Intensive Scare E-Book

Tony Lewis

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Doctor, doctor, I feel like reading a funny book.

I'd put this back then.

Rude.

A psychic message, a slightly portly medium, missing residents, and a strange glow can only mean one thing. Something is happening in Skullenia, and it's down to Ollie and the gang to sort it out.

With the help of Deirdre Clownpuncher, the boys try to find out where everyone's gone before they, and maybe the entire town, disappears forever. In an adventure to test the hardiest of souls, our heroes must employ all of the guts and guile at their disposal to follow the clues which, seeing as they don't actually have any guts and guile, means they'll be relying on other people as usual.

Join a cast of quite a few with whom you'll visit an interesting library, learn how Noggin hunts, and discover how ladies rate their hats in Intensive Scare, the sixth book in Tony Lewis's Skullenia series.

Leseprobe

A Intensive Scare

Skullenia Book 6

Tony Lewis

Copyright (C) 2020 Tony Lewis

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2020 by Next Chapter

Published 2020 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

For Mike and Darren, my two amazing brothers, without whom I wouldn't be the person I am today. Twisted, vaguely malevolent, in possession of an imagination worthy of psychiatric review, strangely wary of darts and forks, and more grateful that I was able to grow up with you both than you'll ever know.

And to James. Thanks for the title.

Intensive Scare

Nurse Parsnip signed the bottom of the medical chart, hung it back onto the hook at the end of the bed, tucked her pen away into the left breast pocket of her uniform, and let out a long, but satisfied sigh.

Currently, she was about three quarters of the way through her last round of the shift, after which she would wend her weary way home for a well-earned rest, a refreshing brew, and a spot of dinner, and by that I mean a glass of freshly squeezed A Rhesus Negative, a length of intestine lightly seared in a tangy bile sauce, and a modest portion of chips, and by chips I mean fingers, and not the chocolatey kind either.

Now, for those of you out there in reader land who consider yourselves to be human (although, if you regard Love Island as quality TV, labour under the illusion that the letters `th' are pronounced `f', and think a sophisticated night out involves meeting Bazza, Dazza, Shazza, Tezza, Fatboy Oinks, and Ming Mong Mandy at The Dog and Doughnut for a bag of pork scratchings and a jug of Woo Woo, you've kind of ruled yourselves out by default), and therefore tend to think along more traditional lines when it comes to the ingestion of food based items, you might be wondering, and quite rightly so, why the good nurse wasn't going to indulge in a big, fat bacon sandwich loaded with enough butter and brown sauce to clog a giraffes arteries, a bowl full of strawberry Angel Delight, and a large mug of tea.

Well, in actual fact, she could have that if she wanted, but as nice as that delightful culinary spread might sound it would definitely have a minor disagreement with her ghoulish internal organs the results of which would be a bloated belly, extended visits to an increasingly distressed toilet, and the chunk by chunk appearance of a partially digested and rather fragrant mess capable of rising to the surface of the water quicker than an asthmatic free diver. And by that I mean a free diver who has asthma, not a diver who's perfectly healthy, can hold his breath for three and a half weeks, and who is, to all intents and purposes, asthma free (and as I've mentioned a diver I could have said to all intents and porpoises, but I won't because that'd be rather cheap and inordinately silly).

Anyway, I know it's only a small lexicological detail, but it's one that does need pointing out I feel. I mean, there wouldn't be any point in making a comparison to something that has no correlation to what you want to compare it to now is there? That would be like saying, `Oh look, that red car over there is exactly the same colour as my green one'. That's unless you're colour blind of course in which case they'll both look identical whatever hue they're adorned with. Not that you should be driving anyway for goodness sake. The traffic light sequence isn't greeny/red, greeny/red and amber, greeny/red, amber, greeny/red. Unless you're in France that is, where even a visually challenged moose can get a driving license, and obeying traffic signals and road directions of any description is entirely optional.

The pastries are nice though. Just don't cross the road to get one.

Nurse Parsnip glanced up at the clock on the wall (she did have one of those upside downy chest ones, but she always felt a bit odd looking at her boobs whenever she wanted to know the time). Ten past three in the morning. That was good. At least she wasn't behind, a fortuitous circumstance that meant there was every possibility that she'd actually get off on time which, if you know anything about hospitals, is usually as likely as getting into one in the first place.

The potential for a late finish, a potential that was realised every now and again, was because, as part of her duties on this particular shift, Nurse Parsnip had to see to everyone in the Accident and Emergency Department and send them on their way once they'd been treated. Luckily, that hadn't taken very long tonight as it hadn't been very busy down there. Then again it never was really. If every creature that got injured on a nightly basis in Skullenia visited the hospital when it got a scratch, a cut, or had a couple of its limbs removed, the place would be full to bursting on the very same nightly basis.

(Ironically, full to bursting was a complaint that she'd dealt with the previous evening. It was a strange ailment that usually afflicted young, inexperienced vampires out on a binge who hadn't yet worked out what their capacity for blood intake was. Consequently, not only did this lead to the waiting room being full of pasty faced whingers moaning about their upset tummies, it also gave rise to some very interesting and colourful modern art renditions on the marble floor that took several hours and a gallon of industrial strength bleach to clean up. And regarding the A&E Department, the only time it got really busy was when Count Jocular got all bloodlusty and decimated the odd village or three. Or had new carpets put in, the effect was just the same. There were always life changing injuries, copious amounts of body fluids, wailing and screaming, missing appendages, and at least a couple of swatch booklets that needed removing after they'd been roughly inserted into places where the patterns would be quite hard to discern and all the same shade of muddy brown).

