Man-Weasel (Part Four)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

The couple did well at the market, in fact by two thirty in the afternoon they had sold the last of their free range eggs and poultry and the sausages that Joan had recently started making in their meat processing unit from locally raised pork, so they packed up early and drove home. “This time next year I think we should be raising our own pigs,” Lloyd said. “I want to phase the cattle out and have free range Tamworths or maybe Wild boar in the bottom pasture, but we need to build some shelters, we need to apply for a license to keep Wild boar and I'd have to erect an electric fence before the authorities even think about granting it. Those sausages you make sell like hot cakes, I reckon if we do a bigger range we'll do really well with them.”

Joan was in no mood to talk business, and she told Lloyd about the previous night; she had kept the episode to herself all day because she didn't want him fretting over it, but she couldn't keep it in a moment longer. "What if it chooses to stay?" she said. "Do you think the church will arrange a full scale exorcism then?"

“I have no idea,” Lloyd replied, “If I hadn't seen this thing with my own eyes I'd never have believed that it could possibly exist.”

“Jeff seems harmless enough, he's just a damned nuisance. Even when he was threatening to kill off our livestock and our dogs and cats I had the feeling that he was just displaying his wicked sense of humour, but I don't know, the whole weird caboodle still worries me. He hinted that if we upset him he could open up some sort of psychic doorway and let all sorts of horrors in to hassle us.”

“We'll have to take it one day at a time, love. I was planning to shoot the damned thing, but I don't think it can be hurt that way, I think when it was hiding under the cattle it was just playing silly buggers and taunting me. I don't know what to do for the best, I guess we have to live with the inconvenience until this Jeff creature decides to sod off and seek greener pastures. I have a story to tell you from when I was a kid; don't ask me why I've never told you before, Joan, I guess I only half believed it myself, I guess I thought if I buried it deeply enough at the back of my mind it would eventually go away, and it's only recent events that have brought it surging back.....

I must have been about nine or ten. I spent a lot of time with a kid called Mike Strachan, he lived on a big arable farm a couple of miles from my parents' place and we went to the same school. He's dead now, he was killed in a car accident along with his girlfriend not long after he learned to drive, a drunk driver ploughed into his mini on Christmas Eve, that was 1985 or thereabouts.

His dad and his elder brother had a big brick and steel workshop built on the side of their barn, the old man was a skilled woodworker and they made fancy furniture as a sideline, mostly beautiful inlaid tables. One autumn day Mike and I were about to play in there, but a brand new padlock had been fitted on the door. He went to ask his parents why the place was locked up. His mother wouldn't say much, she seemed terrified and warned Mike not to go in the workshop. Later the same day his dad told him that a bad spirit had moved in and we weren't allowed in there under any circumstances. We laughed at the idea, and understandably the ban aroused our curiosity, so a couple of weeks later when his parents were out we found the key and let ourselves in.

We played in there for a while without incident, everything seemed perfectly normal, and then something we couldn't see started sniggering and chucking tools around, screwdrivers, planes, all manner of things. It threw a chisel at Mikey with such force that it stuck in his shin bone and we couldn't pull it out, I had to phone for an ambulance.

After that frightening incident I was banned from visiting the Strachan place. Mike told me at school that the ghost had moved into the house and it talked to him at night. It said it's name was Jizzle and it knew everything, it told him his mother would die of breast cancer, which she did just a couple of years later, and that he would die young himself, and as I've already explained, he did..... The poor kid had a mental breakdown and he was sent to live with his uncle and aunt on the Welsh border for a few months to recuperate. The spirit lingered for a few weeks, but eventually it left and the family were never troubled by it again.”

“And the moral of the story is?”

“Jeff might seem harmless enough right now, he seems to be all fun and games and maybe he has more in common with an unruly kid than an evil spirit, but we don't know what's on his agenda, we don't know what he's capable of. One way or another we have to get rid of the fucker, Joan; I have no idea how, but somehow we have to find a way.”

*************************

Alan fed the livestock and performed most of the other pressing jobs while Lloyd and Joan were away, which left the Wilcox's free to potter around for the remainder of the day. They had just sat down to eat when their unwelcome guest made his presence known, and Alan, who hadn't been told a whisper about the creature, had stayed over for dinner.

“Is one of the cats in here?” Alan said as he tucked in to his minted lamb chops and vegetables.

“No, I think they're all outside,” Joan replied. “Why, what's up?”

“I felt something brush past my leg, but when I looked under the table there was nothing there.”

“It must be your imagination, then - I'm not playing footsie with you, I promise.” Alan went bright red, he was very easily embarrassed and Joan wished she had kept her big mouth shut. She glanced around the room and looked at Lloyd questioningly, but he shrugged his shoulders and carried on eating. A little while later a tremendous racket erupted in the lounge, which was just across the hall from the kitchen. It was a drum roll peppered with cannon shots, Jeff was playing the noisiest part of the 1812 Overture full blast.....”

“What the hell is that?” Alan yelled over the racket.

“It's, erm, it's nothing to worry about,” Lloyd said. “The stereo in the living room is on the blink, it must have a loose wire or something because the radio keeps coming on.”

