Bentwhistle the Dragon in A Threat from the Past

by Paul Cude

  * * *

  Turning the key in the front door, Peter walked dejectedly through the hall and into the living room. Slumping down on the sofa, he felt more than a little sorry for himself. He couldn't even remember driving home. Oh, he knew that he'd done it, he was here of course, but he couldn't remember any of the details. It had all been done on autopilot. Holding his head in his hands, he wondered solemnly just where it had all gone so wrong. He'd lost his job, blown the chance to save Garrett and restore Cropptech to its former glory, and wasted Gee Tee's rare and valuable antidote.

  'At least things can't get any worse,' he thought.

  After a few minutes, it might even have been half an hour, as time seemed to have lost significance, he turned on the television, choosing to watch the sports news, hoping to take his mind off things. It didn't work though. Unhappiness and the lack of a decent night's sleep the previous night seemed to both hit at the same time, like a giant bulldozer on a building site. Before he knew it, he'd fallen asleep, television still blaring in the background, grey, dreary daylight shining in through the windows.

  Much later, he awoke in a room lit only by images from the television. It took him a few seconds to clear his head.

  'Oh pants,' he thought. 'It wasn't just a dream after all.'

  With the muscles in his neck and back sending waves of pain up and down his spine, he sat up. Falling asleep on the sofa wasn't the best way to catch up on sleep, he reflected, forcing his body to get up and turn the lights on. Pulling the curtains shut, the day's events came flooding back to him in a moment of crystal clear clarity. Shuffling into the kitchen, all the while rubbing his sore back, he closed the blinds and tried hard to ignore the grumbling noises his stomach was making. How could he eat at a time like this? But of course, he was deep down... a dragon. And that is one of their specialities, no matter what the circumstances.

  With the events at Cropptech stuck in his head like pins in a pin cushion, he suddenly wondered why he hadn't heard from Richie. She was, after all, bound to have heard what happened even if she hadn't witnessed it firsthand. Odd! Then it dawned on him.

  'Crap! I've left my jacket there. It's got my phone and the alea in it. Oh this is so bad.' No wonder he hadn't heard from Richie. She almost certainly would have tried to contact him on his mobile.

  Returning to the living room, instead of sitting down he paced around the coffee table wondering what to do. He could of course ask Richie to get it for him, but she might get into trouble or worse, with Manson on the loose. He could just phone up and ask for it to be left at the gatehouse for him to pick up, but that would draw attention to it, something he desperately wanted to try and avoid given that the alea was in the jacket pocket.

  'I could always go back there myself,' he mused. 'Yes, that would be incredibly bright after today's events.'

  Sitting down, he leant forward, theatrically banging his head on the coffee table for effect. After a few seconds of intense pain and nothing becoming clearer, he sat up and thought,

  'I really need to clear my head before I decide what to do next. Hmmm... time for something to eat methinks.'

  With that he perused the takeaway menu, before phoning up his favourite Indian restaurant and ordering some food. He loved Indian food, something he had developed a taste for long before taking up hockey, with it now having become so much more than that ever since. Nearly every other Saturday, one group or other from the sports club could be found heading for the local Indian restaurant for a curry. He'd ended up tagging along on more than one occasion and had found the experience... well, memorable for more than a few reasons. The witty banter and drunken antics had opened his eyes quite a lot the first few times. Although he was over fifty years old, most of that time had been spent well below ground, hence in many ways he was still relatively naive when it came to many of the social aspects of human culture. He did, however, really enjoy the post sport curry. He'd never really gotten into going around all the pubs and clubs just drinking until you passed out. That, to him, seemed a complete waste of time. But there was just something about sitting down and having a meal with your friends, no matter how intoxicated they were, that just really appealed to him. The last time he'd got dragged along for a curry, he'd been surprised to see Tank and Richie there, when entering with his teammates. Tank was there with his rugby team, and Richie, having nothing better to do, had got in on the action, which was something that happened on quite a regular basis, he'd subsequently found out.

  That night had turned out to be one of the most memorable of his relatively (in dragon terms) short life. Hockey and rugby lads, plus Richie, had all joined tables, spending the entire night swapping drunken anecdotes and playing silly drinking games, much to the bemusement of the staff and other clientele. What made it really special though was the fact that he'd shared it with his two best friends.

