The Dastardly Mr Winkle Meets His Match

by Rufus Offor

  The girl spewed her last and dropped to her knees wiping the cold clammy sweat from her forehead. After a few gasps mixed with some moans and groans she stumbled to her feet. After the evacuation of food and liquid, she began to feel ever so slightly sobered.

  She took a moment to look around at the passage that she’d managed to hobble into. She’d ventured quite deep into it, further than she’d been aware of, it unnerved her a little. It slowly dawned on her that the alleyway she was in was far more suspicious than she had previously realised. It then gradually crept into her mind that being drunk and therefore un-hurtable was probably a tad misguided appraisal of the situation. She felt a bit stupid. She shuddered slightly. The shudder sobered her a little more.

  Then something happened that brought her crashing back to the point of near complete sobriety with an almighty thump. A rather sly voice appeared slightly above and behind her saying, “Well hello there!”, in an oily tone.

  She stood stock still, paralysed with fear until the owner of the voice grabbed her by the hair and whispered slyly in her ear with a slippery voice, “Go on, give me a nice high pitched squeal. The noise excites me.”

  The alcohol relinquished its grip on the girl and handed all functions over to her almighty terror.

  She obliged him his request, letting out a scream that a wild hell-bent banshee would be enormously envious of. He flipped her around expecting his fearsome appearance to strike even further horror into her already fragile mind. He believed himself to be very scary indeed, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, instead of appearing menacing he looked, well, frankly quite ridiculous. Most of the people he attacked usually quivered hysterically until they saw him. Then they tended to laugh hysterically. The drunken stupid girl was no exception.

  The sight of him made her wonder if the events that she was involved in weren’t, in fact, some kind of elaborate practical joke. It even occurred to her to look around the immediate area for hidden video cameras and TV crews.

  He had a pale blue-ish almost minty complexion which looked like it had been badly slapped on by a carnival face painter – this is not the vampires usual skin texture and was due to the young conservative he’d eaten recently - and, at first glance, seemed to stand about seven feet tall. Further inspection revealed him to be more in the region of five foot eight but was floating above the floor to appear just that little bit taller and imposing. What made this even more ridiculous was the fact that he’d made a cape that was two feet too long so as to cover his feet when he was above the ground. He’d actually gone out of his way to try and fool people into believing that he was really tall. He hadn’t made the cape very well though, and his feet stuck out of the front and made him look a bit like he was on stilts. He had prominent neon white odd looking fangs, like he’d just bought them from a joke shop and covered them in tipex, but the thing that confused her most of all and made her suspect a sick prank, was his hair. He had somehow seen fit to go for the business at the front, party at the back ludicrousness of a mullet. The poor sod looked like a cross between a circus performer and a footballer from the eighties. The frilly white shirt didn’t help matters either.

  His appearance made her giggle slightly. She felt a little drunk again. Then the mixture of fear and the vampire’s ridiculous appearance made something short circuit in the girl’s brain. She couldn’t help it she just had to laugh. It was the kind of laugh that strikes people when they’re really not supposed to laugh. A bit like the kind of hysteria that would take a ten-year-old boy, or any male to be fair, when someone farts in a church.

  The menacing man was very sensitive about being laughed at when he was trying his absolute best to be menacing and decided to waste no time in exerting his power. He yanked her head viciously to the side saying

  “You’re going to regret that old girl. This is going to take far longer than it should.”

  She began to be worried again and yet couldn’t stop her hysterics. She was about to die but all she could think was, “What a Mullet!”

  He snarled, hissed, screwed his face up in a threatening manner and revealed his razor sharp comical teeth just before a fist came out of nowhere and cracked him squarely in the jaw. It struck him with such force that he would’ve flown a clean fifteen feet if there hadn’t been a wall just five feet away. He bounced off the wall shaking and denting it badly.

