Henchmen4U

This poorly made poster has been doing the rounds in Stockdale.

Over the past few months more and more have become disenfranchised by the lack of full time employment opportunities.

Even students have taken on the role of Henchmen to earn themselves some extra pocket money.

But what does Dr Malevolent need with an entire towns worth of lackeys?

What strange secrets and controversial experiments does he have up his sleeve?

Will anyone be able to stop him?

Should he be stopped?

How many unanswered questions is too many?

All will be revealed soon....

ps- only ten months until Xmas! hahahahaha

The Seven Sorrows of Stockdale (part three)

It took a while for Chub to get her breath back, but the time it took was enough for her to feel her legs stop twitching from all that running and also for her lungs to stop feeling like they were on fire.

She sat in a small shack which seemed to be made of old pallets, chicken wire, newspapers and various bits of odds and ends. It was cramped but well built and was far enough from view that Chub felt as safe as one could when sat in a hut made of junk with a very strange man with hair like a drunk birds nest who claimed that spiders had told him to put the kettle on.

Her hands cupped a... well, a cup.

The cup in question had been handed to her by the very same individual who had made the very peculiar statement about spiders and time keeping previously.

His name is Gus, as will be confirmed very shortly.

"Drink slowly. You'll get hiccups otherwise. Nobody likes hiccups." said the man named Gus.

"I'm Gus by the way." (told you!).

Gus had a friendly smile. The sort of smile simpletons utilise instead of wearing a sign that says DON'T ASK ME, I'M AN IDIOT, but there was also an air of serenity that only emanates from those who are truly at one with the universe. So Gus was a bit of a conundrum really.

Chub couldn't help but gulp at the cup of herbal tea Gus had given her. "What did you mean about the spiders?" She asked between slurps.

"You have heard of Chaos theory yes?"

Chub shrugged in agreement.

"Well, simply put, in Chaos theory, a butterfly flapping it wings in Brasil can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world."

Chub pondered the implications of this and said "Why don't they just kill all the Brazilian butterflies then? Hey presto - no more hurricanes."

"no." said Gus. "It doesn't work like that. I was using a metaphor...."

Chub rolled her eyes. "Dur... I'm joking. I know what Chaos theory is. I read about it in one the books we exchanged for a dead pigeon."

Gus sighed a sigh of relief and continued. "Everything we do has reactions. Some small and others big. They spread, causing other things to happen and not always directly linked... I can see patterns in things and can calculate their path both back and forth. That's how I knew you would be coming here, today."

Chub shrugged again. Although quite impressed at his story telling she had no faith in his mad ramblings.

Gus, however, continued to explain in detail lots of things that he couldn't have otherwise known. He also showed Chub how he used everyday objects to find out the information.

"You try.." He said with that idiot smile of his.

"Give over!" Laughed Chub. "It's a load of codswallop." She snorted.

Gus raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. 

"Frightened are you... never mind then." and before he could make another sound, his brief use of reverse psychology Chub picked up an old can of fizzy drink from the floor.

"What do I do then." She said defiantly.

"Look for a pattern." Said Gus. "Find the pattern and allow it to form ... a message."

Chub stared at the can. She moved it around in her hand looking for dents and bumps in its aluminium sides.

Then she saw it.

The bar code.

The little square of black lines on the side. To anybody else it would just look like a random group of thick lines and thin lines. But something spoke to Chub telling her that there was more to it than that.

Minutes passed and Chub realised she had not blinked in all that time.

Here eyes began to smart and she was forced to blink a few times to relieve the itch. As she did her eyes watered and from nowhere... a shape behind the pattern began to form.

Gus could tell from the look on her face she had succeeded.

"What did you see?" Gus whispered with wonder.

Chub Shrugged and shook her head. "I want to go home..... But I can't...." She said without any enthusiasm. Something had obviously given her a fright.

She handed Gus the small piece of paper with the items she needed to collect before being allowed back inside Lenny Henry Tower.