Anyway, as we've already established, it hadn't been too busy, and the only creature that the good nurse had seen in there tonight had been Fordwyche the troll, who'd presented himself at the medical establishment with a nasty cut to the hand. It wasn't his hand. It was one he'd found in the bin at the back of Mrs. Strudel's cafe (no doubt a remnant from one of her ghastly recipes. In fact, such was the diverse and eclectic nature of her rubbish, if Dr Frankenstein ever decided to come out of retirement, he wouldn't have too far to go to find everything he needed to get back into the reanimation business. There wasn't a night that went past that her bin wasn't overflowing with neatly lopped off extremities of one sort or another. Essentially, Doris Strudel's waste was like a Lego set for the ever so slightly deranged so if you ever find yourself at a loose end and needing to construct something fleshy, you can always pop round the back and have a go at cobbling something together. And let's face it, whatever you come up with is bound to be better than anything created using the foot destroying, multi-coloured plastic alternative, be it Tower Bridge, the Taj Mahal, or a vague, pointy tube that's supposed to be a plane. Not that I'm decrying the use of Lego of course. I'm sure it has its place, but then so do straightjackets, padded cells, rubber helmets, soft crayons, and extremely heavy doses of prescribed medication. So, what can we conclude from all this? On balance, I think it's that you have to be a particular type of person to partake of the little Swedish building blocks and everything that miniature world has to offer. There is a technical term for it. What is it now? Oh yes. Dull).

Fordwyche wanted the hand sewn up because he was going to hang it above his front door (cave entrance) for good luck (it brought flies). He also liked how it smelled (although how he was able to detect any odours was a mystery to one and all seeing as how he stank like, well, like one of Mrs. Strudel's bins). As it turned out it wasn't a technically difficult procedure to fix the damage, so she'd happily obliged with a couple of stitches and sent him on his way.

Stifling a yawn, Nurse Parsnip gazed at the sleeping figure in the bed before her. Soft snores emanated from it that rippled the sheets and ruffled his moustache, which made him rub his nose because it tickled.

Great Flat-Top the mountain ogre, for 'twas he that lay recumbent under the covers, was a rather special case. He was one of a very select number of patients that had been admitted to the hospital over the centuries, one suffering from a malaise so rare that the staff had had to look it up in the medical texts and have a meeting to decide on the best course of action. So, what was the exact nature of the debilitating condition that'd stumped Skullenia's esteemed medical community? I hear you ask. Well, I'll tell you shall I (which would make sense seeing as how I'm the author and everything).

Much to the amazement of Dr Zoltan (he's the esteemed medical community I mentioned), Great Flat-Top the mountain ogre actually had something wrong with him, a state of affairs that was virtually unheard of in the wards and side-rooms of Aesculapian establishments all over the world.

(And if you don't believe me, ask a nurse, who will readily confirm that most hospital beds are occupied by either whinging malingerers with ingrowing toenails, barely functioning adults who've got a bit of a cold, or overweight lollygaggers who've got suspected food poisoning in their massive bellies because they've had their seventeenth take out of the week and it's only Tuesday).

So, our ogre. In his spare time, Great Flat-Top, a community minded sort of a chap, did a bit of showing visitors around the local area whilst they took in the chequered history, questionable architecture, and eerie landscape of the surrounding villages and countryside (I could have said he was a tour guide, but I do have a word count to reach you know), and it was doing this that had landed him in the hospital.

So, how did showing tourists round, answering a few questions, and generally being a stout and knowledgeable fellow make him so ill? Well, he would gather foreign looking people together, offer to show them about for a very reasonable price, pretend that he knew what he was talking about, and then escort them all to a cabin in the woods where they could have a nice sit down and something to eat. Or, to put it another way, he would eat every last one of them in a gluttonous, blood drenched frenzy, and then have a nice sit down.

Now, whilst you may think that his methods of guiding aren't strictly traditional, (but let's be honest here, they've got to be better than sitting on a coach with a bunch of sun burnt holiday makers and being shouted at a by an orange woman called Tracey who thinks local history is restricted to how many men she's slept with and how long The Tequila Mockingbird has been open), he did manage to secure (well, kidnap really, but that's just splitting bones) a fair bit of trade and was busy most days of the week. And it was all going rather nicely thank you very much. Up until a week ago that is. After finishing with a group of Glandian boy scouts, Great Flat-Top had felt a bit of discomfort that had refused to go away. Eventually, unable to find relief and with the pain steadily increasing, he'd been admitted to hospital and diagnosed with the worst case of constipation that Nurse Parsnip and Dr Zoltan had seen since Flug had pounded down one hundred and sixty seven Sticky Nutty Nut Bums.

