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Short Fat Stubby Finger Stories PRESENTS:

Episode 28 Part 2

Mary woke up with a start as the car went over a slight bump on the road a little too fast as the tyres rolled over something that had failed to move quickly enough when the last vehicle had passed this way.   The jolt frightened her as for a split second she had no idea where she was.   Then, almost at the last moment, she realised a large black car was heading her way and she barely had time to ensure she was on her own side of the road as the other car flew by at a rate of knots heading towards Trenthamville.   Moving so fast it rocked the small car and Mary got such an unexpected fright at the closeness of it all she almost lost control of the car.

   For a moment Mary thought it was the car Joseph had been travelling in.   ‘Certainly was the same model and colour,’ she thought, but the limited view she got of the driver and the passengers failed to bring any recognition to her mind.  ‘The girl certainly wasn’t there and neither was Joseph’, Mary finally decided, and dismissed the car from her mind.   She had more important things to think about at the moment.

   Mary felt wide awake at the moment and managed to take back control of the car, her mind, and her needs, and began thinking of the best story that she could come up with, but it was fast becoming a hard fight.   Her body was really beginning to feel tired and the day seemed so pleasant that sleep seemed a better plan than finding ways of lying to people.   ‘Just a few moments of beautiful, lovely, blissful sleep.‘ she thought to herself as her eyes began to close again.   Mary shook her head in disbelief at how easily she was responding to her mind’s suggestions, wondering just what was going on inside her head, and decided it was probably several things.   A combination of the lack of sleep from the previous night, and the strange nightmare she had when she had banged her head on the nail on the garage wall  now taking their toll.   ‘Delayed concussion?’  She wondered.

   And, on top of everything else,various sized red and black spots were now beginning to alternate in her vision as she drove.   Strange, weird images seemed to exist within the spots, but Mary couldn’t quite interpret what it was that she was looking at.   The best she could make of it made her think it was some low flying thing that was bearing down upon her.   Perhaps it was a drone, she wondered.    There was a lot of wide open space around here, she thought, just the right place to fly a drone, or even a model aeroplane.   Whatever it was it appeared to be some distance away, but getting closer and closer to her by the second.

   Then things got a little strange for her liking, and Mary began to wonder if somebody was pranking her.   ‘Perhaps it was one of Gizmo’s extended family,’ she wondered, ‘or perhaps Johann. P. Biggs has something to do with it?’   What was giving her cause for concern was the fact that the spots would suddenly disappear, and then unexpectedly reappear, and each time they reappeared they were a little bigger in size, and a little closer to her.   And each time they reappeared they were accompanied by loud, roaring sound which Mary assumed to be the craft’s motor, which got louder and louder as they grew bigger in size.   And when they reappeared they did so with such a violent jerkiness that they frightened Mary on each new, unanticipated appearance.    Their sudden materialization was initially like the special effect of something jumping out of a 3d screen, only once they had fully materialized the distance between them and Mary remained the same for as long as they appeared before her eyes.   And the shape seemed to change with each new appearance.   She thought now that the object wasn’t shaped like a drone or a model plane, it was starting to form a shape similar to something she had seem previously, but could not bring its image back into her head.

   Then it hit Mary like a bullet.   The sequence of appearances by the strange phenomena was synonymous with the way her eyelids had opened and closed earlier – and Mary noted that whatever was happening seemed to be intensifying as she drew ever closer to the farm.  

   Without warning another reappearance of the strange, seemingly airborne object exploded in front of her, this time appearing to be less than five hundred yards in front of her, this time much larger than it had been on the previous appearance – and this time something about it made Mary’s head spin in fear, though she had no idea what it had been that she had seen.   Or, at least, what it was that her mind had refused to acknowledge recognising.

   In an effort to clear her mind Mary shook her head, inadvertently shaking it a tad more violently than she had intended, but it worked; her vision became clear again, the thing disappeared completely, but now her head was a little sore from the movement and she began to massage it.

   An isolated thought entered Mary’s mind as she gingerly massaged her neck and forehead, and she honed in on it to take her mind off the headache that was beginning to manifest itself inside her head.   Her impending divorce from David, she suddenly realised, was giving her the opportunity to invest in some property that could, should, most likely, give her the financial security that she would need in her later years.

