by Tony Lewis
“I bet you made that, didn't you?” he said, giving it a plump with his free hand.
“Most certainly. I find needlework very relaxing after a long night.”
Stitches handed the basket over to Egon.
“But how do find the time? Jocular must keep you busy from dusk till dawn. If he's not entertaining someone in one of his spiky guest rooms he's decorating something or another.”
Egon opened up a wardrobe and placed the wicker basket containing its lumpy inhabitants onto a large purple pillow. Then he opened the side flap and waited until both of them had crawled out and settled down (Try as he might Stitches still couldn't figure out how they moved).
“I just seem to,” said Egon, removing the basket and closing the door. “No matter how time consuming my duties are I always seem to have enough left over to do all the little extra things I must, and all of the things I want. Anyway,” he whispered, “let's go back to the sitting room. The boys are light sleepers.”
Contemplating the fact that the last half an hour had been bizarre to say the least, Stitches quietly tiptoed out of the bedroom.
* * *
Ollie had been watching Kilo working with rapt attention. He really was a master at his craft. Bearing in mind how minuscule some of the internal capillaries and nerves were, it was truly amazing that such an operation as this were possible at all. As he observed Kilo putting the final sutures into some part of the liver, the sudden lack of a presence caught his attention, kind of like the Force in reverse, just with less light sabres and fewer scantily clad princesses (Unfortunately. I could have put one in, I suppose, but would have had terrible trouble fitting it into the story. The same goes for the princess). He looked up and gazed round the laboratory.
“Flug.”
Nothing.
“FLUG!”
“Yeah, Boss.”
“Where's Mandrake?”
“Uh…who?”
“Mandrake. The chap we brought with us. Six feet, slim build, got a cat called Noggin, always trying to top himself. Mandrake that is, not the cat”
“Uh, don't know, Boss.”
“Terrific.”
“Boss.”
“Yes.”
“Where are we?”
Ollie realised that Flug had finally returned to abnormal. Gone were the stratospheric intellect and the dazzling insights to the amazing world around him. He had come back to earth with a resoundingly dull sounding thump. Straight onto his head. It was quite comforting in a way.
“We're at Count Jocular's Castle, remember?”
The bemused look on the monsters face was ample testimony to his understanding of the current situation.
“You just sit on that crate over there okay, mate.”
“Okay.”
Right, thought Ollie, where are you, you deranged lunatic? By reputation alone it was obvious that Mandrake wasn't going to be anywhere remotely dangerous. Flug would have more chance of receiving a serious injury from a sweet wrapper. Actually scratch that thought he mused. On one memorable occasion Flug had conspired to hurt himself with a washing up sponge. Okay so he was cleaning moss off the roof tiles at the time (Stitches' idea), forgot where he was, and stepped off, but the principal was the same. Not that Marmaduke Thesaurus was likely to ascribe to that train of thought. No doubt he hadn't gotten up that day with the intention of being flattened by a falling monster coming at him with roughly the same speed as the meteor that did for the dinosaurs. To say he wasn't very happy about the incident was a bit of an understatement. He said, and I quote “Can't you keep control of that big lumbering, heavy footed, blundering, and ungainly, maladroit ox. I was lucky not to be killed, terminated, dispatched, liquidated, and butchered.” Conversations with Marmaduke could take a very, very long time.
Ollie was walking past a particularly large bundle of copper wire when he heard a muffled noise.
“Mmmppffhh.”
“Hello,” he called out.
“MMMPPFFHH,” came the sound again. It was followed by a clink, as if someone had wrapped a knuckle on a window.
Ollie cautiously made his way to the rear of the pile of wire.
“Oh, you absolute arse head.”
Hidden away behind the copper was a large glass cabinet, very similar to the ones on the other side of the lab. This one though was empty, covered in cobwebs, and cracked in several places. The only other subtle difference was that the other ones in the main lab didn't have a forlorn looking Mandrake hiding inside them looking as if he was about to burst into tears.
