by Tony Moyle
“To find my aunt.”
“Who’s she?”
“I can’t tell you that. It’s top secret,” replied Scrumpy.
“I see that you are very good at protecting her,” said David. “But I can’t go on a quest with someone who doesn’t trust me. It was nice to meet you, but I’d better be on my way.”
“But you can trust me, I promise,” gasped Scrumpy as the young man feigned to leave.
“Well, maybe we should enter into a pact so that we can trust each other? I’ll let you help me on my quest, if you can keep me hidden?”
“Ok. But you have to prove how brave you are,” said the boy.
“How do I do that?”
“See that little island out in the bay over there?”
“Yes.”
“You have to swim out there with me. If you get there, I’ll tell you my aunt’s name.”
The logic in David’s brain told him this was a silly idea. Neither fun nor fear was responsible for that opinion. The odds somersaulted around his mind to form a complex mathematics equation that took into account sea depth, swimming ability, tides, likelihood of this boy’s information being useful, distance, and the chance of his body being nibbled by fish. In nanoseconds the answer was in and an imaginary noise went ‘ping’.
*****
The gibbon was having a great time. Sandy had given her free rein to cause whatever havoc she could think of, and she could think of a lot. The practical joke genie was out of the bottle. The demons couldn’t see what was ‘practical’ about attempting to remove themselves from a pit in the ground concealed by branches, or tripping on a piece of string laid across a path or avoiding being struck by wayward flung bits of mud. The other members of the gibbon’s unit were less impressed. After each incident of disruption all the ox could do was apologise and offer a quick religious conversion. The sloth offered nothing as he never got there in time.
The demons had moved from biome to biome in search of John and, although they’d met plenty of creatures, none had the slightest interest or knowledge of where the erratic shrew was. As they moved to the next landscape, several of them were convinced the animals were in some way trying to impede their progress. Such was the subterfuge with which the gibbon worked her tricks. She was always one step in front, scheming up new ways to halt their search. She was careful never to be spotted, leaving any explanations to the ox who had the type of innocent face that people trusted.
Whilst the ox, sloth and gibbon worked at slowing the demons’ progress, the cat and spider were busy arguing rather than helping. The gibbon’s unit could hardly be described as flawless teamwork, but at least they weren’t acting against each other. Roger and Vicky’s mission was laid out quite simply. Get to the Soul Catcher without being seen and wait there for the pigeons. The other unit would keep the demons busy. What could be simpler? Apparently working out a cheap way of perfecting nuclear fusion. Roger the cat didn’t like taking orders. Vicky the spider didn’t like cats.
“Cats are such prima donnas. Up their own arses and think they always know best,” muttered Vicky, as the two sat, still sailing aimlessly, on the back of the whale trying to agree the best course of action.
“Look, I’m not going the long way. The quickest way to the Soul Catcher is this way,” said Roger, pointing at the translucent barrier that separated them from the next universe.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was the first person to land on the moon. Space is a doddle. I do space like I do catching mice. Easy.”
“Go on, then, if you think you’re such a legend. Show me.”
“Obviously if I go that way you won’t be able to follow me. Only cats can do it. We’ve got nine lives and the last time I checked spiders haven’t.”
“Stop stalling and just do it. I have no intention of following you, you’re madder than a marmalade monkey.”
The cat strolled up and down the barrier, its head high and chest pushed out in front of it. Nonchalantly it sniffed various parts of the window as if attempting to find a weak spot. A paw shot forward to catch an invisible rodent whose whiskers had snuck through the barrier. As the plastic paw went through the distorted atmosphere and returned unscathed, the cat turned to the spider and smiled with an air of overconfidence. Roger’s hind legs coiled backwards and muscle fibre twitched. One small step for a cat and one great leap into the unknown.