   ‘Yes,’ she thought to herself as she immediately began to expand on the theme. ‘I’m down here to look over a possible investment property that had been recommended to by a friend in London.   I don’t need to give a name, but if pushed I can say it was Henry Pullover.   Henry is hardly ever in London, or England for that matter, so he is always going to be hard to track down should anybody in the group actually know him and try to locate him – and I am certainly not expecting to run into him for quite some time.’

   Over the next few moments Mary had worked out her entire story: her neck felt better, her sleepiness had passed – she was ready for Joseph and his friends.

   The trees and fields flew past at a rate of knots and Mary felt more relaxed than she had been for hours.   She guessed she must be but a short distance from the farm.   ‘Surely no more than five minutes.’ she thought, ‘fifteen at the extreme.‘   The road was still clear of other cars, the strange image in the sky that had been haunting her seemed to have disappeared completely, and the only problem she could see in her future was the fact that the road, which had been straight from the minute she had turned into it, now showed signs of bends in the distance.   She still could not see any sign of the farm, so she realised she would have to drive a little slower when she hit the bends and hopefully she would come across the farm not too far up the road.   But for the moment it was smooth sailing.

   Mary reached over and turned on the car radio, but was disappointed to only receive a loud crackling sound.   She hit the auto scan button and let the radio do the walking, but the crackling continued to be the only sound that emitted from the speaker as frequency after frequency refused to supply her with music.

   As the auto tune went about its business Mary took in more of the countryside and what it offered to the casual viewer.   She had noticed the lush green grass that grew parallel with the road on her left earlier, but had dismissed it in favour of the trees and crops that lay thick and beautiful along the right hand side of the road.   Mary had quickly realised there had to be farm houses somewhere on the properties where the crops grew, however none of the farms would have been Forster Farm because she had been assured the entrance had been from the road she was travelling on.   None of the properties on this side of the road had any entrance point whatsoever … and the farmhouses were so far out of sight that they couldn’t be seen from this road, so they had to be located on another road a long way away.   But now, in a more relaxed mode, confident in her own mind that her instincts would tell her when she had reached her destination, Mary began to pay more attention to the left hand side of the road; to grass that grew so thick and green: to grass so magnificent: so tall it was impossible to determine how far the back the fields she knew existed lay.   Mary knew fields existed beyond the grass because Frank had mentioned the fields and the crops they produced when he gave her directions to the farm, but the grass here was far too tall for her to see them from the road.

   The radio had failed to respond to her request for music, and Mary couldn’t be bothered with locating a new c.d. or a USB stick from the glove box, so the seconds passed by in a frustrating, dawdling, invisible silence.  Now that she had finally come up with a plan Mary was ready to play the part … right now.   Waiting was not what she wanted, she wanted the action to start now and help her get rid of all the images from this morning that threatened to haunt her until her dying day.   Mary was certain in her mind that she would get away with the plan she had devised, and once she began her little charade the memories of this morning would be replaced in her mind with the self-satisfaction that her plan had worked and she would be ingratiated into Joseph’s world.     So confident in her capabilities was Mary, that for a moment she considered increasing her speed by a fair margin to get to the farm as soon as possible, but the bends were now far too close to take risks, and common sense prevailed.

   And eventually, as her mind found peace driving at a moderated pace, Mary found herself bewitched by the tall stalks whose tops swayed majestically, almost as if in a synchronised ballet, as the soft breeze gently swirled through them.   It didn’t take her imaginative mind long to conjure up thoughts of driving off the road and into the green mini-forest that lay beside her where the grass grew so tall it would have blocked her vision entirely had she been forced to traverse it for any reason.  Her mind warned her of the giant spiders and insects that could have lain there in wait for a hapless wanderer who had strayed off the safety of the road and into their lair.   It was a mental exercise that Mary often undertook when she was feeling bored, which she was at the moment, and had to restrain her mind from taking her to deep and dark patches of imagination that would distract her from her main mission, or cause her to miss her turnoff to the farm.

