by Brian Hughes
All very much in contradiction with the sweaty, blubbering mess that had become entangled in the flowery duvet. Amanda was perspiring so profusely that the cover had glued itself to the side of her face.
An overwhelming desire swamped her foggy brain. A need to produce hundreds of jellied eggs about the same size and shape as rugby balls.
She fought it back, astonished to realise just how stuffy the bedroom had become.
With her limbs palpitating wildly, she rolled her bulbous form across the mattress and plummetted onto the Beatrix Potter rug. Her body had also taken on a new stature, much more cumbersome than she remembered.
Calling the doctor was going to prove difficult because her fingers had turned into sticks of strawberry jelly.
With a concentration of effort she dragged herself towards the door. Exactly how she intended to get through it with her recently acquired bulk wasn’t important. If the frame came crashing down then that was ‘tuff.’ As for manoeuvring down the stairs, well…she’d just take that one step at a time.
Amanda headed for the cellar, her brain throbbing with ugly contradictions. One thought was growing more attractive by the moment though. Get into the cellar, lose herself amongst the cobwebs, roll herself up in the cool, damp slime and build a nest. A comforting nest constructed from all the old cardboard boxes that she’d collected over the years.
The rain was now falling in diagonal sheets. The occasional dart of lightning ripped across the distant ridges, highlighting individual raindrops in mid-air.
Commander Hogan and Cissy Doyle trudged wearily on, frog marched apathetically along a timeworn track. The mud from the park spattered up their legs, their clothes sticking unpleasantly to their skin. The occasional gun barrel would nuzzle itself into the smalls of their backs and force them forward for no other reason than their captors assumption that this was the correct manner in which to treat prisoners.
Marshal turned to Cecilia stomping along by his side, angrily ripping her hair from her face. He spoke from the corner of his mouth.
“This might not be the best time to mention it, Cissy. But I can see your nipples poking out through your vest.”
Cissy scowled down towards the diminutive bumps.
“Looks like one of our friends has taken a bit of a fancy to you.” Hogan nodded in the direction of a transfixed pair of sunglasses. “Keeps on looking at ’em. Either that or the bolt in his neck has gone rusty!”
Cissy’s emaciated arms were rapidly brought up, wrapping themselves across her drenched chest. A few moments later she dropped them again. She’d never had her nipples stared at before. Well, not since Doctor Patel had last attended to her asthma, and that wasn’t the same sort of thing at all. She wanted to know what Debbie Woodthorpe had been experiencing all these years. A few moments later the barricade went back up. She hadn’t been missing out on much. Just the sense that she was being psychologically molested by a mindless pillock, that’s all.
“Tell y’ what...” The commander’s voice dropped to a barely audible level. It was doubtful that their captors actually spoke English but he wasn’t about to take any chances. “I’m gonna try and escape. See if you can make some sort of distraction.”
He cast an expectant glance at Cissy’s less than ample bosom. The arms knotted tighter, the nose jabbing upwards at an acute angle.
“I’ve got nothing to worry about!” Cissy said loudly as the butt of a machine gun menacingly pushed itself into the base of her spine. “It’s you they’ve arrested! You’re the bloody criminal!”
“Cissy, I don’t think you quite understand.”
“Oh, I understand all right!”
“No you don’t...”
“Smuggling illegal killer animals onto planets still protected by the Prime Directive!”
“No...”
“Being an ungrateful bloody liar with a slag of a computer! They’re not going to throw me in prison. It’s quite apparent I’ve been misled all along!”
“CISSY!” The volume of that remark brought the company to a sudden halt. A knuckle wrapped in steel wire thumped into the back of Hogan’s skull with a clunk. The sodden gathering started to despondently shuffle forwards once more.
“This lot aren’t the police!” Hogan thought about that for a moment and then added, “There is a sort of intergalactic police force up there. It’s a self-appointed body administering justice wherever they happen to be stationed at the time. But they usually have more arms than this lot!”
