by Tony Lewis
“That's what we're trying to find out,” said Mandrake, patting the monster affectionately on the back. He wasn't sure if Flug felt it, because it was like slapping his hand against a tower block.
Ethan eased the door open slowly and stepped inside.
It was dark, but not to the point that you couldn't see. A couple of candles still burned inside, their flames dancing gently, moved by the breeze coming through the open door.
Furniture, what little of it there was, lay scattered about the floor, some of it broken, the rest overturned.
Ethan raised his head up and tested the air. The unmistakable tang of blood assailed his nostrils once again. He was just about to turn to Ollie and say so, when something over in a far corner caught his eye. A pair of feet was protruding from behind the upturned kitchen table. He couldn't see anything else but you didn't have to be a genius or a great detective to realise that there was a body attached to those feet. A very still body.
“Professor,” he called out.
Within moments, Crumble had entered the hut and been guided to the prostrate figure on the ground.
It wasn't pretty. The old man, who none of them knew, had taken quite a ferocious beating. His head was positioned at an acute angle and one of his eyes was swollen completely shut. His bottom lip was split and there were traces of bubbled blood on his teeth, indicating possible internal injuries. Several of his fingers appeared to be broken and his left shoulder was badly dislocated. Crumble put two fingers to the old man's neck just to be sure. He gave it a moment, before turning to the others and shaking his head sadly.
“Who could do this?” said Mandrake. “A defenceless old man.”
“I've got a horrible feeling…” said Ollie.
Ethan nodded in agreement.
“It's not just a feeling,” said the lycan, confirming Ollie's fears. “You know that blood type that led us here? I'm picking up traces of it all over this hut, but in particular over by the bed and next to the body.”
Kilo sank down to the floor. He put his head in his hands and sobbed pathetically.
“What have I done?” he said to himself, but loud enough for the others to hear. “Oh my God, what have I done?” He was desolate, forlorn and now forever tainted by what his creation had done here.
Crumble covered up the old man's corpse with the blood stained table cloth lying next to it, and went over to the distraught Kilo. He squatted down beside him and put an arm around his heaving shoulders. The professor whispered something into his ear. They didn't hear what he said but Kilo looked up and nodded his head.
“So what do we do now?” said Stitches, staring at the shape under the cloth. It reminded him of how Oboe had looked underneath her shroud. This one though would never move again. “This sort of puts a different slant on things doesn't it?”
“Seems fairly obvious to me,” said Ollie quietly. “She has to be caught and…”
The rest silently nodded their heads in agreement, knowing precisely what he meant.
Flug, who had been waiting outside due to the restricted room, squeezed through the doorway. He saw the others crowded around the body.
“Who dat?” he asked.
“We don't know,” said Ollie.
“Why he sleeping?”
“He's not asleep, Flug mate. He's dead.”
“Aw. I give him sweetie. Make him feel better.”
“I don't think that's going to work, big fellah,” said Stitches. “Oboe did a pretty good job…”
Ollie and Ethan shot the zombie a warning look, but it was too late. Despite having a brain that was the evolutionary equivalent of a wilted salad, Flug somehow knew exactly what his colleague was referring to.
“Oboe done dis?” he said.
“It looks that way,” said Ollie, giving Stitches a glare that could have withered a Giant Redwood. Stitches shrugged his shoulders and stared back with a `how was I supposed to know we were going to keep it a secret from Flug to protect his feelings. You really should keep me in the loop if you don't want things to go wrong' look.
“But why? She not naughty.”
“I know, but she's sick. There's something wrong in her head that made her do this,” said Ollie.
Mandrake was keeping a close eye on Flug. The monster was tensing up and the bolt in his forehead was pulsing up and down.
“I think…” he said.
“Way ahead of you,” said Ethan. “The trail will still be fresh. Come on, Flug. Let's go and find Oboe.”
It was clear that Kilo was in no fit state to join them, so Crumble volunteered to stay in the shack to look after him.
Once more following Ethan's lead, the remainder of the group headed off into the night.
* * *
On and on she forged through the woods, aware now of the immensity of the evil deed she had perpetrated. Even the trees that she pushed past seemed to lean in towards her in an accusatory manner. An image of the old mans bruised and broken body forced itself into her mind and the whispered cry of his pleas for clemency never left her.
Tears streaked down her face as she ventured further and further into the cold embrace of the night, not caring in the slightest where she may end up.
“I'm sorry,” she muttered breathlessly to the encroaching darkness. “I'm so sorry.”
It was strange that in the short time since she had been reanimated, the one act that had finally awakened her self-awareness more than any other had been the taking of the old man's life. Not for her the joy of waking and being welcomed into the arms of companions, or the wonders of the natural world that surrounded her, or the unconditional kindness of a fellow being. No, for her it was a violent, unnecessary killing that had roused her sentience to its full capacity. Oboe could not and would never justify the act to herself.
