Paul and Maggie told everyone that they met through a dating app, because it was easier than the truth: that they were both lost in a haunted museum that probably didn't exist. After escaping, they met to discuss what had happened, but preferred to talk about anything else.

They spent their wedding night in an airport hotel, ready for a morning flight. Walking down to breakfast, they opened a door that claimed to lead to the lifts. As it closed behind Maggie, they realised they were no longer in the hotel.

"We're back in the museum," said Paul, and Maggie took his hand.

They'd blundered into the museum separately the first time, through doorways that led to the wrong place. Paul had been exiting a department store toilet; Maggie was looking for coffee in a client office. Instead of where they should have been, they were in the exhibition halls of an endless museum. The doors behind them were locked, leaving them nothing else to do but search for a way out.

"We escaped once before," said Maggie, "we can do it again."

Neither of them knew exactly how long they'd each walked past cabinets and explanation boards before finding one other, only that they'd both slept a couple of times. Occasionally, they passed grey metal doors, all of them locked except one, stopped from closing by an empty plastic bottle. It led to an amusement arcade in Lowestoft. Only a few hours had passed in the world outside.

Finding themselves back in the museum, Paul and Maggie set about finding an exit, not looking too closely at the exhibits. The relics in the glass displays were dull: shards of pottery, or rows of flint axes. It was the sort of place that children might visit for a school trip and soon wish they were back in maths class. One room was filled with mechanical clocks, and Maggie noticed that those with second hands were moving backwards.

Every item had a sign to say what it was, handwritten in a clear, blocky script. Any details were enthusiastic, even in a room filled with what looked like identical teapots. Occasionally Paul and Maggie passed toilets, which meant taps for water - if they were open. Some were marked as out-of-order, with signs saying that the cleaners were coming. But they saw no other people.

They rested by a diorama of prehistoric hunter-gatherers because it looked like the outdoors, although they kept an eye on the waxwork figures.

"Do you think we'll get out this time?" asked Paul.

"We have to," said Maggie. "And if we get out, we'll be careful never to end up here again."

Paul had unpacked his wallet, looking at the contents on the floor in front of him, seeing if anything he had might help. His mobile phone's battery was dead, the same as last time. "If we make it out, I'm taking down all the doors in our house."

"When we make it out," said Maggie. "When we make it out." But she didn't sound sure.

They slept in a forest of roadsigns, although neither of them could think why these had been saved. They woke tired and grimy. Out of frustration, they smashed every cabinet in two halls filled with broken toys. In each room, they looked to find something useful. Maggie was briefly excited at a collection of compasses, but each one pointed in a different direction.

Paul grew despondent. "We're in a trap," he told Maggie. "Maybe this is like a carnivorous plant. One of those with a sort of pitcher shape, where insects wander in and can't get out again."

"We don't know that," Maggie insisted. "We got out before, we need to keep looking."

"Maybe we were lucky that time," said Paul. "Or maybe this place let us out, knowing it could bring us back."

On the second day, the exhibits seemed even more mundane. One long room had pedestals devoted to different types of skylight. Paul and Maggie rested in front of a board that told them more than they ever needed to know about the history of turbines. There were bowties, wishbones, spanners, empty jars. One room displayed paintings of old-fashioned sailors, but without an explanation of who they were. Glass-topped tables showed off entomological collections, hundreds of butterflies pinned down, staked through the heart. They slept in a room devoted to developments in fridge magnets.

Third day, fourth day, Paul and Maggie grew weaker. A gallery filled with taxidermy mice and mouldy cheese led to a space with black walls and low lighting. When they saw the items here, they slumped to the floor, all energy gone. The displays and cabinets showed off their wedding gifts.

"Maybe this is a clue of some type," said Maggie.

Paul didn't reply, staring at the rows of plates from the John Lewis dinner service. "If only we'd asked for something that could have helped us get out," he said.

But neither of them could think of what that might have been.

Paul and Maggie told everyone that they met through an app when they'd met in a haunted museum. That museum has a room containing the contents of their wedding list, with pride of place given to two skeletons in a long cabinet, laid out so that they're holding hands.

Bonus Story - The Hospital

There's a new year's eve party at the hospital. It's been running for six weeks in an old storeroom. Sometimes it's just a couple of people coming off shift, tired of operating theatres and heartbreak. Other times it's busy, Taylor Swift songs and snacks. People drop in on breaks, or hide there when they're overwhelmed. The hospital is big enough to keep it going. As long as nobody is drinking on-duty, management turn a blind eye. People need something to get them through the winter.

New zine on Etsy

I moan about Substack a lot, but sending a weekly email has helped me get more comfortable with putting my work into the world. I’ve published a few story zines in the last couple of years, including True Clown Stories - but I am still terrible at promotion.

Last May, I published a zine called Once Upon a Time in Brighton and Hove. It’s part of a long novel-disguised-as-some-short-story-collections called The South Downs Way. Each story sits on its own while also connecting to a larger story about the Devil mourning his lost love.

I don’t think I even mentioned the zine on this substack. It was just after the True Clown Stories kickstarter, so maybe I was distracted by that? Anyway, the zine is now available on Etsy, alongside my collection Memetic Infection Hazards.

Recommendations

I heard about zine history We Peaked at Paper when it launched at a friend’s bookshop. I couldn’t make the event, but picked up a copy online. The book describes itself as an oral history, but it’s more a collection of interviews. The writers, Gavin Hogg and Hamish Ironside, are interesting and opinionated guides. I don’t agree with everything they say - I’m more open as to what counts as a zine - but they provide a good overview.

What the book does best for me is showing the breadth of DIY culture. They look at the prehistory of sci-fi fanzines, football zines and music zines. What is most interesting, for me, is the discussion of the DIY scene in the 80s and 90s, and how people found connection before the Internet. Some of these zines had massive print runs compared to most today, despite not having the reach of the Internet.

There’s a risk of recent histories falling into nostalgia, but We Peaked At Paper interviews creators from different eras, including the pandemic. By focussing their history on twenty individuals, Hogg and Ironside show how easy it can be to create your own culture - and how rewarding it can be.