Für Elise

Midnight Quatermass 18: An experiment

2 am and I’ve wasted the entire evening trying to get a new printer to work and I’m not in the best of moods. I did have something in mind to talk about, but it’d be another hour or so before I hit SEND if I start now and I am beat.

So rather than wait until tomorrow (or possibly later as this week is a bastard) I’m going to shut up and just give you the short story. I’ll send the non-fictiony section as soon as I’ve finished crucifying everyone involved in the manufacturing of this cursed ink-drinking abomination.

Without further ado…

Gregor The Tall

The only person who saw what actually happened to the merchant was Ulf the Beggar. He told the guards at the town gate the next morning, who laughed at him then kicked him until he went away.

A few days later when the magistrate heard that there’d been a witness to the murder, he ordered the same men who kicked Ulf to bring him to the inn that the magistrate liked to work from. He listened patiently to Ulf’s tale and, when it was finished, he pronounced Ulf guilty of the murder of the merchant and had him hung that afternoon.

Case closed.

The magistrate had reason to regret the decision the very same night. Leaving the inn a little worse for wear, he paused for a moment where the two lanes met, unsure if he needed to piss or not. He was still considering it when the wolf clamped down on the back of his neck, and with one quick bite almost severed his head completely. The magistrate had a moment of intense vertigo as his head suddenly found itself inverted, and a brief moment of agonising pain that soon faded away to absolute nothingness.

The wolf pushed the dead man onto his back and made a meal of his guts not far from where poor Ulf swung in the late evening breeze.

~

The next day, the mayor was besieged with the angry and scared townsfolk who looked to him for protection. ‘Fuck my life’, he thought, as he listened to the table of idiots whose best idea so far was to dress their shortest constable as a child and use him as bait to catch the fiend. He’d give then til noon and then they’d go with whatever solution he deemed fit.

~

Constable Grigor, all five feet of him, turned out to be pretty good with a hoop and a stick.

He’d never had one as a child, preoccupied as he was playing Dodge the Punch or Dodge the Kick, but was now amused to find he had a knack for it at the ripe old age of 27. He found that if he hit the hoop just so with the edge of the stick he could cause the thing to bounce away from him for a few feet before coming straight back to him.

Satisfying.

He wasn’t sure if it was the trick he was doing, or the slightly too tight clothes he’d borrowed from young Linnet, the smithy’s daughter, that was causing the bastard hedgerow opposite to quiver with laughter from time to time.

Weighing everything up, Gregor would rather be out here as a source of perpetual amusement than be stuck inside a hedgerow with Griffin or Martin, the cunts. They’d jumped at the opportunity to draw cudgels and a couple of dull rapiers from the armoury and possibly witness Gregor get the shit beaten out of him by a murderer all while dressed as an 11-year old girl.

Besides which the opportunity to kneel in fox shit and get bitten by midges while whispering jokes about the clergy in the undergrowth probably wasn’t too far removed from a regular evening for those two.

As far as Gregor was concerned they could go suck a sailor’s cock.

Although he was focussed on the hoop - he was now trying to get the fucking thing to spin in place - his left hand was atop the hilt of the dagger at his waist. He’d used it to make a slit in the faded fabric of Linnet’s dress so he’d be able to draw it quickly if the murdering fucker appeared.

It was his father’s dagger, the only thing he’d left him after he shuffled off this mortal coil. Although left was a slight exaggeration, as he’d had to steal it back from the coffin maker the same day they found the silly bastard had fallen down the well. Now know as Silly Bastard Well.

Griffin called Gregor’s dagger his ‘long sword’, of course, while Martin, the wag, called it his ‘half-prick’. Water off a duck’s back at this point, but Gregor was confident the dagger was just long enough to go through both their necks if they stood in the exact right position and he had access to a stool.

Bastards.

Gregor was bending to retrieve the hoop so he missed the black shape falling upon the hedgerow. He dropped the playthings once the entire row of bush and briar began violently shaking as Griffin and Martin started to scream for St John and all The Saints to save them. By the sound of it, the heavenly host were either looking elsewhere - or perhaps cheering events on considering who it was getting royally fucked.

