STRANGER WORLD

by Jack Castle

  Chapter 32

  “Cheeves”

  “That’s more like it.”

  Stepping outside onto the porch, with the sunlight on her face, Sophia instantly felt much better.

  The courtyard in front of the gloomy manor was as dilapidated as the interior, but she was glad to be out of the eerie house just the same. She soon found herself walking past thick gardens overgrown with weeds, dead grass, and ivy.

  Passing an algae-ridden pond, it was easy to imagine some frightening amphibious monster lunging out of the green-slicked waters and snatching her up in its array of multi-toothed jaws before wriggling back into the murky depths. Sophia gave the pond a wide berth, and to calm her already frayed nerves, she joked aloud, “Must be the housekeeper’s day off.” Okay, I’ve never been very good with puns, she thought, and was glad no one had been around to hear her faux pas.

  At the end of the overgrown path Sophia spotted an ornate gate. Halfway there she turned around, although still moving toward the exit, and took another look at the broken-down manor. She could see now that the funeral parlor she had woken up in was only one room of a massive mansion.

  She gave it a crisp salute and said, “Au revoir, creepy house!” and exited the courtyard through the black ornate gates.

  Next to the entrance, mounted on the wall of the gatehouse, was a glass, gold-framed box with a candle inside. As the sun continued to set, and eerie shadows crept along the façade, the candle flickered to life. Huh, must be activated by a sensor or something.

  Beyond the gates a crooked dirt road ran down the hill past a small wooden church. Sophia hiked down it, giving the dilapidated church and spooky graveyard wide berth.

  As she approached the small town on foot, what was immediately apparent was this was no ordinary town. For starters, instead of modern streetlights illuminating a hard pavement, charming vintage street lamps lit a well maintained cobblestone street. And none of the buildings were concrete, but impressive Victorian designs with brick and mortar buildings and finely crafted boardwalks running along both sides of the street.

  Strange.

  It was as though some god-like, omnipotent force had plucked her out of existence, shrunk her down to size, and placed her inside a giant’s model train set. Adding to this outlandish theory was the fact that one of the buildings was a large train depot.

  What is this place?

  The town was unfamiliar. In fact, in all her travels… wait, I travel a lot? I don’t remember. But one thing was certain; she had never seen anything quite like the Victorian village spread out before her.

  Before venturing any further a thought occurred to her, and she admonished herself for not thinking it before. Duh. Use your phone. Reflexively she tapped the implant in her temple to activate it. When the expected holo-display didn’t appear instantly before her eyes she frowned and tapped her temple a second time. And still came up with nothing.

  “J’en ai marre!” she cursed softly, stamping her foot. Either it’s broken or no signal. Wait, how is it I can remember my phone in my temple but not my own name? Shrugging her shoulders, she examined several of the brick buildings more closely and thought, which one to search first?

  The train station would surely be the most logical. And even if it did turn out to be abandoned she still might find a phone, a flashlight, or at least something she could use as a weapon.

  Tirer, I should not have left that knife behind.

  The thought of going back into the room with the old dead woman sent shivers down her spine, so she decided against it. No, best stay out here in the light where mumbling corpses and heavy-breathing suits of armor can’t suddenly spring to life.

  Course plotted and laid in, she headed down the boardwalk toward the train station.

  On the way, off to one side of the cobblestone street was a stock-still frozen horse harnessed to a black carriage with lamps dangling off the driver’s seat. The animal was so lifelike she couldn’t decide if it was real or not until she saw the robotic eye dangling from several metallic cords.

  A robot?

  She marveled at the creation but continued onward to her original destination. That’s when it occurred to her--where are all the people? Spinning around in a slow circle as she continued to walk she noticed the village was not only abandoned, but many of the doors and windows had been boarded up, much like the creepy manor at the top of the hill.

  What happened here?

  She climbed the wooden steps to the train depot. When she reached the top of the stairs she found two wooden boxes leaning against the depot’s main entrance, blocking her path. It took her a moment to realize the pine boxes were actually coffins. She was about to go around them when she realized the coffins didn’t have any lids… and there was a body inside one of them.

