A.D.F.
Ooh this could be messy
But you don't seem to mind
Ooh don't go telling everybody
And overlook this supposed crime
-Alanis Morissette - Hands Clean
DISCLAIMER: I know that almost every character here should have Geordie accents. But I'm a lot more familiar with Standard Hollywood Middle-class Brit than I am with the Northern, and even that not very well. Any road, I took one look at what Wikipedia said about Geordie accents and my brain tried to crawl out my nose. (Ooh, story idea!) I also apologize for the horrible, horrible accent portrayed here, andto any real Brits who are about to be subjected to it.
Evan Jennings looked up from the hand he had been dealt.
Across the table from him was Havers, who was smiling. This didn't mean much; Havers was always smiling at something. You had to look very closely at him, and had to have known him for a long time, to notice the way his cigarette bobbed up and down slightly, the way his eyes shifted back to his hand every few seconds, the reaching up to adjust the 17th century Eastern European crown he was wearing.
_"Lads, a proposition," Havers' had said, sitting down at the table with his pint glass. "A certain gentleman has approached me with an idea for a profitable venture."
The other three men had groaned._
To Jennings left and right were Fecker and Gannet. The latter kept removing his cigarette and blowing out smoke, which can't have been good for the druidic robe draped over his broad shoulders. To be fair, the ancient pagans who had made it they had probably exposed it to worse things.
_"An' what was our profit on the great wobbly-headed doll caper?" Fecker had joked.
"That was different," Havers had replied, looking around the pub to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. "This one is a_
sure thing."
"The last time you said that, we ended up facedown in a ha-ha," Gannet then pointed out.
Fecker was a wirey fellow, currently drinking sherry out Mrs. Cherry's favorite teacup. Like his larger brother, he was one-fourth Scot, and was wearing a kilt that had supposedly belonged to William Wallace. He was wearing it in a historically accurate fashion, so if anyone dropped their cards, they would be picking them up with their eyes closed. Something pulled up the corner of Fecker's mouth, only to be gone when he looked up from his hand.
_"We wouldn't have been there if Lee hadn't mucked up the alarm," Havers had said.
"Oi!" Lee had said, the fifth Lad at the table. "Don't put it all on me! If Jennings had gotten the guard's schedule wrong-"
Jennings then put his third Guiness down somewhat unsteadily. "If you had gotten the alarm off in time--"
"Lads, lads!" Havers had cut through the tummult. "What's done is done, all right? Let's focus on our very, very lucrative future."_
Jennings put his cigarette out in a dish, crafted by long-dead South American artisans. It was shaped like a jaguar's mouth, with teeth long and sharp. It occured to Jennings that the dish alone--or any of the other dozen or so artifacts in the room--was worth more than the house they were in, the one Lee's mother and father had slaved fifteen years to build.
The Lads had made enough to buy the entire neighbourhood in an hour's work. If Mr. Cherry was still alive, he'd probably be just thrilled.
Jennings finally voiced the concerns that had been bothering him for three games. "What if they find us?"
Havers rolled his eyes in an exagerrated fashion. "Always the worrier, aren't we, Jennings?"
"I'm serious! What if they find, I dunno, a 'air or something?"
"Wot, you think this is American telly, do you? Think some ginger bloke in a suit is going to take off his shades and say something dramatic?"
"I just--"
"We were bloody immaculate, we were. They wouldn't have anything to bring us in on."
"But--"
"Even if we did, all this shiny would have to be locked up, and then our employer wouldn't be able to get tuppence." He smirked. "In his best intrest to keep us out of the clink, least until we fence it in the mornin'." His smirk broadened into a grin. "And when he comes for 'is cut--well, I certainly don't plan to be here tomorrow afternoon! How about you, lads?"
The brothers laughed, with a few notes on the theme of "too roight, 'Avers!" and "not me!"
"In fact," said Havers, rising "I propose a toast to our benefactor. May he live long and never see a cent of the money!"
"Hear, hear!" agreed Gannet and Fecker, clinking their lagers together.
"What about--"
"What about what, Jenny?"
"What about The Czech?"
All three of the other men groaned.
"Jennings, you've got to stop visiting those websites. There is no Czech," Fecker growled. "And if 'e was real, then why would 'e care about us?"