“Aah,” Alan said with disbelief written all over his face. “I'll go and switch it off.”

“I'll do it!” Joan said, but Alan beat her to it and the three of them fought to enter the living room all at once.

Jeff was standing on the coffee table conducting his spectral orchestra. He was clad in dark clothing, and as he turned the music stopped dead. He was wearing a tuxedo over a white frilly shirt with a red dicky-bow, and on his head was a fez perched at a jaunty angle. “Why do you insist on interrupting Jeff's carefully planned musical sessions, you utter Phillistines?” he said. “He has an army of long rotted musicians to keep happy, but you people keep buggering up our rehearsals. Hi, Alan, I'm Jeff, seeing as Lloyd and Joan are too rude to introduce us,” and he proffered a tiny, white gloved hand, which of course Alan ignored.

“What's going on?” Alan said, a flabbergasted expression on his face. “What's that..... what's that thing?”

“I've been meaning to tell you, Alan,” Joan said, “but how do you even begin to explain the inexplicable? You've seen him now. Jeff isn't real, he's a spirit, and he won't hurt you.”

“How do you know that Jeff won't hurt the boy?” the creature said. “Jeff is a trifle pissed off at the moment because you two scoundrels have been plotting to get rid of him, so he might consider harming poor, naïve Alan. How could you do such a thing? Jeff is a vengeful creature when he's crossed, you mark his words. He's been making sweet amends while you were away, mind; Jeff has cunningly done away with your foolish cats, every last one of the fuckers, with copious amounts of rat poison smeared on chunks of fried mackerel. He found some strychnine in your tool shed, Lloyd - you're a very naughty boy indeed, you know, it's a highly illegal means of vermin control.”

“You're lying,” Joan spluttered. “Where did you get the mackerel from?”

“Where do you imagine, you silly woman - do you think Jeff went to the unnecessary trouble of jumping on a train to the coast, hiring a set of fishing tackle and catching them out of the sea? He pinched them from the freezer, you divvy, you have loads of fish in the bottom couple of drawers that you buy when it's reduced because you love a bargain, though you and Lloyd hardly ever eat it and it usually ends up in the cats' bellies. Jeff was even cunning enough to wash the frying pan so that you wouldn't be suspicious.....”

“I've had enough of this nonsense,” Joan said, rushing past Lloyd and Alan into the hall. “You two stay right where you are, don't let the malicious little bastard get out of the room.” 'Rolling pin,' she repeated over and over in in her mind. 'Rolling pin, rolling pin, rolling pin,' but she was concentrating on something far more deadly.

“Oh, woe is me!” Jeff cried, running to and fro across the carpet. “The daft old moo is going to beat poor Jeff senseless with her rolling pin. Jeff is frightened, he's shitting fucking bricks. Where can he hide? Should he conceal himself behind the settee or the armchair, should he pretend to be a china figurine and stand statue still in the china cabinet, should he brave the burning logs and try to scramble up the chimney? A few suggestions would be helpful, boys, 'cos Jeff is at a loss for sensible ideas.”

Joan reappeared with the shotgun, and she barged past Lloyd and Alan and aimed it at the infeasible little monster. “You might think I'm a silly woman, buster, but I learned how to use a shotgun when I was ten years old.”

“Don't, Joan, it won't kill him!” Lloyd yelled. “You'll only piss him off, and that'll just make matters worse.” Joan had already made up her mind, though. The blast knocked Jeff out of his shiny patent leather shoes and hurled him a good six feet backwards, and he landed in a heap at the base of the shelves that held Lloyd's wildlife books. Oddly enough he was wearing a pair of Mickey Mouse socks.

Jeff struggled to his feet, and though he had a black hole in his chest there was no blood. “Bastard,” he said, clutching at his heart and experimentally poking his fingers into the wound. “You don't mess around, do you, woman?” Theatrically he staggered back and forth across the hearth rug, still clutching his chest. “Jeff is dying!” he groaned. “Innocent, kissy-faced, fluffy little Jeff who never harmed a living soul. Quick, call an ambulance, but don't take his ruined body to that infernal animal hospital, please, because Rolf Harris gives him the bleedin' creeps, the hairy faces git..... No, looks like it was a false alarm. He is dying now, though, he's sure of it.”

Joan stepped forward and emptied the second barrel. The blast disintegrated Jeff's head, and he fell on his back, his little legs twitching spastically. Strangely, though, the ragged hole in his chest was closing and a boil like protrusion on the bloodless stump of his neck was swelling rapidly like an inflating balloon, and it had rudimentary eyes and a nose and mouth.

Joan grabbed the creature by the lapels of his fancy suit and flung him on the fire, and he burned furiously as if he was soaked with petrol. “Damn you, woman!” Jeff cried, his arms and legs flailing wildly. He tried to climb out of the fire, but Lloyd pushed him back in with the poker, and he was determined to hold the monster down until the flames consumed it. “You'll all pay for this!” the flaming abomination roared. “You wait and see, I'll get you all – you haven't seen the end of Jeff. Cuuuuunts!” They had seen the end of him though, Jeff was finished and he never troubled the Wilcox family again.