   And as her thoughts provided superfluous information on the impossible – the radio unexpectedly screeched into life, albeit static, but at full volume.    Volume so loud it startled Mary who screamed out several obscenities in a loud voice – and then all hell broke loose.   Dark clouds rolled across the road from nowhere.   Lightning streaked endlessly throughout the clouds and continuously down towards the wooded area below.   Trees were constantly being blown apart from the strikes, and the winds which were threatening to reach cyclonic strength picked up the broken branches and hurled them repeatedly towards the small car, smashing into splinters as they thundered into the road in front of her.   Rain suddenly poured down out of a sky that less than a minute earlier had been as deep rich a shade of blue as an ocean.

   Mary had no idea what to do.   It had become so dark she could see nothing but the flashes of lightning as they speared through the clouds.   She switched on the car headlights, but she still could not see the road.   In fact Mary could not even see the end of the bonnet of one of the smallest cars in the world.   She could not see anything and prayed with all her might that the windscreen would not break for fear of the glass dissecting her, because, even though the glass was shatterproof, she was positive that the force of this storm, should it bring a tree down on her, would also push the broken glass deep into her body – literally cutting her to bits.   And such was the force of the wind and the thickness of the rain Mary was not even game enough to stop the car for fear that she would be washed into the long grass – perhaps even toppling the mini as it did so.

   Mary forced her mind to be more positive: to consider all possibilities of survival.   She knew from the feel of the car she was still on the road and the road was still a straight stretch at the moment and decided to slow down a fraction which would allow her to place all of her concentration on staying on the road, but then she remembered that the road began to bend further up the way and she had absolutely no idea how far she had travelled since the storm hit … and fear and worry once again began to take control of Mary’s mind.

   And then, to throw absolute terror into her heart – the ugliest, vilest sound that she had ever heard screamed out of the radio, a sound so loud she could feel the car shuddering from the vibrations – a savage voice, so violent in its tone that it threatened to kill her with the intent of its words alone, never mind the clear and precise advice it gave to her of just what the owner of the voice intended to do to her in a very short period of time – then the radio went dead silent.

   As Mary could feel her heart beating wildly; as her scream, a scream so loud that it threatened to do damage to her own hearing, went unheard by any creature, man or beast; as the tears flowed down her now haggard, fear filled face: as the last ounce of her sanity threatened to dissipate – the storm abated.   The cloud disappeared. The lightning was gone …

   But the light that now covered the small car and its terrified occupant was still an eerie colour.  A colour of day that Mary had never seen before.    Not bright, not dark, it was like a thin, wispy fog that didn’t constrict vision, merely controlled the environment by its presence.   A distraction that she didn’t need at the moment, but one she had to accept existed.   Mary didn’t know what to make of it – and in consideration of everything that had happened over the past few minutes she had no idea whether or not she should worry about it.  

   However it took Mary less than a second to decide the world around her could do what it liked – she just didn’t care anymore.   She just wanted to be with Joseph and away from all this madness.   And if her plan failed … if Joseph realised what she was doing, that she was spying on him and sent her packing, she didn’t care.   She would go back to Biggs … tell him if he wanted to spy on Joseph, then he would have to do it himself.   And then she would go on holidays for a month, hop into a hot bath and cry her eyes out until there was nothing left inside.

   But Mary was Mary, and she was as resilient as she was strong of mind and character.   Somehow she had managed to stay on the road during the turmoil that had been her nightmarish world less than a minute ago, and was somehow still driving in a straight line, albeit with tremors still running through her entire body, and a pounding headache to boot.   She had absolutely no idea how she had managed such a miracle, but a miracle it had been.   And even in her befuddled mental state she knew that somebody, or something, was looking after her, and she was not going to let their effort be wasted … she would continue the mission.

   With great strength and determination she forced her mind to do her bidding, and as a result the fear in her mind of a return by the evil force that had controlled the storm began to evaporate; the tremors that ran through her body slowly began to subside, and calmness was soon entering in her mind.   But she needed more; she needed to convince herself that the things she had witnessed were imaginary; that her sanity was not on the line; that whatever had happened could be explained with a rational explanation.   Whatever she thought had happened need not have happened in the way her mind was telling her it had happened.   After all, she had not had a lot of sleep the previous night, she reasoned.  She had been over-excited as a result of Johann’s request to follow Joseph and discover what he was up to, if anything.   Frank’s tales had been a bit unsettling, and god knows how many coffees she had today at the garage, and earlier … and it was not yet the middle of the day.   It was no wonder her mind was behaving the way it was … it was riddled with caffeine and adrenaline. 