The biggest downside to overconfidence is the disappointment. Nothing prepares you for failure when you really believe in success. When all goes well you shrug your shoulders to demonstrate how right you were in the first place. When your arrogance is proven wrong it’s your face that gives you away. It’s a face that has too much advertising space on it. It expands, as if being placed under a rolling pin, eyes almost out of their sockets and mouth wide enough to swallow a whole melon. From Vicky’s rather more comfortable position on the correct side of Hell, that’s how Roger looked now he’d reached the other side.
The third Earl of Norfolk’s vessel inflated from the lack of atmosphere in the Universe, creating the impression of an overpumped circus balloon. The inflation couldn’t last forever. Vessols were only plastic after all. They had some give in them, but eventually the more pressure went in, the more the pressure caused an issue. Distorted by the barrier, the overinflated cat bobbed along in space, as Vicky watched and waited for the inevitable.
Most primary school children can tell you there are no sounds in space. Vicky had to imagine if there was a noise it was probably a loud POP. The cat’s plastic vessol spiralled uncontrollably before being lifted by an unknown force vertically above Vicky’s head. It was hard to determine where the vessol would end up but there was much less doubt over Roger’s soul. That travelled much faster.
“Well, he did say that was the quickest way. Nothing about the safest, though,” said Vicky.
“That’ll teach him for being a big-headed bragger,” said a loud voice that none of the animals had heard before.
“Oh hello. We didn’t think you spoke,” said Vicky to the whale.
“Only when I feel like it. I’m guessing you’ll want me to get you to the shore, then.”
“I’m not that fond of whales.”
“Tough.”
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN -
A PLAGUE ON ALL YOUR HOUSES
It wasn’t a surprise that Sandy’s worst fear had come true. If you had a plan to revolt against the forces of Hell you had to expect it. You needed preparation and tactics to defend yourself. He didn’t have any. Tactics were still trying to form into the semblance of a first draft. Their earlier conversations on defeating demons had been curtailed by idiots. They never got as far as debating how to deal with one made of sand. It was only good fortune that at least this one was smaller than Sandy.
“Put that back,” squeaked Mr. Silica, attempting to look as scary as his six inches would allow.
“Your kneecap, you say?” replied Sandy attempting small talk. “How do you manage without it?”
“I’m very flexible.”
“Small demon…crack…sand in my crack…don’t scare me,” howled John.
“Let me deal with this, John.”
The shrew hopped about on the spot, eager to unleash some of his pent-up energy.
“I don’t think I will put it back if it’s all the same. You see it contains someone that my potty-mouthed friend here is rather fond of.”
“Put it back,” screamed Silica in an even higher-pitched battle cry, “or I’ll attack!”
“Ian, get him!” shouted Sandy in response.
Ian wasn’t the slightest bit sure how you ‘got him’. After all, anyone who has ever attempted to scoop up a load of sand after a nice beach trip will tell you that it’s impossible. You’ll still be finding cupfuls of it six months later in places that never went to the beach in the first place. Such was the mysterious properties of the stuff. Ian shuffled forward, making kung fu noises and faking martial arts movements with his pure
white plastic limbs. Silica watched with intrigue. Finally, as if taken by some berserker gene reflex deep within him, Ian ran forward, screaming at the top of his voice. The result was not effective. As he reached the demon, Silica metamorphosed into a little sandstorm and blasted him like a cheap car chassis.
“He’s in my eyes,” wept Ian, trying to claw the sand out with the same proficiency as trying to open a beer bottle with an onion.
The sand gathered for a second wave of attacks, this time aiming for the valve in Ian’s vessol. In one gulp Silica forced his way inside and circulated around the rest of his body.
“It itches,” shouted Ian as he coughed and spluttered.
Sharing a confined space with a demon was an excruciating experience. Imagine sharing a small kennel with a Rottweiler who’s spent the last twenty-four hours being poked in the eye with a stick and you won’t be far away. Silica’s thoughts infected his own, sowing seeds of pain and hysteria. Ian’s body fainted, but Silica retained control over his speech.
