Blessed by Fire
Page 23
“The how of getting humans to kill each other is easy,” began Aaron as he began walking towards a large metal roadside. Its yellow metal emblazoned with the names of nearby towns. “It’s honestly easy. The bit that gets me is why? Why do it? You whisper in someone’s ear about a neighbour spying on them and suddenly boom, there they are with an ice-pick giving them an ear exam with the pointy end. Says here Oslo is pretty close.”
“Well, enjoy the walk gentlemen, I shall be seeing you around,” Said Micky. He tapped Bill on the back enthusiastically.
“What?” Bill asked.
“Well, I’m all recharged ready to go, so I’m off. I hear Oslo is lovely this time of year.” Micky grinned, taking two steps backwards, arms outstretched.
“You’re not going to take us with you?” Shouted Aaron from in front of the sign.
“No, only got enough juice for one, and well whilst it’s been a real blast, I’m going home to enjoy a nice long bath and some relaxing whale song.” He tapped the cigarette in his mouth with his finger, the end of it sparked to life. “Laters.” There was a blinding flash and then he was gone.
“Arsehole,” said Billy, as he began the walk over to Aaron.
The sun blazed down onto Blackpool, a suspiciously bright and warm day for late March. People were taking advantage of the unseasonal weather, sitting along the beach or walking the pier. For Dale it was too warm, he could feel the sweat pooling under his arms. He had insisted on staying at least semi-professional the shirt and trousers combo he had chosen being woefully ill-suited for the heat. Lucille had at least dressed appropriately, she was wearing a red summer dress covered in white spots. Her hair was tied with a matching cloth, which she had topped off with a wide brimmed black straw hat. She was currently making an order at the counter across the pier. Dale spread his arms out across the top of the bench. He had never been one for trips to the beach as a child. It always seemed his parents decided to go at the same time as every other set of parents, so Dale had always associated it with being stuck in traffic for hours, slowly roasting in a hot car. The brief hour or two or lukewarm sea water and overpriced chips seemed like a poor exchange. He had to admit though, he was secretly enjoying this assignment. He was coming around on beaches as a concept.
“Here, got one for you too sourpuss, you going to lighten up a little?” Said Lucille, she was carrying an ice-cream cone in each hand, a rod of flaky chocolate impaled in each.
“I’m not supposed to lighten up. I’m here to supervise you. It’s not a holiday,” he retorted. “This is serious work for me.”
“What and work can’t be fun? Go on. Take an ice cream. You know you want too. Don’t make me tempt you, you’ll know I win.” Lucille winked. “Take the ice cream man, live a little.”
“What is it apple flavour?” said Dale.
“Yes, funny. Never heard that before, totally original joke. Its vanilla, you know, plain.” She deadpanned. She passed him the ice cream, Dale taking it from her begrudgingly. She took a seat beside him on the bench, crossing her legs and adjusting her dress. She took a lick from the ice cream and then looked at the sky for a moment, thinking. “Its funny right, we think of vanilla flavour being plain when vanilla is a famously strong flavour? What’s up with that?”
Dale laughed gently. “Big vanilla I guess. Good marketing. You ever drop one of those little bottles of vanilla essence?”
“Oh, that’s the worst, I did it making cupcakes once and the bar stank for weeks!”
Gregg knocked back a shot, his friends chanting him on he took another from the bar. He blew out the flame and drank it, before moving on to the next. Olympus wasn’t the best nightclub, but it was all Broadstairs had and on buy one get one free shot night Gregg was Zeus himself, lord of the club. He had that stupid boring slideshow the police had made him sit through to thank. It had been one particularly dull slide about not using his abilities that had given him the idea. His trade in fake trainers having fallen by the wayside, Gregg had taken to making outrageous claims about his drinking ability. An eager line of brazen young men turned up the Olympus shot night every Wednesday for the last four weeks, cash in hand to try and win a bet against him. He laughed heartily as he slid the forty pounds from the bar, his opponent collapsed on the floor. Free drinks and easy money! Why hadn’t he thought of this sooner.
