‘Why would the power just come on…’ muttered Grandma Patty.
Then one of the lights fell to the ground and landed just behind them. The noise was ear-splitting as the tube shattered and the casing and chain clattered. The two of them jumped forward and yelped. Tom rolled on the floor then sprang athletically to his feet. He stared down at them, amazed at the speed with which they had found full life again.
Then another light fell. Then another.
‘Let’s get out of here!’ shouted Grandma Patty. The door she’d come from was furthest away, so they headed to one on the nearest wall, leading deeper into the building.
Lights popped and exploded all around them. The air fizzed with electricity.
Tom got to the door first. Thankfully it wasn’t locked. He waited the extra couple of seconds for his grandma to catch up, and then they burst through the entryway together, slamming the door behind them.
They found themselves in a similar room to the one they had just left, although he was relieved to see that the lights were behaving normally. As he looked to the far side though, he could see a major difference. In bright yellow paint, across the back wall, someone had sprayed the words Life’s a Beach! in five-foot high letters.
Wooden pallets had been used to make a rickety structure that loosely resembled a shed.
Or a hut? he thought.
And from the right-hand corner of the room, a dishevelled man lurched towards them.
He wore what looked like army fatigues but they were tattered and bedraggled, hanging off him in strips in places. His face was blotchy and pink. He had a bulbous nose, busted blood vessels running through it.
‘He’s just a tramp,’ said Grandma Patty, but she took her stick back from Tom and raised it so it rested against her shoulder. ‘Hello, friend!’
As he got closer they could see his red-rimmed eyes, and mucus encrusted in his stubbly top lip.
And the large hammer in his right hand.
He groaned and grumbled as he approached. Tom couldn’t make out the words, but he certainly wasn’t welcoming them into his life. As he lifted the hammer, Tom’s heart began to pound. His mind made a quick leap to his story, and he tried to reassure himself that George and Helena didn’t get hurt so that meant that they’d be okay.
The tramp had reached Grandma. He didn’t attempt to speak to her but just swung away. Patty sidestepped to her left, twirled her stick around and struck the man in his lower back. He gave a howl and span around on one heel, rather inelegantly, so that he faced her again.
The hammer hand moved through the air.
This time the head of the hammer caught Grandma Patty flush on her elbow, causing her to drop her stick. She cried out and stumbled backwards, her left hand reaching for the injured joint.
He hit her! thought Tom. She’s hurt! It can happen!
She winced as she tended to her elbow. The tramp laughed and shuffled towards her, arm raised once more.
Tom charged forward and tackled the tramp at the waist. Caught off guard, he lost his footing and they both went sprawling on the warehouse floor. With a grunt the tramp pushed Tom off him with his free hand. He still grasped the hammer in the other. He muttered something offensive about kids.
Tom got to his feet and rejoined Grandma Patty. She’d regained her composure, and her stick, although her injured arm hung limply by her side. She shouted to the tramp. ‘We don’t want any trouble! We’re going to leave now!’
He uncrumpled himself from the floor, standing as tall as he could.
And then he got taller.
Tom couldn’t believe what he was seeing. As the tramp laughed at them, and flexed and stretched, he grew bigger. Six feet. Seven feet tall. He wasn’t stopping either.
Neither were Patty and Tom. They turned to run.
Another giant tramp blocked their path. This one was stick thin and gaunt in the face; even at eight feet tall he wasn’t wider than Patty. But he was terrifying. He opened his mouth wide to reveal yellow and broken teeth. He yelled out: ‘My beach! My beach!’
He pushed past Patty and Tom and headed straight for the other tramp. They slammed into each other, like starved sumo wrestlers. Despite the height of the ceiling their heads were now nearly touching the top. As they rocked back and forth they smashed into the hanging fluorescents, sending more lights crashing to the floor.
Tom and Patty tried to navigate a safe path to a door and their escape, but exploding lights, live electric wires and the outstretched legs of battling giants always seemed to block their path.
