by Graham Johns
“So nobody knows your true identity,” Blue Boy explained.
“Can we please go?” The Conductor asked. “We need to confront them before they find us.”
“Nice, you can introduce me to everyone else on the way, but let’s go! Where’re we going?” Smutterance asked in a slightly muffled fashion.
“To the Dog & Duck,” The Conductor replied with a degree of apprehension.
“How did you know we were here, by the way?” Blue Boy asked.
“My telescope has many uses, STS,” Smutterance replied with a wink and a chuckle and then pointed at The Conductor, “I could see her in the bathroom.”
Blue Boy glared at The Conductor, who simply shrugged her shoulders in reply, before whispering something to Robin, who made haste ahead of them with Broken atop his right shoulder.
“Where’s he going?” Blue Boy enquired.
“You’ll see,” was all The Conductor had to say on the matter.
***
Inside the Dog & Duck, all was relatively quiet and calm.
“Once we get any remaining usurpers rounded up, we shall finally be able to move forward in peace,” the bearded Hippo Man said to his colleagues.
“Indeed,” replied Bob, caressing his hairdo.
“We must be cautious,” advised White Man, “if past experience is to be trusted, they will be more capable than they appear.”
“Perhaps we should double-check on the guy in the cellar?” Bob asked.
Coward King took a moment to realise this was an instruction for him to do something useful and got to it. He was surprised to find the cellar was empty and headed back to the bar quickly.
“They’re gone,” he advised.
“As I just said,” White Man said with a degree of pomposity, “more capable.”
“Nothing changes, we still issued instructions to everyone to remove anyone who causes issue with our new identity, I feel certain they’ll be dealt with outside,” Bob said with a confident nod.
“Bolt the door, just to be safe,” Hippo Man commanded.
White Man didn’t budge, why should he when someone else could do it? Coward King did go to the door, now knowing his place in this hierarchy.
As he returned to sit with the others a loud banging was unleashed upon the door.
“Come out!” said a loud female voice. “We would like to talk!”
“Should we go out and talk, do you suppose?” Bob enquired.
“I see no reason to do so,” White Man replied.
“Perhaps talking would be a good idea, we might gain something,” Hippo Man suggested.
“We could talk through the door, I suppose,” White Man said.
“Good point,” Bob replied, approaching the entrance. He took a quick look outside the window and saw the assembly. “They have a dog, a woman and two men.”
“Sounds about right,” Hippo Man replied, “whose dog is it?”
“I think it’s yours.”
“Thieving bastards,” Hippo Man’s hand shot to his mouth, “sorry, my host sometimes gets a word in.”
“We can talk through the door, what do you want?” Bob asked at volume.
“We want to find out what you want and establish terms for your withdrawal from your domination of Nether-Staining,” The Conductor replied.
Bob was about to repeat this but the others indicated they could hear perfectly well.
“What if we rather like it here and want to stay?” Bob asked.
“Perhaps you can stay in peace and in harmony with everyone and allow the villagers to return to normal?” The Conductor replied.
“Tell them ‘no thank you’,” said White Man quietly to Bob, “unless of course you plan to agree a treaty and then renege on almost all of it immediately in a ruse to capture them all.”
Bob and Hippo Man exchanged a look. Coward King simply stared at the table.
“One moment!” Bob shouted and walked away from the door.
***
“They’re not going to go for this, what’s plan B?” Blue Boy enquired of The Conductor.
“Don’t you worry about that,” she replied, “Smutterance, be ready with some appropriately distracting verbiage.”
“Roger that, STS.”
“What about me?” Blue Boy asked.
“Just be ready to react,” The Conductor said firmly.
