‘I’m coming to get you now,’ he said,
‘I’m coming to get you tonight!’
Derek sat with his headset on,
His face was white with fright.
‘I think you have the wrong guy,’ he said,
‘It couldn’t be me you mean!’
‘Oh yes, I’m coming to get you now,
I know you, Derek McLean.’

He sat there silent as eerie chills
Spread up and along his spine,
A face came on his computer screen
That rang some bell in his mind.
‘This better not be a joke,’ he said,
‘You’d better not mess with me!’
The voice in the headset chuckled low
In some evil deviltry.

‘It’s taken a while to track you down,
But track you down I did,
You should have stayed off the Internet,
Covered your head, and hid.’
‘I’ve nothing to hide from,’ Derek said,
But his voice broke high in alarm,
‘You’ll never be able to block it out,
That day on Emerson’s Farm.’

At the very mention of Emerson’s Farm
The listener held his breath,
For years he’d struggled to block it out,
The site of that childhood death.
They’d played together in sodden fields
And had ventured into the marsh,
Thinking to pick the bluebells there
But the end of that was harsh.

‘I’d like to know who you are,’ he said,
But his words came out in a whine,
‘You know full well, do I have to tell,
I’m here for the second time.
You left me there and you ran on home
As I sank in there to my neck,
You had no care for my tiny life
But tonight, I’ll teach you respect.’

Derek shuddered and hit the switch
To turn the computer off,
But nothing flickered, the screen stayed on
And Derek began to cough.
‘Have you any idea what it’s like to drown
In a sludge of grass and mud?
It isn’t pleasant, I’ll tell you that
You should try it once, you should!’

Derek coughed and began to choke
In a fit of remorse, and fear,
He’d tried to forget the little bloke
Who had haunted him, year by year.
The doctor, when he examined him
Said, ‘Heart attack, and he choked.
His eyes are staring, as if in fear
But there’s mud in the back of his throat!’

David Lewis Paget