The Best British Fantasy 2013

by Steve Haynes

  ‘Tigermaw. I can see you.’ He waited, staring out from the gloom. All he heard was the noise of the ocean.

  Satisfied that his mind was playing tricks, Peter gave his attention back to the Ticktock. Dipping a small scrubbing brush into a coconut shell containing a solution of salt and vinegar, he set to work removing the patina from the brass.

  A stone struck him on his left temple.

  ‘Damnation!’ His eyes flashed aside. This time he saw feathers of afro hair poking up from a crop of rocks at the cave’s entrance.

  ‘Go away before the Rogues get you, girl!’ he called, slamming down the scrubbing brush.

  As quick as Peter liked to think he was, his reactions didn’t compare to Tigermaw’s. She fired off two more stones from her slingshot. One struck Peter’s thigh. The other nicked his ear.

  ‘Enough, Tigermaw! Don’t start what you can’t finish.’ Using a ruler as a makeshift catapult, he sent two slugs of nails towards the rocks. Apparently the scattergun approach worked. He heard a gasp.

  ‘Peter Pandora, you are a sorcerer. You deserve a hundred stones upon your head,’ came the cry from the rocks.

  ‘And you are slow brained, and a savage to boot!’

  ‘What are you cooking up today, evil boy?’ demanded Tigermaw, standing up suddenly and striding inside the cave. She approached his workbench, hands on hips, lemur-large eyes blinking as they adjusted to the dark. How fantastically fearsome she looked, thought Peter. Her face painted with white swirls. Her afro hair spread high and wide like wings. The shift she wore was a faded rose pattern. Her feet were bare.

  Tigermaw pointed at the copper barrel of the Ticktock. ‘Will that be a tail or a nose?’

  ‘Neither. It is a method of upping the stakes against the Rogues.’

  ‘Ah, so it is a weapon.’ Tigermaw glared, daring Peter to deny it.

  ‘It is the weapon, savage girl. I’m going to fill those Rogues with so much lead they won’t have brains intact to bother my Lost Boys and me ever again.’

  ‘By Rogues you mean the demons you yourself conjured? They are mischief-makers, but nothing more serious than children in need of their father’s affection. But instead you cast them out as failed experiments.’

  Tigermaw leant in close. Peter felt her breath on his lips. It made them tingle.

  ‘Would you have us behave the same with your sister, Bella?’ She stabbed a finger up at the roof of the cave. ‘Bella is angry with her maker for taking away her parents, making you a stranger, and giving her an unusual nature. Should she be destroyed too?’

  Peter folded his arms across his chest. ‘What do you know about my inventions? You have no more right to apportion feelings to a Rogue than to a Jackfruit. As for Bella, she is a free spirit who must be allowed to fly. Your people should not try to contain her, else she might just rise up and bite you on the nose.’

  ‘Ah, Bella is a good soul,’ said Tigermaw with a dismissive flick of a hand. ‘The only bad around here is a little boy who plays with flesh and machinery over choosing a normal life living alongside his sister.’ The girl’s big black eyes softened. ‘My family will still take you in, Peter. You can have a home.’

  ‘And see my life drain away until I am old and wrinkled, just another bag of bones for your people to cherish. No thanks. I’d rather stay here with my Lost Boys.’

  Tigermaw sighed; to Peter, it was a sign of submission and he put his nose in the air.

  ‘And what about the Rogues?’ It was Tigermaw’s turn to cross her arms. Under the lamplight, her white war paint was luminescent.

  Peter picked up the scrubbing brush and attacked the Ticktock’s patina again. ‘I’ll kiss each and every one goodnight with this then fashion myself a grandfather clock from their remains.’

  Tigermaw stared at him, and for a moment Peter saw himself through her eyes as the true monster. He started scrubbing again. When he next looked up, the girl had gone.

  Lying in bed listening to his mother’s bedtime stories on the gramacorda, Peter would occasionally feel the pinch of loneliness. At such times he would question the ethics of his companion machines. Life was his to give or take at the flick of a switch or the turn of a key. But where he had really strayed from the moral path was in his creation of the Rogues – in particular, Hookie. Most Rogues owed their origin to the livestock his parents had introduced to the island – pigs, goats, sheep. Hookie, though, was a rangy old orangutan his mother had rescued from a street performer in Borneo. Shot through with arthritis and pining for Wendy, Peter had decided to put the creature out of its misery. But had the family pet deserved vivisection and animaltronic rebirth? Had any of those poor dumb animals wanted the gifts he had bestowed – intelligence, conscious thought, and all the suffering that came with an awareness of one’s own mortality.

