by Brian Hughes
Channel 43 was sports in German.
Channel 44 was a transvestite in discussion. It was also in German.
Channel 45 was, for some unknown reason, missing altogether.
Henry worked through several more channels, pausing briefly to adjust the tracking controls. Behind him an oil slick reared up. And there it hung. Suspended above the grubby antimacassar, rippling gently as if watching its prey.
Then it struck.
A haunted scream rebounded through every room in the apartment.
Then a crunch! And a snap! And the sound of blood dripping onto carpet. Blood that formed a dark red stain, swelling through the fibres in an increasing circle.
And with a belch of disgust the shape slithered off.
Chapter Three: A Shadow Slips By
The police station at York Street was a squat Edwardian affair with a similar portly character as the good sergeant himself. It was so out of date and understaffed that it still sported the blue lamp above its arched red brick entrance. Admittedly the lamp had seen better days. It only ever worked now in the midst of a thunderstorm and nobody to date had managed to explain why.
Just as the late shift was winding up for the night Sergeant Partridge found himself yawning into his coffee. The mug had been standing for so long the congealed coffee inside it had developed a crust. The gaping yawn made three uneven dimples appear in Jack’s outjutting chin.
For the past half an hour he’d been leaning over the front desk. Every so often his tired eyes would wander upwards, wondering where Constable Jaye had disappeared.
What could be said about Constable Jaye? Well...she was a young, attractive woman with a seemingly permanent suntan. God only knew where she’d picked that up from what with the lousy Greyminster weather. Not that Jack had noticed. He was getting too old for that sort of thing. Besides which, in the police force that sort of thing just wasn’t done. However, Jaye’s little nuances could be somewhat infuriating at times. Whenever Jack needed a job doing urgently, such as putting the kettle on, the young constable was always off around the back of the station. What she found so bloody fascinating there Christ alone knew.
On one occasion Sergeant Partridge had commented discreetly in Parkins’ ear, “She’s probably got a sunbed ’idden round the back there, eh son?”
To which the underling had responded, “I doubt that, Sarge. There’s nowhere to plug a sunbed in.”
Parkins had a sense of irony about as sharp as a rubber ball and, Jack suspected, a brain about as smooth.
Currently Sergeant Partridge was working his way through a well-thumbed copy of Model Maker’s Monthly, his overcoat collar turned against the breeze whistling through the front door. The sporadic flurries had brought with them a few damp leaves that would need sweeping up later on.
Jack loved model making. His were the simple joys of life. Constable Parkins excluded of course.
He had just reached the section on The Joys of Balsa Wood Aircraft Construction when the telephone rang. With a mouth full of coffee he fumbled absentmindedly for the receiver.
“Greyminster constabulary...” Pushing the phone against his ear Jack absorbed the measurements for a rubber-band-propelled Fokker D. Triplane. “Sergeant Partridge speaking.”
There followed a short pause whilst Constable Jaye emerged from beyond the self-locking door, laden down with musty files.
“Oh...’ello Toby...” Jack thumbed over another leaf and allowed his eyes to come to rest on The New Earth Wars range of Space Cruisers.
“A murder in the apartment above yours, eh?” Over the years he had learned how to talk fluently with Toby Patterson whilst not taking in a word. “And w’at makes y’ think that?”
Experiences past had taught him that Toby, a rather sad and gormless soft toy of a man, had an overactive imagination. Toby would have been proof of the influence of television on the feeble mind if he’d had a television set and had known how to plug it in.
“Blood dripping through the ceiling, eh?”
Jack licked his leather thumb, turned another page and suddenly became overwhelmed by the desire for a bacon sandwich.
“Yeah...you’re sure it’s not just Ribena again, Toby? Like the stuff y’ spilled on the chair the last time y’ called us out in an emergency? W’en y’ thought that your ’amster ’ad spontaneously combusted?”
He signalled Constable Jaye whilst rubbing his fatigued eyes and pointed at a mug full of pens that resembled a startled hedgehog. Jaye understood this mute gesture as a request to hand one over the desk to him. With a nod of recognition he accepted it, reluctantly jotting down the details of Toby’s case on the magazine’s corner.