“Fucking hell you know how to put them back. Fucking aces mate!” said a young man in a gaudy tracksuit, its colours fading from dark blue to bright pink in a gradient. It looked truly awful. He wore a matching a hat, the label still stuck in the brim. “I wish you had started doing this months ago, you’re my star attraction!” Gregg took a seat next to him, ducking under a rope that separated to booth from the club floor proper. “Need to tell me your secret someday.”
“No secret, I just have a medical condition means I can process booze. Just goes right through me without getting me drunk. I tried to do that TV talent show but it’s not family friendly is what they said.” Gregg looked up at the ceiling wistfully. “Would been nice to be on TV Dave, you know?”
“I don’t think it’s all that. Aim too high and you just fail, need to aim for the middle, easier to slide right on in. Look at me, I could have moved to London, tried to open a club there. Would have probably seen me on my arse trying to scrape a living as a club promoter. Never do that by the way, it’s just ninety percent giving out flyers and twenty five percent being an arsehole,” said Dave.
“That’s more than a hundred percent”
“You ever meet a promotor?” asked Dave. “They are absolutely bringing extra arsehole to the mix.”
“Fair point”
“Either way, I decided to open a club in my hometown instead. Now I have the biggest club in town, premium trackies, and all the ladies are lining up. Aim for the middle. Speaking of ladies, hey girls!” Dave waved down two young women from across the bar. “I got someone who was real keen to meet you.”
Gregg tumbled through the door to his flat, his keys slipping from his hand, his lips locked with the young woman’s. She wore a short strapless dress, its cheap PVC material shimmering in the light. Her long hair was bleached blonde, her dark foundation stopping abruptly on her pale neck. She released her kiss and giggled.
“Where’s the bedroom handsome?” she asked, her arms draped around Greggs neck. He reached his hands up, taking hers and leading her deeper into the flat, past stacks of takeaway containers and dirty plates. She trotted behind him excitedly, her high heels clicking on the laminate. Gregg pushed his way through a beaded curtain, revealing his room beyond. It had a worrying number of topless posters tacked alongside football posters. The girl pushed Gregg backwards onto the bed, crawling over him, holding her body close.
“What’s next?” asked Gregg.
“You get what you deserve,” said the girl. Gregg felt a searing agonising pain as she stabbed deeply into his stomach. His wound burnt, sizzling angrily as she stabbed again and again. Each thrust of the blade tore through him, blood erupting from him like a fountain. Gregg lay still, life draining from his body and the girl still stabbed, a seal inside her broken, pouring vengeance into the world. She finally stopped, leant back, and pulled the blade from Greggs body. Its silver edge gleamed in the faint light creeping through the beaded doorway. Its handle was a twisted helix, topped with a Roman coin.
Aasif stared out of his window at the London skyline. Everything felt so cramped and close compared to Pontypridd, like he had moved into an ant’s nest. People stacked on top of each other, houses, offices and shops forced together by centuries of pressure coalescing into unmovable diamond buildings stuck firmly into the ancient ground. His first week here had been almost oppressive, Aasif having spent all his life in a place where you could always see at least some green, no matter where you stood. Everything seemed to loom around him, like the shadows in his nightmares, judging him silently.
“Ok, this is the last of them,” said Rajan, placed a cardboard box onto a stack of similar boxes.
“Yeah that would be great. It’s a good place you found. Not too bad.”
“Are you serious? This place is tiny, it’s like living in a box. My Ponty flat was twice the size and one third the price. Why anyone would actively choose to live here I have no idea.” Aasif walked back over to the box and pulled out two mugs. “Sugar?”
“Yeah two please. Milk as well. You’ll get used to it, London’s not as bad as it first seems,” said Rajan.
Aasif turned to face him, seriousness turning his face to stone. “I hate it, and it’s awful.”