(The introduction of so much refined sugar had caused the poor reanimates bowels to go into a cataclysmic spasm, and they'd remained in that immobile state for nigh on a week and a half causing Flug to suffer some nasty bloating, a few burst sutures, and a certain amount of fragrant leakage more suited to the bottom of an industrial pig bin. Anyway, thanks to copious amounts of water and not a few tummy rubs, his innards had finally begun to relent which was when Ollie and Ronnie had quickly ushered him outdoors where, to this day, there's an area in the forest that's strictly off limits, except to those with the stoutest of souls, the strongest of stomachs, and the sturdiest of shoes).

So, to ease his congestion, Great Flat-Top was on thrice daily doses of Skullenian Prune juice, a liquid so adept at shifting all things stubborn that it had once been used to clear up a lava spill. As good as it is though, the exact time that it's curative properties begin to take effect can be somewhat difficult to predict which is why, in expectation of the inevitable result, next to the ogre's bed was a mop, a bucket, a bag of sturdy pegs, and a quarter of a ton of sand. When he eventually went it was going to be a veritable jamboree with cloth caps, camping badges, and partially digested woggles all over the place.

Of the other patients currently languishing in their beds there was Enid Bottletop, an elderly witch who was becoming rather forgetful, and who was in hospital more for the benefit of the townsfolk than anything else. She'd been brought in by Constable Gullett after he found her perched on a windowsill, purring, and asking for a saucer of milk. The seriousness of her condition was clearly evident. The poor thing was at the wrong house. She usually got her lactose at Mr. and Mrs. Doom's.

Then there was Ascension White, a newly turned golem who'd contracted a nasty dose of stone fungus, although seeing as how he was still on probation it wasn't strictly speaking his fault. The warlock who'd placed the enchantment in his mouth was to blame for that. He hadn't taken the necessary precautions re handwashing and the like, and so had passed the infection onto poor Ascension. He should've known better really. There're leaflets everywhere about safe hex.

And lastly there was Obidiah Dickens, a poor unfortunate soul of a poltergeist who'd gotten caught up in a drinking game at The Bolt and Jugular, and then gotten caught up in the ceiling fan of the same establishment when he sneezed and catapulted himself upwards at quite an impressive speed. He was currently resting in half a dozen plastic bags that were tied to the bed with string, whilst Dr Zoltan tried to figure out how to stitch mist together.

So, all in all, on balance, when all's said and done, and whatever the hell else people say when things aren't going too bad, it wasn't going too bad. They had their busy times of course, but that was usually around the holidays, or when Mrs. Ladle decided to try out a new cake recipe.

Nurse Parsnip was just about to tuck in an errant corner of freshly laundered bed sheet when a noise from the pharmacy at the end of the ward attracted her attention. It sounded like bottles clinking together, but it couldn't be that because she'd finished her medicine round over an hour ago and locked it up.

Forgetting the untidy bed cover for the moment, she walked quietly towards the dispensary, because it took her past the other resting patients.

The little room had windows, but they were frosted, but that didn't make a whole lot of difference because it was dark anyway. As she approached, she squinted in the way that all people do when trying to see something more clearly (which is just silly. I mean you wouldn't talk more quietly to make yourself heard, or slow down if you were in a hurry, would you?), but it didn't help.

Strangely, despite the continuing noise coming from within, she couldn't see any actual movement, but as already noted, the glass and the darkness would be a major hindrance to that.

She momentarily wondered if it was Dr Zoltan in there, engaged in some night-time experimentation or research. He sometimes liked to fiddle about with all the various potions and tinctures in an effort to come up with more effective treatments for the particular type of maladies that could befall the residents of Skullenia. Well, that's what he told Nurse Parsnip anyway. If the truth be known, the good doctor could barely remember how to make a pot of tea, so the chances of him inventing a cure for say, Ghoul Rash or Warty Troll Syndrome, were about as likely as UKIP employing a Polish MP with special responsibility for bringing in as many of his countrymen into Britain as was feasibly possible.

No, the reason that Dr Zoltan often pottered about the medicines was that he had a bit of a crush on the lovely Nurse Parsnip you see, and he would sometimes hide in the dispensary and peek through the keyhole at the female ghoul as she went about her nursely duties. And whilst I know that sounds a tad creepy, it was only because he was a little bit shy when it came to matters of the heart. In other words, when he tried to speak to a lady, he turned into a gibbering wreck who couldn't have got a coherent sentence out if his life depended on it. Not that anyone would've noticed. He was scatty at the best of times, a state of being that saw him once prescribe an aggressive course of hormone replacement therapy for Hector Lozenge to help him with his alcohol problem. It hadn't helped the old boy of course, but then how could it have done? What was he going to do with a pair of boobs and a worrying craving for chocolate? On the other hand, Mrs. Throb, the lady who'd received his addiction counteraction remedy got on brilliantly. She's a professional wrestler now and can roll up a frying pan with her bare hands.

Anyway, Zoltan had considered telling her about his feelings, but he was worried that she might find him a bit too old and set in his ways, and if she rejected him it may make their pleasant working relationship a bit tense.

Nurse Parsnip rejected the idea of the physician being in attendance though, because Zoltan had told her earlier in the day that he was going on a house call that evening. Derek Strudel had dropped one of his mum's smaller saucepans on his foot and broken twelve bones and the concrete floor that he'd been standing on. He needed some painkillers, a spot of physiotherapy, and a hefty dose of `stop making such a fuss you great big girlie man'.