The door opened. Nigel growled. White Man stepped forth with the others in his wake, crossed the road and stepped onto the village green. The four of them formed up before our heroes with a couple of metres to spare in between. From a satellite, the assembly would’ve resembled a collection of substandard Kinder Surprise toys but in person it resembled a group of people in very poor outfits with a tolerant dog for company. Nothing was said, only stares, as each assessed the opposing force. A duck waddled through the space between them on its way to the pond. All of them watched the duck, before Nigel could contain himself no longer and set to chase.
“It seems your number is weakened,” said Hippo Man, “good dog.”
“I think you mean, good dogging, STS,” Smutterance said.
“What?” asked Bob.
“Tell us what your terms are to withdraw, give the villagers back their senses and live in peace,” demanded The Conductor.
“Mmmm, yes, it’s time you withdrew I think, STS, preferably before you climax,” Smutterance suggested with a pout. He flexed the drawing on his chest for good measure before doing some dry thrusting. White Man couldn’t believe his eyes and covered them while he shook his head.
“Do you people actually think you are superheroes? Really?” White Man asked after he had regained a little composure.
“How dare you suggest otherwise!” Blue Boy shouted, finally wanting some input.
“Look at you! One of you is a robot bride, another has the male genitalia drawn on his chest and the last one looks like an advert for alternative uses of your bathroom accessories! You have no superpowers whatsoever!” White Man was most displeased.
“Good enough to beat you once,” Blue Boy replied with a slight sulk.
“We were beaten by the weather last time!”
Blue Boy could allow for fair comment, “Fair comment, but we still delayed you enough so you could be beaten by the weather and do note that it may just have been a divine beating.”
“Shut up, you pathetic little man,” White Man hissed.
“Little? In that outfit, we can all see he isn’t little,” Smutterance said.
“Can we not at least find a way that we can all live together?” The Conductor said to Hippo Man, who looked visibly uncomfortable. “My dear Hippo Man, please let us be friends.”
The Conductor held out a hand of peace to Hippo Man. His body took on an awkward jerky motion as part of him clearly wanted to go one way and the other did not. He reached out to take her hand. As she neared him, The Conductor flashed into action, bringing a hand up and grabbing hold of Hippo Man’s beard and sliding her hand through it as best she could.
Hippo Man let out a scream which shook Blue Boy to his very core. The Conductor stepped back and Bob leapt to the defence of Hippo Man. The Conductor was ready for this and brought an aerosol can up and fired it at Bob’s head. Bob also began to scream.
The hairdo and the beard departed from both quickly although not with full movement. They were back in the pub before the group could capture them. The screaming stopped immediately. White Man and Coward King retreated towards the sanctuary of the pub with some haste.
“What did you do?” Blue Boy asked.
“Beard oil and hairspray,” The Conductor said with a satisfied expression, “had to work. The only ways to keep hair under control.”
“Forgive me for breaking character for a moment, but if you weren’t married, I’d be really tempted to give you one right now,” Blue Boy said. The Conductor ignored him.
“STS,” said Smutterance.
“Now, let’s finish this!” Hippo Man commanded, now back to his
normal super-self, and began to stride towards the Dog & Duck in pursuit.
“No! You shall never take back Nether-Staining while White Man lives!” White Man shouted as he blocked the doorway, with Coward King at his side.
“No! You will not! You will perithh!” came a shout from a familiar voice behind the group.
Everyone turned to see that Maurice Bickerdyke had very quietly appeared on the village green with a large party of villagers arranged behind him, many of whom seemed to have rediscovered their pitchforks and the like, even though this mob looked very orderly and serene currently. He calmly smoothed his moustache with his middle and index fingers and formed an insulting ‘V’ for victory in their direction.
“Mwahaha!” White Man laughed. “I believe this is checkmate to white.”
CHAPTER 25
ARE YOU YORKSHIRE OR ARE YOU BASTARD?
IT’S TIME FOR US ALL TO SEE,
IF YOU’RE NOT ONE, YOU MUST BE THE OTHER,
SO PERHAPS YOU’D BETTER FLEE.
“Why does it always end up on the village green?” Hippo Man whispered to Blue Boy.