   It was then that Mary decided if she were to break down the actualities of what had happened since the early morning, she was fairly certain that she could convince herself that nothing strange was really happening to her mind.   The incident at the garage, for example, could easily have been as a result of drinking too many coffees when she was still tired from lack of sleep.   The caffeine would have had a ball rummaging through her mind at that stage.   The things that Frank had told her before she passed out could easily have set her imagination off.   She may very well have tripped and cut her head on the nail that held the photograph as the doctor had suggested.   And Frank could easily have convinced her that he had seen a creature attacking her as a bit of fun, or simply to appease her.   As far as she was now concerned the radio had been activated by the sudden arrival of the storm and had picked up some crazy F.M. station broadcasting god know what, but it was a radio program: it had to be some strange, R rated radio program – or even a home based broadcast that had somehow found its way to strange places as a result of unusual weather conditions.   Mary began to convince herself it was a radio program similar to Orson Welles’s ‘The War of the Worlds’ that had frightened half of America when it was first broadcast  … ‘Surely there are people in Great Britain who like to experiment with broadcasts and airwaves,’ she decided.

   Although the tears still threatened to fall, Mary had convinced herself that it had indeed been lack of sleep, too much caffeine and adrenaline, and a series of co-incidences that had been responsible for the temporary lapses in her sanity.   Mary’s mind was quickly changing from despair to hope, and she began to feel fortunate.   She was still on the road, and she was still alive.   In fact she was smack dead in the middle of the road.   And, despite the eerie, oddly coloured light that still encased the car’s vision she could now see far enough ahead to make plans for her safety should the conditions change again.   Less than one hundred yards further down the road, on her right, five hundred yards before the sharp curves in the road began to take control, the trees disappeared.   There seemed nothing but grass and wildflowers spread alongside the road on that side of the road.  A complete disparity from the jungle that lay on her left.   She was absolutely certain that she would be able to judge how far she had travelled from this minute on, and pull over onto the safe, tree free, grassy patch and wait the storm out should that become necessary.

********

Another fifteen seconds passed as Mary slowly, cautiously, continued her journey to Forster’s Farm with her damp, red eyes constantly checking the rear vision mirror for other vehicles heading her way.   Even though she had only seen one vehicle going in either direction since she had left Frank’s garage, Mary knew the chances of a sudden arrival of another vehicle was increasing by the second.   Then, to her extreme pleasure the strange light suddenly evaporated – its eeriness suddenly replaced by the brilliance of the full sun against the deepest blue sky.   Mary sighed in relief.   Now able to see far more clearly, the tension completely lifted by the incoming sun and the departure of the strange mist, Mary felt the need to stretch her legs and clear her head with fresh country air for just a minute or two.   She immediately indicated a right hand turn and pulled over on to the long stretch of treeless grass that lay before her, got out the car and began to walk – when everything inside her, the fear, the horror, the confusion, the anger, the caffeine unexpectedly exploded …  and Mary retched her heart up for almost five minutes.   

   And when she finished cleansing her inner body, such is Mary’s nature, she went to the boot where she extracted a towel, a face washer and a bottle of hand gel along with some toothpaste, a toothbrush and a bottle of water and proceeded to freshen herself up.   ‘After all,‘ she told herself, ‘I can’t be looking a mess when I finally catch up with Joseph.  What sort of impression would that make?’

********

Five minutes later Mary was back on the road heading for the farm, a contended smile on her face, chewing on some mouth flavouring gum, and feeling the best she had all morning.  ‘Life can be so strange sometimes.’   Mary thought to herself as a huge smile crossed her face,   “I wonder what’s next?”

   Exactly one millisecond later, the explosion in the heavens was so loud; so powerful – it literally lifted the moving car off the road and dumped it into the tall grass.   The wheels were still spinning; the motor still revving, Mary’s hands still on the steering wheel … and still on the accelerator, as it dropped to the ground with so much force it spun like an over-wound spinning top on the soft soil that lay below the layers of green grass that towered over it.   Spun so many times Mary was on the point of retching again – then, the second it stopped spinning, the car took off at a rate of knots, speeding through tall, green blades that seemed to reach to the sky from where Mary sat … and Mary no longer had any idea which way it was heading.  

