The Dastardly Mr Winkle Meets His Match

by Rufus Offor

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Jill nodded at Shoop.

  Shoop barely even blinked, he just raised his second bottle of gin and slugged hard.

  ‘Oh god I’m sorry!’ Ben dropped the gun onto the table and started to cry. ‘I’m so sorry,’ sobs shaking him, ‘I know that you’re right but I just… I’m finding it… I can’t let go. I can’t lose you!’

  Jill stroked his head to comfort him and Shoop was nearly sick on the floor.

  ‘I’ll always be with you Ben. Never forget that you are loved… never!’

  Shoop was sick on the floor. Then he drank some more gin as he didn’t like the idea of loosing what he’d already guzzled to a sickeningly emotional moment.

  ‘Ben, we don’t have much time. Please believe that you’l find me again. I won’t look the same but your feeling will be, if not better. You have to leave now. You have to find a place to hide. This is meant to be Ben.’

  Ben stood, soaked up her visage. Drank her in with his eyes trying to make sure that he wouldn’t forget the one person in the world that had changed his life for the better. Had taken the time to try and see him. He was angry at the loss but he knew that blaming her was be foolish.

  ‘For fuck’s sake man! Take a picture or something will ya… there’s killing to be done!’

  Ben went to pounce at Shoop but Jill stopped him with a simple hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Please Ben.’

  The feeling of loss was almost unbearable. He knew he’d see her again, but it wouldn’t be the same. Something was ending.

  He walked to the door, turning before he left so see her one last time. She smiled and it pierced him.

  He closed the door behind him and was gone.

  ‘Poor lad.’ Said Jill

  ‘Fuck him… when do I get to shoot you?’

  It hit Shoop like a truck. Jill took away the barrier to the violent frenzy of the sixth sense and Shoop felt like he’d jusy licked a plug socket. His muscles contracted, his bones rattled again his mind was leaving him.

  With the last vestiges of control he had left, thin as they were, he grabbed the gun off the table, one hand biting into the wood of the desk making finger sized holes and inch deep in his fury.

  He raised the gun and fired.

  The bullet entered Jill through her nose and took most of her brain with it as it came out in a spray of matter, blood and bone through the back of her head.

  Still smiling she faltered back, crashing through the window and plummeting to the ground at the foot of the steps to the castle. She landed in a broken bloody mass, making the Boss and his few remaining henchmen jump back in shock.

  It was over.

  Ben heard the shot and his eyes screwed together. He knew she was right but still, he wasn’t looking forward to the weeks of pain he’d feel at her loss.

  Shoop was on his knees in Jill’s study.

  The sixth sense had spread out the second he’d shot her. It’d had been so concentrated and deadly, like a hurricane in a shoe box but the moment that Jill died the feeling fanned out, covered everything. He could feel every single one of Babarus’ creations. All of them around the world, and some of them under water. He could feel the size of what Babarus had done, the emensity of two thousand years of creating monsters to track down and kill the vessel, most of which could barely think coherently. They were all his brothers and sisters and he hated them.

  The hate wasn’t furious though. It wasn’t out of control. It was just there.

  Shoop reeled in exhaustion. He tried to stand but couldn’t quite make it. Instead he crawled over to the bottle of gin that he’d apparently dropped on the floor and drank it down laying flat on his back.

  Ben sat in a room, too despairing to sob any more. He sat with a furrowed brow staring at the floor eyes leaking, crying until dust appeared.

  Some time later Shoop managed to scrape himself off the floor.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been there, probably only a few minutes but it felt like hours.

  A cold spring wind was whistling in from the broken window and had blown some papers of the desk and strewn them around the room. The breeze tickled Shoop’s skin making him shudder slightly in his exhausted state. The more he came round the more he became aware of how utterly spent he felt. His limbs weighed a ton and his muscles ached from the rattling that had shot through his body. He’d never felt so bushed in his life.

  As he struggled to get to his feet he heard voices outside. It couldn’t make out the words but the mumblings reminded him of the henchmen and the Boss waiting outside for him. He didn’t know if he had the strength to fend them off. He had a gun but what use would that do against the Boss’ failsafe device that disallowed Shoop from doing the bastard any harm.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  He could find a back exit and try and make a run for it, but he knew that he wouldn’t get far. Not in the state he was in.

  He could throw himself out of the window and kill himself before the Boss got a chance to torture him for a number of decades but he was too damn stubborn to stop living without someone else stubbing him out.

  It seemed his only option was to walk out the front door, shoot as many people as he could before he was taken prisoner and hope for the best.

  Not much of a plan but better than lying down and taking the defeat without a fight.

  The Boss was standing over the mangled corpse of the vessel rubbing his hands together with glee and prodding it with his foot.

  ‘We’ve done it… we’ve actually done it! My god I never thought we’d actually get here… actually kill the witch! With any luck she won’t come back. She shouldn’t do, Shoop was designed very well. A normal bullet wouldn’t have made a difference but coming from Mr Winkle… well… we’ll just have to wait and see but wow! We got her! We damn well got her!’

  Just as he was about to do a little jig over the still warm body of the creator of life on earth, one of his henchmen’s face half disappeared as a bullet ripped through it.

  The other men whipped out their guns and returned fire to the castle door where the shot had come from.

  ‘I WANT HIM ALIVE! DO YOU HEAR ME? I WANT THAT LITTLE SHIT ALIVE!’

  Bullets ripped at the front of the building as Shoop calmly took cover and waited for the barrage to stop. When it did, he poked his head out for a split second and picked another man off, this time going for a gut shot as those really hurt.

  Another barrage, then a little pause.

