The Monster on Mandrake Street(A Pestworld Story)by Colin P. Davies |
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Part 2
conclusion |
Mandrake Street. Haven of horror. Web of witches. Dark sanitarium of sorcerers. The words kept running through Parvo’s mind. You’re not helping, he told himself, as he stood at the end of that very street. It was near midnight and dark and snow was falling. His future lay down this street of mystery. It could be a trap — it almost certainly was a trap — but he had no other road to follow.
He examined the stick loaf in his hand. He’d hoped for a gun, but it appeared Shifty’s staff were not quite as highly trained as the all-seeing oracle had thought.
With a black cloak around his shoulders, held at the neck by a golden-eye brooch — all courtesy of Shifty — Parvo started down the street.
He stopped short of the lamp outside the shop and listened for the hovering drone. Silence. Utilizing his superhuman aim — he could get a sock in a basket at ten meters — he hurled the stick loaf and smashed the lamp. He ran up and peered into the open doorway. No light inside tonight. In darkness he entered the Museum of Monsters.
Blindly, he felt for the walls as he remembered them, but it seemed the shapes had been altered. He was taken in unfamiliar directions. His heart was thumping and, in spite of a determined attempt to keep calm, he felt fear... real gut-gripping, stomach-churning, bladder-bursting fear.
* * *
In his recurring childhood nightmare, the cottage in the forest was quaint, almost pretty in the golden sunlight, the color of candies and cookies and not at all threatening. Yet his heightened sense of danger told him not to enter. He would circle the cottage, examining the bright red and white striped shutters and vivid green doors. Someone was busy in the kitchen and steam billowed out of an open window.
Although only seven years old, Parvo was happy to be alone in the forest. He saw himself as something of a hero. Being alone all his life, he did not need the comfort of company. And yet, a simmering sense of dread whispered: Run away, NOW.
“Who lives in the cottage?” he asked his dread.
A witch.
“A good witch or an evil witch?”
He felt a slap on the back of his head. This is a nightmare — figure it out!
Suddenly it was night and a harsh breathing in the darkness told him he was not alone. Something watched from between the trees — something that made a sickening slurping sound and smelled of blood and earth.
Finally submitting to his fear (because even heroes have their breaking point), Parvo turned to leave, to run, but his legs had other ideas. Despite his waving arms and profane protestations, he began to walk towards the cottage.
As he approached the front door, it opened for him into a harshly-lit hallway. He grasped at the door frame, but his legs carried him within. Keeping quiet now, Parvo listened. He could hear singing. A high-pitched voice trilled: If I’d Known you were Coming I’d have Baked a Biscuit.
The kitchen door opened and Parvo’s legs took him to a chair at a stained wooden table and sat him down.
A slim woman worked at the sink, her back to him, her grey hair tied into a tight bun. She wore a long-sleeved, ankle-length tartan dress. A grubby apron was tied around her neck and waist.
“Welcome!” she said without turning. Her voice had the flat, echo-less quality of a scream in the wilderness.
“I apologize for intruding,” he said in a tremulous tone. “It wasn’t out of choice.”
“I know...” She chuckled. “Sometimes I send out for lunch.”
She walked over to a door, still with her back to him, and opened it. A blast of heat hit Parvo in the face, but the witch did not flinch. It was an oven – a walk-in oven. She moved aside as a baking tray floated out of the oven and set itself down upon Parvo’s table. The sizzling of singeing wood told him that this was no illusion. Upon the tray were six fat round biscuits.
“Try one,” said the witch.
“Actually, I’m more of a savory person myself.”
“How interesting... try one!”
A biscuit lifted off the tray and rose towards Parvo’s mouth. He tried to lift his arms, but they would not move. He kept his mouth shut, but the hot biscuit burned against his lips. He had no choice... He opened up.
“Eat. Let me know what you think.” The witch was still facing away, gazing out of the window into the lonely darkness of the forest.
Parvo bit and chewed. The taste was sweet — not bad. Is this why he was here? As a captive dinner-guest for a chronic caterer? “You should take these to market,” he said. “They’re good.”
“The sweeter the biscuit, the sweeter the dreams. Would you like to help me bake some more?”
“I should really be heading back to school.” He bit again into the biscuit and his teeth met something hard. He spat it out upon the table... stared closer.
A human tooth!
He spat the remaining crumbs from his mouth. The witch was laughing.
“What are you?” he yelled. “Some kind of monster?”
Her only answer was the terrible laughter that grew louder and louder until, at last, he would awake.
* * *
Parvo returned from the flashback expecting a cold sweat and bedsheets stuck to his body. Instead, he found he was in darkness with his fingers feeling for the shape of a wall.
That dream had birthed all his fears. But it was a childhood dream, which could only exist in the non-rational world-view of a child. It was time to grow up.
For years, he’d avoided reliving the details of that dream. Yet now, when the memory had returned unbidden, he could clearly see Nanny Naples’ directing hand. What had been a frightening dream had become a fascinating, possibly award-quality, piece of art. He’d never glimpsed the witch’s face, but he finally understood whose face it would be.
The shedding of superstition energized him.
Yes, he was standing in darkness, in danger, but the only things to be feared now were real things.
Without warning, a piercing scream cut the air and a glowing white shape drifted across in front of him. After the initial shock, he smiled. “A ghost? You think I can be scared by a ghost?”
Something scuttled around his feet and he kicked out against nothing.
His fingers found a doorway and he stepped cautiously through.
A sudden light across the room revealed a corpse. Rats scurried over protruding ribs and nibbled at torn flesh. Then the dead man jerked and convulsed and rolled over onto his knees. Slowly, he straightened up his body, and blind bloody eye sockets gazed at Parvo. Thin lips moved. “Welcome, Pestmeister. Wecome to your nightmare.”
