The Cat Wore Electric Goggles

by Ian Hutson

  It was quite true. The last, most distant door in the little village had been slammed and bolted and only the still-rotating wheel of an overturned child’s tricycle gave any clue at all that the human population of the village amounted to more than just the three of them. A door opened again, somewhat violently. The overturned child’s mother rushed out, rescued the beloved little pudding from where it had been lying next to the upright tricycle, and then rushed back indoors again with a cheery but “much too busy to stop now” wave and a nervous, hunted, glance around.

  ‘We must save England by ourselves, Constable, Mr Stringer, and to do so we must first negotiate our way past the village green and the village pond.’

  Mr Stringer and the constable looked blank, not comprehending the dangers of the pond. Miss Rutherford encouraged the penny to drop.

  ‘The village pond is fed by the River Eau, gentlemen, and the river itself is fed from...’

  ‘... from the moor. Oh dear.’

  ‘The deer are a problem for later. For the nonce we must be ware the no doubt de-evolving ducks of the village pond. We shall begin by creeping as quietly as possible through these reeds and thence onwards, towards Moor Lane. If we can just reach those discarded bicycles over by the village call-box they may prove useful in speeding us in our endeavours.’

  They had crept but a few yards when the Constable stopped in his tracks and held up his hand for silence. He whispered ‘We’re being hunted.’

  ‘We are being hunted? By whom? Or, more probably now, by what?’ hissed Miss Rutherford.

  The Constable slipped his working copy of “Bradshaw’s Speculative Wildlife Recognition During A Deoxyribonucleic Crisis” from his pocket and flicked through it. ‘Hmm. Spiny Mandarin, Razor-Backed Muscovy, Sabre-Billed Orpingtons, Mallardosauruses and, worst by far of all - Jurassic Velociducks. I do believe that we are being hunted by velociducks.’

  ‘Velociducks?’ queried Mr Stringer, a slight tremor in his voice.

  ‘Jurassic Velociducks. The finest killing machines that ever stalked the earth. Highly intelligent pack-hunters with water-tight arses. Pure death, a full ten inches tall and able to disembowel a man with one slash of a webbed foot. And they are hunting us.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Oh dear indeed.’

  The constable, at last realising his civic duty in the matter, arranged that Miss Rutherford and Mr Stringer would make a desperate run for the bicycles and escape while he dealt in a firm but fair manner with the velociducks. He crept on all fours through the reeds, tempting the avian terrors away with him by waggling his buttocks and dipping his head as though feeding.

  Some scant moments later he realised that he had been suckered by the age-old velociduck ploy. One had distracted him while two others approached from either side to make the kill. The poor constable’s last words on this earth were in praise of the carnivorous aquatic that was by then breathing in his ear, about to strike. ‘Clever girl...’

  Sprinting side-saddle Miss Rutherford afforded herself one glance back at the pond. Shreds of dark blue uniform serge and a pea-less Police whistle flew into the air while the reeds below shuddered and lashed in evidence of some violent disturbance of the peace. The constable’s death was not in vain though; Miss Rutherford and Mr Stringer had reached the bicycles.

  They worked through the prescribed Cyclist’s Safety Union pre-ride checks as the constable gave of his flesh. They tested the brakes, checked the operation of the bells on the handlebars and adjusted their cycle-helmets. Mr Stringer applied his emergency bicycle clips and Miss Rutherford adjusted her skirts so as not to foul the chain. Then, finally, they accelerated away just milliseconds before the bloodied and ululating velociducks burst forth to have at them. ‘Quack. Quack, quack.’

  Disappointed, the velociducks turned and they joined the plesioswans and megalogeese in battering down the doors in the village, and in consuming alive such villagers as they might. Doris’s pterobudgie saw all from its new vantage point of a hastily constructed eyrie atop the church spire and, content with all that it saw, it chirruped ‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ followed by ‘Give us another kiss, Doris.’ Then, much to the disgruntlement of the Curate, it laid an egg.

  Mr Stringer was pedalling just as fast as his hairy little legs would go towards the moor and the reservoir. Miss Rutherford was pumping the pedals at a more leisurely pace in a higher gear - a benefit of her years in the saddle competing for the honour of the Roedean Cycle Club Long-Distance Second Elevens. A few hundred yards later Mr Stringer almost ran into the back of her Raleigh Shopper when she stopped without using the prescribed hand-signals.

