Skullenia

by Tony Lewis

  BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

  An ear splitting howl of pain was followed by a loud smack, as a large mass pounded into the ground and skidded to a stop. Streams of blood oozed, as if from nowhere, as they escaped from the confines of invisibility and pooled on the floor.

  Ethan approached the area where the werewolf had come to rest. He could hear a faint hissing noise as clumps of sherbet fell into the congealed blood and fizzed.

  “Is it dead?” asked Stitches limping towards him, his right leg trailing behind. He had caught his foot on the top of the wire fence as he scrambled over it, and in the process had dislocated his ankle. It would take more than a needle and thread to put this injury right.

  “I’m not sure,” replied Ethan, prodding what he assumed was an arm with the toe of his boot.

  “Well, I don’t care if it is, because I’m going to kill it anyway,” said the zombie.

  At that point Ollie re-joined the group, thankful that Stitches’ timely arrival had offered him the opportunity to get himself together and get dressed unseen.

  “That was close,” he said. “I thought that thing was on you for sure.”

  “Nah,” replied Ethan, amazingly cool under the circumstances. “I had it all under control. Nice work with the sherbet by the way. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  “Just one thing,” observed Stitches, trying to maintain his balance. “Ollie, next time you transform, try to leave your clothes somewhere a bit more discrete. I just hope for your sake it’s the cold, or any future Mrs. Splint is going to be seriously disappointed.”

  Ollie’s exuberant four letter retort was cut off by a groan from the floor, as a shimmering light surrounded the reappearing form of Cowan, naked and covered in blood and now back to human form.

  “So, not quite dead yet,” sneered Ethan. He grabbed the marine under the arms and dragged him to the building, where he propped him up against the wall. A torrent of emotions flooded through him as he remembered Isobel.

  He had loved his sister more than anything else in the world, and finding her body laid out on a slab inside the building had ripped his heart from his chest. It was a good thing for Obsidia that she had been killed before Ethan had found Isobel. He would grieve for his sister later, however. For now he needed to deal with Cowan, the person he saw as ultimately responsible for her death.

  “Right, you bastard. What are we going to do with you, eh?”

  “Whatever you want,” Cowan hissed as pink, frothy drool fell from the corner of his mouth. “I’m dead already.”

  It appeared that all of five of Ethan’s shots had hit their target. Two had entered the right shoulder, one had struck the midriff and the last two had hit the chest. If it had been anyone normal, it would have spelled instant death, but the supernatural cells now infesting Cowan’s body had increased his constitution a hundred fold and consequently saved him. For now.

  “Well, I know exactly what to do as it goes,” said Ethan. He removed the handgun from the waistband of his trousers and placed the barrel directly against Cowan’s forehead.

  The soldier didn’t flinch. A tiny, ironic smile played on his lips and he snorted in disgust.

  “If that doesn’t beat it all. Not only have I been bested by a bunch of undead freaks, one of them is going to kill me with my own gun.”

  “You’ve got that right, major,” said Ethan, slowly applying pressure to the trigger. As Cowan closed his eyes in preparation for the blast that would end his life, a voice to Ethan’s right chimed out, and a gentle hand touched his arm.

  “Now you put that down, dear. We don’t go using such uncouth methods of disposal round here, do we?” said Mrs. Ladle.

  Ethan would have argued the toss with anyone else and put a bullet straight between Cowan’s eyes, but Mrs. Ladle had a certain way with her. When she spoke, you did as you were told.

  He looked at her, his eyes brimming and his hand trembling, but he lowered the gun.

  She had exited the building and was closely followed by the now freed Ronnie and James.

  “Ronnie!” Ollie exclaimed excitedly, rushing over to his friend and embracing him in an all-encompassing bear hug. “How are you doing, mate? Are you okay?”

  Ronnie thumped Ollie companionably on the back and disentangled himself from his Boss, giving him a punch on the shoulder for good measure.

  “I’m good, mate, considering what’s happened, but I’ll tell you one thing.”