Cissy tore at the saturated hair slapping her prominent eyeballs and cursed. “Who the bloody Hell are they then?”
“They’re members of the Elite Squad. Part of the army of the Old Empire.” Hogan rippled his mouth into a clothesline of uncertainty and continued thoughtfully. “It’s all part of the Great War. The one I told you about. The Old Empire and the New Empire have been at it for thousands of years. So long, in fact, neither side knows what they’re fighting about any longer. And don’t care!”
“So you’re a deserter then?” Cissy forced her hands onto her vertical hips in a display of contempt.
“No, not at all! That’s what I don’t understand. I’ve got nothing to do with the Great War. I’m an independent entrepreneur. The last time I ran across this lot they were battling it out in the middle of the Crab Nebula. They shouldn’t have reached this part of the galaxy yet.” He blew the rainwater from his top lip in a damp column. “But I’ve got a suspicion they’re planning on some sort of extermination. Probably involving two innocent victims.”
He tried to make himself as plain as possible whilst maintaining a certain amount of enigma for the benefit of the guards.
“One being a square-jawed handsome hero...”
“HAH!”
“The other being a graveyard-mouthed, hydrocephalic-eyed stick-insect! The Old Empire are not exactly renowned for their benevolent ideas on justice.”
Cissy’s bottom lip started to tremble. Not that anyone would have noticed, overshadowed by her upper crowns as it was.
“We ought to try and escape then...”
Hogan stopped in his tracks, feigning an expression of astonishment.
“What a brilliant idea! Such a pity I didn’t think of that a few moments ago when we had the ideal opportunity to make a break for it through that bastard hedge back there!”
The group stumbled on, reticence closing about them with the suppression of a woollen blanket. Nothing could be heard but the thud, thud, squelch of heavy boots traversing the humid ground. At length Cissy’s voice broke through the darkness.
“What about ANN? Can’t she do something?”
“What? That slut of a computer?”
“She’s supposed to protect her owner at any cost, isn’t she?” Cissy snarled. “Well! Isn’t she?”
Marshal backed away from the parry of her words. He considered the statement and reached a conclusion.
“Right. When I give the word, make a break for the cover of the woods.”
“What word?”
“Dunno. How about, ‘AAAAAAAAARGH’?”
It took one or two seconds for what had happened to register, whereupon several events occurred with a great deal of gusto.
Hogan collapsed, his features wracked with pain as the full brunt of the marching was relayed in violent spasms up his broken leg. He clutched his twisted limb in agony, attempting to indicate with his brow that Cissy should make a break for it.
Cissy sprang forwards, shoulders compact, transformed into a human projectile barrelling into the legs of her abductors. Unfortunately she hadn’t reckoned on them being constructed of metal. The couple went down together, a spiral of mud arcing upwards as they sank to a halt.
At that moment the outline of ANN shimmered into view. A portly outline that blinked pathetically and burped at the proceedings.
“DO SOMETHING!” screamed Hogan. From the corner of his eye he could just discern a tussle of bodies forming a knoll on the top of Cecilia. “DO SOMETHING NOW!
YOU USELESS, FAT, STUPID LOOKING BASTARD!”
ANN noted the request, hiccuped once, prodded her chest daintily with a curled up fist and stared gormlessly around at the commotion. Cissy slowly raised a dirty countenance, mud camouflaging her forehead and running in fingers across her eyelids. There was the rattle of a gun barrel against her teeth as the sights became hooked on the back of her brace, hauling the defeated juvenile onto her feet.
Hogan frantically punched at the bracelet. ANN vanished with a fizzle. “That’s just bloody great, isn’t it?”
Cissy gingerly attempted to remove the weapon from her mouth, saliva uncomfortably dribbling down her oesophagus. Hogan found himself being roughly manhandled to his sneakers again.
“Bloody marvellous! It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d broken the damn leg when the Columbus crashed.” He turned on Cissy with an incensed, screwed-up sneer. “But it was probably your mother that did the damage with her bloody walking stick!”
