by Brian Hughes
Jess placed his knife and fork down on his grubby plate and looked up. “Got another fried egg, my fat woman?”
“Right!” Ben rose from his seat, screwing up the napkin on his lap. “Now I am determined to sort something out.”
Time takes another crank forward. Another crank closer.
11:35 a.m. November 1st. Hobson and Co Paranormal Research Library. The cupboard under the stairs.
Every floor in Mrs Prune’s house had its own cupboard. For the mathematically inclined, that made three such cupboards in total. This particular cupboard was just outside Jess’ bedroom. It was an abandoned realm, where stray socks sometimes crawled to die.
It was also an ideal hideaway for Benjamin Foster’s mangy books. Unlike Jess, Benjamin was an habitual reader. Since before he could remember he’d had a fascination with books. And with the occult. So naturally books concerning the occult would excite him beyond measure. He’d spent many long hours in those narrow second-hand bookshops that coiled down into the underworld of out-of-print publications. Often he would return home, his fragile arms aching beneath the weight of new material.
There’s Ben now, look. Sitting amongst his treasures in the dim glow of a torch, thumbing a leather bound volume.
Jess is there too, crammed up against the sloping wall with a book on his knee, jotting something down inside it with a pen.
“Got it!” Ben tapped the page resolutely. “Squire Thomas Hobson. Presbyterian Minister for St. Oliver’s on the Grey. Died 1896 from a blow on the head.”
He looked up excitedly. “Buried at Druids’ End Cemetery along with the frozen sausage that finished him off. His heart was never found.”
He burrowed his head back into the pages, tracing his finger along the rows. “Apparently, according to documents, his last words were, ‘I vow to kill every last pagan in Britain, even from beyond the grave.’”
That made him think. “Obviously not a character trait that’s been handed down through the generations.”
Casting a glance at the taciturn Jess, Ben was puzzled to discover him scribbling.
“What are you doing?”
“Just drawin’ a little scar on this old mithin’s ’ead.”
Jess finished his masterpiece with a flourish and drew in his tongue. The tongue that always seemed to stray from his lips when he wasn’t concentrating on it.
Ben leaned over his shoulder and took a look. “That ‘Old Mithin’ happens to be Sir Thomas Mallory. And he looked more distinguished without the black teeth.”
He squinted and leaned in a little closer. “Or the willy drawn on the end of his nose. Jess...what are we going to do about the Wambachs?”
“Charge ’em thirty quid for the night’s work an’ send ’em one of our Christmas Bonanza Leaflets?”
“I mean, what are we going to do about Joseph? The baby?”
Jess suddenly threw himself backwards with disgust, or at least as far backwards as the cupboard would allow. “Grow up Ben! W’at am I supposed t’ do about it? Turn into a radio wave and go charging across the ethereal cosmos after ’im? That’d look good wouldn’t it? Middle of Crimewatch UK and there’s me as a sine-wave passin’ through Nick Ross’ neck.”
Another thought occured to him and he winced automatically. “Christ! I might run into Bonnie Langford.”
There was no point in arguing when Jess was in this sort of mood. Not much point in ever arguing then. Ben struggled out though the cupboard door with a hunched back. He’d just have to try and sort the problems out by himself.
“I’m off down the boneyard to check this ‘fossil’ out,” he said, unhooking his sleeve from the hat peg. “Try not to overtax yourself while I’m gone. Wouldn’t want you to sprain a braincell, being it your last one and all.”
It was cold outside and Benjamin Foster was glad of his trench coat. The frost nipped at his fingers with tiny sharp teeth. He smacked his hands together to keep warm. His toes smarted through his boots that had burst on one side and now had a tongue of sock watching the pavement go by.
Druids’ End Cemetery was on the other side of Greyminster and to reach it Ben had to pass through the countless streets he’d known since childhood. Row upon row of red brick terraces, all huddled together. Some were overshadowed by tall brick chimneys and factory walls. Prisons erected for the crime of being born working class. Monuments to the Industrial Age that had crumbled like the buildings themselves and brought about a deprivation that grew in the gutters like an unhealthy weed.