“All right Toby...” Jack breathed in. “We’ll ’ave someone over as soon as we can spare ’em.”
The receiver went down with a weary clunk. And Jack retired himself back into the perusal of his hobby.
“’Oo’s on duty round Sword Street?”
“Constable Parkins should still be on that walk, Sarge.” Constable Jaye consulted her clipboard for confirmation before nodding, apparently satisfied.
“Oh God.” The sergeant slumped in much the same way that a punctured life jacket might slump. Drawing in a deep sigh before it could escape, he folded the magazine and pulled himself up. Then he checked his wrist. Pulled his cuff back down. Checked the clock above the door. And finally added with resignation, “Might as well look into this one me’sel’…I’ll call round at Toby’s on the way ’ome.”
Coalbunkers are not renowned for their hospitality. This particular coalbunker had all the comforts of a Victorian lunatic asylum. Not that Commander Hogan would have known, never having majored in Earth history. However the bunker was dark and it was mouldy and it had weird little creatures resembling tiny armadillos running about all over the discarded heaps of slag.
And it was bloody freezing as well, particularly at this time on a late August morning. If there had been any brass monkeys around then they’d have probably considered a career move to the Sultan’s harem a good choice at this point.
There was the rattle of a large rusted lock being opened with an equally large rusted key. Splinters of light at the top and bottom of the hatchway joined into one diffused band and began to grow. Seconds later a craggy face thrust itself inside, taking a reconnaissance of the situation. It disappeared and the end of a walking stick replaced it.
“Bloody no-good ’oodlum!” Sparks erupted as the stick thrashed against the stone walls, colliding with the commander’s head. In desperation Hogan attempted to protect his vulnerable anatomy with his arms, receiving several purple bruises to his elbows instead.
“I know w’at your game is! Well, you’re not goin’ t’ get away with it!” The staff caught him a sharp blow about the kneecap. “Try t’ defile my daughter, would y’?”
The weapon gathered momentum, bouncing randomly off the walls. A thin voice outside, on the edge of his hearing, closed in on the massacre. It was accompanied by the sounds of sticky insteps hastily crossing frosted stonework.
“Mother don’t!”
A tussle broke out beyond the opening, the primitive weapon changing pattern as a result and catching Hogan repeatedly under the chin.
The carnage stopped with almost the same unexpectedness as it had begun.
“W’at on Earth d’ y’ think you’re doin’ dressed like that, Cecilia Doyle?” The old woman had not so much asked the question as brought it to the precipice of a slap.
Cissy drew her dressing gown closed, covering up the stork legs and the bedraggled night-dress both at once. A few short moments of indignation from both parties followed. At length the silence was broken by the familiar shrill voice of Cissy’s mother.
“W’at’ll the neighbours say?” Mrs Doyle threw her arthritic arms in the air. Cissy quickly pounced on one, holding it down like some sort of savage beast.
“Mother! Come back inside!”
“’Ee’s not ’avin’ your MAIDEN ’EAD, CISSY!” Th
e senior citizen’s words echoed through every backyard along the street, rattling against the chilled panes of the somnambulistic buildings.
“Mother!” Cissy had turned crimson, a blush that started at her toes and finished at her ears. “Come back in the house! Now!”
One last blow connected dextrously with Hogan’s temple before Cissy finally managed to gain the upper hand and lead her mother away. Albeit reluctantly.
Hogan scrambled across the avalanche of boulders and thrust his features through the hatch into the brave new world beyond. Heading towards the kitchen-step was Mrs Doyle, still skirmishing with her daughter. Cissy’s monologue was occasionally punctuated by phrases such as, “Don’t talk rubbish!” “You’re so naive, Cecilia!” and “Spaceman my arse! ’Ee’s a man, Cecilia. An’ ’ee only wants one thing. Mark my words, young woman, they’re all the bloody same.”
