Snap was always the go to man for any Red curios. He had an old run down establishment behind Lockets, the embalmer. In Lockets you could pick up a small stuffed Red for twenty dollars and something more substantial for one hundred plus. People used them as garden sculptures or mounted them either side of their gate posts to impress their neighbours. Big was good, stranger was better, if you had the money. I occasional sold pieces to Locket but preferred Snap as he'd always give me a better price and had the bonus that he allowed me to hang around in his shop to escape the choking dust of the passing storms.

I'd always liked Snap, he'd had the shop as long as I could remember. He had a gentle sense of humour that came with dealing in the bizarre. A deadpan face with quirky uplift in his tone when he made a joke that I always found myself strangely beholden to. I'd sit on the padded leather stool he kept for his high end clientele and we'd talk about the Reds, the weather, what was selling and what wasn't while I drank the weak tea he poured from a cracked china teapot. All the while Heyday would bustle around us with his little duster topped with a plume of coloured tail feathers.

The Red camp ran from the old mining town of Regus all the way down to Fredrick's Drift. The camp occupied the old salt flats, a vast prehistoric lake bed with the mountains on one side and us, in our windblown clapboard houses at Regus on the other. The camp was surrounded by a thirty foot high wall with an electrified fence on the top. Stand close to the wall, not so close that the Loom might take a shot at you from their platforms, and you could hear the Reds inside. The yells and screams and wailing sounded like some hideous painting I'd once see in a magazine. Snap reckoned I was thinking of Hieronymus Bosch. I was thinking of Hell, if that's what Bosch had painted.

'Hi Snap.' I closed the door quickly to stop the drifting sand being blown over the floor.

The little bell above me rang out and Snap looked up expectantly. His bushy eyebrows did a little dance of recognition across his forehead. 'Hi Yip, welcome to my emporium.' Snap had a customer, he gave me a little knowing wink and I dropped my bag in a corner and began browsing out of harm's way.

The shelves in the window were packed with little phials of potions. I'd sell any Red body parts I found on the tip to Snap and he bought ones from Lockets to keep his stock up. He made them into lotions and cures for the locals who figured there was something in Red anatomy that was close to magical. They probably got that bit from Snap himself. They weren't for me; I found it all a bit creepy.

I shuffled around two packed cabinets, picked up an umbrella that appeared to be made of something like bats wings and flapped it open and closed a few times before dropping it back into a stand made of black bones shaped like the branches of the thorn trees I'd seen out in the plains, twisted obscenely inward on each other in an attempt to protect themselves from the searching winds.

In a locked display case the shop's more valuable pieces were displayed. Anything that was personal to a Red attracted more value. A little green stone that changed colour when you held it. I'd sold Snap that. Fin tokens, cloud rings, neck clips, and finger charms all carefully laid out with white paper price tags inlaid with gold ink in Snap's neat gothic handwriting.

Snap's customer looked furtively back at me and passed Snap a dollar bill before stuffing whatever Snap had sold him under his coat he slipped past and out the door leaving the brass bell ringing his exit.

At the sound of the bell Heyday had appeared. He sidestepped me, checked the door was closed before producing a dustpan and brush from his sack and briskly sweeping away the sand.

Heyday had always been there since I'd first visited the shop. Heyday had a nervous energy about him, constantly sculling around the shop until Snap told him to stop and sit down. He was shorter than me, two long spindly arms topped by gloved hands protruding from a worn red velvet waistcoat. He was the only Red I'd met in the flesh. He had no head. Snap told me it had been shot off by a Loom and that's how Snap was allowed to keep him. I don't know how he got around without a head, but he seemed to sense where everything was. He would sweep up, unpack boxes, and dust the stuff Snap had on the shelves. Maybe he could remember where everything was, like blind people do with an internal map in his head. I never saw him break anything.

When then shop was quiet I'd come in and Heyday would be sitting next to Snap on a tall bar stool. Odd pair, Snap with his pockmarked face, blading head and gorse bush eyebrows and the skinny, headless Heyday siting bolt upright next to him in his worn waistcoat.