  The suspicious alleyway didn’t enjoy having it’s walls dented, but then thought “What the hell, it’ll make me look more suspicious!” At least it would’ve thought that if it were able to think, but let’s face it, it was an alleyway and alleyways are not known for their mental processes.

  The bizarre nature of these events tied with the drink and vomiting were beginning to prey on the stupid girl’s sense of reality and normality. After her first mental short-circuit just a few seconds earlier she didn’t really think she needed another one, but she had one none the less. She wasn’t entirely sure whether she’d gone mad, if she’d fallen while vomiting, cracked her head and was hallucinating, or if she’d had her drink spiked with some sort of LSD derivative. In the end she came to the conclusion that no matter what was going on, she had no ability to control her circumstances and, for the first time in her life, fully understood, although from a bizarre angle, the cliché, “what will be will be”. This relaxed her and for the first time in her life she felt a modicum of internal peace. As the menacing man flopped to the floor she found that all she could say was.

  “Okay then.” In a very, drunk, bemused, almost ethereal yet determined voice. “If that’sh the way it’sh got be!?” and lit a cigarette, not knowing quite what else to do.

  If you’d have been there you wouldn’t have known if she was asking a question or making a statement because she was, in fact, doing both at the same time; a trick which only the truly and deeply traumatised people are capable of.

  She looked around in the direction of the fist that had delivered the devastating blow, absent-mindedly hoping that the fist would belong to someone who’d be willing to sleep with her. The fist was on the end of rather a slender arm, which in turn was attached to a very attractive blonde girl. She wore baggy, well-cut trousers that hung just below her hips showing off the top of some brightly coloured, yet tasteful underpants. Her torso was partially covered with a simple black sleeveless t-shirt and her trousers were hanging on to her frame with the help of an elaborate belt with an engraved brushed gold buckle. The outfit was rounded off with some very stylish, but not too trendy, looking training shoes. This girl liked to look good while she punched people. An admirable trait thought the stupid drunk girl.

  “It’d probably be best if you scampered off there girly!” Said the hot girl as the mysterious man started to get to his feet; wiping the dust from his very black clothes.

  “Eh?” Said the stupid girl.

  “Run away, make a move, shift it, clear off, bolt, in short…run!”

  “Oh right, run, um, that might be a bit of a problem. You shee, thing ish, I’m absholutely plashtered. I tried walking earlier on but I sheemed to jusht wobble an awful lot. Sho I’m thinking that if I try to run, I may in fact not sho much wobble as bounce off of thingsh very hard!” Mused the stupid girl.

  “Well, I think as long as there’s some sort of forward momentum away from the man who just tried to kill you, things should turn out better than you staying where you are. Sound reasonable?” said the hot girl in a soft calm voice.

  “Reashonable, yesh, right, okayyyyy. Forward motion, here we go. You’re very nishe you know. Ishn’t she nishe,” the stupid girl asked the vampire rhetorically, “yeah, really nishe, helping me out and that. Cracking lash. If you were a boy I’d be all over you like a rash I would. I’d be limpet girl on you I would. You’re not a boy are you?”

  “No, not a boy, off you pop now.”

  Both the mysterious man and the hot girl watched, bemused, as the stupid girl tripped up some steps, stopped for a moment, looked back as if to ma
ke sure that everything that had just happened had actually happened, waved her arm dismissively and wondered off into the night trying not to look too wobbly in search of a sloppy naked wriggle.

  The alleyway would have been happy about the drop in numbers if thinking was something it did.

  Some people would have taken the events of the evening as a sign that they should turn their life around, but as I’ve said, this girl was stupid. She knew of a bar near her flat that opened at five o’clock in the morning. She went there.

  Ironically she met a very nice man in the bar who’d been working the night shift at a postal sorting office. He was good and sober and took pity on the girl. He refused to have sex with her but took her home and nursed her back to health over the next few days as she was covered in bumps and scrapes. They saw each other a lot over the coming months and eventually married. The girl stopped binge drinking and went back to university with her new found sense of self worth, frequently marvelling at how odd life was and what a quirky sense of humour fate had.