She reached into her pocket, took out her keys, and sorted through them for the right one. It took a couple of minutes because she had them all, from the smallest cupboard in the basement, to the vast atrium on the third floor where the patients went for a bit of R and R after treatment (reeling and rocking if it was Hector Lozenge, ranting and raving if it was a witch, and wandering about like a wally if it was Flug because he couldn't spell).

With the correct key in hand, Nurse Parsnip approached the door. As she put the key towards the lock the door banged noisily in its frame. She let out a yelp of surprise and jumped backwards a couple of feet.

“Alright,” she said, her voice sounding far more confident that she actually felt. “That's enough messing about for one night. I'm coming in there right now and if you haven't got a decent excuse for being in attendance there's going to be trouble.”

Without any further hesitation she slammed the key into the lock, threw open the door, and flicked the light on.

Nurse Parsnip screamed.

* * *

Noggin was on the prowl. As a vampire cat he absolutely loved being out and about, but the fact that it was an integral facet of his nature wasn't the only reason for his unalloyed pleasure. What made it especially thrilling was that he could never tell what was going to happen. He literally had no idea where he'd end up, who he'd bump into, or what juicy titbits might be found lurking in the dark recesses of the night. And bearing in mind the size of his territory that could be anything from a wandering Blue Badger to a fully grown troll. And what with Noggin being, well, Noggin, he had no compunction whatsoever in taking down whatever poor, unfortunate creature it was that was unlucky enough to cross his path, and taking it home to his `owner', Mandrake. Not that Mandrake could claim to be the `owner' of the psychotic feline of course because like most cats, Noggin was very much his own person, so to speak, and would hang around somewhere as long as it was warm and cosy and he got a tickle under the chin every now and again.

By nature, Noggin was a happy go lucky sort of a cat, in that he was happy to rend into bloody ribbons anything covered in flesh and you were lucky if it wasn't you. He had a murderous streak to rival Eric `The Eviscerator' Edwards, last year's winner of the Serial Killer World Championships, and a lust for blood that would make a Central African dictator go running for the sick bucket.

A consummate predator he had many, and various hunting methods at his disposal, ones that were always guaranteed to net him his prey. They included, but were not limited to, the marauding, `all out frontal assault involving lots of noise, slashing claws, and razor sharp fangs,' the patient, `stalk through the grass, watch for a bit, then pounce when you're not looking,' and, of course, the beautifully stealthy and infinitely more terrifying, `hanging about on a bird table pretending to be a peanut'.

He came and went as he pleased, not that anyone or anything would argue with him. Why, just the other night he'd had a run in with a large Forest Hound who'd had the temerity to use Noggin's favourite scratching post as a makeshift toilet. On discovering this most foul of desecrations, Noggin had turned into a fifty-six-pound ball of fur and claws that had trounced the much bigger animal in three seconds flat. And then, to add insult to considerable injury, Noggin had used the battered canine as a combined scratch post and cat litter, providing proof that cats have a finely honed sense of irony.

Tonight, though, he had eschewed the dank perils of the forest and was hunting in and around the town square, because at this particular time of night there was a very good chance that he could snag some staggering drunk, rough him up a bit, and deposit him on Mandrake's front step.

Many was the morning that Mandrake would open his front door to get the milk only to find a semi-conscious and heavily lacerated creature staring up at him in bewilderment with Noggin sat proudly on their chest. On one occasion he'd found Ten Foot Teddy out there, face down in a pot plant with an ear and most of his trousers missing. Quite how Noggin had managed to overpower the enormous golem and get him to the house was a mystery, and it would remain as such because no one was daft enough to investigate the matter. Not without arranging their funeral and making sure that their affairs were in order anyway.

After having a sniff at the fountain (which occupied him for about twenty minutes what with blood having the same effect on a vampire cat that catnip has on an ordinary moggy), making sure that his territory was still adequately marked (he didn't have to travel too far to do this. He could put a fire out at three hundred yards), and depositing what, on first appearance, seemed to be a five foot length of rope on the pavement outside Mrs. Strudel's café (a mistake that her son, Derek would make later that day when he tried to pick it up), Noggin swaggered over to The Bolt and Jugular. It was almost time for the pub to close and the shouts from the landlord and the complaints from the patrons were signal enough to draw Noggin in.

As he neared Skullenia's only pub, his senses were overawed by the various aromas emanating from within. It was a subtle combination of bad food, pungent and highly corrosive alcohol, and body odours that wouldn't have been out of place in a morgue where the cooling system had broken down. (Or a teenage boy's bedroom for that matter because that's just as bad. That's if you can get in it of course. Obviously you'd have to negotiate a mountain of clothes, some items of which may actually be clean, some questionable and, quite frankly, revolting substances that could only be identified in a laboratory, and a well-thumbed collection of exotic periodicals containing ladies in minimal clothing, tradesmen of one sort or another, and some very informative articles that are about as likely to be read as Philo the Dwarf's guide to the Slam-dunk).

Noggin watched the exiting drinkers, studying each one carefully before he made his choice. To be honest he wasn't overly bothered which one he was going to attack. Noggin would take on anything you see, be it a cowering mouse or a rhinoceros with an attitude problem. But whatever it was, it needed to be capable of putting up a bit of a fight, just for show if nothing else.

