Guest Post: Research and “Fiction” by Kit Power

Editor’s Note: We would like to point out that Kit Power’s latest novella, Millionaires Day, is a work of fiction. Divination Hollow Reviews will always stand by those speaking the truth, however Elle is based in the UK and would like to stress the point that Millionaires Day never happened, there was no great event on 22nd December, 2019, and she is not still traumatised from what may or may not have happened prior to Christmas 2019. The below feature is in no way related to the friends she lost contact with at the end of 2019 and, separately, she would like to acknowledge that she very much admires Kit Power for his bravery for totally different reasons.

Here’s the thing; for legal purposes, my new novella, Millionaires Day, is being sold as ‘fiction’. And for related reasons, I’ve had to secure a US publisher for this book.

And I kind of knew it was going to have to be that way, if I was going to write about the events that took place in the United Kingdom, on December 22nd, 2019. If you’re a UK resident, you know what I’m talking about… or you don’t, and you think it’s yet another conspiracy theory/mass hallucination/scam/attempt at viral book marketing, and, you know, fine, I’m not trying to tell you want to think or believe. But, in general, if you know, you know. And if you’re a resident of the rest of the world, you most likely have either never heard of it, or are aware of it only as a kind of urban myth, or some post-Brexit mental breakdown. The fact that a few weeks later, Covid would become THE global news headline (and pages 2 through 11, for that matter) also helped the ‘story’ sink without trace.

But, as I’ve discovered, that’s not the only reason nobody is talking about it.

I even work it into the novella; two of the more internet-savvy characters realise early on that whatever’s happening, it’s not happening in the media, either news or social. And so, it’s proven; in an era where more information than you’ll ever need (some of it contradictory) on the most obscure topic is never more than a Google search away, how the hell do you even begin to research something about which, until a few weeks ago, no internet records of any kind exist?

Put it another way – how do you (or, let’s go ahead and put the finger on it, how did I) go about researching something that apparently never even happened?

And the simple answer is, I had to talk to people.

It wasn’t easy.

Family and friends alike pretty quickly made themselves clear; by and large (and with a few honourable exceptions) the shutters came down hard and fast. This was not something to be discussed. Most were polite, but some were angry. At least one person I’d considered a good friend is no longer speaking to me, and that’s just for broaching the subject. And forget about Facebook, Twitter, blogs - at least up until the book launch, any attempt to initiate an online conversation got swallowed up the second I hit post (why that appears to have shifted since the book was launched is something I can only speculate about, but I’m particularly grateful for those authors and small press publishers who joined me in speaking out - perhaps some critical mass has now been reached).

So, for once in my life, I had to get out of the house, and out of my comfort zone, and go and actually talk to people. Which sucked.

The first member of the public who was willing to talk to me was a homeless person (at their request, I’m giving no identifiable details, including gender) who’d overheard a fruitless conversation I’d had with several members of staff at my local train station, who’d all treated me like I’d witnessed them concerning the good spiritual message of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. And, after insisting on anonymity and no recording (another common feature of my conversations on the subject - nobody I spoke to was willing to allow me to so much as take notes, let alone record the chat) they confirmed that it had happened. After a bit of back and forth, they even introduced me around to some other members of that community, and I was honoured by the sharing of several heartbreaking stories (some of those were amalgamated into the character of Henry Jones, with enough details changed to avoid identification).

One of those conversations included a chilling aside, delivered in a painfully matter-of-fact manner, and which sent me down a whole second fruitful but disturbing line of enquiry; commenting on the numbers of their peers that had disappeared that day, never to be seen again, someone said ‘I wonder how many got out, and how many were killed?’

Official records don’t show any special spike in terms of missing persons for the week after 22nd December 2019, in terms of comparable years… but my research in Milton Keynes strongly suggests that a whole bunch of people did indeed go missing, and it was either not reported, or the figures have since been altered. People not willing to talk directly about the events of the day could sometimes be coaxed out on the subject of relatives, friends and neighbours who had apparently ‘upped sticks’ or ‘vanished’. And one person who works in child protection told me some things that have haunted me ever since (and again, made it, in heavily fictionalised form, into the novella). And since the news of the book published, I’ve been contacted by two separate people who claim to have successfully relocated to mainland Europe on that day, taking their money with them. I’m still a little sceptical of such claims (and decided not to include them in the novella), but I’ve since been given some information that makes these claims seem at least plausible.

Which reminds me of another frustrating thing; the stories you can't use, either because they don’t fit the structure of the ‘novella’ narrative, or they’re outside of the timescale of the first morning of events (it’s possible a second volume may address some of these, perhaps even in an anthology format, if this release does well). For example; it was common knowledge in early 2020 that the introduction of the polymer £20 note was massively rushed, brought forward from Q4 to Q1 with no explanation, and a much tighter than usual timeframe for converting the old paper currency, but you’ll find no record of it now, the change presented absolutely as ‘business as usual’ on all the relevant government and news sites.

Similarly, Steve Toase's brilliant piece of journalism, covering strange ‘local news’ stories (that only appeared in print editions) was sadly released too late for inclusion, as was James Everington's thoughtful ‘short story’ about the events of the day. And I know others have been fearful of posting their own perspectives, after the odd cyber attacks and threats made against my previous publishers Black Shuck Books, Horrific Tales, and even Gingernuts Of Horror (and sadly, it looks like the Millionaires Day publisher, French Press, were also not immune). I’m so grateful to everyone in the horror community who has stuck by me in the face of this absurd situation, and to sites like Divination Hollow who are willing to stand up and be counted.

The good news is, after a fraught book launch, the book is now on general sale, and people seem to be getting their copies without incident. Perhaps the dam has finally burst. Or possibly whoever was leading the suppression efforts has realised that we’re a fairly perverse bunch in the horror community; tell us we’re not allowed to read something, we’re more likely to seek it out :D  .

Regardless, I’m grateful to everyone who shared their story with me, back then or now, and I only hope I’ve done you all, and that strange, terrifying, fascinating, baffling day some kind of justice. Most importantly, though, I hope that, by breaking the silence, we can start to confront some of the horrors and wonders of that day, and begin to heal the wounds that the repression of the stories to date has caused.

Because it’s finally time to talk about Millionaires Day.

KP

20/10/24