I’ve always written stories, here and there. For years I took part in National Novel Writing Month, churning out 50,000 words every November: none of those stories ever made it off my hard drive but I always loved the challenge. In January 2024, I started taking writing more seriously and entered some very short stories into the MK Literary Festival’s competitions, and they did pretty well! As a result, I was delighted to be invited to join the first cohort of their online writing programme, where a group of twelve of us met every month to share our work in progress and give feedback. I used that opportunity to start working on this project: it started as a short story but I had such encouraging feedback from the group that it’s grown legs (and cables!) and I’m now in the middle of writing the first draft of a novel.
I’m using this page to share work in progress as the project develops: you can read my synopsis and the opening chapter, and learn more about the images I’m using to illustrate the story. I’m having the best time writing it, and I can’t wait to share the final version! If you’d like to know more, especially if you’re an agent interested in the project, do get in touch!
Synopsis
Folk horror meets techno-thriller – expected complete at 75,000 words (in progress).
Milton Keynes was never just a city—it was a safeguard. Decades ago, the original planners constructed it not simply as a utopian urban design, but as a crucial containment system. The iconic roundabouts, the carefully gridded estates, the tree-height building rules—they were all deliberately engineered to trap and diffuse ancient, monstrous energies beneath the concrete.
But those planners are long gone, and modern development no longer respects their original design. As fibre-optic trenches are dug and digital infrastructure laid for a fleet of AI-driven pod vehicles, something stirs beneath the surface.
Diana, a reluctant project overseer struggling to fill the shoes of a mysteriously vanished predecessor, begins to encounter strange disruptions: malfunctioning phones, eerie figures at dig sites, and sinister hand-made dolls. Meanwhile, Mark, a podcast host once sceptical of the city’s spooky tales, starts to receive increasingly urgent messages from frightened residents—and a chilling video from the man Diana replaced.
As evidence mounts, Diana and Mark must untangle a web of corporate secrecy, paranormal disturbance, and ancient forces that were never meant to wake. The more they investigate, the clearer it becomes: Milton Keynes isn’t just being transformed by modern technology. It’s becoming a doorway—one that was never meant to open—and something dark, dangerous, and hungry is waiting on the other side. If they can’t stop what’s coming, the containment will fail—and the city will become the conduit for something that cannot be undone.
Opening Chapter
The evening sun was casting long shadows by the time Diana managed to make it out to the construction site for her last inspection of the day. The dying light turned a trio of stilled excavators into looming silhouettes, and for a moment there seemed to be something prehistoric about their powerful bulk, the memory of ancient tar-pits drifting on the scent rising from the freshly laid tarmac.
“They’re diggers, not dinosaurs. I’m just tired,” she thought. “I’m working too hard.”
She slammed the car door behind her and stood for a moment, stretching out her back and settling her high-vis jacket more comfortably across her shoulders. It didn’t fit properly and she kept meaning to drop into the stores and pick up a smaller one but there was always something more urgent demanding her attention. Had it really only been five weeks since she’d inherited the jacket along with her grand new job title and marginally higher salary? It felt much longer. Diana certainly didn’t feel up to her new role of “Installation Site Overseer”, and was reluctantly starting to admit to herself that she was out of her depth. Every problem she solved seemed to spawn a dozen more, and this site was the worst of them all.
With a deep sigh, she pulled out her phone and started to scroll through the long list of live issues. The most common were the crews’ reports of intermittent 5G signals, despite the mast being clearly visible from the rise where she stood. The site was higher than the city, the long July day had been hot and clear and she had an excellent view from up here. The light was starting to fail but she could clearly see the sharp grid-lines of the main roads tracking all the way back towards the centre. For a moment she tried to picture how this scene would look if the project ever did get to its intended finishing point. Milton Keynes wanted to be ready for the future, and of course, what that future really needed was a fleet of self-driving pods that would whisk people across the city at the touch of an app. She imagined futuristic silver vehicles whispering up and down those grid roads in electric silence, not a soul at the wheel.
She marked up the signal report for the attention of the lead engineer, and had just clicked into the next report when the screen on her phone abruptly dimmed until it became too hard to read. She was navigating into the settings when the text broke up into a crazed pattern of grey and white shards and the phone shut itself down. She stared at it for a moment before booting it up again and was relieved when the familiar white apple appeared on screen. Just like the oversized jacket, the phone was legacy from her predecessor and she remembered now that he’d complained about it acting up on site, but Greg had moaned about so many things towards the end that tech glitches barely registered. However, she’d never seen a phone crash like that before and the way that the screen had looked like it was shattering just before it went black had unnerved her. It had been there and gone so quickly but she was sure there had been some sort of patterns, almost like symbols, flickering just behind the fragments, and wondered if that’s what Greg had been complaining about. Not for the first time, she wished she’d paid more attention to her old boss before it had been too late.
