Mister Creecher

by Chris Priestley

  They continued like that for some time, neither of them saying a word. The trudge of their feet on the bracken was the only sound, and its steady beat had a hypnotic and calming effect on Billy. Gradually his anger subsided. It was Creecher who spoke first.

  ‘We should rest,’ he said gently, turning to Billy. ‘You should sleep.’

  Billy could barely make out any features in the giant’s face, save for the faint blue glow of a smile.

  ‘I ain’t tired,’ said Billy, stifling a yawn, the last vestiges of grumpiness clinging to his voice.

  ‘Just a few hours. You will feel better.’

  Billy sighed. He did not have the energy to argue. He still felt angry with Creecher for their situation and angry with himself for getting mixed up in whatever it was that he was mixed up in. But there seemed little point in forcing an argument with Creecher. The last thing he wanted was to be left alone out there in the middle of a forest.

  With a dexterity, skill and speed that amazed Billy, Creecher gathered enough dry material to start a fire with flints he took from his coat for the purpose. Seemingly within moments they were squatting in front of a warming blaze, the sparks taking flight, like fireflies, to follow the coiling blue smoke’s journey towards the night sky.

  ‘How come you know how to do that?’ asked Billy, when he could no longer maintain his sulky silence.

  ‘I lived for a long time in the forest,’ Creecher said. ‘I needed warmth as you need warmth.’

  ‘How come you were in the forest, then?’

  Creecher poked at the fire. Sparks flew around his head and his pallid face was lit by the yellow flames, making his eyes glow like hot coals.

  ‘When I ran away from Frankenstein’s laboratory,’ he said, a terse tone of bitterness in his voice, ‘I had to learn to live from the land.’

  Creecher carried on gathering wood. Billy thought of how it had been when he had run away, so thankful to be away from the sweep, but so quickly aware that he might die on the streets, friendless and starving. The chill memory of it made him move closer to the fire’s warmth.

  He remembered another boy telling him about Gratz and how he would let you stay in the dry of his warehouse if you ran a few errands for him. It took Billy a day or two to realise what these errands were and, by that time, he was a thief.

  ‘When I ran away, I had to find a living in the city,’ said Billy. ‘I suppose we both . . .’

  Billy looked up to see Creecher walking off into the woods.

  ‘Oi!’ said Billy in a panic. ‘You just going to leave me here?’

  ‘I am going to fetch some food,’ said Creecher. ‘You must be hungry. Stay there. I won’t be long.’

  Billy hunched himself up, edging a little closer to the fire. The darkness seemed to have swallowed Creecher whole and there was no sign of the giant at all. There was only the sound of Billy’s breathing and the flames’ crackle and hiss.

  Creecher seemed to be gone an age and Billy kept slipping into sleep, just managing at one point to stop himself falling face first into the fire. He was just relieving himself against a nearby tree when the giant appeared in the firelight, making him start. He carried an armful of what looked like rotten vegetables.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ asked Billy. ‘I thought you’d gone for food.’

  ‘This is food,’ said Creecher.

  ‘Don’t look like it to me. I thought you was going to catch us a rabbit or something.’

  ‘I’ve told you before,’ said the giant, ‘I do not eat flesh.’

  Creecher gathered his bounty and began skewering it on sticks to put into the flames to cook. He tossed a white root towards Billy, who caught it and eyed it suspiciously.

  ‘Eat,’ said Creecher, biting into a similar one. ‘They’re good.’

  ‘How do you know it’s not poisonous?’

  ‘It’s not, believe me.’

  Billy took a tentative bite and raised his eyebrows. Creecher smiled.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Billy.

  And the rest of Creecher’s assortment of roots, leaves, bulbs and berries were likewise surprisingly appetising. Billy sat back at the end, satisfied and full. Tiredness now overwhelmed him and, wrapping himself in his coat, he lay down.

  His eyes grew heavy and Creecher’s massive form began to melt and warp in the heat haze from the fire. The giant shimmered like a ghost as Billy’s eyelids finally closed.