For a moment he stopped on the towpath by the canal. Here the cobblestones were half covered with tarmac and the canal had the green, oily sheen of a chameleon. Ben lit a Lambast’s Old Hack, the ends of his fingers turning blue. He drew down a lungful of smoke and studied the graffiti.
‘Pis Of!’
There was that good old Lancashire wit; the backlash of an unacceptable class. It struck him that his sort were just being treated badly by the ‘intellectuals’ in charge; the chosen few lucky enough to be born with silver spoons in their mouths. But there was nobody amongst the uneducated council estates to champion their own cause. Perhaps social values hadn’t altered much since Victorian times at all.
He read on. ‘My other wall is a porch.’ ‘Sydney is a bollock brain.’ Apparently his ‘knob’ resembled a capital ‘A’.
’Nigel Rees must be kicking himself that he missed this wall,’ Ben thought, stuffing his hands into his pockets and marching on.
At about 1:30 that afternoon Ben found the grave of Thomas Hobson. It was half hidden by weeds at Druids’ End Cemetery. What an unkempt graveyard it was, especially at this end where nobody had tended the graves for decades.
Ivy spread its tendrils across most of the stones. Needles and empty cigarette packets surrounded the statues. The junkies and the courting couples, in search of a spot where no one would interrupt their passions, had been and gone in the dead of the night.
And here was the grave of Jess’ great grandfather, worn into some gothic crustacean by time. Ben crouched down and removed a box from his pocket. It was the sort of box that photographers would use to measure light. It had a couple of antennae sticking out of the top.
He took a sensor reading of the ground. Then he trained it on the gravestone, studied the fluctuating dial, and smacked it, hard.
He looked again. Still nothing.
“What the Hell’s going on in Jess’ brain?” Ben muttered to himself. “Five years of electronic courses and he produces a Spectra-Graph that’s about as much use as a woollen condom!”
Time groaned.
Every second seemed to bulge like a replete sheep. A dark shadow fell across Ben. Not an actual, physical shadow. This shadow had emotion. It chilled the bones and filled the heart with dread.
Thomas Hobson stared down over the back of his own gravestone, his face sunken and grey; his eyes hard jewels.
“I wouldn’t bugger about with the unknown if I were you, Benjamin Foster!” Hobson sneered, his lips infested with weeping sores. “My great grandson has capabilities far beyond your limited understanding.”
Benjamin swallowed a lump of defiant courage. He could go along with that. “That’s true...Jess’ talent for breaking wind to the tune of the Liberty Bell whilst fast asleep has always impressed me.”
He stumbled to his feet. “You don’t frighten me, Thomas Hobson. I’ve read loads of books on the paranormal and ghosts can’t hurt the living.”
Hobson smiled. The disconcerting smile of the dead. All rotting gums and brown teeth. “Betcha life Bogie? What’s that on your sweater?”
His ghostly scrag end of a finger pointed at Benjamin. Ben looked down, puzzled.
The finger flicked him beneath the chin. Odd that! He hadn’t expected old man Hobson’s ghost to be solid.
“Made you look, made you stare,” Hobson cackled, apparently regressing to his earliest childhood. “Made you soil your underwear.”
Annoyed, Ben took hold of Hobson’s collar and dragged
the malicious spirit towards him. Their respective noses brushed.
“You’ve got a problem!” Ben growled. “You’re just as obsessed with back passages and what comes out of them as your great-grandson.”
He tightened his grip whilst Hobson rolled his eyes downwards eerily, watching the wrinkles spread out across his collar.
“Now, what have you done with the child?”
“Child?” For a moment Hobson was lost for words. “CHILD? That disfigured abomination! What’s that sad excuse for a rectum sprout got to do with you?”
Ben tried to ignore the ghost’s puerility. “That’s my problem, y’ wrinkled, old tosser.”
“No!” Hobson bolted upright with such strength that Benjamin smashed his ribs against the tombstone. “This is your problem, impertinent boy!”
One claw-like hand grabbed Benjamin’s throat, crushing his windpipe and making him gasp. Terror filled his body as he struggled desperately to work himself free.
