Scott's Close Call (Part Two)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

As the youngster bent down to look inside the car he realised that there was a woman sitting in the passenger seat with her elbow out of the open window, and she was smoking a long, thin cigarette that smelled like burning hair. She looked about thirty, thirty five, and if anything she was freakier than her companion.

The woman had bright red curly hair that looked like it was made of nylon (it's a wig, it's a Pound Shop Comic Relief clown's wig). Her skin was as pasty as Ingrid's (like dough like the dough your mamma makes, like plasticine in the hands of a skilled sculptor or wax that'll melt away from the horror beneath if she gets too warm), and her huge eyes were a curious yellowish colour (she's wearing contact lenses, they're just bloody contact lenses). And then there was her make-up, awful deep maroon lipstick and dirty orange eye-shadow daubed on as if a five year old on LSD had applied it.“Oh, hello,” Scott said, unable to take his eyes off the woman. “I didn't see you in there - Ingrid didn't tell me he had anyone with him. Are you his wife?”

“Ingrid? Who is Ingrid?” (Get out of there, you fool – run like fuck!)

“Me Ingrid,” the man said. “Me Ingrid Purple, you Octavia, Ingrid's wife. Hello, pigeon.....”

Scott had a terrible feeling that the thing that called itself Ingrid was milking his mind for information as and when needed, but he had no idea how to escape (Pigeon, that's what dad calls mum. I've never heard anyone else use it as a term of endearment before, and I've never heard anyone blurt out a term of endearment so mechanically, so fucking coldly.)

Though the woman (that's no woman, you moron) was staring at him with wide eyes as if she had never seen a human being before he tried to look past her at the car's interior. Something Ingrid had told him (his name's not fucking Ingrid, and 'he' is completely sexless) was bugging him (it's new, it's brand spanking new, it's factory fresh, not fix, mend, rejuvenate restore). That about hit the nail on the head - the damned car even smelled new (don't get inside, don't get inside, don't dare get inside, or the hungry, screaming monsters will eat you! Oh, come on - just because they're freaks doesn't mean that they're bloody monsters).

“Open up the bonnet,” Scott said, and Ingrid climbed into the car and released the bonnet catch. The innards were as spotless as the rest of the car, it looked like the engine of a vehicle that had just rolled off the production line. Gingerly the youngster touched the radiator cap, which was cold (freaky), and very carefully he tried to unscrew it - he had burned his hands on the stream hissing out of overheated radiators before. It wouldn't open, though, and on closer inspection it looked like the cap and radiator were moulded in one piece; it didn't make sense, but it looked like the structure was never meant to be opened and never meant to be filled with water (it's a cunning copy of the real McCoy – freaky, freaky!) “It, erm, seems to have cooled down,” Scott said, checking the leads from the battery, which were also moulded in one piece. “The radiator doesn't need topping up,” he said. “With a bit of luck you should be cooking on gas.”

“With a bit of luck you should be cooking on gas,” Octavia said, closely studying Ingrid's face (they're just junkies who've stolen a classic car, they've been on the whacky baccy and magic mushrooms and LSD and fuck knows what else. But that doesn't explain why they look so – so inhuman).

“Start the old girl up, Ingrid,” Scott said a red post office van drove past and the occupants of the car held onto one another and screamed.

“Don't like it! Don't like it!”

“You can start her up now,” Ingrid said, toying with Octavia's outlandish hair, his idiot grin back with a vengeance. The old/new vehicle started up first time with a nice, healthy growl, but it wasn't coming from the engine (because the engine isn't real, it's a cunning cover up for something beyond human comprehension). As Scott closed the bonnet and tried to think up an excuse to get the hell out of there the car lunged forward, hitting him sharply in the shins and lower thighs and knocking him flat on his back. He banged his head on the edge of tarmac (get up! Get up! Do something, man, don't lie there like a fucking lemon or they'll kill you!), and for a while the world shimmered in and out of existence.

Scott heard the car doors open and slam shut, and a moment later Ingrid and Octavia were standing over him. “You're mine now,” Octavia said.

“No no, this one is mine!” Ingrid said. “We agreed - you always get first share, and that's not fair.”

“Of course it's fair, I am the senior partner and you are my subordinate.”

“Don't like! Don't like!” they screeched in unison as a tiny Fiat drove past, the elderly female driver barely glancing at the man lying on the ground and the two strange individuals standing over him.

“Naa!” Ingrid growled, knocking Octavia's wig off, exposing a slightly flattened skull which was covered in throbbing purplish veins. Octavia retaliated by knocking Ingrid's silver wig off, exposing a similar skin-free but heavily veined skull.

“That's enough!” Octavia yelled. “Get him in the back, quickly, before he regains his senses.” The two creatures grabbed Scott under the armpits, and with surprising strength they hurled him into the back of the Traveller and closed the doors. Moments later Ingrid started the car up, and this time the engine emitted a deep throbbing noise unlike anything that Scott had ever heard before. “Don't forget, he's mine,” Octavia said, and as the vehicle began to slowly rise into the air (I don't frigging believe it) Ingrid made a grab for her face, snatching away a handful of white doughy stuff and revealing her wide mouth and greenish blue underlying skin, which was covered in flat hexagonal plates.

“Vallhai! Rommex-na, achis ne doicht!” she said, swiping Ingrid across the face, his nose and most of his left cheek splattering on the windscreen with a wet thud, at which point the unlikely flying machine dropped almost back to ground level.

“Let me go!” Scott cried. “Please, don't take me – let me go!” Ingrid turned around wearing his idiot grin once more, but this time it really did spread from ear to ear and his lipless mouth was full of ragged shark teeth.

“That's not going to happen, cattle – you are our property!” he grunted, at which point Bella flew through the open driver's window and sunk her teeth into the abomination beneath the shoddy fabrication of a human face. “Don't like! Don't like! Ingrid roared, his entire body swiftly crumbling to a greyish dust. The flying car suffered a bumpy landing. Octavia opened the passenger door and leaped out, but Bella was right behind her. Scott heard a sickening crunch as the dog's jaws closed around the monster's wrist, and then she too turned into a pillar of dust and fell to the ground.

Scott climbed over the seats towards the open passenger door because there was no inner handle on the back doors. The vehicle started humming ominously, and the radio came on – it was playing The Crystals' Da Doo Ron Ron full blast. “Fuck. Fuck!” he said as he dropped onto the ground, dragged himself to his feet and ran away from the car. Scott went dizzy and dropped to his knees on the grass verge, Bella rushing over and enthusiastically licking his face. “How did you get out, baby?” he muttered. “Did you open the back door handle with your paws, you sly beggar?”

The Traveller's passenger door slammed shut and it levitated once more, rising fifteen feet or so into the air and gliding silently out of sight over the thick hawthorn hedge. “Later,” Scott was pretty sure he heard a dry, croaky voice whispering just as the craft disappeared. The wind picked up, and in little more than a minute the grey talc-like substance in the road that was all that remained of Octavia was gone.

“Come on, Bella,” Scott said. “Let's go home – mum and dad ain't gonna believe this.”