In the summer of 1997, I was living above the establishment now known as Cloud Nine - Lincolns premier backstreet lap dancing club - but you may remember it as Badgers Pool Club.
An associate and I found ourselves at a loose end one wednesday evening, and as we paced the upper floors of Badgers that night, we craved something to occupy our hungry minds. No booze was to be had that evening, as between us we could only rustle up a meagre 68p, and the tea-bag that we had been using all night was beginning to loose it's bite.

First we hit upon the idea of removing the floor-boards in my room to gain access to the bar below, and hence the beer fridge. Alas, we feared that the skills needed to execute such a manoeuvre were beyond us, so we turned our attentions to exploring the darker recesses of Badgers itself. Our first target was a mysterious cupboard with a locked door that, by our calculations, must have been about 4 meters by 4 meters in area. What could possibly be in there we thought? Something drinkable perhaps? A few hefty nudges later and we were inside, and my friend commenced the search of the interior.

Returning from within some moments later, my boredom crazed compadre was now sporting a Rabbits head, of the kind rented at fancy dress outlets. I was surprised and appalled, as the head was all but bald from mildew, and softened with decay. It was a truly horrific sight to behold, and as my friend stood there, with this rotting costume over his head, I caught sight of movement under the fabric of his T-shirt. As I noticed this, he began to convulse and contort as if in the throws of an epileptic siezure, only a seizure this was not. And as if in slow motion I began to notice many tiny insect-like creatures scurrying from the base of the rabbits head, and all the while my comrade frantically tried to pull the fetid artical from his head, sceaming at this primeval terror he had unleashed. Finally he pulled the smelling helmet from about his person and flung it the length of the landing, padding down his clothes as his breathing began to return to normal.

We retired to the kitchen to take stock of the situation.
What had we disturbed in there? This was afterall an old building, with rumours of the hanging corspe of a previous landlord once found in the celler and dodgy goings on in the attic flat. So armed with deodorant cans, fly spays and tightfitting clothing, we ventured out onto the landing once more...to meet the neighbours.

Upon returning to the cupboard, we became convinced we could hear the rustling of insect limbs against the walls and the floors, a sickly pulsating wave of alien noise, and our hearts began to pound faster against our heaving chests. Slowly, and with infinite caution, we rounded the corner and faced our fear...

The sight that greeted us was one of total infestation, the bowls of an ancient central heating system were torn open before us, and a hive of what could only have been tens of hunderds of cockroaches teemed within, like a moving sea of brown shimmering wing casings they lay before us, writhing in the darkness. Out-numbered and ill equiped, we slammed shut the door, forcing shattered pieces of door frame under the gaps between the floor and the door. Desperatly we tried to put this horror out of sight and out of our minds, but eveywhere we looked that night we saw a scuttling flash of shimmering brown, just out of sight, and on the periphery...

Neither of us wanted to retire to our beds that night, beds which we now knew lay only meters away from a hive we had so unwittingly disturbed. And so darkness finally fell on Badgers that night in 1997, leaving all the residents disturbed in one way or another...

Leeson