The Complete Greyminster Chronicles

by Brian Hughes

  “But...but...” Martha was having a really bad day. It had definitely grown worse in the past half an hour. “Don’t you see? These videos are probably what turned him!”

  “An’ shut the door on the way out! I don’t want the smell of your feet sneakin’ back in.”

  Disgusted, Martha slammed shut her mouth, spun on her heels and marched from the room, banging the door behind her as requested. This final act was carried out with such strength that a small cloud of sawdust flew out of one hinge.

  Jess listened as her footsteps slapped back to number thirty-three. When he was sure that she was gone he whispered, “Ben?”

  No response.

  “Ben Foster? Do y’ read me?” Just the sounds of unsteady video turrets creaking beneath abandonment. “Ben!? Come in y’ dead cretin...”

  Remembering something, Jess wrestled the spectacles from his pocket, ramming them onto the bulb of his nose. Benjamin Foster appeared, halfway through a sentence.

  “...KING IDIOT! What the Hell do you think you’re doing?! Don’t treat our clients like that!” His ghostly finger jabbed at the cumbersome spectacles. “One case every nine years! And you treat her like a Yorkshire man treats his mother!”

  “The woman was some sort of retard,” Jess remonstrated.

  “A paying retard Jess! There’s a vital component of that phrase that cautions diplomacy!”

  “She also stank like a sumo-wrestler’s gusset.” Jess traced a phallus across a grime-coated video jacket. “I can understand why that cat was lickin’ its own bottom. It was probably tryin’ to dislodge the taste of ’er skin from its tongue.”

  “You’re missing the point, Jess. Financially Hobson and Co is going down hill faster than Ironsides with knackered brakes.”

  “It doesn’t ’elp when ’alf the partnership is dead, does it?”

  “And whose fault was that?”

  “Well it certainly wasn’t mine, you afterbirth! I told y’ not t’ go wanderin’ off on y’ own! That woman...” Jess prodded in the general direction of the kitchen. “That woman is an offence t’ my aesthetic sensibilities.”

  That’s rich, thought Ben. Coming from somebody who doesn’t even know what aesthetic means.

  “She has a face that resembles an old woman’s chin.”

  Benjamin frowned. “You fancy her don’t you?”

  “W’at?” Jess’ face drained with embarrassment. Rapidly it refilled with a denser hue.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Benjamin continued. “Sexual tension!”

  Jess clenched his teeth so hard that a small bony lump appeared in each cheek.

  “It’s so thick you could run a knife through it.”

  There was a moment’s pause for deep reflection. The sort of hiatus that guilefully waits before a storm. Then Jess belted Benjamin in the front teeth. There was the sound of molars cracking. It was the second time since breakfast that Ben had regretted the fact he wasn’t intangible. A crackle of electricity shot out of his temple, earthing into Jess’ arm.

  “Don’t be so disgusting.” Jess watched as Benjamin rocked back and forth in pain. “I’d rather suck the pus from a schoolboy’s boil.”

  Clutching his split lip, Benjamin raised a brow so furrowed he could have trapped several marbles inside it. “Now that I can believe. But you still want to get inside ’er drawers. Even if you’d have to use a crowbar t’ do it!”

  “Are y’ calling me a transvestite, Ben?” This was Jess’ automatic reaction to any sexual reference. “Because unless you want me t’ stick your ’ead up me arse an’ fart on it, thus creatin’ untold damage even t’ those deceased, y’d better put a sock in it pronto! Start searchin’ this musky, festerin’ slum for some sort of clue as t’ what ’appened ’ere.”

  Mrs Prune had been correct. Jess had gone beyond the edge of tetchy and was fast approaching schizoid.

  “Some sort of clue? And what does one of them look like?”

  “Well, let me see. It’s probably gonna be purple with a yellow stripe an’ a big arrow pointing to it accompanied by the words, ‘This Is a Bloody Big Clue!’ Or p’raps it’ll just resemble another fistful of knuckles collidin’ with the gristle in y’r stupid, PHALLIC SHAPED NOSE.”

  With resignation Ben started to remove the videos from the bookshelves. He studied the well-thumbed covers with a half-hearted intent.