  A fresh one.

  And it wasn’t human.

  The corpse inside the upright coffin was dressed in a tattered green-uniform of a house servant, and had more in common with a gargoyle than any human being. He couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, had grayish furry feet, talons for toenails, and his overall appearance was like one of those little demons crawling out of the pit of hell in all those Renaissance paintings in Europe.

  “Yech. What a monstrosity.”

  If this is a movie set, this monster doesn’t exactly go along with the town’s Victorian motif. Then again, who am I to talk, neither does a microbiologist with glasses wearing a lab coat.

  The gargoyle, dressed in an early butler’s uniform, had its arms folded over his considerable girth. His facial features and horns coming out of the top of his head were certainly gargoyle-ish, but unlike most gargoyles his skin wasn’t stone. It was more like an animal’s pelt, or a panther’s fur.

  She began to turn away but when she did, for a moment she could’ve sworn the creature opened his eyes and glanced at her before closing them again.

  Is it possible this creature is alive?

  Summoning her courage, she stretched out a trembling hand toward the gargoyle’s nose. Her hand was mere inches from the creature’s nose when she decided to let sleeping gargoyles lie and pulled back her hand. As soon as she did however, the monster’s yellow, cat-like eyes flashed open and he smiled at her with a wide mouth full of jagged rows of triangle-shaped teeth. Sophia heard herself scream, and her knees buckled.

  The gargoyle lifted his head toward her and said, “Hi there!” in a loud cheerful voice, then abruptly lunged out of the box to snatch her.

  “La vache!” she cried, stumbled backward out of the gargoyle’s reach, and tumbled off the boardwalk.

  She rolled down the short, grassy embankment to the cobblestone street. Raising her bruised cheek from the stones she saw the gargoyle-man leap the rest of the way out of the coffin with a mighty roar.

  Oddly enough, she was pretty sure he said, “Wait, come back, I have balloons!” Then his predator-prey instinct must have kicked in because he released another roar, dropped to his knuckles, and moved toward her like a charging gorilla.

  Sophia let out another cry, rose to her feet, turned around, and ran across the street screaming for help in a mish-mash of French and English at the top of her lungs. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed her worst fear--the gargoyle had leapt from the boardwalk, cleared the grassy knoll, and landed nimbly onto the street.

  Sophia had nearly made it the rest of the way across the street, but she knew she had no hope of outrunning such an agile creature.

  A small bakery lay directly ahead of her and this spurred her running legs on like a hateful jockey. Sophia slammed into the door of the bakery but it was firmly locked. She pounded on the windowpanes with the palms of her hands but no one came to her aide. She turned back toward the street and realized she was cornered.

  Seeing she was trapped, the gargoyle man released a final gleeful roar and leapt into the street in one mighty bound. In three or four strides, knuckles pounding the ground, he was nearly on top of her. Butler-persona discarded, he
leapt into the air, elongated his jaws, and outstretched his claws toward her like a lion about to clamp down onto the neck of a gazelle.

  Sophia knew it was over. Her short lifespan was over. She was finished.

  Chapter 33

  “George, meet Cheeves”

  “Have you ever been here before?”

  Barnaby, who was currently relieving him at the wheel, shook his jowls back at him. George wanted to throttle the man, or maybe scream at him. Didn’t Barnaby realize they were wasting time? Didn’t he understand that every mile they drove away from Maddie was at least twice that, as she got farther away from them? Of course, George knew pummeling Barnaby or yelling at him wouldn’t do anybody a lick of good so he settled for saying, “Keep your eyes open. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find somebody who can help us.”

  The Victorian village reminded him of the small Christmas collection Maddie had started when she was seven. Each year they would buy a different building; the first had been a carousel, the next a small bakery, this year’s model was a post office.