“Your friend is no match for a demon, you know. No vessol is.”
Sandy beckoned John over so that they could speak quietly to each other.
“You’ve seen more of this place than most of us, John. What can we do?”
“Numpty…this is your rodeo…cough.”
“Think, PLEASE,” begged Sandy.
John’s body twitched and vibrated as he forced his mind to control the competing emotions. What would work? What could he remember clearly enough that might be useful? After a deep period of concentration, needed to help the habit reversal, a piece of memory settled front and centre in his mind.
“They can eat the shadows…puddle lickers…Asmodeus ate one when I was here…grrr…he became the shadow,” replied John with all the control that he could muster.
“Ok. There’s a really nasty one up there I found earlier, six from the right on the bottom shelf. Help me get it down.”
“What are you two playing at?” inquired Silica unable to move inside the unconscious pigeon.
“How will the shadow know to attack him and not us?” asked Sandy.
“Search me…fart lozenge…hope for the best?” said John.
Sandy didn’t like hoping for an outcome. He preferred making sure. Failing that, cheating was quite high up on his list of tactics. Whatever he’d become since switching from human to pigeon, his drive and cunning were still very much in play. There was still a strong addiction towards status and power. If there was a way to win, through legitimate or corrupt means, he was going to take it. It was just a lot harder when you had a beak and wings.
“Find something to block your funnel,” he said, searching the ground for appropriate objects.
All Sandy and John could find to stop the shadows entering their vessols were small pebbles that sat on the floor around the table. Shoving them in their throats, they inhaled fiercely to keep them in place.
Incapacitated by Ian’s vessol, Silica decided it was time to escape. Pouring out of Ian’s valve, he slithered quietly along the floor.
Sandy removed the stopper from the vase. The shadow lurched forward pulsating with energy and irritation. As Silica reconstituted into his humanoid form the shadow spotted its target.
Locked and loaded it lurched forward, knocking the small sand demon off his feet. A short fight kicked off as a concoction of sand and electricity traded blows. The bout must have ended in stalemate, the two entities merging together as one. Sand and energy swirled into a figure. No one knew what it would do next. Whose side would it take, if indeed it knew what a side was? Acclimatising to its new anatomy, like a soul gets used to a vessol, it fidgeted on the spot before a broad, menacing smile stretched across its face.
“Who woke me?”
“That was me,” said Sandy, taking the pebble out to reply, but replacing it immediately after speaking.
“They lied to us. They punished us. Violence and pain must be repaid. No demon will be saved. All will feel the retribution of the shadows.”
“Yeah…fucktards…a plague on all their houses…ahem…but is that a nice thing to do…shut up…”
“Ok, Mister Shadow. I’m right behind you. What we need is a plan. While we think one through, I wonder if you would be kind enough to get back in your vase,” said Sandy, not yet clear on this new species allegiance.
“Not likely.”
“But how do we know you are safe? That you’re not going to invade us?” said Sandy.
“You don’t.”
“Oh.”
One of the politician’s most important skills is the ability to make deals. Everyone always had their own personal views and you were constantly looking for some degree of compromise. It was achieved by understanding what the other side’s motives were and offering something that they wanted. You only offered it, of course. The politician’s second most important skill was the ability to lie convincingly. Sandy set these two attributes to work.
“What if I promised to release all of the shadows? Will you work with me then?”
“You’ll release all of them. Why would you be so stupid?”
“Because I intend to bring down Hell and I can only do it with your help,” added Sandy.
“Is that safe…confused…power isn’t always good…shut up pussy…do it,” argued John.
“John, I know what I’m doing. It’s time Hell got a piece of its own medicine. The demons have been corrupted by power and are drunk with greed: they’ve been unopposed for too long. It’s time for new management and I have an army strong enough to take them on.”