  “Miss Sonneman reckoned the answer might lie in these videos somewhere,” he proffered by way of more amicable dialogue.

  “Yes...I wouldn’t be too ’asty to trust the word of a paraplegically brained slug if I were you.” Sitting down on the floor, Jess shuffled through his own mound, constructing a circular wall for himself. Ben peered at one of the bricks.

  “Terminator 2. Judgement Day.” He looked at a couple more. “Zombie Holocaust...The Revenge of the Chainsaw Prostitutes 5.”

  “Let’s ’ave a look at that one. It might be important.”

  Obviously it was, because Jess stuffed it up his sweater for further perusal at home.

  “Very influential things, films.” Ben had found himself a rhythm now, speaking whilst he downloaded the films one by one. “When I was knee high to a grasshopper’s knob there was this fat, spotty twit called Dennis Waltham. Lived four doors up in a house that looked as if Mother Teresa belonged there. We nicknamed him ‘Turd-Pipe’ Waltham ’cos he had a permanent crust of snot on his top lip. His mum was always trying to polish it off with a phlegmy hanky. But every morning, nine o’clock when school started, it was back. All green and solid like the outflow pipe on Blackpool beach.”

  Ben leaned back against the cupboard with an air of reflection.

  “One year we went to Blackpool on a field trip. We had to write an essay on ‘The Sights and Sounds of the Seaside.’ Waltham put, ‘Blackpool with its famous tower looked like a beach with a hard on.’”

  “Are you actually goin’ t’ get to the point?” Jess interrupted, growing thoroughly bored. “Or would y’ rather experience the G force on y’r face of extreme flatulence from inside me large colon?!”

  “The point was...” Ben gave Jess an unsuccessful chilling stare. “When he was eight years old he went to see ‘Superman’ with his mum and dad. Three days later he tried to fly off the top of the kitchen cupboard and impaled himself on his novelty Blackpool Tower paperweight.”

  Ben shrugged his shoulders, having made his point, although Jess wasn’t sure what the point was.

  “I knew a girl once, called Karen McDougal,” Jess replied, embarking on a recollection of his own. “Got so involved in a book she was readin’ that the 14a ran over ’er ’ead and killed ’er.”

  “That’s not the same thing at all.”

  “Well...” Jess breathed in, filling his lungs with the room’s stale atmosphere. “As much as I’d like to get involved in an ’eated debate about the corruption of youth at this point, Ben, it ’ardly seems likely that a retired business clerk would start shootin’ green lightnin’ bolts out of his ’ead and turn into a psychotically deranged killin’ machine just because ’ee watched the ‘Ewok Adventure’.”

  “No…But it makes you think.”

  “Which in your case might result in some ’orrific aneurysm, so just button y’r gob and save your opinions until your next visit t’ the toilet.”

  Ben reached down behind the collection of films he’d amassed. He fumbled awkwardly for a grip on an object.

  Moments later he pulled out an orb. It was about the size of a child’s ball, yellow and purple and made from some sort of glass. He held it up to the light, squinting.

  “What do you reckon this is then?”

  Chapter Twelve: The Thick Plottens

  November 16th, 2:30 p.m. ‘The Caldwell Crescent Retirement Home’

  The building’s green copper roof was the only alternative from its otherwise colourless structure. Its austere walls had been built from the finest slate that Cumbria had to offer. Slate that now had pale yellow running through it as the ravages of t
ime had taken their toll.

  Donald Oakseed stood between the gates staring at the huge house hypnotically. His clothes were curious to say the least. A safari suit such as a BBC naturalist might wear wasn’t the most appropriate apparel for a cold November’s day.

  In one hand he held a coiled whip. In the other a water-flask fastened by a sling about his neck. The brim of a large hat covered his incandescent eyes.

  A struggle briefly distorted the muscles around his brow. The genuine Donald Oakseed battled in vain. After several centuries in the realms of death the great author had returned and he intended to keep it that way. He aimed Donald’s body at front door and stepped forwards.

  Old dears were silhouetted against the window occupying one whole side of the lounge. Humped and squat, they resembled cacti.

  Some watched the television, transfixed regardless of what was showing. Terry Wogan roused the occasional false-toothed smile. Shane Richie’s anarchic show had them trembling in their chairs. And Michael Barrymore, what a clean living, nice young man he was.