Gregor drew his dagger and raced forwards only to be knocked flat on his back by a dull, heavy wet and round thing that was propelled from the hedgerow with considerable force and struck him full in the chest.

Gregor lay there for a moment, a little winded, looking up at the night sky. It was quite peaceful now his fellow constables had ceased their screaming and imploring. Just a wet munching sound filled his ears. He turned his head to the left and found himself face to face with Martin. Well, just his head. The neck was a bloody stump, his tongue lopped out like a cow’s and he had a surprised expression on his face. He blinked once and died.

Not so tall now, thought Gregor, as he got to his feet and stared up at the wolf.

Except that it wasn’t a wolf was it? It was far too big for one thing. Griffin was easily six feet tall and the thing holding him off the ground as it rendered him in half was at least two feet taller. As Gregor watched the constable’s intestines unwind onto the floor in a steaming pile, he figured that there was almost another foot of space between Martin’s innards and the soles of his kicking boots. Stood upright on two feet, with eyes as white as marble, its muscular arms resembled actual arms rather than legs. As it chewed on Martin’s face it was lit, magnificently, by the new full moon.

‘That’, considered Gregor, ‘is a fucking werewolf’.

He looked at his dagger. Sharp as fuck it may be, but it wasn’t made of silver, nor had it been blessed by a priest and its hilt contained not a lick of wolfsbane.

“Bollocks,” said Gregor.

The werewolf cocked its head to one side and looked down at him.

~

‘The little fucker was too small to eat!’ laughed the barkeep as his audience of drunkards and ne’er-do-wells roared with laughter. Gregor, lost in thought as he peered into the fire, didn’t hear them, but his sigh was deep and heartfelt as he went over the previous evening’s shenanigans.

The werewolf had continued to watch him as he sheathed his dagger and pulled Linnet’s faded and now quite bloody dress over his head. He ensured his tunic was fastened properly and used one foot to wipe a smudge of filth from the other. He wasn’t sure there would be much left of him once the werewolf was finished, but he could at least meet his maker looking as respectable as possible. He also had a small list of questions to ask that son-of-a-bitch.

But the werewolf made no move towards him. It dropped Griffin’s halves on the floor and continued to chew on the head which was now completely in its mouth. Gregor had seen his father chew tobacco in much the same manner, but was still surprised when the monster spat Griffin’s skull onto the floor, clean as a whistle.

Then the werewolf winked at him before disappearing into the moonlit night.

Griffin’s skull was now on the top shelf of the bar.

The barkeep had bought it from the constabulary as a memento to one of his best customers and Gregor was annoyed, but already resigned to the fact that the dead prick would now be towering over him every time he ordered a drink or a pie.

There was a scramble of customers just before dusk fell much to the barkeep’s delight. No one wanted to be caught outside in the moonlight it seemed, but nor did they want to stay cooped up in their small homes with wives, in-laws and offspring. The barkeep was telling the sad tale of the heroic Griffin the Bold for the third time when Gregor stood, swallowed his warm mead, muttered “fuck this,” under his breath and headed out of the inn.

~

That morning after watching the coffin maker (the son of the dagger thief and friendly enough to Gregor) pick up the bits and pieces of his fellow constables he reported directly to the mayor who seemed to take the deaths as as personal affront to himself. He then walked around the churchyard until the pastor was up on his feet. He found bunches of wolfsbane growing atop the grave of Eric the Unsteady and picked about half of the purple flowers with a nod to Eric, who, if rumour was correct, had been buried standing up to compensate for spending a lifetime flat on the floor.

The pastor had a sore head and didn’t want Gregor to talk to him. He gruffly took the dagger and dipped it three times in the font before lying down on the nearest pew shooing him away.

The blade still wasn’t silver, but Gregor felt a little better about it as he strode down the main thoroughfare which was now empty because of the continuous recounting of the previous evening’s events. The moon was full and up behind him and his shadow stretched out ahead of him with not another soul in sight and if it wasn’t for the imminent threat of being eaten and shat out by a satanic fuck-mongrel Gregor would have felt almost happy.

The wink was bothering him.

