Wuthering Frights

Wuthering Frights-3

Outside of any and all sweets, Flug's second favourite food was cheese, so Ollie thought that if he put the tobacco conundrum into the context of something that he was familiar with then Flug would be more likely to understand.

“Ah, me get it now,” said Flug, slapping his head in a way that would have stunned an elk.

“Finally,” commented Stitches.

Ronnie put the money into Flug's outstretched hand. “And get yourself some sweets with the change.”

“Fanks.”

“You're welcome.”

“Ronnie.”

“Yes, Flug?”

“Won't da cheese get stuck in your pipe?”

“That's it, I give up,” said Ronnie, snatching back the money amidst howls of laughter from Ollie and Stitches. “I'll go myself. Anybody want anything?”

“No thanks,” said Stitches, slowly recovering to the point that it was now safe to take his hands away from his rib cage. “I had a couple of slices of tobacco on toast earlier.”

Ronnie swore colourfully and walked out.

* * *

Ten minutes later Ollie was alone in his office once more. Ronnie had gone out to the shop, Flug was doing whatever it was that Flug did in his spare time, and Stitches had left, muttering something about some part of his body that needed ironing.

“What to do?” he said to himself. “I know. Check emails.”

He logged onto the Darknet and accessed his account. As usual it was mostly rubbish apart from one that looked quite interesting. It was a link to an information site called Wickedpedia and it had been sent to him by Dr. Jekyll.

'I thought this looked good,' he'd typed. 'It's the place to go if you want to find out anything about anything'.

Being reasonably new to the world of the information super highway (or, with Skullenia's connectivity being what it was, the information off road, dirt track riddled with boulders, stiles, overflowing fords and the occasional cow blocking the way), Ollie and the rest of the residents of Skullenia hadn't quite got to grips with the fact that most of what you read on the intertubes should be taken with a pinch of salt large enough to disable an elephants kidneys, and a very healthy dose of scepticism. Still, as with most things there was a learning curve involved and they'd get to grips with routing out the fact from the fiction soon enough (which would be good because as you, dear reader, and I know from bitter experience it's because most of the information held within a computers flashing innards is usually updated by bored eleven year olds who have nothing better to do after the batteries in their hand-held consoles have run out. God forbid they do something radical like go outside and play. This was the precise reason that a lot of people actually believe that Stephen Hawking celebrated his fortieth birthday on the summit of The Eiger after a particularly challenging ascent of the North Face. This is, of course, utterly ridiculous and anyone believing such patent nonsense would be very silly indeed. The eminent Professor couldn't possibly have achieved this incredible feat because the escalator was closed for repairs. You see, it's all in the details).

Ollie typed in some random subjects just to see how accurate it was. To be fair it wasn't too bad. There was quite a detailed history of Skullenia that contained several references to his Dad, and a nice piece about the Fibulan Museum. Eventually he tired of surfing though; one because he couldn't find anything else of interest, and two, his computer began to throw some very dodgy sites his way that made his eyes itch. That being the case he shut the computer down and went off to the kitchen. Twenty minutes, two cups of Earl Grey, and some Marmite on toast later (who says half vampires aren't afraid to try something different) Ollie decided to pop down to the lab to pay Professor Crumble a visit. What with one thing and another he hadn't seen the old boy for a week, so he thought it best that he check in on him to make sure that he hadn't caused a rift in the space time continuum, caused a massive seismic event, or lost his glasses again. If he was honest with himself though, he rather enjoyed seeing what the mad old duffer had come up with every time he visited.

As he opened the lab door he was greeted by the usual pungent aroma that was a cross between burnt chocolate, and a chemical toilet that had been used a fortnight ago and had no active chemicals of any description in it.

“Hi ho, Prof,” Ollie greeted him. “How's it going? Sorry I haven't been down for a while but I've been a bit busy.”

The ageing scientist looked up from a mould laden Petri dish and studied Ollie through lenses so thick that in direct sunlight they could easily have started a forest fire a couple of miles away. If there was a forest a couple of miles away of course. Which there was. It wasn't on fire though.

“Ah, young Ollie, lovely to see you. But surely you were here just the other day?” said Crumble.

“That was about a week ago,” said Ollie.

“Really! Well, galloping pancakes. That just goes to prove that time certainly does fly when you're having fun I suppose. Conversely if you're not having fun when you're flying then time won't fly at all. Or, if you're timing a flight then you could very well be having fun. Or maybe, if you're in a plane and having fun at the same time, time stops altogether…”

“Professor.”

“Yes, dear boy.”

“I came down for a visit, not a lecture on chronology and aeronautics.”

“Of course you didn't. Sorry. I do tend to blather on don't I? Would you care to see what I've been working on?”

“That's why I'm here.”

Crumble turned to the shelf behind him and grabbed something. Something was as accurate a description as Ollie could come up with anyway. If not that then it could have been anything. The scientist then placed it onto the bench between them and spun it round a hundred and eighty degrees. It was only then that the odd shaped object became recognisable, mostly because of the buttons it had for eyes, and a carrot for a nose.

“A snowman?” asked Ollie, sincerely hoping that he wasn't about to receive a gift-wrapped dwarf.

“Indeed it is. Or a representation of one anyway. This little chap is made of polystyrene. Draw near and observe.”