Then they saw the skeletal tramp swing his fist. It crunched into the temple of the other, sending him flying into a wall, rocking the very structure of the building. The air filled with dust as almost every surface seemed agitated by the impact. It made it virtually impossible to see.
Once it had cleared, Tom looked around swiftly. The stricken giant tramp had disappeared; only the thinner, second one remained. He had to stoop to fit in the room. He stared down at Patty and Tom. ‘My beach!’ he bellowed, prodding himself in the chest with a bony finger.
Then he reached out towards them. He’d got so big that he could easily get his hands around the pair if they allowed themselves to be caught. His size was making it awkward for him to move with any speed, but they didn’t stand a chance if he reached them. Tom wondered whether they would just disappear too if they met their doom in this story world he had created.
And then I’d never see Mum and Dad again.
‘What are we going to do, Grandma?’ he yelled.
‘This one’s on you, dearie! My arm’s too sore!’ With her good arm she took her stick and looped the curve around one of the loose live cables on the floor. As she lifted it and the exposed edge dragged along the floor, sparks flicked and spat.
Grandma Patty held it up in Tom’s direction. ‘Be very careful!’ she said. ‘You know what to do. Be quick!’
‘Electric eels?’ Tom asked.
‘Electric eels!’
Tom took the cable in his hands, being very careful to keep the dangerous end away from him. The giant was almost upon them. It stooped so that its face was the closest thing to them. It grinned. The teeth were the size of stained and chipped coffee mugs. It opened its mouth as if to bite them.
Tom froze, cable in his hand. I’m not a hero! he thought.
The face leaned in. He could smell its rancid breath. The jaws loomed closer.
Then liquid shot into its mouth and nose. Tom turned to Grandma Patty. She was squeezing the water bottle she bought earlier into the giant tramp’s face. ‘Now, Tom!’ she screamed.
He thrust the cable forward, just as the soaked and shrivelled lips closed tight. The giant bit down on the live wires. The yellowy eyes opened as wide as serving platters and bulged a little. Smoke billowed out of the cavernous nostrils, as its whole body began to shake.
With a squeal the tramp pulled himself back. As he fell away he started to shrink so that he no longer filled the room. By the time he had staggered back to the other side he had reduced down to normal man size.
Then when he hit the far wall he exploded in a cloud of ash. His outline was left in black against the breeze blocks, like a giant-sized toilet sign.
Tom expelled a huge breath and put his hands on his knees.
Drops of water flicked on his neck. He turned to Grandma Patty, who was waving the empty bottle in his direction. ‘Good work, dearie. You’ve just taken down your first monster!’
‘Thanks. How’s your elbow?’
She showed him the joint, already swollen and purple. ‘Sore enough. The rascal caught me good. I’m getting slow in my old age.’
Tom went over and gave his Grandma Patty a hug. ‘You’re not old; you’re just experienced!’
‘Let’s just hope we don’t get an experience like that one again! Thank you, Sunshine.’
They decided it was probably a good idea to leave the warehouse considering the ruckus they’d just made. It was a little way out
of town, but no doubt news of the disturbance would bring some unwelcome attention.
A part of Tom then thought about whether or not they should just stay put. If I waited here I bet Mum and Dad would be along soon enough.
He mentioned it to Grandma Patty. ‘That was scary, wasn’t it? I’d understand if you felt you’d had enough adventure. My only worry is about your story though.’
‘What do you mean?’
She put a reassuring hand on his knee. ‘It’s out there now, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it fades a little, sometimes it’s right in your face – literally! But I don’t think it’ll finish until we finish it. And I take it there’s some more weird and creepy things ahead, not to mention this Kildark fellow?’
‘Oh yeah; it gets pretty hairy! I think!’ He was finding that it was difficult to remember exactly.
‘Then I think we’ve got to keep going.’ She rubbed at his leg. ‘That way you can keep going.’
