by Tony Lewis
“He's right, you know,” he whispered. “Somebody give me a hand with this.”
Between them, Ollie and Gullett manoeuvred the cabinet away from the wall. Hidden behind was a small wooden door about three feet high. There was a handle but it didn't appear to have any sort of locking mechanism. The footsteps sounded perilously close and they could now also hear vague noises that almost definitely sounded like voices.
Cross, realising that he might actually have an honest to goodness story on his hands rather than a witch's cat stuck up a tree, or Flug getting his finger stuck up his nose (again), made a suggestion.
“Gentlemen. What with there being five of us here why don't we, as my colleague already stated, lie in wait? If we turn the light off and take up positions near the entrance, we will have the element of surprise firmly on our side.”
“I don't like surprises,” said Stitches. “The last time I had one it took me three days to get my face back to normal. My nose didn't look quite right on my forehead.”
“Let's get ready,” said Gullett.
Stitches hesitantly turned off the light.
* * *
“Do you want another Ghoul's Goitre, Flug love?”
“Yes please.”
Mrs. Ladle took one of the biscuits off the griddle and handed to the smiling behemoth.
“Fanks, Mrs. L.”
“You're welcome. But take your time with that one. You're not having any more because that's your seventh.”
“Okay.”
CRUNCH!
Mrs. Ladle's biscuits were a rare treat that combined two very distinct traits. Not only did they have the sweetness of a five pound bag of sugar, they also possessed the consistency of quick drying cement, so much so that the mixture had been used as a replacement concrete overcoat by one or two crime families in the past. Not only was it denser, it set quicker, sunk faster, and there was usually enough left over for a tasty post-whacking nibble.
“Mrs. L.”
“Yes, love.”
“How many is sevenf?”
“Well, it's seven isn't it,” said the witch, pouring a smidgeon of lizard milk into her tea.
“Okay. How many is seven?”
Mrs. Ladle took a sip of a brew that was hot enough to boil the skin off a rhinoceros and rolled her eyes. She loved Flug to bits (all of them) but he really was as thick as an elephant milk shake.
“Maybe we should leave advanced mathematics to one side for a bit,” she said, plonking herself down at the kitchen table opposite Flug. “So what shall we talk about?”
“Dunno,” said the monster around a mouthful of half chewed biccie.
“Okay. What do you like?”
“Sweeties.”
“Apart from sweeties.”
“More sweeties. Me like Wolf Willies, Minty Mint Mints and Chocolate Ghoulies.”
“Forget about sweets for a moment,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “What do you like to do?”
“…”
“For fun.”
“…”
“Good grief, there really is very little going on upstairs, isn't there? Tell you what, let's try something simple. Do you like colouring?”
“Wot, like pictures?”
“Yes. If I get you a book, would you like to do that for a bit?”
“Yes please, Mrs. L. Me like colours,” said Flug, exuding more child-like excitement than a person with a body the size of small building had the right to.
“Alright then. Back in a mo. Maybe when you're done Ollie will let you put a drawing up on the fridge.”
Flug watched Mrs. Ladle leave the kitchen. Normally, in a circumstance such as this, the `this' being left on his own, Flug would go into a sort of stasis. With no outside stimulation his prehistoric brain wasn't really capable of too much other than keeping him breathing. Sometimes it even forgot to do that. On quite a few occasions, Ollie or Stitches had had to beat him severely on the chest with a sledgehammer to get his heart going again. It was like trying to jump start a beluga whale. His eyes did flicker involuntarily around the room though, but stopped when they came to rest on something that got a few atrophied synapses firing. He got up and walked over to the larder. It was quite snug but he managed to squeeze his massive body inside.
“Colours,” he said to himself, reaching out.
About twenty five minutes later Mrs. Ladle returned bearing a colouring book entitled `Depraved Demons, Demigods and other Dark Nastiness.' If the truth be told, she had stuck together a few pieces of paper that she had drawn some very bad doodles on. It didn't really make any difference that she had the artistic ability of a brick; it would keep Flug happy for ages.
“Right, Fl…”
She stared worriedly. Flug was sitting just where she had left him, but the items on the table had most definitely not been there when she left to get the book.