Crumble took hold of the model's head and lifted it, so that the entire thing split about half way down the torso, like a Russian doll. He put that onto the bench and reached into the base from which he pulled a second object. This one was round and about the size of a honeydew melon, and appeared to be covered in poppy plastic, the type that keeps kids entertained for hours at the supermarket whilst their parents get a double hernia pushing overflowing trolleys around.

Poppy plastic is the one reason that children never get lost in large shops by the way. You can guarantee that if your little one goes missing you'll find him (or her. Don't want to be accused of being sexist) by the bananas with some poppy plastic in each hand and a piece under each foot doing an excellent impression of a bowl of Rice Crispies (please note that the author strongly advises that potential child kidnappers disregard the last paragraph about supermarkets, bananas, poppy plastic, and the fact that lots of children are to be found in this location. And by child kidnappers I mean adults that kidnap children, not kidnappers who are children, because that would be weird).

“Inside this chamber,” explained Crumble, “is a high explosive that I've encased in poppy plastic for safety. This all then sits inside the model. The top then goes back on thusly,” he put the top back on, “and hey presto, it's ready for deployment.”

“Mmmm. And what's this particular wonder called?” asked Ollie, taking a couple of hamstring stretching steps backwards.

“A Bomb in a Bubble Snowman.”

Ollie was too dumbfounded to formulate any kind of response, well a rational one at any rate. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of all this though was what if Crumble ever decided that he'd had enough of living in his lab and wanted to subject the rest of humanity to his strange, wacky and quite frankly extremely dangerous way of thinking. It would make a stay in Baghdad seem like a restful retreat at a monastery with the monks of The Order Of Being Pretty Quiet Really, We Don't Get Up To A Lot And We Don't Go Out Much.

“So how do you envisage this contraption being used then?” Ollie asked, not really sure that he wanted to know, but morbidly curious nonetheless.

“Oh, I don't know,” said the Prof, though Ollie suspected he knew damn well what he'd like to do with it but didn't want to let on in case people thought he was mad. Madder anyway. “I suppose it could be utilised to scare children in the winter time when they're being naughty. You could tell them that their snowman committed suicide because they didn't look after him properly. You never know it might instil a sense of responsibility into the little tykes. Actually, it would also be rather handy if the polar bears or the penguins ever decided to rise up and take over the world, which you know is going to happen sooner or later. Imagine armies of these little beauties hidden around the frozen wasteland just in case. They'd never suspect a thing.” There was nary a hint of a smile on his face. Professor Crumble was deadly serious.

“Interesting,” said Ollie. “Dark certainly, disturbing in the extreme of course, and definitely worthy of an intense psychiatric review, but interesting nonetheless.”

“Indeed. Those polar bears aren't to be trusted you know.”

In an effort to distract the Professor from formulating any plans for world domination by way of eliminating only the animals at the top and bottom, Ollie pointed at the Petri dish that Crumble had been staring at when he had first come in, which now seemed like a month ago. It still looked like spores flourishing in the bottom.

“What's that?” he asked.

Crumble picked it up and gave it a shake. It turned out to be a fine white powder that had the consistency of baking soda.

“This is one of my best I think,” said Crumble, proudly. “An idea that could change the entire world as we know it. It's powdered water.”

“You're kidding me, right?”

“Absolutely not,” said Crumble, clearly thinking that Ollie was astounded (wow that's amazing!) by the idea and not astounded (you what!) by the idea. “Imagine how beneficial this wonderful invention would be in an area that suffers from perennial drought. All you would have to do is ship in tonnes of my formulation and add water. No one anywhere ever need go thirsty again.”

There was absolutely no point whatsoever in trying to explain to Crumble what errant nonsense he had just come out with, no matter how well intentioned. All Ollie could do was what he normally did after a visit to the subterranean nuthouse. He smiled politely, wished him good day and left him to his majestically mad ramblings. And locked him in of course. The world wasn't ready for Professor Rufus Barber Crumble.

* * *

Ronnie stepped outside and took a deep breath, trying to get the conversation that he'd just been involved in with Flug out of his head. He loved the big dope to bits but he could be such hard work sometimes. Well, most of the time actually. Still, if nothing else, it gave a group of confirmed bachelors a bit of an insight into what having a child was like. Okay, so the child in question was the evolutionary equivalent of a mushroom and wouldn't be able to point to his nose without poking his eye out, but you couldn't have everything. Beggars can't be choosers after all. (In fact, and in direct contradiction to that statement, they can. They can choose which town to locate themselves in, where to sleep, which is always in the fresh air, who to ask for money from and which train station offers the best earning potential. Then there's which super strength liver destroyer to consume, what breed of scrawny dog to have at your side, and which tune to play endlessly on a mouth organ that sounds like it's been tuned by a tone-deaf moose. In fact beggars have lots of choice so the phrase is now going to be 'People who work for a living forty hours a week and have a family to look after and have to indulge in tasks which include, and aren't limited to shopping, cleaning the house, washing the car, taking the kids to school and hoping there's enough money left over after the monthly bills to take the aforementioned sprogs on an outing that they won't enjoy anyway before the whole thing starts all over again on Monday morning…can't be choosers'. There you go. A bit of social realism for you. It's uncomfortable I know, but necessary nonetheless).