The Stranger Times

by C. K. McDonnell

  Twenty minutes later, Caroline Redford and Toto reached their front door. She dipped her hand into her coat pocket and screamed. For years afterwards she would still think back on it and struggle to find any kind of logical explanation. Had she been having some kind of breakdown? Had she been the victim of some elaborate and cruel practical joke?

  How had she ended up with a pocket full of dog shit?

  CHAPTER 35

  ‘You go.’

  They were standing in Banecroft’s office, or rather Hannah was. Banecroft was sitting with his injured foot on his desk, scratching around the bandages with a riding crop he had obtained from somewhere.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Damn, these bandages are itchy. Do you think I can take them off yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘And sorry, can we loop back to the part where I said we need to talk to our printer, who can apparently still produce a newspaper?’

  ‘You go. I said that already.’

  Hannah leaned on the desk. ‘Are you …?’ She stopped as a whiff of Banecroft’s feet assailed her nostrils. As diplomatically as possible, she took a step back. ‘Are you scared of Manny?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I am not scared of Manny.’

  ‘You are. You’re scared of Manny.’

  ‘It’s almost hard to believe a man is divorcing you.’

  ‘I’m divorcing him, and you are scared of Manny. Why are you scared of Manny?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Is it the hair?’

  ‘Don’t be—’

  ‘Is it the nakedness?’ Hannah worked her eyebrows. ‘Do you find his propensity for nakedness intimidating?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Arousing?’

  ‘I can fire you, y’know.’

  ‘From what?’ asked Hannah. ‘We’ve already been shut down.’

  ‘No, we haven’t. Not while we can still put out a paper. Even if it is only locally, at least that is something.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Hannah.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’ll go down and see how we’re going to print a newspaper.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Because you’re too scared of Manny.’

  Banecroft snapped. He pitched the riding crop, which whizzed past Hannah’s ear. ‘I’m not scared of Manny!’

  ‘Did you just throw a riding crop at me?’

  ‘No. Or you’d have been hit by a riding crop. I have superb aim.’

  ‘Says the man who shot himself in the foot.’

  Banecroft dragged his foot back off the desk, sending a pile of papers flying in the process. ‘Don’t you have somewhere to be? Urgently?’

  Hannah raised her hands. ‘All right, all right. I’ll go, because you’re—’

  ‘It’s the press!’ cried Banecroft.

  Hannah, who had just turned towards the door, spun on her heels. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The printing press. I don’t …’ Banecroft’s expression was pained. ‘I don’t … I always feel like it’s watching me.’

  ‘The machine?’

  ‘I am fully aware it makes little sense. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. It makes me uneasy. It’s like the damn thing is always hungry.’

  ‘Thank you for sharing this with me.’

  ‘Get the hell out of my office.’

  Loath as she was to admit it, Hannah got it. She had been standing in the press’s vicinity for about fifteen minutes now, and it did rather loom. It felt as if it were gradually getting closer to her, which logic told her was, of course, impossible. Still, she took another step back. While pointedly not looking at the machine, Hannah noticed something odd about the rest of the room – namely that no one else was looking at it either. It sat there, quietly hissing, the occasional metal limb clanking or piston firing, like a great beast waiting to spring into action.

  From her limited exposure to him, and on one occasion of him, Hannah knew that Manny was not the easiest individual to communicate with at the best of times. This was not the best of times. This was a time when Manny had heard the police raiding the paper’s offices, and had seemingly swallowed any and all recreational/medicinal substances he may have had lying about the place. At this moment, if relaxation was an Olympic sport, Manny would miss his flight to the Games – that’s how relaxed he was.

  Grace had spent the last fifteen minutes pouring tea into him, which, if nothing else, meant that he would need to go to the toilet at some point. Hannah strongly hoped that he’d make it to the bathroom, although it was by no means guaranteed. He really was very relaxed.

  ‘Manny,’ said Grace, sounding exasperated. ‘You need to focus, dear, all right? Focus!’

