The Unexpected Occurrence of Thaddeus Hobble

by Gareth Wiles

Peter nodded.

  * * *

  ‘You come here to warn me about Aubrey, yet fail to deliver the name of my wife’s slayer?’ Hobble flounced as Peter and Molly stood in his doorway. ‘I am both perplexed and intrigued, and remain ill at ease as a brutal beheader remains at large.’ His eyes flitted back and to into the distance above their heads. He stood aside and beckoned them inside. There, at the foot of the grand staircase, stood Willemina with her back to the guests. Her silence seemed deafening to Peter, and her stillness like a mountain top crashing into a valley below. He could not understand this piercing siren and had no time to dwell on her further as Hobble swept them into a side room.

  Before he knew it, Peter found himself slouched in a ruby red chair with a glass of wine in his hand. ‘Tis the finest wine to ever pass my lips – do you feel honoured to be given it freely?’ Hobble questioned, hovering over him.

  ‘Nothing is ever free,’ Peter pondered under his breath, taking a sip. It did taste pleasant enough but nothing special. His eyes slid across the room to where Molly was seated. Hobble was suddenly now next to her – Peter had not seen him move. He poured the liquid into her glass and turned to smile at Peter.

  ‘You think me a foolish man to trust in Darren Aubrey?’

  ‘He is a wicked man, bent on wrongdoing of the highest order,’ Molly answered, before Peter could even open his lips.

  ‘Yet you say he is not the murderer?’ Hobble again asked Peter, a brief flicker in his eyes directed down at Molly. Peter cleared his throat, sitting up somewhat. ‘One is of course overjoyed at your warning of the aforementioned rat,’ Hobble carried on just as his male guest tried to speak. He slowly slinked across the room to Peter, undoing his red velvet waistcoat. Out flopped a coin purse on a string and the seated one watched as it dangled in front of him. ‘Your reward.’

  ‘That is of no use to me,’ Peter responded, his hand instinctively stretching out to take it. In an instant the sight of his own outstretched hand became blurred. ‘Give it to the girl.’

  ‘I fully intend to,’ was Hobble’s reply as he pocketed the purse and smiled.

  Peter saw the glass slip out of his own hand as his entire body went numb. His heavy eyes looked at Hobble – he’d given his guests a drink, but hadn’t had one himself.

  * * *

  ‘Your jottings fascinate me,’ Hobble uttered as Peter lifted his head up. At first he saw the older man flicking through his notebook, then behind him some ghastly headless body hanging from a hook attached to the exposed neck. Seams ran all across it, a mishmash of skin and parts from umpteen women stuck together to make up this dreadful yellowy blue carcass. He looked around the darkened room, but could not see Molly.

  ‘Where is Molly?’ Peter demanded, struggling to free himself from weighty chains.

  ‘The Space sounds so wondrous – and immortality, what an honour,’ he carried on, waving the notebook about, ignoring the captive’s question. ‘I do believe I have lured in and captured the correct candidate.’

  ‘Candidate?’

  ‘The perfect female body,’ Hobble insisted, pocketing the notebook and stepping over to the sagging meat and flesh, ‘but with a male brain – your brain, Peter. I set up the reward in order to lure the cleverest here in order to harvest their brain for my experiment – if they were clever enough to work out the truth, they would make the ideal candidate.’

  ‘But I didn’t work out the truth, I thought Darren did it,’ Peter gulped, his mind now full of ghastly images of Hobble committing the crimes. The Space was a little too late on that one.

  ‘Immaterial – your writings are enough to convince me of your superior brain.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Peter mused, ‘I think… So, my head and a woman’s body?’

  ‘No, no, just your brain. I already have a head, a fresh one too,’ he grinned as he bent down and reached into a bucket full of reddened water, lifting out Molly’s severed head by her lovely long wet hair. The most agonising pain hit Peter’s chest, plunging into the pit of his stomach like a fireball hitting Earth’s surface from outer space. ‘She has a beautiful face,’ Hobble continued, lifting the head higher and swinging it so that the face faced him. ‘It will take a careful cut at the back of her head to remove her brain and replace it with yours so as not to damage this face. Tis the face of my future wife.’

