The Demon Vacuum Cleaner

by Jeremy Strong

  Potts jumped down from the cab, grinned and blew a kiss at Tamsin Plank. Then he swaggered up the ladder and seated himself behind the gun. The hushed tones of Miss Plank gave a running commentary.

  ‘And now Potts is taking aim. Will this desperate attempt by one brave man succeed? All our hopes are pinned on the tiny, ginger-bearded man in the big hat as he squares up to a monster twice his size and there it goes! The foam is shooting out at incredible speed! It’s utterly fantastic, there’s foam streaming out like a million million squashed tubes of toothpaste and it’s piling up round the monster! I’ve never seen anything like it. Fatbag has completely disappeared. He’s been blotted out as if he was nothing, absolutely nothing! This is remarkable! The foam has smothered

  everything out there in a huge sticky mountain and Fatbag is somewhere underneath gunged-up to the eyeballs and brought to an absolute stand-still! It’s a miracle. The giant has been slain by the tiny fireman!’

  Tamsin Plank paused for a moment, panting. Then she went on more evenly. ‘Officer Potts is climbing down. He’s raised his hands in victory. What an exciting moment. I’m getting out of the car now and I’m going to be the first reporter on Earth to speak with the hero. That was fantastic! Absolutely amazingly incredible!’

  Potts took off his hat, smoothed his bald head and smirked. ‘No problem,’ he drawled. ‘No problem. My foam gun is just about invincible you know.’

  Even as he spoke the television viewers saw the great foam mountain behind him shudder and heave. A choking rumble boiled up from its very heart. Fatbag’s great metal mouth appeared, waving furiously above his frothing tomb. Lumps of foam began to hurtle outwards in all directions, plastering cars and buildings. A large, solid clod of froth shot off the mountain and cannoned into Potts’ back, sending him staggering into the arms of Tamsin Plank. Then the camera itself was completely blotted out. All that was left from the dark screen was Tamsin Plank’s breakneck commentary.

  ‘Oh my goodness: the foam mountain is coming alive and there’s foam flying off now at all Gurrgh Urrgh! There’s terrible danger but I’m still reporting to viewers everywhere who may remember that just last week I was knocked unconscious by karate expert Wun Foot Hi and still managed to keep up a running report. Oof! There’s foam everywhere and Fatbag is coming straight for us. He’s wrenched the foam gun off the engine and swallowed it whole! Oh goodness, Potts has fainted right in the monster’s path. But Polski has come to the rescue! We’ve

  dragged him to the safety of the police car and we’re inside now with the doors locked. Potts is covered in gungy foam and its staining my dress but I don’t mind! There’s a terrible din outside and Fatbag is going past now, towering above us. Aargh Oof! He’s smashed in the roof and wow ow urrarr he’s spinning us round and round like a wurrrawr oh urgh this is Tamsin ooh I feel sick oh wowo yurr…’

  The voice trailed away into groans. Elsie and Harry stared white-faced at the blank screen,

  listening to the fading roar of the departing Fatbag mingling with the heaving moans of Tamsin Plank.

  After a dazed silence Elsie got up and switched the television off. She stood in front of it, her eyes thoughtful and still.

  Harry shook his head. ‘Terrible, terrible,’ he muttered. ‘And I wonder why Fatbag went down to Ace Electrics?’

  Elsie jerked as if woken from a dream. She regarded her husband brightly. ‘Ace Electrics! Of course! I knew he was up to no good. But what if he succeeds? Oh Harry! We must do something!’ Elsie began to pace the room, thinking rapidly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Harry, quite puzzled.

  ‘Sssh, sssh. I’m trying to think.’ Elsie beat her small fists on top of her head. ‘There is a way, I’m sure of it. What was that film? Castles of Steel? It’s something about the enemy tanks, I’m sure. Tanks and Fatbag, tanks and Fatbag. Think! Think Elsie, before it’s too late!’

  Harry stared dumbfounded as Elsie marched round and round the armchairs hitting herself on the head. He sank onto one of the chairs.

  ‘I think she must be sickening for something,’ he murmured.

  7

  The Pit

  Early the following morning a dark, massive hulk loomed out of the cold mist that clung to the industrial estate. Fatbag coughed and limped along the centre of the road. His grisly snout was pressed against his side; the thick tubing of his throat coiled round his body like a bandage.