"E's an assassin!" Jennings protested. "'E doesn't care who he has to kill! Like that bloke in the American film, with the 'umane-killer."
"Think we'd see 'im coming," Havers chuckled. "Man with bad hair and a gas can walking down the street? Stand out in 'Etton-le-'ole like a fly in the soup."
"'E doesn't use anything like that! 'E was recruited by the government to research weapons development from mystical Nazi artifacts--"
"If anyone was mucking about with this magic bollocks, it was the Russians," Fecker said. "Trying to get an edge on the Americans for the Cold War."
"I read about the gay bomb Yanks tried to make," Fecker volunteered. "They'd drop it on the Reds or whoever, and then they'd all be overcome with the powerful urge to bugger each other."
"What if there were any women in the area?" Gannet asked.
"Then I suspect they'd be quite 'appy to watch."
General laughter.
Someone knocked on the door and called "Package delivery!" in a Southern accent.
"Were any of you lads expectin' a package?" Havers asked, to general negatives.
"It's mine!" said Lee as he tumbled down the stairs.
"Finally off the computer, are we, Lee?" Havers yelled through the doorway between the sitting room and foyer.
Lee didn't answer, preferring instead to close the sitting room door, presumably to keep the deliveryman from seeing the ridiculous riches, hearing about the robbery the next morning, and putting two and two together.
"Sign here, please," said the unseen deliveryman.
Jennings's brow wrinkled. "Since when do packages get delivered at night?"
"Maybe it's one of those overnight delivery things," Gannet volunteered.
"Or a messanger," Fecker added. "Why do you care about when Lee gets his wank-books?"
"Just weird, that's all."
"Thank you, sir. Have a nice night." The lads heard the front door shut, and the door to the sitting room was opened a few seconds later by their gracious host.
"Package," he mumbled.
"We 'eard," replied Havers, grinning. "What's was it?"
Lee clutched something magazine sized, with brown-paper covers, to his chest.
"Stuff."
"Let's have us a look, then!" said Havers, leaning forward.
Lee blanched, said something incoherent, and hurried into his room. The Lads heard the door slam.
"Oi!" yelled Havers at the stairs. "Try not to pull it off!"
The brothers laughed sycophantly.
"Don't know why he can't whack off to arse and tits like a normal lad," volunteered Gannet as he putt his cigarette out in their ashtray, his finger getting dangerously close to the jaguar's teeth.
"Right, 'e's always ordering that latex Bugs Bunny crap," Fecker contributed.
Jennings brightened. "Actually, 'is unusual fetish was probably caused by some formative experience in his childhood, probably something connecting sex and cartoons--"
"Jennings," said Havers, "shut up."
"Can't blame 'im, really. This town doesn't exactly provide a variety of intellectually stimulating experiences." Fecker gestured towards the counter in the kitchen, piled high with takeout containers. If Majorie Cherry hadn't been visiting her sister down-country, she probably would've had a heart attack. "Bloody towns so small we only have one curry shop."
"What's wrong with curry?"
"Nothing, 'Avers," said Fecker as he reached for their ashtray with his dog-end. "Just that it gets... tired, after a while. Ow. Sharp teeth on that jaguar."
"Need some Savlon?" Jennings offered. "I think Lee's mum keeps some in the kitchen."
"No, just a flesh wound. I think I'll be--ow. Ow. Bloody thing stings. Yeah, can you find me the disinfectant?"
The jaguar's mouth continued to yawn at them, one of its teeth stained with red.
Upstairs, Lee locked his door, dropped the keys on the table, ripped the paper off his package and frowned in confusion. It wasn't the "Busty Vixens #25", as he had been expecting, though it was in comic book format. The book had an all-black cover, and black pages, but Lee couldn't put it down.
Because it was stuck to his fingers.
Lee shook his hands, but the book didn't come off. Oddly enough, it seemed to be rippling.
Well, that was quite odd.
Something rising in his throat, Lee tried to pull his hands apart. The black book split neatly in half along the center, but the pages stayed stuck to the young man. In fact, it was like they had been glued together, just at the points where Lee's hands made contact. If he looked closely, the stuff was starting to flow up his hands.
Strangely, Lee didn't panic. He sniffed at the black substance; it seemed to be latex.
Lee got very excited.