He knew what she meant. His legs had become sluggish and unresponsive because the story had faded away for a few hours. He imagined that if he’d tried to get up in the middle of the night for a pee then his lower half wouldn’t have moved at all. But when the warehouse came to life – when the story came to life – so too did his legs.
No. He wasn’t done with that particular adventure yet. He wiggled his toes in his trainers. Not at all.
He picked up his notebook and removed the pages that he’d torn out last night, the pages that told his eleven-year-old version of the events that they’d just lived through.
‘Wasn’t quite the same as I wrote it, was it?’
Grandma Patty rubbed her elbow. ‘You’re not wrong there. I think we can safely say we can get seriously hurt, or worse, even if George and Helena don’t.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Are you ready for that?’
Tom nodded. He slipped the pages behind a thin copper pipe that ran up the wall, so that it was secure but visible. You’ll not believe it, Dad, he thought.
‘I’m ready to go,’ he told his Grandma.
*
The man in the black suit watched the boy and his grandmother leave the warehouse. He sat in his car, across the road from the broken window they used to exit the building.
Something was compelling him to go and confront them, to goad them a little, to tell them that there was more than just the spirits of homeless men that he’d turned into monsters lying in wait for them. He had the old woman’s necklace and he wasn’t for giving it back, so their path wasn’t going to get any easier.
But he chose to stay in his car. He fought the urge to vacate his seat. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he put it down to being stubborn. The idea to provoke and annoy them seemed to come from somewhere other than his own mind, and he didn’t like that. Something made him feel that if he followed every impulse he had, there was a chance that he would be dancing to somebody else’s tune, that someone else would be operating the strings of this puppet show. And that he didn’t like. Not one bit.
He looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers. He could make them grow at will, which was a neat trick, and something not common with this type of physical form. He had only been the man in the black suit for less than a day but he knew enough to realise that normally that shouldn’t happen. Other humans couldn’t do it. Of course, there were plenty of things they couldn’t do that were in his power, and trying them out was going to be fun.
He remembered he had been a man once before, but it had been many hundreds of years ago. Still, the suit fit – so to speak – and he was adjusting to the body nicely.
He was still troubled though by the fact that it had not been his decision to appear in this way, in this guise. He had been somewhere else, and then he was here, with a mind to get up to all kinds of mischief. But who had put him here?
He looked at himself in the rear view mirror. He noted the red flecks in the eyes with a smirk of appreciation. But who had given him that face?
He didn’t like not being in full control. Yes, he would deal with the grandmother and her stupid stick. Yes, he would deal with the grandson and his newfound legs. But if he wanted to be the ruin of someone else then he would be. There were the parents to consider, after all. Then his mind turned to the man he had helped up in the park after his interaction with an intoxicating fungi. Here was someone else that was getting involved in this scenario, and he knew that it wouldn’t be too long before the detective (was that right? he believed so) turned up here. The man in black did not like meddlers, particularly those that stood for law rather than chaos.
He grinned. Destroying him would be his own little project, an added little bonus. He didn’t care if that wasn’t what he was here to do; if he wanted it, then it would happen.
Nobody, nobody pulled his strings.
CHAPTER NINE
AS THEY PULLED UP AT THE WAREHOUSE ANOTHER CAR DROVE AWAY. Ben thought he recognised the driver in the black sports car; he was pretty sure it was the gentleman from the park that had helped him to his feet.
The gentlemen that seemed to disappear behind the pavilion.
His attention turned back to the warehouse. It was probably the right one, even though there were a few to choose from. There were broken windows, which he supposed wasn’t unusual, but flickering lights could be seen inside, suggesting that it was occupied or at least had been recently.
Oh, and then there was the fact that a peculiar pink powder was rising off the entire building, like there was an invisible vacuum cleaner hovering just above it, sucking it up into oblivion.
