By Frampton Jones

Like many people who have washed up on the shores of Hopeless, Maine, Mark Hayes has told us many tales of his previous experiences. Some of those tales have been rather fanciful, and one always has the sense that he might be making things up. Which is, when you get down to it, probably why he is now dead.

This round of blood rain has brought us some unusual red plants – a rather cheering addition to our often drab and dreary landscape, I thought. Mark Hayes was the only one of us to react to them with absolute horror. He even suggested that we should set about destroying them at once on the grounds that they would take over everything. It reminded me (and no doubt others) of that time Ezekiel Marmalade tried to persuade us all that night potatoes are the seed of the devil…