  ‘We is focused. We is laser-focused,’ he said, simultaneously standing up and falling down. Reggie made a move towards him and grabbed him under the arms, hauling him upright.

  ‘Who be moving de floor?’

  Hannah stepped forward and looked into Manny’s eyes. She could see his pupils dancing around as he tried to focus on her.

  ‘OK, Manny. Stella said you said we can still print the paper without all the stuff the police took. Is that right?’

  Manny nodded emphatically several times. ‘Yeah, yeah, mon, we tell you. We tell you true. We got the pictures from da chile on the machine already.’ He pointed at the press. ‘She got them. We just need the words.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Hannah. ‘We don’t have them.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Stella, holding up her phone, ‘we do. I sent all the articles to my personal account while you lot were gawping at the fuzz.’

  ‘Then we golden!’ said Manny, giving a cheerful wave.

  ‘Really?’

  Manny regained the use of his feet and Reggie carefully let him go. After a slight wobble and a few steps in the wrong direction, he executed a turn – all of his limbs somehow involved at different times – and led them to the corner of the room. ‘Come, come, come, come.’

  With a flourish, Manny pulled a paint-splattered sheet from what looked like a big metal picture frame on a worn, rusted stand.

  Everyone who wasn’t Manny looked at everyone else who wasn’t Manny and shared a collective shrug. Manny chuckled to himself and heaved a large chest off the floor, placing it on a crate beside the frame. As he opened it, trays and trays of lead letters of various sizes concertinaed out before him. ‘What we headline?’

  Hannah watched in amazement as Stella read out the front-page article and Manny’s hands became a near blur, grabbing letters from shelves and slotting them in place, seemingly without needing to look. He wasn’t just arranging what Stella said; he was doing it right to left and back to front. As he worked, the press made an occasional whirring or hissing noise behind him.

  Over the next two hours, Manny assembled an eight-page newspaper out of lead and sweat. Hannah had questions. Lots of questions. But after the first couple, which Manny attempted to answer with the kind of Manny-isms that are short on detail, Reggie pulled her aside.

  ‘Aeroplanes,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Hannah, sweetheart – aeroplanes. Do you know how aeroplanes work?’

  ‘Well …’ Hannah gave him a confused look. ‘There’s something about thrust and, I guess, aerodynamics.’

  ‘Exactly. You don’t know. I don’t know. I assume the only people who do know are the people who build them and possibly the people who fly them. Still, it’s a big metal tube shooting through the sky, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Now you, I’m sure, are fine with that concept, but I’m a nervous flyer. Do you know what I don’t do when I get on an aeroplane, though? I don’t go and find the pilot and start asking questions. Because on a base level, to which none of us admits, we all secretly think it’s pretty much done by magic – and on an even deeper level, we all know that you don’t question magic with logic, or else the magic might get the hump and stop working.’

  Hannah nodded. ‘I think I see your point.
You think me asking questions might distract Manny?’

  ‘Well, no. I mean, yes, that too – but no. While you were asking questions, I made the mistake of walking around … that …’ He nodded at the press that stood behind him. Hannah was trying not to use the word looming in her head. ‘Here’s the thing: I’ve lapped it three times and I can’t figure out where the power goes in or why there is steam coming out.’

  Hannah furrowed her brow. ‘OK.’

  ‘Don’t make that face. I’m not saying … Look, need I remind you of the picture that will be on the front of this paper? “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” In short, don’t question the magic.’

  Hannah nodded again, then raised her voice. ‘Reggie and I are going to leave you to it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Stella, without looking up from her phone.

  It made no rational sense, but Hannah still felt as if the press was watching them as they turned and hurried out the door.

  CHAPTER 36

  ‘How much longer?’ asked Banecroft.

  The entire room – Hannah, Reggie and Grace – groaned as one. They were gathered in the bullpen like expectant fathers. There was nothing more for them to do, their role in proceedings having been completed. Right now, Stella was downstairs, continuing to dictate the contents of this week’s edition to Manny, who, while still rather more ‘relaxed’ than usual, was transforming her words into something that could be printed. Hannah was trying very hard not to think about the many ways it could go wrong.