I had some good stuff that day. Snap was always appreciative of what I bought him. He nodded and murmured. 'Nice piece,' as he ran his long fingers over one of the items, a metal disc on a chain that looked like a key. It was a medallion prised by one of the Red races.

I'd also got a pair of shoes, worn but beautifully embroidered in a silver thread that caught the light and tiny and oddly shaped.

'It looks like they were meant for Elves feet.' I said.

Snap smiled. 'We don't get many Elves in here. Yip. Try next door, I hear Lockets away with the fairies most of the time.' He put them on the end of Heyday's gloved fingers and we watched him walk them up and down the counter for a few moments.

'I'll sell them on as a novelty item, maybe for baby shoes or as a present from a guy to his gal.'

He gave me a decent price for both of them.

Once, between storms, I'd gone out to base of the mountains to hunt for relics in the old camp they'd built when the first of the Reds had arrived. From the foothills, I could see some distance off, over the walls into the Red camp. The place was a mass of tattered tents and plastic awnings fitted to badly made wooden frames, flapping limply in the thin air of the plateau. Crowds of swaying Reds massed around vast fires they'd built on the blackened sand, soaking up the heat from the twisting flames thrown out by the melting tyres. How they could be cold in the heat of the day I couldn't understand.

Further down, past the fires lay the rusted wrecks of the Red ships. The oldest ones lay on their sides being drawn slowly into the ground like sinking ships as they gradually decayed, eaten from the outside in by the corrosive rust. The newer ones, stood out starkly beautiful against the smoke filled sky. Skeletal beasts that had been escorted here, then disabled and anything of value removed by the Looms before they got handed back to the Reds. Even that far off the smell in the air was sickening, but of course I was used to that.

I spent most days down at the Red refuse dump, handkerchief pulled up over my face, scavenging for stuff I could sell to Snap or Locket. A big steaming pile of hot rubbish was pushed out of the camp daily by the dozers. I'd wait and scramble over it prodding the garbage with stick looking for anything saleable, while the Looms laughed at me from their towers until they got bored and went back to their card games and drinking bootleg liquor.

Two days later I was back in the shop.

As I walked in, Snap looked up and said nothing. At his desk was a Loom. He was a big man. Leaning over Snap he was caressing one of the curios in his hands.

'I'll have it.' he placed the piece on the desk.

'Fifty,' said Snap. 'It's still fifty. Like the last time you came in.'

'Fifty.' said the Loom sluggishly. From where I stood I could see a markings on the back of his sunburnt neck. On the blotched skin he had tattooed six Red heads, oddly shaped with thick black crosses over them. Looms kept a count of the Red who escaped from the camp that they'd hunted down and exterminated.

'Fifty '. Nodded Snap pursing his lips in concentration.

'Ten.' said the Loom.

'I can't do it for ten, Mister. How about thirty five? Have we got a deal?' He thrust out his hand.

At the sound of the bell at the door, Heyday appeared and beetled past the desk, up to the door to brush up the thin veil of sand that had scattered itself across the tiles. The Loom turned slowly and stared through me at him. 'Ten.' he said again.

'Mister... ' Snap started.

The Loom reached down, pulled the pistol from his holster and waved me aside with the tip of the barrel.

'Hey, Mister ...don't ....' Snap's head appeared past the Looms.

With a bang that left me blinking in shock, the Loom shot Heyday. He crashed backward into the door and flopped to the floor, his insides blown clear out of his body. Repulsed, I turned away as the smell of burning flesh hit me and bit into my nostrils like hot vinegar.

The Loom turned to Snap. 'Red.' He affirmed. 'Ten.'

Snap was shaking so much I thought he might fall down. His eyes had widened and he gulped air as he steadied himself against the counter. He looked at me and then the mass of jellified flesh spreading across on the floor. 'Ten' he said.

'Told you.' said the Loom slapping the ten on the desk. Picking up his prize he pushed past me and out into the street leaving the bell ringing and hot sand billowing through the open door.

I stood with Snap looking at what was left of Heyday while the tears rolled down his face.

'I'm sorry, Snap. Really. Shall I help you clear him up... you know.'

'No, Yip, just go. Please.'