“Hang on a minute,” said Ollie exasperatedly. He quickly located the step ladder that Mandrake had no doubt used to climb in and propped it up against the tank.
“Thanks,” said Mandrake, extricating himself and climbing down.
“What on earth were you trying this time?” asked Ollie, helping him down the last few rungs.
“I thought I'd have a go at suffocating myself but I panicked,” said Mandrake, looking thoroughly ashamed of himself. “I've got a bit of a problem with small spaces.”
Ollie studied the glass tank in more detail. Not only were there so many cracks in it that it couldn't have held a solid let alone a liquid, a grill ran around the top ensuring an ever constant flow of air.
“You'd have had more chance suffocating yourself outside,” said the vampire, clearly a bit miffed.
“Sorry,” said Mandrake.
Ollie decided enough was enough. He had plenty to do without having to babysit a walking organ donor twenty four hours a day. It was time to be cruel to be kind and employ a touch of reverse psychology.
Ollie approached the prospective suicide victim (seventy four attempts so far and counting), and went into demon mode. He seemed to grow six inches in height and suddenly took on the stature of a lifelong power lifter. The atmosphere in their immediate vicinity darkened and became more oppressive and threatening. All extraneous noise dissipated so that all that could be heard was the rapidly increasing rate of Mandrake's breathing. As he stared in mounting terror at Ollie he saw his face begin to change. The half vampire's cheeks seemed to sink inwards causing his lips to draw back from his gums revealing a pair of perfectly white fangs that grew longer and sharper as he watched. Ollie's eyes widened to twice their normal size and blazed a hellish red. Blood red. Their gaze seemed to bore into Mandrake's very being and he felt as if an icy, clawed hand had taken hold of his soul and was slowly but irrevocably, choking it out of existence.
Ollie took a step forward so that he was now towering over the trembling figure of Mandrake.
“I DON'T DO THIS LIGHTLY,” he said, his voice a full octave deeper than usual, “BUT YOUR CONSTANT, PATHETIC EFFORTS TO END YOURSELF ARE TESTING MY PATIENCE TO ITS LIMITS. MY HUMAN SIDE IS THE ONLY THING PREVENTING ME FROM TEARING YOU LIMB FROM BLOODY LIMB. IF YOU REALLY WISH TO DIE, I CAN ASSIST YOU. IT WILL BE QUICK, BUT IT WILL FINALLY BE DONE. SO, MANDRAKE, SPEAK. WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT? LIVE OR DIE. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.”
Mandrake stood perfectly still, his eyes agog and his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. He had the look of a springbok staring at a river that it needed to cross, realising that it contained more crocodiles than water. Like a drowning man his whole life flashed before his eyes, and the numerous attempts he had made to bring it to a premature conclusion flooded his mind. His subconscious self decided to join in at that point and began to hammer away at its conscious counterpart. Unbidden words popped into his head as he watched Ollie's eyes grow redder and redder.
`Here's your chance. If you want to die this is it. You can have it all ended here and now so stop being such a baby and get on with it.' (The subconscious is quite adept at mind games).
Other images coalesced in his mind. His wife, his kids and yes, even dear, fluffy, homicidal Noggin. A sudden rush of emotion swept over him. His subconscious smiled subconsciously.
Mandrake let out a wail and threw his arms around Ollie.
“I want to live,” he cried, as tears coursed
down his cheeks.
“I know you do,” said Ollie returning to normal. “But remember my offer still stands.”
“Oh no,” said Mandrake, whose face now looked as if it had been dipped in wallpaper paste. “I've reached a turning point.” He let go of Ollie and wiped his face. “The prospect of actually dying scared me to death.”
“Well, you hold onto that thought and everything will be fine,” said Ollie, making a mental note to get his top steam cleaned.
“Thanks.”
“Ollie, dear boy,” called Crumble from somewhere behind him. “Mr. Kilo is almost ready to attach the head.”
“Righto. I'll be there shortly.” He clapped Mandrake on the shoulder and led him away from the empty tank. “Stitches wanted to be here for the last part of the experiment. Can you go and find him for me, bring him up?”