As she plunged deeper and deeper into the woods she had unconsciously come to the inevitable conclusion that a creature such as herself must not be allowed to carry on its existence. Her brief time in this world had to come to an end in order to protect those around her, both those that she didn't know and those that she had already met. An old saying sprang to mind; maybe it was from her past life, but she wasn't sure. `Strangers are just friends that you haven't met yet'. From whence it came she did not know, but it rang true. And what of those new friends whoever they may be? How long would they enjoy their time on earth before she rendered them asunder as she had the old man?
“But the people from before can help you,” said a voice from the darkness. “Trust them. They have the potential to become the friends that you so desperately seek.”
She recalled their faces gathered around her as she sat on the floor in the big building. Kind, benevolent and eager to assist.
“But that's what happened with the old man,” she retorted. “He was all of those things and more, and look what I did to him.”
“That was a one off I'm sure,” the voice continued like a determined defence counsellor. “An aberration brought on by confusion, alcohol and maybe a bump to the head. You can't blame yourself.”
“No,” she said angrily, “there are no excuses. No bargaining with myself in the hope that I can feel better and brush it all to one side. Confusion may well have reigned in my mind when I acted as I did, but that doesn't justify the actions that it caused. Where does that lead? How far can you take justification? Before long, you'd have everyone committing all sorts of unspeakable acts and using their own twisted rationale as to why it was alright to do it. It won't work. It can not work. Wrong is wrong, no matter what the circumstances. No mitigation. No diminishing of responsibility. No aberration.”
The voice from the gloom did not respond. It appeared that it couldn't argue in the face of such logic and fierce determination.
Oboe was finally left with her own thoughts. As unpalatable as they were they spurred her on and made her even more committed to seek out her own destruction. How she would achieve her aim she didn't know, but she was absolutely steadfast in the knowledge
that she would not be leaving the forest alive.
* * *
Mrs. Ladle skimmed over treetops, skirted by branches, swooped round rocky outcrops, and performed every other flying activity that you can think of beginning with S. (except skydiving though, because that would just be silly). Despite all this she still couldn't find Ollie, any of his crew, or the missing monster.
“Bloody forest,” she said to herself. “They should cut the whole lot down and build a casino.”
Witches, as highlighted by Mrs. Ladle's views on the future of the woodland below her, are not the most ecologically or environmentally friendly of creatures. Forget green issues and the preservation of the Earth's natural and rapidly decreasing resources, it wasn't unheard of for Mrs. Ladle to use her broom to get from one room to the next in her own house. And as for recycling, forget it. All that meant to her was peddling round the same place that you had the day before. Neither the plight of the Polar Bear, the worries of the greenhouse effect, nor the rapidly increasing size of the hole in the ozone layer held any interest for those of the pointy hat brigade.
On and on she flew in seemingly endless and ever increasing circles until, “What was that?” she said, coming to a stop and putting her broom into a hover. She looked around and absently flicked a spent cigarette butt to the ground far below. (Don't worry it was out, although that wasn't always the case. If you'll allow the indulgence of a look back through the history books, you'll notice they tell us that the Great Fire of London started in a bakery on Pudding Lane, but that's not entirely true. It did start in a bakery in Pudding Lane, most certainly burnt most of London to the ground, and made for a very interesting entry in Samuel Pepys' diary, but it had nothing to do with super-heated flour. A passing witch, who had been on a three day bender with her coven, was flying back from Stonehenge when she decided to knock her pipe out. The burning cinders had slowly, and majestically drifted down onto, yes indeed, you've guessed it, the roof of the very dry and very wooden food emporium. The witch in question was totally unaware of what she had done, but for days afterwards she couldn't get the stench of freshly baked humans out of her nose).
Mrs. Ladle was sure that the strange sound had come from somewhere behind her. Not that there wasn't a plethora of weird noises emanating from the forest at any given time of course, but like everything else you get used to it, and anything that doesn't sound familiar raises alarm bells, especially if it's an alarm bell.
It sounded to her like someone sobbing and proper going at it as well. They were throat shredding, snot river inducing, red eye causing gasps of emotion.
She angled the nose of her broomstick down a few degrees and began to descend to where she thought it was coming from. She hoped that it wasn't someone too upset. She wasn't big on sympathy and understanding. She was more of the `pull yourself together and snap out of it or I'll give you something to cry about' type of person.
There it was again, except this time the crying was punctuated by howls of anguish.
As she closed in on the sound she noticed that the trees had begun to thin out to the point that she could see down to the forest floor where a stony path wended its way through the trees.
She followed it casually at first, until it became more than obvious that whatever was making all the racket had traversed it as well. A sudden wave of panic rose within her as she remembered where it led to.
“Oh no,” she said, as she turned right and picked up speed. “Of all the places.”
The path, not used for many, many decades as far as she knew, led to Percy's Precipice, a sharp outcrop of granite that looked out over the whole of Skullenia. It was beautifully picturesque and a perfect spot for viewing the sweeping vistas of the valley below. Its only major drawback was that there were only two ways off it. You either took the same path, only in reverse, or took the more direct route, which in this case was four and a half thousand feet straight down onto the jagged rocks below.
The venue had been named after Percy Froglicker, a young man who had thrown himself into the abyss after being spurned in love. Some folk spoke of his spirit still haunting the area, constantly prowling and eager to coax other unwitting souls to their doom. The rest of the folks spoke about the weather, what they'd had for dinner, and why some folks talk such utter rubbish about bedevilled cliffs.