‘I hope we’re not too late,’ said Alex, turning off the ignition.
‘If so, we’re not too far behind judging from that strange dust. That must have something to do with the world this story creates. I reckon this is the closest we’ve ever been,’ said Ben. ‘Come on.’
The two of them got out. Charlotte had opted to stay home and man the phone, just in case either Tom or Patty called.
They got inside, just in time to see the outline of a man against one of the walls, made in what appear to be ash, fade from sight. Then all the power went, and the cables and damaged lights ceased to be live. The calm that descended on the scene was palpable.
‘I think we’ve just witnessed the story moving on,’ said Ben. There might have been that dust before, in the park maybe, but as they didn’t know what to look for then it could have been easily missed. However, a full building’s worth…it was a new clue.
‘I think there’s the next bit,’ said Alex. He jogged across the room to some copper piping and pulled out some pages. He came back and they read it together: a cave, a beach, a hammer monster, a skeleton, and victory by electricity.
Ben glanced down at the snaking cable across parts of the floor. It was harmless now, but closer inspection revealed many exposed wires that would have been very dangerous when the power was on. ‘I think they’ve already had that adventure.’
Alex stood in front of him, holding a hammer he’d found. ‘Let’s hope they won.’
They looked around and found nothing else, other than the fading graffiti that proclaimed that life was a beach. Once they got back outside they consulted the story again.
‘There’s nothing at the end of this that gives us a clue as to where they might be heading next,’ said Alex, the dismay evident in his tone.
‘It looks as if they’re heading for where the villain is based. Any thoughts on where we might find an evil lair?’
‘I’ve known some evil liars in my time, but that’s about it.’ Alex tucked the sheets of paper inside his jacket.
Ben stumbled across a thought. ‘Perhaps we should be looking to find him, rather than them.’ He recalled the man in the car, the man from the park, the man who had disappeared like everything else to do with this story. ‘I think I know who he might be. I think I’ve met him.’
‘Met him?’
‘I also think he was just here. He pulled away in a car the moment we got here.’
> ‘And you’ve only just realised this now? I thought you were a detective.’
Ben locked eyes with Alex. ‘I’m sorry, but this is a unique kind of situation. I’ve not a lot of experience of pursuing imaginary people. At least I know what he looks like.’
Ben’s phone buzzed in his pocket, helping to break the tension between the two men. He turned his back on Alex and took the call. It was his colleague, Edwards. Ben had asked him to keep him up to date with anything he heard connected with the case.
‘Enjoying your holiday?’
‘Ha ha. Although I have just been to a beach. Long story. What have you got?’
‘Not much. No one’s following anything up until there’s a sighting or more vandalism. I have seen the report from the old folks’ home though. When they did an inventory of the old dear’s room they discovered that a necklace was missing. Staff at the home reckoned that it had some precious stones in it, could be of some value. Maybe that’s your motive. Perhaps they stole it from Granny?’
‘Perhaps.’ He remembered the first page of the story. ‘I’m sure it’s connected. I’m with the father so I’ll run it past him. Thanks, buddy.’
He hung up and turned to discuss it with Alex. However, he was faced with the man’s back. Alex was pointing into the distance, above the skyline of the nearby buildings. ‘Look there,’ he said. ‘Could that be the same as what we’ve just seen?’
Ben’s gaze followed his finger. At first he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, but then once he tilted his head so that the colour of the background changed he saw it in front of a brick building.
A column of pink dust, rising up and then disappearing. ‘The story?’ he suggested.
‘Tom and my mother,’ said Alex.
It was close enough to get there on foot. They set off in a sprint.
They ran around the circumference of a large square building before finding an alleyway that would take them nearer to where they’d seen the dust. They ran down it before being confronted with a flight of stone steps. Alex led the way and flew up them without bothering with the hand rail. They came out onto a street; a quick calculation based on where they’d come from suggested left, and then just around the corner should be…
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