The lore said that a werewolf was just a regular person during the day so he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that it would keep a few distinctly human traits. How one became a werewolf in the first place was due to a variety of reasons according to Robert the Old and now everyone it seemed had their favourite theory. A deal with the devil or a curse by the devil was popular, but it could also be hereditary, passed from a father to a son who would be taught at the age of 14 how to turn himself inside out as it was common knowledge that the furry bitey part stayed tucked out of sight once the sun was up. You could be bit and survive of course or you could just be dumb enough to drink rainwater from a wolf’s footprint.

None of this sounded that feasible to Gregor, who, as far as he knew, was the only one who had actually seen a fucking werewolf with his own two eyes. Setting up a deal with the devil seemed beyond the capabilities of everyone he knew and if if was a curse it wasn’t working because that wolf was having a fucking whale of a time. If it was hereditary this wouldn’t have been the first attack and if that thing bit you there’s no way you were going to last long enough to see the next full moon. The only person he knew that was dumb enough to lap at idle water from the ground was Hob the Idiot and if it was him then Gregor would be after the stupidest werewolf in Christendom and this thing didn’t seem that bewildered so far.

Besides… he’d seen that wink before.

~

Wybert the Scribe was, as expected, at home when Gregor called. And as expected he invited him in warmly and prepared a simple meal of broth, bread and mead for them both. He apologised for his slowness as he was just getting over a bout of the lurgy and also for his daughter’s absence. She was late coming back from a chore across the river. Gregor stayed for a while and ensured everything was clean before he left. Wybert had fallen asleep in his chair so he made the fire safe and sound for a few more hours at least and then stepped outside just in time to hear the howling.

He hated that he was right.

He set off towards the river and hoped that one of his few friends in this world would understand what it was that he had to do. Either way one of them would be dead before the rosy-fingered dawn was upon them.

~

The werewolf was waiting for him.

No wink this time. It came at him hard and fast the second it laid eyes on him and any notion of talking to the monster left Gregor as he drew his blade and braced himself.

The wolf thought him easy prey, but Gregor had been underestimated every moment of his life. His education, such as it was, had been brief but traumatising. It was children, younger than him, but already taller than him, that gave him the name he had never been able to shake off.

Gregor the Tall.

He’d had to fight nearly every day of his life and with practice came perfection and eventually a grudging respect of sorts. Gregor had never backed down in front of an opponent no matter how tall, wide or many they were. By the time he became a constable it was understood that he was certainly the toughest fellow in Redhill and from that point on it was mostly travellers who underestimated him.

The name though followed him around like a stray dog.

Speaking of strays… the wolf thought it had Gregor, but was surprised to watch his meal slip underneath its reach and then even more surprised to feel a sharp shearing pain as the dagger found its stomach and sliced deep.

The werewolf roared in pain and spun around to tear the Constable apart with its claws, but again Gregor was too fast. Grabbing handfuls of fur he climbed the thing’s back and stabbed it repeatedly in the neck. This time the beast found him and threw him hard enough that he rolled straight down the river bank to the very water’s edge.

He pulled himself up and saw with dismay that the wounds he had inflicted were already healing over. ‘Silver next time for sure’, he thought as the werewolf started to run at him.

But there wouldn’t be a next time.

~

Robert the Old had a small list of the different methods to dispatch a werewolf, but the only one he was sure of was silver. Decapitation, dismemberment and fire were all maybes, but so was wolfsbane and holy water and both had done fuck all so far. But there was one more thing that was guaranteed to kill a werewolf stone cold dead that Robert the Old had not considered.

Another werewolf.

The moment that Gregor saw it he knew his mistake. The one he’d been fighting was broader and shorter than the one he’d seen kill Griffin and Martin. It was obvious now that the smaller one was being pummelled by the larger one. He finally got unsteadily to his feet just as the original wolf, his wolf, locked its jaws across the other one’s throat. He was close enough get hit in the face with an arterial spray as the throat was ripped away.

He raised a hand to his face to wipe off some of the gloop and the world began to spin again. The werewolf looked down at him as he fell at its feet and rolled over on to his back. The last thing he saw was the creature’s face coming towards him almost as if it was straining to hear his last whispered word.

“Meggy…”

~

It was daylight when he awoke in Wybert’s chair. Meggy was sat atop the table watching him carefully.

“At last. Shall I offer you some rye bread, Constable?”