  Billy woke just before daybreak as the canopy above him rang with the songs of a thousand birds. He blinked and tried to focus his eyes, looking up through the layers of leaves.

  Sitting up he saw that the fire had died away to red embers and there was a sharp chill. He hugged himself and slapped his own face, trying to wake up. Then he realised there was no sign of Creecher.

  Billy, city boy that he was, had a fearful dread of being left alone in the wood. But before he could decide what he was going to do about such a calamity, he saw Creecher striding soundlessly through the undergrowth towards him.

  The moment that Creecher returned, the birdsong stopped. The effect was so startlingly sudden, it was as if Billy had instantaneously been struck deaf.

  ‘What is it?’ said Creecher, seeing the look on Billy’s face.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Billy. ‘I thought . . . Nothing.’

  Creecher frowned and studied the boy’s face.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I have found water.’

  The giant led him to a stream meandering through the trees, opening out into a wide pool as black as oil.

  Billy drank and the water was cold and caught in his throat, making him cough and then laugh. It tasted good. He splashed some on his face and put his whole head under, laughing again when he emerged, flicking water from his hair.

  When he looked at Creecher, he saw the giant crouched over the pool, staring as though in a trance. He was staring at his own reflection. There was a look of black despondency on his face.

  ‘Hey!’ called Billy. The giant took a moment to respond. ‘We’ve got a bit of a problem, haven’t we?’

  ‘What is it?’ said Creecher.

  ‘Our bags are still on that coach,’ said Billy. ‘I can hardly follow Frankenstein dressed like a tramp, can I? We need money.’

  Creecher sighed, as if these things were a tedious bore to him.

  ‘What do you suggest, my friend?’

  Billy smiled.

  ‘I’m suggesting we do a spot of highway robbery!’ he said gleefully.

  Creecher frowned.

  ‘Why do you take such pleasure in theft?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said Billy defensively. ‘It strikes me that the whole world runs on theft of one kind or another. Anyway, I’m good at it.’

  Creecher stared at Billy, making the boy shift uneasily.

  ‘You hate the world, don’t you?’ said Creecher.

  ‘Maybe I do at that,’ said Billy. ‘The world ain’t exactly been no friend to me, has it? Besides, I don’t see you wasting much love on the world, neither.’

  Creecher’s mouth twisted into a half-smile.

  ‘True enough,’ said the giant. ‘We shall hate the world together, then.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ said Billy, shaking Creecher’s hand.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  Billy pulled the kerchief up over his nose and mouth and stepped out into the lane, holding his hand up.

  ‘Stop there, gents,’ he called. ‘I’m going to have to ask for your purses and pocket watches.’

  The carriage ground to a halt, the horses twitching nervously. There was a moment’s pause while the two men in the carriage looked at each other. Then one pulled a pistol from his pocket and they both laughed.

  ‘I don’t see that happening, friend,’ said the man with the pistol. ‘And I’m going to need a good reason why I shouldn’t blow your head off.’

  Billy nodded.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said.

  Creecher strode out from the shadows alongside the carriage, grabbed
the man’s arm and snatched the pistol from him, hurling him to the ground.

  ‘Is he a good enough reason for you?’

  The two men stared at Creecher in terror and the horses snorted and pulled at the reins.

  ‘Your valuables, gentlemen,’ said Billy. ‘NOW!’

  The men fumbled in their pockets, throwing anything they found to Billy.

  ‘Sure that’s everything?’ said Billy. ‘Only, he’s hungry and I promised him a snack. He’s fond of liver. Human liver, that is.’

  The driver whimpered and threw his bag, purse and watch at Billy’s feet.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said Billy with a bow. ‘My colleague and I wish you a safe journey.’

  As soon as his companion had scrabbled back into the carriage, the driver flicked the reins and they sped away down the lane. Billy had barely waited for them to disappear before he ripped his kerchief off and danced around.