  Anyway, every couple of months or so he would treat himself to a takeaway, hence the menu. Forty minutes later the steaming hot food arrived, and after having paid, he wandered into the kitchen, inhaling deep breaths of the delicious smelling cuisine that he carried.

  Unlike most, he found that his preferred options from the menu were usually those dishes without very much sauce, in particular, anything with Tandoori in the description. Having ordered chicken tikka, onion bhajis, keema naan with poppadoms and onion salad, he had to use two plates for the enormous feast. The next hour or so was spent chomping away in front of the repetitive sports news.

  Some time much later he sat, bloated, on the sofa, full to the brim with delicious Indian food, contemplating what he should do next. He started to wonder how someone else in his position would handle things. With hindsight, he felt as though he'd been a bit of a pushover. He'd never really confronted Manson when maybe he should have. Perhaps Manson was just another school bully who needed to be met head-on, or to have his bluff called. Anyway, it was too late for that now. But just maybe it wasn't too late to stop being a pushover. Turning off the lights in the living room, he silently berated himself for not having done the washing up, vowing to himself that he would no longer be that pushover. And with that thought roaming around the empty space between his ears, he went to bed, hoping that a solution would present itself in the clear light of morning.

  Waking up early, just after six, amazingly he felt bright, awake and full of energy, instead of the normal, sleepy, grumpy and reluctant to get up. Perhaps subconsciously his body knew it was November 5th because for weeks he'd been looking forward to going to the fireworks display at the sports club with Tank and Richie, despite the ongoing worries about Manson. Shooting downstairs, he switched on all the lights, deciding to keep the curtains closed in an attempt to ignore the cold and dark outside. Cleaning up all the mess from the night before, his thoughts turned to the Cropptech situation. He hadn't woken up with a solution buzzing around his brain, but things did seem a little clearer. He no longer felt the pressure and loneliness that had seemed to consume him up to and including yesterday. Up until now, he hadn't even realised that it had been affecting him so much. Only now could he see things clearly. He also felt renewed, invigorated and full of self confidence. His decision last night to no longer be pushed round must have had some deep down psychological effect.

  Halfway through cleaning the plates, the weather forecast appeared on the television, so he stopped and watched, wanting to know if the hockey or the fireworks display were going to be affected. After a minute or so it became clear the weather man was stringing it out, with a ground frost the only thing to report, rain sleet or snow nowhere near a possibility for at least the next few days. 'Good news for the fireworks display' he thought, cheerily, continuing to tidy up.

  Focusing his mind on what to do about losing his job and getting his jacket, phone and alea back, he was more than a little aware that he was supposed to be playing hockey and then meeting up with his friends. Buried at the back of his mind was a thought about contacting Councillor Rosebloom, to let him know
what had happened, but that was something he wished to avoid like the plague for as long as dragonly possible.

  By the time he'd finished breakfast, he'd decided what to do. He knew that if the right people were manning the security gate this morning, then getting his jacket back from his office, or ex-office now, would be relatively straight forward. Unfortunately it would be very difficult to find out who would be working without actually going there. So, he'd decided that his best course of action would be to drive his car to the nearby housing estate and then, in his running gear, go for a run along the main road that passes Cropptech's main entrance. If he wore a hooded top, nobody would know that it was him, and hopefully he would be able to get a good look at who was on gate duty.

  Satisfied he was doing the right thing, he downloaded today's Daily Telepath, carefully reading all the stories on the front page:

  Half an hour later he changed into his running gear, making sure to choose his hooded top. His new found confidence raging through him, he bounded out to his car, dressed to run. Driving to the housing estate that backed onto the Cropptech site, for the first time he could remember, he felt... carefree and happy.

  Parking in one of the estate's small car parks and making sure not to leave anything valuable in plain sight, he pulled on his hooded top, did a few calf stretches for effect and then set off towards the main road at a light jog. A couple of minutes later he found himself running alongside the road on a narrow strip of tarmac, grass and weeds on either side of him, most nearly coming up to his knees.

  'Hmmm,' he reflected, 'only a madman would choose this route for a run. Oh well, with any luck nobody will know it's me and I can retrieve my jacket and be back in the car in quarter of an hour.’

