Not long after the discovery of the Rabbits head in the landing cupboard, I had the pleasure of meeting my other neighbour, the man who occupied the attic flat. Now it was well documented within the Badgers community that there were some strange goings on that took place in that attic flat, and it was even rumoured that in the west room there stood the severed trunk of an ancient Oak tree, around which the building had originally been built. Certainly a talking point if true, but more disturbing was the talk of illegality that may have been perpetrated within its confines, and as an 18 year old in his first home this both intrigued and terrified me in equal measure.

His first words to me were, "Is this your fucking cheese?"

He was wearing only his pants as he knelt down in front of the fridge, and as he stood to face me, I could see that he was holding two forks, between which he had impaled a block of Co-Op Everyday Cheddar.

"Is this your fucking cheese?" he asked again, more despairingly than angrily.

"Yes, that's my cheese" I said, "Would you like some?"

"I don't eat cheese" he replied "And I don't have it in the house"

"Fine" I said, "Look, I'm sorry if it's freaked you out, I didn't know. I can live without cheese, its fine"

And with that he had opened the sash window with his foot and was throwing the Cheddar, forks and all, out of the window. I ventured further into the kitchen and joined him at the window, looking forlornly down at where the cheese had fallen. Cheese was a premium item to me in those days, and my sudden loss had hit me rather hard, where was my mum I wondered, she'd know what to do. Bellow us was a sealed courtyard, but not sealed as in locked up, rather non-accessible due to the hotchpotch way that buildings had sprung up around it. If you fell from this window, the only way back would be if someone threw you a line from this window. I made a note not to fall out of this window, and offered my housemate a light for the roll up stub that hung from the corner of his mouth.

We talked for a while at the window, me in my battered leather jacket, army boots and fetid dreadlocked hair, and him in his pants and a flat cap. I remember I thought he had the look of a naked Andy Cap about him.(an 80's character in the comic Viz) His teeth were rotted to mostly brown stumps in his gums, only occasionally making a brief appearance from behind his tight lips, and once the pleasantries were dispensed with, he disappeared back up to his top floor hideaway, and I to my single bed-sit room on the 1st. Hours later, I found myself out of tobacco and in need of a smoke. Remembering that roll up stub between 'Andy's' lips earlier that day, I made my way to the attic flat, and in the darkness I crept carefully, and one at a time I made my way up those unfamiliar steps, always running one hand along the wall in search of the light switch.

"Andy? No reply

"Andy?"

No reply… But I had no idea of the layout of the upstairs flat, and the sitting room could well have been out of earshot, so I pressed on into the shadows until I reached a door around which there was a halo of light emitting from the room within. Taking a deep breath I knocked confidently on the door and waited. Nothing, so I pushed lightly at the handle to see if it might pop open lightly enough to seem accidental. No joy…

I was just about to give up, when I noticed light streaming through a fine crack running horizontally across the grain of the door, and I pressed my nose to the gloss finish, and peered inside.

I could make out a brightly lit room with heavy low wooden beams, and around the walls of the room I could see the furniture, seemingly pushed back to make room for some sort of activity. Something messy I thought, as it all seemed to be wrapped in a protective layer of cling-film. Sofas, bureau, fire place, book shelves and coffee table, all coated with a hastily prepared layer of food wrap. Odd I thought.

Then, from a blind spot in my view of the room, there emerged a figure, naked except for some pants, a flat cap, and a pair of large padded headphones, the cord trailing behind him like a demons tail. He proceeded with caution towards the centre of the room, tentatively carrying a package at arms length. More cheese perhaps? Sitting down on the floor facing the door through which I was spying 'Andy' began to unfurl the bundle in his hands, and before long he was carefully moving the wrapping to one side leaving only a considerable pile of yellowish crystalline substance. My head was spinning as I considered the possibilities, and I began to make my way back down the creaking steps towards the landing. How many more terrors lay in wait for me in the dark corners of my new home I wondered, and what on Earth is this yellow stuff that requires the furniture to be covered in Cling-Film? There were secrets within these walls, in which I would soon become complicit. Though I did not yet know it, I was soon to be experiencing an entirely new and alien way of life, and I was never to be the same again because of it…

Leeson