Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) (10 page)

             
One shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said unconvincingly. “I’m sorry.”

             
“Apology accepted.”

             
“Send me the dry cleaning bill.”

             
“Will do.”

             
They stepped back and peered at the corpse. It was still recognisable as human, but only just. The transformation had been quick but it hadn’t finished, parts of Angela remained. Her stomach, partially clad with fragments of a pink blouse that her growing torso had all but destroyed, wasn’t hers but nor was it that of a beast. Her ears, hair and forehead had retained the style of the attractive single parent.

             
Angela twitched, still holding onto the last remnants of life. Her killers didn’t flinch.

             
“How long does it take for these things to fully transform do you think?” One asked as he surveyed the mismatch of human and beast.

             
Two shrugged unsurely. “We were warned they could turn quickly but beyond that...” he trailed off.

             
“You think we could bring down a fully formed one?”

             
“With those?” Two said, nodding to the gun in One’s hand. “Sure. Silver bullets seem to be working so far.”

             
“And if we run out?”

             
“Wooden stake?”

             
“Isn’t that vampires?”

             
Two shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure we’d figure something out.”

             
“We could try normal bullets, see how they react,” One proposed.

             
“To what end?”

             
“I guess I just want to know.”

             
“And if they don’t work and keep coming? How are we going to stop them before they rip us apart?”

             
One thought about this for a moment and then shrugged. “Just a thought.”

             
Two removed a device from his chest pocket. He wiped away a drop of blood that had worked its way onto the screen.

             
Angela writhed, groaning in agony. Her body tried to transform and let go at the same time.

             
“Come on,” Two said. “We better finish up.”

7

              Michael gave a solemn shake of his head as he looked down at the corpse. First Martin Atkinson and now Angela Washington. Two bodies; no souls.

             
The woman before him looked no older than forty-five. She had a kind face and gentle features that reminded Michael of his own mother. A mother who had cried relentlessly over the death of her son, not knowing that he continued to exist, in one form or another, just a few miles away.

             
He bent down and checked the frail corpse. She didn’t look like she could hurt a fly, yet she looked like she had been fighting before her demise. She had been executed. Shot once through the chest and then once through the forehead.

             
He checked his timer.

             
“Bang on time,” he told himself. “Where the fuck are you?”

             
He had already checked the house and the garden. Ghosts rarely left their body so soon after death, but he checked anyway -- she was nowhere to be seen.

****

              In the Dying Seamstress, a dark and cosy shack-like pub on the edge of town -- hidden underneath a former newsagents and accessed through a backstreet and an ominous staircase -- Michael attracted immediate attention.

             
Rusty chimes above the door jangled an eclectic tune when Michael entered. Everyone inside peered up from their drinks and conversations. They all looked at Michael, gave him a quick once-over and then resumed their activities.

             
The bar was staffed solely by an aggressive little man who had to stand on a stool to see over the top. He glared at Michael as he approached, his unibrow arched towards the top of his swollen nose.

             
Michael greeted the bartender, a man who constantly looked like he was moments away from growling or humping your leg.

             
“Mickey,” he replied with a simple nod.

             
“What’s all this about?” Michael asked, indicating his scrutinised arrival.

             
Scrub grunted to clear a glob of thick phlegm from his throat before swallowing the offending expectorant.

             
“Everyone’s a bit on edge.”

             
Michael waited for an explanation, but didn’t want to push for one when it didn’t come. “Fair enough” he said. “Give me a pint would you?”

             
Scrub hopped off the stool and scuppered over to pull a pint glass from a dusty rack where a milieu of insects and dust mites gathered.

             
“You ever thought of getting the floor raised?”

             
Scrub turned and glared at Michael, his tiny face peering up at him like a demonic imp.

             
“What you tryin’ to say?” he said aggressively.

             
Michael held up his hands defensively. “Never mind.”

             
He saw Chip sitting in the corner of the room, huddled forlornly over a pint of dark ale. Naff, their mutual friend, was sitting next to him, looking a little happier and prouder, his neck straight; his arms folded across his lap; a tumbler of whiskey on the table in front of him.

             
“So, what’s all the commotion about?” Michael said, turning back to Scrub and trying again.

             
To Michael’s surprise the little man was staring back at him, waiting expectantly for their eyes to meet like a mythical murderer in a horror film. Michael nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned to see that grim face peering back.

             
“We have mortals in,” Scrub said grimly.

             
The little bartender watched the final drops of beer slip into the top of a brimming pint glass. He took it away from the pump and plonked it down on the bar, not budging from his stool the entire time.