  Focused desperately hard on the tarmac in front of him, convinced that if he lost concentration for even a moment it would mean a twisted ankle or worse, something he most certainly could do without, the long curve in front of him opened out to reveal the turning into Cropptech in the distance. Twenty five yards further up that turning, the daunting red and white barrier that he'd associated with a peaceful work environment up until yesterday's cataclysmic meltdown, sat firmly in its down position, directly in front of the security gatehouse building. Glancing down at his watch, he pretended to be an ordinary runner, concerned with their time. As he got closer and closer, one thought in his head stood out above all others.

  'Odd! Nobody manning the gate on the outside and although I can't be totally sure, it doesn't look as though there's anyone on the inside either.'

  His pulse was racing, and it wasn't anything to do with the running that he'd done. Standing about on the corner of the turning, twenty five yards or so away, his face masked by his hooded top, he pretended to catch his breath and stretch out the muscles in his calf. Like a beautiful Italian fountain, his mind was overflowing, not with water but questions, ones that he could find no answers for.

  'It could be a trap,' he thought, 'but nobody knows I'm here. Why would the gatehouse be left unmanned? In all my time, I've never known that to happen, even if there's an emergency in another part of the facility, it should still under no circumstances be left unattended.'

  His new found confidence wavering just a little, he thought back to last night and his vow not to be a pushover anymore. So straightening up, he walked briskly towards the open window of the gatehouse, adjacent to the security barrier. After a fleeting look to check that nobody was about, he stood on tiptoes and peeked through the open window. Able to see most of the open plan office, it looked as though nobody was there, but that didn't mean it was totally deserted. Someone could be in either of the toilets or the storage bay right at the back, all of which he couldn't currently see. As a shudder raced up the invisible tail that he always felt he had, he could only think that it was... very odd! Still worried that it might be a trap, but not really seeing how, he opened the white double glazed door and stepped inside. Looking past the water cooler and the hefty photocopier, the corridor was decidedly empty.

  "HELLO!" he shouted. "Is there anyone there?"

  No response. He did exactly the same thing again, with no reply. Cautiously, he edged his way down the corridor, pausing at the two toilet cubicles to check inside. They were both empty. Continuing up the corridor until it widened out into the office, it was clear there was nobody about. Odder than that though, was the fact that none of the office equipment was switched on. Computer screens were blank, printers silent, with the in tray beneath the fax machine full to overflowing with faxes that needed to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. Walking across to a secure metal door on the far side of the office, he stopped in front of it and once again knocked.

  "Anyone there?"

  Still no reply. Gingerly, he turned the handle, knowing that there was no way on earth that it would be unlocked. Much to his surprise... it opened. This in itself was enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. This door was always kept locked. Always! Something was desperately wrong here. He had no idea what it was, or what to do next. Walking into the security bay, he inspected the bank of lockers that stood like soldiers at attention down one side of the room. Uniforms, handcuffs and truncheons all lay scattered on the cushioned benches that ran down the other side. The whole place was like a ghost town. What should he do?

  Exiting the storage bay, he decided to head on over to the main building to see if anyone was over there. Providing there was, he could let them know about the situation here even, he supposed, if it meant revealing his identity to them.

  'The security of this site is more important than any one person,' he mused, as he started back up the corridor towards the double glazed doors. Just then, through the open window, he heard a large vehicle pull up outside the gatehouse.

  'Great,' he thought. 'Just how am I going to explain this away?'

  Through the window, Peter heard the vehicle switch off its engine. Prepared to go and meet the driver with a view to explaining the situation, suddenly he heard voices from outside. Instantly his blood, which in his true form was green, abruptly ran cold.

  'Oh please no. Anything but this,' he thought, panic surging through his body, every last shred of confidence shattered like a mirror. It was MANSON!

  Caught halfway along the corridor he froze, paralysed by fear, not knowing what to do, only able to listen to the voices coming from outside.

  "You're late!" barked Manson.

  "Only a few minutes," came the disinterested reply.

  "I don't pay you the kind of money you're earning to be late," threatened Manson, with an edge like a razor to his voice.

  "Lighten up will ya?"

  "I'll lighten up when our business is concluded. I strongly suggest you concentrate on what it is that I'm paying you for, or not only will I see that you don't get the remaining fifty percent of your payment, but I will quite literally light a fire beneath your arse," spat Manson, leaving no one in any doubt about how he felt.