“Flug. Where did you get those bottles from?” she asked, sitting down.
“In dere,” he replied, pointing with an out-sized finger. “Me saw pretty colours.”
She picked up one of the bottles and read the label. Monkey Juice. She looked at another. Essence of Despair.
“Oh no,” she groaned.
As a witch, Mrs. Ladle kept potions. Lots of them. It was a rigorously enforced job requirement, actually. You couldn't very well claim to be a mistress of the dark arts if you didn't have a few vials of innocuous looking liquids stashed in your pants drawer.
She kept them all over the house, in jars and bottles of various sizes and colours. Most of them contained your more common or garden substances such as Hound Dust, Crippled Dick and Soulmantle. They were the type of things that she would use in ordinary spells, like turning someone into a vegetable or predicting the future (especially if it was someone who had pissed her off. Predicting someone's impending future as a swede was a piece of cake. As was turning them into a piece of cake). They also made very nice cookies.
Her more exotic liquors and ointments she kept in her larder which, under normal circumstances, she kept locked. It was evident though, judging by the dozen or so containers on the kitchen table, that she had forgotten. Even more worrying however, was the empty glass that she noticed in Flug's hand.
“Flug, what did you do?”
The big one smiled and held up the worryingly arid container.
“Played wiv colours,” he said.
“Which ones?”
“All I fink.”
“Show me your tongue.”
Flug poked out the massive slab of flesh. It nestled on his chin like a side of beef. It was a purply, bluey, greeny hue. It looked like an outraged gorilla had gone to work on it with a ten pound meat tenderiser.
“When you say all,” she said, picking up a bottle that contained Spirit of Haunted Dragon, “did you use any of this blue one?”
Flug thought for a moment. A strange look passed over his outsize features, and it almost seemed that he was actually processing information other than sweets, or getting to the nearest toilet before he had an accident. It was a look that Mrs. Ladle wasn't using to seeing on the creature's features.
“Why, yes I did. But it's not so much blue as more a subtle yet dazzling shade of azure, wouldn't you agree?”
For a few seconds Mrs. Ladle was lost for words. A rare occurrence that hadn't happened since she was in her third year at Witch School and had misread a transmogrification spell and turned her teeth into a fourth dimensional being that could only understand the complex language of the Transparent Jovian Steamfly. She'd had to retake that exam!
She was also wondering when she had banged her head and how long the concussion would last.
“What did you say?” she asked quietly.
Flug put the glass onto the table, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He smiled serenely and there was a definite sparkle in his eyes.
“Oh, nothing really. I was just commenting on the shade of the liquid in the container. By the way, did you know that the Azure Damselfly i
s easily identified from the Common Blue Damselfly because it has less blue on its thorax and abdomen?”
“Is that a fact?”
“Indeed. Do you mind if I have a glass of water please, Mrs. Ladle? I think I'm a little dehydrated.”
Well, she thought to herself, it was pretty obvious what had happened. Flug had mixed up her potions, drank whatever concoction that had been the result of said mixing, and boosted his IQ by about a thousand percent. Lord alone knew how long it would last or what the side effects might be, but he seemed alright for now. It would just have to run its course though, because there was no way that she could replicate what he had done as it had been completely random, therefore producing a counter spell was out of the question. Not only that, but without knowing what the dosages should be it could prove harmful to Flug's health. Of course there was always the possibility that the effects were permanent but, however amazing the discovery, it would take a hundred lifetimes to repeat it. A certain group of primates would have the complete works of the Immortal Bard knocked out before that.
“Ah, that's better,” said Flug after downing his drink. “Nothing like a glass of the clear stuff to cleanse the pallet.”
“Well, quite,” said Mrs Ladle, sparking up another nicotine stick with shaking hands.
“Oh, by the way,” said Flug, “I seem to be having a spot of bother trying to remember how I got here. My head's a little fuzzy, to be honest.”
“Um. You've been asleep (brain in permanent hibernation) for quite a while (since the day you were created). It'll probably take some time (God knows) for everything to come back to you (you could turn stupid again at any moment).”
It was a bit of a fib but it was vaguely tinged with an element of truth. Flug's brain had pretty much been as active as a bowl of muesli since he was `born'.