  ‘We need to get the damn paper out,’ barked Banecroft. ‘Hannah, go down and—’

  ‘No,’ said Hannah.

  ‘What do you mean, “no”?’

  ‘I mean no, the same way I meant no the last seven times you asked. They’re doing what they’re doing and it’ll take as long as it takes. I appreciate you think everything in life should be fixed by you shouting at it, but sadly that is not the case.’

  Banecroft mumbled unintelligibly to himself, unwilling to accept that this was the case.

  ‘Would anyone like a—’ started Grace.

  ‘No,’ finished the rest of the room.

  She looked more than a little put out by this response and Hannah felt immediately guilty. She reached across and patted the bit of Grace’s forearm that wasn’t covered in bracelets. ‘Sorry, Grace, didn’t mean to snap. I think we’re all fine for tea, thanks.’

  Grace gave a curt upward nod, at least mildly assuaged. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I forgot to mention: Mrs Harnforth rang earlier, when everybody was out. She will be popping in.’

  Banecroft threw his hands in the air. ‘Oh, for – swear word, swear word, swear word. The owner is going to “pop in” and you’re only mentioning it now?’

  ‘It slipped my mind,’ said Grace, ‘what with the picture and the police raid and Ox getting arrested and all of that. Don’t you snap at me, Vincent Banecroft, I am not paid to take your nonsense.’

  ‘Perhaps we need to find someone who is?’ countered Banecroft.

  ‘Relax,’ said Hannah. ‘In case you forgot, I think we’ll all be looking for gainful employment in the morning. So let’s just take a breath, wait for Manny to get done doing what he’s doing and then we can deal with the next thing when it’s time for the next thing.’

  Banecroft walloped his crutch against the side of the desk. ‘I want the next thing to happen now!’

  Grace gasped.

  The words Hannah was about to utter died in her throat when she saw the expression on Grace’s face: her mouth was hanging open and she was physically shaking, abject terror writ large across her face. Hannah followed her gaze.

  There had been no noise, no warning. One second there had been nothing but empty, mundane space and the next it was filled with the beast.

  It stood there, ten feet tall, streaks of slobber trailing from its jaws, its eyes glowing red like portals to hell. Its long arms almost touched the floor, the tips of its black claws dangling inches above the floorboards. Drops of water dripped on to the floor beneath it.

  A part of Hannah’s brain that was refusing to engage with her surroundings fully noted that it must be raining again.

  ‘I wish to withdraw my previous remark,’ said Banecroft.

  The beast moved towards them slowly. As it did so, Hannah watched its taut muscles straining beneath its matted brown fur. Nothing she had seen in her whole life compared to it.

  The group of four started to move backwards simultaneously. Hannah felt the cold, damp plaster of the rear wall against her palms as she pressed her back against it.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ said Reggie, in not much above a whisper.

  Grace had her eyes closed, an unintelligible babble of prayer spilling forth from her.

  Banecroft hurled his crutch at the beast, and it swatted it away casually as if it were a fly.

  ‘Oh, bollocks,’ said Banecroft.

  ‘Two,’ said Grace, working on autopilot.

  It was all of eight or nine feet from them now, Hannah’s desk the only thing between them and it. With a flick of its wrist, the beast sent the desk hurtling into the wall that divided the bullpen from Banecroft’s office. It shattered on impact, taking a chunk out of the plaster. The beast continued its slow, steady progress towards them, its unhurried movements entirely deliberate. Hannah got the sickening feeling it was enjoying itself.

  ‘I’m going to rush it,’ said Reggie quietly. ‘Get ready to run.’

  ‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘It’d be—’

  The sound of a voice from the other end of the room cut her short.

  ‘Manny says that …’

  Stella had appeared in the doorway, her mobile in one hand and a book in the other. She looked at the beast and froze in place, as her book fell to the floor.

