“Look you strange ignorant nutter!” he screamed down the headset, forcing the entire office to turn and stare at him, the ones at the back doing their best impressions of meerkats. “I work in an office! I wear a bloody five pound shirt and trouser set not dirty work overalls! I type on a keyboard and my eyes bleed from staring at a computer screen all day long! I DO NOT FIX ELECTRICALS! I wouldn’t even know where to start! And I am sick and tired of mental weirdos like yourself calling up from bloody forests making my day a living nightmare! Just one day… just the once… I want to go back to my tiny little flat, sit down to a quiet meal and relax without the gaggling sound of Turkish babble invading my space… without worrying that I am going to find any remnants of my now ex-girlfriends lover wrapped in tissues behind my furniture… and without my head throbbing from morons like you really pissing me off!”
There was an eerie silence that echoed across the call centre. Tumbleweed would have rolled across the floor if the floors of large office spaces happened to have tumbleweed randomly roaming the building. Somewhere in the distance a passing vulture crowed.
“So you won’t be coming to fix my electrical?” asked the voice on the other end of the telephone.
To say that Charlie Pinwright exploded would be an understatement. If you could imagine the force of a nuclear explosion all combined within one pasty, slightly pot bellied, slightly small man with messy hair then you are half way to understanding what happened on that cold autumn day in King George’s Electrical Repairs call centre. People actually ducked for cover, diving to avoid the oncoming wrath. Charlie, after screaming a number of curses and abuse down the phone at the strange caller on the other end, slammed the receiver down and let, what could only be called the largest, most powerful and terrifying temper tantrum a grown man could ever throw, literally rip. He was madly stomping his feet, throwing objects and wailing like a mad banshee on heat.
It was not a pretty sight and Charlie instantly regretted the outburst. He slumped back onto his chair, his face red and his heart beating like a thousand horses running wild in his chest. Once again all was silent. His colleagues eventually dared to peer their heads up from behind their desks, their bodies tense, ready to dive back under again at the first sign of trouble. Everyone stared at Charlie, making him rather uncomfortable. He was not used to people looking at him for more than a few seconds. People never usually noticed him, but now people were noticing him and he didn’t like it.
From the back of the room someone whispered, “Who is that anyway?”
“PENFOLD!”
Geoffrey George was possibly more furious than Charlie had just been. He looked like his heart would give up and fling itself to the depths of hell at any time. His fists were so tightly clenched that the rings on his fingers dug into his palms leaving imprints of jewel stones on his skin for the rest of his self indulgent – if short – life.
“I heard ALL of that you foolish, foolish man!” he screamed across the call centre as he stormed from his office, his voice cracking. “I was monitoring your call… I monitor all calls! I am the king… I hear everything that happens in my electrical repairing world! And you… you my lad have gone too far! You shall never be a prince or a duke! You will be a slob… a loser… a nobody… a lump of crap on the bottom of someone far better than you will ever be’s shoe! Penfold… YOU ARE FIRED!”
Charlie sat in silence. He was exhausted. He had just experienced a major anger outbreak. One that he had not felt since that day his mother had picked up the wrong child at school. His energy was spent. He felt like a deflated balloon and looked a little like one too. A strange calmness passed over him. He felt cool breezes in his hair and warm sun on his face.
“Did you hear me Penfold?” Geoffrey continued, lowering his face until he was almost nose to nose with Charlie’s. “I said you are fired.”
“You can’t fire me King,” he said slowly, “because I quit!”
“Fine,” Geoffrey smiled smugly, “I was hoping you would say that. Now I don’t have to pay you for this month’s work.”
Charlie blinked. “You can’t do that,” he said quietly.
“I think you’ll find I can! Check your contract Penfold! Now get the hell out of my kingdom!”
Charlie stood, picked up his few things, threw his dirty backpack on his shoulder and began to head towards the door in a walk of shame. ‘Say something,’ he thought to himself, ‘don’t let that fat bastard get the last word. Say something!’ Charlie arrived at the door, turned the handle and exited the room.