  ‘What about the wife whose breasts you removed?’ Peter sighed to himself, all of humanity now a sick perversion in his eyes, as he looked over at the headless body hanging there. The dark yellow breasts were big, but sagged and hung there in sullen depression. He didn’t know whether it was the angle he was positioned at or not, but from where he was looking they seemed to have been attached in an unbalanced fashion. The left one had been sewn on far higher than the right.

  Hobble, meanwhile, had dumped Molly’s head back in the bucket and was caressing the body’s nipples. ‘Her breasts were stupendous – the rest of her horrendous,’ he trilled. ‘I kept her best bits, and got rid of the rest.’

  Right then a side door opened, and in walked Willemina. Silently she floated up to Peter, her sad brown eyes looking him up and down. Her mouth creased as she reached out and placed a hand on his chest, some flicker of emotion he could not read playing on her spotty face.

  ‘Your father is a cruel murderer of umpteen women,’ Peter pleaded, ‘only you can stop him.’

  She looked up at his lips as they moved, but didn’t seem to register the words bursting forth.

  ‘Futile, my friend,’ Hobble called from across the room, ‘although my daughter is taken with you.’

  ‘I sense an unused body,’ she suddenly said in a deep whisper. ‘All human desire held back and wasted…’ her hand rubbed at Peter’s chest, moving up to his throat, ‘or put aside and saved for the right woman.’ Her boney pink fingers came to rest on Peter’s face as she caressed his sunken cheek. ‘Father,’ she let go of Peter and turned to Hobble, ‘I want to keep this one as my husband.’

  ‘Very well, you may keep his body; but I require his brain.’

  ‘Tis the brain I wish to possess more than anything else of his,’ she called back. Hobble did not look pleased. ‘Father, I think it a little peculiar that you wish my new mother to have a male brain.’ She folded her arms and smirked. Peter just stayed fixed behind them, withdrawn and aghast at these weirdos.

  ‘A man’s brain is far superior to a woman’s, my dear,’ he said softly as though speaking to a child, coming to her and placing an arm across her shoulders.

  Willemina’s face scrunched up as she gritted her teeth, but she did not vocally disagree with her father. Instead, she wriggled out of his clutches and turned back to Peter. Hobble grinned with apparent victory and moved back over to his new wife, taking the bucket with Molly’s head in with him. His back now turned to the pair, he lifted off his sword from a hook on the wall and pulled a cloth off a large stone. He made himself busy sharpening his weapon as Willemina stared intently into Peter’s eyes. He looked back, at first seeing nothing but warm brown eyes that felt icy and evil. As he continued, and time seemed to freeze, she in turn did become warm and full of something Peter couldn’t quite get to. He briefly flicked his eyes over to Hobble, whose movements had frozen in a mist and appeared much further away now.

  He thought about Darren using The Space for his own ends, and now threw his mind into Willemina’s. She stood still, as before, looking back at the man she wanted as her husband. Her mind was sectioned in ceaseless layer upon layer of conflicting behaviours and motives, but, her hopes and desires were singular and focused in one area – the want and need for love and acceptance from her father, and the willingness to do anything to maintain that. And yet, there now came a new spark, one which Peter knew instantly represented himself. There stood the two opposing sides, one for Father and one for the new man in her life, the merest of space still just separating the two. Father’s side had advanced, ready to quash Peter’s. It was up to the latter to arm his own in her mind and destro
y the opposition. He pulled from her mind, put aside The Space and realised he could do this alone.

  ‘I am your future,’ he whispered to her. She leant closer, their faces almost touching. ‘I will be the new man in your life. I love you.’

  She kissed him and he reciprocated, wishing he could reach out were his body not bound. Suddenly her hands reached around to the lock keeping his chains fixed. She pulled a key from her pocket and winked, sticking it in the lock. Before she could turn it, her head shot away and Peter found himself covered in blood as it squirted from her exposed neck. Behind her, with his sword, stood Hobble. He put the weapon down and went across to pick up his daughter’s head as her body dropped against Peter. He pulled back as much as he could and it slid down between his legs, slumping half on the floor and half on him. The blood kept pouring out in his lap as Hobble placed the head on top of his new wife.