  "Okay, okay... no need to get all silly about things. We'll just do what you say. No problem."

  "Make sure you do," demanded Manson, with more venom than most deadly snakes.

  "I'll raise the barrier. Take the trucks round to the loading bay. I want everything to run like clockwork from now on. Just think, in a matter of hours, you'll have been paid, and I'll be long gone.”

  Footsteps with a slight limp outside on the concrete, headed his way.

  Stuck halfway down the corridor with few options, Peter slid into the nearest toilet, letting the door close gently behind him. As he did so, he heard the unmistakable sound of the double glazed doors opening up.

  Cornered in the tiny toilet, he racked his brains for anything that would help his current situation. In a flash of brilliance like none he'd ever known before, it came to him. Silently, he put down the lid on the toilet itself and clambered on top of it. Reaching up, he slid one of the polystyrene ceiling tiles out of position. Through the gap where the tile had been, as he'd suspected, ran a series o
f thick pipes. Knowing that time was of the essence and that almost certainly he only had one shot, he closed his eyes, bent his knees, and with just a hint of extra dragon power, launched himself upwards through the hole, towards the pipes. Grabbing the largest with both hands, ignoring the searing heat, he swiftly pulled himself up so that he was crouching on a series of much smaller pipes. Leaning over as far as he dared, he pushed the polystyrene ceiling tile back into place. Just as it fell perfectly back, he caught a glimpse through the tiny, diminishing gap of somebody opening the door from the corridor. He remained totally still in the pitch black hidey hole that he found himself in.

  'Whoever it is, they're still there,' he thought, as sweat poured down his back and neck, while he tried to remain silent.

  Abruptly, a voice echoed down the corridor.

  "What's the hold up? You alright in there?"

  The toilet door swung closed. Peter could hear Manson on the other side of it.

  "No hold up. Just checking the place is totally empty," he told the impatient truck driver. "I'm raising the barrier now."

  From his hidden position in the ceiling, he could just make out the sound of two trucks starting their engines and then carefully moving off. A minute or so after that, he heard the outside door open once again and then close. He hoped with all his heart that Manson had now left the gatehouse, but having been deceived before, he was in no hurry to get down from where he was, just in case. As he remained precariously crouched on the pipework, a small smile crossed his face, despite his rather dire predicament.

  He knew about the pipes running above the tiles in the toilets because of an incident that happened shortly after he joined Cropptech. To this day, he remembered it quite vividly. At the time, it was the talk of the security department. One of the most popular guards was on a nightshift during the week. He was renowned for his pranks and good natured practical jokes. With nearly all the security staff having a decent sense of humour, the guard in question found himself to be quite popular, people generally appreciating the stuff that he got up to. On this particular night in question, the prank playing guard found himself on duty with a colleague he'd worked with for years, and a trainee that had only started with the company two weeks earlier. As the night wore on, the prank playing guard plied his longstanding colleague with as much tea and coffee as he could. Just when his colleague was bursting to use the toilet, the prankster disappeared, supposedly to do his rounds. What he actually did was dive into the men's toilet, and do exactly what Peter had done. He removed the polystyrene ceiling tiles and hid above the toilet cubicle, waiting to surprise his friend. He knew it was only a matter of time before his friend would need the loo, so he waited patiently in his concealed spot. As it turned out, he didn't have very long to wait at all. Barely a few minutes later, the toilet door opened and somebody entered. As the cubicle door closed and the lock slid shut, the prankster could barely contain his laughter at the thought of the surprise he was about to dish out. Hearing his friend below start his ablutions, the prankster slid back the tile, and in his loudest voice shouted "BOO!" The shock couldn't have been greater for both of them. It wasn't his friend that jumped up in fright, but the timid trainee. He had, quite literally, .... himself, a fact that everybody found amazingly funny when recounting the tale, some days later. Unfortunately for the prankster guard, the trainee had absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever, and despite many, many apologies about what had happened, he ended up leaving Cropptech shortly after, but not before making sure he got some compensation for his trouble. This in turn led to a company policy of no pranks, something rumoured to have displeased Al Garrett greatly, although he'd had little choice in the matter. After that, the prankster guard was never quite the same, and he left some months later to take up a new post at another company.