  “What?” asked Stitches, beaming at his rescued companion.

  “I am so busting for a smoke. I haven’t had one for ages and I think I lost my baccy somewhere in the woods. Mrs. Ladle, if you please.”

  As if by magic the cigarettes appeared, and before you could say malignant growth, Ronnie was puffing away contentedly and blowing large plumes of smoke into the air.

  Ethan and James also greeted each other, but their reunion was more subdued as they spoke of their lost pack members, and quickly shared emotionally charged versions of recent events.

  After checking on Flug, who was thankfully still alive, Ollie returned to the group. Ethan and James had resumed watching over Cowan, whilst Ronnie and Stitches exchanged extremely tall tales that even the most gullible of people would have recognised as absolute rubbish.

  “So, Mrs. Ladle,” he said to the witch. “which method of disposal were you thinking about for our friend here? I know you stopped him, but I think Ethan would make a very good and painful job of it.”

  She stubbed her fag out under her foot and dredged up some sticky brown fluid from the depths of her lungs, and then deposited it on the door.

  “That’s not for me to decide, my dear. We can leave that up to the one who tasked you with this venture in the first place.”

  “Oh, I see. Come to think of it, I do recall Jocular mentioning that he very much wanted to meet the person responsible.”

  “Did you hear that?” Ethan spat at Cowan, nudging his naked thigh rather roughly with his foot. “We’re going to let Jocular sort you out. How does that grab you? I might give him a few suggestions, but I reckon he can come up with tortures that would have seemed unreasonable in the fourteenth century. You’ll pray for death.”

  Cowan’s head lolled lazily from side to side.

  “Do what you will,” he slurred. He jerked as a spasm of pain shot through his battered and broken body. “At least I managed to kill a few of you sons of bitches. Just a shame I didn’t manage more.”

  “And you would have got away with it if it wasn’t for us pesky kids, huh,” said Stitches revelling in the moment, pleased as punch that he had managed to use that line no matter how contrived the situation!

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Ollie. “I think a few of us need some medical attention and a well-earned rest.”

  * * *

  After three days of relaxation and recuperation, the four investigators, Ethan and Mrs. Ladle were gathered in Jocular’s castle.

  Stitches’ ankle had been fixed by Professor Crumble, using a mixture of staples, self-tapping screws and blue tac, and if anything the slight deformity that he now had above his foot seemed to balance him out. Now, when he walked, he didn’t look quite so wibbly wobbly. He still wouldn’t be able to ice skate at the Olympics or half pipe a skateboard, but then again, who would want to?

  Flug’s road to recovery had been a tad bumpier, and filled with the odd pothole. The problem was availability of parts. The leg that had been severed in the attack was completely useless, so Doctor Zoltan had to task his body collection agents with finding a limb of the correct dimensions (they were called Tom, both of them. They ran their own company, TomTom, Body Collection Agents of Repute. If you needed a head or a leg or even the whole cadaver, they were the guys to get it for you. Their list of clients was as long as your arm or any other arms that they had pilfered, come to that. It was even rumoured that they had donated various items to certain rather well known fast food outlets. That was pure speculation though, and was though
t by many to be untrue. After all, nothing they could supply could possibly taste that bad).

  After a day and a half search they had eventually located a suitable subject who was thankfully deceased, which wasn’t always the case. The problem, however, was that the donor had been a semi-professional footballer and it had taken Flug the next twenty four hours to get used to having a rather fit, muscular leg attached to his lower portions.

  It would take rather a lot longer for Ollie, Stitches and Ronnie to get used to him swinging said leg at random moments and yelling “GOAL!” at the top of his voice, before throwing himself to the floor, rolling around like he was in a tumble dryer and pleading “REF!” his arms outstretched and a feigned look of injustice on his face. Ollie had satisfied himself with a long rest in the soft interior of his coffin. Ronnie had done the same with the Stella triplets.

