The Good, the Bad and the Deadly 7

by Garth Jennings

  ‘Don’t eat that, Nosh. You’re supposed to be working up an appetite,’ said Nelson.

  ‘I only chewin’ it.’ Nosh was drooling so much, it was impossible to look at him and not feel queasy.

  ‘Oh! Mama! Mama! Come quick! What a nightmare I have had!’

  It was Buzzard. He was waking up in Crush’s arms, his head hidden beneath Nelson’s face flannel to avoid him seeing anything that might set him off again. Nelson had hoped Buzzard would have remained unconscious throughout the whole episode, but he was very much awake again.

  ‘Mother! Mother! Come quick! I have dreamed a dream so vivid and vile! ’Twas even worse than the dream in which slugs oozed from my armpits and a donkey would not stop biting my buttocks! Mother! Mother! Bring me frothy milk and gingerbread to settle my nerves!’

  ‘Just be patient with him and leave this to me, OK?’ whispered Nelson to his monsters as Buzzard continued to wail. ‘He’s probably going to freak out again when I take that flannel off his eyes, so why don’t you all give us a bit of space.’

  All but Crush moved away without dispute. Crush squeezed Buzzard and honked softly into his rhino ears, but it didn’t help at all.

  ‘Mother! Is that you? My dear, you sound like a bugle. A faulty bugle, at that. Hath your nose become blocked with mucus? I suggest we call Doctor Plumley-Pear to smoke out your cloggy nostrils at once.’

  Nelson took a deep breath and removed the flannel from Buzzard’s eyes.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Nelson in his most soothing voice, but it did nothing to stop Buzzard freaking out.

  ‘Oh heavens! Oh no! The giant angel boy! The honking monster! Hell! I am still in hell! And look! My beautiful body remains that of a tiny fluffy thingamajig!’

  Crush instinctively hugged Buzzard tighter with all four of his arms while singing, or rather gently honking, a tune into Buzzard’s ear. The effect was instant. Like a parent soothing a crying baby with a lullaby, Crush settled Buzzard by gently rocking him in his arms and cooing a simple, soothing melody. Even though he had never heard the tune before, Nelson found himself feeling happier too. When Crush loved someone or something, it really was infectious. Buzzard, the furry little rhino, mumbled something as he snuggled deeper into Crush’s chest from which a great wave of love and warmth was radiating.

  ‘Am I a failure? Does everyone hate me?’ mumbled Buzzard.

  Nelson crouched in front of Crush and spoke to Buzzard as gently as he could. ‘Shh. Shh. Not at all, Mr Buzzard. You’re not a failure. In fact, without you, we couldn’t save the world. So I suppose that makes you a hero.’

  ‘A hero?’

  In that instant, Nelson knew he had just scored a direct hit. Buzzard’s vanity was clearly on a par with Hoot’s, and appealing to his pride was going to be the key to getting through this without another meltdown.

  ‘Yes. You’re a hero. A legend.’

  ‘A legend.’ Buzzard clearly liked the sound of that, and Crush pulled him even tighter to his chest.

  THE CRASHING CLOUDS

  Nelson and Crush had no idea what a huge mistake they had just made.

  Not only was Crush filling Buzzard with love and affection, but in trying to appease Buzzard’s insecurities, he had flattered his ego, and all of these feelings were being shared with Buzzard’s monster. For hundreds of years this wretched creature had been trapped at the bottom of the ocean feeling nothing but anger and pain, and even when it had escaped, it was appalled to find itself as ugly and smelly as a flying cowpat. But everything had suddenly changed. Now the monster could not only feel the irresistible pull of the soul it was born from, but on top of that, new feelings: love and pride. This great dose of warm, sunshiny love and chest-bursting pride made its wings stretch away from its body until they were each the length and breadth of a pirate ship’s sails. Every hug and compliment Nelson and Crush dealt Buzzard made his monster’s beak – that awful jagged hook jutting out of its face – bubble and crackle as if it were being heated in a furnace, and grow larger and even more threatening. And as the monster’s body parts grew, so did the freezing cloud that swirled around it.