  ‘I had quite forgotten, Mr Stringer, that The Convent lies between the village and the moor. I fear that the cloistered nuns may not have read their warning telegram in re not drinking the tap water.’

  ‘Whatever makes you say that, Miss Rutherford?’

  ‘Observe, Mr Stringer, the wild-eyed, frazzle-haired cave-ladies before us, all dressed in improvised bikinis made from ecclesiastical blue sack-cloth and novitiate wimple-lining.’

  ‘Oh dear - they’re lighting fires and doing some sort of quaint folk dance with crucifixes. Or is the plural crucifii?’

  ‘Crucified may be our plural fate, Mr Stringer, and yet we must go on, or else England is surely doomed. Stay behind me, and we may yet prevail.’

  Miss Rutherford led them both into the valley of the shadow of the Convent of the Sisters of Saint de-Ath.

  Miss Rutherford feared no evil.

  In truth, when the need arose, Miss Rutherford could be the meanest old biddy that ever walked in the valley.

  Catching the scent of a live man the de-evolved nuns determined that they would claim him for their own, share him around and breed from him without mercy until he dropped like an overworked donkey. Miss Rutherford thus then spent a very busy six and a half or possibly seven minutes drop-kicking, scissor-kicking, biting, hair-pulling and generally throwing nuns over her shoulders until she and Mr Stringer were safely beyond the convent gates and away up the lane that led to the moor. She was left breathless, but oddly invigorated.

  ‘I am breathless, but oddly invigorated, Mr Stringer. Were it not for my fortnightly spinning and Pilates classes at the Village Hall I fear we should have been overcome.’

  ‘Indeed, Miss Rutherford, you fought most valiantly. I think that I may have been... moved on some emotional level.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Stringer. I was worried what fate might befall you should you have been captured by two dozen proto-nuns with basic knowledge of fire, rudimentary stone tools and an excess of pent-up oestrogen.’

  ‘That was kind of you, Miss Rutherford.’

  ‘Not at all, Mr Stringer. Perhaps it is the effect of the contaminated water but I do confess to feeling a certain heightened semi-maternal protective instinct in your regard. Let us make haste.’

  ‘But Miss Rutherford, does not The Orphanage still lie between us and the moor?’

  ‘It does, Mr Stringer, it does. Be ware the orphans, for I doubt that their bread and water diet relies even in part upon bottled Evian or Windermere Carbonated. We may find ourselves surrounded by motherless, fatherless waifs in a similar stage of de-evolution to the nuns. Stay close, and make no sound as we pass.’

  Their efforts at stealth were to no avail. Dotted around the gates to the orphanage, the abandoned bastards and results of ill-advised unions from the county’s titled estates and country seats were even then tearing their charity rags into rudimentary loincloths and leotards. ‘Please Miss - I want some more ug’ pleaded one such, offering his unfired clay eating bowl in hope of nutritious alms with at least a modicum of spicy or herbal flavours. His forehead had already adopted the gentle slope of Homo Slopeyforeheadius.

  ‘Ug?’ enquired Miss Rutherford, a little slow on the uptake.

  There then began a terrifying repeat chorus a cappella of “ug ug ug ug ug”, not unlike the calling of chimps and baboons, and the hungry waifs of the
orphanage slipped all about and around them.

  ‘It seems that the poor are indeed always with us, Mr Stringer. Make no sudden movements until I shout “run” and then you should ring for full steam ahead from the hairy leg department.’ She slipped her emergency folding hockey stick from her handbag.

  The orphans, filthy and lank-haired and now with the sunken-eyed look of children subsisting on a pre-agrarian hunter-gatherer diet of berries and the occasional scrap of scavenged social-worker, pressed in from all sides.

  ’RUN!’ shouted Miss Rutherford, as she began to lay about them with her hockey stick, scattering a broken Tiny Tim to the east and a well-thwacked orphan Annie to the west (among others). By the time they were clear of the orphanage Miss Rutherford’s hockey stick was, for the first time since her school days, wet with blood and sticky with orphan-flesh. They paused once more to catch their breath.

  ‘What next, Miss Rutherford? Oh, whatever next may be between us and the moor?’