   The long stalks were continuously being bent in half as the car ploughed through the bright green nightmare, the force of the mini’s attack on them causing the damaged top half of the blades to whip down violently against the small car with incredible volume: the seeds from the tips of the grass were slammed, smashed, crushed across the windscreen with such vigour and consistency it soon became impossible for Mary to see anything through the windscreen.

   She quickly attempted to use the cars windscreen wipers, but that idea was immediately dismissed and the wipers were turned off after the passenger side wiper was almost ripped off the car, the now bent and twisted length of rubber and metal only held to the car by the twisting, turning blades of grass that threatened to completely wrap themselves around the Mini.

   Then to make matters worse, somewhere in the dense undergrowth the strange black and red lights that she had seen earlier reappeared – and this time she recognised them for what they were.

   The huge creature flapped menacingly towards her out of the green foliage that surrounded them both.   It all seemed so surreal. The grass completely surrounded her.   Totally blocked her vision.   Made it seem impossible to see for more than a yard or two in front of the still moving car – yet the creature still seemed some distance away – far from her viewing capabilities.   It seemed huge … huger than she remembered from the garage … and it appeared to be getting larger and coming closer with every flap of its wings.   Its bulging eyes were bursting with a flame coloured redness that gave her the impression that the car would burst in flames from the heat she could now feel as it drew ever so closer.

   Nearer and nearer it came towards her.   Mary could feel the car momentarily being lifted off the ground, then immediately dropped back down again, with every flap of the huge wings as they beat down towards the earth – then back up to the heavens – in a slow hypnotic rhythm that began to mesmerise her, no longer aware of her foot on the accelerator; her hands on the steering wheel – or the direction that the car was travelling in.   Mary’s mind was now numb with fear: too frightened to scream: too frightened to faint:  To numb to even question how she could see the creature through a windscreen that was so matted in grime and crushed seeds that she could see nothing else through it.  

   The car and the creature were so close Mary could smell the putrid odour emitting from the creature.   Her mind suddenly capitulated to the probability that it had been the creature’s vile threats that had blasted their way out of the radio.   In some situations Mary would not be giving up so easily; she would be forcing her mind to find a safety net; a way out of her predicament.   She would have screamed out loud and proud that none of this was real, it was all in her mind.   But at the moment, in her current situation, as in her mind her small green Mini screamed forward at a hundred miles an hour towards her certain death, she was too numb with fear to consider her options.   Her mind too numb to think of attempting to swerve around the creature at the last moment.   Never considering for a second the option of simply stopping the car and hiding in the long grass.   She simply stared at the creature and awaited her fate.   For not the first time today, Mary felt totally powerless and awaited her fate with all the dignity she could muster.  Though she wondered why she bothered.   Death was still death.

********

   The miles that the creature had had to travel to reach her had now been reduced to but a single number, and that solitary, heart numbing one mile then turned to nought but yards for it to travel till her life-span was extinguished – gone forever.   Mary watched helplessly as the creature made the last of the ten beats of its wings that it would need to reach her, to lift up the small mini with her in it and smash it into the ground – smash it so deep in the ground she would be buried alive, never to be seen or heard of again.   Ten beats – then she would be deceased, buried deep under the hugest patch of green grass she had ever seen.

   Nine beats…

   Eight beats …

   As Mary sat transfixed in a combined state of fear and inevitability whilst awaiting death to arrive, it occurred to her that at this point she should be expecting to see her life in flashbacks; her good-times, her regrets, her unfulfilled dreams, her friends, her family – but all that Mary saw was the vilest, most disgusting thing in the entire universe heading towards her.   The creature’s long, sharp talons already extending outwards in order to collect his prize and Mary knew this was the end.  There would not be any sudden arrival of Superman or Doctor Who to pull her out of harm’s way – she was only seconds from death.   This was to be the end of her life.   It was not the way she had expected to die, but it appeared to be the way she would die.  It was then, she realised to her surprise, that Mary understood that she was no longer frightened.   The creature may be going to kill her, but it could no longer frighten her.