"I've already made you a bed behind those curtains." Gus said politely. "It's lucky I just happen to have a Glass Hammer and some tartan paint in here somewhere... as for the long weight... we'll see about that in the morning. I'm sure Geds Brick-n-Brack shop will have some in stock." He said with a knowing wink.

Morning came, although for Chub it took a long time. She couldn't sleep.

The day before she had been happily running backwards and forwards across the landing, getting under everyone's feet, annoying her brother Handle and her sister who had the unfortunate fortune to also be named after the first thing their father saw as they were born. It never really dawned on any of the siblings that Rising damp was NOT a real name for girl, so we shall say no more on the matter.

Gus took Chub out for a walk. She still wouldn't talk about what she saw in the patterns of the fizzy drinks can, but she had an urge to be somewhere else.

After a quick visit to Geds Brick-n-Brack shop, they left Chubs wares in the shack and headed out.

They walked in almost silence through the streets of Stockdale. They passed Mabels Cafe,  The Hat museum, down and along the canal and carried on until Chub grabbed Gus' arm.

"Here." She said quietly.

Gus frowned. "The Old abandoned Fun Fair?" He said. "Curious. Nobody has been here for years."

Gus prised open the old rusted gates and they both squeezed through and into the park.

It was eerily quiet around the park and the evening light was quickly fading.

"I think we should leave." Said Chub. "I don't like it he...." But her words were halted in their tracks by the arrival of two shadowy figures.

Gus grabbed chub and they hid behind one of the rusting dodgem cars.

The two men lit flashlights and walked into, what used to be, the old haunted house.

Moments passed before Gus turned to Chub and asked. "What did you see? What brought us here?" 

"That!" She answered and pointed to the haunted house where there was a loud shout and as both Gus and Chub looked up, a large dog came crashing through the (admittedly thin) wall upstairs.

There was a scream, something that sounded like "DOOBY SCOO - WHERE ARE YOU?" before another figure hurtled through the hole in the wall and to his doom.

Gus stood up. "Get out of here... RUN!"

Together they moved as fast as they could back to the gates. Before they got three steps forward though, both Gus and Chub found themselves in a heap on the floor.

It's the kind of thing that happens when you run straight into a very large man of the "hench" variety.

"Well, well, well." said a well spoken man with thick glasses and thinning hair (for who long time readers might recognise as Dr Malevolent! - shock and gasp!)

"Sneaky little nosey parkers are we? poking our nosey noses into things that don't concern us are we?" He laughed evilly.

The large henchman stood next to Malevolent picked up Gus with one hand and punched him unconscious. 

Chub ran.

She was beginning to regret her desire to know what running felt like as it often seemed to involve people chasing her with no good intentions.

"Go after her Barnabus, then come back and put that dog and his idiot into the van."

Barnabus was a giant of man and it didn't take long for him catch up to Chub and grab her with one of his huge hands.

Chub wanted to scream but Barnabus leaned in, his hand over most of her head, let alone her mouth.

"Sssh!" He whispered, out of site of his employer. "You need to run. Don't come back. It's too dangerous for you here. Find the professor. He will help you." and with that, He lifted Chub over the fence and returned to Dr Malevolent. 

Chub ran.

See Chub run.

Run Chub, run.

EPILOGUE:

Gus wasn't clear on how many days had past, but he knew he had been held captive for a long time. He drifted into awareness and looked around.

Unable to move, as his arms and legs were tied outstretched, he was just able to move his head. What he saw shocked him. Lines and lines of bodies, all tied up like him. Some in glass cabinets, some dismembered.

Along the line he saw his keeper making his way toward him.

"Ah, you are awake at last... Gus isn't it?" Smirked the Doctor.

"What do you want from me?" gasped Gus. "Do you expect me to talk?"

"No." said Malevolent, with mockingly shocked. "I expect you ... well, actually yes. I want to ALL about you and that special brain of yours...."

aaaaaand fade to black - fade in dramatic music - roll credits

TWWBM - the beginning (part two)

“You have a brother?” said everyone in the room apart from Professor Procto.