  ‘Why did I not think of this before? My own daughter – beautiful and with the necessary intelligence to keep her brain intact.’ He kicked the bucket with Molly’s head in aside, and it tipped over and spilt out across the floor. The head came to rest upright, the features looking pained and frustrated. ‘You are no longer required, Peter Smith,’ Hobble sighed in relief as he stayed fixed in wonderment at his completed invention.

  * * *

  Peter had no idea how little or how long had passed in time down here – he simply knew that his own life was about to come to a close. Not by Hobble, but by the curse of The Space’s gift. It could be yet another day or two, or it could seconds. He’d lost track, but he didn’t care. He was ready to leave this time and this place and hopefully never come back to humanity. But, he knew that simply wouldn’t be the case. He’d be reborn again in a future that brought yet more pain and hardship. If only to forget what had gone before in past lives would be a gift – to never remember The Great Collective and The Space would at least aid in some form of quiet normality.

  Up ahead, Hobble busied himself putting the finishing touches to his new wife – she now had a head, and was no longer hung up. She lay flat out on a wooden bed which Peter had witnessed Hobble construct; now and again, as her “husband” mopped her brow or checked for a pulse, a bit of skin would flap open or a finger would fall off. The manufacturer of this thing was quick to repair the fault, and so it went on. Luckily it was cold in here, but decay had certainly been occurring – Peter could smell it. Flies occasionally buzzed around when Hobble left the door open for any length of time (which wasn’t often), but apart from that fresh air didn’t seem to want to come in here. Nothing would want to come in here.

  ‘Use The Space,’ Hobble suddenly cried, waving Peter’s notebook in his face, ‘bring her to life with your magic.’ Peter simply didn’t respond.

  As Hobble lay down in bed next to his creation, the big upright box appeared and obscured Peter’s view of them. With It came the thin, plain woman. Her blonde hair hung over her face, hiding any features which Peter may have recognised. He thought back to the first time he’d seen her – he’d called out, asking who she was. He knew even less about her this time, yet she was perfection in his mind. She was patiently waiting for him in the future, ready to give him the life he so desperately wanted. Then, the image of Stephen appeared by her side and took her hand, smiling at Peter as he felt the heavy pulse of death rush through him. He slumped in his chains, down in Hobble’s dungeon, dead.

  * * *

  ‘We are The Great Collective, we are the controllers of humanity’s destiny,’ Darren addressed the gathering in their meeting hall deep beneath Myrtle Forest. Amongst the group stood Stephen, Jim and Anthony. ‘If we work together we can utterly dominate the entire world.’ A roar of jubilation and agreement reverberated around the room, shaking its very stability – clumps of the earthen walls plummeted down around them as the cheering continued. There was no conscience, no Peter Smith, to stop them now.

  PART TWO

  SEPARATED BEFORE BIRTH

  The fact is that once you get watered down, you forget yourself. And, if you keep on repeating your life in ascending existences, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember all that has gone before. You are quite quickly wrapped up in the here and now, living and being about the current set of years. For The Great Collective, that came about when they got watered down and forgot themselves. They could not stay fixed as a united unit, instead being torn apart by the horrors they both witnessed and were a part of. It was simply better to push away all that was terrible about humanity and hide away. That they did, but the residual memories of their past lives and the unending recurrence thereafter of more existences would be inescapable. Separated before birth, they lived out their lives without the previous knowledge they had been so overwhelmed with. But, it was always there… somewhere.

  STEPHEN’S UNFORTUNATE REMOVAL

  I am a difficult person. I am afforded good looks, which gets me the attention of many a female – equally, I am disfigured inside where no woman, or even medical person, could see. My troubling nature has landed me on this ship as a fag of a slave, mopping up after the pompous ‘higher’ men and generally being a lackey. My family’s own moderate wealth has at the very least delivered me on board a survey voyage and not some ghastly war effort. Perhaps that is a sadness, as I feel even less purpose aboard Beagle as I did ashore. I keep no check on our location, and take no interest in the survey itself – my only mental stimulation is the going over of my own thoughts. They are a sifting through of two main events in my life: the final straw that broke my family’s patience and led to my presence here, and a recurring dream I have of a large upright box emanating a powerful force and a rather plain yet alluring blonde woman coming either from within it or alongside it. Both are, what you might call, a bloody bind. Let me tell you about how all this began – sit back and savour this wonderful recounting.