For all the mocking from the Lads, Lee was fairly devoted to his fetish. He had always been inordinately interested in Bug Bunny's crossdressing, and transformation sequences in Saturday morning anime, and he had been intrigued by latex fetish clothes after that one time he walked into the school staff room without knocking.
After a year or so on the Internet, he was considerably surprised when he found out there were other people Very Interested in That Sort of Thing. He had been even more surprised when he discovered there was what his old Maths tutor--one of the three people who had been in the staff room, in fact--called an "Intersect Set".
The latex had covered the tips of his fingers.
There were stories about exactly this sort of situation, when the protagonist stumbles upon or is mailed something exactly like the book. All he had to do, really, was have patience. And it wasn't like his life was so awesome anyway. Well, sure, he had a good portion of a few million pounds coming his way, but he hadn't done anything--besides rob a peer of the realm--since they outsourced his job at the call center to India. He was a twenty-nine year-old man who lived with his mother, and while that wasn't really a stigma in today's economy, the thought still bought a certain weight to his limbs.
Lee swallowed the familar clawing black depression and waited, experimentally, for the latex to cover his arm. Strangely, the pleasure he was supposed to be feeling wasn't evident. No increased sensation, no waves of pleasure, no tingling, just numbness. He could move his arm, but he couldn't move or feel the part of it covered in latex. In fact, the blackened portion was jiggling a little, like jelly. Then it started to drip--
Lee stared at the blackened portion where half of his hand had beem, his mouth open, making little gasping sounds. The raggedy line went from the base of his thumb to the gap between his second and third fingers. And it wasn't done; the blackness, the spreading numbness crawled across his palm, up his remaining fingers--
And it didn't hurt at all.
Lee started screaming. But not for long.
Downstairs, the Lads started, and then leapt from the table. Jennings was halfway up the stairs by the time his Royal Flush had hit the ground. Gannet and Fecker were close behind, and Havers bought up the rear.
The door was locked, and they heard Lee screaming as Jennings frantically jiggled the handle. "Lee! Lee!"
"Stand back!" Gannet growled, and Jennings stepped aside, right before his friend applied his unique, 15-stone problem-solving method. The door was knocked off the hinges, and the four men burst into the room to find it mostly empty, barring the large black puddle with scraps of Lee's clothes in it.
"What...what 'appened?" said Fecker.
"Dunno," murmured Jennings, taking in the size of the strange puddle, the empty brown-paper wrapping--
"Wot," said Havers, "did 'e go through the window?"
"Window's locked, 'Avers," Jennings volunteered. Havers reached out, quite casually, and slapped him in in the back of the head.
"Well, if 'e doesn't want 'is cut, that's fine by me." Havers grumbled. "Jennings, clean this up."
"Wot? Why is it always me?"
"You'll be a millionaire in a few hours, and you're fussing about cleaning up this-this-whatever this is? Clean it up."
"I don't think I'll need to. It's shrinking."
"Wot?"
"I said, 'it's shr--'"
"I know what you said, y' wanker!" Havers squatted at the edge of the puddle. "And it's not shrinking, it's just falling through a crack or something."
"Don't think so."
Havers looked up sharply. "And why not, me boy? Why don't you enlighten us, with your vast expertise in these matters?"
"Because it's flowing up."
"Wot?" Havers turned around, and realized Jennings was right. The puddle was pulling itself upward, like gravity had been reversed and it was pouring into a funnel. The cone flared out into a pillar-like shape, and by the time it widened out into a vaguely humanoid shape, Jennings and Havers had already started backing away toward the door.
The brothers, not so bright, shouldered their way past and approached the humanoid shape. They leaned towards it with a look of confusion--and curiousity--on their faces, Gannet a little closer.
"I don't think that's very safe," said Jennings, at the same time Havers said "What are you bloody fools doing?"
Fecker turned. "Stop worrying, you pair o' nancies. It's not going to jump up and bite us." He turned back to find the goo shoving itself down his brother's throat.
A tendril had leapt from the puddle, and had forced Gannet's lips open. He had grabbed the the thing, and even as he tried to pull it out of him it spread over his fingers, deliquescing them, reducing them to stumps. He still pawed feebly at the muck, then suddenly stopped and clutched his stomach as a black spot appeared on it, spreading into a large stain.
"Gan?" Fecker reached for his brother with a trembling hand. Gannet looked up, tried to say something, then his throat collapsed. The smaller man leapt back with a curse.
