Glitch (Part Three)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

The two chatted while they drank their tea, and after a while April said that she was ready to start work. “I may go into a trance,” she said, “and I may not, you can never tell. I have to ask you not to interrupt; it's best to be quiet unless unless I or one of the visitors speaks to you.”

“I understand,” Norton said.

April started breathing deeply and evenly, her arms fell limply to her sides and her eyes fixed on a spot on the chimney breast in the middle of one of Norton's colourful, thickly painted abstracts. The canvas began to shimmer and buckle as if looking at it through a heat haze, and three of the gooseberry things squeezed into the room and floated down to the floor, chattering furiously.

They were more substantial than they usually were, they had oily looking olive green skin, tiny eyes on stalks and no limbs. They milled around the room a few inches above the carpet in sheer panic, and then one of the glowing centipedes appeared from the same spot, a big one seven or eight feet long. The gooseberries vanished simultaneously with a loud pop. The centipede dulled to a burnt orange colour and curled up on the hearth rug, whistling a tune that Norton didn't recognise, and quite abruptly it started to speak. “Greetings,” it said in a soft, distant sounding voice. “You called me, April Amelia Vane, I am Hesketh. I've never spoken to a carbon based life form before, and many of my kind regard you as spirits. I'm deeply curious - what do you want of me?” Scrimbly materialised and began to rub his body against the centipede's side like a fussy old pussy cat.

“We need your help,” April said in a deep, throaty voice. “You are the Shymmera, the guardians of the ways, are you not?”

“We are,” Hesketh said. “What of it?”

“What are the limbless green creatures that passed this way just before you arrived?”

“They are Colettes, our cattle. We have to keep a close eye on them just lately because we've been having trouble with rustlers. Vile beings that feed on raw fear have broken into our reality and this one - Norton, you have no doubt met some of them. They are bad, they are very bad. Scrimbly doesn't like them, do you, Scrimbly?”

“Bad! Bad!” Scrimbly cried.

“We know that, Hesketh,” April said, “and we heed your help to get rid of them, hopefully for good. Tell me, do you know the location of the rents through which the wanderers emerge?”

“Yes, we know exactly where the rents are. There are several of them, but we have no way of repairing them and keeping the predators out. All we can do is police the ways, the monsters avoid us when we appear in numbers, but there aren't enough of us to guard every danger zone at once. Sometimes they come in bands, sometimes they overpower and slaughter my people. They are bad, they are very, very bad indeed.....”

“I can see the corridors that you travel through. Like you say, some places are crawling with Shymmera, some are completely empty, and the intruders can enter at will. Take me with you, Hesketh, walk with me along the avenues and byways between the worlds. I can sew up the tears in your passageways with God's love and keep the intruders out.”

“You would do that for us?”

“It's not as selfless a task as you think, it's for the benefit of your kind and mine.”

“Very well,” Hesketh said. “Come along, now.”

April was out for the count. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, her mouth dropped open and one of her nostrils inflated and deflated a large, viscous bubble of snot. The centipede started to glow, it turned around and walked through the fireplace.

Norton watched with wonder as a string of off-white stuff that looked like kneaded dough poked through the medium's t shirt, wound itself into a twisted thread that took on a silvery colour and waved around in the air like a cobra responding to a snake charmer's pipe. The end of the serpentine form folded in on itself and swelled at an alarming rate into a pale human figure, a carbon copy of April, but the new April was as naked as a newborn baby.

“My silvery cord,” the shiny porcelain like extension whispered. “If the wanderers come this way you must guard it at all costs. In the passageways I'll be protected by the Shymmera and their allies, but I'm counting on you to look after me at this end, Norton. Don't leave this room for a second. If the cord is broken or the part of me that's dreaming sweet dreams on your sofa is harmed I'll be trapped in the cold purgatory between worlds forever, and my earthly remains will slowly wither and die. Aah, Hesketh has informed me that he'll send reinforcements to help you out as soon as possible. They might be pretty fearsome looking, he said, so please don't mistake them for enemies – Scrimbly will help you to determine fried from foe.”

“I'll guard you with my life, I promise,” Norton replied, looking around the room for a suitable weapon, but not knowing if any weapon would be sufficient. The Persil white April double smiled, one hand coyly hiding its pubis, stepped forwards and walked confidently through the wall.