  Clara London had different ideas on how she and her best friend, Edna Pruitt, should spend their autumn years. Dominoes, gossip and a never-ending procession of tea. The gossip, unfortunately, had dried-up long ago, when the war had become too foggy a memory to embellish further. But the tea kept coming, accompanied by the patronising ‘Equal Opportunities Nurse,’ Allan. And an eternity of domino games ran seamlessly into each other, making it difficult to determine where one game ended and another began.

  Clara placed a Double-Six on the table with a trembling hand that portended the onset of Parkinson’s disease. She cast an eye towards the armchair beside the fireplace.

  The chair was occupied by Celia d’Locksmith, a stoical woman submerged in her own superiority. Her nose pointed at the rafters, the tip of her cane stabbing the carpet. She was of a more refined breeding than the others around her. Regrettably, her equally proud son had dumped her there years before and done a runner. What a way to end your life, Clara thought without remorse, before returning to her undefeated streak of fourteen years.

  Edna Pruitt laid down a Double-Four and grinned. The domino was brushed angrily to one side. Confused about the rules, despite the decades of participation, Edna tried again with more concentration.

  “Christmas was much more traditional when we was young,” she muttered. Her filmy eyes stared at the bare walls. “Not like this at all.”

  “That’s because it’s only November, dear.”

  “November…yes...” Edna was off on some voyage of her own. A voyage that by-passed reality and was heading straight through the foggy precincts of Memory Lane. She spoke behind the back of a hand full of varicose veins. “We used to ’ave a great big Christmas tree. With lots of bows and ribbons and kittens on it. And we’d all stand round the ’arpsichord and sing Christmas carols.”

  “It’s not bloody Christmas yet!”

  “Eh?” Edna had gone deaf again. That irritating selective deafness that only occured when it chose to do so.

  “Christmas!” Clara leaned into her inanely smiling friend, cupping her lips. “It’s not Christmas yet!”

  “Christmas...yes...we ’ad t’ make our own entertainment back then. None of this new fangled radio rubbish.”

  Ignoring the nonsense her friend was spouting Clara suddenly thought it appropriate, after all the years spent in Edna’s inadequate company, to broach a difficult subject.

  “Edna? Why ’ave you got to repeat everythin’ I say?”

  “Say...yes...we all used t’ get a tangerine each in our stockings.” Edna was off again, lost in a personal history that grew more evocative with every rendition. “Oh my God! Look at the state of Mr Jefferson!”

  Mrs London followed the direction of Edna’s finger. Mr Jefferson was snoring loudly alongside the miniature arboretum, his head slumped onto one tweed shoulder.

  “’Ee ’asn’t got long f’r this world,” Edna added. “Bags I first dibs on ’is armchair.”

  Celia d’Locksmith chanced a quick glance in the couple’s direction. Sometimes Celia wondered what it would be like to lower her standards and take the other old biddies at face value. Unfortunately Clara had noticed her eyes swivelling back into their original position.

  “I don’t know what you’re staring at, neither. Y’ stuck up old bag!”

  “Old bag...” muttered Edna, her lips syncopating with her friend’s.

  Clara jabbed a finger at Mrs d’Locksmith’s chair. “The likes of us not good enough for you ’auty tauty, aristocratic types’ eh?”

  “Types...”

  Then Celia spoke. She hadn’t broken the vow of self-imposed silence for over four years now. Her voice had a lofty control not normally associated with the other occupants.

  “If I was 15 years younger I’d...”

  “Still be a toffee nosed old cow!” Clara nodded triumphantly. Then she added as an afterthought, “With no visitors!”

  “Suppositories...” muttered Edna, who hadn’t been listening hard enough.

  There was a squeal of trolley wheels as Allan trundled in. With the artistry of a barber he removed some crusted dinner from Edna’s chin. Edna appeared not to have noticed. The food was replaced by small pond of saliva.

  “Bloody ’ooligan.” It was Clara’s habit to accost anybody younger than thirty-four in this manner. Like most old people confined to one building for too long her perception of the outside world had been slightly coloured by Crimewatch UK.