  The two events, though separate, could be construed as linked. The latter – that of the woman and the box – ultimately resulted in the former – the final straw. No straw was actually broken, but to describe the breaking of something is getting somewhat near to what happened. Yes, the woman in my dream, let us begin there. As I say, from what my sleeping vision would allow me to see of her when I first saw her, she was at first glance rather plain. I have, in the past, judged very much on first looks – they can be a good indication of many things about a person; a rogue and a ruffian can be quickly picked from a gathering of otherwise educated and wealthy individuals. This plain woman – I could not ascertain her place in society at all. Her drab white garments merely allowed a bleeding of colour from her pale face and long, thin, blonde hair. I wanted to get to her, but could not. She was but a figment of my slumber. That is when I struck at the idea of tracking her down in the waking world – that was my only way of getting to her. To say I found her would be to mock both my wonderful dream and give credence to the person I thought was her. The woman I came across was very similar indeed to the one I’d envisaged and I set my sights on her. What followed, of course, will be of interest to the men who say they cannot form tears. Let me tell you, men can cry – especially when their manhood is compromised.

  There was absolutely no point making a play for Lauren. So many boys, and then young men, had tried and ultimately failed to succeed with her. She was having none of it – nothing whatsoever. Gossip was she’d never even allowed a boy to kiss her, let alone do anything else. She never lacked attention, either, in fact far from it. In her younger days there was a healthy queue of boys eagerly waiting to have their go at breaking her cold hard starvation of romance. But, no, none of them ever succeeded.

  She was not the most beautiful of women, but she was not ugly either. Slim, almost unhealthily so, and rather pale with a pointed nose, her blonde hair remained tied up in a tight bun atop her head. Nobody ever saw her with her hair down – nobody ever saw anything more of her than what she wanted to show – her pale face, and her pink hands. The rest lay hidden beneath a small ever-circling collection of
bland baggy white dresses. The fact she was so neglecting of her sexual nature was the key pull for all these men, including myself. Would I be the one to break through? The challenge was enticing. And, the mystery of what she was capable of in the bedroom was instantly alluring.

  Eventually, of course, as the years went by – and they did, quickly – the interest men showed in her wained. One man whose interest in Lauren never abated was myself. I say man, but I was more a boy. I’d known her since I was a very little boy – she was already a woman by then. She had almost shown me affection… once. Our hands had brushed together when I was out playing with some other boys one summer’s day. She was briskly making her way through the village, undertaking some business nobody else was privy to. She had paused, our eyes had met, and I had fallen head over heels in love. The years passed, of course, and I grew into the handsome devil I am now. Never did I give in to the affections of the women who flocked to my feet. No, I wanted the woman I had had visions of during slumber. It was not until a moment of epiphany that I realised they were one and the same – the woman from the box was Lauren. She had to be. However, I was puzzled – the woman in my dream had her face shielded by her hair, yet Lauren’s face was clear to see. It was all that could be seen of Lauren’s. I felt that I saw everything but the face of the one in my vision, so to place Lauren’s there instead was the perfect solution. I now wanted her even more than before – she was all I thought about. All she thought about was… well, nobody knew. She had never let anyone in, never dropped the barricade she’d thrown up around herself.

  I began to experience my dream more and more, until I could envisage it every time my eyes sealed shut. I would think about that dratted cold woman every single day too during my waking hours. I had no release from this desperate situation I’d let myself spiral into. Lauren, too, seemed caught in a trap that I just couldn’t see her breaking free from. The absolute only solution was my interference, nay, my help in her life. But, for all the outside world she just did not have the sexual urges that I did. No – to all intents and purposes she appeared completely asexual. This began to drive me mad, and I started setting out all kinds of plans. Firstly, I was going to construct a purpose-built dungeon in which to house Lauren as my sex slave, then I was simply going to pluck up the courage to just ask her for a courtship and see where things went. Eventually I decided upon breaking into her house and ‘think on my feet’ when there.