by Brian Hughes
At not too great a distance a fold-down table had been erected. Sergeant 89D stared blankly at the blueprint on the alter stone. Borehole diagrams were notoriously dull, even for a mechanical brain. The wind was rising from the east now, curling his chart infuriatingly.
“Capping System almost complete, Sarge.” The tiny metal hand against the corporal’s temple remained in position. “’Owever, Sarge, we do ’ave a problem.”
If a black-painted tampon-tube stuffed with circuitry could have swallowed nervously then Special Patrol Ordinance Droid 85B had just done so.
“There appears t’ be a weird noise, Sarge. Comin’ from under the Earth. Me an’ the boys were wonderin’ if it might be better to abandon the dig?”
“W’at sort o’ noise…”
“P’raps you’d like to listen y’self, Sarge?” The arm was lowered with a squeal. “The lads are trying to find its position above the bore-hole right now.”
Four wheel ruts ploughed the frosted grass in muddy scars. They ended in the attentive forms of Sergeant 89D and his stalwart corporal. On his side on the damp ground, Private 72F listened intently at the grumbling earth. Every once in a while his small domed head would revolve.
The pulsating noise was now so vibrant that, had the SPODs contained teeth, it would have rattled them loose. Every so often an ominous red glow suffused through the soil.
“I’m not exactly renowned for me massive intelligence, Sarge,” Corporal 85B admitted. “But it seems t’ me that those long-bearded druid’s round ’ere couldn’t go t’ the toilet without sittin’ on the bowl back t’ front.”
Another menacing strobe highlighted his seams. “An’ somethin’ that could produce a tremor as bad as this, oughtn’t really be buried beneath the earth at the start of civilisation.”
The sergeant thought about matters. A spark leapt between his antennae. “Couldn’t agree more, Corporal. We’d best abandon diggin’ the pit for now.”
With a grind of internal pulleys he gazed up into the milky atmosphere. The fog appeared to be swirling above their heads, a sense of history, of age and portents weighing down on him.
“The Dark Lord must be informed. This could ’ave far reachin’ consequences. For the Dark Lord’s existence, for the future of the Earth and for rest of ’istory!”
This is also not the beginning of our story. However, please bear with me. All will be revealed in time.
Chapter Two: Where the Cold Light of Reality Meets the Shadows of Ambiguity
October the Second, 1999. There were Gypsies abroad in Greyminster that night. Dark, swarthy terrorists with flashing eyes and glinting flick knives.
Strictly speaking, of course, the Wilberforce clan could not be classified as ‘Gypsies.’ The Romany Council had long ago disowned them on the grounds of, ‘Soiling the Romany Culture.’ Nonetheless, on the outskirts of town, Wilberforce’s Fairground had set up camp with a great deal of clamour. The stench of freshly trodden mud and horse manure now filled the narrow streets.
“Issa impossible!” On the face of things Mario Wilberforce was a genial figure. A huge bear of a man with a portly demeanour. One didn’t have to delve too deep, however, to discover his greedy heart. His pearl-white teeth coruscated in the moonlight beneath his handlebar moustache, the burnt pizza of his face leering down on his subordinate. “De hoop, see? Issa too bigga to fit ova de jam jar.”
He demonstrated how impossible it was to win at hoopla, the neck of the jar splitting beneath his determination to prove the point. “Wad I wanna know is, ’ow that girl manage to winna de fifteen goldfish?”
Spike shrugged his shoulders. The cuffs of his mohair sweater dripped where he’d repeatedly dipped his hands into the fish tank. Spike was a repugnant adolescent. He had the sort of features that Quazimodo had taken a patent out on. The Mohican haircut only highlighted the pimples that held his face together like a dot-to-dot puzzle.
“And I told you before,” Wilberforce continued. “Only dead goldfish witha de fin-rot are to be given away as prizes!”
The fairground proprietor slapped one sweaty palm across Spike’s head. “De fishes dat are okay are forra display purposes only, comprende?”
A limp goldfish with a mangy black tail was shaken in front of his eyes. Wilberforce straightened with all the pomposity of an affronted bishop. “I know watta you’re after! You juss wanna get inside that girl’sa blouse for some grope odda buster! Well, I tell you w’at! You can just pack up your belongings anna bugger off!”