Henry Higginbotham’s front door bulged beneath the boisterous hammering. It was the distinctive knock of a sergeant in the police force. The sort of pounding that assumes the resident is stone deaf. Behind Jack Partridge, looking as though he’d been stuffed, stood Toby Patterson, his great arms hanging down at his sides, his shoulders arched back well beyond the centre of gravity. It was a miracle that he was keeping himself upright. One could only assume that his gigantic boots were filled with lead.
The dreadful truth was that the knocking was only a formality. Jack’s suspicions about Toby’s over-abundant imagination had been severely dashed when he’d entered his parlour. The ceiling of Toby’s lounge had been struggling under such an onslaught of blood that the blown-vinyl covering had burst. It resembled a ruptured bag previously filled with strawberry jam.
“Right!” Jack took the end of his bulbous nose between his thumb and his forefinger, squeegeed the beads of sweat off its tip, and squared up his shoulder with the lock.
Then he charged with the ferocity of a bull. The sort of bull that would have steam rushing from its nostrils in clouds.
He hit the door with the full weight of a mini-skip. The door collapsed inwards with a startled scream.
Debris exploded into Henry’s quarters, Jack unable to stop. In a shower of fragments he collided with the book cupboard’s latticed doors. Or ex-doors as the case now was. Shattered panes and twisted lead enveloped the room in a toadstool of torn books and pottery ornaments. Uncontrollably Jack continued into a terrified shrub that sacrificed its pot as a buffer.
Toby waddled through the doorway behind him with the gait of an eighteen stone duck, studying the damage. His gargantuan fingers were wrapped around the spare key to Henry’s front door. As stupid as he was, Toby had the good sense to hide it. Sergeant Partridge struggled onto his feet, brushed the soil off his overcoat and dislodged a weed from the top of his head.
“Now then, Toby!” Attempting to put some authority back into his voice, Jack tugged at his shirt collar. The soil creating a border around his thick neck slipped into his vest. “Which room’s likely t’ be the one above your parlour then?”
The slow-witted titan brought one finger up to his lips and started to think. Rational thought for Toby was an intense and complicated procedure. Similar to preparing a thesis on nuclear fusion would have been to a carrot.
Several moments passed. Wanting to get home before dinner Jack left his companion to chew the cud and twisted a couple of suspicious door handles at random. Seconds later he’d discovered the cupboard that the ironing board was kept in. Undaunted he tested the next one along. The door creaked open, generating a noise reminiscent of hedgehogs mating.
“Well! It’s academic now, Toby. So y’ can stop thinkin’ if y’ like...”
A stampede of flies formed a dark buzzing cloud around Partridge’s head. They were accompanied by the most repugnant smell of rotting meat that his nose had ever suffered.
“I think we might’ve stumbled across the right one, any’ow.”
Cissy thrust her head through the entrance of the coalbunker, her ungainly features full of affable winsomeness. She almost dropped the tea tray when she discovered the cell was empty. A couple of the custard creams slid off the silver platter, plummeted to the ground and burst in cluster bombs of crumbs. An army of woodlice hurtled towards this fresh quarry with antennae vibrating excitedly.
For a couple of moments she stared into the dark pit, her bottom lip buckling beneath the mounting concern. The commander was nowhere in sight, just a solitary smudge of coal dust soiling the slabs suggesting the path he’d taken across the subsided patio.
“Spaceman?” Cissy remembered something she’d been told the night before. In a desperate squeal she continued, “Marshal? Where are you?”
“Over here!” It was more of a grunt than an actual voice and appeared to originate from around the corner of the outhouse.
Cissy tottered unsteadily across the weeds between the patio cracks. The stiletto shoes she’d dug out from the bottom of her mother’s wardrobe might not have been such a good idea as she’d first supposed. Far from adding a sexy waddle to her walk she now resembled an anorexic gorilla that had stubbed its big toe on some tree trunk. Much to her chagrin one heel in particular wanted to go in the totally opposite direction to Cissy’s lumbering stride. To make matters worse the other tapering platform seemed intent on finding every divot in which to get wedged.
Commander Hogan watched with reserve as the top half of Cecilia’s head cautiously inched itself around the bricks. Industriously he bandaged his wounded leg, his pale features sheltered beneath the lapel of his military trench coat. Cissy’s lips curled upwards into a grin, her teeth expertly mimicking a xylophone.
