by Tony Lewis
She wandered down the stairs and along the passageway and slipped into the lab. Rhubarb was hunched over a bench, doing something fiddly with a pair of tweezers. Mrs. Ladle crept up silently behind him before letting out an almighty “BOO!”
Professor Crumble carried on his work, not paying a blind bit of notice to the rather loud and sudden interruption.
“I SAID BOO!”
Nothing. Mrs. Ladle used the non-sweeping end of her broomstick and gave the Prof a sharp poke in the kidneys. That did the trick. He jumped yards and a pair of tiny headphones fell from his ears.
“Thundering goitres woman, you nearly gave me a coronary.”
“I obviously wasn’t trying hard enough then, was I?”
“Well, that’s charming,” said Rhubarb, returning to his intricate tweezering.
“Aw, just messing,” said the witch, peering over his shoulder, trying to see what he was doing. Whatever it was, involved a punnet of raspberries, a bowl of sugar and a jug of cream.
“New invention, Rhubarb?”
“Nope.”
“What are you up to then?”
“I don’t like the hair that grows on fruit, and raspberries happen to be my favourite so…” he trailed off as if embarrassed to say anymore.
“So what?” prompted the intrigued witch.
“I’m plucking them,” he said, going as red as the berry in his hand.
Mrs. Ladle chuckled to herself and ruffled the Prof’s hair playfully. “Have you tried shaving them?” she asked.
“Yes, but they come out in an awful rash. Not very appetizing as you can imagine.”
“I see.”
Mrs. Ladle found a spare stool, dragged it to the bench and sat opposite Crumble.
“Well, as much as I enjoy talking about hirsute fruit, I did actually come here for a reason.”
Professor Crumble put his tweezers and half plucked raspberry back into a bowl, and gave the witch his best slightly miffed look, which did no good at all due to the fact that Rhubarb had the complete inability to get annoyed at anything. He would be quite happy to tip the taxman and thank a traffic warden for giving him a ticket. He made the Pope look like Osama Bin Laden.
“Speak then, dear lady. I am a field of corn.”
“Field of corn?”
“All ears.”
“Ah. Well, it’s my stick. I can’t get it up.”
“Mmmm. It is getting on a bit though, isn’t it? Mr. Doom came in last week with the very same problem. He’s been having trouble with his for months, and had got to the point that he was almost too embarrassed to come out of the house. Poor Mrs. Doom had a miserable look on her face for ages. She’s smiling now.”
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same thing?”
“Absolutely. It’s all a question of gravity and physics, and putting something into the system that’ll straighten things out as it were.”
“So what do I do?”
Crumble reached behind him and took a small glass jar off a shelf. He unscrewed the lid and tipped out a half dozen small blue pills onto the bench.
“And what do I do with them?” asked Mrs. Ladle suspiciously.
“Next time you want to get the old chap airborne, pop one of these into the tank and he’ll be up for hours. Guaranteed.”
She took the pills and tucked them away into the depths of her shawl. “Thanks Prof, that’s a weight off. Oh, by the way, have you got any more of those candles? They’re much better than the shop ones.”
“Okey dokey,” said the Prof, moving over to a cupboard on the far side of the lab. “Same ones as before?”
Mrs. Ladle pondered for a moment. “Actually, can I have a dozen of the sixty watt ones? They’ll be better now the nights are drawing in.”
“No problem.” Rhubarb put the candles in a bag and handed them over. “Anything else I can help you with?”
“No, that’s it. I’ve got to get home now and bake some biscuits for tomorrow night’s coven meeting. They won’t cook themselves, you know. Well, they will, but it’s much more fun to make them myself. Thanks, Prof. Bye.”
“Goodnight, dear lady,” said Rhubarb, shuddering at the thought of what might be going into those biscuits. He went back to his bench and replaced the headphones, and continued working on his raspberries.