Following his ordeal, Ian’s eyes opened a fraction. He coughed a piece of sand from his funnel. His soul felt stiff and sore after the abuse it had received. It tried to reacquaint itself as the only occupant of his vessol. Above him several metal boxes levitated in space, black starlight filling the abyss in between. All except in one area where the plastic vessol of a cat was floating along aimlessly. “Can anyone else see that?”
Everyone looked up.
“We still have some of our army,” said Sandy with a sigh. “Mr. Shadow, how much weight do you think you can carry?”
*****
The demons gathered on a large dune of sand that dominated the skyline of the desert biome. Some sat, some spun, some floated, and one complained he had a note, but all of them were knackered. A few were nursing injuries, more to their egos than their bodies, and all were whining with stories of unexplained obstacles.
“I’m telling you they’re revolting against us,” said Mr. Bitumen, whose feet, or the area you might predict his feet were, mingled with the fake sand.
Everything here was fake. It had to be. There was no factory in Hell producing a constant line of replica habitats. What they did have was an abundance of plastic. Which meant everything down here was made from it. Sand was simply grated polystyrene painted yellow.
Paint, fortunately, was also plentiful in Hell since Mr. Pigment had worked out a way of producing multicoloured saliva, a procedure that required him to chew on various mineral ores at the same time as hocking up phlegm. He’d particularly liked making red as the result of munching cinnabar made him look like a vampire.
Trees were made from vulcanised rubber, bushes had a PVC feel to them, rocks had been fashioned out of high-density polyethylene, and the sea – well, the sea was water. You can’t make an ocean out of plastic unless you gave all the fish water skis…and feet.
As gas was plentiful, water could be produced easily. It was an essential material here, as many of the contraptions used to deliver pain were powered by it. Plus the residents of level ten, where everyone was treated with the upmost care and attention, had insisted on hot tubs.
“They’re not revolting,” said Primordial. “They wouldn’t dare.”
“So how do you explain this, then?” said Mr. Fungus, who mooned at the group to show several roughly fashioned darts stuck in his arse.
“You probably fell over,” said Primordial.
&nb
sp; “And just happened to land on darts that had the pointy end sitting vertically and that had congregated together, by some miracle, in the same one-inch square of ground!”
“It’s possible.”
“Dirty tricks,” said Mr. Graphite. “They’re all up to it. You never see them, but they must be everywhere. They hit me in the face with a load of snowballs…”
“Polystyrene without the paint,” added Primordial.
“Still hurt.”
“How does polystyrene damage carbon exactly?”
“It gets in the crevices,” replied Graphite, a finger still searching hysterically in his ear for what may or may not still be there.
“Does anyone have any actual proof that my collection of reincarnates has done any of this, or are you in fact all suffering from level zero hallucinations?”
“I saw an ox,” said Mr. Shiny, whose body was currently projecting the rough surface of the roof onto a patch of fake sand halfway up the dune.
“An ox,” replied Primordial sceptically.
“Oh, I saw him, too,” said Mr. Aqua. “Right after Mr. Volts took a blow from that water cannon.”
“Well, that’s not true, is it? You can’t make an effective water cannon out of plastic. I know, I’ve tried,” said Primordial.
“Well, you weren’t there, were you? It came right out of the sea and hit him full in the face. It was quite a shock.”
“We are demons, for God’s sake,” replied Primordial quite ironically. “We don’t have the capacity for shock.”
“Electric shock,” reiterated Mr. Aqua. “I came off alright, but I can’t speak for the others.”
On closer inspection, Primordial could identify a couple of injuries as a result of what had happened. Mr. Silver was shaking violently, unable to get himself into a comfortable sitting position, and Mr. Gold was sporting several blast marks at the hands of the world’s worst electric tattoo artist.
“It still wasn’t a water cannon,” said Primordial. “I designed this place to be a natural habitat, which it is, as long as you overlook the fact that most of it is made of plastic. I’m sure all of this is explainable. Nature does some peculiar things at times.”