  That these moments of lucidity were rare testified to Peter’s absolute self-belief. Secure in his divine right to mix, mess and mesh, he’d created monsters. Now it was his choice to destroy them.

  Evening settled around the circumference of the camp. Tootles had done an excellent job of collecting dry wood. The fire pit roared, spitting sparks like orange shooting stars. Slightly had unfastened a little at the neck again. He walked to and fro, muttering, ‘Midnight feast, he says. Go cook it up, he says. What from, say I? Fairy dust?’

  In spite of his limited larder, Slightly had magicked up a decent spread of deep fried hissing cockroach with its greasy chicken taste, vegetable and coconut curry, a platter of bright orange jackfruit pieces – resembling dragon scales laid out on a knight’s shield – spiced rice, and crab claws.

  In lieu of a table, Peter had instructed the Lost Boys to bring up a bench from the workshop. No one had bothered to clean it so they ate amongst sawdust and iron fillings.

  The moon was fantastic – pocked and shimmering like a cherished half a crown. Everyone tucked into the feast, Peter crunching up cockroaches and greasing his chin with crab juices; the Lost Boys taking great mouthfuls, swilling the useless matter around their jaws and disgorging the lot into personal spittoons. Peter didn’t mind. He had his feast. Now all he needed were a few extra guests.

  Ten more minutes passed. The Lost Boys were in danger of mauling all the food.

  ‘Leave some to attract the blighters,’ he shouted. His mechanical companions froze mid-grab. They brought their arms back down slowly and fell silent.

  ‘They should be here by now.’ Peter bit his bottom lip, scowled and forced himself to drop the childish expression. ‘Fetch the gramacorda, Curly, and don’t get your hair stuck in it this time when you wind it. Twin things, bring the music scrolls.’ He crossed his arms and stared out at the velvet dark. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’

  Before long, Curly and the twin tinies descended from the tree house on the elevator platform. Curly set the gramacorda down on one end of the workbench. Each twin carried a number of cylinders.

  ‘What song shall we have?’ demanded Peter. ‘Whist the Bogey Man? Jolly Little Polly On A Tin Gee Gee?’

  ‘Daisy Day!’ cried Tootles, patting his tin-pot belly contently.

  Peter ignored him. ‘Maple Leaf Rag, it is.’

  Curly saluted at the order. Locating the right cylinder, he slid out the foil sheet, fed it in then cranked the stylus into place. As he worked the handle, his wire hair bobbing, he became just another extension of the machine.

  The ragtime tune plinked and plonked, cutting through the peace of the forest like swords through reeds. Peter tapped his feet to the music while watching the peculiar lurching dance of the twin tinies in the centre of the clearing. They made for pleasant little morsels of bait, he decided, his eyes sharp and his mouth tight. Curly sent the crank round and round, keeping up the tempo. Tibs forgot his sentry duty and belched steam from his mouth as he tried to recreate the musical notes. Only Tootles remained seated, no doubt eyeing up the last
dregs in the oil can.

  Peter strained to listen past the music and the mechanical orchestra. Was that the drag of scythes across tree trunks? There was no wind but something whistled out among the reeds.

  ‘Hush now, Curly.’ He glared at the Lost Boy who let go of the crank and steeped away from the gramacorda as if it was nothing to do with him whatsoever. The rest of the gang fell still and the silence pressed in.

  Yes, there it was – the distinctive yo-ho-ho of Rogues’ pistons and the swish of their footfall. They came through the reeds, fifteen not-quite-anythings – his animalisations. Bred on steel skeletons with nerves of copper wire and clinking steam-driven insides, the Rogues were the monsters to his Frankenstein.

  Stepping out from the reeds, the creatures spaced themselves out around the edges of the clearing. Each carried a makeshift weapon of a long wooden spike or a rock hammer. They showed their silver teeth and breathed heavily.