  “Like all the rest of ’em!” Clara added, flatly. “There was none o’ this violence on the streets w’en we was bloody young.”

  “No...” Allan sported a genial smile that said he’d travelled this road before. “You were too busy killing Germans, weren’t you?”

  Where upon the lounge door burst off its hinges.

  Several residents ducked for cover. Numerous pacemakers started to whine like abandoned puppies.

  Donald Oakseed charged through the opening. He was closely pursued by a security guard, who looked as though his head had been dipped in sherry.

  From his leather jacket Donald produced a sawn-off shotgun.

  “’Ere! What’s your game?” Allan instinctively made to grab the weapon, sentinel to the last of his pensioners. He was brushed aside with a strength he hadn’t anticipated.

  Donald focused in on Clara’s excited eyes. It was just like on Crimewatch last week, she thought, slapping her hands together.

  “Clara London?”

  The ear-ripping scream of gunfire. Shells flew in all directions, accompanied by limbs and false teeth, dominoes and jigsaw pieces. Windows shattered. Light bulbs burst. Blood splattered up the walls in a gorefest that only the lowest of ‘The Creeping Dead’ sequels would stoop to recreate.

  In short, it was a massacre.

  From behind the sofa came a high-pitched voice. It rattled musically through the springs the settee now sported. “We ’ad a sense of community back then...”

  The voice descended into a mutter, as though its owner had just noticed the damage.

  One last eardrum-blasting explosion disturbed the pigeons in the eaves. Then silence fell beneath the heavy quilt of gunpowder smoke.

  Nothing further moved apart from the odd chunk of plaster giving way from the ceiling.

  2:35 p.m. Greyminster, being intrinsically a reserved town, was unaware of the impending doom. But time and tide, as the old adage tells us, wait for no man.

  The ‘Paranormal Investigations’ continued, now confined to the ‘Small Boys’ room at Mrs Prune’s boarding house.

  Actually, that isn’t strictly true. Whatever Jess Hobson was doing it couldn’t be considered work. He was sat on the toilet reading his well-thumbed copy of Razzle. On the rug by his feet stood a can of beer and a box of chocolates.

  Outside the door Mrs Prune marched angrily up and down. Her fingernails dug deeply into her palms. Every so often she glanced at the lock. At length her patience wore as thin as a per
ished elastic band.

  “Jess ’Obson! W’at are you doin’ in there? Givin’ birth?”

  “I’m not y’r mother, Mrs Prune. She’s the only woman I know ’oo ever gave birth to a stool.”

  “’Ow dare yoo!!” The final ‘Yoo’ of that statement had a haughty ring about it. “You’re the only person I know as spends almost a third of ’is life on the bog.”

  “Y’re puttin’ me off. ’Ow am I s’pose to take a dump with a warty old rhino listenin’ in at the keyhole?”

  There followed the rustle of what at first seemed optimistically to be something other than a magazine. Much to Mrs Prunes’ chagrin her expectations were wrong.

  “It’s upsettin’ me sphincter muscles.” Jess continued. “I can’t perform with you standin’ outside waitin’ for the splashdown.”

  Mrs Prune scowled. “Aim for the side o’ the bowl or somethin’! Just ’urry up! Before me knickers tek on the appearance of weather balloons.”

  Jess reached into the back pocket of his crumpled denims. Moments later his hand re-emerged holding the Phase Re-alignment Glasses. He put them on the end of his bulbous nose.

  Benjamin Foster appeared clutching the toilet roll. Jess jerked backwards, banging his head against the cistern.

  “Jess! Finish off the paperwork.” The toilet roll was flung towards him. “I’ve discovered something important!”

  Jess whipped off the glasses again and tried to pull his sweater across his knees. “BUGGER OFF!!”

  At 3:30 that afternoon Mrs Prune was watering her eggplant. In the end she’d paid a visit on the Wambachs’ and could now continue feeding her plants without further torture.

  Benjamin Foster buried his nose between the pages of a book. He licked one finger, applied a little pressure to the page and brought away the corner.

  Heavy footsteps rattled through the blackened woodwork. As Jess’ shadow fell across him, Ben looked up. “At last... I was beginning to think the toilet had swallowed you up.”