* * *
Ronnie stepped into the forest and immediately felt as if the world had disappeared. He was enveloped by total and utter blackness, and if it wasn’t for the dim glow of a torch that one of the soldiers was wielding, he would have had to call off his little jaunt because he wouldn’t have been able to see his hand in front of his face. Obviously he couldn’t anyway, what with his being invisible and all, but you get the point. It was bloody dark. One good thing though, was that he wasn’t going to have to be too careful about the amount of noise he was making. He reckoned that the group ahead were about seventy five feet away now and what with their equipment, weapons and size fourteen boots, although not being overly noisy, they were making enough of a disturbance to cover the sound of any stepped on twigs or slapped out of the way branches that Ronnie inadvertently encountered. He could see that the soldiers had spread themselves out into a sort of skirmish line. They were all level with each other, but had spaced themselves about fifteen feet apart, and it was in this formation that they were slowly and painstakingly advancing. Each of them now had their weapons at the ready, held securely at hip level so that if required they could engage in an instant.
Attached to their helmets were night vision goggles, which cast a dim but incandescent green glow. It made them look like something out of a science fiction movie. At that point the figure carrying the torch flicked it off and Ronnie went instantly blind. Damn it.
He stood with his hands on his hips, cursing his rotten luck. Rolling his eyes upwards he noticed a small gap in the canopy. A cloud bank had drifted over and an eerie luminescence lit them up from behind.
“Full moon, fantastic,” he whispered to himself, a wide, invisible grin spreading across his face. Thirty seconds later the wispy formation had moved on, leaving the huge, beaming disc of the satellite alone in the sky, free to cast its aged glow down into the forest beneath it. The trees took on a malevolent, phantom-like quality and the whole forest looked like it had been completely drained of colour, and painted in varying shades of grey, not dissimilar to the effect that occurred when a solar eclipse was at the point of totality. In the meagre light time seemed to slow down and everything around him, including the figures up ahead, appeared to be moving at half speed, as if the atmosphere itself had become thicker. The light, although not brilliant, was good enough for Ronnie’s needs. He had a clear view of the path ahead that he needed to take, and his quarry was now in full view, which was perfect. He decided that now would be a good time to try and close the distance between himself and the four men, not only to decrease the chances of losing them but also to be able to sneak close enough and pick up any stray bits of information that they might let slip. He waited until they moved off before continuing his pursuit. They were being extremely stealthy and cautious, there was no doubt about that, but for the life of him he still couldn’t postulate a theory as to what a squad of highly trained soldiers were doing in a Skullenian forest in the middle of the night. It was possible, he supposed, that they were on manoeuvres, except that those sorts of operations were usually conducted in the Scottish Highlands or the rolling, unpronounceable hills of North Wales. No, this was something very different, and Ronnie was now more determined than ever to find out what it was.
Within a quarter of an hour he’d managed to get within twenty feet of the squad, using their combined footfalls to cover his own. They were steadily making their way deeper and deeper into the trees when, without warning, the figure second from the right suddenly raised his right arm and, with a deliberate slowness, brought it back down until it nestled once again on the trigger of his weapon. This was obviously the command to halt, because the other three came to
an abrupt stop and regrouped in a tight huddle. This was what Ronnie had been waiting for, he just needed to be a few feet closer and he might be able to ascertain what was occurring. He got to within ten feet, stepped over an ancient algae encrusted log and put his boot down on possibly the oldest, driest and consequently noisiest branch the world has ever known. CRRRACCCCKKKK!
Ronnie instantly panicked and froze in position, as, to a man, the squad turned in the direction of the sound, raised their weapons and flooded the area with a torch-beam so powerful that it could have warned ships away from treacherous rocks. He recoiled as the light hit his retinas and very nearly dived behind the nearest tree for cover until, in the midst of his literally blind stupor, he remembered that he couldn’t be seen by the gun toting men. He regained control over his erratic breathing and stayed still, stayed quiet and listened. The light from ahead had destroyed his night vision, so now he couldn’t see the figures at all, but, in the dead forest air he could make out some snippets from a whispered conversation.