It was like a dark-edged seam opening up, revealing the slick black wetness within. Whatever the stuff was, it was eating Gannet from the inside, and the seam continued to split the large man like a Cornish hen. It went under his collar, and stains started to appear on his shirt, eventually reaching the larger black spot over his stomach. Something spilled out, something that looked like black intestines.
Yet Gannet was still moving.
He was clutching at his insides, trying to push them back in, reducing the stumps of his fingers even further, until most of his hand dissolved, oozing into the puddle underneath him to join the remains of his throat and stomach and fingers. And a good portion of his legs too, as he kept trying to get up, only to have more of his legs flow away from him. His clothes grew dark, then dissolved, sliding down his body into the puddle which was growing larger and larger.
"Unless one of you 'as a bloody priest in his back pocket, we need to go!" Havers' yelled from the doorway.
Jennings pulled Fecker to his feet, towards the door. The slim man was weeping openly, and Jennings thought of that old "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster. He clenched his jaw and pulled Fecker out of Lee's room, releasing him to prop the bedroom door shut.
Inside, he could see Gannet falling over, the place where his hands had been trying to prop him up. His legs were gone to the knee, and he turned his head towards Jennings, making a low, animal noise, just before his eyes went black and started to flow down his face.
He pulled the door as close to shut as he could make it, and turned around to face the crying Fecker.
"Come on, then," he said thickly, starting down the stairs behind Havers.
Blinded by tears, Fecker leaned against the wall for a second before following. He promptly fell, his left hand reaching for the railing and missing, his face hitting the steps hard.
Havers had just reached the ground floor, and Jennings had just reached
stopped and started back up the stairs. "Fecker!"
"My node--" The larger man lifted his head. "Bwog my node-"
"What did you trip on?" asked Jennings, as he took Fecker's hand, looked up, and froze.
"Whuh?" Whuh is it?" Fecker turned, to find the goo cresting the head of the stairs like some calvary appearing on the horizon. It already had a tendril wrapped around his foot, probably slid under the door--
"No," whimpered Fecker. "Nononono--"
His hand was pulled out of Jennings' grasp as the black muck pulled him up the stairs. He tried to grab at the steps, the railing, the rug, anything, but the goo had him on the landing in seconds. Fecker started screaming as the gunk rolled over him, and then it sounded like he was screaming through a sheet of rubber, and then he wasn't screaming at all.
"Jennings!"
At the sound of his name, Jennings turned away from the sight, something heavy and leaden in his stomach, and realized that their fealess leader hadn't moved from the foot of the stairs.
He hated Havers at that moment, hated his preening, strutting ways, the thousand little jibes to keep the Lads under and himself on top. He hated Havers for abandoning the men he had pretended were his friends, how he made only the most token gestures of help, how he got them into this situation in the first place, somehow. He hated himself for following Havers, for his own wasted potential. All of this washed over him in a wave, leaving him gasping on the staircase.
"Jennings, come on!" A hand grasped his arm, and he looked up into Havers' concerned face. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the black stuff was not-quite flowing down the first few stairs, and then Havers was pulling him down towards the ground floor. They paused at the front door to catch their breath.
"Wait, what about the loot?" Havers started towards the sitting room.
"Forget the bloody stuff, mate, that thing's going to eat us!" Jennings looked at the staircase; the creature had almost reached the foot of the stairs. In fact, it was flowing off the side too, between the railings, over the hall table, to the floor, blocking off any hope of escape through the kitchen. It was even on the telephone, Jennings noted grimly.
There was a thick, cloying smell in the air as Havers said. "I'm sorry about this, Evan."
"About what?" said Jennings, just before Havers hit him with a brutal right cross and pushed him into the black muck. He landed on his side, and the ooze started to pull him under immediately, even as his free hand clutched at the railing.
"Havers, help me!" he cried.
Havers looked back for just an instant before he went back to trying the door. He ignored the screams from behind him, and the muffled sounds they changed to when Jennings didn't have a proper throat to shout through, and the sudden, deafening silence. He pulled his jacket off, and as he wrapped it around his arm, he turned around--
Seen it a million times in Hollywood. Break with your elbow, not with your hand. Spin your whole body to get your weight behind it. Kinetic linking, that's the ticket. Who told you about that? Oh, right, Jennings.