  The beast half turned and stared at her, its snout tilting upwards slightly, sniffing the air. Then it reversed course and moved towards her instead.

  ‘Stella,’ said Hannah, ‘get out of here, now.’

  She and the others followed the beast as it moved towards the girl.

  ‘Stella!’ said Grace. ‘You get out of here this instant, young lady.’

  Hannah scanned the surrounding desks. Paperwork. Nothing that could be used as a weapon. She was dimly aware of the sound of the door to Banecroft’s office opening.

  Stella’s feet stayed glued in place. Her only movement was her phoneless hand rising into a shaky point at the beast that was now advancing towards her.

  Reggie rushed towards the creature’s back. Hannah saw a flash as the blade in his hand caught the light. He was moving fast and yet, apparently without seeing him, the beast’s claw shot backwards and caught him in the chest with a blow that sent him hurtling through the air, then on to and over one of the unused desks.

  ‘STELLA!’ screamed Hannah. ‘RUN! JUST RUN!’

  Stella’s lips moved, mouthing unheard words.

  And then Banecroft was in front of the girl, barging her out of the way. In his hands, he held, of all things, a notepad and pen.

  ‘We are about to publish a story implicating you in the deaths of Simon Brush and John Maguire, aka Long John. Have you any comment you wish to make?’

  The entire room shook as the beast roared, its long arm shooting out and sending Banecroft spinning away. The editor landed in a crumpled heap in the corner.

  Stella stood once again, with nothing between her and the beast. She tossed her phone at it, but it bounced uselessly off its snout.

  Hannah took a deep breath and began her run towards its back, only to find Grace matching her stride for stride.

  And then Manny stepped calmly in front of Stella. There was a peculiar look in his eyes that caused the beast, Hannah and Grace to all stop in their tracks. It was as if the world had paused. Manny slumped forward as his feet rose off the ground, leaving his body suspended in the air, like a puppet dangling from invisible strings. The beast made a low, guttural sound in its thr
oat, confused by this development in proceedings.

  Hannah and Grace stood rooted to the spot as a cloud of white smoke began to flow from Manny. It wasn’t coming out of anywhere; it seemed to rise off him like steam. The beast took a step back as the smoke thickened and expanded. Hannah and Grace grabbed on to each other reflexively and they too stepped backwards. The smoke kept coming thick and fast. It reached the ceiling and, amidst the swirls, a shape emerged – it was forming into a definite shape. Wings. Broad wings stretching outwards, becoming something if not solid, then certainly more solid-looking. At its centre, the air was roiling and shifting faster and faster.

  Then it stopped.

  A face. A face and then a body grew distinct in the writhing mass of smoke. A woman. The figure filled all available space, right up to the high ceiling, becoming more and more opaque. The face was beautiful. For a moment it hung there in the air above them, serene and regal, a munificent goddess staring down upon her loyal worshippers.

  It surged forward without warning and warped into the thing of nightmares, a screeching face of terror. A voice issued forth from it – only it wasn’t one voice. It was a legion, all screaming as one. ‘Be gone, foul beast, this place is protected.’

  The beast staggered backwards before leaping towards the smoky figure that hung above it. There was a blinding flash of light, then an animalistic squeal of pain as the beast hurtled between Hannah and Grace, sending them sprawling to the ground on its way to slamming into the back wall.

  Hannah looked up in time to see the creature picking itself up and hurling itself through one of the three large stained-glass windows and out into the night.

  As if it had never been there, the angelic figure was already smoke once again, retreating into the unresponsive form of Manny, who collapsed on to the ground.

  CHAPTER 37

  As she waited outside, it occurred to Hannah that this was the second time in a week that an ambulance had been called to the offices of The Stranger Times. She was expecting a lot of awkward questions. Her luck being what it was, as it pulled up she noticed that it was the same crew that had attended the first incident – the one where the boss had literally shot himself in the foot. A short woman in a high-vis jacket and a bad mood hopped out of the passenger seat.