Parvo burst into laughter. “You’ve got to be joking... Can’t you do better that this? I was more scared at Pestworld’s Got Talent!”
A female voice spoke out of the shadows: “Can’t a girl have a little fun?”
The lights came on and Parvo found he was in the same room that he’d visited before. The bald girl was again behind the table. This time she wore unflattering blue overalls.
“You have an inhuman sense of humor,” he said.
“Don’t I just!”
In the corner, the animatronic corpse slumped and the lazenby literary rats ran to get back to their reading.
A mumbling made Parvo glance around and he found Anyar lying on the floor, bound and gagged. Whilst keeping his eyes on the museum-girl, he released Anyar and helped her to stand. “What were you thinking?” he whispered. “Why come here of all places?”
She gazed up at him, her eyes displaying more anger than fear. “To find you. I knew it was the real Parvo who had escaped the palace — you stopped yourself hitting me. Why would the imposter hold back? Then this girl turned up and said she could take me to you.”
“This girl is working with the fake.”
“I had to take the chance.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to. For you.”
“Please stop,” said the girl. “You’re making me queasy.” On the table was the wrapped bundle that Parvo had seen on Shifty’s monitor. Now the girl unfolded the blanket. Inside was the broadhead’s tooth.
“The imposter would never let that tooth out of its sight,” Parvo announced. “Which can only mean...”
The girl’s face shifted shape and now Parvo was staring at himself. “You must have known this was a trap, Parvo, yet still you came. Either your arrogance is astounding and your self-confidence beyond belief, or you care about this girl.”
Anyar grasped Parvo’s hand so hard he nearly winced.
“I’m inclined towards the arrogance theory,” the monster continued. “Not that it matters. Neither of you will get out of here alive and then I will be ruler of Pestworld and no-one will be the wiser.”
“That simple, eh, spacer woman?” said Parvo. “Or should I say Nanny Naples!”
“Nanny who?”
“Give it up! I figured it out days ago.” Parvo eased his hand free from Anyar’s grip. “Sweet dreams? And who else would try to scare me with the supernatural? Who would know? But I couldn’t be completely sure... I needed a way to find out.”
“I’ll save you the trouble.” The fake Parvo raised his arms. “I surrender... I admit it.” He dropped his hands again and a cruel vengeance drew his mouth tight. Then it was no longer his mouth. Nanny Naples stood there looking not a day older than last time Parvo had seen her. “You cost me my job, Parvo.”
“You cost me a lot more than that. Me and about thirty other boys.”
Nanny Naples held out her hands. Slowly they grew larger and claws like small swords emerged from the tips. “Here’s another bedtime story, Little Parvo. It ends with you being sliced and diced and served with salad.”
Parvo stepped forward. “Before you do that, I suggest you turn on your trivee.” He pointed at the blank screen behind the nanny.
“Why would I do that?”
“Maybe I’d prefer to die to a musical accompaniment. Particularly as it looks like I’ll never achieve my ambition to star in a musical.”
The puppeteer switched on the screen and the picture that came up was of Nanny Naples standing at a trivee screen showing a smaller image of the same thing...
“Smile,” said Parvo. He adjusted the brooch that held the cloak, and the picture zoomed in on Nanny’s stunned face. “You’re on all channels. You have an audience of thousands.”
“Oh no! Not again!”
At that moment, Parvo whipped back his cloak to reveal the hidden bag in which he’d earlier trapped the pests. He released the lid and flung a cloud of merriweather rats towards Nanny Naples. Terror distorted her face so that it no longer looked human, but some impressionistic artist’s rendering of agony. Before the pests could flutter to the ground, Parvo leapt onto the table, grasped the tooth, and plunged it through the monster’s heart.
The creature’s pain-contorted face reverted to Parvo’s and then the old spacer’s. Its claws clutched at the buried tooth, but could not tear it free.
Suddenly, it stopped struggling and laughed, “Ha ha, you fool! You forget that puppeteers are great actors. My heart is over here...” It slapped the other side of its chest.
Without a word, Anyar slipped the hidden dagger from her trousers and plunged it through the real heart.
“Oh shiii...” The old hag grimaced and curled up on the floor. With a shudder, she reverted to her original form resembling a huge white rabbit, and then died.
Parvo unfastened the brooch from the cloak and trained the camera on the blood-stained corpse.
“Say something,” said Anyar. “You’ve won.”
But for once Parvo could find no self-congratulatory words. Too many images and emotions were surging though his body. He lay the cloak over the dead creature and stood back.
“Sweet dreams,” was all he said.
* * *
Anyar’s brother’s house warming party was a blast. Lots of food, lots of drink, lots of juicy conversation. Nacho had cornered Parvo’s brinkman and was regaling the creature with tales of carpentry and body-building. Parvo had retreated into the kitchen where Anyar sidled up with a plate of freshly baked biscuits.
“Hiding?” she said with a smile.
“Parties are not really my thing.” What was his thing? He didn’t know for sure, but he would have preferred to be alone here — alone with Anyar.
“Try a biscuit,” she said. “They’re my first attempt.”
He had told her of his childhood nightmares and he knew she was trying to help, in her own way. Cautiously he took a bite and chewed slowly, then swallowed. “I love it.”
Anyar furrowed her brow at him.
He nodded vigorously. “Really, I do... honestly...
“It’s the tooth!”
For more information on the flora, fauna and fools of Pestworld, together with history, map, music and podcasts, visit www.colinpdavies.com/pestworld.htm
Copyright © 2009 by Colin P. Davies