“Oh, thank god,” laughed Rajan, “everyone else who moves here spends the first few months talking like this was the land of rainbows and honey. I normally try and let them work it out on their own.”
“Can we talk about the fucking tubes? Who decided to combine trains and buses and keep the worst parts of both? And no-one says sorry! For anything! If I was this rude back home I would get a black eye and some bruised ribs. You know they made me stand on the tube coming here my first day. No-one offered me their seat. Trying to keep a suitcase from rolling away and hold onto those fucking tiny hand grips with only one arm was a fucking challenge. I had to grip the damn thing between my legs like I was riding one of those mechanical bulls.” Aasif poured the kettle which had clicked off mid-rant. “Plus trying to find anything is impossible. I tried to go into a corner shop for milk before the truck arrived for my stuff and I swear that there was one at the end of this very street that has just up and vanished. It took me twenty minutes to find one and somehow thirty minutes to walk home.”
“Ah, you just found out about London time, it’s a bit wonky around here, if something is supposed to take ten minutes its half hour. Thirty minutes its two hours.” Rajan tapped his watch for emphasis.
“Please tell me that’s not some supernatural thing.”
“Nah just shit traffic and two thousand years of just sticking streets wherever the felt like that morning.” He grasped the mug Aasif offered him and took an eager gulp. “How’s it going studying for the exam?”
“Not too bad, I think. I would love to pick your brains about some aspects of it, from you. Mark, Jess and Dale too. Where is Dale by the way?”
“You will not believe this,” said Rajan, taking another sip, “work paid for him to go on holiday.”
“No, I’m not doing it,” said Dale. He crossed his arms like a petulant child and turned his back to the stall.
“Come on, it’s just throwing the ball,” pleaded Lucille, “look at the prize, you know I need that!” She pointed excitedly. Hanging at the back of the coconut shy was a large stuffed toy in the shape of a cartoon devil.
“You have all the subtly of a hammer sometimes you know that,” Dale said. “The sign for your bar for example.”
“It’s just a bit of fun. Come on, try and win me a prize. Loosen up a little.” Lucille gripped his arm and look up at him, batting her eyelids in an exaggerated fashion.
“Ok fine. But because I want to try it, no other reason.” Dale reached into his pocket and produced a pound coin. He placed it into the palm of the stall attendant who passed him three white plastic balls. The first two he threw went wide, the third one struck a coconut, but bounced off, the hard-hairy fruit stubbornly unmoving. Dale grumbled to himself and produced another pound coin. “I’ll get it this time,” he whispered to himself.
Jess opened the driver side car door and sat down, resting the plastic bag onto her lap. It smelt of vinegar, salt and oil. She shut the door and began digging eagerly into the thin white plastic, the bags rustling as she did. She produced a white paper bag, which she placed into Marks lap.
“Did you remember the curry this time?” he asked. He began to unwrap the paper, his bandaged hands making it slow and difficult.
“Ah shit, no, I forgot. Sorry.” Jess pulled how own portion of chips from the bag.
“See, this is why I normally make the chip run. The sooner I lose these the better,” Mark said, shaking his hands over dramatically. “I can’t wait to carry things again. You know that might be the saddest thing I ever said.”
“It might very well be,” Jess laughed. She removed small brown paper bag from inside the plastic carrier and dropped it ceremoniously onto Marks chips. “Of course, I remembered. I wrote it down.”
“Finally, a use for all those notebooks you carry.” Mark carefully removed the carton from its wrapper, holding it delicately between his forefinger and thumb, his palms still too painful to put pressure on. With his other hand he slowly peeled off the lid, his hands like pincers, like a bomb disposal robot opening a yoghurt.
Jess excitedly tapped his shoulder with the back of her hand. “Hey there he is, we’re up.” She pointed at the creature as it trotted into the light from the streetlamp. A strange hairless ape, its writhing tentacles peeling open a black rubbish bag. It began to dig through the rubbish eagerly.