  ‘WINKLE!’ barked the Boss, ‘YOU HAVE NO WAY OUT OF THIS. YOU CANNOT KILL ME. YOU KNOW THIS. STOP PROLONGING THE INEVITABLE AND GET OUT HERE!’

  Shoop coughed, it stabbed through his every muscle.

  ‘If you don’t mind…’ his voice was weak and harsh, ‘I think I’ll spend a little time killing some more of your men before you get to have your way with me.’

  Out popped his head again and another agent dropped to the floor bleeding. Their lesson learned, they dove for cover behind a small wall as they fired redundantly at the front of the castle.

  Shoops head popped out again but there was no shot this time. Their cover was working. One of the men glanced over the wall and lost the top of his head. A small piece of brain slapped the Boss in the face.

  ‘DAMN IT WINKLE! THIS IS A STAND OFF. YOU HAVE NO WHERE TO GO!’

  ‘I’m quite happy to wait here for as long as I’m breathing.’ Said Shoop defiantly through some pained coughing.

  ‘You!’ said the Boss to one of the men behind a wall on the other side of the path, ‘throw a smoke grenade in that door!’

  ‘Yes sir.’ He said, pulling out a grenade and yanking the pin. Understandably reluctant to stand and throw the thing, he took two very deep breaths and went to make his move. Before he could though, his hand was blown off at the wrist.

  ‘What the fu…’ but his words were cut off by another gunshot. The grenade fell to the ground as did two more agents, blood squirting from fresh wounds. It took a moment for
them to realise it but some one was shooting them from behind.

  The grenade went of and chaos moved into the area and set up camp for a while. There were shouts, shots, screams and a lot of smoke. Shoop peaked round the doorway to see what was going on but all he could see was smoke and the occasional shadowy figure.

  Some of the agents emerged from the pandemonium and he picked them off.

  Who the hell was out there, maybe Komodo or Yan had made it out of the battle and come back.

  The bedlam went on for a good two or three minutes and some of the agents managed top escape the smoke and run to safety.

  Then the Boss emerged, coughing into a handkerchief.

  Shoop stepped out of the castle and raised his gun. The Boss saw him and smirked, challenging Shoop to try it.

  He tried to squeeze the trigger but it was like it had suddenly been turned to stone. His desire to kill this pathetic little man was immense. He was convinced that his need to see him dead would override any daft restriction that had been built into him but when push came to shove, he froze.

  The Boss smiled a little wider, staring at Shoop for a moment and then dashed off into the undergrowth.

  ‘FFFUUUUUUUUCCCCK!’ Shoop dropped to his knees screaming and firing his gun in the air.

  When the smoke cleared there were a dozen dead and dying men lying on the ground. Only one man was left standing. He passed through the remaining smog and it took a moment for Shoop to recognise him as the silhouette floated over the bodies. Then it struck him.

  ‘Jesus… Carl? Is that you?’

  ‘Sorry I’m late Boss. Had a few problems getting out of a terrorist organisation.’

  ‘I should bloody well shoot you right now you stupid tosser! You almost screwed the whole thing up in Singapore, what the hell were you thinking? You know how Jack Daniels effects you when off the weed you daft prick!’

  ‘So… no thank you then?’ Said Carl with a slight smirk.

  ‘We’ll call it even shall we?’

  ‘Seems fair.’

  ‘You’re bleeding.’ Said Shoop.

  ‘Yeah, took one in the leg, nothing serious.’

  ‘Shit!’ hissed Shoop.

  ‘I’m fine, really, there’s no need to get emotional.’

  ‘What? No, I mean shit that means neither of us can run after the Boss. He got away through the bushes’

  ‘You saw him?’

  ‘No… a fucking squirrel told me!’

  ‘Why didn’t you shoot him?’

  ‘Long story!’ Shoop slumped onto a step, the fatigue really starting to weigh him down.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be getting out of here.’

  ‘Just give me a minute!’

  ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea. We need to get as far away from here as humanly possible, as soon as humanly possible, here, let me give you a hand.’

  Carl put Shoop’s arm over his shoulder and lifted him up. Shoop groaned from the pain.

  ‘We need to find some more gin!’

  ‘The first chance we get. No problem.’ Said Carl, ‘So… tell me… what did I miss.’

  ‘Where the hell do I start?’

  ‘Let’s start with Singapore.’

  They hobbled off into the twilight as the sun sank down over the baron hills.

  Epilogue

  George and Chunt Walked up to the main gate of the castle. George had spent a long time locked up in his dismal little dungeon in Edinburgh and hadn’t seen or heard of carnage on the level he was seeing for a very long time, if ever.

  Chunt was in shock.

  ‘Oh my sweet Jesus! They’re everwhere! How many do you think there are?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said George, ‘come on, we’re going to have to climb over them.’

  George awkwardly started climbing over the minced corpses of countless Sphere agents, trying desperately not to gag and add to the rancid reek.

  They got through the gate, over the bodies and body parts and, reaching a piece of ground that wasn’t covered in gore, looked back at the butchery. There were arms in trees, ears in bushes hands dangling from branches and intestines dripping of gates and walls. It was the most horrendous site that Chunt had ever witnessed and hoped she’d never have to see anything on par with it for the rest of her life.

  ‘I’m starting to see why Shoop didn’t want us here!’ Said George and took a large swig from a brandy bottle. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in this any more.’ He said and took off the small rubber band that emitted his hard light disguise. Chunt followed suit.

  ‘Hold it right there! Hands in the air and don’t fuckin’ move!’

  A head popped up over the pile of human wreckage, then another and another, all pointing police issue fully automatic weapons straight at them.

  ‘You even breath wrong and I’ll drop you like a one night stand with V.D.!’

  ‘Shit!’ said George.

  THE END… for now.

  The Gallery

  All drawings by Rufus