A moment later he had his target in sight, that being a reasonably sized demon that looked quite handy. He was heavily built, carrying a large club, and gave the definite impression that he hadn't had quite enough booze to turn him into a gibbering imbecile i.e. he was still vertical and was walking in a straight line. Mostly.

Noggin crouched down into what renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough would call, `a preparatory attack position', or what the casual observer would see as, `psychotic cat getting ready to shred some poor bugger to chunks'.

Noggin inched forward, keeping to the shadows and so low to the ground that he was barely noticeable. It was then that he heard a noise to his right that made his ear flick. Still intent on his target though, he ignored it. Then it happened again.

Annoyed that it might be a rival predator trespassing on his patch (although in reality this was quite unlikely. There weren't many creatures in Skullenia brave enough to tackle the animal that had once skewered a cow to a shed), Noggin turned his head. The noise was coming from a dark alley that ran between the pub and the house next door. Patiently, he stared into the gloom, but even with his enhanced night-time vision, Noggin couldn't make out what was causing it.

Now the feline faced a dilemma. Should he go after his intended quarry, or investigate the alleyway? It was only when the noise came once more that Noggin abandoned his intended victim and boldly turned into the alley.

Still staying low, he padded forward softly and quietly so as not to give his presence away.

After a few minutes the moon appeared from behind a dense bank of clouds and shed its sepia like glow on to the world below, allowing Noggin to see what it was that had been making the noise.

For the first time in any of his lives, Noggin the vampire cat turned tail and ran away.

* * *

Constable Gullett's size fourteen leather boots beat a rhythmic tattoo on the weathered, grey pavement. Well, they did for half a dozen steps or so before he had to stop and get his breath back. Although he was more than capable of solving any crime that came his way, and managed to uphold law and order in Skullenia all by himself with a natural skill, an unerring grace, and the utmost respect for the judicial system in general, he had let his physical fitness slip ever so slightly over the years. In fact, so unfit was the good constable that, not only was the average corpse in better condition than him (a dead one that is, not some ravening zombie hungry for a brain-based breakfast), but so was the average villain. Consequently, and somewhat contrary to the previous statement that Gullett could solve any crime that came his way (and let's face it, he wasn't going to go towards one. That was just silly, unnecessary, and totally irresponsible), what that actually meant was that every case that he applied his detective skills to was concluded with a simple, two line entry in his pocket book that read, `Suspect got away', `No witnesses'. It wasn't laziness you understand, it was just that Constable Gullett was exceedingly pragmatic, didn't believe in gilding the lily, and chose to use the word `solved' in the same way that the Man Booker Prize judging panel employ the phrase, `A nice, easy relaxing read'.

(No doubt that observation's ruined my chances. I reckon I could have been in this year as well. Hilary Mantel indeed).

At present PC Gullett was at the far end of town, just past Grendle's shop, a little way from Mrs. Ladle's house, and not too far from the road that led to Count Jocular's castle. He could see the vast and imposing edifice in the distance, shrouded as it was by mist, clouds, rampaging thunderstorms, bolts of lightning, bats, howls of anguish, screams of terror, scary unknowable thingamabobs, and yet more mist. Not that he was at all put off by its presence, you understand. As strange as it was, having the ancient, granite monstrosity nestled there was really rather comforting when all was said and done, and in spite of all the murder, torture, horrible deaths, grisly violations, and dubious decorative disasters that occurred within its gruesome walls, it was, and forever would be, a reassuring constant that spoke of a certain permanence and steadfastness. It said, quite simply, home.

He liked to stop here because it represented the halfway point of his tour around the town, and being such, it was, quite naturally, the most logical place to rest and have a quick bite to eat, and seeing that it was twenty six minutes and thirty eight seconds since his last intake of calories, he knew he was just about at his physical limit and very close to hitting the proverbial wall.

(To fend off that most terrifying of eventualities, Gullett made it his business to know to the nanosecond how long his various travels took, how far he was from the nearest eatery, and who to call on should the unthinkable happen and he run out of provisions. Thankfully, that had only ever happened once and such was the trauma of the nightmarish event that he'd needed the afternoon off work and a lengthy session of counselling in the shape of a fully loaded baguette that wouldn't have looked out of place in an aircraft hangar).

After commencing his beat, his first stop was always at Mrs. Strudel's where he'd pop in for a sit down, a well-earned cup of tea, and a moderately sized piece of cake (it was moderately sized to him, anyway. If it was presented to anyone else, they'd wonder why you'd asked them to eat an Ottoman).

He called in at the cafe because it was seven minutes and eleven seconds from the police station, and there was no way that he'd be able to continue his beat without further sustenance, especially after such a protracted length of time pounding the streets. (It wasn't that far distance wise, but then most people are a lot fitter than Constable Gullett and could make the short trip with consummate ease. Come to think of it most vegetables are a lot fitter than Constable Gullett. In that case I suppose they'd make the trip with consommé ease.

Now clearly, that overt generalisation about larger persons may or may not include those of you that have chosen to read this tale, but I can't spend all of my time singling out everybody, so if I've offended anyone then I most sincerely and humbly apologise. You may very well have the cruising speed of an arthritic parsnip but hey, there's nothing wrong with that and I'm not judging you in any way at all. Just don't ever queue in front of me at the supermarket).