He made the mistake of looking.
The darkness stretched across the Cherry's front hall like a great web, blocking off any escape. Stringlike bits of it were moving swiftly along the surfaces toward him, and he found himself punching desperately at the glass next to the door, trying to break it, trying to reach the knob on the outside and somehow get out. He heard something in his wrist break and he wasn't sure he hadn't wet himself--or worse--but he kept trying even as something cold and slick sucked at his trainers, and pulled at his ankle then at his leg and he was falling trying to grab at the doorknob but it pulled him away and he was clawing at the carpet he couldn't feel his feet couldn't feel his legs couldn't feel his arms and it was on his face he couldn't breathe couldn't see--
The goop quieted down after it ate Havers. Any observer might've expected a cartoonish burp, but it stayed completely still. The same observer might've noticed the opacity of the stuff rapidly decreasing, until it seemed to be nothing more than a clear liquid, like an oil. They they would've thought it odd that the oil seemed to be evaporating, until there was nothing left in the house of the Lads but the scent of latex and rubber.
That, and several million pounds worth of stolen goods.
A few brief glances were spared Inspector Broadbent as he entered the cafe. The man was quite unassuming, wearing his usual police jumper and crisply pressed slacks, a few white hairs left on his head. He was in charge of the local police station, which had suddenly found themselves out of their depth after a daring daylight robbery of a local manor house.
Several knifemen had made off with a few priceless artifacts, and Broadbent had left a few detectives and officers standing around awkwardly with a peer of the realm hysterically ranting about how they were insured of course but it was the principle of the thing--
Then he had nipped out for dinner.
"The usual, Irma!" he said to the second-generation Indian-Anglo woman behind the counter, who nodded. He took his usual seat in the window.
The man at the table behind him was facing the other way, a single cup of tea in front of him. He was dark-haired and broad-shouldered, with a few grey hairs at the temples, heavy brows and beard stubble darkening his face. One might've imagined him some sort of blue-collar worker, but for the...directness of his gaze. He presented quite a contrast to Inspector Broadbent, whom he had Never Met Before in His Life.
"Is it finished?" said Broadbent, under his breath.
"It is done," said the other man. His voice had a trace of Central or Eastern Europe in it, the older man noted.
"You made the delivery to young Cherry?" pressed Broadbent, always the micromanager.
Curiously, the stranger's voice shifted to a perfect imitation of a Southern accent. "Signed, sealed, and delivered, guv'." And back to his normal voice. "Waited for screams to stop, made call to police, complaint of 'strange noises at the Cherry house', then unlocked front door."
"Excellent. My men will be arriving soon. And if the Lads seem to have disposed of a few items already, we can hardly be blamed for that, can we?"
Both men fell silent as the waitress arrived. "Thank you, Padma," said the Inspector. Both men waited until she was out of earshot before resuming their conversation.
"That'll put a stop to their plans to cut me out of the loop. I've known the Lads since they were stealing apples out of his Lordship's orchard. Always full of his little schemes, little plans. Jennings and Cherry had a chance to make something of himself, but the other three--"
The stranger rolled his eyes and tuned Broadbent out. They always wanted to do this, to explain ther plans to someone, to crow about how clever they were, or simply wanted to unburden themselves. As he had learned from experience, murder tended to weigh heavily on men's souls.
It had been fairly easily to find the Lads' weak link, and even easier to find out Cherry's vulnerability. In fact, all it had taken was a call to an old Systems Operator friend of his. Broadbent had wanted "a job that couldn't look like a job", and it amused the stranger to kill the boy with his own fetish.
"My payment?" he interrupted.
"Ah, yes. It will be deposited into your account, as requested."
The stranger didn't bother to say things like "it had better" or "see that it is". Both men knew that simply coming there in person allowed the stranger to learn where Broadbent lived or worked, and from that he could learn everything from his age to his hat size.
The stranger rose as Broadbent tucked in his napkin. "I didn't catch your name, Mr....?"
"Smith," said the Czech, and left.
Broadbent, carefully, loaded his fork and bought it to his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds.
"Mmm," he said. "That is good curry."
"Assault with a Deadly Fetish"
by N. Eulalie "Nequ" Quentin
2010 Creative Commons By-SA-NC