High on a gantry, shielded from view by the invisible walls of the HMS Firestar, two figures watched the proceedings thoughtfully. A marriage of miscreants that we have already clapped eyes on before. One towering and gaunt attired in a Napoleonic uniform, the other diminutive and squat with the sort of overgrown forehead that the common light bulb could have been fashioned upon.
The inhuman duo that had altered the physical condition of Amanda Duck in the Firestar’s laboratory. Remember them now? Good…then let’s get on with the book.
At length the loftier of the two spoke. It was a peculiar voice, similar to that produced by the soldiers currently forcing Hogan and his sidekick towards the mother ship. There follows a translation into common English.
“Does he know, Waldorf?” asked the taller individual, his timbre menacing, authority etched into every word.
“Probably not, Colonel Vosh,” replied the inferior of the two. “At least there are no apparent signs that he does. All systems appear to be functioning adequately. Apart from a rupture in one of the pedestals.”
“Good. Then let us keep it that way.” The taller figure turned and straightened his collar with one hooked finger. “Hopefully by the morrow we should have all of this sorted out and the commander will no longer be around to bother us further.”
The dwarfed potato cackled in the melodramatic manner that all the most evil villains throughout the galaxy cackled. It went on for that trifling amount too long for Colonel Vosh’s approval. Waldorf restrained himself and, ashamed of his outburst, hung his bulbous head on his chest.
“I shall attend to matters personally and ensure that the commander is dismantled, your highness.”
“And the girl?”
“Yes…and the girl, sire. Just leave everything to me...”
The town of Greyminster felt as heartless as any other northern town after the rain had finally stopped. The street lamps buzzed in the damp overhead, their reflections shimmering on the wet flagstones with the effulgence of burning oil.
Sergeant Partridge breathed deeply in, the buttons of his overcoat straining as his enormous chest expanded. There was something fresh about the old streets after a storm. Something unsoiled and invigorating.
He spluttered as the cold atmosphere of the night ripped through his lungs. That was enough of that then. There was only so much invigoration that one body could stand. He fumbled deep in his pockets for the crumpled packet of cigarettes, found them, peeled open the damp lid and tugged out his only vice in the world. Providing you didn’t consider crashing model aeroplanes a vice.
Shielding the flame from his lighter in one cupped hand, the cigarette instantly carrot-ended. So many concerns weighed heavily on his mind tonight.
First off there were the twenty-three phone-calls that had come through to the station since his shift had begun. Every one about some pensioner or other going missing. Worried neighbours who’d heard a scuffle in the small hours or had noticed the milk bottles were still on the doorsteps. Distraught relatives who’d gone to pay the monthly visit with the will in mind only to discover their ageing parents’ accommodation in turmoil.
It wasn’t unheard of for the occasional old biddy to go walk-about dressed in nothing but a jockstrap and a pair of tartan socks. Jack put it down to something that just happened when people grew too old to ignite the pilot light of their brains anymore. But twenty-odd in one night, now there was something unusual.
Then there was Constable Parkins. He probably had nothing to do with all this but the fact that the man was still alive after four continuous shifts suggested that either he was having an affair or his mother-in-law was staying over. Either way it wasn’t healthy.
And of course there was Cecilia Doyle with her bloody astronaut bombing about the town, and the shuttlecraft that had demolished Brasswick’s, and the murder of Henry Higginbotham, and the globulous creature that had attacked Cissy’s mother. Not to mention Mrs. Doyle’s peculiar behaviour itself! Jack knew it was all somehow connected but couldn’t for the life of him figure out how.
Something shifted on the periphery of his vision. It didn’t so much move as slither with the suggestive loll of a slug.
Jack stared so hard into the darkness that his eyes began to ache and a fuzzy green border started to creep around the edge of his perception. There it was again, something immense and apparently glutinous, glistening in the bushes.
Then they emerged. The inexperienced, more adventurous, amongst them blatantly loafing across the tarmac into full view. The wiser and more ancient of the creatures stealthily manoeuvring around the buildings, using upright structures for cover. They gallumped down the gutters and over the garden walls. In alarm Jack reached for his walkie-talkie.