A green fog began to creep across his eyes, signifying the onset of unconsciousness. He fought bravely against it. Power flowed down the old man’s arm, crackling and buzzing, straight into every muscle of Benjamin’s body.
On the edge of his reasoning Ben could sense something awful was happening. Hobson’s supernatural talons passed over his head. They sprinkled a powder into his hair. Ben turned physically numb and his mind reeled backwards, collapsing in on itself in a vortex of colour.
Hobson laughed. A deep, guttural laugh that rattled with phlegm.
Triumphantly he held at arm’s length what had become of Benjamin Foster, a lifeless doll sporting a shock of purple hair, about twelve inches in length. Its flaccid legs trailed limply in the breeze.
The storm took that opportunity to break. It struck a disused gaslamp in the corner of the graveyard with a jagged blade of lightning.
“Now cop a load of this, you arrogant little turd.” Hobson shook the doll maniacally then flung it above his head. “You might find the experience uplifting.”
The doll somersaulted against the purple clouds before tumbling down. Hobson swiftly brought his foot up to meet it and, with a deft punt, sent Benjamin sailing across the gravestones and into the trunk of an ash.
The doll seemed to grip the bark for a moment before dropping to the ground, its shrunken limbs entangled with the damp roots. Then it stopped, motionless and baggy.
“Bet that made your trussocks sting! So long, you insignificant scrap of flotsam. I’d like to say it was fun, but I can’t!”
With a creak the doll transformed back into Benjamin Foster. A trickle of blood meandered down his top lip, highlighted by the lightning as it danced across the town. His mop of curly hair was matted with blood flowing generously from his ruptured eardrums.
“And next time, try picking on somebody your own size.” Thomas Hobson laughed the laugh of a madman, his spine arched into the shape of a ghastly question mark. The thunder rolled above his head with a sense of theatre. “’Cos I’m a big nasty mother that you shouldn’t have become entangled with!”
Then in an explosion of tiny electrical bolts, he vanished completely. Leaving nothing but the rank smell of rotting flesh behind.
10:30 p.m. Paranormal Headquarters. Time for the accounts to be concluded. Of course there wasn’t much chance of that seeing as the ledgers were nowhere in sight.
In fact Jess was currently deflated across his chair scowling at the television set but too drunk reach for the button. After fumbling on the carpet he found the remote.
A stick with a pen taped to one end. After several failed attempts to adjust the volume Jess gave up, pulled two cushions over his ears and shut his eyes instead.
A loud thumping echoed round the room. It was followed by a cracking on the window made by a yard-brush handle. The third crack was so loud that it penetrated Jess’ defence system. Muttering to himself, he stuck his head out into the night.
“Would you mind sending Benjamin along, Mr ’Obson?” said the silhouetted head of Mrs Prune from above. “I need me pipes lookin’ at.”
A revolting image sprang into Jess’ mind. “I know all the other gentlemen in y’r age bracket, Mrs Prune, might resemble walnuts,” he shouted back. “But there’s no need t’ inflict Our Ben wi’ such a request.”
Mrs Prune, not entirely sure what Jess was prattling on about, drew the pole up, hand over hand and continued as she did so. “There’s some sort o’ blockage. The washin’ machine must ’ave eaten me spare drawers again.”
She manoeuvred the pole back in through her window and after a short fight with the curtains it clattered onto the dresser.
Jess scratched his head uncertainly. “’Ee’s not back from Druids’ End Boneyard yet.”
There was a pause whilst Mrs Prune ruminated. “Y’re not telling me y’ sent that poor boy down there on ’is own?”
Jess made no reply. Their heads stood out against the night resembling limpet mines attached to the house.
“My God, Jess ’Obson! Y’re a daft, great bastard!” Mrs Prune disappeared, reappearing moments later and looking down at Jess with worry in her eyes. “Get your ’at ’an coat! There’s somethin’ foul afoot here, an’ I’m not talkin’ about me socks!”
Sometimes the largest men transform into helpless piles of ineptitude when confronted by a stern ticking off from their diminutive mothers. A similar sort of thing applied to Jess Hobson. Mrs Prune, although not an actual blood relative, had always considered herself to be his ‘Mother Figure’, giving her the sort of control that a Sergeant Major might exercise on the parade ground.
