by Brian Hughes
Toby Patterson filled the doorway to the late Henry Higginbotham’s living room, his frame almost distending the wooden mantle. Apprehension had etched itself across his putty-like features. Sergeant Partridge was crouching over before him, investigating a carefully concealed object on the carpet.
Beyond him the only visible items were a pair of fat legs that lay across the shag-pile rug and concluded on the hearth in a pair of bespeckled boots. Limbs that parodied the hands of some clock the mechanism of which had stopped at exactly eight minutes to eleven.
Toby’s mouth geared up for action. When the unassuming colossus managed to speak it was with slow, well considered words, as though every syllable had been invented from scratch.
“Will Henry still be able to play football with me on Saturday, Mister Sergeant sir?”
“NO!” The solitary word shot across the room with the velocity of a cannon ball. Momentarily shocked at his own anger Jack Partridge took control of himself, wiped the sweat from his brow and felt himself turning the colour of jade.
“No…Toby.” This time he spoke in a more collective, less threatening manner. “That seems highly unlikely.”
His voice dropped a couple of decibels.
“Not now that some vicious bastard’s taken a bite out of ’is liver.”
Taken a bite was an understatement. ‘A bite’ suggested something approximately mouth sized whereas the chunk missing from Henry Higginbotham was about the size of a bicycle wheel. To make matters worse it had been chewed up and spat out onto the furnishings beside his mangled corpse like a huge bolognaise of intestine.
Across the back of the chair behind Jack’s head something barely tangible shifted. A menacing flicker moving through the shadows of the room.
An ordinary cushion divested itself of all its colour. The pigmentation was absorbed into the armchair, matching the exact pattern of the chintz. What remained was some sort of gigantic silicon implant. It rippled in the dim light that struggled through the tightly drawn curtains.
The creature turned. Very slowly at first, rucking up the antimacassar into a carbuncle of lace. Resembling a slug with its innards removed it slurped down the chair arm. It reached the hem with a barely audible plop, leaving nothing behind it but a greasy smear.
Moments later it shot across the carpet in the same way that a droplet of rain would trace its route down an oleaginous window. This time it caught Jack’s attention. He swung his head around, a feeling of dread saturating his bones. But he was too slow to catch it before it had vanished through the door. And all that Jack could bear testimony to was Toby Patterson’s tremendous body swinging into the room like an enormous stuffed rabbit.
“You’d better stay back Toby. Y’ won’t want to see this.”
Sergeant Partridge pulled the walkie-talkie from his pocket. Thumbing down the button he addressed the police station with his customary informality. There was so little crime in Greyminster that the police band codes hardly seemed appropriate anymore. Perhaps, if this was the start of a trend, he’d better memorise the buggers again.
“Constable Jaye?” A rumbling hiss of static clogged the airways, followed closely by a high-pitched nasal voice.
“Yes, Sarge?”
“You’d better send back up. We’ve got a murder on our ’ands.”
Then he felt it. Moist and clammy it slapped down his neck with the force of a carton of tripe collapsing. Working its unformed fingers beneath his collar.
“Make sure that they’ve got a damp cloth with ’em, will y’ Jaye?” Jack’s voice had the resigned timbre about it that came with years of accepting your station in life. “Toby’s just been sick on me ’ead.”
Let’s take a detour at this point. At that exact same moment a hedgehog was ambling across Greyminster’s park. The last of the long night’s hunters, a small, prickled gooseberry weaving across the crazy golf course. It had experienced a fortuitous night of foraging and, somewhat replete, was now heading back to the steaming mounds of compost down at the allotments.
Emerging from the bushes it paused on the muddy grass. Feverishly its tiny nose twitched. There was something odd about the atmosphere this morning. Something juxtaposed with the normal dewy aroma. The hedgehog strained its nostrils upward.
High above, the atmosphere was being torn apart with the sort of noise that industrial machines might create in a warehouse constructed from tin.