Coming in low, Mrs. Ladle caught sight of the source of the all the noise. It was misshapen; a throwback to earlier times when evolutionary chaos still reigned and mortal man didn't meddle with nature or supernature. Either that or Flug had decided on a major lifestyle change, stolen one of Mrs. Strudel's voluminous bras and gotten lost. Maybe not, although that would have been absolutely hilarious.
The creature, clearly the one that had gone missing, was standing precariously on the very edge of the drop. It couldn't go any further forward without plunging into oblivion. At this point a strong gust of wind would have sent it toppling over.
“Just wait,” she hollered, “don't give up. Help is on its way.”
The figure looked up and stared directly at Mrs. Ladle, who had taken up a position about six feet in front of it. The broomstick hummed and spluttered quietly as it hovered in place. She didn't want to get too close in case the thing made a sudden grab for her (Although she didn't know what had occurred with No See Norman, Mrs. Ladle recognised the signs of someone wanting to end it all. Fear, extreme emotion, clearly some sort of anger or guilt and possibly some mental health issues told her intuitive mind what was happening. Plus the fact that it was standing on a cliff top and maybe going to jump a mile straight down was also a bit of a giveaway).
A lot of potential suicides had a nasty habit of wanting a bit of company on their journey into the afterlife because misery does love company after all (as well as office parties, work outings, traffic jams and sprouts).
“It doesn't matter,” the figure said. “I've done something terrible so I deserve to die. Nothing you say is going to sway me.”
Disregarding the quip she could have made about swaying at the top of a mountain as inappropriate, Mrs. Ladle weighed up her options, not that there were many. She didn't recall there being a lesson at Witch College about dealing with this sort of incident.
The creature was far too heavy for her to carry on her broomstick, and she hadn't quite mastered the `Floatation of Organic Material' spell yet (issue 14,236). She had only tried it once and the poor soul had never been seen again except by disbelieving astronauts who put it down to space sickness and too much additive laden, dehydrated food. Said unfortunate was currently in a geostationary orbit about two hundred miles above the earth. He was due to splash down off the coast of Australia sometime in the late twenty-third century.
She suddenly realised that Ethan was with the group, and if he was as good at tracking as most lycans, then hopefully they shouldn't be too far away.
“Don't do anything hasty,” she said. “I'll be back.”
As fast as the woodland allowed, she followed the path down the mountain.
* * *
“Why don't they understand?” said Oboe. “Do they not realise what I've done? Can they not accept the fact that I can't go on? I mustn't go on. It must finish here.”
She shuffled forward a couple of millimetres until she could feel her centre of gravity subtly shift. As she looked down, the impenetrable darkness seemed to beckon to her, calling her to join it in a passionate and everlasting embrace that would take away her pain and her suffering. It was calling her home.
Bits of stone and dusty shale cascaded down as her feet moved unconsciously, attempting to gain purchase.
“What are you doing?” the voice from the forest said, returning to plague her once more. “I said that you'd get away with it. There's any number of excuses we could use.”
“I'm not listening to you,” she said vehemently. “In fact there's no one there. You're in my head. I will NOT allow myself to be dissuaded from this course of action.”
“But…”
; “NO. No more. If you can't shut up of your own accord perhaps I can do it for you.”
Oboe leaned over and took a deep breath.
* * *
“Ollie,” shouted Mrs. Ladle, closing in like an Exocet missile on a tight schedule. “I've found her.”
Ollie, closely followed by the others, picked himself up off the floor and checked that his head was still attached to his shoulders.
“That was bit close, you mad old mare,” shouted Stitches, spitting out a dried leaf. “You'll have someone's eye out with that.”
“Where is she?” said Mandrake.
“Percy's Precipice, and not to put too fine a point on it, I don't think you've got long, so if you intend to rescue her you better hurry up.”
“Can you help, Mrs. L?” asked Flug hopefully.
“I could, Flug love, but I don't think turning her into a turnip is going to help all that much.”
Thinking about it for a moment, Ollie considered keeping everybody back. If Oboe was at the top of the mountain then she only had one thing in mind, which ultimately would save them from performing the onerous task that they all knew was the outcome of all this should they catch up with her. He turned to address the group when he heard Mrs. Ladle say “Follow me.”
So much for that idea, he thought.
Flug pushed his way past them and strode towards Mrs. Ladle.
“Me go. Me help Oboe,” he announced.
“Okay, mate,” said Stitches. “We'll go with you to make sure she's alright.”
“No,” said the monster. “Just me. Me love Oboe. Me save her.”
“But…” started Ollie.
“Just me or me be angry,” said Flug, with such conviction that Ollie actually took a step back. He might very well be a gentle giant normally, but the prospect, however unlikely, of Flug losing his temper wasn't a pleasant one. It would like be trying to calm down an outraged Brontosaurus with a smile, a kind word and a pea shooter.
“Let him go,” said Ethan. “I suspect he won't be able to do much anyway. We'll follow on discretely in a few minutes.”