  The hot girl and the mysterious man exchanged tutting looks as the stupid drunk girl blundered away.

  “Some people eh?”

  “I heartily agree, some people don’t have the slightest idea as to social graces,” replied the mysterious man in a pompously refined yet well greased voice, gave a knowing shrug and a raised an eye-brow. He looked at the girl, “That was an impressive display of stealth and violence old girl. I usually know when someone’s going to hit me before they do.”

  “It’s the blood-lust,” replied the girl, “Your kind have a sharp dip in their sensory awareness just before their teeth sink in.”

  “Impressive. Such knowledge and physical prowess from one so young and, may I say, so blindingly attractive.”

  “Very sweet of you to say.” Replied the girl graciously but feeling a little nauseous at the freak’s advances, “But accepting such a compliment makes me feel a little guilty for the damage I’m going to have to do to you.”

  “Damage you have to do to me?”

  “I’m afraid so!”

  “Come now young lady, you appear to be quite the intelligent being. You must be aware that any given situation has a number of alternative conclusions. This doesn’t have to end in destruction and death. Anyway, I doubt very much if you realise just how much trouble you may be in.”

  “Sorry buddy, but I really do know how much trouble I’m in, or to be more precise, I am fully aware of how much trouble you are in.”

  “Now, just to get this straight, you do know that I’m a vampire yes?”

  “Yip!”

  “Which means that I’m very fast and very strong.”

  “Yip!”

  “And that doesn’t bother you at all?”

  “Not even slightly”

  “My word,” exclaimed the mysterious man, with a mixture of genuine surprise and pleasure, “this certainly is turning out to be quite the delicious evening. May I impose upon you a little further and say that I’ve been looking for a lady of your calibre for quite some time now. Back when I was alive, I was quite the connoisseur of the fairer sex. For three hundred years now I’ve been searching for a companion with talents that shine as clearly and brightly as yours.”

  “Well it’s nice to feel special!”

  “Quite,” said the mysterious man ponderingly, “We appear to be getting along famously.” He took a moment as they circled each other, looking each other up and down. She just smiled. “How would you feel about, say, the prospect of immortality?” He suggested.

  “Immortality? Me? You’d do such a thing?”

  “I could be tempted. You’re clearly a lady of high quality. Just think of it, eternity, yours and mine to share. We would make a stunning couple.”

  “Well I must say that really is very flattering indeed. Thank you for the compliment. I liked the whole “been searching for you for three hundred years”, bit, very nice indeed. Thing is though, I just can’t see myself spending eternity with a bloke who would see fit to wear a mullet! I mean really, I know you’ve been around for a while but you can’t seriously think that you look anything less than ridiculous”

  “Now that wasn’t very nice was it? Here we are being polite and complimentary and you have to throw in the personal insults. Besides, all the youngsters are wearing these nowadays. I’m led to believe that they are quite fashionable.”

  “Maybe, but you still look like a plonker!”

  “My opinion of you is sinking old girl. I may withdraw my offer if your courtesy refuses to hold sway.”

  “Makes you look a bit like a Spanish hippy!”

  “THIS IS A LOVINGLY REALISED WORK OF ART ON MY HEAD AND IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FREELY USE MANNERS THEN YOU WILL HAVE TO BE TAUGHT SOME!” Bellowed the man.

  “A bit touchy aren’t we?”

  “SUCH INSOLENCE MUST BE PUNISHED, PREPARE TO BE DRAINED DRY!” he hissed with a snarl that would’ve made an SAS man stain his underpants.