At the end of the path was a small gate at the side of which was a stile, and it was onto this robust piece of woodland furniture that Gullett lowered himself. This he did gingerly, and with more than a hint of care for he was quite a stout fellow, one who'd been known to ever so slightly damage the odd chair or two in his time. (Actually, if we're being completely honest, and in the interests of transparency etc. he was actually a bit of a fatty who had no idea what anything below his belt looked like, and whose waist was far below where it should actually be. His trouser size could only be guessed at, but one pair took a fortnight to make and kept a Fibulan tailor in business).

He took off his helmet, removed a crinkly, brown package from within and placed it on the ground. He then picked up the crinkly, brown package and put his helmet on the ground. It was dark after all and seeing as his sandwich was roughly the size of said headgear it was an easy enough mistake to make.

As he unwrapped the neatly covered package the aroma of ham and pickle stole into his nose. The filling was his absolute favourite and had been lovingly made for him by Doris Strudel. (Yes indeed. As well as maggot soufflé, Scapularian brain and noodle soup, blood trifle, and various other revolting concoctions straight out of The Evil Dead All You Can Eat Morgue, Skullenia's resident purveyor of undead victuals did, on occasion, make normal food as well. That's if pickle can be classed as normal food of course, and not as something that should be sealed in a lead lined box and cast away to the deepest depths of the ocean for all eternity where it won't be found until the sun goes nova and spreads the charred remnants of our planet across what remains of our decimated solar system. Or put in the bin, whichever's easier really).

As he chewed, he relaxed against the gatepost and listened to the night-time noises. Then, gazing upwards he chanced to see a shooting star blazing a fiery trail across the pitch-black sky.

His second bite faltered halfway to his mouth when he heard a rustle from the bushes to his left. Not that that was unusual of course. There were all sorts of creatures hiding, or skulking, or prowling about at this time of night, and even though Gullett knew most of them either socially or professionally, this was Skullenia after all. It paid to be cautious. And armed.

“Alright,” said Gullett, popping the half-eaten snack into his helmet. “Who's there?”

RUSTLE. RUSTLE.

“Come on now. Stop buggering about. Don't make me come in there.”

RUSTLE. RUSTLE. RUSTLE.

“Is that you again, Henge?”

Henge was a rather large troll who had a penchant for late night excursions into the woods where he would partake of the pungent and hallucinatory emanations of the Warbling Dollybush, a tall, spiky, blue leafed plant whose unique chemical composition caused it to have an adverse and somewhat relaxing effect on the brain cells of any creature that chose to imbibe its wispy emissions. Or, to put it another way that probably makes a lot more sense, if you smoked it you ended up smacked off your face, higher than a British bankers end of year bonus, and sillier than a room full of drunk clowns.

Consequently, and somewhat unsurprisingly, Henge could quite often be found blundering about in the dead of night either running away from some imagined horror or claiming to be something a bit odd. In recent times he'd been a spaceman, a carrot, October 1746, and, for some unfathomable reason, the colour yellow.

Around these parts most people called him Stoned.

The rustle was replaced by a thump, as if something very large, and very out of it, had hit the ground.

“Great,” said Gullett, making sure his sandwich was safe before putting his helmet back on. “That's all I need.”

He'd had to get Stoned home on several previous occasions. It wasn't an easy task and one that required a strong back, a lot of patience, and at some point in the proceedings, a block and tackle.

As he walked towards the undergrowth, he got out his torch and flicked it on. It lit up the night for the briefest of moments before going straight back out.

`Strange,' thought Gullett. He'd only put fresh batteries in the damn thing that very afternoon, not long before he came on shift actually, and that was only a couple of hours ago at the most.

(He couldn't remember precisely what time that was, but that was mainly because he didn't have an official start time, and although not arbitrary by any means it did vary on a shift by shift basis. As you can imagine, crime and disorder don't have a strict timetable so Gullett's working hours had to reflect that fact, and depended on numerous and varied technical and analytical factors such as crime statistics, the time of year, hours of available darkness, transient visitors to the town, which ale was guesting at The Bolt and Jugular and, most importantly of all, what time he got up).

“Come on then, let's be `avin' you,” said Gullett, his stentorian voice booming through the still night air.

Silence descended. Even the rustling had stopped.

“Look, if you want somewhere cold and miserable to spend the night, I'm more than happy to oblige. And I'm not talking about Mrs. Ladle's kitchen either.”

Without warning, something that he wouldn't have been able to describe in his pocket notebook due to the lack of appropriate vocabulary, burst forth from the confines of its leafy hideaway and headed straight for the policeman, who hollered in surprise before fainting dead away.

* * *

Deirdre Clownpuncher sat bolt upright in bed and stared wide and bleary eyed straight ahead into the dark and mysterious recesses of her bedroom. (Obviously her bedroom didn't actually have any mysterious recesses because it was her bedroom and she was intimately familiar with it, but by describing it as such lends the paragraph a certain spooky gravitas that I have now, on reflection, completely ruined. It was dark though).

Despite the warmth of the night she shivered as if it were much colder, but that didn't prevent a thin sheen of perspiration from appearing on her forehead.