“No?” said the Prof. “Wait.. Did I say brother?”

“Hell yes!” Said Henry.

“Henry!” Mrs Featheringay snapped. She was not one for swearing even though she had very nearly become a victim of her own mouth earlier on.

“Sorry Mrs F.”

“I didn’t mean brother.” Continued the Professor. “I meant to say nemesis. Dr Malevolent is my nemesis.”

The professor went on “Back when I was studying SCIENCE at the UNIVERSITY I shared a room with Malevolent. We were both top of our respected fields, although we differing views on how science should be used to help humanity.

Where I concluded that science should be used as a tool to shape mankind, making it stronger, smarter and more robust, he had the idiotic idea that science  and technology should be used solely to make life easier for everyone…. The fool!”

It was Henrys turn to frown. “I don’t understand Prof. What’s wrong with making life easier with machines and stuff?”

The professor pointed an accusing finger straight at Henry and said “See! My point proven yet again.”

“Machines make life easier. You don’t have to think anymore. Machines do all the thinking for you.  Until the day they stop. And then what will you do?” His rhetorical question hung in the air daring somebody to try and answer.

“What happened to him?” Mrs Featheringay could always be counted on to push a conversation toward its conclusion.

“It wasn’t long before He was thrown out of the UNIVERSITY for inventing a working perpetual engine.” Said the Prof.

“A what-what?” asked Henry, who was now showing himself to the idiot in the room (not that was any doubt from the others already there).

“Put simply a perpetual engine creates more energy than is needed to run it.” Interjected Lemiwell, who was the sort of person would could interject properly.

“Yes.” Agreed the Professor. “His engines output so only slightly greater than that need to run it, but still – that energy had to go somewhere. The longer it ran, the more energy needed to be released. If I hadn’t used my destroy-o-matic to ..y’know.. destroy it, it would have caused an incredible amount of damage”

“Is that what happened at the Orphanage?” Henry was now officially pushing his luck.

“I don’t want to talk about the Orphanage.” Said the Professor, blankly.

“So what is this mad man doing back in Stockdale?” Mrs Featheringay pondered.

Lemiwell and the Professor looked at each other knowingly.

It was Lemiwell who spoke first. “If he has sent one of his lackeys to spy on us, as Henry saw earlier, then it can only mean he wants to stop me from being elected next year!”

Henry huffed. “Maybe he’s not after you. Maybe he is after revenge on the professor for destroying his machine…”

“Could be.” Agreed the Professor very VERY reluctantly.

“Whatever the reason,” said Lemiwell “We have to be on the ball. Anyone of us could be in his firing line…. Even you Henry.”

 “Either way. Plans must be made. This is why group 8-10 was created. We have to stop Malevolent before he can put his plans into action….Mrs F?” Lemiwell pointed to the housekeeper in question. “Put the kettle on. We’re going to pull an all nighter!”

“I have one last question.” Said Henry.

“Go on.” Said Lemiwell.

“What does TWWBM mean?” he asked.

The professor took a deep breath and told him.

“Really?” Said Henry. “That’s a bit cocky isn’t it?”

Outside Mrs Featheringays house, The tall stranger known as Dr Malevolents assistant Barnabus, finished writing in his pad and walked back to the secret hideout on the edge of town.

Protruding from his pocket the top of his notepad could just be seen. As an imaginary movie camera zooms in slowly to the sound of ominous music some words could be seen.

Zoom even closer…..

There it is…

Malevolent's mantra: The World Will Be Mine.

to be continued.....

gangsta paradise?

With a million thanks to Rob Z Tobor for helping with the font errors!!!!

Of all the five major senses (excluding the sense of motion, the sense of dread that arrives every Sunday night before the working week begins) the sense of smell is most important when travelling around the fictional town of Stockdale.
Using just the nostrils it is possible to gauge where you are by simply sniffing.

