by Brian Hughes
With smug affectation he brought his wrist level with Cissy’s astonished eyes. Then he rolled back his cuff to reveal the bracelet. With a flourish he prodded a button. There was a crackle and ANN appeared beside him, currently wearing the guise of the corpulent drunkard.
It blinked pathetically as Hogan doubled-up in pain.
“Christ!” His right leg buckled beneath him, the top half of his frame subsiding. Grabbing hold of the offending kneecap he gritted his teeth in distress. The damp air surrounding his head turned blue.
“Bugger! Damn and blast! That knackers!”
“Very clever!” Cissy jabbed her nose towards the storm, unimpressed. “What d’ y’ do for an encore? Snap y’ bloody neck?”
“ANN has the ability...” Hogan grimaced, fighting back the pain along the cartilage. “To transform into an energy barrier that adopts itself to human tissue.”
“ANN?” Cissy crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.
“It’s very convenient but it doesn’t ’alf bloody hurt when y’ turn it off!” Marshal dropped onto one knee, yelping in agony. Cissy turned and stared ignorantly at the startled drunkard.
“ANN’s some sort of holographic transvestite then, is he?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Hogan was in too much discomfort to reply. “You BLOODY LIAR! What sort of name’s ANN for a fat, sweaty drunk?”
“She’s suffering from a temporary multiple-personality disorder.” Another pain wracked up his leg connecting brusquely with his lower intestine.
“Oh, I see,” came back a pedantic voice full of petulant irony. “A portable, schizophrenic laptop?”
Hogan belted the contraption on his wrist. There was a crackle as the figure beside him distorted, appeared to bend the raindrops around itself and then metamorphosed into a weasel-faced old woman dressed from head to toe in black. She peered around as if in astonishment, slid a pair of pince-nez across the bridge of her crooked nose and folded her arms across her chest.
“So…there you are, young man!”
“ANN? I want you to explain to this cretinous, shovel-toothed…”
“Showing off to the young woman, are we? Grovellin’ about on the floor like a baby!” Hogan sagged a smidgen lower. “Get up off the ground and stop actin’ like a child! Time you grew up, my boy! And don’t expect any sympathy off me, ’cos you won’t get none!”
“Oh God!”
Hogan collapsed into a heap of green material, burying his distraught face in his mud-spattered hands. Around him echoed the voices of the two most cantankerous women he’d ever met. What a bloody hopeless world! What a bloody awful mess! What the bloody Hell was he supposed to do about it all?
Jack Partridge turned his overcoat collar against the draught from the station door. Then he turned the next leaf of Model Maker’s Monthly with a leather-clad thumb.
Night, for Jack, meant work. And work, as far as Greyminster and its rather inactive criminal population went, meant studying photographs of model aircraft and wondering how he was going to test out his new remote-controlled Sopwith on Saturday.
In all the years he’d spent constructing his scaled-down engines he’d never actually managed to get one of the bastards to fly. They usually ended up crumpled into heaps resembling sculptures by Henry Moore with wisps of smoke rising from them.
Other enthusiasts seemed to have perfect control. High up on windy hilltops they’d stand, their delicate wards humming against the clouds. High-pitched eagles soaring gracefully through the forests of pylons.
But not Jack’s! His always stuttered down the runway, tripped over a stone en route and crumpled up with the dismal sound of snapping. Then they’d lie there apathetically like wounded cockroaches. Every Saturday he’d be there regardless, at the ‘Canal-Side Model Aviators Club,’ seven-thirty in the morning sharp, attempting once again to flood the stratosphere with his waspish failures. There was just something about the damn things that made him totally bloody-minded.
The door to the rest of the station closed with the clank of an automatic lock. Jack sensed the presence of Constable Jaye enter the confined space behind the counter.
“Quiet night, Sarge?” she asked without standing on ceremony.
“Riot outside the town ’all earlier.” Jack breathed slowly down his bulbous nose, thumbed over another page and continued to study the schematics before him. “Somebody ’ung the Mayor and ’is Missus from a lamppost. Bloke from the Offie on Caldwell Crescent’s threatenin’ to blow the town up with an ’ome made atom bomb. Usual sort o’ thing.”