             
“Again?” Michael said, taking a sip from the foamy top.

             
“Something here attracts them.”

             
“I can’t imagine what.”

             
“Third time this week,” Scrub continued, undeterred. “Walking in here like they have the fucking right. This place isn’t for
them
, it’s for
us
. This is
our
haven; they have no right to--”

             
“You feel strongly about this huh?”

             
“Mortals piss me off,” Scrub explained succinctly.

             
“Is that because you never got the chance to be one?

             
“Possibly. Not like I would want to be one anyway, filthy fucking--”

             
“If I get rid of them will you shut up?” Michael interjected again.

             
“Of course.”

             
Michael switched into haggler mode. “If you let me drown my sorrows on the house with a double whiskey, you’ve got a deal.”

             
“Deal,” Scrub said without faltering. “They’re over there,” he explained with a distasteful nod of his grubby head. “Get to it.”

             
“I saw ‘em.”

             
He picked up his pint and headed to the other side of the room where two young men wearing athletic attire and simpleton smiles were trying to converse with the locals at a nearby table.

             
The most eager looking of the two was a muscle-bound blonde. He wore a hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing sun coloured arms and an expensive watch. He had started up a conversation with Adder, a colossal man whose biceps were the size of Michael's head, while his friend gazed vacuously around the room. Clearly the blonde wasn’t deterred by Adder’s size, or his unwillingness to converse.

             
“You’re a big guy aren’t you?” he said happily. “Do you play rugby at all?

             
Adder grunted a barbaric reply. It sounded like his throat was crushing metal.

             
“I see,” the blonde replied, taking a long drink from a pint of cider. “It is very quaint in here isn’t it?” he noted, looking around. “Very
English
. Almost medieval.”

             
Adder’s throat crunched more metal, the youngster seemed undeterred. Michael held back, wondering just how far their persistence would stretch under Adder’s fearful glare and unrelenting grunts.

             
“Do you work around here?” the blonde continued.

             
Adder grunted more impatiently this time. Whatever was brewing in his throat was about to be unleashed in a cataclysm of noise and aggression.

             
Michael decided to intervene. He put his pint down on their table, attracted their attention and then ducked in between them, wrapping his arms around their shoulders. They both turned inward, their faces inches from his.

             
“I think you guys are in the wrong establishment,” he said simply, keeping his voice low and his eyes on the other patrons.

             
The quieter of the pair spoke first. “Why would you say that?” he asked. “We were rather enjoying ourselves here.”

             
“I agree,” the blonde chirped. “I was just chatting to this big fellow here,” he said, indicating Adder.             

             
“That
big fellow
, as you put it, is one of the reasons this place isn’t for you.”

             
“He seems quite friendly.”

             
“He is. So is everyone else here. But, don’t you notice anything
odd
?” He straightened up and watched their heads rotate on their bulky hinges as they surveyed the pub.

             
“No,” they chirped simultaneously.

             
“You see any females?”

             
“We assumed this was a working man’s club.”             

             
Michael leaned in again. “You ever heard the expression ‘bear’?” he asked to some gentle head shaking. “We use it in the gay community to refer to larger men.”

             
“Oh.”

             
“And our friend here,” he said, nodding towards Adder. “Is what we like to call a
fucking beast
, and I think he has an eye on you.”             

             
A wave of realisation hit the duo. They both drew sharp intakes of breath and when the blonde spoke he did so under the veil of an abhorrent exhalation. “You mean this is a club for
homosexuals
?”

             
“Spot on,” Michael said with a wink.

             
The wayward travellers drank their drinks so quickly that most of the liquid missed their mouths and ran down their tops. They left the bar to smiles and gentle cheers of jubilation before the fog of glumness re-hugged the miserable room like a black shroud.

             
Michael turned to Adder, who had held a face of stern intimidation for the entire conversation. His thick jaw was set aggressively on his hardened face. His protruding forehead lined with a thick, blue vein. His eyes burned into everything they glanced.

             
He grunted, almost complimentary this time.

             
“You can stop that now,” Michael said calmly.

             
Adder deflated. The vein on his forehead disappeared. His clenched jaw relaxed. The evil in his eyes unveiled; his posture slumped.

             
“Thank you so much. You’re a gent.”  His tone was slightly effeminate, lacking any of the heightened testosterone that his intimidating grunting had implied. “I was giving myself a sore throat and I think I have a headache coming on after all that scowling.” He lifted a monstrously delicate hand to his forehead. “You don’t happen to have a couple of paracetamol on you do you?”