  There was a tremendous sonic boom. The monster’s new bigger and more powerful body had just broken through the sound barrier. Every particle in the air around the creature froze, and the freezing shockwave rippled across the sky over England.

  Radars used for tracking aircraft picked up the creature’s increased size and monitored its trajectory. The information was relayed to a group of sweaty politicians and generals gathered around a long table beneath a low ceiling in a secret government room. Not one of them had any idea what was flying at the speed of sound over their country, but the decision was instant and unanimous: it was time to engage the military.

  As the messages were sent to all British military bases, and the soldiers, pilots and captains were scrambling into action, Celeste Green was dreaming. She should have been home an hour ago, but a flat tyre on her bike meant she had remained at her boyfriend Ivan’s house while he mended it for her. Celeste could have easily fixed it herself or just walked home, but Ivan loved any excuse to tinker with a bicycle. His parents had given over the garage at the back of their house to Ivan’s passion, and he used the place to mend and even build bikes for people in the neighbourhood. He had fixed the puncture in just a few minutes, but Celeste had already fallen asleep on the big tattered armchair covered in blankets by the log burner. She dreamed of Nelson, leaning out of the window as he had done earlier that day. He leaned too far, and she couldn’t stop him falling . . . but he didn’t fall. He simply floated upwards. And this was worse. The dream was becoming a nightmare. Nelson was floating further and further away, and there was nothing Celeste could do to get him back.

  While she dreamed, Ivan had seized the opportunity to fix two loose spokes, tighten Celeste’s terrible brakes, deal with the fifth gear that kept slipping, and adjust her bell so that it rang with a DING! rather than a KLONK!

  He was done. The bike was ready. Ivan carried Celeste’s helmet and high-visibility jacket over to where she was sleeping. It seemed almost cruel to wake her. She looked so cosy curled up in the chair by the log burner that he considered checking the bike once more to see if there was anything else he could mend.

  That’s when he felt it.

  The vibration of a sonic boom. He had no idea it was created by a monster flying towards his girlfriend’s brother.

  Celeste’s eyes popped open and she gasped.

  What was that? she signed.

  Ivan shook his head and looked at his workbench, which shook and made the tools upon it dance.

  Celeste rubbed her eyes and hauled herself out of the armchair while Ivan pulled on the cord that triggered the garage door to open. The temperature waiting on the other side of the door was colder than a deep freezer. Looking up, she saw something no one on earth had ever seen before.

  The few clouds in the sky were slowly crashing into each other.

  ‘Clouds are too soft to crash into each other,’ you might say, and if this were a normal night on planet Earth, you would be right. But this was not a normal night. A gigantic monster was flying at twice the speed of sound through the sky over England, freezing the air as it passed, so that what were once fluffy clouds were now mountains of ice falling out of the sky and crashing into each other like badly captained cruise ships.

  Celeste grabbed hold of Ivan and pulled him back inside the garage as the first chunk of ice fell. It was the size of a bathtub, and it not only flattened the apple tree in the garden, it rammed the tree several metres below the ground with one almighty smash. Chips of ice flew everywhere like bullets. Celeste leaped up to pull the garage-door cord. The door began to close as the lights went out, and the door stopped moving halfway. Every light in the street went out.

  While Celeste tried to pull the door down, Ivan ran to the workbench and ripped back the curtain that hid the logs for the wood burner. With the speed of a squirrel digging to bury its acorn befor
e its friends find out, Ivan cleared the space of logs and turned to Celeste. She was hanging with all her body weight on the garage door to shut it. As it connected with the ground, Ivan reached out his hand, and she ran towards him, both of them ducking under the workbench at the same time. Hailstones performed a never-ending drum roll on the roof.

  If another block of ice the size of the last one fell on the garage, it would crush it for sure, but Ivan knew they stood the best chance of survival under the workbench. It had been in this workshop for decades, and though it had taken a billion beatings from tools of every kind, the bench had remained as solid as a rock. Tonight would be the bench’s greatest challenge.

  Celeste switched on her phone’s torchlight and laid it on her lap so that they could see each other.

  What’s happening? signed Celeste, and Ivan replied, his fingers trembling.

  I don’t know. We must not go outside. Stay here until it stops.