A sickly sweet stench confirms that you would be in the vicinity of the either the bakery or the glue factory where as the bitter scent of body odour and desperation puts you within fighting distance of the Weatherspoons pub.

It is possible to traverse the town without using your eyes at all, which is sometimes preferable if you don't like seeing morbidly obese mums dragging their snotty nosed kids to the shops to do a bit of shop lifting.

However, there is one place where the sense of smell is not really needed, or wanted. The municipal sewage plant.

Here, the thick sticky fumes that grab and claw at the back of the throat and attempt to pull your lungs out have been know to cause mild hallucinations.

In the past this was seen as a cheap way to get high by the local bums, until the council began to charge an entrance fee and now they simply hang around the glue factory watching the horses being dragged inside ready to create another batch of industrial grade solvent for the masses.

These days the sewage plant is mainly abandoned but for the occasional arrival of a limousine with blacked out windows.

Today is one of those occasional days.

The car pulls up along the dirt road and two large set gentlemen exit from the front and silently walk to the back of the car.

A close look at these suspicious gents reveals some poorly drawn tattoos poking out from the edges of their shirts, around the neck and wrists.

One of them has a big scar on his cheek.

They are both bald by design.

Everyone in Stockdale knows them as the Hatchett Brothers. Gangsters. Mean men who love their mum and would cut you up for looking at them the wrong way in equal measure.

They are also very stereotypical.

"EAR!" Said the first brother, who is called Wayne.

"Wot is it?" Said the one not called Wayne but is in fact called Dwayne.

"Are we cockney's?" Wayne asked.

"Ah fink so.... why?" Dwayne replied.

Wayne shrugged. "It's just Ah've not called anyone a slaaaag for ages."

Dwayne bit his bottom lip in thought (it was not his primary function). "Shat it you slaaaag! and 'elp me move this body."

Wayne and Dwayne began to drag a large black body bag from the back of the car. As they heaved and swore and huffed and puffed and swore some more, another black limousine pulled up behind them.

This time two smaller men exited the car.

They were the polar opposite of Wayne and Dwayne.

With shiny leather jackets and lots of gold jewellery around their necks these slick individuals took as much pride in their appearance as the Hatchett brothers did in thumping people.

It just so happens that these two were also brothers. They also loved their mum and hitting people but instead of being saarf Lan-daners, these two thugs were of Italian decent and answered to the family mane of De Ficiente.

"Mama-Mia!" exclaimed the first, who was called Antonio.

"Chi sono questi uomini calvi brutti ?" said the Antonio's brother (who was just called Tony and only spoke in Italian).

"I-a have-a no idea who Dees-a bald-a guys are?" growled Antonio in a borderline racist accent (at least it would have been racist if he were not actually Italian himself and so it is NOT racist at all).

Wayne and Dwayne stared in disbelief at the new arrivals.

Antonio spoke again. "I-a fink-a they-a should ... how you say... hurry-a-up before-a the fists, they start-a flying."

His brother nodded. For some reason Tony could understand broken English but not speak it.

Dwayne stepped forward, his fists clenched tightly. Wayne grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back.

"EAR." He said all cockney like. "We woz ear first. Dis is arrr patch."

Tony lifted his chin, in that way some people do and said "Si dovrebbe affrettarsi , l'uomo che è grasso e calvo come il fratello . Non abbiamo tutto il giorno."

Antonio sniggered.

Dwayne roared in rage. "Did 'E just call me a poof?"

Wayne shook his head and said "Nah mate. He jast said we should..um.. hurry app...."

Dwyane frowned (again). "Sarn-ded like 'E said more than tha'..."

The posturing and postulating progressed progressively for a few minutes with each retort allowing the two sets of brothers to take a step closer to each other until they were almost with arms reach.

"You soppy pizza eating nonces..." Said one brother.

"la testa è così lucido che rende i miei occhi male." said another.

And so on ...