'Sure, I'll come back another time.'

After Heyday was shot the Curio shop stayed closed for two weeks. I knocked on the door a few times but there was no sign of Snap. I guess the loss of Heyday had hit him hard. I sold a few body bits from the tip to Locket and instead of sitting with Snap and Heyday in the shop spent my spare time kicking bottles around with the kids collecting salt from the mud flats.

One afternoon, I found something pretty neat at the tip. It was an arm or hand from some Red species I didn't recognise. I put it into a plastic bag and headed back to Regus. It would be ideal for one of Snap's potions or even for Locket who occasionally did small works when he didn't have a major job on.

I hurried back hoping the shop would be open and Snap would be there as always, reflectively studying his fingernails and talking to Heyday. My step faltered when I remembered what had happened to him. To my surprise the shop was open. I pushed through the door, half anticipating the appearance of Heyday at the sound of the bell. Snap was there siting behind his desk. He didn't look up.

'Hello Snap, look I've found this.' I urged breathlessly.

Snap turned to me, his dead eyes staring into nothing.

'Snap, are you alright.'

Snap jerked like he'd just woken from a daydream. 'Yip! I'm sorry. What?'

'Look, I've found this, is it worth anything?'

He moved so slowly it was like he was caught in a faraway web of his own thoughts. He picked up the plastic bag and turned it over and inspected the glob of flesh within. 'I'll give you five dollars for it or anything in the shop to the value of ten if that suits?'

'What is it?' He'd left the door open to the back of the shop. I could see the vats bubbling away, the heat was intense. How he and Heyday managed to live back there I didn't know. Snap didn't seem bothered about the door which was odd, normally he get Heyday to keep it closed. People didn't like to think how the potions were made.

'It's a hand, Yip, the Looms bought in a ship last week. New species of Red tried to run the exclusion zone. I'll be able to sell it on, or make up a remedy with it. I'll think on it.' He pushed it to one side.

'Anything to the value of ten dollars then?'

'Hmmm?' Snap picked up the feather duster and rolled it distractedly through his fingers.

'Snap, to the value of ten? '

'Sure, look around.'

At the back I found a jacket. The stitching looked good. No holes. The nights were getting cold on my walks back from the tip. When the sun dropped away I could really feel it. I tested it, the material was tough like leather. The tag said twelve dollars, I pulled it on anyway.

'Here, let me.' Snap adjusted the jacket around my arms and lifted up a clouded mirror. I guessed he would give it to me for the ten. 'It's nice, Yip, suits you. Why don't you take it?'

I ran my fingers down the inner lining. It was red velvet, slightly worn around the edges. It would be warm. I adjusted the cuffs, they were a little long so I folded them back. On the edge of one were a few ink marks. I wetted my fingers with my tongue and tried to rub them off, then finding they wouldn't shift I inspected them more closely. On the inside of the cuff were six Red heads with crosses running through them. For a moment I stood with my mind in turmoil, then I tore the jacket from my shoulders, flung it on the floor and swung round to face Snap.

Snap put the mirror down and quickly picked up the jacket. For a second he looked confused, and then his eyes flickered across the markings. A flash of recognition creased his face, then like a candle placed too close to a roaring fire his face sagged sideways and his head juddered violently up and down. As his cheeks flopped forward his eyes turned upward and grew into the folds of his skin to reveal two wide set bug eyes.

'Hell, Snap, you're one of them!' I staggered backward in the shelving. My hands, slick with sweat grappled with the umbrella behind me. It slipped away, clattering uselessly onto the floor

'I am,' said Snap unfurling his eyebrows into long antennae that danced around his bug eyed head. 'You're all alike really, aren't you? Why would you be shocked at this coat Yip, but not at anything else in here. Is it because it's human and the rest is only from dead Reds?'

'I won't tell anyone, Snap. Honest.'

'No Yip, you won't, will you.' He held his long forearms out to block my path, his long white teeth glistened as he rotated his head toward me. I braced myself and covered my face as he sprang forward.

It was the last thing I ever heard. Funny that.

SNAP!

.

.

.

Is this horror or something much,much darker. I know what I think.