A moment later he thrust his head back through the door shouting, “The names not Penfold… it’s PINWRIGHT!”
With that he was gone, never to step foot back inside the building again.
Geoffrey George straightened his velvet suit jacket and wiped the left sleeve of saliva that he had accidentally spat onto it. His bad mood subsided slightly in thinking that two of those Asian child workers must have died making that sleeve. Or at least lost a finger or two.
“Back to work,” he grumbled before heading back into his office.
At once the busy rumble of life in a call centre returned. Phones were answered, keyboards were tapped. One hundred and fifty four pairs of eyes turned back to their computer screens. From the back of the room someone muttered, “Pinwright? So that was what that guy was called. I did wonder.”
Within five minutes Charlie’s name had been completely forgotten, including his face and that he had ever worked at King George’s Electrical Repairs at all.
Chapter 2
Peasant wagon. Scum train. Disease carriage. In other words… the local bus service.
Charlie sat on a chewing gum infested seat in the centre of the bus. A smelly, twitchy lady sat next to him constantly elbowing him in the ribs. In front of him sat a man who was clearly drunk, shouting random profanities at the school children on the bus, who were the worst of all. Small people. Charlie had never connected with small people even when he was a small person. His dream of a better world would be to gather up all of the children and place them on a desert island until they reached adulthood and were allowed back into the rest of society. True most of them would have died of starvation or thirst or even boiled in the hot blistering desert sun, but Charlie wondered if that would be such a bad thing? At least the only ones that made it to adulthood would be fighters, strong folk who had learnt the harsh realities of life at a young age and would succeed. Unlike the folk on this bus – including himself. Charlie often wondered if life would have treated him better had he been sent to a desert island as a child. He doubted that he would have survived all on his own. Death would have been quick for him. Either that or he would have gone insane and eaten his own feet.
A schoolboy twanged an elastic band that hit Charlie on the back of his head. He closed his eyes, counted to ten and pretended as though nothing had happened. Children were different these days. True, there were plenty of little shits when Charlie had been young, but these days they all seemed to be little shits.
As he stared out of the window, attempting to pretend there were no smelly or drunk people, no annoying children and definitely nobody playing their rubbish music really loud from their phone, Charlie took in the beautiful landscape of his city.
Empty, boarded up houses. Burnt out cars. Vulgar graffiti scrawled on walls. He wondered if he would miss the world should he no longer be a part of it. He was sure that the world would not miss him.
Ping!
The microwave door opened and the smell of fake cheese and melted plastic hit Charlie’s abused nostrils. Another microwave lasagne. Microwave meals were all he had. That and spam and eggs, but as strange as it sounds Charlie had never learned how to fry an egg, and didn’t have a clue what to do with spam. He didn’t even know how to open the tin with that strange little key that came with it.
The slimy ‘supposedly’ pasta slipped off the tray and slopped onto Charlie’s chipped plate with a sickly sound usually heard in toilet cubicles. He pr
odded it with his fork, watching as it almost seemed to squirm and move out of the way. Charlie sighed. He hadn’t had a proper meal since his girlfriend had moved out, not that she ever cooked. They usually ordered take-away food but now Charlie found himself unable to face ordering it. Too many memories, like the time they ordered Chinese in Chinese voices. Hilarious times. She always did make brilliant cakes however. At least he thought she did. Recently he realised that she was probably given all of those cakes by Stavros her Spanish cake decorating lover. His mind raced as he imagined them making love on the work top, icing licked from their naked bodies, cherries on nipples, their bodies entwined making them appear as one large two-headed cake monster.