Down through the outer rim of the Earth’s fragile stratosphere rolled a huge, old fashioned oven-like object, camouflaged with military scuffmarks. It thrummed and it rang, large pistons operating some undetermined machinery.
The hedgehog watched as the enormous craft flared brightly and then vanished, short needles of light bursting in dandelion clocks from the outer hull. Then there was nothing to suggest it had ever existed at all.
A squeak and a squelch and the hedgehog transformed into a flattened circle of crushed spines. Four huge indentations roughly forty-odd feet apart appeared on the ground in the manner of fantastic thumbprints where the stanchions had come to a standstill.
After a great deal of wheezing the engines wound themselves down to clattering halt.
Then there was silence. The dawn chorus cautiously returned to fill in the empty space.
The gigantic cloaked mechanism now watched and waited, completely incognito.
The Greyminster Scrapbook Part One
In the course of his own ‘Private’ investigations, following the events of this book, Sergeant Partridge managed to acquire a number of items. Items either related to the circumstances that are about to unfold or just of personal interest to him. They can still be found in a battered suitcase on the top of his wardrobe.
Amongst the memorabilia is Cissy Doyle’s poetry book. A small hardback affair with a black cover, written by hand and illustrated throughout with close approximations of native British flora. Several small furry animals also decorate the margins, although it’s difficult to determine whether these are indigenous or not. Whatever, there follows an example ballad from page forty-five:
The knight rode out, from the Castle of Doubt,
The ribbons all tied in the horse’s black hair.
He rode and he rode for a great many days.
And enlightened at last on the Castle of Air.
Because there are so many such nondescript odes in the book I shall give the other ditties a wide berth. Nobody wants to get dragged down by the self-maudlin musings of a socially inept adolescent.
No…the key to Cissy’s true nature wasn’t hidden between the lines of her ill-conceived literature. The bookmark, however, tells a different story. It was one of those ‘Cut-Out-And-Dress’ dolls that were frequently printed on the back page of Bunty magazine. This particular doll was a modified version. Cecilia Doyle had added her own fashion accessories to what resembled a young cartoon version of Myra Hindly in its vest and socks.
The accessories had all been hand-drawn. Each had a dotted line around its edge where it needed to be cut out. The figure itself had been carefully glued onto a piece of card. These are some of the items that Cissy had added to the mannequin’s wardrobe:
1. A battery powered rucksack to fuel the attached photon discharger. Invaluable for the dispensing of Xnarghian battle forces in spectacular fashion.
2. Pink and yellow lightning-bolt moon boots, an important accoutrement for when Bunty was traversing the great mountains of the fourth moon of Spod Minor.
3. A collection of cluster bombs attached to a cartridge belt for the latest off the shoulder look.
4. A Tribble™ on a lead
5. A red and black basque in case of undercover surveillance work in the sleazy night-clubs of Metabelis Three.
6. A portable pack of ‘Oxygum’ for breathing on inhospitable planets. (Cissy was very thorough about the believable details of such matters.)
7. Complete space suit with plasma rifles, phaser guns, rocket launchers, sonic grenades, heat seeking missiles, grisly man traps,
harpoon guns, mind probes, energy dischargers, stun sticks, carving knives, acid balls, death rays, steel bow and arrows, barbed rope, etc. etc. etc.
Another interesting item in the Greyminster Scrapbook, as Jack Partridge called his collection of artefacts, was a single sheet of paper recovered from Allison Moore’s apartment. The only surviving copy - and probably the only copy ever made - of the Greyminster Astronomy Club Monthly Newspaper. It was written and edited by Toby Patterson, the majority of the work having been carried out with the aid of a thick wax crayon. The page was written in a large, careful script reminiscent of Toby’s method of oration.
Here is a transcript of the newsletter without the corrections that had been added on completion by Toby’s mother:
The GREyMInsTER ASTRonmOMy CLuB Monthly NEWSLEter Isuew One 15p.