Mrs Ladle stubbed her fag out and stood up. She could handle just about anything on her own but this situation was, to say the least, a bit odd. She needed help and advice. This was a burden that she couldn't shoulder by herself.
“Come on, Flug love. Let's get going.”
“Okay. Where are we off to, Mrs. L?”
“The Town Square,” she said as she plonked her pointy hat onto her head and opened the back door. “I need to talk to Ollie.”
* * *
It was dark. Extremely dark. In fact it was so dark that it was almost a physical object with texture and mass. It was darker than a black hole having a power cut. It was darker than the deepest, darkest corner of the deepest, darkest cave in the deepest, darkest dark bit of the world. It was even darker than Adolf Hitler's ill-fated venture, Auschwitz the Musical.
“Dark, isn't it?” said Crumble, his voice carrying an almost supernatural quality.
“Thanks for that, Prof,” said Stitches. “And there was me thinking that I'd put my eyes in the wrong way round.”
“I hate to be a bore and state the bleeding obvious,” said Ollie in a barely audible whisper, “but there's absolutely no point whatsoever in us continuously talking whilst we're hiding in the dark trying not to be discovered. We might as well put a sign on the door saying `Please tread carefully. Lynch mob waiting inside'.”
“So absolute silence then,” said Stitches.
“Yes,” replied Ollie.
“So `shut up' or `be quiet' would have done really wouldn't it?”
Ollie swore silently.
The pounding footsteps could still be heard, but for some reason they didn't seem to be getting any closer. In fact, every now and again they even sounded further away. Crumble was just about to point out the disadvantages of lying in wait in a subterranean cavern with less than ideal acoustics when the small door burst open. Glass shattered, equipment fell to the floor, voices shouted all at once and, wouldn't you just know it, the light bulb blew the moment Stitches tried to turn it on.
“Get your hands off me.”
“Grab that bit.”
“Ouch.”
“Cross?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
“How did you get in here?”
“The Constable brought me.”
“All of you I meant. Ow, no need for hair pulling.”
“Ollie.”
“What?”
“I've got a hand.”
“I'll get the cuffs on.”
FLASH.
“For God's sake, will you quit it with that bloody camera?”
CLINK.
“I think I've got them on.”
“That's my ankle.”
“Oh.”
“And my wrist.”
“You lot are rubbish.”
THWACK.
“Ooofff.”
“I say, that's not playing fair.”
“Aw, who's dropped one?”
“Not me.”
“Or me.”
“Whoever smelt it…”
“Oh, grow up.”
“I think I've scratched my helmet.”
“Sorry, my nails need cutting.”
CLICK.
The underground lab was once again bathed in light. Ethan had crossed from the door and fixed the switch. He was surveying the scene before him.
Deadhouse was flat on his back with a lens cap stuffed up his left nostril. Cross was sitting on his backside (his, not Deadhouse's. Don't make up your own jokes) looking dazed and confused, and wondering why his right wrist was handcuffed to Ollie's left leg. Stitches had a hand around Crumble's throat. Unfortunately he wasn't attached to said appendage. He was lying in a heap six feet away with his head at a funny angle (we'll go with 54 degrees. That's quite a funny one. Funnier than 45 degrees anyway. Phew what a misery).
“Please tell me he's under there somewhere,” said Ethan, approaching the flesh based collision.
“Mmmmmppppphhhhhfffff.”
“Where did that come from?” said Ollie.
Gullett rolled over onto his back.
“Thought that was a bit uncomfortable,” he said.
“Anybody recognise him?” said Ollie, pointing at the unconscious figure.
Nobody did.
“Well, whoever he is,” said Stitches, retrieving his hand from Crumble, “he put up a hell of a fight.”
“You're not wrong,” said Ollie, rubbing his trouser area delicately. “He caught me a blinder right in the unmentionables. I hope it was him anyway.”
“Right,” said Gullett, hoisting his enormous bulk back to vertical. “I'll get our friend here into a nice, cosy cell until he wakes up. Then I'll question him. See if I can get to the bottom of all this.”
“Fine,” said Ollie, now able to brush himself down after releasing himself from Cross. He gazed around the lab. “We might as well leave this lot in situ so that he can explain himself.”