  ‘On this lane? Only the Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Mr Stringer, and then it is a clear run for our objective. I feel confident that we shall have no difficulty in passing their gates, since all of the inmates, however much contaminated and de-evolved, will be more breathless than are we.’

  Right on cue a stick-thin chap in a white hospital gown that was inadequately tied at the rear swung across the lane on one of the semi-tropical vines that had begun springing from the familiar oak and ash and chestnut trees.

  ‘Aaa-aaa-aaargh cough cough cough wheeze gasp...’ the amateur Tarzan cried, before blacking out with the effort and crashing to the ground.

  Miss Rutherford put a very forceful hand on Mr Stringer’s elbow and guided him past the sanatorium.

  ‘How do you feel, Mr Stringer?’

  ‘Feel? Well, I must say, Miss Rutherford, that I am beginning to feel oddly butch. I have a sudden urge to thump my chest and yell at the top of my voice in order to mark my territory. I mean our territory of course, Miss Rutherford, that is to say - your territory.’

  ‘I also, Mr Stringer. I fear that we are feeling the effects of the contamination. We must make haste in our mission or all will be lost and the village, and England, will be beyond saving. Ug.’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘I believe that I just said “ug” Mr Stringer. Quickly - to the reservoir. Ug. Our time grows short.’

  At that moment the very foundations of the green and pleasant, sceptred isle began to shake and rumble. The wild-eyed Mr Stringer’s weak buttocks flailed in harmony with the tremors like two vanilla blancmanges under a tweed tent. From the direction of the moor there came the terrible sound of Mother Earth being violated and rent asunder.

  ‘Ug. Whatever is happening, Miss Rutherford? Some sort of explosion - perhaps the wreckage of the satellite?’ The seismic ripples in Mr Stringer’s buttocks began to subside, for the moment, and he no longer held immediate fears for the integrity of his gussets.

  ‘The satellite certainly, Mr Stringer, but an exothermic reaction, I fear, of much more significance than the ignition of the residual fuel in six Delta-Two Mark XIV station-keeping thrusters of the type ordinarily fitted to such secret government satellites. Ug.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I surmise that the dinosaur DNA has now seeped into the very substrate and bedrock of the moor, Mr Stringer, and is having an injurious effect by regressing the landscape of England to better suit itself. DNA, as you know, brutally changes all things to its own image upon contact.’

  A small pyroclastic cloud swept over the field to their west, leaving behind it the muttony aroma of ovine livestock roasted over a meadow-grass mix of rosemary and thyme. Another tremor heralded the sudden thrusting of jagged limestone outcrops through the surface. Steam issued from vents and, where once the gentle River Eau had flowed, red-hot lava now crept through the valley. Under the irresistible meteorological forces of the slimy double-helix, dark clouds gathered and raised an oven-door breeze reminiscent of a Ghibli or a Mistral.

  ‘Ug. I fear that we may have run out of time, Mr Stringer. Ug. It may already be too late to attempt meaningful confinement of the genetic material, and England may already be totally ugged.’

  ‘I beg your pardon Miss Rutherford?’

  ‘Doomed, Mr Stringer - I fear that England is ugged. Observe how the landscape, once so familiar and gentle, is becoming volcanic and primitive.’

  An especially energetic tremor forced them both to hunker down and, blasted and windblown, to hold onto each other for support. The hot, fresh Sirocco wind blew dust around the landscape and carried with it the angry calls of primitive, hungry creatures.

  ‘Given the unseasonal heat, Mr Stringer, I do feel that polite society would excuse us for removing a few layers.’ With that Miss Rutherford promptly peeled down to her underwear; a magnificent brassiere and capacious knickers, both cut from the original canvas sails of Nelson’s flagship. She kicked off her sensible shoes and savoured the soil between her toes. Mr Stringer followed suit, stripping down to his sock stays, and wearing his string vest off one shoulder but tucked into his silk St George’s Cross knee-length drawers.

  ‘Ug. That’s better.’

  ‘Are we quite safe here, Miss Rutherfug?’ enquired Mr Stringer, as a partly-melted, enormous, rusted-up iron-wheel controlled water-supply valve thrown up from some new volcano landed close by. A flock of razor-claw titanosparrows wheeled overhead, screeching and scouring the earth for prey. Tricerarabbits, forced from their warrens by the magma and the quakes, began a slow, plodding migration in search of pastures new. They were in good company with the diplodicosheep and the double-decker bus sized sauracows. At least the tricerarabbits, diplodicosheep and sauracows were herbivors but what, worried Miss Rutherford, of the bronterats, tyrannobadgers and gigantiweasels?