  A great explosion erupted nearby and shook the ground as if to prove him right.

  It was the sound of the pub on the corner of their street being crushed by debris from the crashing clouds. Just as the people of France breathed a sigh of relief that the storm cloud responsible for battering their country had gone, the people of England now braced themselves for far worse.

  The sky was falling.

  THE BATTLE ON THE BEACH

  With Buzzard nestled in Crush’s arms beneath the face flannel, Nelson stood beside him on the beach, stomping his feet and hugging himself to keep warm. Nosh, Stan, Miser, Puff and Spike were ready to attack and hiding behind the wall that ran the length of the beach.

  A lone police car roared by, and Nelson ducked out of sight until its flashing lights had gone. Nelson stood up and felt the temperature suddenly drop even lower. He shivered as the air seemed to tighten around him. From somewhere not too far away came the eerie sound of an air-raid siren. Only very old people who had been alive during the Second World War had heard that sound before, but even those who hadn’t been alive at that time felt their skin bristle with goosebumps. It was a sound that everyone on earth instinctively knew meant run for cover. Inside their homes, the people of Frinton dashed to their cellars, and if they didn’t have a cellar, they dashed under the stairs or the kitchen table or anything they felt might protect them from whatever was about to arrive.

  Unlike the people of Frinton, Spike leaped up from behind the wall and began jumping up and down and waving his arms in the air. Nelson had never seen Spike so agile before. He looked like someone following a workout routine.

  ‘Spike? You’re supposed to be hiding!’

  ‘It’s all right for you, you’re not a cactus! I’m ninety-eight per cent water, and if I stop moving, my insides will freeze! I mean, it’s hardly the tropical butterfly house, is it?’

  Nelson never answered Spike because a screech as loud as a train making an emergency stop on rails made of cats blasted through their eardrums and rattled the brains in their skulls.

  The monster had arrived.

  Cloaked in its swirling storm cloud, it appeared in the sky above them and dropped on to the beach. BANG!

  Sand exploded into the air, and Nelson was knocked off his feet. Winded and temporarily blinded by the sand, Nelson sat up spitting and coughing to find he was looking into the eyes of the monster.

  He had never in his life seen anything so ugly.

  Seriously, if ugliness were made of rock, then this was Mount Everest.

  And on top of its staggering ugliness was the smell. Oh boy, what a stink. A sewer would have seemed like a rose garden compared to the thick rotten stench that filled Nelson’s nostrils and made his stomach clench.

  The monster tilted its head from side to side while its bloodshot eyes opened wide, looking directly at Nelson’s chest where Crush lay holding Buzzard.

  Buzzard stirred. ‘What on earth is going on? What’s that smell? I feel chilly all of a sudden. Would someone please fetch me a scarf? Or another blanket?’

  Crush was keeping Buzzard’s head buried in his own chest. The monster took a step closer so that its beak was only a metre away from Nelson and Crush. The temperature was so cold now that Nelson felt sleepy. His clothes were solid and cracked like eggshells when he tried to move.

  ‘Come any closer, and I’ll release Buzzard’s soul! And you don’t want that!’

  The monster stalled. It said something Nelson couldn’t understand and its breath made him gag.

  ‘Quick. Give Buzzard to me, Crush,’ whispered Nelson, but Crush didn’t want to give up his beloved rhino to this creature.

  The monster took another, smaller step closer. It was shaking as if it were nervous or excited. I suppose you would feel excited too if you were about to get something you had wanted for over 350 years.

  This time, Nelson didn’t even wait for Crush to let go – he just pulled the fluffy rhino out of Crush’s arms and held him at arm’s length towards the monster, as if Buzzard were a shield. And in an odd sort of way, it was a shield, thanks to Buzzard’s reaction to the monster:

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’

  The monster was so surprised to find his master’s soul in the form of a toy rhino that it staggered backwards, its eyes almost popping from their sockets.

  ‘GADZOOKS! WHAT HIDEOUS FREAK OF NATURE IS THIS?!’ cried Buzzard, and the monster cowered as if he were a bad dog and Buzzard was his angry master.

  Nelson realized this was his moment to make his move and gain the upper hand.