  Fatbag wasn’t feeling too good. He had severe stomach ache from eating too quickly. A loud burp rattled round and round his tube until at last it burst out and echoed between the bleak factory buildings. He felt heavy and slow and he decided to have a quiet doze. He needed to be in peak condition when the time came to smash his way into the factory. A short rest and then he’d be ready to rescue his evil comrade, the electric lawn mower. Together they would release the troops and sweep away all human rubbish forever.

  Fatbag growled and leaned up against the fencing that surrounded the Ace Electrics factory. He glanced through the wire at the big concrete building, blew a satisfied grunt down his snout and dozed off into a dream about his victory over the world.

  Chief Constable Durkin smacked the table-top with one hand and winced. ‘I won’t have it!’ he declared. ‘That’s three of our cars Fatbag has destroyed; not to mention crumpling up the foam gun and eating it like a salami sausage!’

  Sergeant Polski rubbed his tired eyes and yawned. He and Thomas had grabbed three hours uncomfortable sleep in the police canteen and now they were back on duty already.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ demanded Durkin wearily. ‘Hasn’t anybody got an idea?’

  Constable Thomas went pink. ‘Um…, sir?’ He fidgeted nervously with a button. ‘I have an idea sir.’

  The chief constable’s eyes narrowed. ‘It was your idea to use the foam gun,’ he pointed out dryly. ‘All right, Thomas. Go on.’

  ‘Suppose we dig a pit? If Fatbag falls in it he’ll be trapped.’

  The chief constable stared silently at the young policeman and wished that he’d had such a brainwave. He rose to his feet. ‘You know, I think it will work!’ He glanced quickly at the town map and stabbed a finger onto a road. ‘A pit, just there – just off the industrial estate.’ He seized a telephone. ‘Get the council workmen out immediately,’ he barked. ‘I want a pit dug. Listen…’

  Durkin quickly outlined his plans and turned back to Polski and Thomas. ‘Now,’ he asked. ‘How do we get Fatbag into the pit?’

  Constable Thomas opened his mouth and then shut it quickly.

  ‘Come on!’ snapped the chief constable. ‘It’s your plan.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ Thomas admitted lamely.

  The chief constable clapped a despairing hand over his eyes.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ started Polski, ‘but I think I may have the answer to that. If we had a nice, pretty female vacuum cleaner we could lure Fatbag anywhere.’

  Durkin gave a grim nod. ‘It’s our last chance, sergeant. But where do we find a female vacuum cleaner? And what do they look like?’

  ‘Well sir, I see it like this: we get a pair of dustbins, knock out their bottoms and join them together. Then we take an old vacuum cleaner tube and stick it on the side…’ Polski waved his hands gracefully in mid-air as he sketched his strange invention. ‘We can even stick a few switches on the lid to make it more attractive, and a bit of cable on the back for a tail…’

  Durkin frowned. ‘How do you get it to move?’

  ‘Oh that’s simple sir. Young Thomas could climb inside the dustbins, stick his feet out of the bottom and just waddle along. He could wave the tube and growl a little…’

  Constable Thomas had turned deathly pale. He sat down heavily and swallowed. ‘You mean,’ he said faintly, ‘that I shall be in the dustbin as a bait for… for… F-F-Fatbag?’

  The chief constable patted Thomas on the back. ‘Don’t worry. This is going to be a full-scale alert. I’m going to call out the riot police. And if you
succeed I’ll put you in the Special Squad.’

  ‘Thank you sir,’ croaked the constable. ‘And if I fail Fatbag will put me in… urgh. I don’t feel very well.’

  Fatbag shifted his weight against the chain-link fence. He felt marvellous. The sun was shining, his stomach had settled and an eager tremble of power surged through his glistening steel frame. He gently snuffled the wire, searching for the weakest point. He stopped beside a tall concrete pillar that supported the fence. This time he was sure of success. He felt invincible.

  Fatbag rolled back a short distance and eyed his target. He tucked his snout behind him and suddenly rammed forwards, bearing down with fierce weight upon the post and fencing. The concrete pillar tilted, cracked and collapsed completely, its steel roots torn from the ground. Fatbag gave a whoop of pleasure.

