in that', enthused Pat sickeningly. Tony did his, 'Idon't quite know what you're talking about' face, in the vain hope that Pat would get annoyed with him. Of course, it wasn't to happen. In truth, however, Tony still had the terrible feeling of disquiet he had had from the moment he stepped into the malevolent building. It should have been a happy-yesterdays evening, but was turning out as anything but. On the stage, the only other three survivors of the fire in Voss had comprised three-quarters of a woodwind quartet that Tony would have enjoyed, but for the members. The flautist, wearing a skirt the length of a small to medium mouse's tail, was parading her womanhood with her usual disregard for modesty. The saxophone player was none other than Xander, who Tony had suffered with terribly. Xander had felt a lacerating sense of rejection after Tony had decided on Meghan instead of Xander on the bus to Voss, only for Meghan to be baked alive, and Xander to survive to press his case to Tony once again. Thirdly, there was Damon, wearing predictably old clothes, and being predictably understated. This, along with Tony's erstwhile understudy clarinettist, gave the whole listening experience a feeling of intense discomfort.

But this, Tony considered, was not the source of his growing sense of doom. This was just a typical social life. It was not the cause of the preternatural aura flooding the arena.

Meanwhile, the certificates were awarded, and then, highly embarassingly, Tony was made to go up again to accept book vouchers for 'Outstanding Academic Achievement', Each time, the comfort and security of the seat in the auditorium became more desirable, until, when he took it on the third occasion, he almost hoped for the long and onerous speeches which he had earlier hoped against.

Quickly, the Paresentation Evening ended. 'Well, at least it wasn't too long', purred Pat blandly. It was just what he would say, 'Are you alright?' 'Yes, yes fine' Tony replied. 'You look white', 'Headache'. 'OK, well, you probably need some wine'. With typical, all-round-nice-blokeishness, he used his much superior height to muscle his way to the bar, and grab some suspicious looking Bulgarian Muscadet, and some orange juice, (of course, for himself). The wine tasted as if it had been re-distilled from vinegar, but Tony, clearly, had to drink it to avoid controversy. 'Fancy a pub crawl?' he mused to Pat, trying to sound indifferent, while the icy fear swelled inside him. Returning his eyes from the mellee to Pat, Tony realised that there was in fact no Pat there at all. He looked down. Lying on the ground, transfixed, and white was Pat, as stiff as a patient in rigor mortis. As people crooned round him, and his mother remonstrated with the orange juice dispenser for the lack of disclaimer of e-numbers in the orange juice, Tony was the only one who understood the cause. Or at least, he suspected he did. He put the elixir of Beelzebub down on the nearest table, and slowly turned, letting his vision swing round to the view that had apparently petrified Pat. On the usual blue boards near the door was hung the title: Norway 2001: A Memorial. With it, Tony began to recognise, were the retrieved photographs from Mr Morris's lifeless body. Suddenly, his legs gave way, and he crashed to the ground to join his friend and his maker. In the last second of conciousness, he understood the cause. In the bottom row of pictures, second from the left, the figure of Evil Stevie smiled malignantly out from the prow of the ship.

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