The Monster Man of Horror House (22 page)

“I
got a job thank’ee very much. Or at least I had until that damned thing came
here,” Brian fumed. He went on to elaborate a little, about how he’d had the
manual labouring market all sewn up for as long as he could remember, working
for every farmer in the district and dictating his own terms so that he was
never short of offers or brass. Few of the young men born in Long Fenton seemed
to want to stay here beyond short trousers (and who could blame them) so the
population was growing older as Brian’s mattress was growing fatter. And things
would’ve probably continued this way until eventually one of the old buzzards
fell off their perch. And who would've been in a prime position to buy out
their smallholding then?

Oh
yes, Brian’s future had been looking very rosy indeed.

At
least it had until a fertiliser plant had chosen this forgotten little
backwater to set up shop. And when it opened its industrial-sized wallet, it
solved everyone’s problems in one foul swoop.

Well,
almost everyone’s.

“You
could always get a job at the plant,” I reassured him. “Work your way up; one
day even be manager.”

“I
don’t want to work in no factory!” he snapped back. “I like to feel soil
beneath my boots; sun on my face. I work the land with these here hands. And I
wanted to work my own.”

Brian
swallowed his anger and glanced in the mirror at the receding plant. It was clearly
upsetting for him to talk about so I pressed him further to pass the journey.

“One
man’s setback is another man’s opportunity. Remember that (when you’re
shovelling shit for two peanuts a day, knuckleheaded, ha-ha-ha!!),” I reassured
him (mentally laughed my socks off at).

I
was just starting to relax at my own recent misfortunes and enjoy the ride to
West Ullerton when we rounded the next corner and found ourselves right back
where we started outside The Black Fox again.

“What
the buggery…” Brian gawped in confusion, his brow seeming to jut out even further
than usual with every passing minute.

“You
took a wrong turn perhaps?” I ventured with a sigh of frustration. I’d already
been looking forward to flogging my sob story to the regulars of West Ullerton and
Brian’s taxiing was costing me valuable drinking time.

“I
couldn’t have, there ain’t no wrong turning. It’s a straight road all the way
through.”

“Maybe
the plant moved the road when they were laying their own,” I hedged.

“But
I recognised it all the way. It ain’t changed none,” Brian denied, annoying me
with his objections when he’d clearly taken a wrong turn somewhere, unless it
was a circular road and everyone in Long Fenton simply changed the signs and
swapped hats whenever Brian was out of town.

“Well
we’ve taken two lefts somewhere,” I insisted, but Brian wasn’t having it.

“But
I didn’t!” he was adamant, “look, I’ll prove it,” and off we went again, back
up the same street, along the same road, past the same plant and around the
same bend…

…
only to end up at exactly the same place again.

Outside
The Black Fox.

In
Long Fenton.

“This
ain’t right,” Brian said. “This ain’t right at all.”

“No,”
I agreed, sensing the hardware shops around this way must make a fortune
flogging Brian elbow grease and sky hooks all year round, “this indeed isn’t
right.”

One
of the old boys stepped out of The Black Fox and pointed himself in the
direction of the outhouse, so Brian asked him if they’d changed the road over
since last week. The old boy scratched his head and asked Brian if he thought
he should be driving this late and in his condition, which Brian duly took out
on the gears of his truck and away we went again, off up the street, out of the
village, into the sticks and past the plant.

At
this point Brian pumped the brakes and studied the road ahead before moving off
again.

“This
is the road,” he insisted. “This is the road to West Ullerton.”

“It’s
the road we’ve taken twice already,” I pointed out.

“I
know it is!” Brian snapped. “But it goes to West Ullerton.”

“Are
you a betting man, Brian?” I asked, figuring I’d need some cash tonight
wherever I ended up.

“That
tree, I used to play in it as a nipper,” he said, pointing at a big old oak
across the road from the plant. “And them there, them line of hedges, they back
onto Ronnie Earlcott’s farm. I helped cut them only two weeks ago.”

“I
don’t doubt it,” I shrugged, hoping I hadn’t somehow ended up on Lincolnshire’s
least subscribed tour.

“Well
these things are on the road to West Ullerton.”

“Then
they are presumably on the road to Long Fenton too?” I pointed out.

“Are
you saying I don’t know my own county?” he huffed.

“Not
a bit of it, just pointing out that they may’ve rejigged the road around the
plant to make way for construction traffic. They sometimes do that, you know,
and often you can barely spot the seam,” I told him, although this last bit was
a complete load of old twaddle, but I tried to make it sound as if I knew what
I was talking about. An old salesman’s habit.

“I
recognise this road,” Brian maintained, finally putting his foot down again.

“And
so do I.”

I
also recognised The Black Fox when we screeched to a halt outside it once more,
and the look of bemusement on the old boy’s face as he came back from the outhouse
tugging his zip.

“You
boys having fun, are yee?” he asked.

“Not
so you’d notice,” I replied before Brian had a chance.

Brian
now had the steaming hump and took to the road again before the dust cloud of
our most recent arrival had even settled. This time however we drove out past
the plant, turned left onto the new access road and followed it out to the west
see where it took us. The neat black road carved a tarmac corridor through the
wooded countryside and ran as straight as an arrow; so it came as something of
a surprise, even to me, when we cleared the crest of a rise, only to find ourselves
right back in Long Fenton once again.

“Okay,
now that is weird,” I finally admitted, wondering if the hippy surveyor had
used a kaleidoscope to set this road out instead of a theodolite.

“D’you
believe me now?” Brian demanded, but I didn’t know what I believed. I certainly
didn’t believe that the fertiliser plant had deliberately relaid all the roads in
the area to lead back to Long Fenton as some sort of marketing strategy, no
matter how much fertiliser they were hoping to shift, but something was certainly
amiss.