  At the castle, Egon had shown them to a reception room that looked remarkably like it had been modelled on a mixture of the IKEA products that even the company owner thought were rubbish, and the under 5’s section of the worst toy shop in the entire universe. It didn’t matter where you sat or where you stood, it looked really tacky in a subtle, postmodern and ‘it’ll fall apart after two weeks of use’ kind of way. At least when it did, it would be accompanied by bells, whistles and a variety of electronic voices spelling things.

  Still, the train set and fantasy wonderland display with matching unicorns and fluffy clouds distracted the eye, and proved to be quite a talking point.

  “What a load of rubbish,” said Stitches. “I’ve seen more tasteful displays in the toilets at the Bolt and Jugular during the Helloween Bingefest. At least they’ve got some artistic merit. Probably last longer, too.”

  “Easy,” said Ollie. “We might be Jocular’s new bestest buddies, but he’s still liable to dismember you ever so slightly if he hears you slagging off his décor.”

  “God I hope not. I’d die of shame if he killed me and put me in one of his horror shows.”

  The door to the room creaked open and Jocular swept in, a big, beaming smile on his face.

  “Velkom, gentleman. Velkom. And lady, of course,” he said, bowing to them all. “Congratulations on a job vell done. How can I ever sank you?”

  “No need to, sir,” smarmed Ollie. “It was a pleasure, and nice to have the chance to flex our detective muscles, to be honest.”

  “Excellent. Ethan, how are sings at the verehouse after the recent disruptions?”

  “Oh, fine, sir. We were all shocked about Obsidia, of course, but thanks to these good people we’ve at least had the chance to collect our dead and lay them to rest.”

  “Indeed. I shall miss Isobel, and Ross also.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Vell, I do consider vot you have all done to be a great favour to me. It turned out zat Obsidia vas telling me a pack of lies and shielding me from ze truth about vot vas going on in ze voods. It’s sanks to you zat ze mystery has been solved. If any of you ever need anysing, zen please let me know.”

  “I could do with a new pair of shoes. Mine got chewed up,” said Stitches.

  Ollie glared at him.

  “Vy not indeed” said Jocular. “New shoes it is. Egon,” the door opened, “a nice new pair of shoes for our friend here.”

  “Yes, Master. Which ones?”

  “If you pop down to dungeon number four, I believe zat ze current occupant is nearly done. Take his. He von’t be needing zem anymore.”

  Stitches shuddered and wished that he could learn to keep it zipped.

  Shaking his head in total befuddlement, Ethan spoke up.

  “Sir, can I ask what became of the man we captured?”

  Jocular got up from the horrendously pink small plastic chair that he had been sitting in. Strangely, it was covered in glittered sequins and coloured crystals.

  “Ah, I’m glad you asked. Come viz me.”

  They followed His Royal Darkness out of the room and along several passageways until they entered a room that was chock full of stuffed animals. Heads of various beasts, both natural and otherwise, adorned the walls, and glass display cabinets held dead creatures in differing poses designed to reflect their nature. It was like a home shopping channel display for rednecks. All that was missing was a rail of lumberjack shirts and a rack of mullet wigs.

  “Over here,” the vampire beckoned.

  In the centre of the room was a large granite plinth on top of which was an immense aquarium that, with the flick of a switch, was lit up by a series of fluorescent lights. Inside, sealed in a glass bubble of its own was Cowan’s head, his eyes wide open and flicking back and forth, watching the fish that swam in front of him. When his gaze fell on the assembled crowd they narrowed, and even though the rest of his face remained waxy and impassive, they could all detect the hatred in them.

  “My latest creation,” announced Jocular proudly. “And vun zat vill give me great pleasure for many years to come.”