  ‘Ha!’ he cried. ‘Who’d have thought it? Me, a highwayman!’

  Creecher seemed less than overwhelmed by the experience.

  ‘Don’t you ever get excited by anything?’ said Billy, annoyed at having his enthusiasm so dampened.

  ‘Not by robbery,’ Creecher replied.

  ‘Are you joking?’ said Billy. ‘I spent my life hearing tales of highwaymen. It don’t get much more exciting. Shhh. Someone else is coming.’

  The next person was a doctor on horseback. He had a pistol, but his horse was so terrified by Creecher’s presence that it threw him to the ground before he could pull the trigger.

  He did not have much of value on him, save for a pocket watch and a few coins, but Billy took the pistol before they sent him on his way.

  The next arrival in the lane was a student and his father, making their way to Oxford. Despite the fact that neither of them showed the least interest in resisting, Billy made a great show of twirling his pistol, and almost shot the student’s ear off when he accidentally fired it.

  ‘No more pistols,’ said Creecher, when the two men had disappeared after donating their purses, rings and watches. Before Billy could protest, the giant took the pistol from him and threw it far away across a hedge.

  ‘Hey!’ said Billy. ‘Do you know how much they cost? We could have sold that! It ain’t like you to be bothered about strangers getting damaged.’

  ‘It’s not them I’m worried about,’ said Creecher. ‘You’re as likely to blast your own head off as shoot anyone else.’

  Billy smiled. It was true. He had never fired a pistol before in his life.

  ‘You have a go, then,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You do the talking for a change. You don’t need a pistol, do you?’

  Creecher’s expression showed he wasn’t keen on the idea.

  ‘Go on,’ said Billy. ‘Or are you scared?’

  Creecher raised an eyebrow and gave Billy a withering look.

  ‘I am not scared.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Billy. ‘Next person who comes along.’

  They did not have to wait long. A few minutes later, a portly gentlemen came cantering along the lane on a large white horse. Creecher stepped out in front of him.

  ‘Stand and deliver!’ said the giant.

  The horse’s eyes nearly popped out of its head in fright. It reared up, kicking out towards Creecher with its hooves, and then turned and galloped away, its rider just about managing to stay in the saddle.

  ‘Stand and deliver?’ said Billy, stepping out into the lane himself and looking at the horse and rider receding into the distance. ‘No one says that.’

  ‘But it is what highwaymen say,’ said Creecher. ‘I have read –’

  ‘You and your books,’ Billy sighed. ‘You can’t believe everything you read, you know.’ He chuckled. ‘Look at him go!’

  Creecher joined in the chuckling and soon the two of them were howling with laughter.

  When he had dried his eyes and come to his senses, Billy decided it was time to go. The traffic coming from Oxford would have been forewarned of their presence and it would only be a matter of time before someone called the marshal. So they left the lane and moved on under the cover of woodland, until they could see the spires and towers of the ancient university thrusting through the horizon.

  They looked for somewhere for Creecher to stay and, just as at Windsor, a ruinous barn, partially overgrown and on the verge of collapse, seemed to provide a good hideout for the giant, who inspected it as though he were about to invest in a new property, nodding with approval as they emerged from its dark interior.

  Billy headed into town and paid for a room at a cheap but respectable inn. He told the innkeeper that he was a secretary for a legal firm in London, bringing some important paperwork to Oxford. When he mentioned that he had been the victim of a highway robbery but had managed to fight them off, the innkeeper was full of sympathy, and he received many hearty pats on the back from the customers in the bar. He enjoyed the lie.

  Billy had put all their loot into the bag they stole from the doctor and, once in his room, he emptied the contents out on the floor to assess their value. It was a good haul.

  He tested the bed, acknowledging its softness with a grateful grin, and headed back out into the street.

  Billy found himself staring in amazement. London was a building site, with new terraces and squares going up every week. What was old seemed tumbledown and rotten, soot-crusted, unloved.