She flicked her bedside lamp on and studied her room. It all seemed normal. Well, everything was where it should be anyway, right down to her cat, Beanbag, who was curled up at her feet as usual (not that he'd be anywhere else. He was a beanbag by nature as well as by name and wouldn't have moved a muscle if he was sitting on top of an active volcano whilst a mouse did his, `the thing about cats' comedy routine right in front of him).

Deirdre swung her legs off the bed, rubbed her eyes, and eased her feet into her slippers. For the life of her she couldn't figure out why she'd woken up. There were no disturbances going on outside, no noise coming from the Chimney family next door, and she hadn't been having any particularly vivid or worrisome dreams. It certainly was bizarre, especially when she was usually such a sound sleeper. Ah well.

She stood up and put her dressing gown on, deciding that a nice, hot cup of tea was the ideal thing to have before settling down again. And maybe a biscuit or three as well. There was nothing quite like a few dunked goodies for soothing one's mood. (I'm thinking of Bill Oddie on a ducking stool now).

Once in the kitchen, Deirdre popped the kettle on then sat down at the table whilst she waited for it to boil.

Her eyes drifted to the window, through which she could hear the gentle lapping of the water in the harbour, the ripple of sails in the wind, and the distant tolling of a ships bell. She'd lived in Shark's Bay her entire life and never tired of its peaceful tranquillity.

Suddenly roused from her musings by the insistent whistling of the kettle, she realised she'd been lost in her own thoughts and that the small kitchen was rapidly filling up with steam.

Taking the kettle off the hob, she filled the teapot, gave it a few minutes to brew, popped two spoonsful of sugar into her best china cup, then filled it to the brim. And that was that. She took her tea without milk you see, enjoying as she did the acrid taste of the tannin as it danced across her tongue.

This particular way of taking her beverage was a remnant of her childhood, an age when money was scarce, and sacrifices had to be made. She had happy memories of those long-ago times, though, and never felt like she'd missed out on anything.

After placing a tea cosy over the pot lest she fancy another cup, she returned to her seat.

After taking a dainty sip she placed her drink onto the table and turned back to the window. (The cup itself went onto a stainless-steel coaster lest it scorch the wood. As in keeping with mature ladies all over the world, Deirdre had a mouth that was coated in asbestos, a physical trait that allowed her to imbibe liquids so hot even Hephaestus himself would need a couple of ice cubes and a straw). She furrowed her brow when she noticed something.

What she saw there made her wonder if she were dreaming and was in fact, at that moment, safely tucked up in bed and trying to stop Beanbag from nipping at her toes. Either that or the devastating stroke that had taken her mother at an early age had decided to pay her a visit.

The steam from the boiling kettle had clouded the kitchen window, apart from one area on the bottom right hand pane. It wasn't abstract and she had no clue how it had gotten there or what it meant.

There, in the dripping condensation, was one word.

SKULLENIA.

* * *

Ollie was about to knock on the door to Crumble's lab when he stopped, his knuckles a few inches from the wooden surface.

The reason for his hesitance was that the professor was becoming rather more eccentric of late, a state of affairs that made visits to his subterranean domain of lunacy somewhat more hazardous than usual, although on its own that statement is rather hard to qualify and needs a certain amount of clarification.

To say that the mad old fool was getting madder was like saying that a cup is getting cuppier, the floor distinctly more floory, or a table is getting more table like than normal. It's not a thing of flux, but a permanent state of being, one bestowed with a durable rigidity not subject to change or deviation. And, as is the way with these things, they simply are, always have been, and always will be. It's a happy status quo that reminds you no matter what happens, things can't be all that bad. Not as bad as Crumble anyway.

For example, just the other week Ronnie had popped down to the laboratory to see the good professor with the intention of finding out if Crumble had managed to further his progress into discovering that most challenging and elusive of alchemy's forgotten secrets, turning anything that he could get his hands on into tobacco. Sadly though, despite numerous efforts and vain attempts, the professor hadn't yet succeeded, but he had managed to make a mess on a scale not seen since something called Katrina turned New Orleans into a snow globe. When asked, Crumble hadn't been able to explain exactly what had happened, but poor Ronnie had ended up needing a dozen stitches, a stiff drink, and a course of robust antibiotics, and although Ronnie himself couldn't be completely sure of what had happened either, he was positive that it had something to do with a bowl of soup, a child's spinning top, two coconuts, and enough electricity to jump start Mount Everest.

Ronnie had left vowing never to enter, `that bloody idiots madhouse' ever again. Not unless he produced the fags anyway.

“Professor,” Ollie called out, sounding a hell of a lot more confident than he actually felt. “Is it safe to come in?”

“Indeed, it is, dear boy,” came the reply from within.

Suitably reassured, or as much as he could be at any rate, Ollie prepared to venture in, albeit with a healthy dose of wariness, a hint of trepidation, and a teensy weensy measure of being about to run away in a mad panic as if the hounds of hell themselves were snapping at his cape.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

“Just watch out for the…never mind.”

Ollie gazed down at his right foot and grimaced in disgust. His shiny black, patent leather shoe, the footwear for all discerning vampires everywhere, was now covered in something rarely seen outside of a low budget, 1950's science fiction movie, a handkerchief suffused with the bi-products of a heavy cold, or a microwave ready meal for one. It was otherworldly in colour (it was green and glowing), it didn't look quite right in a seriously wrong way (it was green and glowing), and, most disturbingly of all, it was moving (it was moving).