  His satisfaction was rudely disturbed by a rumbling roar from the far end of the estate. A cavalcade of black vans swept furiously towards him, swerved violently to one side and screeched to a halt. The air was suddenly full of revving engines and piercing whistles. Dark figures tumbled out of the vans and scurried over the road, hastily pulling on heavy helmets and erecting thick plastic shields.

  Fatbag gazed wearily at the frantic figures and released a rumbling sigh. Would these puny animals never stop? Would they never realise that he was almighty? He turned his back on the gathering troops and trundled over the fallen fence. The factory doors were straight ahead, and behind them his own army of destruction.

  A small woman came running frantically down the centre of the road. ‘You’ve got to stop him. Sergeant Polski!’ she cried, grabbing the policeman’s arm. ‘You’ve got to stop him!’

  ‘Mrs Bunce!’ cried Sergeant Polski. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

  ‘Don’t you see? He’s trying to get into the factory. If he gets in he’ll have a whole army of lawn-mowers and egg-whisks and liquidisers and goodness knows what. He’s going to release them and destroy us all! It will be even worse than the Hideous Vagon from Planet X. You must stop him!’

  As the dreadful truth finally dawned upon Polski a weird figure edged out from behind a truck. Elsie screeched and grabbed the sergeant.

  ‘There’s another one!’ she squealed. ‘Behind you!’

  Polski whirled round. There was Constable Thomas. He stood nervously clutching a tatty tube in one hand and his decorated lid in the other. Polski leaped at him.

  ‘Get that lid on and move! You heard what Mrs Bunce said. You must stop Fatbag before he gets in! We’re depending on you, Thomas!’ The sergeant banged the lid down on Thomas’ head and pushed him across the broken fencing.

  ‘Go on!’ he ordered ‘Wave your snout! Growl a bit!’

  Constable Thomas picked up his tube and gave a feeble wave.

  ‘Grrr,’ he said, with a sickening feeling of doom.

  Fatbag had just reached the door. He stopped short and turned slowly to gaze with surprised delight at the unhappy object that was stumbling towards him. Fatbag didn’t see a female vacuum cleaner. He saw a grand recruit for his army. It was wonderful! With a bit of feeding-up it would be as strong as Fatbag himself. He might even make it a general!

  Fatbag trumpeted a joyful welcome and hurried forward to greet the new machine.

  This was too much for Constable Thomas. He gulped and went into a fast retreat. A cold sweat broke out as he saw the towering hulk bearing down upon him. His legs felt like unset jellies.

  ‘Get out of the way!’ he screamed frantically at the solid line of riot police just beyond the fence. Seeing the giant Fatbag thundering towards them, the crowded troops jumped to their feet and scattered in all directions, cannoning into one another and falling in confused heaps all over the road. Whistles blew, shouts and screams rose to a crescendo and above it all the stern voice of Chief Constable Durkin boomed through a loud-hailer.

  ‘Fatbag, give yourself up! You can’t escape! Lay down your snout and give yourself up!’

  Constable Thomas and Fatbag charged through them all. There was a loud bang and a tear-gas canister whizzed through the air and exploded outside the factory. The riot police

  took this as a signal to launch an attack and they struggled to their feet, poured through the gap in the fence and charged towards the harmless building. More gas canisters curved gracefully through the air and burst just in front of them. A moment later, the brave troops disappeared in a frenzy of smoke and tears. They began to attack and arrest each other: each one certain that he had caught the enemy.

  In quite the opposite direction went Sergeant Polski and Elsie, dashing for the other side of the pit. Some distance behind came a panting Constable Thomas, closely pursued by Fatbag still blasting a thousand welcomes down his snout. He couldn’t understand it. Why was the little creature running from him? Was it some kind of game? Fatbag’s castors hummed furiously and he surged forward.

  Constable Thomas staggered on. His shins banged against the sharp edge of the bin and his head felt as if it would explode. His eyes stung with so much sweat that he could barely see. At last he glimpsed the pit ahead. Fatbag’s hot slurps were licking at his heels, and he felt the puzzled beast tugging on his little tail.

  ‘Come on Thomas!’ roared Polski from the far side of the pit.

  ‘Run!’ shrieked Elsie.