“…was that?”
“Don’t know.”
“…came…where…’er there.”
“Urrrgggh what…stood in?”
“Do…think…looking for?”
“Could…but…made more noise…”
“…straight at us…mess around…creeping about.”
“Mmmm…eleven.”
“May…squirrel.”
“…off. Let’s… and move out.”
The light snapped off and Ronnie was once again plunged into an all-encompassing darkness that somehow seemed denser than before. It took a good few seconds to readjust. Even though he had managed to close his eyes (a pure reflex action of no use whatsoever) the microsecond after the torch had come on, it had been freakishly bright and the sudden change from coffin dark to supernova light and then to dark again had been too much for his poor optic nerves to deal with all at once, particularly in view of the fact that his eyelids were about as much use as the Spanish edition of How to Speak Spanish. Within a couple of minutes, however, his vision had settled down and he was able to locate the squad up ahead. Ronnie quickly got back up to them determined that he wasn’t going to let them go without answers. They were hunting something that was clear, but as to what and why he was unsure. Time would tell, he was certain.
* * *
Thick black hairs bristled, moving in waves backwards along the spine. Bulky muscles bunched under the flesh and rippled with a sinewy grace, loose and relaxed but ever ready to burst into frenzied action in a split second. The werewolf was huge. On its hind legs it stood eight feet tall and had paws like dinner plates. Each was tipped with five four inch claws that could tear through skin and bone as if it wasn’t there. It was a pure hunting and killing machine, and it was in search of prey. A faint odour caught its hypersensitive nose, so it stopped and raised its massive head in order to catch more of the scent as it travelled on the night air. Coloured images flooded the beasts’ consciousness. At first they were haphazard, as if an artist had decided to experiment with his entire paint collection and a single sheet of canvas, but as the scent increased, they began to separate and become more structured, forming shapes and tantalising patterns before finally coalescing into a recognisable representation. Manflesh, and plenty of it. The animal’s keen senses detected five individual entities a few hundred yards ahead, a group of four together and one on its own, but all within relatively close proximity. Its target, acquired the lycanthrope continued on its way, a plan of attack already beginning to form. It would take out the loner first, and while the rest were still running around in panic it would pick them off one by one. A low growl of satisfaction rumbled deep in its throat as it slowly paced onwards.
* * *
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Stitches, as Ollie and he stood on the porch.
Ollie cocked an eyebrow. “What’s up now?”
“This. We’ve been sent out by a psychotic blood sucker and his idiotic retarded servant to a great big house in the middle of a forest that werewolves live in. This is not my idea of a fun evening. Call me Mr Pessimistic, but I can’t see it ending on a high note.”
Ollie’s hand paused on its way to connecting to the door. “That was quite an outburst. I’m sure you’re little friend enjoyed it.”
Stitches cast a worried glance over his shoulder and scanned the front yard. “Where’s, Egon?”
“Don’t know,” replied Ollie. “Maybe he took the hump for a walk to do its business.”
Stitches smirked. “The hump needs a dump, huh. Knock the door and let’s get this over with.”
Before Ollie’s clenched fist could connect with the wood, it was opened from within, and what they saw caused both of their jaws to hit the floor.
“Stitches.”
“Huh.”
“Do you want to pick that up?”
The zombie looked down and, without any indication that anything remotely unusual had happened, bent down, picked up his chin and nonchalantly popped it back into place. The figure in the doorway stifled a giggle. “That must be handy for shaving.”
She was by far and away and without a shadow of a doubt, the most gorgeous creature that either of them had ever seen in their lives, deaths or undeaths. She was everything a real woman should be, at least as far as Ollie and Stitches were concerned anyway.
