by Rufus Offor
‘You will go NO further!’ Something in Shoop’s hissing voice made a number of men step back slightly.
‘Maybe you didn’t hear Mr Winkle, I have in excess of two hundred men hear… it’s over Winkle!’
Something about Shoop’s appearance was unnerving the men. The Boss hadn’t noticed it, his over confidence blinding him. His joy at having beaten Shoop coursing through ever fibre of his being but the agents noticed felt something odd. They couldn’t put their fingers on it, it was an air of cruelty that seemed to leek from him. He had some sort of aura that couldn’t be seen, only felt and it didn’t feel very nice. Their mistake was to believe that their numbers would be more than enough to cope with whatever it was that he was emitting.
‘This will be the last time I say this, and then things are going to get very sticky around here… you will go no further!’
‘This is boring… blow his legs off!’
At the Boss’ command dozens of guns were trained and fired at Shoop simultaneously, all perfectly aimed at his knees, which should have been disintegrated, and all missing. Shoop was gone.
The Boss, startled, began to fall back into the crowd of men.
‘GET HIM!’ He yelled as the huge number started to file through the gate some heading forward, some heading of to the side to flank him.
They’d barely gone a few feet when a blur whipped into them like a hell bent poltergeist, tearing at them, ripping them, sending limbs and bodies flying in a grotesque explosion of human anatomy. As more and more men filed through the gates, firing randomly into the air at where they though the blur was, or might be, other men pulled the Boss to the back of the hordes of gun toting, black suited, soon to be dead agents.
‘NO YOU FOOLS, PUSH ME TO THE FRONT!’ Shoop heard the Boss yell as he disappeared into the crowd of agents. He would’ve wondered why if he hadn’t been in such a blood drunk frenzy. The agents were simply too panicked, dead or dying to take any notice of anything but the body mangling blur.
The crowd got thicker and thicker and started to push Shoop further back into the gardens. Some men headed up the sides of the walls in an attempt to flank their enemy. They quickly became aware that the routes they were taking were nothing but thin corridors between the walls and the undergrowth. They pushed on none the less, until on one flank, some of the agents stopped for a minute, turned around and starting firing on their companions. At least seven men were felled before anyone thought to fire back.
Yan appeared behind the rebelling men, occasionally firing over their heads and when one of his converts were killed he’d stare at another one until he turned around and started firing at his own men. It was the perfect shield and the bodies were mounting fast.
Back over at the other flank Komodo was also building up a fair pile of carcasses. He’d decided to attack from above, confusing his adversaries long enough to build up a pile of bodies to hide behind but both Yan and Komodo knew that they wouldn’t be able to hold of a number so great for very long.
A grenade hit the pile of bodies in front of Komodo, knocking him clean over the wall where he lay for quite some time, unconscious, half way up a tree but not before wiping out at least thirty men.
Yan was caught under an avalanche of bodies after killing a similar number. He was knocked out, barely able to breath, crushed but still alive. The agents couldn’t see him after the avalanche and set about trying to combat the blur that was Mr Winkle who was still ripping and tearing at people with a supernatural brutality.
It seemed that the Sphere agents were doomed. There was nothing that could stop Shoop and his frenzy and the men started retreating back through the gates.
This suited the Boss just fine. He stood there, letting the panicked agents file past him. It took every ounce of self control as he was, after all, a snivelling little coward but he’d been told something not half an hour ago that would, hopefully, stand him in good stead.
The men ran and ran past him, the cloud of mangled bodies exploding from the front line getting closer and closer. The Boss got more and more nervous, beads of sweat dripping down his forehead even in the cold spring morning air.
“Hold fast!” he’s been told, “You’ll want to run but hold fast, trust me on this, it all depends on this!”
With every ounce of his being he wanted to run, he wasn’t good at being brave and finally his mind let him down and he turned to run in panic. Luckily, though, he was such a gut-wrenching coward that he found himself petrified with terror. He went to move but couldn’t. His eyes darted wildly as if he was trying to make them drag him out of harms way.