“How
is it that we’ve driven out of the village one way, only to arrive back by another?”
I asked, lighting a thought inside Brian’s head that manifested itself as the
grinding of his gears and the spinning of the steering wheel until we were
heading out of the village in the opposite direction. Strangely the road was
unrecognisable heading in this direction, as roads often have a want to be. But
this was different; different bushes, different trees and different ditches
lined the route to the ones we’d passed coming the other way, but somehow we
still managed to enter Long Fenton at exactly the same point, pulling up
outside The Black Fox as surely as a couple of goldfish encountering the same
plastic galleon time and time again.

“What
have ’ee done to us?” Brian finally barked, turning in his seat to lay his
fears at the feet of that most fearsome of country slubberdegullions –
the stranger.

“Whatever’s
being done, pal, it’s being done to me too,” I promised him.

We
set off another three times and each time took a different road, in a different
direction and a different turning once outside of Long Fenton, and each time we
ended up back outside The Black Fox until finally I’d had enough.

“Alright,
stop the truck, I’m getting out here!” I demanded, when we were outside the
village for the umpteenth time, at where I reasoned to be the further point from
The Black Fox.

Brian
pulled over, so I wrestled with the door handle until I was free, and bid Brian
a fond fuck off.

“Where
yee going, boy?” Brian asked.

“Back
to the main road. I’m going to hitch a lift from there,” I said, looking about
to get my bearings.

“To
West Ullerton? Main road don’t go to West Ullerton,” Brian told me.

“Neither
does this one,” I reminded him. “Long Fenton’s that way and that way,” I said,
pointing the way we’d come and the way we were heading. “So I’m going that way.”

Brian
followed my finger across the fields to a crop of trees that ran south away
from Long Fenton (hopefully) and into the distance.

“The
main road,” I said, slamming the truck door and slinging my jacket over my
shoulder, “it should be over there by my calculations.”

“That
ain’t be the main road,” Brian corrected.

“Would
you be awfully insulted if I didn’t take your directions?” I asked, adding “you
turnip-headed twat,” just to season the sentiment.

iv

The night was lingering in the wings, just waiting for the moment of optimum
inconvenience to drop its blanket across the land, so I pushed on while I still
had the dusk by which to see, across the fields, up the banks of the rise and
into the trees.

The
darkness smothered me once I got beneath the leafy canopy, but I was sure it
would only be a matter of time before I stumbled across the main road. If
there’s one thing you get serving at sea it’s a good sense of direction. Winds,
clouds, stars and of course, the moon, they can all help when you’re trying to
find your way home, except of course when you can’t see them, as in this case.
But I checked the trunks of trees for moss and lichen with a match every now
and again to ensure I was still travelling south and after twenty minutes
entered a small clearing.

The
night had done nothing to blow the humidity from the crick of my neck, despite
the breeze in the leaves, but what was slightly more disconcerting was the lack
of the normal summer sounds. I’m a country boy by upbringing so I know how a
July night is supposed to sound. Crickets chirp, owls hoot, flies buzz.

But
not tonight.

Tonight,
other than the breeze in the trees, there was nothing. Not even a gnat whirring
about my ears.

I
stopped and listened for as long as I dared but all I could hear were the
sounds of my own breathing and the rustling of foliage. Where were all the
insects? Where were all the birds?

All
at once, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to these questions so I
picked up the pace and continued up the slope, up towards where I was sure the
main road would be, and away from this Godforsaken backwater.

A
sudden loud crack over my shoulder had me jumping out of my shoes and whirling
in all directions to clout whoever had just snuck up behind me but there was no
one; just the wind, the trees and the night.

I
studied every shadow and challenged my imagination to find the perpetrator, but
nothing emerged so I swallowed my fears and continued across the clearing.

I’d
not got two paces when a loud rustling had me changing direction with a fright.

I
was now aware of something in the tree line. I couldn’t see what it was and I
couldn’t hear what it was, but I could sense it was there all the same. I stopped
and stood in the middle of the clearing trying to pinpoint whatever it was, but
I simply couldn’t get a bead on it. And I’ve got unnaturally good senses too,
what with the blood that courses through my veins. So I cupped my ears,
strained my eyes and even sniffed the air, but whatever was out there moved like
a shadow in slippers and hid just beyond the corners of my eyes.

“Hello?”
I tried to call, but my voice was as parched as the land. “Is anybody out there?”

Nobody
answered. I took little comfort from this omission and decided to change tact.

“I’ve
got a gun. And it’s loaded. I’d rather not use it, but… I’m a spy (obviously a
very secret one) so don’t sneak up on me or I might not know you’re only
playing about,” I warned whoever was out there, adding. “And I’m licensed to
kill.”

I
could’ve also mentioned I was a werewolf, but the truth was more preposterous
than the lie. Besides, it was my week off, so I plunged a hand into my trouser
pocket and tried to make out that I was not a man to be messed with.

A
voice.

At
least that’s what it sounded like. Whispered in the darkness, no louder than
the breeze, it spoke a language I didn’t recognise and laced every sentiment
with a cruel hiss.
 

I
backed away from the trees with my gun wilting in my pocket and lost what
little heart I’d had.

A
second black shape darted between the trees a little way off to my right, but
froze stock still the moment I looked at it. The figure stood hunched between
trees and showed no sign of fear when I hollered at it in paper-rage. I braved
a couple of steps and struck a match, only to almost wet myself with relief
when I found it was merely a fallen branch curled up to almost standing height,
with knots and twigs for features.