“Inspector Nesbit’s taken over the Higginbotham murder.” Jaye glanced upwards as she shuffled her files into a neater bundle. It had crossed her mind that Sergeant Partridge might want to keep the case for himself. In her own fashion she cared about Jack.
“That’ll be nice for ’im. ’Ope he doesn’t do ’imself a mischief tryin’ t’ solve it.” A thought turned itself over inside his head. “Don’t suppose tellin’ ’im that ’Enry was slaughtered by a ravenous Altarian Beast from the Crab Nebula would ’elp much, would it?”
The question was half-muttered/half-spoken. However Constable Jaye had remarkable hearing.
“I wouldn’t have thought so, Sarge. He’s already latched onto some theory about a jealous lover. Reckons that someone couldn’t compete with Henry’s German satellite pornography.”
Jack Partridge nodded, struggling to grip the glossy paper.
“That’d be Cecilia Doyle then,” he surmised. “The teeth marks on ’is liver must ’ave been the give-away.”
There was a creak of unoiled hinges, followed by the patter of small but autocratic boots across the floor.
“Evenin’ Mrs. Wainthrop. W’at can we do you for?”
Following several drawn out moments in which nothing could be heard but the drip, drip, drip of rainwater plummeting from an old Macintosh, Jack reluctantly lowered his gaze into the grimly set features of Mrs. Wainthrop. An expression of annoyance filled the shrunken apple of her head. She pointed threateningly at the shiny nub of his nose.
“Mrs. Doyle...” said a cracked and broken voice from Mrs. Wainthrop’s slack throat.
There was something not-altogether-right about the articulation. It contained a sort of ‘back-of-the-larynx’ interference, as though she’d swallowed an out-of-tune radio. Jack arched both eyebrows.
“We still ’oldin’ Mrs. Doyle, Jaye?”
“Yes, Sarge. Sergeant Foster left instructions she wasn’t to be disturbed until her daughter came to pick her up.” Jaye consulted the bundle of notes. “Apparently Dr. Patel had a look at her this afternoon.”
She lifted her eyes and met his stare.
“She tried to bite him!”
Turning back to the aggressive old woman Jack shrugged, as if to say there was nothing further he could do. Not unless Mrs. Wainthrop was a relative, which she wasn’t. So she might as well bugger off home before he stuck her downstairs with her friend and had them both carted off to the Funny Farm.
He was confronted by a blurred fingertip that poked his nose in the same way one might prod a broken lift button. It made a humorous soapy squeak.
“Mrs. Doyle...”
The same eerie, deformed voice.
“Would you like t’ borrow some of me Strepsil’s, Mrs. Wainthrop?” Jack said loudly, on the understanding that Mrs. Wainthrop had a hearing-aid problem. She might have been off her head and that finger might have been pushing its luck, but somewhere in the back of his mind Jack was aware that the road to dotage was growing increasingly short for himself.
He drew a packet of cough sweets from his pocket and made to pop them into the old woman’s handbag by way of community spirit.
The cadaverous biddy flinched backwards, dragging her bag towards her chest and surrounding it protectively with a knot of oilskin arms.
There was something odd about that bag, Jack noted, as if it wasn’t a bag at all. More an extension to her knobbled wrist.
Mrs. Wainthrop
span on her heels, clearly distraught. Then she clattered with purpose towards the doorstep. She stopped and scowled back across her shoulder. The finger rose ominously once more.
“I’ll be back...”
And with that she hitched up her skirts and marched smartly from the building in a swirl of leaves.
There was a rumble of thunder from directly overhead. A rumble so close the ground shuddered violently.
Commander Hogan tucked himself up into the shadows cloaking the memorial. The rain was coming down strong now and so noisy he could barely make out Cissy’s angry breathing close by. He inspected his right leg, ensuring that ANN’s energy barrier was back in position. Cissy probed the ground with a toecap, her arms folded across her wiry chest and her mien set in defiance.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” she said at length. It was the sort of question that would normally have ended in the words “Or What?”
“No!” He brushed his wet fringe from his smarting eyes and fleetingly considered having a crew cut at the first opportunity. “But you are supposed to believe me!”