Closer, closer, almost on top of him now.
He felt blood splatter his face and then, Like a flash, there he was. Shoop Winkle, face to face with the Boss, both absolutely static. The Boss was routed to the spot, eyes wide, unable to move and Shoop looked as if someone had found a pause button on him. He was in mid air, poised to strike, like a stuffed wild cat in a museum about to mince a stuffed rabbit. He hung there, like there was a barrier in front of him that he just couldn’t get through.
One minute he was a fabulous blur of ultra-violence and the next he was as rigid as a porn stars under carriage.
They both looked at each other. The Boss with clear terror in his eyes and Shoop with potent hatred, neither of them able to do anything about there situation.
One of the agents took this moment to raise a weapon.
‘Need him alive!’ squeaked the Boss through his fear.
Shoop’s eyes darted to the side. He wanted to attack but it was no good, he just had to wait while the tranquiliser dart made it’s way to him. It didn’t do much, so they fired another, and another until finally, with the seventh dart, Shoop slumped down to the ground. They bound him very tightly with heavy chains and took stock of their dead and dying.
By this time Komodo had managed to get out of his tree and was heading for the pre-arranged meeting point and Yan had dug himself out from under the piles of dead agents and limped of in the same direction.
Shoop fought the sleep that was gripping him. To be stumped at this, the final hurdle. For months he’d battled to rid himself of the Boss and this was where it all ended. He fought the sleep but it got the better of him.
He’d lost!
Chapter 31
Shoop Shoots Jill in the Face
‘Jill? What’s going on out there?’
‘Be patient Ben, stay in your cupboard, it looks like the fighting’s over, I believe this is where it’ll get interesting. Now remember, no matter what you hear, stay in there and do not come out. I can find a new body to go and live in… you can’t!’
‘Any chance of a cuppa while I’m in here?’
‘Oh how very rude of me, of course, I’ll just put the kettle on shall I.’
When Shoop woke he was lying at the foot of the steps of the castle. Firmly bound but glad at the fact that his temporary paralysis seemed to have subdued.
Just before the violence had erupted The Boss had made a phone-call, the voice on the other end had told him that if he stood perfectly still as Shoop was attacking him that he would be fine, that Shoop would be unable to harm him. Remarkably, it had worked and now The Boss had Shoop at his mercy.
The man on the phone had also given him other instructions.
‘You’re probably wondering why you’re alive.’ Said the Boss
‘Had crossed my mind.’ Shoop grunted through blood spattered spittle.
‘Well, I need you to go in there and get the vessel for me.’
‘Piss off! Just put a bullet between my eyes, I’m never taking an order from you ever again you shivering cock weasel!’
‘Oh I think you’ll do exactly what I say. Just sit there for a minute and you’ll realise that you have no choice. I’m a patient man, I can wait.’
Shoop lay still, trying to muster strength enough to break the chains that bound him, rebellion coursing through his veins. There was no way in hell that he was going to do the B
oss’ bidding, not after everything that he’d been through.
He waited as the strength ebbed back into him but with every second came that feeling again, the one that shook his bones, made him want to do extreme violence. The recent battle had made it subside a little but it was crawling back in, making every fibre of his being buzz antagonistically like he was being electrocuted.
The Boss saw the discomfort in Shoop’s face and gave off a snide little grin. He bent down to Shoop’s ear.
‘You still don’t get it do you? There’s nothing you can do, you are going to have to go in there because every molecule in you wants to. You’re aching to get in there and destroy the thing that you’ve waited and hunted so long for. The thing that you thought would set you free has made you a prisoner. You’re mine Winkle!’