“Prof. What on earth is this…thing?”

“I'm not quite sure, actually,” said the scientist, cheerfully. “But I think it moved in about a week ago. I've tried communicating with it and so far discovered that it reacts to sound, so if you ask it nicely to get off, it'll probably oblige.”

“Probably?” said Ollie, doing a creditable version of the Skullenian Hokey Cokey (it was similar to the traditional Hokey Cokey except that when you put your left leg in, it stayed in. It didn't normally last for very long. Not more than five rounds anyway, by which time it was more of a Pushy Wushy).

“Yes. As long as you stop shaking your foot,” said the professor.

Ollie did as he was told and stopped shaking his foot. He gave Crumble a look of dark and malevolent intent, one designed to convey his displeasure at being placed in such a predicament (which is a bit of a lie if I'm being completely honest; I only put it in because I liked the sound of it so much. In actual fact, Ollie's look was more of the pleading, pathetic, reserved for a toddler who's just seen a monster under his bed variety. Or that of his friend Flug, who would wet himself if he found a toddler under his bed).

“What happens when you shake it then?” asked Ollie.

Crumble put the cleaver that he'd been hefting onto his work bench and grabbed a glass beaker.

“Bits of it fly off,” he said, approaching Ollie.

“That doesn't sound too bad,” said the half vampire, somewhat relieved.

“And explode,” finished Crumble, who was now on his hands and knees at Ollie's feet.

Ollie didn't offer any comment on this interesting little titbit. On hearing the news that some of the softer parts of his anatomy situated below the belt might be liable to suffer the indignities of a concussive blast at any moment and end up decorating the walls of the lab, he had ceased any and all bodily movement, to the point that he was less likely to move than a twelve year old girl told to sit on the lap of a 1970's DJ.

Crumble placed the beaker onto the toe of Ollie's shoe so that the open end was towards the seething, globular mass.

“Now, keep very very still,” said Crumble, concocting a statement so patently stupid that he'd shortly become the world record holder as, `Person who uttered the most ridiculous thing ever said ever in the history of everything ever said since people started saying stuff,' beating the current holder, Sergeant William `Willy' Williams of the United States Marine Corps. On being presented with the captured Osama Bin Laden, the soldier had said, “Do you think we should let him off. He said he was sorry?”

And there've been others.

Take Dolly Kindle for instance, who sang songs about hats and collected wonky buttons in her spare time. On hearing the news that she was with child she said to her GP, “Are you sure it's mine? I don't even like milk.”

Then there was Rhapsody Limb, a shopkeeper from Intellinnsidesville who told a burglar, “Of course I've got a safe. You don't think I'd keep all my money in the bank, do you? I'm not that stupid.”

And who can forget Oxford Mole, a deceased chair stacker from Mimple who, before being found dead in the bath, had been heard to announce, “There's no way electricity can be that dangerous.”

Now, I could conclude this searingly satirical section with some choice phrases uttered by your friends and mine, the politicians, but seeing as everything that every one of them has said since the dawn of time is stupid to the point of being barely believable, we'll take it as a given that they're out in front in the nonsensical statement business, although that fact is slightly skewed in that they do have a head start on virtually everybody else. They're all morons.

“Come on then, little one,” cooed the Professor, who then proceeded to make kissy wissy noises. “Into the jar there's a good boy.”

Ollie looked on in disbelief as the gelatinous blob oozed its way towards Crumble, much like a cat does when called by its owner (albeit a cat that's fallen into a blender, been whizzed around for a couple of minutes after which the resulting feline soup is decanted and neatly sewn into a translucent skin bag. Oh, my goodness that's disgusting. I really shouldn't write stuff like that. I feel sick now).

After a few moments, a dread filled span of time that was filled with a vaguely thick sucking sound that reminded the increasingly nauseous Ollie of the noise that the toilet made after it had been violated by Flug and his prehistoric digestive system, the sticky mass slipped into the beaker where it sat pulsating like a fleshy, emerald heart. Crumble put a lid on the receptacle and placed it on a shelf.

“I think I can say without fear of contradiction that that is one of the most disturbing things that I have ever seen in my life,” said Ollie, which, when you take into account that he lived in Skullenia, saw death and mayhem on a nightly basis, witnessed first-hand just what Count Jocular got up to in his torture chambers, and accidentally saw a Christmas episode of Eastenders one year, was quite a statement.

“Oh, I don't know,” said Crumble, returning to his bench and his cleaver. “I've seen worse.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. Believe me, Ollie, ever since I lifted the veil and had a peak and a poke at some of the horrors lurking in the faltering shadows of the nethers, there's nothing in this world that I find disturbing anymore. Well, not much.”

“Still haven't got over the Egon incident then?” said Ollie, absently rubbing his right shoe on his left trouser leg.

Crumble shuddered and shook his head. Or maybe he shook, and his head shuddered. Whatever it was though, it was clear that a recent memory perturbed him.

“That, dear Ollie, is going to take some time,” he said. “And perhaps a couple of sessions of hypnotherapy.”