Suddenly Charlie was no longer in the mood for microwave lasagne. He threw it into the bin and picked up the last remaining iced bun from the cake tin. A final reminder of his ex-girlfriend and her sordid affair. He wondered how safe the bun was to eat after the things they would have gotten up to whilst Stavros was decorating them. Charlie shrugged his shoulders and ate it anyway. What difference would a little gonorrhoea of the mouth make to an already rubbish day?
He slumped himself down on his recliner chair and picked up the remote control for his games console. Luckily his butcher family room mates were not at home. Probably out killing a cow for their latest pie. So he laid back, switched on his favourite online fantasy game and began to play. This was his life. Controlling a computer Dwarf battling his way through enemies who were controlled by people from all over the world he had never met but called his friends. They were his only real friends and he couldn’t even call them real. Where would they be when he needed them? Probably battling a giant mutant in Cyber Devil Warriors 2.
The phone rang but as always he let it go to the answer machine. He was too engrossed in the game, almost beating the sexy female Elf controlled by the also sexy Sasha from Sweden. Although deep in his mind Charlie knew that sexy Sasha was actually Dave from Kent.
The voice on the answer machine said, “This is Lorraine Pinwright speaking… I found this number in my personal telephone book and wondered who it was? If I know you, please call me back so I can add your name in my book. Thanks!”
Charlie sighed. “It’s me you dumb bint… your son,” he scowled, throwing the television remote control in the direction of the phone.
‘YOU LOSE!’ the voice from the computer game blasted out. Charlie’s jaw dropped in shock. The sexy Elf beat his sturdy Dwarf? Impossible! Sasha – or Dave – must have cheated somehow! An Elf doesn’t even have the ability to perform a high jumping lightning flash!
Sitting in the silence of his room, as the cold autumn sun began to set, Charlie felt like crying. However he had not cried since he was seven years old when his mother had believed he was a burglar, hit him on the head with a frying pan and thrown him out of the house. Charlie still to this day blamed that frying pan incident for the way his face looked. In truth he was just born that way.
So, instead of crying, he sat in silence, hoping that by some strange turn of events, there would be something like a knock on the door that would turn his life around.
There was a knock on the door.
Charlie nearly jumped out of his skin.
The door knocked again.
Charlie slowly looked upwards as if whatever God was up there had finally given him an answer. He stood up from his recliner, opened the door and stared. A man in a suit with jet black hair, a moustache, plastic-like skin and a briefcase stared back at him.
“Can I help you?” Charlie grumbled, realising this was not a messenger from God, but instead some sort of sleazy sales man. He would have looked sleazy without the moustache so with it he was uber-sleaze. Lord of the sleaze.
The moustached man stared at Charlie and actually sniffed the air around him. “Hmm…” he began, “you are shorter than I had expected.” The man suddenly pushed past him, entering his flat and began poking around his belongings.
“Excuse me!” Charlie gasped, “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Just checking, just checking!” The strange man picked up Charlie’s games console and smashed it on the floor, checking the wires and circuit boards inside. “Yes… very nice, very nice indeed!”
Charlie’s eyes sucked into his head as he rushed for the remains of his prized possession. Hearing it fizz and spark as it sat in three pieces in his hands, Charlie wailed out loud. “Who the hell are you?” he shouted at the man who was now beginning to pull apart his stereo system. “If you are some relation to those crazy butchers…”
“Butchers? You mean Bagnar the Butcherer? I assure you Charlie I am no relation of his! He's a completely different species to me! Over a thousand people were killed by that maniac! I am a much more reputable person… sort of!”
“How do you know my name?”
The man stopped and stared at Charlie. “I spoke to you earlier today,” he said, “do you not remember? You were coming to fix my electrical! You told me you would be with me in one hour’s time. Alas… you never showed up so I thought I would come and find you!”