“HAH!” Cissy swivelled round. It would have been more dramatic had she not stumbled slightly in doing so. For a moment her arms flailed and her authoritative expression slid off her jaw. But she rallied magnificently and seconds later folded her arms back up into a defensive barrier before continuing. “And how long do the batteries work on that...thing?”
She had wanted to say ‘Slut’ but somehow it didn’t seem appropriate for an elderly grandmother.
“Forever! They’re water based!”
“What?”
“They’re WATER BASED! Cold Fusion.” Hogan emphasised each word because Cissy seemed to be unable to hear him properly. “Don’t tell me that this God forsaken planet hasn’t even discovered that water produces more energy than it actually contains?”
“Might have...”
Cissy was now pouting. Hogan leant backwards dramatically, accidentally thumping his head against the stone column.
“My God! Now I’ve seen it all.” He rubbed the lump on the back of his skull and continued regardless. “A bloody planet that’s two thirds covered in H2O, the most valuable commodity in the universe, and they’re farting about with unstable nuclear power-stations to generate energy.”
He leant forwards again, the incredulous expression that had moulded his features into a bloated udder giving way to a derisive cast of animosity.
“There’s been wars fought over water! Great big, bloody wars in which ancient civilisations have fallen! The Gastropod Empire! The Lost Tribe of Atlantis! All dead! And all because somebody found a couple of tanks of the stuff.”
He shook his head in disbelief.
“And here you are with the stuff pissin’ out of the sky.”
He placed his head in his hands wearily.
“I want to go home...” he muttered. “Earth? Hah! What a backward dump! You’ll be telling me next that y’ can change a person’s gender but haven’t found a cure for cancer yet!”
Cissy boiled to the point of a small volcano going critical.
“Or there are whales on the planet. And instead of using them properly, you’re doing something stupid with them. Like...killing them off to make ornamental candles with!”
“LEAVE MY PLANET ALONE!” Cissy exploded with the defensiveness of a cornered hyena.
“Believe me, I wish I could!” Hogan was shouting now, despite himself.
“You’re a filthy, rotten lying swine!”
She took a swing towards his arrogant nose with a tiny clenched fist. It connected with a sharp metallic sound and her fingers withered up in pain. Hogan sat there aghast, staring down on his aquiline proboscis. It appeared to have been undamaged by the blow.
“How the Hell do you that?” Cissy clutched her fingers and blew across their tips in short, heated pants.
A sudden click from close by brought the altercation to a halt. It was promptly followed by several more as though a number of gun-barrels had all been cocked at once.
Through the curtain of rain several figures emerged solemnly. Figures dressed in black that had descended earlier that day from the invisible craft.
The tallest stepped forward, its gun-barrel trained on the commander’s astounded features.
It hauled itself up to its full impressive height and said in a chattering voice that Marshal instantly translated to himself, “Commander Marshal Hogan?”
Hogan nodded, the rainwater draining down his upper lip creating a sort of facial downspout.
“You are under arrest.”
The figure signalled to several of its henchmen now emerging as darkened shapes from the trampled flowerbeds. They set about dragging Hogan discourteously onto his feet.
“You are to accompany me back to the HMS Firestar.” The ringleader shifted its gaze to the petrified Cissy who was trying to blend into the shadows and failing dismally.
“Right, lads.” Having attracted the attention of two redundant lackeys, the creature pointed. “You’d better bring along the spider monkey with the pastry cutter in its mouth. Wouldn’t want any more of the commander’s pets breaking free now, would we?”
The Greyminster Scrapbook Part Four
There follows an extract from the ‘Personal Log of the Columbus.’
Burnt around the edges, the two pages were filled with alien characters that bore more resemblance to hieroglyphics than Roman letters. They were written in fountain pen. Presumably, despite the technological advantages of Hogan’s world, they had overlooked the invention of the ballpoint. Obviously an oversight of some considerable discomfort as the page was marked with blots of ink, smudges, thumb prints and exclamation marks.
This is roughly what the records had to say for themselves:
GALAXY DATE: 01.98.7632B Poker night at Boggar’s Bar! Disaster! Big punch up! Glasses broken by Magnum Groke-Throttler Jr. Happened during thump on nose planted there by a four-foot cubic fist. Would have taught him lesson but Magnum managed to lock me in quadruple skull-hold, forcing head down mangling chute. Accused me of cheating. ME!? Said I’d never worn spectacles before. Threw a pint glass. Missed Magnum! Hit a Grarg on head! Whole bar erupted. Fisticuffs! Magnificent sight amongst a species renowned for their more than conventional requirements in limb department.