  Barnaby had slowed down considerably the moment the asphalt road had run out and the cobblestone street had begun, under a castle rampart no less. The truck’s tires thump-thump-thumped over the jagged stones, and George noted the antiquated street lamps flickered on as they approached. Must be on a sensor or have something to do with the fading light, he mused. Under normal circumstances, the Victorian village that would’ve been right at home in the English countryside in the late 1890’s might have seemed odd to him, but after everything they had seen thus far this quaint little village was simply par for the course of insanity. George scanned the street ahead of them, and buildings to either side, and mumbled, “Nary a living soul to be had.” They passed a cottage, a candlestick shop, and were fast approaching a large two-story structure with a large wooden sign that read: Wolf’s Den Ale House!

  As George rolled the passenger’s side window down for a moment, he thought he heard someone yelling. Yes. It was definitely someone yelling, no, screaming… for help.

  Then he saw her.

  It was a blond woman wearing a white lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses. She was running from the train depot on the right side of the street and crossing in front of them.

  I know that woman, but from where?

  Barnaby, who had his eyes focused on scanning the buildings to either side, didn’t see the woman stumble into the street in front of the hood until it was too late.

  “Look out!” George cried, grabbing the wheel and giving it a good yank, but he was certain he had acted too late.

  THUMP!

  *************

  Watching the accident unfold from the entrance of the small bakery Sophia saw the driver of the big safari-looking truck lay on his horn as he slammed on the brakes. But he failed to come to a complete halt before sending the gargoyle-man flying.

  The driver, a potbellied man wearing khaki shorts and looking like he had just been on a jungle expedition, leapt out of his truck. In a panic he started yelling to the struck pedestrian, “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,” as though shouting at the dead gargoyle-man might revive him somehow. The driver’s hands trembled and he seemed unsure what to do next. As though sensing he was being watched, he lifted his gaze and stared right at her.

  “Oh thank God. Are you a doctor? I need your help. There’s, uh, been an accident.”

  “Yes, but I’m more of a scientist than a medical doctor.” Sophia felt her face twist as if her own words shocked her. “At least I think I am.”

  “What do we do?” the frightened driver asked her nervously.

  Before she could answer, a third voice, this one more confident sounding, said, “First, check to see if he’s still breathing?” When Sophia located the source she saw a man rounding the truck’s hood and figured he must have been riding in the passenger’s seat. He was athletic, with salt-n-pepper hair, and was holding the palm of his hand to his forehead where he must’ve bumped his head in the crash. Not waiting for potbelly to take action, he knelt down next to the gargoyle-man and put his ear next to the creature’s mouth and listened for breathing.

  Sophia and the frantic driver joined him. “I didn’t think I hit him that hard.”

  Salt-n-pepper gazed up at her and pointed to the gargoyle-man. “What the heck is this? Is he wearing some kind of costume?”

  Potbelly was staring now too, his jaw hanging open wide as he did so. She noted both men had American accents. And for all she knew, they were her captors, and this was merely a clever ploy to gain her trust.

  The man with the potbelly and mustache took in more of the town and asked, “Hey lady, what the heck is this place? Don’t look like no town I ever saw.”

  Sophia shook her head. “I don’t know,” she heard herself say. Palms out like shields, she quickly added, “Look, monsieur, I only woke up here myself a few minutes ago.”

  She tapped her temple. “And my clever-plant is dead, too.”

  Potbelly gave her a funny look, scoffed, and asked, “Clever-plant, what’s that?”

  She tapped her temple again with exaggerated movements. “You know, clever-plant?”

  The athletic man with graying hair asked, “What? You mean like a cell phone?”

  Are you kidding me? A cell phone? How old does he think I am? And who doesn’t know what a clever-plant is?

  Potbelly looked equally confused by his travel companion’s statement. “And what’s a cell phone?”

  Before Sophia could elaborate any further the gargoyle man began to stir.

  “Hey, I think your friend is waking up.”

  Sophia shook her hands in front of her. “No, no, no. Monsieur. This… thing… is no friend of mine. He was chasing me when you hit him with your truck. If you hadn’t, I am quite certain he would’ve killed me.”