The phone came grudgingly back to life. The next item on the issue log just read “Ground disturbance, cable channel 6E” and she shivered despite the warm evening. It sounded innocuous enough but she knew that was the term that the crews had taken to using when they’d come across something unusual but didn’t want to spell it out in the report. She checked the site map and headed over in the right direction, her work-boots thumping heavy in the stillness.
#
“So, thanks for listening, and remember, you can catch up on all the episodes so far on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you get your pods. Tune in next week, when I’ll be talking to a new witness over in Bradwell and hearing about the ring of drones she saw hovering over the canal. As ever, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram or email me at mark@mysteriouskoncrete.org if you have a tale to share because just like the darkness, I’m always listening.”
Mark delivered the closing line in an ominous near-whisper, stopped the recording and set the file to export. His make-shift studio had grown gloomy while he was recording and he sat in the dim glow from the laptop as he waited for the progress bar to tick all the way to complete. He really wanted to go to bed but there were still a few hours of work ahead of him if he was going to upload his latest episode by his self-imposed midnight deadline. He padded downstairs to make a fortifying coffee, staring out at the darkening garden as he waited for the kettle to boil.
Researching, recording and editing an episode every week hadn’t seemed too bad when he only had a handful of listeners but now there were hundreds of people waiting for each instalment of his podcast, and he felt a curious sense of obligation not to let them down. He’d never expected it to take off in the way it had, and still found it faintly ridiculous that so many people were interested in the paranormal side of the city. On paper, Milton Keynes was much too shiny to harbour spooks, with its distinct lack of crumbling monuments and excess of neat new-build estates and to begin with, he treated the whole thing as a laugh. His very first episode was a story he’d borrowed from a guy who drank in his local, who swore blind that he’d seen a cowled figure standing in the middle of one of the city’s many roundabouts. Mark played up the spookiness with a menacing soundtrack and added some subtle gloomy chanting behind the witness’s account of what he’d seen, and wrapped up thirty minutes of speculation with the theory that it was probably just a local kid in a hoodie trying to get a rise out of passing motorists. He ended by asking listeners to send in their own stories but never expected that so many people would take him up on it, or that the things that they wrote in with would start to be so very strange.
#
The sun was well below the horizon and the last of the light was fading fast as Diana crouched down beside the open trench. One day soon it would carry high-speed cables to link this end of the pod network to the charging bays dotted strategically around the city, but right now it was just a churned-up ditch. A brisk wind had sprung up and moaned mournfully through a length of culvert piping sitting off to one side, waiting for its moment to be entombed in darkness.
She had spotted a section of the channel where the earth looked more disturbed than the rest, and peered down into a shallow hole. A loop of bright blue cable was poking up through the soil. She carefully brushed the clods of earth aside, hooked a finger into the loop and pulled, lifting a twisted bundle free from its shallow grave. She shook off the remaining mud and set the strange form upright for a better look.
Someone had taken three, maybe four, network cables and woven them together into something that looked for all the world like the corn dolls she remembered making in primary school. The stiff cable had been twisted and braided to form the shape of a crude torso and limbs. The plastic connectors at the ends had been linked together to suggest a rudimentary face. It should have looked ridiculous and childish, but its unsmiling expression and blank, sightless eyes made her shiver. She pulled out her phone, and snapped a couple of photos, careful to zoom in close and capture the detail of its strange face. Whoever had made this had put a lot of effort into it, and then left it partially buried. For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine why. The sites were supposed to be secure, but there were always ways for people to slip in if they were determined. She was used to seeing graffiti tags sprayed around the sites, and they had CCTV covering the more expensive equipment, but something about the intentional way the little doll had been fashioned and then half-hidden that seemed more sinister than the vandalism she was used to. She glanced around, suddenly all too aware that she was out here alone.
#
Mark spooned instant coffee into a mug, topped it up with boiling water, considered, and stirred in a second spoonful that turned the brew into thick, caffeinated tar. He carried it carefully upstairs, and settled back in front of the laptop. He started replaying the episode he’d just recorded and wondered if he’d ever get used to the sound of his own voice on tape. While he noted down the timestamps of every pause and ‘erm’ to go back and edit out later, he found himself gripped again by the story.
“Our witness tonight doesn’t want us to use his real name, so let’s call him Tony. Tony’s in his early forties, with kind eyes and a friendly, charming smile. He’s just the sort of person you’d want to come knocking at your door, which is kind of handy because Tony works here in em-kay delivering parcels for a service you’ll all know, but he’d prefer us not to name. Tony’s been on this route for six years, and most of the time, he’d say he loves his job. But let’s hear from Tony about the mysterious deliveries that began to make his life a misery.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t really think much about it the first time. You get all sorts of parcels and to be honest, I don’t look too closely, you know? But these were really strange—“
“How so?”
“Well, they were all black, different sizes and shapes, but always just plain black. And sort of too heavy for their size, if you know what I mean… Anyway, first time, I’d followed the route but I was sure the sat-nav was playing up, cos it was on this estate that was only half-built, and there just wasn’t a house that matched the address on the label. You could see where it would be, right, but of course, there was no-one there.”