His pendulous gibbet of an arm pointed through the throng. An out-stretched finger indicated the exit of the tiny wood. It was the sort of finger that was difficult to argue with. “You waista my time! You give awaya my goldfish! You ruin my business! You gedda no wages.”
With the limb still suspended he leant forwards. “And you no return to Wilberforce’s Fair, otherwise…”
Drawing one corpulent finger across his Adam’s apple he forced a rasp through his ruddy lips. It produced an noise that sounded similar to a duck being punched.
“Otherwise I slitta your throat from ear to ear an’ leave your gizzards be’ind for de crows to peck!”
Dennis Lowry rubbed two circles from the condensation on the shed window and peered gloomily out into the night. The bob of his chin had flattened itself against the pane.
“No point in wastin’ your time, Dennis.” There was a clatter as the old woman behind him worked a rusted bolt free with the flat of her screwdriver. She rubbed a smear of oil up one side of her nose.
Grandma Josephine resembled the sort of toad that school children dissect. Presumably somebody had reached inside her and removed all the bones at some in her history, because now only a handful of muscles were left.
“You’ve got a face on y’ like a scolded ’amster. You’re gonna give me an ’and with this an’ that’s the end of the matter! It’s either that or slop out the pig!”
The machine that was taking up most of the hut’s interior groaned beneath its own weight. Heath Robinson pulleys wheezed asthmatically. Spark plugs fizzled. Exactly what it had been designed for was anybody’s guess.
“It’s not fair!” Dennis snorted. Across the allotments he could make out the colourful lights of Devils Copse performing their own aurora borealis against the autumn sky. “I’m old enough t’ take care of myself!” He thrust his bottom lip out. “Grandma Jo? Don’t you ever get sick of this shed?”
“Not really Dennis. I’m old, y’ see? This place is where adventures begin.” She cast a glance towards the bolt on the rickety door. “Besides which, it’s not s’ much a prison as a protection. Nick Ross might be out there wanderin’ the streets with an axe.”
“Well I ’ate it!” Dennis stuffed his hands in his pockets. “In another four weeks I’ll be old enough t’ do whatever I want. An’ the first thing I’m gonna do is get out o’ this dump!”
He stomped dejectedly across the floor. The machine coughed a rivet into the sink.
“There’ll be no more, ‘Dennis do this, Dennis do that’, ‘Dennis muck out the pig. Dennis sort out the dog’s ringworm. Dennis wipe your sister’s…’” The truth was that Dennis was unhappy. He came from a large and difficult-to-handle catholic family. His grandmother’s ‘Invention Shed’ was his only refuge. “Whatever ’appened to the ’appiest days of my life, Grandma?”
“I’m afraid you’ve ’ad ’em, Dennis.” Grandma Jo probed a gasket with one wizened talon. “You’re workin’ class, so you’d better get used t’ the idea.”
A twine of smoke coiled listlessly round her chin. “Summet you ought t’ be proud of that! Bein’ workin’ class.”
She gave her invention a kick and it sputtered back into life. “Remember when you ’ad that game of football with y’ Granddad?” She prodded her spectacles back up her nose. “Well that was your childhood! Now stop mopin’ about and wash your ’ands. Your dinner’ll look like porridge by the time you’ve done.”
Not that it mattered. The meal already had a
coating of grime. Reluctantly Dennis rolled up his sleeves, stooped over the china bowl and smashed his hands about the water.
“Tell you what Dennis. After you’ve eaten why don’t we sneak out and ’ave a gander at this fair then?” A toothless smile parted his grandmother’s gums. “How’s that grab you, eh?”
“Excellent, Grandma.” Slop, slop, slop went the bowl with renewed enthusiasm.
“In the meantime, how about givin’ us a hand with this, eh?”
Dripping fingers and electrical components are not well-matched. Moments later the shed door burst off its hinges and a giant chrysanthemum of black and red smoke swelled out across the allotments.