She made catwalk models look like pre-pubescent schoolboys. She had curves in all the right places, and all of her places were right curvy. A petite waist flared out to shapely hips and long, slender, well-defined legs. Her height, which was about five feet nine, was accentuated by four inch stiletto heeled shoes. She was voluptuous in every way, from her perfect heaving bosom to her full pouting red lips which, when parted, revealed a dazzling white smile that was devastating. This was matched only by seductive, steely grey eyes that were framed by sweeping lashes. Her perfectly symmetrical features were surrounded by lustrous deep brown, almost black hair that tumbled to just below her square, muscular shoulders.
“Y…..yes it is,” stuttered Stitches. “At least it would be if I shaved, which I don’t, but if I did it would be handy.”
When she smiled the whole world seemed like a better place, as if nothing was wrong and nothing bad could ever happen.
“Well that’s that cleared up.” Her voice was as smooth as silk. You wouldn’t mind hanging around at King’s Cross all day if the train announcer sounded like that. In fact, you’d miss your train on purpose just to keep on listening. “My name’s Obsidia. You must be the two investigators we’ve been expecting.”
“Indeed we are, Miss. I’m Ollie Splint and this is my colleague, Stitches,” Ollie extended a hand, which she took.
“How did you know we were coming?” asked the zombie. “Are you psychic?”
“No,” replied Obsidia, “we could hear you coming from about three hundred yards away. A very eccentric turn of phrase you have, Mr. Stitches. You’ve been keeping us entertained for quite a while.”
Stitches would have blushed, if he’d had any blood in his system.
“It’s my nerves. I use humour as a defence mechanism.”
“I see. Won’t you step inside, gentlemen.”
They entered the building and had a look around. It was more of a converted barn than anything else. High beamed ceilings gave way to slatted walls, recessed into which were cubby holes, each, of which contained a mattress and a blanket. Other than that there were very few homelike items. The floor area was basically open plan and had a large communal space in the centre, comprising half a dozen sofas, two coffee tables, a couple of chairs and a large chest of drawers. Two of the sofas were presently occupied.
“Excuse me for saying so,” said Ollie, “but this whole set up seems rather basic to me.”
Obsidia closed the front door and sashayed across the floor to stand next to the two investigators.
“I suppose it would look like that to an outsider, but for us this house contains everything we need. Yo
u’ll find that once the Lycan gene is in the blood, materialism and all the frivolities and trappings of a modern existence no longer seem quite as important. Even in human form we tend to prefer things rustic. We’re quite a countrified ensemble. The call of the wild, you might say.”
“No creature comforts then?” said Stitches, and then immediately wished he hadn’t.
Ollie shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Excuse my friend’s sledgehammer wit. In his former life, he was an idiot.”
Obsidia laughed sexily and placed a beautifully manicured hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, Mr Splint. I like a man that can make me laugh.” She looked over at Stitches and raised an eyebrow. “I think we’re going to get on.”
“Get on your nerves, more like,” muttered Ollie under his breath.
“Now now, Mr Splint. Tolerance is a virtue you know.”
“Call me Ollie, please. And if I may say, you try working with him for a couple of weeks and we’ll see how long your tolerance lasts.”
Obsidia coyly nibbled on a nail and gazed at Stitches with a look of seductive innocence. “Well, on first impression I think I would be quite happy to spend a few weeks collaborating with him. It could be an interesting experience.”
Stitches stared back at her in wonder. It was obvious, even to the most brain dead, that their hostess was quite taken with the zombie. Stitches had noticed and couldn’t believe his luck. Ollie had noticed and just couldn’t believe it, and Obsidia was just, well, you figure it out for yourself.
“Well, that’s all fine and dandy,” Ollie cut in, “but perhaps we should be dealing with the matter at hand, your missing pack members.”
“Of course. Won’t you sit down?”
The three of them sat on one of the empty sofas. Obsidia included they were in the company of about a dozen Lycanfolk, but even though they knew that they were in a safe environment, Ollie was slightly on edge.
“I didn’t think there would be many of you guys in tonight, what with the full moon,” said Stitches.