Edited by Toby Paterson with sum help from my MUM.
HEllo Evrybodythis is toby paterson and this ismy newslettter so what is the news well i tell you wot a week its beeen the presidint of amerika has desided to send a spaceship to mars becos one off his siantisses has found a big blob of life on it and has desided it needs killing befor it atacks earth and kills us all becos my mum sed it must be dangerus and it will kill uz wen we ar asleeeep and it will creep up on uz and eeet us if we dont brush ar teeth and we keep playing with arselfs and we dont flush the toyel toyle tioll bog proply so look out...
At about this point the cumbersome letters overflow onto a drawing of the space shuttle cut from a recent edition of the Greyminster Chronicle. The illustration has various explanations written in an altogether neater calligraphy. Toby’s mother probably had a hand in this. For example, one arrow pointing to a massive bulk emerging from the cargo hold bears the inscription:
‘Two Years Supply of Jelly. Strawberry flavour, not lemon, because I know you don’t like lemon.’
Another arrow points to the engines, which Mrs. Patterson has obviously mistaken for something else. The words here read:
‘Large Cheeses for the journey.’
Other phrases inform us that one section is a:
‘Tail fin to ward off nasty wild space amoebas’
And:
‘Pointed bit at front to puncture holes in wayward asteroids.’
After some initial consternation at his inability to work around the picture, the treatise continues with Toby’s narrative about an inch further down:
...This is a drawing off a spseship which i cut out off a paper with some help from my MUM too show yuo wot it would be like my MUM has ekwippd it as if i were going to ride in it persnollly with sum of my favrite things and it wud be a verr exciting jurny well thats it for this weeek here is a drawing of a asterrrhoid luks like see you al soooon,
Toby and mum x
A drawing that resembles a suet dumpling with arms completes the missive. Thumb prints and diagrams abound across the report, one corner sporting a drawing of a rabbit with buckled front teeth.
Which just goes to show, doesn’t it? Regardless of whether your IQ is in excess of 160 or lethargically approaching 70 with drooping head and shuffling feet, some things are just intrinsic to human nature.
Chapter Four: Reinitialization and Realisation
“Shit! Bugger! Sod!”
Hogan’s eyes made contact with all that remained of the Columbus’ skeleton, his feet scrabbling against the brickwork of Brasswick’s wall. It was slowly dawning on him that he was now well and truly imprisoned on this loathsome planet called Earth.
In the grey light of the August morning the devastation to his only means of escape appeared to be even worse than he recalled. To be honest if he ever did manage to get the Columbus off the ground again it would now be suitably camouflaged to gain entry into the front line of the Great War. Disguised perhaps as a bloody great asteroid with holes in it large enough to drive a double-decker bus through but suitably camouflaged none-the-less.
There was a ‘twang’ as his sneaker slipped against the pointing. It sent a band of dust tumbling towards the cobbles. His heel was caught in the makeshift police tape that Constable Parkins had spent so long restraining the inferno with. The barrier had been tied around the gate hinges in a complex girdle. It consisted of various strung together items including bin liners, carrier bags and pages from the previous week’s Sunday Sport. The latter had been rolled into tubes that had instantly torn beneath the weight of the first morning dew.
Cissy was already walking along the uneven wall as though it was a tightrope. Her arms were outstretched in the fashion of a scarecrow’s, constantly readjusting themselves for a more substantial balance. Her ten attenuated piggies were gripping cautiously onto the slimy brickwork.
Despite her rather outlandish appearance Cissy had actually studied ballet as a child. It was a practice that had enabled her to become moderately proficient at pirouetting around her bedroom in front of a long mirror.
Unfortunately Cissy’s many years of solitary practice hadn’t taken into account such obstacles as small mounds of moss. Especially the diminutive protrusions of sphagnum that now sprouted out of the bulwark at unexpected angles. It will therefore come as no surprise to learn that shortly Cissy found herself tumbling towards the yard. A frightened squeal drifted upwards from her over-stretched lips. The summer dress she had deliberately worn to impress her spaceman flapped around her face resembling a parachute that had unsuccessfully opened.