Gregor, for all his intelligence compared to the rest of Redhill, was also a huge fucking idiot at times. This was one of them. He’d known Wybert’s daughter, Meggy, for nearly his whole life, but it was only now, sat in her father’s chair the morning following the night that he’d set off to kill her that he realised how deeply he cared for her.

They’d saved each other once. Tub the Baker had crept up on Gregor when they were just children, back when he was just Tub the Chorve, and raised a rock high above his head that would have possibly killed him had Meggy’s boot not unexpectedly met the chump’s balls with enough force for him to puke out of his nose. A few years later he got the opportunity to repay her when Amis the Prick decided to pay her an uninvited visit when her father was across the river on business. Gregor had heard her scream and his very first job as a freshly minted constable had been to repeatedly bring Amis’ face down on the edge of her father’s table until a few of his teeth stayed there as the rest of him slumped to the floor.

He could see the marks now as she got off the table and offered him a cup of water.

Both times, as Tub held on to his nethers and later as she wiped away the blood from her mouth, Meggy had winked at him. Just like the wolf.

He drank the water greedily and wondered what do next. Killing a werewolf was one thing, but…

“Killing a pretty young thing in her father’s kitchen isn’t the same is it, Gregor?”

He was past being surprised.

“I didn’t know a werewolf could read minds as well, Meggy.”

“I can’t read your mind, Constable,” she laughed. “I just know you better than you know yourself.”

“How?” It was the only question he could ask.

So she told him. It turns out you could survive a werewolf bite and she’d done just that over a year ago. It had torn open her shoulder, but she’d tumbled down a hollow and hid inside a dead tree trunk until the morning when her wound was miraculously healed. The next full moon she’d learned what she now was and adjusted to her new life. Once a month she’d head deep into the forest for a few days and that worked well until a merchant had struck her father a blow across the face that left him bed-bound and unable to fend for himself. She decided to forgo her regular excursion and what had occurred occurred.

“The merchant?”

“A Dutch bastard. He hit my father for no other reason than that he could,” and then her face fell. “I didn’t learn what befell Ulf the Beggar until it was too late.”

“The fault there lies not with you.”

She agreed. Which was why she ate the magistrate.

“And Martin and Griffin?”

“It was not my intent and I was already turned around when I smelled them and saw you, but then I heard them talking about you. Laughing at you. And… well, the blood rises with the moon and I could not help myself. For that I am sorry. Although they were both useless cunny-rags.”

Gregor found he had no argument there. However, he was a constable still.

“Someone must answer for their deaths, Meggy,” he said sadly.

Without saying a word she took him outside and there laid out on his back behind the house was Amis the Prick. Naked and now more worthy of the name Amis the Mushroom, his chest was torn asunder, his throat gone, but his body was somehow caught in the middle of his terrible transformation.

“The trick is to take the heart before the change is fully reversed,” Meggy explained. “I’ve been reading up at the abby when I can. Much more reliable than Robert the Old.”

Amis’ face was contorted, the snout of the wolf still stretched out, dried blood on his razor sharp teeth, one eye as full and white as the moon that had cursed him.

“I knew you’d need a body so I bit this dolt to ensure it wouldn’t be mine. I’d wager that any man that drags this thing back into town will have the mayor’s eternal gratitude. Songs would be sung about him,” she smiled.

“I care not for songs, Meggy.”

“I know what you care for, Gregor Brock,” she said, with a smile, as she leaned down, only a little, and kissed him on the cheek.

Together they tied the body to a makeshift sled fastened to a rough harness for him to step into. As he did so he had one final thought.

“Why Amis the Prick?”

This was the one question that surprised her and she looked at him with her head askew, just as she had done in wolf form, as if he really was the most simple creature in the world.

“Because he was a prick,” she said. And winked.

Still smiling Gregor dragged the corpse of the werewolf that he had killed back into town to the inn where the barkeeper propped it up outside as they waited for the mayor to arrive. And it wasn’t long before he earned his new name.

Gregor the Tall, Slayer of Monsters.

And then it wasn’t long before most people reverted back to the short version and Gregor, newly betrothed to Margaret the Fair, found he didn’t mind at all.

~

Meggy, up at the top there, is by Dave the Pen.