  With this the hot lady and the now slightly less mysterious man with a mullet, both flew into the air with the hot girl attempting to plant a vicious round-house kick on the man’s chest. The man’s reflexes were better than she was used to and her leg impacted on an arm that felt like an iron girder. She swiftly regained her composure in time to deflect a blindingly swift right hook from the vampire. The move was so fast that it should’ve been absolutely invisible to the girl but it wasn’t, she’d clearly been very well trained. Before the man could come to terms with the fact that the blow had been stopped by her, the girls right elbow had pushed his pale nose an inch into his face, spreading it wide toward his cheeks making a cloud of blood and watering his eyes. Before he could gather himself she battered him in the solar plexus with the palm of her hand making him plunge back into the dented wall again.

  “Good lord, you really are full of sass! Give me your name before I make you un-dead against your will.” He insisted as he tried to pull his nose out of the inside of his head.

  “The name’s Bunty Autumn and, live or die, I promise you this. You’ll never wipe this smile off my face.” The vampire realised that she hadn’t stopped smiling since the moment of his first pummelling.

  “What gives you such joy young woman?”

  “Oh I’m just a happy kind of gal!”

  While the two combatants continued exchanging a few more pleasantries, someone else was listening to them.

  On the other side of the dented wall there stood a man. He was tall and weathered with greying hair, a long face with stubby features and freakishly circular ears that stuck out too far. Underneath a battered looking trilby was a very potent grimace. The chasm like lines that the grimace had carved into the man’s face told tales of someone more content in misery than rapture and his dark brown-grey suit recounted the same story. He cared little about the two prattling idiots on the other side of the wall and was fast loosing his patience with their senseless chatter.

  He hated people who talked while they fought. He much preferred it when people just got on with things. He blamed Hollywood. All those glib one liners and bad guys telling the good guys why they were doing what they were doing just before the good guys managed to escape the seemingly inescapable circumstances in which the bad guys had managed to trap them, and then the good guy would foil the bad guy because the bad guy had just told the good guy exactly what he was about to do. He thought it’d be a lot more realistic if someone just fired a smart bomb at them both and shut them up, screw the good guy he was just collateral damage. The man saw the eventuality in his imagination, deciding that the whole scene would go down a lot better if the good guy was played by an actor who was part of one of those trendy religions. The man hated trendy religions, especially ridiculous scientific ones that were created as bets.

  As the two combatants chatted away on the other side of the wall, the man got more and more irate as he thought about Hollywood and trendy religions, his anger building.

  He was a vulture. He didn’
t like getting involved in the thick of the fight too much. Not that he wasn’t capable, he just didn’t see the point if you could be sneakier about it all and just kill them from a distance. This also had the added bonus of near guaranteeing that he didn’t get hurt. He didn’t like getting hurt. Other people should get hurt, not him. His vulture like nature preferred to let the combatants do all the damage to themselves so he could swoop down and pick at the remnants. The thing with these two was that they were taking too long about the whole thing.

  As his irritation rose he slid his fingers into his suit jacket and toyed with the idea of using the metallic pineapple like lump that was perched there. The two on the other side of the wall prattled on. The man decided that if they hadn’t finished by the time that his cigarette had burnt down then he was going to have to step in.

  Then he thought, “Bugger waiting!”

  He popped his be-hatted head over the wall, pulled the pin on the grenade, dropped it directly between the vampires legs and dove for cover behind a steel bin.

  The mysterious man continued trying to impress the girl with his oral prowess and the hot girl continued smiling. There was a clunking noise. The hot girl looked down at the vampires feet, looked confused for a second, looked the vampire in the eye and then started running, never taking the smile off her face.

  The vampire looked confused at the girl’s actions but then looked down at the object that had fallen between his feet.

  His last words as a complete body were, “Oh, Bollocks!”

  The explosion sent lots of the mysterious man to lots of different places. As his head travelled skyward into the blackness of the night it uttered the simple phrase, “didn’t see that coming!” before it stopped being un-dead, and starting being simply dead.

  Bunty Autumn was thrown ten feet into the air by the blast. She landed very hard and broke lots of bones while rupturing several internal organs. She was going to be dead fairly soon, but, true to her word, she never stopped smiling.