Arrested by intergalactic police. Spent night in cells being nibbled by twelve-inch rats with rubber teeth. Woke to find myself in stranglehold with Magnum Groke-Throttler Sr. sleeping off fourteen bottles of Froughton’s Old Bastard. Consignment of ‘Transparency Spectacles’ taken into custody.
GALAXY DATE: 01.98.7632F Ran into Trisha Snoot on Porkloinus Four whilst off-loading four hundred boxes of snow-filled Palbo Moon souvenir paperweights. Had wild steamy night in barn beneath moons. Ripped off Trisha’s knickers with teeth to reveal a tantalisingly bushy...
At this point, fortunately perhaps, a circular burn hole interrupts the writing. Around its edge only various words can be deciphered. Words such as ‘Gave her a g…’ ‘Centurian coconuts’ and ‘vacuum nozzle.’ Further along the entries become clearer. (The log entries, I’d better point out, thus avoiding any confusion on the reader’s behalf.) The next comprehensive section ran thus:
GALAXY DATE: 01.98.7634A Managed to con Grit Shagblaster, the renowned Artradian mountain troll, into purchasing seventy dodgy kettles. Dodgy in as much as they don’t work. Went into hiding on RiMal Prime’s seventh moon. Grit must have been drunk. Walked past rock where I was hiding four times, seething so much he overlooked me. Watched him bite head off a RiMal thunder lizard. Quite impressive. Difficult to coerce head of forty-foot reptile into mouth I would imagine! Might avoid sector eight in future.
GALAXY DATE: 01.98.7635C Auntie Mildred’s birthday! Very pleased with souvenir Palbo Moon paperweight. Hopes to go there one day. Got new consignment of novelty hand-grenade lighters. Could be mistaken for real thing. Boggar Bistord wants to throw surprise party for Johuvians. Reckons they’re so fragile the sho
ck would snap them in half. His video camera’s on stand-by for ‘Johuvian Treadle’s Funny Home Video Show.’
Must deliver consignment over border into neutral domain. No Man’s Land! Hope there’s no problems with Great War. Whole episode might prove embarrassing. Know what Old Empire is like when it comes to intelligence!
At this point the journal ended somewhat unexpectedly. The rest of page two was taken up with the sort of immature doodles that come from a weary man undertaking a loathsomely tedious journey. These etchings included triangular cats, disproportional women, what presumably was the previously alluded to Grit Shagblaster with a ridiculously large hammer hitting the back of his head, and a rabbit with a black eye and one broken tooth.
The lower half of the page had been completely destroyed by fire. Which is what happens when you leave a book on the top of a smouldering air vent.
Chapter Nine: The Prisoners of the HMS Firestar
Amanda Duck awoke from a night of troubled dreams to find herself transformed into the most nightmarish case of haemorrhoids that had ever been witnessed throughout the length of the British Isles.
Her intuitive perception, an ability that all of us possess right down in the murky depths of our souls, informed her that something was terribly wrong. The lower section of her pelvis was attempting to excommunicate itself from the rest of her body.
It was difficult to concentrate but through the swirling vortex of her sanity, beyond the animalistic instinct of biting the livers from whatever creature happened to be at hand, she could sense that some sort of physical metamorphosis had occurred whilst she was unconscious.
With this in mind she took a look down the bed.
Wrestling against the weight Amanda lifted her disproportionately large head off the pillow. It was a similar sensation to trying to lift a wardrobe with her teeth.
A gross, plastic sac was sprouting from her coccyx, a distended bag that stretched across the bedstead and forced all of her junk to one side of the carpet. Candles in the shapes of teddy bears formed pyramids against the skirting board. Ornaments of hedgehogs in scarves and mice in woolly bobble-hats were piled up alongside heart-shaped pincushions embossed with aphorisms such as ‘LUV U 4 EVER.’ Such trinkets were designed to fill a gap in Amanda’s life, wedging it open for that elusive future date when the man of her dreams would come along to occupy it.