  Nelson’s own monsters decided to attack right there and then. When I say attack, I don’t mean they ran at the monster and beat it up; I mean they attacked it with the most painful insults they could all think of.

  Oi! Turkey boy!

  I’m talking to you, you Kentucky Fried Freak!

  You featherless dungheap!

  You freaky-beaky berk-a-loid!

  You flying haggis!

  It was working. The monster was shrinking with every painful insult. On top of that, it was being crushed by the feeling of repulsion and rejection coming from its master, Buzzard.

  That’s right, you! You great stinking freakazoid!

  You look as bad you smell!

  Ugly don’t even come close to describing what a pile of dog plops you are!

  Ya scumbag! Ya snot ball!

  Ya disgusting, maggot-ridden, bulgy-eyed, wonky-faced, flabby-gut, twit-brained stink hole!

  The monster roared and it twitched as if their curses were knives digging into every part of its body, which grew smaller and smaller until it was no bigger than a very ugly chicken.

  Quick as a flash, Stan grabbed the little monster in his huge red hands and lifted it above his head as if it were a trophy.

  ‘GOTCHA!’ roared Stan, and the other monsters would have cheered had the smell not gone right up their noses and made them all want to throw up.

  ‘It’s worse! The smell o’ this thing! Phwooooaar!’ Stan held the monster at arm’s length and the other monsters roared with disgust, although you could barely hear them over Buzzard, who was still making a heck of a noise.

  ‘Oh shut up, Buzzard. It’s your fault this monster exists in the first place,’ said Spike, covering his mouth while jumping up and down to avoid freezing.

  ‘What do you mean, my fault?’

  Before Nelson could stop him from answering, Spike carried on.

  ‘You made this monster when you lay on that ruddy sin extractor, which is why we needed you as bait to catch it.’

  ‘Yeah!’ said Stan. ‘So now ya both gonna get what you deserve. That’s right! We’re gonna feed ya both to Nosh!’

  ‘No!’ said Nelson, his teeth chattering as he drew breath. ‘Just the monster! Leave Buzzard!’

  ‘Suit ya self,’ grumbled Stan.

  ‘YEAH! FEED ME DAT LI’L MONSTAH!’

  Nosh opened his mouth and drool oozed from the corners. Stan walked towards him with the monster struggling between his fingers while Nosh closed his eyes in ord
er to fully appreciate what he was about to eat.

  Stan threw the little monster into Nosh’s mouth, which slammed shut like an oven door.

  Nelson and his monsters eagerly watched Nosh, waiting for the smoke and flames to erupt from the holes in the top of his head. This was better than TV. Like watching a penalty shoot-out when you knew the striker couldn’t fail to score . . .

  They waited . . . and waited . . . and Nosh chewed . . . and chewed . . . and then his eyes slowly opened and Nosh began to look uncomfortable.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Nelson, but Nosh did not reply.

  Instead he kept his big mouth shut while his bright pink skin began to turn pale and then a greenish-white. And here it was. The moment that their plan to save the world – which, to be fair, had been going pretty well so far – fell apart.

  ‘Me so sorry, Nelly-son,’ groaned Nosh. ‘It too disgustin’ and ma fire gone out in ma belly.’

  ‘Too disgusting? What are you talking about, Nosh? I’ve seen you eat much worse than this!’

  Nosh’s stomach gave an almighty gurgle and he threw up the little monster into the sand. The smell really was spectacularly bad. If you could bottle this scent, it would be called Eau de Death! In fact, it was such an unforgivably bad smell that Nelson was sick.

  I know, it’s awful to read about someone being sick, but I warned you at the start that things would get nasty. Maybe now is a good time to look at that piglet in pyjamas once again.

  ‘Let me out of here!’ cried Buzzard from inside the backpack.

  As if this were a call to action, the little monster screamed, sending hailstones like bullets flying in all directions.

  As Nelson and his monsters fell to the ground, the monster began to grow once more, the ice and winds swirling around it like a magical cape as it flexed and stretched back into its larger form.

  ‘Well, if it’s all right with you chaps, I think it would be better if I stay out of the way for now!’ bellowed Hoot, who was still gigantic. And he took to the skies without waiting for a reply.