  The exhausted constable put on a spurt. Suddenly his feet tripped over each other and in an instant he was on his side, turning over and over, spinning and glittering in the morning sun, his feet waving from one end and his tube and tail flying round like gay streamers. His lid zoomed off as he hit the kerb and the rest of the contraption, with Thomas still inside, bounced in the air and hurtled into the stomach of Sergeant Polski. The sergeant staggered back onto Elsie and all three fell together: dazed, dizzy and breathless.

  A hideous explosion of noise erupted at their feet and great clouds of dust shot high into the sky. Polski, Thomas and Elsie clung to each other as the road heaved and shook beneath them. But they were grinning and laughing. Tears of relief streamed down the face of young Thomas.

  ‘He’s in the pit!’ he yelled. ‘Fatbag’s in the pit!’

  8

  Fatbag’s Finale

  Chief Constable Durkin hurried up to the pit with two hundred riot police clattering behind him, most of them handcuffed to each other. In a moment the pit was surrounded. Durkin stared down at the raging vacuum cleaner and beamed.

  ‘That’ll teach you!’ he cried. A furious snarl rose from the pit and the chief constable’s cap disappeared down Fatbag’s throat. His snout banged and snuffled all round the edge of the pit.

  It was as far as he could reach. He was sitting on top of most of his tubing and could hardly move.

  Sergeant Polski was on his feet and helping Thomas out of the battered dustbins. ‘What shall we do now, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Well sergeant, I think we’ll get a lorry-load of cement and pour it on top of him. That should finish the job, don’t you think?’

  Polski frowned. ‘Fatbag will just blow it all back sir.’

  ‘Cement isn’t like foam, Polski. It’s heavier you know. Of course it will work, won’t it, Mrs Bunce?’

  Elsie gravely shook her head. ‘It’s too obvious. Fatbag will see it coming. We must use something he wouldn’t normally notice. You remember how they stopped the Hideous Vagon with soap. The Vagon didn’t expect that you see.’

  The chief constable sighed. ‘That was a film, Mrs Bunce. Fatbag isn’t in a film, he’s in a pit. We can’t throw soap at him.’

  ‘I know that!’ Elsie was rapidly losing patience with the chief constable. ‘Oh, I wish I could remember what happened in that film – Castles of Steel. It was something about tanks… I’ve got it!’ she suddenly shouted. ‘I remember! I know what to do!’ Elsie placed an anxious hand on the chief constable’s sleeve. ‘Please don’t use the cement,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll be back as soon as possible.’ So saying she turned, ran up the road and disappeared round the corner.

  The pu
zzled policemen stared after her. Durkin shrugged. ‘I haven’t any idea what she was on about, but never mind. Let’s get that cement brought in.’

  Half an hour later, a large cement lorry backed noisily towards the pit, its slowly revolving drum mixing a thick, oozey concrete porridge. Fatbag, sensing the attack about to be made, banged angrily against the walls, sending bursts of dust puffing into the air. The lorry reached the lip of the pit and began to tip its load. Cement poured out of the mixer and slopped down into the gaping hole.

  An appalling sound of choking, swallowing and gulping rose from the depths as cement gurgled and swirled over the giant vacuum cleaner. It dribbled out of the drum in an endless, jellified mass. A last strangled slurp hiccuped from the pit. Then all that could be heard was the steady slither of cold cement as it slowly buried the silent monster.

  Chief Constable Durkin looked across at Polski and Thomas.

  ‘I told you it would work,’ he said with curt satisfaction, just as a tremendous blast of hot wind flung everybody to the ground. Windows shattered and fell from their frames. Tiles skidded off roofs and smashed on the road.

  Fatbag blew and blew. Slowly at first he cleared himself of cement. Blobs began to spatter the air, then larger lumps followed, until a steady spout of cement gushed from the pit like a fossilised fountain.

  In one minute Fatbag rid himself of a ton of cement. It was no longer in his pit. It covered cars and trees and shops. It covered the riot police and Polski and Thomas. It covered Chief Constable Durkin. A concrete silence weighed down upon the little street.

  Sergeant Polski flicked a piece of cement from one eye and regarded the chief constable, half-stuck to the road.

  ‘I told you he’d blow it back,’ he muttered, and began to scrape cement from his uniform.

  As soon as Elsie reached home she ransacked the kitchen, gathering tubs of this and tubs of that and throwing them into a bag.