  He reached down, grabbed a glittering tasselled rope and gave it a tug, opening a pair of black velvet curtains, revealing a bronze plaque behind them that was attached to the rock. Bright golden capital letters proclaimed the name of the display above. It simply said ‘MARINE LIFE’.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Ollie and Stitches were back in town and sat in Ollie’s office. Ronnie had gone out for a drink on the proviso that he not go wandering off without telling anyone, and that he pick up some mobile phones. Flug was in the kitchen trying to lace up a pair of football boots, an activity that should keep him busy for at least two years, provided that he didn’t eat them first. Ollie didn’t have a clue where he’d got them from, but at least he was happy. Ethan had just left. He had come back to the office because he wanted to discuss joining the business. He would need a couple of days to sort things out at the werehouse because with the demise of Obsidia, he had become the pack leader and he needed to hand that mantle over. The loss of Isobel had hit him hard and he wanted to get away from the place, and he had been very impressed with how the investigators had conducted themselves. He had also particularly enjoyed getting involved in the final scrap. The four had discussed the matter, well, three of them had. Flug had been occupied trying to screw some studs into the sole of his foot. The answer had been a resounding yes. It would be good to have some more muscle and brains on the team (more was a bit generous. Some described it better).

  “Well,” said Stitches, “I’m done in. I think I’ll go and have a lie down.”

  Ollie got up from his chair, walked round to the front of his desk and perched on the edge.

  “Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked expectantly.

  “Huh.”

  “Don’t you have a small debt to settle?”

  “What are you on about?”

  “I seem to remember a certain person saying they would do a certain something if I used a certain item.”

  “You’d be the worst witness in the world. Have you got a head injury that I don’t know about, or am I seeing the early onset of Alzheimer’s?”

  Ollie reached round and lifted the lid of a small silver box. He took out a small item and threw it to Stitches.

  “An empty Sherbet Dip,” said the zombie.

  “Indeed.”

  “What the fu… Oh, come on. You can’t be serious. I didn’t mean it.”

  “A bet’s a bet.”

  Stitches realised that he wasn’t going to get out of this one. With a resigned look on his grey features he took a needle out and threaded it. Then, looking at his boss’s impassive face, he slowly and deliberately sewed his mouth shut.

  Ollie folded his arms and smiled. Perhaps the next six months weren’t going to be too bad after all, but he had a funny feeling that the next twenty four hours were going to be pure bliss.

  THE END

  Cup and Sorcery

  The small dark room crackled and sizzled, as if tiny suspended fireworks were exploding in mid-air, sending particles of myriad colou
rs cascading to the floor. The atmosphere felt alive with electricity, making it feel as if a thousand Van De Graff generators had been turned on at the same time. In the centre of the room was a stone plinth, atop which sat a large marble bowl. Inside the bowl, fluid swirled round and round as if it were being churned by an unseen centrifugal force. In the depths of the liquid, what seemed to be wisps of smoke eddied in the opposite direction, and every now and again a blurred, vague shape tried to form and break through the maelstrom.

  The hunched figure sat on a three legged wooden stool, hooded head leaning over the container, eyes unblinking, peering intently into the murky miasma. Hands were raised and sleeves were folded carefully back, before fingers were waved over the bowl in intricate patterns. At the same time, whispered incantations passed from tight, dry lips¸ attempting to invoke the aid of some otherworldly power.

  “Demons of darkness come to me

  Show me what I want to see

  A gift of blood I freely give

  So that you may help me live.”

  A small knife appeared in the figure’s right hand, with which the palm of the left hand was deftly sliced open. Claret beads dripped into the milky mixture as a fist was made and squeezed tight. The liquid turned a light red, and as each drop splashed down it circled faster and faster until a pinkish foam appeared on its surface.

  “A sign or clue is all I ask

  To aid me in my onerous task

  Give me the answer to the text

  So that I may do whatever is next.”

  The indistinct patterns and swirls moved closer together until they started to mingle and coalesce, until finally they formed one larger mass. As more drops of lifeblood entered the concoction the shape became more and more distinct, recognisable features beginning to appear in the watery pool. Suddenly, the charged atmosphere in the room became thicker, making the air heavy and difficult to breathe. A wispy fog seemed to emanate from the walls, floor and ceiling, as if the very fabric of the building itself were perspiring.