“Of course,” said Mandrake, “then we can move on full steam ahead eh?”
“Well, quite,” said Ollie, wondering if it was acceptable to kill someone for telling a stupid joke.
* * *
Cross and Deadhouse stood in the fog laden courtyard of Castle Jocular and watched as Bill's coach disappeared into the gloom.
“I suppose we could interview him at some point,” Cross said, pointing at the retreating vehicle, “but we'd have to give away a free translation booklet with every copy of the paper.”
“I take it-t-t-t Jocular knows we're coming,” said Deadhouse, gazing at his feet, or where his feet should have been. The fog was half way up his calves now. It almost seemed to have a life of its own, and when he wasn't looking it would surreptitiously creep further up his body. “Something just moved past my leg.”
“That's just your imagination,” said Cross.
“Only if-f-f-f my imagination has six-x-x-x legs and fur.”
“Just take it easy,” said Cross. “And to answer your question, yes, The Count knows we're coming.”
“Definitely?”
“Yes. Well, I left a message on the answer machine. That's good enough.”
Deadhouse began to face the very real possibility that he might die here. Or worse. Jocular was notoriously fickle. One minute he was painting butterflies on a woodland backdrop, the next he was using your jugular vein as dental floss.
“Don't look like that,” said Cross, wielding the mighty door knocker. “It'll be alright you'll see.”
As the knocker connected with the door it moved. The door, not the knocker. The knocker had finished moving. Unlike the door. Which was. Moving that is.
“I thought he was really security conscious,” said Cross.
“He is-s-s-s,” said Deadhouse, starting to feel a little unwell.
“Must mean he's left it open for us, then. Come on.”
Displaying slightly more confidence than he actually felt, Cross pushed the giant slab of wood away from him and stepped inside.
“It's warm-m-m-m in here isn't it-t-t-t,” observed Deadhouse. “Not really what you'd-d-d-d expect.”
Cross ignored him. Something on a small side table had caught his attention.
“What's that-t-t-t?” Deadhouse wondered, as his colleague picked it up. Probably a couple of death warrants.
“An envelope addressed to me,” said Cross. He tore it open. Inside was a note written in red. He prayed it was ink but his hopes weren't high. In his long journalistic career he didn't recall ink ever being that lumpy.
“It's from The Count,” he announced.
“Well. What does-s-s-s it say?”
“Dear, Mister Cross,” read Mister Cross. “Sorry zere voz novone to meet you. Both Egon and I are busy. Please make your vay to ze Post Modern Torture Chamber. Sird floor, sixth door on ze left after ze toilet. Zere ve can conduct our business in private. Yours truly. CJ.”
“There you go,” said Cross, pocketing the note. “Nothing at all to worry about. And what a scoop. We could probably go inter-town with this.”
“Maybe-e-e-e,” said Deadhouse, “but why invite us to a torture chamber? Why not a drawing room-m-m-m or a nice conservatory? We're going to end up-p-p-p strung to a rack dangling-g-g-g by our articles, you know-w-w-w that don't-t-t-t you.”
Cross took into account what his colleague had said, and seeing as he was feeling a little jittery, he tried to make him feel more at ease.
“Don't be such a big girl. Just make sure your camera's ready.”
They reached the appropriate room twenty five minutes later. This included a ten minute loo break for Deadhouse, who was now so nervous that he had lost about a third of his body weight (Ironically, the next person into the toilet after him would lose roughly a third of their sense of smell).
As ever with Jocular, a knock on the door wasn't required.
“Enter,” he boomed.
As they walked in, Deadhouse caught sight of a rather interesting piece of furniture in the middle of the room and wondered, `are those real legs on that table?'
The door slammed shut behind them.
* * *
Stitches and Mandrake returned to the laboratory. Egon hadn't joined them. He was off doing something dwarfy or butlery, or a combination of the two at any rate. They made their quietly `round the back'.
