Intensive Scare

Intensive Scare-4

(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 k****e 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.”