The Mexican looks at me with wild eyes, grabs the suitcase from the back seat of the car and throws it onto the ground at my feet uttering a whole load of foul sounding words in his native tongue that I don’t understand and can never hope to repeat. These noises stream out of his mouth like verbal diarrhoea. He’s not a happy man, I can tell that from just his body language, but when he starts to stamp the floor with his heavy boots and point tobacco stained fingers at me, then I know he is seriously mad.

I see the crazy stare in the driver’s eyes and feel the electricity spark from his hate fuelled nerves, there are danger signals flowing through the air and I move away from his space before he thinks to lash out at me with his pie-sized hands. It must be something I did earlier that’s been brewing all through the journey, because he’s not pleased with me now and it’s scary. His swearing is musical, it rolls off the tongue like street poetry at a rap contest and makes me smile, but I am more interested in his moustache that twitches oddly to one side when he shouts, as if it has a mind of its own. It looks like it’s been glued awkwardly to his upper lip and from this angle has the profile of a giant mutant caterpillar.

My mother would have gone mental if she’d heard what he was saying to me and even though she couldn’t have known what he meant by it all, it still sounded violent and threatening and that would have been enough for her to step up and give him a piece of her mind, or at worst a smack to the face and at best – a killer kick to his manhood. Anyway, it was not the kind of language a teenage boy should hear from a taxi driver, but in the grand scheme of things that would be entirely my fault, I guess, but I’ll tell you about that later.

With a final dismissive wave of arms, the man shakes his head at me and spits on the ground rubbing it deep into the soil with the toe of his boot like it was my head being crushed as easily as a melon. He climbs into the driver’s seat, rams the car into gear which screams in pain and disappears down the road with a sideways drift. As the car accelerates into the distance it slides gracefully through the gravel of the unmade road and I give a great sigh of relief that the horrible man is gone, never to be seen again.

It’s just turned twelve o’clock midnight, my watch tells me with a stupid jingle and I stand all alone in the courtyard of a gloomy ramshackle house. The lights of the taxi are finally lost to the darkness of the night and I’m left truly solo in a far off land. The brooding shadows of the street leave me gripped by a chill of fear; it dawns on me that I am helpless, abandoned in a derelict town as alien to me as the contours of the moon.

The last few hours all seem to be a blur, but the memory is still rich in my mind and comes back with little difficulty. We left the city behind and drove, the desert passing us by was as black and daunting as a cave, the countryside appeared flat and boring and tiny specks of brightness blossomed here and there from the lights in distant houses. Mile after mile we travelled with nothing to see but the yellow glow of the car headlights struggling to pierce the gloom, picking out occasional road kill, a singular bush or maybe a few rocks strewn lazily across the landscape, and then to my dismay came many more miles of empty darkness, the hands of my watch moving from minute to minute as if time had slowed to a standstill . . . until . . . and then there it was at last . . . a pitiful sign hanging awkwardly on a post by rusty threads . . . SHOVEL.

This was my final destination; we had arrived at long last and driving through its abandoned outskirts there were no lights on the dusty streets to welcome us, just an eerie backdrop from the glow of the construction works and a thickening mist rising from the river. The moon struggled to separate the heavy cloud, but when it did the night sky was deep velvet blue with a million stars twinkling like snowflakes, often a rogue cloud drifted across its path and the light disintegrated into a ghostly haze.

And here I am now, thoughts drifting back to reality, unsure of everything I can see. I’m in the centre of a town; don’t even know if it is SHOVEL. It could be any damn place, maybe one of a hundred deserted ghost towns in the heart of the Mojave Desert. But where’s my Dad, he has to be here somewhere and he must have heard the racket my friendly driver was making? For all I know the double crossing Mexican’s last act of irony had him dumping me in a place hours from where I ought to be? And guess what, I wouldn’t have blamed him for seeking revenge over my stupid games in the airport; after all I had humiliated him badly. I could tell he was a proud man, the kind of supreme soul that would look for justice, particularly over a smart ass teenage brat like me. I saw it in the smug expression he gave me, that wry smile of satisfaction when he got back into his car just now and set off down the road. It was a look of victory that harboured an arrogant grin on his leathery face that said, `sort that one out kid, you think you’re in SHOVEL, but guess what?’

I feel out of my depth, like I’m floating in an ocean of emptiness with only a life preserver for company. My insides bristle with uncertainty, confidence is crushed and hits rock bottom as the chill of the night creeps into my veins and turns my blood to ice and I start to seriously think there are hideous creatures hiding in the darkness, watching me, ready to pounce when I least expect it that will tear me limb from limb screaming for mercy. I’m so scared as I stand there like a helpless baby, every instinct I have tells me to get the hell away. Run like the wind they would say, get out of town as fast as you can, because there is no one here to save your sorry ass from this evil place and it might just eat you up alive, then spit you out dry as a corn husk.

Maybe I’d been a fool to trick the old man back at the airport, because the joke is all over me right now, I’m the one with egg on my face and I’m ready to scream as I appear to be in my own worst nightmare with no safety net to catch me when I fall? Trouble is the Mexican will never see the irony in what he’s achieved as there is no-one here to see me suffer, I’m beginning to think I might die alone in this foreign place; terrified there is something evil and murderous hiding in the shadows. Panic is welling up inside me like claustrophobia, making me feel as if I’m going to drown and I look around and pray for help.