  ‘Not safe in the least, Mr Stringer, ug. Much though I hate to abandon England in her hour of need I fear that there is nought else to be done. We must embrace failure, Mr Stringer, and make for substantial shelter, there to await developments and possible rescue by the Army on ug. I mean morning, Ug morning. Monday morning. Ug.’

  ‘Miss Rutherford, ug. I have developed of late an uncharacteristic hankering for life in a cold, damp cave such as those to be found in the escarpment to the north of the village. Should we perhaps make for those?’ gibbered Mr Stringer, finding need to keep his knees bent and his knuckles near the ground.

  ‘Ug. Excellent notion, Mr Stringug - an excellent notion’ said Miss Rutherford, her hands confident on her hips and her lantern jaw set defiantly to the horizon. ‘However disastrous the circumstances, Mr Stringer, you must admit that this is rather exhilarating.’ Miss Rutherford’s forehead slipped back another thirty degrees from the perpendicular, and her brassiere creaked under the terrible strain of her body’s sudden de-evolution to forty-two, thirty-two, thirty-six with thighs that could throttle an adult woolly mammoth in a fair fight.

  Sulphurous volcanic smoke drifted from pillar to post. All that was around and about was primeval in nature, and all that was truly primeval in nature was, worryingly, back with a vengeance and an appetite.

  Something deep down inside Miss Rutherford, something that remained a fleeting shadow of her former Homo Sapiens self, sighed wistfully at the thought that she would never again toast crumpets and read pulp fiction in her lovely little cottage. Then the shadow was gone, swept away on a tide of adrenalin and oestrogen and the urge to survive and thrive in her new role under the yoke of prehistoric DNA.

  Miss Rutherford lovingly sideswiped Mr Stringer with her hockey stick and he fell to the ground, stunned. She inspected her catch. A certain obscurantist indolence about his face spoke of a man-spirit that might be easily broken and semi-domesticated. There was probably enough there to work with, anyway - and precious little else on offer at that moment.

  Grasping Mr Stringer firmly by his freshly-grown, long, curly ginger head of hair, the muscular hunter-gatherer Miss Rutherford dragged him through the crag
gy volcanic landscape to the escarpment caves, there to be her breeding-man forever, or at least until something better came along, such as that nice Mr Cliff Richard or Mr Tommy Steele. Regaining consciousness as he slid contentedly along the ground behind Miss Rutherford, Mr Stringer watched the ash plume spreading over the new volcano where the sleepy, idyllic village of Toastville had once been. He knew, wordlessly, deep down, that they would be very happy together and that, barring being eaten alive by wild animals, he would raise many fine, healthy little hominids.

  Wiping tears of pure romance from his eyes Mr Stringer undertook meticulous man-preparations for the coming shag-fest by picking the blue fluff out of his belly-button, using his pinkie to check for excessive earwax, and scratching his hairy love-spuds.

  The end.

  #####

  VTC = 1:1 +/- HC times ATP

  Number fifty-three Testimonial Avenue was a solid, brick-built, mid-war detached property that had kept its tidy gardens and driveway intact. It was not a house for everyone. A significant salary was required if you were to live in a house such as number fifty-three Testimonial Avenue, or indeed, in any of the others in the neighbourhood. The cars in the driveways were Humbers, Singers and Rovers. The hedgerows were always neatly trimmed and the net curtains were never, never, never allowed to fade to grey.

  Twice a day, polite, freshly-washed children in maroon uniforms piped with sky blue and all bearing the crest of St Peter’s, the local school, laughed and skipped their way between the mature trees planted either side of the wide, quiet roadway. Testimonial Avenue was an area where the dustbin men, should they ever drop anything, were very careful to pick it up. The Postman always closed the painted wooden gates behind him, and the milkman took considerable pains in his efforts to be reasonably quiet in his dawn deliveries.

  Of all of the houses, number fifty-three was one of the best kept and neatest. The child of those who lived at number fifty-three was barely of an age to walk and it spent its summer days either outside, unattended and in a large Silver Cross pram or else in the stuffy darkness of the cellar.