  Lastly came Hookie, two pig Rogues moving aside to make way for him. The Lost Boys seemed to understand the point of the feast – that big shiny homing beacon – and stood up straight, chests plumped. Peter had not built it in them to know fear -which was not to suggest either the Lost Boys or the Rogues had turned out as pliable as he might have imagined. This was especially true in Hookie’s case.

  ‘Peter Pandora.’ The ape-man spoke slowly, feeling the weight of each syllable. His tremendous, muscular shoulders were matted in orange hair. His metal breastplate reflected in the moonlight. ‘What a wonderful feast. And music too. Are you holding a party for us?’

  ‘A party for Rogues? What a notion! No, Hookie, I am throwing you a wake,’ hissed Peter.

  Hookie’s long arms swung by his sides. The huge scythes serving as hands glinted.

  ‘In which case, I must apologise, for I have made the intolerable faux pas of attending my own wake while still alive. Which, I have to say, seems an idea worth prompting. After all, there ain’t a man alive who wouldn’t risk a breech of etiquette under those circumstances.’

  ‘Except you aren’t a man, are you Hookie. So how could you know?’

  ‘Ah, that old chestnut. So you can give an old ape a voice to speak but refuse him humanity on the grounds his nose is a little too bulbous.’ Hookie gestured to his hairless grey face. ‘Or his hands a little too extraordinary.’ He held up his scythes.

  ‘You gave me a headache,’ said Slightly, lunging forward. He stopped short of the ape-man, his motoring whirring inside his chest.

  ‘I did? At least your master was good enough to put you back together again. I wonder if he would do me the same kindness.’ Hookie’s seven-foot frame towered over Slightly’s four. Peter had always liked to experiment with proportions.

  ‘Poor Lost Boy. A windup doll without a soul.’

  ‘Don’t go claiming a soul now, Hookie. You are an animal with a metal spine at best.’

  Peter was pleased not to flinch when Hookie knocked Slightly aside and ran at him, one scythe stopping an inch short of his throat.

  ‘If that is all I am, it is of your making. I have begged to continue my education under your tutorage. But no, the second I show a mite of interest in your precious books, you banish me and my kind from the only home we’ve ever known.’ The sickle hand shook slightly. ‘Well, if you don’t mind awfully, the Rogues and I are inclined to move back in and boot you and your Puffing Billies out.’

  ‘You can try, Hookie.’ Peter stepped back and grabbed hold of the ropes, activating the platform winch. He rose rapidly towards the tree house, leaving the ape-man behind. Looking out, he saw Hookie beat his scythes against his breastplate and let out a deep bellow. Peter responded in kind, beating his chest with his fists. It was invitation enough for the Rogues to attack. Two pigs took on Nibs and Slightly, their spears clattering off the Lost Boys’ chest plates. Not that Rogues were discouraged that easily. They drove the spears at Slightly’s skull and Nibs’ tessellated arm panels. Slightly lost his head. Nibs shed scales, exposing his inner workings.

  The twin tinies fared better against the reanimated goats. Forming tight little balls, the twins propelled themselves at the goats’ legs. Horns battered off them, ineffectual against the rudder feet and steel bellies. While Tootles belly-flopped the sheep, Curly added his muscle to the assault, spiking the Rogues with his wiry hair and pulling their tails.

  ‘Ah, my fine men. Show no mercy to the Rogues!’ Peter smiled. It felt phenomenally good to witness the carnage below. He was a god ruling over a universe of his own making.

  ‘Do we honour you with our split guts and flesh wounds?’ Hookie called up from the base of the largest coconut tree supporting the tree house. Unlike the rest of Peter’s creations with their colourful glass orbs, Hookie retained the deep brown eyes of the orangutan. Peter felt a pang of longing for the companionship of the wise old ape he had murdered.

  ‘You are to leave the island and swim far far away,’ he told Hookie. ‘No more night raids, no more crying at the moon, no more effort to be what you are not.’

  ‘And what is that, Peter Pandora?’ Hookie drove the scythes into the trunk of the tree and began to inch his way up. ‘I am not to be intelligence, and yet you built me so. I am not to behave like an animal and yet you insist I refrain from bettering myself.’ The scythes scraped up and in at the trunk. Hookie’s grey muzzle moved closer.