  Crouching in the dark in that exact same spot, he found it hard not to laugh at the thought of the poor trainee being surprised.

  'Just a shame that it couldn't be marketed as a laxative,' he thought, grinning.

  The dim night light on his watch told him that nearly an hour had passed, as he crouched for all he was worth on top of the array of pipes. Having been there so long, despite his dragon abilities he'd started to get cramp in his legs, something he couldn't use his magic to cure, which was proving to be particularly difficult in such a tight space.

  Most young dragons naively believe that when they assume human form, they will be immune to such simple things as cramp, nose bleeds, headaches and dubious bowel movements, but it just isn't so. To create the kind of form that will withstand time and everything the human world has to throw at it, dragons have to manipulate their DNA to such an extreme that it is very difficult on first inspection to detect that they are anything other than human. Only a very experienced surgeon or a series of vastly complicated blood tests would confirm that the subject is something other than a human being, and even then, it would offer no clue as to what they actually were. Some dragons have been known to manipulate their DNA to fool all known blood tests, actually appearing one hundred percent human. Amazing really. So although Peter was struggling with cramp, it wasn't the first time, and he was pretty sure it wouldn't be the last.

  'Hmmmm,' he wondered as the muscles in his legs convulsed with pain once again, 'whatever's waiting for me, whether a trap by Manson or an empty building, now's the time to find out.' Carefully sliding the ceiling tile back to reveal the cubicle below, he swung both legs over, ignoring the blistering pain, and jumped down onto the toilet itself, trying to make as little noise as possible, all the time expecting a dozen armed guards to burst through the door and do their worst. Needless to say that didn't happen, and after a few minutes of stretching, he felt much more confident about getting out in one piece.

  Cautiously, he opened the door into the corridor. A wave of relief swept over him as he saw that it was deserted. His first instinct was to bolt for the door, and then run back to his car to get help. But what kind of help would he get? If he called the police, what would he tell them? That he was trespassing on private property and had seen the head of security letting two lorries into the site.

  'Oh yes... very suspicious,' he thought sarcastically. He couldn't go to the authorities, he couldn't go to Garrett, and even if he knew exactly who to turn to in the dragon world, the chances were that Manson would be long gone by the time help arrived. What really didn't help matters in Peter's mind, was the fact that nobody knew where he was, and without his mobile phone he couldn't even call Tank and Richie to let them know what was going on, not that they'd necessarily believe him anyway. So for all intents and purposes, he was well and truly on his own. As he strolled back to the open plan offices in the hope of finding some security monitors that worked, he reflected on everything that had happened, coming to only one conclusion.

  'If it means being on my own to take Manson down... then so be it.'

  After two or three minutes of rooting around, it became clear that all the monitors had been sabotaged. Trying everything he knew and more, ten minutes later, he'd managed to get one meagre camera, showing different views of all the car parks, back online. He watched carefully, not noticing anything out of the ordinary at first, but by the third rotation, it became apparent that something was going on at the distribution depot. Fork lift trucks were whizzing around, on a Saturday when the entire thing should have been locked up tight. On top of that, the whole area was littered with Manson's guards... the ones with the machine guns. Things had just got a lot more serious.

  Heading back into the security bay at the back of the building, he picked up two pairs of handcuffs and a truncheon as well, just about all he could carry given he was still in his running kit. Not that it would do much good against a machine gun of course, but it was better than nothing at all.

  Back in the open plan office, he stopped at the nearest desk, lifted the phone's handset and depressed the button for an outside line. Just as he suspected, there was no dial tone, just a long constant buzz
.

  'Oh well, figured as much,' he thought. 'Worth a try though. At least Richie and Tank would have known where I was.'

  Strolling out of the gatehouse, heading for the entrance to the main building, the chilly November air battered his surprisingly underdressed body as he carefully circumvented each and every security camera, just in case someone somewhere was watching. It was unlikely given that the monitors in the gate house had been sabotaged, but not entirely out of the question. With the main doors firmly secured, he stealthily skirted the building looking for another way in, but was thwarted at every attempt. Everything had been locked down tight. In his wildest imagination he couldn't see how to get in, other than to transform into his natural shape and walk through a wall. It hadn't quite come to that yet, but he would bear it in mind for later on.