Grandma Jo and Dennis emerged smouldering, their hair standing upright. Grandma Jo removed her glasses. Two lily-white coasters surrounded her blinking eyes. “P’raps I should ’ave taken the plug out first?”
She rubbed the shattered lenses with a handkerchief. Moths of burning timber fluttered soundlessly across the cabbages. “’Appen we’d better leave the fair for a while and ’ave a look for what ’append to your dinner instead?”
Tendrils of light probed the foliage around Devils Copse. They came to rest on a caravan that might have rolled out of a penny novella. Written along one side were the words, ‘The Greyminster Rose.’ Volleys of sound from the fairground became entangled in the bracken, reaching the bathtub in snatches. With a gloop, followed by a ripple of circles, Nancy Skunk fished the scrubbing brush from the water and industriously set about her toenails.
In a momentary lapse of concentration, the bar of soap shot from her hands with the velocity of a rocket. Her pigtails bobbed up and down as she followed its progress into the sky. Then a twang. Followed shortly by something heavy being hoisted into the canopy of the wood. It was accompanied by a scream and an explosion of rooks across the diaphanous moon.
Confused, Spike felt the rough hemp against his cheekbones. After several unsuccessful attempts to break free it dawned on him that he was hanging upside down and the invisible fingers toying with his jowls had been gravity all along.
From far below, or above depending on how you looked at it, where the vertiginous trunks tapered off, a slender limb of birch began its slow ascent towards him. It reached his ribcage, hovered indecisively, then prodded one buttock.
“Oy! Watch out, Missus! Y’ nearly ’ad me eye out!”
“What’s your game then?” From the far end of the stick Nancy scowled. She’d wrapped herself up in what was little more than a dishtowel, her pigtails dripping into the undergrowth. “An’ don’t come out with some wise crack about studying the fauna or else I’ll have t’ stick this branch up your bottom.”
“All right, Missus!” Something about the girl’s expression said that she probably wasn’t exaggerating. “Just let me down an’ I’ll try to explain.”
The world began to move again. Slower this time, branches moving past in the manner of floors through an elevator window. At length Spike stopped, swaying nauseatingly beneath the ceiling of brambles. A pair of eyes filled his vision, the soft drip, drip, drip of soapy water running down shiny limbs.
“You’d better ’ave a good explanation mate, ’cos I’m bloody cold and I’m well pissed off!”
“Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t spyin’ on you or nothin’.”
Nancy snuffled. Obviously she wasn’t going to fall for that one.
“I work for the fairground, see? At least, I was workin’ for ’em, ’til about ’alf an ’our ago. Youth Opportunities Programme. I ’adn’t sin your caravan before so I thought I’d take a look.”
Two Chinese firecrackers tumbled out of his pocket with a clump. They rolled into the undergrowth and startled a shrew. With one eyebrow raised Nancy studied Spike’s face, waiting for some sort of explanation.
“All right, I was just goin’ to give Old Wilberforce a scare. Nothin’ major. Just an iddy biddy thing for givin’ me the sack. I was goin’ to stick ’em under ’is caravan an’ watch what ’appened when they went off!”
Nancy wriggled her nose and fumbled with the cumbersome knot. It squeaked beneath her damp fingertips.
“You’re lying, mate. You were sent ’ere by the Dark Lord to try an’ oust me.” Several more squeaks and the rope began to give. “Well I’m not bloody stupid! Now you’re going to pay!”
“No, seriously. It was that ugly woman at the dole office ’oo told me t’ come. The one with the wart on the end of ’er nose.”
The knot came undone with a lurch. Nancy hoisted the precious bundle over one tiny shoulder as though it was no more substantial than a sack of cotton wool. Moments later the gypsy caravan bobbed into view, its wheels still situated on the integument of grass.
“Okay, I admit it! I was out of order! I was just tryin’ to cop a gander at what you ’ad to offer.”
The upside-down trunks swayed confusingly across his line of sights. “What the ’Ell did you expect? Wanderin’ round the woods in the middle of the night without your skuddies on?”
The caravan door swung open beneath Nancy’s grip. An explosion of animal noises rushed out to greet the night, a carpet of illumination unfolding down the steps. “What the bloody ’Ell’s goin’ on?”
