My NanoWriMo — Chapter Six

The tall, cadaverous man smiled thinly at me. “There’s no need to scream, I assure you,” he said. His voice was like the sound of hard rain on a roof made entirely from Christmas crackers: it fell on my ears like a bayonet being thrust into a siamang’s rectum. He inserted a slice of toast into his grey, bloodless mouth and munched fastidiously on it, lantern jaw pumping like a remorseless piston. He reminded me of a long, emaciated washing machine going through a spin cycle, although if pressed I confess I would struggle to explain why.

The man had lit a candle in the blackness, by which I could discern both his pale, corpselike visage, and the dim outlines of the objects surrounding me. I seemed to be in the middle of a large, spacious room, whose outer limits receded into the impenetrable shadows beyond the candle’s reach. Closer to, I could make out a small portable barbecue to my right, and a large copper exercise bike to my left. Next to the barbecue stood a low wooden bench, holding the toaster, kettle and other breakfasting paraphernalia of which my host had availed himself. And next to that stood a large pregnant capybara, which at this time was keeping its own counsel, although the look on its face suggested strong disapproval of the general direction that things were going.

“I’m sorry,” I said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to scream, it’s just that your face is so terrifyingly ugly.”

He chuckled paternally and ruffled my hair. I felt a great swelling of affection for him, combined with a certain amount of loathing and nausea. “I get that all the time,” he confided, leaning in close and breathing his cheese-and-onion-scented words into my open mouth. “Even as a boy, my mother used to call me Ugly Peter.”

“Really.”

“I wouldn’t have minded so much, but my name is Alan.” The man laughed, a loud, booming laugh that filled the cavernous space we were in and reverberated off the distant walls and all around echoing in the darkness and disturbing several large waterbirds that had apparently been nesting somewhere in the corners and now came flapping agitatedly over my face. To call the sensation unpleasant would have been entirely accurate, which is why I did.

The man bowed his head in contrition. “I am sorry for your inconvenience,” he leered, showing a nightmarish array of broken yellow teeth. “I assure you that had I my druthers, you would be as free as a bird.” He illustrated this point by holding up a Canadian goose that he had caught by the legs. “Unfortunately, my superiors insist on extremely vigorous security precautions. They are men of business, you see. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do not,” I confessed. “I understand very little of any of this. Where am I? Who are you? Why am I here? Who are your superiors? Is that goose specially trained to be so docile? Is there any toast left? Why am I being restrained on this table?”

It was a table, as it happened. A long, broad, hardwood table, whose smooth varnished surface I could feel beneath my twitching fingers, but of whose visual aspects I could discern but little. Still, why a table? Why not a bed, a futon or a gurney? Perhaps in the choice of a table lay the answer to this whole mystery.

“All will become clear in time, Mr Alfbaum. All will become clear.”

“Will it?”

“Well, maybe,” he admitted. “I mean if you’re reasonably quick on the uptake, it should. But I only just met you. Are you a particularly slow-witted individual?” he asked, peering anxiously at me with his heavy-bagged dark green eyes, holding the candle high so as to create a sort of nimbus effect around the top of his head that reminded me strikingly of the angel who occasionally visited me in my dreams to give me greyhound tips and chastise me for masturbating.

“I don’t have to answer your damn questions,” I snarled, struggling futilely against my restraints.

“Well, in a way, you do.”

“In what way?”

“In the way that if you don’t answer my questions I am going to torture you.”

I snorted. “Torture me? That hoary old chestnut?”

“Oh no,” the man replied, throwing away the hoary old chestnut that was lying beside me on the table. “I’m not sure how that got there. No, I’ll be torturing you with this.” He held up a long, flat strip of leather, attached to a short metal spike. It didn’t look all that impressive to me, and I remained fairly confident I could withstand whatever discomforts the man inflicted with this amateurish device. My confidence was undermined somewhat, however, when five seconds later he inserted the spike forcibly into my urethra.

Over the next half an hour or so, the man and I enjoyed a really thorough conversation about my background, my hopes, my dreams, my business activities, my inner thoughts, and my desire to once again experience a day devoid of intense urethra pain.

“Interesting,” the cadaverous man mused after I had finished telling him all the most specific details I could muster about myself. He began lightly slapping my face with the leather strip, which frankly felt rather relaxing after what had gone before. “So you say you’re searching for your sister.”

I nodded wordlessly — words were not coming easily at the present time, although I was able to manage a revolting gurgling sound.

“And you say your sister’s name is Meg?” I nodded again. The man smiled. “Then I have excellent news!”

“Eeehaaahooo?” I asked curiously.

“Yes!” He beamed all the wider, showing off every baked bean stuck in his molars. “Your sister is, in fact, fine.”

“Fuuuhhh?”

“Absolutely one hundred percent fine,” the man nodded cheerfully. “I’m one of her co-workers, you see. At Hang Gao.”

“Whuhh?” This all seemed a bit strange to me — I tried to remember my private investigator training. I was sure that at the college they’d given us some advice on what to do when things seemed a bit strange. What was it? I wracked my brains. Or to be more anatomically precise: my brain.

“You see,” the man went on, fetching a cup of coffee from the bench and dunking his toast in it, “Meg has been such a huge success at Hang Gao that we decided she was management material. That’s why we sent her to the conference.”

My mind was racing. I cast back to my Curious Happenings tutorial. The tutor had said something significant: “If strange or bizarre things should happen to or near you,” she’d said, leaning forward erotically, “you must remember to…”

Remember to what? Remember to what? Remember to accept everything on face value? Yes, that sounded right… no, that wasn’t it. I squinted with the effort of thought, and replied to my captor, “kaaooh?”

“Yes, it was a Leadership Conference in Keith,” he said airily, plucking a box of popcorn from the barbecue. “All our prospective executives go to it, to learn important leadership skills and network with the hotshots of the stilt world.”

I frowned. This seemed stranger than ever. My sister going to a conference, the stilt world having hotshots in it, a town being called “Keith”: I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all a bit odd. As odd as the occurrences the tutor had warned us of when she said…

She said…

“You must remember to…investigate.”

Yes! Investigate! That was it! We had been urged to investigate! That was at the core of almost all my training as an investigator! I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten, although to be fair I had had a fairly stressful day.

Still, it was remembered now: I had to investigate. I began immediately. Using the knife I had had in my pocket all along, I cut my bonds and leapt from the table, which I now saw was an extremely handsome mahogany piece with ornately carved baroque legs depicting famous scenes from Greek mythology. One could not help but admire the craftsmanship. I paused to do so only briefly, however, before picking up the portable barbecue and smacking the tall ugly man across the face with it. As he crashed to the ground with a cry of pain, I plucked a passing grebe out of the air and attacked his most sensitive areas with it, demanding information in return for ceasing my grebe assault.

As it was, I didn’t get much: the cadaverous man was not one to give up information easily, but he was one to die very quickly, and it became clear that he had been fairly close to death from the first minute I saw him. But before I plunged the bloodsoaked grebe that final time into his feebly-beating heart within that gaping chest cavity, I did get one name from him: a name I felt sure would at least enable me to progress my investigation to the next stage.

“Asteroth,” he wheezed with his last breath, and evacuated his bowels with quiet dignity.

I stood, panting heavily. Asteroth. Here we go. Wiping my brow with a nearby flamingo chick, I jogged out of the room and towards…the truth.