The square seems deserted, a door abruptly opens behind me and old time country music drifts out into the courtyard as dull light escapes but strains to brighten the ground where I stand. In my mind I try to thank the Lord for answering my prayers, but my nerves are shredded and my thoughts get jumbled as it dawns on me that I may have asked for the wrong kind of help as a giant of a man fills the doorway, his long shoulder length hair flying in the breeze, his features hidden in silhouette from the dim glow of light behind. Neither of us says a word and seconds seem to turn into hours, I feel his eyes drill into my soul and I’m petrified by the eerie calm; I have seen too many horror films with more sticky endings than I’d care to remember and as I stand in this endless silence I feel my time on earth is about to come to a quick and brutal end.

Then the hulk speaks. “So – what do you want kid, this ain’t no big city you know?” It says with menace as it shifts position in the gloomy doorway.

“Excuse me?” I ask shocked at the coldness of the monsters voice.

“I’ll repeat the question shall I? What is it you want? You shouldn’t be here at this hour of night; there are bad people in this place, there are things that might want to hurt you. Best be on your way if you want my advice kid.” The thing tells me with an expression in its voice as frosty as ice and twice as creepy.

For a moment I ‘m lost for words, stuck in an alien wilderness with no idea what to say or do. I tremble with frustration and fear as things start to feel even worse than I thought they could. I’m falling apart. “But I . . . I . . . er . . . ” I stammer not a clue what is coming out of my mouth, brain is frozen with panic. “I . . . er . . . I . . . should be meeting somebody here.”

The giant moves out of the light and into the courtyard, each step brings him closer to me, I shuffle backwards looking to keep my distance and stumble in the dry earth unable to see his face.

“Don’t matter who you’re meeting, this is a bad place. Can have your life taken away in a second – I seen it happen to bigger men than me. You got no business here, have you boy?” He groans impatiently, wiping his chin as though there might be some morsel of food lodged there, or he’s starting to look forward to a new meal.

“But my Dad . . . ?”

“Aw, little boy wants his Daddy now does he?” The big man edges closer still, flexing his huge hands in readiness for the killing move he’s about to unleash on my weak frame.

Words fail me; I stagger at the thought of being murdered by a stranger, but as he comes closer there develops a murmur of recognition in my head of someone from the past.

“Well if it’s your Daddy you want, then let me tell you some truths about that boy!” Suddenly he stops; the menace in his croaking voice softens to a whisper. “I think I might just know where he is and you’ll be joining him pretty soon if I have my way.” A haunting laugh escapes from his open mouth and I feel my stomach pinch into cram and bile rise in my throat as I fear the worst at the hands of this maniac. Images of Leatherface and the horrors he performs in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre scurry through my numb brain.

“Wait a minute, I’ve seen you before,” I say. “Pictures of you, I’ve seen pictures of you.” But where had I seen them? A book, a newspaper, a police report on TV’s most wanted? I can’t remember but I rack my brain searching for clues. He’s nearly on top of me and gets closer still, his shadow and size overwhelm my skinny body and block out the dim light from the house. He has to be seven feet tall and almost as wide. Hands like shovels reach out and grip my shoulders, the weight and strength pushing down make my legs buckle and I struggle to stand upright.

“Where is my father?” I shout, trying to pull away with all the might my teenage muscles will muster. I struggle like a wild cat in a bag to escape his clutches, but he has a grip of iron that will not break and I end up hanging there like a rag doll in the mouth of a dog. A vague memory flashes through my head once again and is lost just as quickly. “Have you seen him?” I ask again, this time with reserved calm, knowing that if I was to die, then it would have happened already.

“Of course lad – he’s inside waiting for you and has been for hours. Where the hell have you been, you’d better come with me?” The tone of his voice has changed; there is almost a note of friendship hidden in its timbre and for the first time in minutes I no longer feel terrified. “There’s a definite likeness in you. I can see it in your ways son. Your Dad will be pleased to see you; he’s been talking about it for hours.”

Then I remember from years ago, photographs my father had and phone calls he made to far off lands and the memory block slips away like a wet paper wall and a name spills from my mouth like a sneeze. “Tate Lamere, you bloody idiot,” I scream, “you had me scared half to death.” I realise in that moment that I may never forgive him for what he’s just done to me, because I know it’s not the first time, nor will it be the last that Tate Lamere terrorizes me with his menacing sense of humour. He’s laughing like a giddy child and there’s a look on his face telling me to watch out because it’s not over. The man is a bully, not for one moment did I find it funny and to prove my point I would have smacked him hard in the mouth had I been able to reach. But I couldn’t, so I just sulk and wait for my breathing and heart rate to settle back down to normal. He dislikes me, I can feel the uneasy vibe in the atmosphere around us, even hates me for some reason, that is very obvious and I try to put it to one side, as anger at this stage will do me no good. There will be a perfect time for revenge later.

Chapter 1 – Chapter 2 – Chapter 3