That was , until a fifth voice entered the conversation.
"Excuse me gentlemen..." The soothing, well spoken voice was soft yet revealed a sinister undertone that nobody could mistake. "May I make an observation at this interjection?"

The four thugs turned as one to face the intruder of their altercation.

four sets of eyes scowled as one upon the sight of a thinning head of hair on top a short man in thick spectacles.

The stranger continued unabated. "I notice you each wish to perform and act of, shall we say, recycling and are currently at odds as to which order is best to proceed."

The four men nodded slowly.

The thinly haired man raised an eyebrow in confirmation. "Then I believe we may be able to come to an arrangement of sorts."

"Oo the bleedin' 'ell are you then, Poindexter?" Shouted Wayne (or it might have Dwayne).

The intruder pushed his glasses back up his nose. "My name is Dr Malevolent and, as I say, I come to you gentlemen today with a solution to your quandry."

Silence befell the group.

"Sa-ye..." Queried Antonio. "What-a sord-a doctor are you anyways eh?" He shrugged and pouted and threw his hands out for an answer in much the same way as that chef off the TV does and the creasing of his leather jacket creaked in rhythm of his Latin tones.

"That's not important right now." The Doctor said sharply. "I have here £30 I wish to you have in payment of those bodies you wish to dispose of ."

"Is dat firty parns each?" said the other of the Hatchett brothers.

"£30 per body." Corrected the doc.

"MAMA-MIA! tha's-a fif-a-teen pans each eh brov?" Antonio squealed.

Dr Malevolent waved a small bundle of notes infront of the gangsters in oder to hypnotise them.... and it worked.

"Marvelous.. Marvelous. Just hand the bags to my associate, Barnabas, over there and he will give you the money." The doctor laughed.


The up to now unmentioned man in question stood by a large grey transit van and ushered the thugs and their bags toward him.
The bodies were placed in the van with care and each thug received the money promised.

"Excellent." grinned Doctor Malevolent. "Gentlemen, it has been an utmost pleasure to purchase your wares. I trust you each have more ... supplies if and when they may be required?"

Wayne took his turn to speak. "You mean, wen we knock orf an-uva creep wot owes us maney we can sell his corpse to you?"

"Indeed. yes yes. The more the merrier."

Antonio jumped in with a question of this own. "But-a what-a do you, 'oh you say, plan to do with the bodies?"

The Doctor lost his smile very quickly. "That is none of your concern young man. But if you wish to receive more cash, you will call me on the number on the card Barnabas gave you with the money and we will collect."

There was nothing more to be said and so the doctor and his aid climbed into the van and left as quickly as they had arrived.

The Hachetts and De Ficientes both looked at each other in disbelief at what had just happened.

"Aah fink..." started Dwayne....

and Antonio finished "...Ah want-a my Mama..."

Wayne looked at Tony and with an understanding only brother could have, both shrugged and walked their respective brothers back the their cars and drove home for tea and (in the case of the De Ficiente household) a nice big bowl of pasta.


Some time later, in an undisclosed location, a grey transit van pulled up in the shadows.

Dr Malevolent got out of the van and spoke.

"Put those bodies with the others Barnabas. I'm going to my lab to see how how guests are doing..."

Barnabas heaved a body bag, one under each arm, and walked off into the unknown.

The Doctor made his way to a large, cold, makeshift operating theatre.

Machines and pipes were mixed with the smell of chlorine and death. Various medical instruments adorned the room. Some covered in blood.

Pulling back a large dust cloth over a huge containment unit the doctor spoke to the occupants inside via the glass window.

"Ah!... almost ready for your grand return I see boys." Two shapeless husks twitched on two hospital gurneys. 

"I have some new friends for you to play with. They need a little work but soon... soon you will no longer be alone."

He walked off and followed Barnabas into the deep freezer in the other room of his hidden lair.

As he did, the camera (in your mind) turned toward the containment unit to read the inscription : Shabby and Dooby Scoo.

DUR-DUR-DUUUUURRRR!!!!