   An inner peace began to settle over Mary.   An acceptance of the inevitable quickly began to replace the numbness and the fear and she began to count down the beats to her demise loudly and proudly.   ‘She had had a relatively short time on Earth, but she had led a life to be proud of,’ Mary thought to herself – and as the thought magnified within her mind she began to make a promise to herself that she would die a dignified death.   She would not allow this creepy, malicious monster to dictate how she would feel as he ripped her apart.   She would die quickly and quietly to spite him, not to satisfy him.

   ‘Seven.’   She called out loudly.

   ‘Six.’   Her voice became relaxed, confident.

   ‘Five.’   A soft smile began to form on her face.

   ‘Four.’   And as she counted the fear subsided to a point where it no longer existed within her.   Tranquillity set in; calmness engulfed her.

   ‘Three.’   Mary continued – her voice now soft and peaceful as the creature prepared itself for her demise.   A movement that would sweep up the Mini, squeeze it until the car and its human occupant were one, then throw the amalgamation high, high into the sky before slamming it downwards with all the force it could muster as it made its way down towards its final destiny,

   ‘Two.   Goodbye, Joseph – I will miss you.’ Mary’s own words surprised her, confused her to the point where they shocked her out of her tranquillity. ‘Joseph … Joseph.’  She continued to call out as the creature’s arm swooped down in front of the small green mini as it prepared to scoop it up.

   ‘Joseph!   Joseph!   Help me, please, Joseph.’   Mary found herself screaming out loudly and she was even more surprised to realise she was screaming out, not in a panicky voice, but in a natural, expecting tone … and suddenly Joseph’s face appeared before her, floating somewhere between the creature and her.

   The creature, too, saw Joseph and froze in its movement.   Then the creature’s face became more distorted and hideous than Mary had imagined possible.   It flew into an uncontrollable rage, withdrawing its huge arm in an upwards motion, missing its opportunity to collect Mary as she somehow found the nous to steer around the creature and sailed straight past it, watching the action taking place behind her in the rear vision mirror as she drove.

   As Mary watched she could see Joseph raising two arms upwards in the direction of the creature.   Suddenly a thin stream of something silver was streaming from his hands towards the creature that was dispatching something similar back down towards Joseph, only in a glittery red colouring.    Almost instantly the two streams made contact, the car rocked violently, the grass all around her was flattened to the ground, and the world around her exploded in brilliant light.

   For a second or two Mary couldn’t see anything but white; a painful, blinding, white light that was burning her eyes.   She had absolutely no idea what was going on in her life, but she had seen Joseph and he had saved her.   She felt safe with his presence and felt that he was still protecting her as she escaped from the creature.   However she could no longer see Joseph in the mirror, for that matter she couldn’t even see the mirror, so bright was the light.   Instincts suddenly took control of her mind.   She could no longer smell the creature , nor could she hear the flapping of its wings.   Mary took a risk and stopped the car, hoping she was making the right decision. 

   But to her surprise, the minute she placed her foot on the brake her vision suddenly came back and she realised she was free of the hideous green grassy jungle that had threatened to devour her, and that the white light had simply been her eyes adjusting to open sunlight.   ‘The creature has gone.’   Mary screamed excitedly.  ‘Somehow Joseph has saved me.   I am safe.’    And tears of joy rolled endlessly down her smiling face.

   But Mary’s excitement and happiness was short lived when she realised that the front of the car extended over the brink of a huge mass of water, the front wheels having less than two inches of dirt between them and the water.

    Mary was uncertain whether the water was a lake, a creek or a canal, but it mattered not – it would only take a minute mistake on the clutch or accelerator to have the vehicle topple into it and she had absolutely no idea how deep it was … or how she would get it out.    She turned on the ignition and slowly reversed the car until she felt it was safe enough, then turned the wheels and drove alongside the waterway’s edge until she located the road again at a point where a small bridge crossed the waterway.    Not long after she crossed the bridge, Mary pulled over to a safe spot off the road – allowed the tears to once again roll freely for as long as they needed to – then, gently lowering her head until it was gently resting on the steering wheel … and passed out.   Mary was having a very exhausting day.

Go to Episode 29