Spike’s arms flayed outwards. There was a crash as something caught the ends of his fingers. “Put me down! I’m sorry for lookin’ at you Missus! Let me GO!”
The door slammed shut with a wallop, barricading the menagerie back inside. A few moments later and there was the sound of an engine starting. The bathtub fizzled, lengthened sideways and then ceased to exist.
With a splutter the caravan backfired theatrically before folding over on itself like some two-dimensional drawing.
And with an explosion it completely vanished. Leaving nothing behind but a collection of footprints across the moonlit grass. The only suggestion there had ever been anyone living in Devils Copse at all.
Chapter Three: Bray’s Bestiary
In the past it’s been my custom to interrupt each book with what I regard as a chorus. Exactly how much this irritates the reader I’ve yet to discover. However, not one to break with convention, I would like to introduce you to some of the highlights of Bray’s Bestiary.
Ah, this looks interesting. An illustration of an odd looking creature, sort of circular and puffy like the base of a chef’s hat. It has two short legs, long claws and a pair of eyeballs set like currents into its face:
Feral Yorkshire puddings, like most other mythological creatures of Britain, haven’t been seen in the wild for many centuries. Only their discarded husks are found scattered across the moorland on foggy mornings.
Farmers, of course, enjoy these mounds of culinary bounty as Pudding Shells bring a hefty price at local markets.
What exactly drives these creatures to shed their armour in such a fashion? If the truth be known it’s all part of the Yorkshire Pudding’s extensive courtship ritual. Extensive and violent.
The Yorkshire Pudding’s reproductive organs are small but deadly. Their reproductive pouches contain the deadliest sperm known to mankind. The all night orgies throughout the allotments of the northern counties are some of the most depraved that any unsuspecting night-prowler could witness.
The roughshod glans enters the dilated creamy mound with a deafening rip, the female pudding parting its…
That’s enough of that! I was planning on having Yorkshire Pudding for supper tonight. Whether Bray’s account is accurate or not we’ll turn the page. Now, what’s this? ‘The Tragic Account Of The Dodo.’ Hand-written and accompanied by several Victorian illustrations. Ornithologists should find the next few paragraphs interesting:
The Dodo was an incredibly stupid fowl. It lived on the island of Mauritius. Sporting stubby wings and large gangly feet it’s brain had the stature of a Cashew Nut.
Unfortunately it could only fly backwards although achieving speeds in excess of a hundred miles an hour by use of enormous catapults.
Early settlers found the climate of M
auritius most inclement. Food was scarce so the dodo became a valuable resource. Nets were erected between the tallest of the island’s trees. The dodo, unable to see where it was heading, was invariably caught, fried up with runner beans and served as a delicious sauté.
The last remaining dodo in existence was stuffed in 1832 and transported to Great Britain.
His name was Frank. He took up residence in the British Museum where one night a peckish watchman called Herbert Walsh turned him into a superb fricassee.
The Dodo is now extinct.
To be honest I have serious doubts about the legitimacy of this work. Professor Bray obviously had little substantive research to back up his wild accusations.
Let’s close the covers of this monument to Natural History then. It’s time to return to tonight’s main feature.
Chapter Four: Straining against Clots of Industrial Smog
Spike peered out of the cage, his knuckles standing to attention beneath his grip. Across the cage’s base was a smattering of straw.
“Oy? Missus? Joke’s over! Let us out, will ya?” He rattled the gate. “I don’t know ’oo this Dark Lord bloke is! I just want to go ’ome an’ get ready for goin’ out tonight.”
A spanner hit the bars with a clang. Spike shuffled backwards. Seconds later only the whites of his eyes were visible amongst the shadows. “W’at the ’Ell’s goin’ on?”
Once inside, the caravan had turned out to be much larger than it had originally seemed, especially from his upside down view of it in the copse. Outside his cage ran a narrow corridor brimming with containers. All of varying sizes, some made from wood, others from metal. The muffled bumps from within seemed to indicate that most were inhabited, though by what God only knew. Dark, furtive creatures with flashing incisors, some eating noisily, others snoring with the spluttering menace of outboard motors.