Stacey Jackson, a 23 year old Manchester girl with short dark hair, couldn't wait for tonight's episode of The Great British Bake Off. She and the girls at work had been chatting about it all day. Dani and Claire both thought that Brian should win because he looked hot. He definitely did but he was a rubbish baker and it was supposed to be about the cakes! And there was this gay bloke who had made some lovely stuff. He should win! What was he called? Richard or summat. Anyway, it was the final and Stacey couldn't wait.
Stacey got off the tram back from work and rushed to the small flat that she shared with her boyfriend, Jamie.
‘Jamie! It’s Bake Off tonight,’ she shouted upon opening the front door. ‘Who’s gonna win? I hope it’s that gay fella. What’s ‘is name? What do you reckon?’
‘There’s a thing about UFO disclosures on tonight. I was hoping we could watch that,’ said Jamie.
Stacey had actually become quite interested in UFOs and all of that sort of stuff since she'd started going out with Jamie but Bake Off was Bake Off and tonight was the final. So Jamie reluctantly agreed that they would watch the documentary on catch up afterwards.
The gay guy (whose name was Ritchie, of course it was!) lost to Brian the hot bloke and, after gloating texts from both Claire and Dani, Stacey sat through the documentary in a foul mood. But Jamie obviously thought that it was important, so she decided to try to work out what was going on. One old American bloke in a suit was telling another old American bloke in a suit about some sort of cover up.
‘So, he thinks that there’s been a cover up about aliens?’ she asked.
‘Not necessarily aliens, babe,’ said Jamie. ‘Could be anything.’
Well, at least Jamie was different from other blokes, thought Stacey. All of her mates' boyfriends were obsessed with football. Stacey supposed that was one of the reasons why she liked him.
Stacey started to pay more attention to the documentary than she had been planning to. There was some dodgy shit going on, that was for sure. Some of what the American army fella was saying sounded quite convincing.
She soon forgot about it all when her phone rang. It was her old workmate, Leanne. Stacey hadn’t been massive pals with her or anything but they’d gone out for cocktails after work a few times and they’d sort of stayed in touch.
‘Hiya, Stace,’ said Leanne. ‘Remember I told you I was getting married to Aaron?’
Stacey had met Aaron a couple of times. He was a Manchester City fan. Stacey’s Dad supported Manchester United so, even though she didn’t really like football, she knew a little bit just because her Dad was always banging on about it. This meant that she’d been able to join in conversations and have a bit of banter with Aaron, even though the whole subject bored her stupid.
‘Yeah, ‘course I remember. I’m really happy for you, love,’ said Stacey.
‘Well, it’s my hen night in a couple of months and I wondered if you wanted to come. I’m inviting everyone! And you’re always a laugh. So you’re invited too. We’re going to Blackpool for the weekend. Obviously you’ll have to pay for your own accommodation but we’re all going to stay in the same hotel. It’s a bit of a dump but if it’s all of us girls together it’ll be a right laugh.’
‘Yeah, I’d love to!’ said Stacey. She needed to get away for a couple of days and a hen do in Blackpool sounded fun. She felt like she needed to get away from Manchester and let her hair down.
‘Thanks, darling. I bloody love you,’ said Leanne. ‘I’ll send you an invite on Facebook!’
Facebook? OK, Grandma, thought Stacey. But she didn’t say that of course.
‘I’m looking forward to it, Lee-lee’, she chirped instead.
‘Eh, guess what, Jamie? Leanne’s invited me to her hen do!’ she shouted. ‘It’s going to be in Blackpool!’
‘Who the bloody hell’s Leanne?’ replied Jamie, laughing.
Over the next couple of months, Stacey took a bit more of an interest in UFOs. Although Jamie was always telling her they were called UAPs now. There were loads of dead interesting videos on YouTube. Not just UFOs (UAPs? Whatever.) but all sorts of other weird shit as well. But she soon forgot about them when she found some videos of Ritchie from Bake Off’s marriage to his boyfriend. It was in a marquee, with a string quartet. Stacey was sure there wasn’t going to be a string quartet at Leanne’s wedding.
A couple of months later, Stacey shoved her way off a packed train at Blackpool station, apologising to everyone as she stood on their toes and banged into them with her bag. She lugged her heavy bag out of the station and hopped into the Uber that she’d ordered from the train. The car took her to the Holiday Lodge Hotel, right by the sea-front but a little bit away from the centre of the town, which was where everyone was staying. The Holiday Lodge was the cheapest Hotel chain there was but it wasn’t as if Stacey was going to be spending much time there. She checked in, dumped her bag in her room, which was overlooking a multi-storey car park, and ordered a burger from the Hotel bar. It took ages to turn up and it was bloody disgusting. She had arrived at the hotel a bit late and the others all seemed to have gone out already so she texted Leanne to ask her where they were. After a few minutes she got a reply.
‘Hiya babes! We’re in a Pub called the Rose and Crown! It’s about five minutes’ walk away. Come and meet us!’ said Leanne’s text.
Stacey made her way up to her room and put some make-up on, ready to go out.