‘Bastard I’ll…’
‘You’ll what? Tear me limb from limb? You’ve tried that and you saw how it turned out. You’re going to have to face it, this is the end for you. You’re going to go in there, destroy the vessel, then you’re going to come out here and I’m going to spend the rest of my natural life making sure that you feel nothing but crashing agony for as long as possible. You have no choice. You can’t kill me, you’ll freeze if you even try.’
Shoop felt the need well up inside him, the need to find the vessel. It was all consuming, it flooded his every sense until reality was nothing but a garbled mumble that he could barely make out.
‘The vessel Mr Winkle… get the vessel!’
Every time The Boss said the word “Vessel”, it made the need grow in Shoop just that little bit more. He was programmed, he was nothing but a machine that’d been set on a course. All that mattered was reaching the vessel, nothing else made any sense to him, only an echo of himself remained in his skull, fighting from the background to try and make sense of it all.
‘I think he’s about ready now!’ The Boss was so happy it made a number of the few remaining Sphere agents feel a little queasy to look at him. ‘Unlock his chains!’
The men looked a little perturbed at this order and a few sideways glances were exchanged before The Boss barked, ‘Do it now!’
The chains were duly removed and Shoop writhed around on the floor for a moment trying and failing to keep the urges within him under control.
‘The Vessel Shoop, get the Vessel!’ The Boss hissed in his ear.
‘What have you done to me you wanker!?’
‘Don’t blame me Winkle, this urge has always been there. Now… get up and go and destroy the vessel’
Shoop had no choice. He could feel it in his very being. He HAD to get the vessel and he knew that when he found it that he would destroy it. There was nothing he could do, the buzzing inside him was too powerful.
He stood, his face a collage of pain, anguish and reluctant compliance and, shaking and gyrating, he made his way up the steps to the main door of the castle. The tiny part of him that remained unconsumed by these strange urges cursed the Boss, begging for the strength to turn, leap and rip the silly little bastards head clean off with his bare hands. Every time he considered it, however, he could feel his limbs stiffen, they threatened to cramp up and stop altogether. He didn’t understand, why couldn’t he just kill him, what the hell was going on. He felt like nothing more than an inanimate chess piece being sacrificed for a master that he didn’t know and he was powerless to stop it. He was the pawn that he’d spent his whole life trying not to be. He was in his own personal hell.
He wobbled up the steps in a jerky fashion and went inside.
His legs knew exactly where to take him, he didn’t even have to wonder at which direction to go, he just went. Up the main grandiose stone stairway, turning left as it split up into separate directions. He followed the red carpet on the stone stairs as it got to the top and carried on down a corridor, up a spiral stair, along another corridor until he reached a door.
He leant against the door frame trying to gather himself. The thing that he’d been hunting for for so long was on the other side of this door, he knew it, he could feel it in the rattling of his sixth sense.
His jaw was tight, his knuckles white, his desperation at it’s absolute pinnacle. He tried to reach for the door handle but his hand was shaking too violently, he simply couldn’t grab a hold of the damn thing. He tried to steady his arm with his other hand, which only exacerbated the issue and his hand flopped about uncontrollably.
Suddenly, the door opened by itself. There was nobody on the other side letting him in, the door had just simply decided to be open. The part of Shoop’s brain that wasn’t consumed by the sixth sense took a moment to think “weird!” before he jerked into the room.
‘Do come in Mr Winkle, would you like a cup of tea?’
He launched, the sound of the voice was beyond anything that he’d ever experienced, the need to kill, to wipe out that voice for all time was so uncontrollably massive that he could’ve run clean through every iron walled vault in fort knox to get at it and stub it out.
The voice was in a chair in front of a window, Shoop couldn’t see the body that the voice belonged to until he was stopped dead in the middle of his rabid pounce. He was in mid air, wondering how he’d got there, when a hand came out from behind the chair, palm facing him and all of a sudden the urge subsided, sank deep down inside him and his aggression faltered. His leap no longer held it’s momentum and he came crashing down onto the ornate antique writing desk, bounced of it and tumbled to the floor on the other side taking a paper weight and a lamp with him.