“I am a chocolate frog,
Sat on a chocolate log,
Eatin' some scrummy chocolate flies,
Yum Yum Yum,
One flew into my mouf,
Now it is heading Souf,
Soon it will come out of my,
Bum Bum Bum.”
“I see things are back to normal then,” said Stitches, waving at Flug. “Nice song, mate.”
“Fanks,” said Flug from his position perched upon his crate (although `perched' wasn't the most apt word to use for Flug's current position. It was like a news reporter saying `The five hundred pound bomb went off with a bit of a pop, sending shock waves that tickled their way through the crowd causing some of their clothing to become slightly crumpled. A police spokesman said that five minutes with a dustpan and brush should sort out the mess').
“Indeed they have,” said Ollie. “In fact, I think he might be even denser than before.”
“Is that possible? Any more dense and he'll collapse in on himself,” said Stitches.
“I'm not sure,” responded Ollie, “but ten minutes ago he tried picking his nose with an electric prod. He shorted out three batteries and had steam coming out of his ears.”
“He seems alright now,” said Mandrake.
“Maybe, but his eyes have changed places. The green one's on the left now.”
“Okay, gentlemen,” announced Kilo. “I'm all set to attach the head.”
As he walked over to the mini fridge, Stitches gazed at the shrouded mound lying on the table. It had a couple of funny lumps on it that he couldn't identify.
“What are those?” he asked Crumble, pointing at the points. “Is that where you attach the electric connections?”
“Not quite, dear boy,” said the Professor. “The technical term for those items is, I believe, boobs.”
“Boobs,” said Stitches, confused. “Why would a reanimated man need boobs? Where do you plan on taking him?”
“That's because he's a she,” said Kilo, approaching the table. “I couldn't find a suitable male cadaver, but on balance I'm glad it turned out this way. This one has been a delight to work on.”
Stitches nodded his head, pleased that he hadn't given said lumps a little tweak when posing his original question.
“I assume the head is female as well?” asked Mandrake.
“I do hope so,” said Stitches. “I'm sure Kilo doesn't want to go down in history as the man who created the first reanimate transsexual.”
Kilo shifted uneasily on the balls of his feet and pulled a `Yes, but' sort of face.
“Yes, but…” he said.
“What?” said Ollie.
“She's, how can I put it, not that attractive.”
By now everyone was stood around the table awaiting the big revea
l.
“Ready, everyone?” said Kilo.
He whipped off the towel and revealed the head lying beneath it.
“Oh my,” said Crumble.
“Good Lord,” said Mandrake.
“That's, er, interesting,” said Ollie.
“At least she won't have to buy a mask at Halloween,” said Stitches. “My goodness, she could scare the maggots off a rotting corpse.”
“What's going on, chaps?” said Ethan joining them. He'd been up on the roof securing extra cables that ran to the underside of the table. They were in case a backup electricity supply was needed if the bats should struggle to provide enough power. “Oh, I see we're at the head stage. Let's have a…eeewww. Did you drop it in a fire or something?”
“Alright, alright,” said Kilo, chucking the towel away. “I know she's not going to win any beauty contests, but…..”
“She wouldn't win at a county show either,” said Stitches.
“BUT, this one was the most compatible with the corpse. We'll get used to it.”
“In the same way you'd get used to a tumour,” said Ollie.
“She beautiful.”
They all turned round, stared at Flug and tried to work out what he was going on about, but if the expression on his chops was anything to go by, it was glaringly obvious.
Imagine the look on the face of the first man ever to see a sunrise, or the serene glow of a first time parent as they gazed lovingly at their newborn child. This was almost like that, only it was a stapled together bag of bits with the IQ of a rock staring at, well, who knew what at the moment.
“What was that, Flug?” said Ollie.
“She lovely. I fink she prettiest fing I ever seen ever.”
“Which. bearing in mind his only frames of reference are Mrs. Ladle and some of the sexually ambiguous creatures in town, you can sort of see where he's coming from I suppose,” said Ethan.