Ethan helped Crumble up.
“Has Ronnie come through yet?” he asked. “I thought he was right behind me.”
“Here I am, boys,” said Ronnie, coming through the door. “No need to panic. It's all under control now.”
“And thank God for that,” said Stitches with just the vaguest soupcon of sarcasm. “How would we have coped without you?”
“What kept you anyway? I thought you were right on my tail?” said Ethan.
“I was but I stopped a few times.”
“Ah, out of breath, eh? I told you that smoking all those fags was bad for you.”
“Well, that's where you're wrong,” said Ronnie, producing a cigarette and lighting it. “I found a load of side tunnels off the main one so I went and had a look.”
He told them that they led to other coffins scattered around the cemetery.
Cross made a note of Ronnie's story before turning to Deadhouse and suggesting that they make their way to the cemetery to get some snaps for the next edition of the paper. They made their way back along the tunnel that Ethan and Ronnie had just exited from, whilst Gullett hoisted his captive over his shoulder and headed off to his station.
“Well, I guess that's it for
now,” said Stitches. “Until our friend wakes up and gives Gullett some answers, we can't really move forward.”
“Agreed,” said Ollie. “Anyway, I need to get back to the office. It's coming up for tea time and Flug will have my drink ready.”
“Gorgeous. I'm off to Mrs. Strudel's for something to eat. You coming, Ethan?” said Ronnie.
“Yeah I will, actually. I'm famished. We'll see you guys later then.”
They all left the lab.
* * *
“Uhhhhhmmmmmmmmm.”
“Doctor.”
“Ow. It hurts.”
“DOCTOR.”
“Yes, Nurse Parsnip.”
“Our new arrival is coming round. He's moaning and says it hurts.”
“Thank you, Nurse. Hardly a remarkable occurrence though, seeing as he threw himself off the fountain onto a concrete block.”
“Has he broken anything?” asked Nurse Parsnip, handing her colleague a medical chart.
Dr. Zoltan took the board and quickly scanned the information on it.
“Only the world record for the number of times that a single person has successfully been stupid in one month. How many times is it now, Mandrake? Eight? Nine? I'm beginning to lose track.” He replaced the medical chart onto a hook at the end of the bed, and then thinking better of it took it off and gave it back to Nurse Parsnip. Mandrake would only try and batter himself over the head with it causing extremely minor injuries. He took the hook off as well.
Dr. Roman Zoltan was the Chief Medical Officer at the Skullenian General Hospital. It wasn't a large establishment and usually managed to get by on a skeleton staff (ha ha) comprising of himself, three nurses and a mortician. It wasn't the busiest of places because almost the entire population of Skullenia were already dead, dying or somewhere in between. That being said, it did make for some rather interesting and unusual cases coming through the doors. Zombies with rising damp, werewolves with mange and trolls with grazed knuckles were to name but a few. Add to that more obscure conditions such as Booby Syndrome, and Carpet Disease and it usually worked out that no two days were the same. Three or four were exactly the same however, but even the most interesting jobs can get a bit samey.
The only patients that Dr. Zoltan and his staff didn't really relish treating on a regular basis though were vampires, i.e. the biggest hypochondriacs since Mr. Münchhausen decided he quite liked going into hospitals pretending to be sick. There was rarely a night went by that some moaning bloodsucker didn't come in complaining of this or that. If it wasn't a wobbly fang or a bruised finger from a coffin lid accident, it was `can you check my cholesterol, I've just savaged a slimmer's group' or `I think I'm looking a bit pale. Can you give me something to put some colour back into my cheeks?' The absolute very worst offender was Count Jocular. Zoltan had lost count of the number of times he'd had to administer to that particular fiend. His last house call had been because Jocular was complaining of a constant ringing in his ears that just wouldn't go away (Jocular wouldn't come to the hospital. Germs, don't you know, which was a bit silly seeing as how he was a full blood vampire lord and had about as much chance of catching a human disease as he did of winning The Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work. Still, it's a fair point for the mere mortals amongst us. At least with a house call you get to see a doctor. You could hang around a hospital for a couple of weeks without seeing a member of the medical profession. You're more likely to see a tap dancing giraffe).