“Alpha Fox-trot Ro…” Plunging his bottom teeth into his upper lip he shook his head and started again. “Greyhound Leader to...no! Alpha Romeo...”
“That you, Sarge?” A crackle interrupted his futile attempts from the boxy speaker. It was the sort of voice that only a trained policeman could understand, nothing more than punctuated interference.
“Constable Jaye? They’re on the move!”
“Who’s on the move, Sarge? Do you require backup? I think Constable Parkins is knocking about round Broad Street somewhere...”
“They’re on the move Jaye. They’re all ’eading in the same direction an’ all.” Jack stumbled backwards, attempting to hide amongst the shadows from an arched garden gate. “And there’s ’undreds and ’undreds of the buggers!”
With a lethargic creak the colossal door slammed shut, plunging the dismal iron vault into an even more dismal blackness. One solitary scrap of light managed to creep in unnoticed through an unoccupied bolt hole in the ceiling. It created a fuzzy spotlight on the cold cell floor in which the figures now huddled nervously.
“Right!” Hogan inhaled, taking stock of the location, his eyes becoming accustomed to the inky darkness with remarkable speed. Judging by the thickness of the walls things were starting to look grim indeed. “To put it bluntly,” he went on as Cissy shivered beside him. “We’re right up Jujuban Creek without a Kirriwack!”
“This is all your fault!” Cissy wrapped her wretched arms about herself. “I should have stayed in bed this morning. I should never have bothered having any bloody dreams about Heroic Space Adventurers! I should have just got up and gone to work the same as bloody always.”
“That might have been difficult.” Hogan snorted cynically down his nostrils. “Seeing as your boss was crushed to death beneath me landing stanchions. Besides which Cissy,” he added by way of cold comfort. “This is much more exciting than hacking up dead sheep, don’t you agree?”
The irony fell on deaf ears.
“Not particularly, no! The worst that could have happened hacking up meat was losing the tip off my finger!”
“I doubt that the sheep would have seen it that way.”
“Anyhow...” Cissy had entered defiant modus operandi. “I should have had a better job than that. I’ve got the brains. I just
never got the break.”
Her voice dropped slightly.
“I could have been a librarian like Debbie Bloody Woodthorpe if it wasn’t for these teeth.”
If a voice could have pouted insipidly then Cissy’s was doing so right now.
“Well…it’s you’re own fault that you’re ugly.”
“What?” At this unanticipated remark Cissy bolted upright, hugging her knees. “What do you mean, ‘it’s my own fault’? I was born ugly.”
“Yeah...” Hogan stretched out the word, forcing it to wrinkle at the edges. “Everybody’s born ugly. I mean, all babies have a tendency to resemble crinkled stools wrapped up in fluffy towels.”
He shrugged his shoulders, canals of rainwater tumbling soundlessly down his trench coat. “It’s how you grow up that counts. You’ve got to make an effort.”
Lesson one in how to get Cecilia Doyle’s goat up. Just study what Marshal Hogan was doing and the rest should follow naturally.
“Oh! RIGHT! And I suppose the number of years I’ve worn this brace on my blasted teeth...” Here she pointed out the metal plankton. “Doesn’t count as ‘an effort’ in your book, does it? By rights I should have had the damn thing taken off when I was sixteen. But oh no, no such luck for pathetic Cecilia Doyle. She had to be born with the sort of teeth that you’d normally only find on the winner of the Grand National.”
“I wasn’t talking about your physical appearance.”
“What?”
Hogan braced himself. “I wasn’t talking about your physical appearance. There’s nothing wrong with how you look. There are Skittle Bugs on Parodius Four that carve great totem poles in the likeness of your particular physical attributes. Use them to open their beer bottles with. I was talking about your personality. Just because you were born with teeth like the awning of a circus tent doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll grow up with a wonderful disposition. In fact generally it’s just the reverse.”