A cold shudder ran through Charlie’s spine. Who was this psychopath? Here, standing in his flat, was the strange man from the ‘forest’. The man who cost Charlie his job. How had he found him and why was he smashing up all of his electrical items? His head began to rush, blood filled his brain, terrifying thoughts flickered through his mind. The strange man’s plastic-like face seemed to whirl around his head. The moustache reaching out to tickle him. Images began to haunt him. Geoffrey George, his mother, his ex-girlfriend, his Turkish roommates, all began to spin around him, laughing menacingly. He was attacked by a sudden bout of uncontrollable flatulence. He knew he was going to faint.
The last thing he remembered was collapsing into the arms of the moustached man. He vaguely felt the sensation of being lifted into the air followed by a strange shimmering, glimmering sensation before Charlie Pinwright’s world went black.
Chapter 3
When his eyes opened, Charlie Pinwright found himself staring upwards at a very bright light that burned into the retinas. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and, very confused, took in his surroundings.
He was inside some sort of metallic room with round circular walls. There were control panels scattered around the walls, which included bright flashing lights and millions upon millions of tiny switches and buttons. At opposite sides of the room were two doors. One was a simple plain metal door. The other was large and grand with a strange locking mechanism sticking garishly off the side of it. To his left was a tall, clear cylindrical pipe with remnants of bright green fluid running from the lighted roof to the carpeted floor. Charlie took a second glance at the carpet. It was dark red with flowery patterns spewed across it. It reminded him of the carpet in an old person’s home. Not really fitting with the rest of the room’s style.
Charlie lifted himself off the cold metal table he lay on and moved over to one of the small portholes, attempting to look through it. It was black, almost as if some strange film had covered the glass. He stepped over to the door with the lock and tried to open it. Nothing happened.
Where was he? What was he doing here? He tried to remember what had happened. He couldn’t really recall…
The door opposite him opened with a slide and a swoosh, sounding like someone blowing through a gap in their teeth. Charlie turned around and saw the man with the plastic looking face and the moustache enter the room. Suddenly it all came back to him.
“You!” he shouted. “Where am I? What do you want with me?”
The moustached man smiled – a smile that was slightly too large for his face. “You are inside my electrical… and you are here to repair it,” he said happily.
“Inside your electrical?” Charlie repeated. “What are you talking about you strange, freak of a man?”
The moustached man walked around the edge of the room, flicking a number of the switches. Strange beeps echoed throughout the metal room. The ligh
ts began to flash. It reminded Charlie of a seventies disco. He imagined a big disco ball on the roof and John Travolta strutting his stuff in that white suit to that fine classic by the Bee Gees. He imagined flares, afro hair and the ground to be a large dance floor. Admittedly it would be a dance floor with the worst taste in carpet in the world. Again he thought of the old people’s home. Now it was a seventies old persons disco and that made a whole new set of images appear in his mind. Grannies in hot pants and roller-skates doing the hustle and the bump.
Then suddenly all of the twinkling lights and beeps died. He shook his head and focused on the very real and worrying situation he had found himself in.
“You see?” said the moustached man, “my electrical is broken.”
“I… see…” Charlie said slowly, playing along. If he could keep this weirdo talking for long enough he might find a way to escape instead of being tortured, murdered and having bad things done to his rear that he dare not think of. Probably in that order. “So this is your electric appliance? A large… electrical… room?”
“Hmm? Room?” the man said whilst opening a can of some strange looking food and pouring it into his mouth. To Charlie it looked like raw sewage. It smelt like raw sewage. In fact it rather looked and smelt like the contents of a toilet after one too many vodkas. Still, the man seemed to enjoy it.
“Oh this is not just one room… there are many here,” the man continued, “all broken. As I said on your speak and listen device… my electrical is broken.”
‘Many rooms?’ thought Charlie. ‘Is this some sort of weird dungeon? Am I going to turn into this man’s gimp?’ He edged further away from the man until his back was against the wall. He had expected the metal wall to be cold but it was surprisingly warm to the touch. Soft too. Charlie wondered what type of metal was warm and soft!
“What is this place?” he said eventually.
Intergalactic Terrorist (New Dimension Book 1) Page 2