  ‘You are missing the point of servitude,’ spat Peter. ‘You want to question and learn and exceed your master.’ He danced off to the back of the platform and ripped down the tarpaulin. The sight of the Ticktock set him aglow. With its copper barrel restored and polished up, the steam-canon looked like a piece of the sun. One end was enclosed in a chemical furnace chamber, the other loaded with gunshot.

  Peter stood behind the canon, hand going to the firing valve just as the first of Hookie’s great claws appeared over the platform’s edge. The ape-man’s shoulders rippled with muscle mass as he hauled himself up and got to his feet.

  Hookie’s deep brown eyes settled on the Ticktock, which clicked over in anticipation of being discharged.

  ‘I ask for books and you give me bullets?’

  Peter jutted his chin. ‘You should have towed the line, Hookie.’

  ‘And you should have left me an ignorant ape!’ Hookie lunged forward, scythes whirring. Peter tripped the firing valve; water gushed into the trigger chamber, evaporated in an instant and discharged the canon. A starburst of gunshot escaped the barrel. As the ape-man fell, the tip of one of his scythes nicked Peter’s cheek. He lay at his creator’s feet, blood escaping his flesh parts. His metal guts wheezed and spluttered.

  Peter rolled the ape-man over to the platform’s edge. He rested a foot on the creature’s bloodstained breastplate.

  ‘Goodbye Hookie.’

  He pushed the body overboard.

  Seeing their captain defeated, the Rogues took flight into the forest. Peter didn’t mind. He could always pick them off another time. Below, his Lost Boys had suffered rather badly. Slightly’s head lay a foot or so from the rest of him, mouth flapping like a fish out of water. Tootles wobbled about on one spot, belly skewered by a spear. Nibs had split open again, wires and cabling erupting from his chest plate. Curly appeared to have been scalped. Only the twin tinies looked well preserved as they circled the clearing, fists raised, rudder feet flapping.

  Peter put his hands on his hips. He nodded in satisfaction. Victory was his. Letting his head fall back, he opened his throat and crowed.

  It took Peter three days to repair his Lost Boys. Rather than drag their hefty machinery down to his workshop, he chose to bring his tools to the clearing where he worked beneath the glare of the sun and well into the night. He constructed a canopy from palm leaves, which he strung together. In the evenings when the temperature was still intense, he stacked the fire pit high, more for company than any other purpose. Watching the flames, he would fancy he caug
ht the gleam of eyes out among the reeds. Sometimes he thought they belonged to animals gone Rogue. Other times, he believed they were bright black – Tigermaw’s. Once he thought he saw a glimpse of yellow hair and he called out Bella’s name urgently, like a lost sheep calling for its mother. When no answer came, he cursed his stupidity and returned to tinkering with his toys.

  At last, his band of steam and clockwork men was put back together again. Slightly uttered those now immortal words, ‘I have a headache’, before stalking off to the platform and setting the winch in motion. Soon he was installed in the safety of his kitchen, putting Curly to good use as his commis. Tootles broke out into an idiotic monologue on the mating habits of lemurs and Peter was sorely tempted to smash him up again. Nibs and the twin tinies seemed unaware of any time lapse and spun round on the spot, fists wielded as if still engaged in brawling. Peter sent the three off into the forest to hunt, their clanging and hissing gradually receding until the night fell quiet again. Cicadas pulsed in the grasses. He could hear the ebb and flow of the ocean. It was all very beautiful, and all very dull. Not for the first time since the great ape had fallen, Peter found his gaze returning to Hookie. Flies had bothered the remains all day. The creature’s muzzle was mud grey, the jaw open, the protruding tongue still and mollusc-like.

  Peter approached the body and gave it a firm prod with his toe. He crossed his arms and stared up at the blanket of stars overhead. For an instant, he felt the magnitude of his insignificance next to that heavenly expanse. Pointlessness threatened to crush him alive. He hated the thought and forced it aside. He needed more than the Lost Boys. He needed someone to truly show him the meaning of love and of hate.

  His gaze returned to Hookie. Dare he attempt to reanimate the ape-man’s decomposing corpse? It struck him as a dark art but no more so than the acts of a twelve-year-old boy who creates living creatures out of flesh and metal. And didn’t all heroes need a foe to fight?