“It’s the only suitably large place for a battle to take place in the village,” Blue Boy replied.
“And where is Reverend Burns when you need him?” Hippo Man asked.
“He’s over there in the mob,” Smutterance answered pointing to the front of the mob, “he’s the only one wearing his usual clothes.”
The Reverend was indeed sporting ceremonial whites and seemed to be staring at them with religious quotations at the ready. Ernest, Veronica, Beryl, Ranjit, Tom and Johnny were all willing participants in the mob too. The crowd moved towards them, creating a surrounding the group could not escape from.
“And now, I think it is time I did what I meant to do quite some time ago,” White Man said, and drew a pistol from his belt in the small of his back as he positioned himself in the road with the business end pointed at our heroes.
“Where did he get that?” Blue Boy asked.
“It’s mine,” Bob replied, feeling naked without his facial hair, “it was behind the bar in the pub. Don’t worry, it isn’t loaded.”
White Man fired the pistol into the air.
“It seems I must take that last statement back,” Bob said.
“Whatever shall we do with you?” White Man shouted to the gathered crowd.
“Perhapth you’d like to kill them?” Maurice suggested. “One at a time for effect?”
“Yes, I had already thought of that, but who first?” White Man waved the gun back and forth across the group. He didn’t care for any of them so why not just pick one off at random. Who would most dislike to watch the others die, because he ought to save them for last? Yes. He paused and readied his hand.
There was a scream. This was not a scream of humanity. This was a scream of parrot in a nearby apple tree. White Man took aim, the gun roared and he missed Broken, who would’ve grinned if he could’ve. No matter, at least he’d shut up.
“Who first?”
There was another inhuman scream. This time it was the sound that only rubber on tarmac can make. Bob’s Jaguar hurtled at full tilt down the road, aimed straight at White Man. The shock kept White Man rooted to the spot, like a rabbit caught in headlights, and as it was about to hit, Coward King pushed White Man out of the way and took the impact himself, just as the driver of the car tried to swerve and crashed headlong into the wall of the Dog & Duck.
“Oh hell,” said Bob of his proud alehouse. A large gaping hole had been left in one side of the building. This could present an insurance claim.
“I’m not sure who he was trying to save, himself, White Man or Nether-Staining,” Hippo Man observed of Coward King. The lack of remorse struck nobody present as odd.
Blue Boy looked over the wasted and broken body, now accented with an unhealthy amount of blood. “Thank goodness his outfit had a brown stripe down the middle, I’d have been glad of that under the circumstances.”
“I think mine could’ve done with one, all this excitement has led to a bit of poo coming out,” Smutterance advised through his nylon mask.
Nobody answered. The driver of the car had gone.
“Now, where were we?” White Man said, white suit now dirtied but gun in hand and raised once more.
Everyone looked at each other and realised that their situation had not improved.
“I think we shall start by shooting the Lancashire bastard that is Gordon Shepherd.”
Hippo Man disliked the use of his real name but decided now probably wasn’t the time to point it out. This felt like curtains, and probably an unpleasantly coloured set from the 1970s at that. White Man pointed the gun at him and fired. Hippo Man fell to earth. No last words escaped him.
***
Roger the Pure was surprised to find Honesty Boycott knocking on his door in broad daylight, though the sun didn’t have long left for this day. Honesty growled at him as the door opened.
“Not going to invite me in, monk?” he asked.
Roger glanced nervously around, hoping for a passer-by who could perhaps be persuaded to witness the encounter. There weren’t any.
“Please come in,” he said shakily.
“I’ve brought you a gift,” Honesty said. He reached down to the left of the door and picked up something clearly very heavy by the strain on his face. He threw the man-size package onto the floor. “Take it, it’s for you.”