“Ah, Cissy...I, er, need to get back to my craft.”
“Whatever for?”
Just for the briefest of deeply hurt moments Cissy looked flummoxed.
“No, no.” She shook her head in thought as she studied the teacups neatly laid on the tray. “You’d be much better off staying here with me.”
She swallowed, adding in a slightly quieter voice, “And Mother, of course.”
Gently placing the tray down she crouched by his side. A sudden pain arched into Marshal’s lower stomach.
“We could turn the coal bunker into quite a nice place with a bit of work,” Cissy continued regardless, her mind reeling with ambitious ideas that involved flowered wallpaper and lots of lace cushions. “And in time, perhaps, Mother might let you inside.”
She smiled. And the pain grew that bit stronger.
Wherever his name was mentioned in the low-life strip joints across the galaxy Commander Hogan was generally referred to as a Space Rogue. A Bum. And that was putting it mildly. A sort of inter-galactic equivalent of a second-hand car sales man, he’d spent countless years smuggling dodgy artefacts that had fallen off the backs of even dodgier mining ships.
It was a living.
In his time he’d been locked in the darkest dungeons of Voltaire Four. He’d been cast adrift in a life raft with only his sneakers for food on the aquatic moon of Golgarthron. He’d faced a great many life threatening situations and just as many repugnant, multi-limbed monsters with unpronounceable names. All intent on doing him as much harm as such creatures could possibly achieve.
But never had Commander Hogan met anyone with such a determination to crush his genitals as Cissy Cecilia Doyle, as he assumed her full title to be.
And not since he’d stumbled across the cave dwelling gumba tribe, a whoop of bearded sloths living in the uncharted jungles of Alteron Ju, had he come across such a socially ignorant place as Earth.
His only desire right now was to pack up and leave although he suspected from Cissy’s rather possessive nature that she wouldn’t be too quick off the mark to help him. Which was a bugger. Because Hogan had no idea where he’d actually crashed the Columbus.
“Cissy...” He raised his puppy-dog eyes in as appealing a fashion as was feasible whilst trying not to be affronted by her peculiar face. “I’m caught up in the Great War, y’ know? A war that crosses
the Empires and is turning space into one mighty great battleground.”
Cissy gasped, leaving her mouth open for the flies to use as an awning.
“There are certain provisions back on board the Columbus. I need to make contact with the Great War Lord. My interstellar radio is locked in the glove compartment.”
“Are you on the side of righteousness?” Cissy’s eyes, hard to believe as it was, were growing larger and more wondrous at the fabrication. “Are you a great hero shot down performing some gallant deed?”
“What?” Hogan faltered. Not long enough for detection but he faltered nonetheless. It was hard to believe that anybody could be so utterly stupid. “Yes...yes. Of course I am. I was fired on by the Black Lord Thrakken’s imperial gunner troops as I was trying to save a group of furry goobledons.”
His voice wavered slightly during the more outrageous sections of this exorbitant construction. His narrow eyes flicked back and forth searching the interior of his head for the most plausible, heart-warming excuses he could find.
“That’s why I crashed into Earth. You see I love animals. Not in a sexual sense of course. I...think animals are...great. Especially cute little furry ones that wouldn’t say ‘Boo’ to a Megathusian goose. I just couldn’t watch those innocent creatures burn to death in their flimsy craft.”
At which juncture Hogan shook his head with an introspective melancholy.
It was working. Cissy was holding her hands up, concealing her disorderly mouth, her eyes swelling dramatically with tears.
“So you see...Cissy.” He searched the adolescent’s naïve gaze through his flop of black hair, attempting an apathetic smile that hardly had the stamina to turn the corners of his mouth up. “I need to get back to my craft. And...I need your help.”
Much to the relief of his groin, Cissy sprang to her feet and clattered awkwardly off towards the kitchen door.
“I’ll just get my coat.” She hesitated, adopting a thoughtful stance. “And then when you’ve gathered all of your belongings together...we can come back here and all live together. Can’t we?”