  Here in Oxford the ancient buildings rose up all around in honey-coloured stone, bristling with spires and finials. It was like something from a fairy tale.

  Billy lost no time in buying himself a new suit of clothes with the money they had taken in their highway robberies, and then he went on the slightly more hazardous expedition of searching for someone to exchange their stolen goods for cash.

  He was nervous about such a venture in a foreign town, but it went smoothly enough. One of the college porters pointed the way for a few coins and, half an hour later, he was in the back room of a riverside public house, shaking hands on the deal and pocketing a purse full of cash.

  With the forwarding addresses he’d been given in London, it did not take long to find Frankenstein and Clerval either. They had rented rooms near the library.

  The two men were easier to follow here than in London. Oxford was a bustling town, but it was nothing like as busy as the city. Following them undetected without the cover of crowds, however, was a challenge.

  The difference between the two men seemed marked now. Their excursions took a similar form to those in London, with a mix of sightseeing, academic study and meetings. The difference was that this time it was only Frankenstein who had the meetings. Clerval’s business interests had evidently been taken care of in London, as he was now a tourist and nothing more.

  He and Frankenstein walked the streets, gazing up at the gateways of the hallowed colleges, and strolled along the river as punts glided by. They went to museums and galleries and then, as before, Frankenstein left his friend to go and pay visits on various learned gentlemen.

  One afternoon, after a few days of following the two men around Oxford, Billy noticed that Frankenstein seemed particularly impatient, and Clerval sensed it, too, taking every opportunity to try to raise his friend’s spirits.

  Clerval was clearly oblivious to Frankenstein’s work and no doubt put his friend’s mood down to the troubled past that Creecher had alluded to, or to his friend’s growing addiction to opium.

  When Clerval made it clear that he wanted to visit the Ashmolean Museum, Frankenstein refused, miming a headache and pointing in the direction of their hotel. Good-natured Clerval naturally offered to forgo the visit, but Frankenstein insisted and they parted company.

  But Frankenstein immediately veered from the course that would have taken him to the hotel and instead walked away from the centre of town until he came to an ivy-covered workshop. Billy waited for him to go inside and then crept stealthily closer.

  As with Frank
enstein’s warehouse in London, there was no easy way of seeing in. The only windows were high up in the tall walls. Billy was not disappointed. He had no real wish to see what Frankenstein might be up to inside.

  It seemed such an innocuous place, half covered in foliage. No one would have guessed the nature of what was going on there.

  But as unsettling as he found Frankenstein’s work, Billy felt compelled to know everything he could about the man and what he was doing. It had gone beyond a chore he performed for Creecher; a dark curiosity gnawed at him.

  Billy stood transfixed, not wishing to go further, but just as unwilling to turn and walk away. A blackbird trilled in a nearby tree and shook him from his trance. He was about to leave when Frankenstein suddenly emerged from the door.

  The scientist came out into the light like an animal from its lair. His face was pale and drawn and there were beads of sweat on his forehead. He fixed Billy with a fierce gaze that Billy found hard to hold.

  ‘Who are you?’ Frankenstein demanded, in a similar accent to Creecher’s. ‘What do you want here?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Billy. ‘I lost my way.’

  Frankenstein looked unconvinced and started to walk towards him. Billy cursed himself for being so stupid. He turned and ran, with Frankenstein calling after him.

  But now Frankenstein had seen him. He would have to be more careful.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  Billy walked back to Creecher’s barn at dusk. He decided it might be best not to mention bumping into Frankenstein.

  The light was swiftly draining away and the moon was already dimly glowing from behind the sooty clouds. Creecher stepped out in front of Billy, making him jump back with a cry.

  ‘Can’t you just cough or something,’ said Billy, clutching his chest, ‘so as I’d know you were there?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Creecher. ‘I did not mean to startle you.’

  Billy took a deep breath.

  ‘Yeah, well. No harm done. Frankenstein has a place down by the canal. He’s back at work.’