Roger was pretty sure he knew what was in here but he untied the string that secured the contents. Fettler Shepherd’s cold face stared back at him. Roger almost screamed as he recoiled away from the dead body, a body which was missing the top of its skull. Grey matter oozed from the hole. Honesty noted Roger’s revulsion and laughed.
“Why have you done this, you murderer?”
“He had something I wanted. It was in his head.”
“What could he possibly have had?” Roger protested.
“The location of your map. I was undecided about whether to collect it and then kill you or kill you and then collect it. In the end, I thought we’d collect it together while I decided if I would face eternal damnation for killing you or not.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why would he know about the map?”
“I saw you watching after him that day. If you think me stupid then you’re a fool.” Honesty quickly drew his knife and flashed it just in front of Roger’s face before darting behind him and saying roughly into his ear, “Why don’t we leave him here and go to find your map.”
He pushed Roger roughly out of the door with the knife hovering at his throat. The first thing Roger noticed as they exited his small house was the heat, and then the glow. The Church of the Holy Cross was aflame. Roger gasped and emitted a wail that sounded unearthly.
“How could you?” was all he could ask.
“This is what treason does to you.”
“But it’s God’s house!” Roger protested weakly. “We need to put it out quickly.”
“No we don’t.” Honesty pushed him away, and Roger didn’t resist.
They shuffled off in the direction of the pub, “Now I’m going to move this knife away and we will walk like civilised beings but know that if you so much as breathe in a way I dislike, I’m going to cut you up and feed you to the crows.”
Roger nodded his head slightly and mumbled, “Mm-hmm.”
Ye Olde Doge & Ducke was open and serving ale to anyone who wanted it, and there was more on offer to a certain type of discerning gentleman in the basement. The floor of the tavern was cold stone, covered with a dusting of sawdust in an attempt to soak up the variety of fluids that were often spilled upon it. The bar was a heavy plank of wood which was plastered in a layer of filth and the beer was simply known by the locals as ‘swill’ because many of them suspected it was not that dissimilar to the stuff the pigs got. The bar was empty at present and the landlord was taking the opportunity to clean the rudimentary clay tankards with spit and a dirty rag.
“
Is Sue here and available?” Honesty asked as they entered.
“Sure is,” the landlord replied. “What’s he doing here?” the landlord asked, indicating Roger.
“He’s coming to bless my fornicating, maybe pull one off while he watches, assuming we’re not a bit old for him,” Honesty said with a laugh, the landlord joined in.
Sue, who would later come to be known as ‘Mucky’ was in the early stages of her career in Nether-Staining. It wasn’t a pleasant career choice but she was buxom and she needed the money; and she figured accommodating the local gentry couldn’t be too hard. Sue’s popularity was ensured as she was curvy with long blonde hair, perfect skin and said ‘yes’ far more often than ‘no’. This was before she’d had the dubious pleasure of knowing Honesty Boycott intimately and she didn’t much care for his return. She was rather hopeful he had died in some skirmish or other by now.
“Hello, Sue,” Honesty growled at her as he descended into the candlelit cellar.
Sue’s expression began as dismay but took on a firm look of defiance very quickly.
“No! You can go bugger a sheep because you’re not coming anywhere near me with that fetid thing you call a knob!” she shouted.
The landlord took this moment to pop his head down the stairs, “Now Sue, you know the rules, if you want room and board you will accommodate the locals and keep a tenth of the proceeds for your trouble!”
He took his leave and Honesty waited for the door to close before he continued, “I have no need of you in that way this evening, bitch.”
He watched her squirm momentarily, “Well, I’m not having this priest either, I’ve heard about him and it just isn’t right!”
Honesty advanced towards her, “There will be no fornication tonight, I promise, just this.”
Faster than Sue could react, Honesty had his hand around her throat, pinning Sue against a damp wall and had his knife pointed a mere centimetre from her left eye.
“W-w-w-what?” she whimpered.
“I want to talk to you about Fettler Shepherd. You can either tell me what you know or you can make this hard for yourself.”