  Hearing this, the athletic man with salt-n-pepper hair got off his knees and both men backed away and created some safe distance.

  The gargoyle snorted like he was dreaming and swatted away an imaginary fly. In the time between opening his eyes and leaping to his feet it couldn’t have been more than a nano-second.

  “Hi, I’m Cheeves,” he exclaimed.

  So it can talk, was Sophia’s first thought. I thought I had imagined it before.

  When no one answered him right away he asked, “Do you have any cats?”

  Sophia noticed the gargoyle man--“Cheeves”--spoke with a heavy lisp, spitting profusely as he talked. “I don’t know what you heard, or what you may have been told, but I don’t eat them. Cats, that is.” Sophia noted the way his eyes shifted from side to side as he thought about it. “I mean, I can’t quite elaborate where my cats are right now, but I can assure you, I didn’t eat them.” He drum-rolled his clawed fingers on the breast of his vest. “So do you? Do you have any cats?”

  Salt-n-pepper must have finally realized Cheeves wasn’t some kid wearing a costume and was so taken aback by the creature’s appearance he fumbled for what appeared to be a flare gun in a heavily-used leather holster.

  He pointed it at the strange creature, finger tense on the trigger. “I don’t know what the hell you are…”

  If Cheeves thought he was in danger he certainly didn’t show it. “Is that… Is that a flare gun?” Smile wide, displaying even more sharpened triangle-shaped teeth than before, he took a step closer examining the pistol more closely. “My, I haven’t seen one of those in ages. Does it still work?”

  “Take one more step and you’ll find out,” Salt-n-pepper started to say, but in a feat of blinding speed and gymnastics, Cheeves dropped to the ground, dive-rolled under the man’s aim, and in a blink of an eye disarmed him.

  Everyone took a step back while Cheeves studied the weapon. “Oh, my. Did you know this thing is loaded?” First he pointed the flare gun at Salt-n-pepper, who held his ground. Then he pointed at Potbelly who sorta laughed, cringed, and cried--all at the same time. And then he aimed it at her.

  And fired.
<
br />   “Be careful that’s…” Salt-n-pepper began to say when Cheeves squeezed the trigger. Sophia watched in horror as a flare exploded out of the barrel, streaked past her hair and impacted the wall behind her.

  “Give me that, you idiot!” Salt-n-pepper roared, ripping it from Cheeves’s grasp.

  Meanwhile Cheeves was jumping up and down, clapping wildly. “My goodness, that was delightful! Simply delightful!”

  Salt-n-pepper spoke to him as though scolding a small child. “This isn’t a toy!” Brandishing the pistol at him, “You could have really hurt someone!” He then cracked the pistol open, ejected the spent cartridge, and loaded a fresh one.

  Sophia noted Cheeves’s ears were now lowered like a rebuked dog’s. Sadly he explained, “I was just having a little fun is all.”

  The man with the salt-n-pepper hair was much too angry to speak, and merely bit down on his lip and shook his head. Deciding Cheeves wasn’t any more of a danger, he holstered the weapon.

  As everyone began to settle down, and Potbelly came out from his hiding place behind the truck Sophia asked, “Who are you people?”

  A quizzical expression spread across the gargoyle’s wide face. He scratched his horns brusquely, rolled his eyes, and said, “I’m not a monstrosity, I can tell you that much.”

  Sophia, recalling her earlier comment, chose to stare at the ground, the buildings down the street, anywhere but at the gargoyle’s strange face.

  “No. what I mean to say is, what are you?” potbelly asked.

  The gargoyle man smiled that wide toothy grin of his at each of them in turn. “I already explained all that already. I’m Cheeves.” He scratched one of his horns roughly and then asked, “Do you have any cats?”

  The man with the salt-n-pepper hair stepped forward. “Listen, my daughter was kidnapped and carried off by…”

  “Yes, yes-yes, I know all about that already. Lady Wellington carried your daughter off on her hover barge. That’s old news. Everybody knows. Word tends to get around pretty fast.”