  It had been worth a try to get into the main building, if only to get his phone and alea back, but with his options running out, he had little choice but to head for the distribution depot. Deciding on the long way round, hoping that the cameras and guards would be fewer and further between, he set off, using anything he could for cover, in an attempt to avoid confrontation wherever possible.

  Avoiding the car park cameras proved more of a challenge than Peter would ever have thought, but thanks to some creative diving over ornamental hedgerows and a very long crawl beneath a series of portacabins, it wasn't long before he found himself concealed by an overhanging tree, overlooking the back of the distribution depot. The much smaller car park at the back of the depot was all but deserted, except for an unmarked, white van, its tailgate hanging down. The trucks he'd seen on the monitors were no doubt still around the front of the depot, the fork lifts continuing to load up. Deciding to wait and see if anyone was actually in the back of the van or whether it was being loaded up regularly like the trucks at the front, he knew he was going to have to cross the expansive car park in order to gain entrance to the back of the depot. If anyone at all was about, they would spot him immediately.

  Waiting just over ten minutes before deciding it was clear, starting out at a sprint, he hoped his luck held. Zipping across the car park, he stopped at the side of the van, putting it between him and the back entrance. Breathing quietly, he listened carefully for any noises coming from inside the van, but it was totally quiet. Gingerly, he slipped along the side until he stood right next to the lowered tailgate. Very slowly he peeked around the corner and peered into the back of the van. Lying inside was a massive leather... what could only be described as a harness. It looked as though it had been insulated against the cold, like a giant parka coat. Attached to the harness on either side, all folded up, were two gigantic nets. Instead of being made of rope, they appeared to be constructed of pliable metal. It was astonishing. Most astonishing though was the size. It was undeniably colossal.

  'What the hell could carry a harness like that?' he thought, his brain a muddied mess.

  His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by two figures from his past appearing from the other side of the van.

  "Well... look who it isn't."

  His stomach felt like he'd just jumped off the Empire state building and was currently in freefall. Temperature threatening to spiral out of control, his head felt like it was spinning faster than a fart in a hurricane. There, not three feet away, were two of the bullies from his nursery ring: Theobald and Fisher.

  "So Benty, what would you be doing here on this cold, winter's day?" asked Theobald.

  Trying desperately to focus his mind, he wondered what he was going to tell them. Would they even believe him? Had some help arrived, even if it was in this most unusual of forms? He felt so confused, so very light headed. He had to get them to help him; it was his only chance of bringing Manson to justice.

  Turning towards the two of them, opening his arms wide in a show of friendship, he tried to appeal to their better nature.

  "Guys, I know we've had our differences. But we really need to put them aside for the moment. There's something much more important going on here," he pleaded.

  Theobald and Fisher frowned simultaneously.

  "Such as?" prompted Fisher.

  Putting his arm around the shoulders of them both, something that repulsed him deep down inside, he drew them back out of sight of the depot. Pulling them in close, he lowered his voice to a whisper.

  "Something really bad is going on here. I'm not exactly sure what, and what I do know would take too long to explain, but I really need your help, both of you."

  Fisher and Theobald both looked at each other, the same confused expression masking their faces.

  "This is really, really big guys," continued Peter. "I'm sure the dragon Council will be very grateful for your help. VERY grateful," he added, hoping to appeal to their selfishness, knowing that if they helped him and thwarted whatever it was that Manson was up to, the Council would almost certainly reward their efforts in some way, shape or form. At this point, he was even willing to give them his share of anything that might come their way.

  "Tttthhhheeee... the Council know you're here?" stammered Fisher nervously.

  "Oh no," replied Peter without thinking, "nobody knows I'm here. All I was saying is that once the Council find out how much you've helped me with this, I'm sure they'll reward you both."

  As he'd been speaking a strange, menacing look had formed on Theobald's face. Just a split second too late, he realised what he'd just told them. That nobody knew he was here, especially anyone from the dragon Council. Stepping back from the two of them, convinced he'd just made one of the biggest mistakes of his relatively short life, Theobald and Fisher stood and glared with evil intent. Preparing to turn and run for his life, without warning a sharp pain exploded on one side of his head and, as he started to fall to the ground, his last sight was the image of Theobald and Fisher both laughing, before darkness consumed him.