The overwhelming desire to destroy wasn’t quite gone, but it was very much reduced. His own mind came back into play, the one that hated to be trapped, that hated to be a pawn and a billion questions raced through his mind, as if the rage of his sixth sense had held his brain in a choke hold and now it was released, it bloody well wanted answers!
‘WHAT THE FUCK… IS GOING ON HERE?!’
‘Tea?’ said Jill
Shoop saw her for the first time. This thing called the vessel, this person that he’d risked everything he ever had to find. The single most important find of his life and he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. There’d been a huge build up to this moment and it didn’t seem right to be faced with well, a tiny little hippy woman.
He’d expected some sort of Amazonian princess, or an alien life-form of some sort, even an ancient wizardess or something but not a hippy. Anything but a god-damn hippy!
‘TEA? TEA? What the bloody hell are you talking about woman? TEA? NO I DON’T WANT A CUP OF FUCKING TEA YOU DAFT OLD BOOT! Haven’t you got the slightest idea of what’s going on here!?’
‘A lot more than you do dear, now, are we going to talk like civilised beings or are you going to keep up your potty mouth and get nowhere?’
‘Potty mouth? Who the fuck says potty mouth? Are you mental? I want fucking answers and I want them fucking now! I’ve been all over the bloody world looking for something called the vessel, I’m presuming it’s you, and all of a sudden I’ve turned into this rabid killing machine that wants nothing more that to tear your head off and ram it up your own arse and I’ve got no idea why.’
‘Yes I know Mr Winkle, now calm down and perhaps I can help things become a little clearer.’
‘Bugger it, I’m just going to tear your head off!’
‘You’re more than welcome to Shoop, but you might like to know a few things before you do so, it’ll help you I promise.’
‘Bollocks, you don’t know shit!’
‘I know that you’re lying on the floor instead of tearing me to pieces and I know that it’s getting very hard for me to restrain the desire inside you. I’ve subdued it but I can’t hold it off forever. I also know that I could’ve been a long way away from here by now but I’m not. Why do you suppose that is Mr Winkle?’
‘Because you’re suicidal?’ Shoop half joked.
‘I’ve been around for a very long time Mr Winkle, which I’m sure you’re aware of, you found and deciphered my m
ap did you not?’
Shoop looked puzzlingly at her. Maybe she did have something worth saying. It’d been a bloody long hard road, maybe he should relax his blood lust a little and find out some things that may be of import. Maybe he could still get out of this. Maybe he could still kill his way past the Boss and his cronies, though he couldn’t see how.
He grappled his way up off the floor and walked around the desk, plonking himself down in a chair opposite the vessel, happy to be rid of his insane blood lust for a moment but still looking more miserable than ever.
‘My, you do look awful!’ Jill scanned Shoop up and down and smiled pleasantly. His clothes were anything but rags after his supersonic speed had burnt and ripped them, his face was a mass of bruises where the Sphere agents had taken a few free shots when he was unconscious and almost every inch of him was covered in the blood of the carnage that he’d visited on his enemies.
‘Up yours!’ Said Shoop.
‘How’s about that tea then?’
‘I’d sooner have a gin!’
‘Are you sure, tea’s really good for unblocking your Chakras you know, and yours look quite nastily blocked.’
‘Have you got any damn gin or are we going to chat about tea until I lose control again?’
‘Well, it just so happens that I got some gin in special. I knew you were coming you see.’
Jill got a glass out and went to find some ice in the corner of the room. ‘just gimme the fucking bottle!’ Grumbled Shoop.
‘As you wish,’ said Jill with a saintly smile and lobbed the bottle across the room at Shoop. He caught it, flicked off the cap and skulled a third of the bottle in one draught.
He slumped, the first throws of something close to satisfaction running through him for weeks. He let out a heavy sigh.