Half a minute later and two figures (one with a spreading bruise on her knee, the other dragging behind him a length of bunting with a group of flies riding piggyback on it) wandered around the remnants of the intergalactic vessel.
Cissy pulled an expression of wonder. Now that the Columbus could be seen in the daylight it was a sight to behold. Her awe-struck countenance, however, was counterbalanced dramatically by the commander’s own aspect of growing animosity. A sinking sensation was making a cats-cradle from his guts. He attempted desperately to shrug the feeling off. Quite unsuccessfully as it happened, because it was heavier than a fourth helping of Christmas pudding.
“Oh my God!” Hogan snorted down his nostrils in despair. “Look at the fu...”
In the nick of time he managed to curtail the irreverent words. So far he hadn’t actually encountered many of the occupants of Earth. But already he suspected that the planet was some sort of dumping ground for psychotic mutants. He had no intention of making matters worse by the odd misplaced damnation.
“The...state of this,” he added cautiously. Shaking his grazed head he narrowed his eyes into suspicious slits of resentment. “’Ow the bloody ’Ell did I ever manage t’ survive the crash?”
“It must have been divine providence?”
Cissy took a firm hold of his trench coat sleeve, forcing the whole of her body weight against it until she could feel the bones through the dense material.
“Perhaps baby Jesus wanted to save you…because you’re a hero?”
If it hadn’t been coming from that particular, rather frightening mouth then no doubt Hogan would have regarded the comment as simple sarcasm.
“Perhaps the question should have been, ‘Why’ did I survive?”
He prised himself free from her grip, no mean feat as each individual digit had to be bent backwards in succession. He then attempted to tug on a large chunk of meat skewered to the radio antenna. It refused stubbornly to leave the thin metal rod, producing instead a noise similar to that of a ruler being vibrated across the edge of a desk. He muttered the next comment on the edge of his companion’s hearing.
“Baby bloody Jesus must be buggerin’ pissed off wi’ me then!”
Cissy had discovered the shattered containers from the cargo hold. Right now she was endeavouring to decipher the cryptically printed letters written across the top of each carton.
“Marshal? What was in the crates?”
A transient flicker of concern dilated Marshal’s pupils. Best to feign indifference for the time being.
“What crates would those be?”
; “The crates that are broken up all over the cobbles. Look…what’s all this weird writing on them?” She turned a splinter of oak in her hands, examining the unusual thumbscrew embedded deeply into it. “Was it vegetables? For the journey?”
“Yeah…no…yeah.” Hogan took stock of himself. “Er…hamsters.”
What a lousy thing to say! However there wasn’t time for regrets. He’d bloody well gone and said it now.
“It was...hamsters, Cissy.”
Cissy looked up, confusion written into every ugly undulation of her face.
“Hamsters?”
“Yeah…” A frustrated edge was developing to the commander’s restrained voice. “Hamsters…y’ know? Furry little rodents that go ‘eek’ when y’ crush the annoying little buck toothed bastards...”
His voice dropped beneath his breath so that it buzzed on the edge of Cecilia’s hearing with the strength of a personal-stereo worn by somebody-else.
“They come in handy for cleaning the toilet out when y’ve accidentally flushed the bog brush through the hatch.”
Completely oblivious Cissy continued to investigate the wreckage. With some disdain she prodded a plank that appeared to have had a semicircular bite taken from it.
“They must have been very strong hamsters to do all of this.”
“Yes…I dare say the little buggers probably were…” Hogan gritted his teeth, forming a bridle to keep his blasphemous words contained. “They were very fond of steroids.”
A satisfying image entered his head.
“Strong enough to rip y’r mother’s bastard head off at a push.”
Cecilia sent the offending lumber skittering noisily across the cold ground, her face puzzled.