Within the hour, two figures appeared at the graveyard gates. One was carrying a torch, the other a lamp designed to resemble a carved pumpkin.
The gates opened sluggishly. The two figures stole inside, searching the crisp grass. A ground mist was coiling round the gravestones.
Suddenly Mrs Prune pointed, the grinning orange head swinging mesmerizingly from her wrist. “Over there, by that tree!”
They hurried across to the lifeless body of Benjamin Foster, hardly daring to breathe.
“Ben?” Jess took hold of the trench coat lapel, hauling the corpse up. Its head slumped back against the trunk. “Ben? Wake up y’ bone idle git. Madam Victoria wants ’er drain attendin’!”
There was no response. Not so much as a twitch.
“Ben! Talk t’ me y’ steamin’ great turd!” With mounting desperation Jess violently shook the body, Benjamin’s head bouncing off the tree trunk several times.
Mrs Prune struggled to keep hold of Benjamin’s wrist as she took his pulse. The blood slowly drained from her face.
“It’s no good, Jess. Nothin’s gonna disturb this boy’s slumber. Midnight ’as come upon ’im.”
“’Course it’s come upon ’im,” shouted Jess, his voice rising in an uncontrollable panic. “It’s twenty t’ bloody one in the morning, y’ sad, fat old COW!”
He shook the body again.
“’EE’S DEAD JESS!” Mrs Prune hollered.
It was more of a scream than a precisely articulated phrase. But it did the trick. Jess stopped the struggle.
Mrs Prune placed her hand on his shoulder and shook her head. It was her way of saying that nothing he could do would be of any use. Jess lowered the body back amongst the knotted roots and stared at his trusted friend.
“The selfish twat.” He leaned closer, frowning. “W’at’ve y’ done with that fiver y’ owe me?” A tremor of helplessness entered his voice making it vibrate. “Y’ can’t get out of it this way...”
From somewhere beyond the contours of the copse a preternatural laugh thundered across the graves. Both Jess and Mrs Prune looked up, a sinking sensation deep inside their hearts.
“There’s evil at work round ’ere, Jess ’Obson...” She wagged her forefinger. “It’s unnatural is this. Y’ can smell the flatulence of the Devil round these twisted old stones.”
“Very dramatic.”
Mrs Prune nodded, obviously
pleased with the compliment. “Thank you. It’s me special voice for the clients.”
She reached a decision and snatched hold of Benjamin’s arm. “C’mon. Let’s get this poor boy out of here before ’ee catches ’is death.”
It was a figure of speech. One badly chosen.
There go Jess Hobson and Mrs Prune. Two hunched figures in the dead of the night, carrying a body from the scene of a terrible crime. It bows in the middle like a rolled-up carpet and scuffs the ground. Both of them wondering what they would have said if they’d had a little more time.
That’s how it always ends. Always too late to repent when it happens. People ought to communicate more. So many people talking at once and nobody listening to anybody else.
Chapter Six: A Séance in the Dark
There were a lot of comings and goings to 114 Applegate over the next few weeks. Large numbers of policemen appeared on the doorstep accompanied by gentlemen in long brown coats.
As the days passed the cobwebs on the bell-plaque disappeared as numerous fingers drove a semblance of life back into the rusted circuitry.
It would be fair to say that the police had no suspicions about Jess and Mrs Prune. Constable Parkins, a rather impressionable member of the force, had originally been worried by Jess’ bulk, not to mention the tattoos and the partially shaven head. But try as he might he couldn’t find any motive for what had happened.
Fortunately, as yet, people can’t be arrested for looking offensive otherwise this book might have had a different narrative.
Loss, as Mrs Prune discovered, was best dealt with by keeping others entertained and yourself as busy as possible. Therefore, a daily offering of ginger cakes occupied most of her waking hours. Through those dark and troubled times her kitchen table seemed forever to be surrounded by a noisy family of boys in blue.
At night, however, it was a different matter. Apparitions filled her dreams - an unstoppable darkness that chattered on the edge of her hearing and swallowed up the World. She took to catching forty winks during the afternoon instead, curled up on the armchair.