Forty five minutes later, Stacey walked into the Rose and Crown. She was wearing high heels, which she didn’t wear very often, so she tripped and landed on her backside. That’s when she heard Leanne.
‘There she is! Over here, yer daft cow!’ laughed Leanne.
She looked over and saw two large tables shoved together. Sitting on them were Leanne plus about twenty other women. Stacey recognised Jenny, Rachel and a couple of others whose names she couldn’t remember but she didn’t know any of the others. Leanne introduced her to everyone and told her that she’d ordered Jägerbombs all round.
‘The weekend starts here, girls!’ shouted Leanne. Everyone whooped and clapped.
They stayed in the Pub for a few hours then had more drinks in the Hotel bar before going to bed. Stacey tripped over again on her way back to her room. ‘Bloody heels,’ she thought. She was much more drunk than she was used to being, so she decided to go outside for a walk (with trainers on!) and get some air.
Stacey walked slowly and carefully towards the sea front. It was chilly and blowy. She felt dizzy and nauseous. She swore to herself that she was never going to drink another Jägerbomb again. The only other people she could see were two lads on the beach, who looked like they were smoking a joint. She stayed well away from them. Just then, she thought she could see something in the corner of her eye. It was a bright light. Wondering what on earth it was, Stacey looked round to see an oblong shaped thing hovering above Blackpool Tower.
Stacey tried to think what it could be. It was definitely a physical object of some sort but not like any sort of drone or model plane she’d ever seen. Not a star either. It was made entirely of very bright light but it had sides and a definite shape. It looked like nothing Stacey had ever seen before, not even on one of the documentaries that Jamie watched on YouTube. The object shot out to sea where it hung in the air for a few minutes. It disappeared under the water, lighting the sea up for miles, before re-emerging and shooting towards Stacey. She swore and tried to run away before tripping over and landing on her face. She looked up, to see the object hovering above her. Stacey felt as if something was watching her but she had the feeling that whatever it was had her best interests at heart. Stacey felt like someone or something was telling her that everything was going to be OK. She waved at the object and it dipped before shooting off towards the nearby town of Cleveleys.
Stacey sat on a bench and tried regain her composure. Then she stood up and tottered back to the Hotel. That was when she realised that, for some reason, she hadn’t filmed any of what had happened, even though she had her phone with her. She also noticed that it was getting light. It was 5am and she’d left the hotel at 2! But the whole thing had only felt like it had taken about half an hour. Stacey eventually went to sleep and had the weirdest dream that she’d ever experienced. She saw a strange figure, who told her an important secret. She was sure that this secret was going to change everything but, when she woke up, she couldn’t remember it for the life of her.
After shovelling down a greasy breakfast and a large coffee, she swallowed a headache tablet and tried to remember everything that had happened. She bought a notebook and wrote as much of it down as she could. Stacey ran through all of the things that the object could have been in her mind but nothing fitted. She’d definitely been drunk but her reaction to the object hadn’t been drunkenness. The thing had been real and she had no clue what the bloody hell it was, or why it had chosen her, of all people.
The next evening, Stacey met up with Leanne and the rest of the girls for the main event of the weekend. They were going on a Pub crawl around the town. Stacey tried to keep a clear head by alternating soft drinks with alcohol. After a couple of hours, she tried to tell Leanne about what had happened the night before. But Leanne just laughed at her, so Stacey resolved to be careful about who she spoke to about it from then on. She’d watched enough videos about this stuff to know how much ridicule and worse people who had experiences like this usually had to put up with.
Stacey got back to her hotel to see that a note had been shoved through her door.
‘I know what you saw. Call me. Darren,’ followed by a phone number. Intrigued, she called the number. It rang a few times before a lad with a Liverpool accent answered. Stacey asked him who he was.
Darren O’Brien’s Dad, Steve, had been investigating strange phenomena ever since an encounter whilst serving with the Army in Germany. Steve had spent his life travelling around talking to people about strange things that they had seen. He’d picked up odd jobs here and there but never really settled - a lifestyle which had eventually driven Darren’s Mum to divorce him. And now Darren was taking over his work. Not wishing to repeat his Dad’s mistakes, he knew he needed to make some money as well, so Darren and his best mate, Lee, had a sideline in private detective work. They had been in Blackpool following a lead about strange things that had been seen in the town lately. It was when they were on the beach (pretending to smoke drugs, a favourite ploy of theirs) that they had seen Stacey. It hadn’t been difficult to work out where she was staying.
The following day, back in the Rose and Crown, Stacey told Darren and Lee all about what she had seen and they confirmed that it matched some of the other reports that they had been getting. When they parted company, Darren left her his business card. ‘D&L Investigations,’ it read, followed by a phone number and email. Stacey squirreled it away in her handbag and gave him her number.
Months went by. Stacey never forgot about her strange encounter. Until one day, her phone rang.
‘Hi! It’s Darren. Remember me? I’ve found a bit more about that thing you saw in Blackpool. Also, I’ve been given an interesting job by a client and I reckon you’re just the girl to help me out with it. Meet me and we can talk about it.’
Intrigued, Stacey agreed. Little did she know that her life was about to change forever...
More of Stacey's adventures to come!
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