“So, what did you do with it?”
“Er—well, I just left it on top of a pile of bricks!”
“Ha! Really?”
“Yeah. But—and this never happens—the job had gone from the handheld by the time I got back to the van! Just… no entry. I couldn’t mark it as complete, and that pissed me off because we’re only paid on finished jobs, right?”
“Right. So, what happened next?”
“Well, I was straight onto the next drop, so I just put it down to one of those things, forgot about it. Then, a couple of weeks later, another weird black box, and it was the same deal—the address didn’t exist. This one was right out on Denbigh Hall, that big industrial park? But the label said Unit Eleven, and—there just wasn’t one. Just two blocks of units each side of the car park, five buildings in each. Ten, not eleven. I walked around a bit, in case it was a portacabin or something but no, nothing doing. I went back to the van and called up the depot, and I was looking at the job on my handheld, it was right there on the screen and it just—vanished. No sign of it at all.”
“Tony, that’s just weird. How can that happen?”
“That’s the thing, it can’t. Once there’s a job on the system, it’s either live, finished, or failed to deliver. Everything’s tracked, they make a big deal of it. So—well, yeah. I lost my rag a bit with the boss, I’d better not say any more. Words were exchanged, let’s leave it at that. But come the end of my shift, I still had this weird black parcel and nowhere to drop it off, so…”
“So?”
“Took it home, didn’t I? Opened it up and looked inside. God, I wish I hadn’t. I should have just chucked it in a skip.”
#
Diana tucked the cable doll under her arm, and headed back towards the car. The wind was strengthening, and now that night had fallen, she just wanted to get away from the site. Officially, her day should have finished hours ago, but it had been a long time since she’d been able to keep normal hours. She settled into the driver’s seat and perched the doll upright on the passenger seat next to her. After a moment’s consideration, she turned it over to lie face-down. There was just something about that face that unnerved her, and she didn’t like the idea of it watching her on the drive home.
She started the car and headed for the car park exit, glancing behind her as she did so. She gasped, and hit the brake. There was someone over by the trench where she’d been standing, crouched down low. She couldn’t make out a lot of detail, but as she watched, the figure straightened up and turned towards her. It looked like a man, tall and slim, and dressed all in black. A dark hood shadowed his face, and she thought he might be wearing a mask as well, but it was hard to tell from this distance. So much for the sites being secure. He’d clearly seen her, but he wasn’t making any move to make himself scarce. He simply stood there, hands hanging by his sides, perfectly still. Diana’s heart raced. Technically, the site was her responsibility and she should really get out of the car and challenge him, or at the very least, call the police and wait for them to arrive, but the thought of hanging around alone in this isolated spot for one more moment was just too much for her.
She cursed under her breath, muttering to herself how she never wanted this fucking promotion in the first place. She hit the button to lock all the doors, and drove away as quickly as she could. Her car bumped over the pits in the half-finished track back towards the main road and in her rear view mirror, she watched the motionless figure grow smaller and then vanish into the darkness.
To be continued!
Artwork
Featured image above: Generated in Midjourney v7.0 from the prompt: Midsummer dramatic sunset at a isolated construction site, Milton Keynes skyline, long shadows, silhouetted excavator with a prehistoric, menacing presence, , in the foreground a shallow trench in disturbed earth, a woman in a high-vis jacket crouching and looking down at something hidden, no other people in sight, unsettling folk horror tone, cinematic lighting, soft grain, ominous mood, realistic style –ar 16:9
Cover image: Generated in Midjourney v7.0 using an original photo as the base, with the prompt: Aerial drone shot above Milton Keynes roundabout at sunset, dark ominous fog tendrils creeping low along the roundabout, uncanny atmosphere, cinematic detail, high resolution, mood of quiet dread.–ar 5:8 Title details added in Pixelmator.
On using AI for illustrations
I’m a keen photographer, and as you can see here, I really like mocking up book covers, even for very short stories! They really help to bring the story alive for me, and it’s fun to do! For a long time, I only used my own photos to illustrate my stories but recently, I’ve started using a few AI tools to help me generate artwork as well, and I know this is a controversial topic. I have considered this carefully, mindful both of the environmental impact and the ethical issues around the source works which may have been used to train these programs in the past and at the moment I’ve made the decision to use AI, but ideally with one of my own original images as part of the prompt, and only for projects where it’s not possible for me to take my own pictures—as much as I’d love to, I can’t get to Centralia!—or where I’m illustrating something that I don’t have the technical expertise to draw, like the images on this page. I’m excited by how much AI has developed, and how well the tools visualise my stories—I think they look really cool!— and I think that having the artwork adds to the storytelling, and that’s important to me. At the moment, I’m not generating any income from sharing these images, but if I’m ever in a position to properly publish this or any other work, here’s my promise: I’ll commission a real live artist for anything I end up doing commercially. It’s walking a fine line, and I know some people won’t agree, that’s fine, but I wanted to be upfront about the process I’m using right now.