Mark stared down at the now open carton in his hands, his chips rapidly cooling in his lap. “One day,” he said, “I will get to eat these when they’re still hot.”
A Message from the Author
Firstly, a huge thank you for reading this. If you liked it, please do consider leaving a review. Every single review makes a huge difference to an independent author. Jess and Mark, as well as the concept of the Special Investigations team, sprang from the pages of a short story collection I wrote, Horrorscopes. You can find two of their canonically earlier adventures there, along with ten other short stories. A Sample story can be found after this message.
To be as up to date as possible on upcoming works, please check out the links below or send me an email at contact@pwhillard.co.uk
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Libra- A Short story from the Horroscopes collection
Today’s your day! A new job role awaits. With Mercury in ascendant, remember to treat others the way you wish to be treated.
Charlie checked her phone again. The address read “275 Olympia street”, but the building she was stood in front of didn’t list ThemisCorp as an occupant on the board outside. A great steel and glass behemoth it loomed over her. She shrugged, maybe the signage was out of date. She put her phone away and walked into the reception.
“Hi,” Charlie greeted the receptionist. “I’ve got an interview at this address for a ThemisCorp? It’s not on the sign outside”
The receptionist let out a slow audible sigh. “They really need to correct that address, happens all the time. You want 275A. Really annoying.” The young man spoke with a level of contempt, like Charlie had purposely gone to the wrong address. “Go out the main doors. Take a left, then a left again past this building.” He had taken his gaze off Charlie and was now far more concerned with something on his computer.
Charlie stomped angrily out of the building. The sheer rudeness of the man. She took a left as he said, and then turned left again. She closed her eyes dejectedly and lifted her head, letting out a frustrated moan as she did. The second left was an alleyway. Something had gotten into one of the rubbish bags that had been tossed here and now rotten food had been dragged all over. It was typical. Finally, an interview with a seemingly big company with a swanky office building and it was really in some disgusting back alley. Interview practice is valuable she reminded herself as she tiptoed past some kind of slime that seemed equal parts white and green. At the end of the alley a sign had been screwed to bare brick. It read “ThemisCorp” above a large red arrow instructing people to follow the alley around to the left. “Oh, come on.” complained Charlie aloud.
She followed the alley around its corner. Charlie was behind the big office building now, but the
walls around her were brick with a thick layer of dirt and grime. She guessed they must have gone cheap with the back of the building. Typical corporate bluster she thought, show a good impression but cheap out where you can. She weaved past a large American style dumpster emblazoned with one of the company logos she had seen on the board, some gaudy cartoon bull. Another sign the same as before was again screwed to the wall. ThemisCorp to the left it indicated. Strange, she didn’t think she had walked the whole length of the office building, that thing seemed huge. Charlie felt like she had barely gone anywhere. She turned to follow the sign and walked off down the alley it indicated. At the end of this one was another sign for a left turn. This didn’t make sense, she had gone around in a circle, she had to be at the front again. Yet there it was, another alleyway. Maybe she had walked past a turn? Conscious that her interview was in twenty minutes she moved her handbag to her other shoulder and continued onwards. Everyone knew that they expected you at least ten minutes before the interview time. Judging on how eager you are before it even began.
This time the alley ended with a large metal staircase, the kind of American style fire escape you rarely saw in Colchester. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding!” shouted Charlie as she saw the sign. “ThemisCorp, please take the stairs,” it read. Still muttering profanity, she bent down to remove her heels. Last thing she needed was to get caught in the metal grate. The dark green metal of the stairs was cold and harsh even through her tights. At the top of the staircase was a red wooden door. A small plexiglass block screwed to it at eye level stated that this was the right place. She slipped her heels back on and stepped through the door.
The reception was pristine. Everything was a pale grey or chrome. The placed seemed to almost gleam. It was oddly bright. A young woman sat behind a large curved desk in a white pressed suit, with a white shirt and a plain black tie. She gestured to Charlie. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all she thought.