The Hipster From Outer Space (The Hipster Trilogy Book 1) (13 page)

He stood and walked to the end of the carriage and looked through the window to the next one. It was just as empty and old as the one he was in. He wiggled the handle but it was locked.

The strangest thing about it all was that he didn’t feel any sensation of temperature or smell. He’d just been getting used to it too. His human skin had an array of senses that he’d never felt before, but since waking up as a human, he’d been able to smell, feel temperature, pain, hear, balance his physical body, and even sing. He wasn’t sure if singing was technically a sense, but he knew when he heard someone with a terrible sense of singing and he knew when he heard someone with a good sense for it.

Walking back up the carriage he felt rising panic. He scratched his beard and let out a whimper.

“Don’t worry too much, good sir,” a voice from behind him said.

Moomamu turned to see a man sitting on one of the seats. The colour of his skin indicated that he was from the warmer climates of Earth, but he was dressed like the wealthier English Moomamu had seen. All his clothing was matching and he even had an expensive-looking hat. He must have traded his spawn to acquire such a brilliant item. Beneath his hat his thick dark curly hair spooled out. Resting on top of his legs was a wooden stick, curved at the end.
 

“Who are you?” Moomamu said. He got his finger ready to point.
 

“My name’s Richard,” he said as he looked out the window at nothing. “Richard Okotolu.”

“Okay, Richard. Where are we? Who are you? Why is there no smell here? And what happened to the temperature?”

Richard sighed and looked back to Moomamu.

“I never get visitors,” he said. “I always wish I’ll get some, but they never come.” He placed the end of his wooden stick against the floor, stood, and then bowed, lifting his hat a little as he did. “Welcome, sir. Welcome to my carriage. My special little pocket universe. Pray tell, what is your name?”

“My name is none of your concern. Now tell me, finely-dressed human of warm descent, how do I get out of here and back to the cat?” Moomamu pointed, aiming for the man’s face like it was a weapon.

“Woah, okay, I know how distressing this might seem to you. Let me start again. This place, where we are right now … doesn’t exist.”

“What?” Moomamu interjected. “What are you saying?”

“Well good sir, see, I have no idea how you got here. I found this place by accident a long time ago and have been stuck here ever since. This place doesn’t exist within this, or any other, dimension. Yes, I grant you that a lot of the physics remain, but we are not moving through the dimension of time. Outside there is nothing. Inside there is just what you see around you. You see, you’re trapped here, with me, and as far as I can tell, it will be forever.”

Moomamu sat down again.
 

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
 

Richard took a step towards him. His face was making the smile configuration, but in his micro-expressions Moomamu saw something different — the brow, the eyes, the slight downwards curve in the centre of the lips. He didn’t see the smile of a normal human being at all. No, he saw violence.
 

Aidan Black

The inside of the flat was a disgrace. It wasn’t much better than the squat he’d found the long-haired man living in. Dishes piled up on the side. Bits of food on the floor. Wet towels strewn across the kitchen table. He opened the fridge and recoiled at the smell that was hiding in there. Some old cheese or something.

He closed the fridge and noticed a letter from the landlord taped to the door. It was a list of rules. One of which was to keep the place clean and tidy.

Mess was all around him. He whispered the word “failures” under his breath. Patches of mould were growing in the corners. He shook his head in disgust.

The girl was still out cold on the floor. Her chest gently rising and falling, indicating the life still in her. But with the amount of blood coming out of her head, he wasn’t sure how much longer she’d last without medical attention.
 

“You should’ve just let me in,” he said to her.

He walked into the bathroom. There was dried toothpaste on the side of the sink — a pet hate of his. He wandered into one of the bedrooms, which was full of pink rugs, duvets, etc. Probably didn’t belong to the target.

The other bedroom was more like it. The unmade bed on the mattress on the floor. A cat litter tray with some old turds. A laptop.

“Moomamu, where are you?” The name sounded ridiculous when he said it out loud. They always did.

Normally his inner voice would tell him where to find the target, but it had been quiet since he’d trepanned himself.

He returned to the girl. The blood had stopped gushing at such an alarming rate. He slapped her hard on the face.

“Oi, where’s your flatmate gone?” he said and then slapped her again. She groaned but didn’t seem to be taking anything in. “Okay. Where is he? Speak up.” He wasn’t talking to the girl anymore. He was talking to the voice.

He grabbed one of the damp towels and wrapped it around the girl’s head. He wasn’t a bad guy. He was simply doing what was necessary to succeed. And the least he could do was stem the bleeding somewhat.

As he wrapped the towel around her head and the warm blood seeped through, he heard a faint whispering in the back of his mind. Too quiet to hear at first, it rose up along with that familiar cacophony of noise that he’d only recently managed to quieten. The headache soon followed and he stood, his vision dotted with streaks of light.

“Ah, for fuck’s sake,” he said as he rubbed his eyes. “Forget Moomamu, where’s the fucking aspirin.”

He’s gone.

“I know,” he said. “I can fucking see that.”

No, he’s gone. He’s disappeared. He doesn’t exist anymore.

Aidan opened his eyes and felt a pang of disappointment. He looked to his toolbox and then back to the girl lying in the floor, whose eyes were now opening. She didn’t look like she was fully conscious, but she might come round at any point.

She wouldn’t remember him if he left her to recover. He’d covered his tracks pretty well. He thought about walking out, leaving her be, but then walked over to the toolbox and pulled out the orange-handled pliers.

“Can’t disappoint the pigs,” he said as he went over to her.

Moomamu The Thinker

As Moomamu sat there in the carriage, he saw Richard was still staring at him, smiling like a lunatic. Richard took another step towards Moomamu, and he felt his hands clench into balls. Was this the human fighting configuration?
 

Richard slumped himself in the chair opposite Moomamu.
 

“What are you looking at?” Moomamu said.

“Well, you see, good sir, I’ve been here for a long time. I counted the days at first, but it all got a little too much for me. I stopped counting. Do you know what I’ve been doing all this time?”

Moomamu shook his head. He tried to avoid eye contact.

“I’ve been writing books,” he said and pointed to his head, still smiling. “I’ve written around a hundred. No paper, all in my mind. You see, I’ve been writing books, theorising how I’m going to get out of this place.”

“And what did you come up with?”

“It’s impossible. Can’t do it. There’s no way out.” Richard chuckled. He looked out the window again like he was looking for thoughts. “You know, I’ve not tasted anything in all these years. I miss food. Even the bad stuff.”

“What do you mean, we can’t get out?” Moomamu tried to bring it back. “There must be a way. I was already stuck on this stupid planet, never mind in this … what do you call it? A pocket universe.”

“What would you eat?” Richard said. “If you were out?”

“Well,” Moomamu said, “I’ve enjoyed some of the human food so far. The spice of Mexican/Indian fusion. The bittersweet of cappuccino. All surprisingly good.”

“Right,” Richard looked confused. “I miss jellied eels and cockles.”

Moomamu had no idea what Richard was talking about, but he didn’t like the sound of them.

They sat in silence for a short while before Richard noticed another thought fly past the window.

“Ah yes,” he said. “My books are fundamentally flawed.”

“They are?” Moomamu said.

“I missed a vital component. A new element has just been entered into the mix. You, good sir. You found your way here and you’re going to find a way back for us.”

“Yeah, but you found your way here too.”

“True.” Richard nodded. “But there’s no way we can get back that way. You see, good sir, I didn’t make it here on my own. The man who sent me here is a member of a very special sort of organisation. We were partners, discovering and playing with the fabric of space-time. It was through his experiments that I ended up here. I don’t know if he even knows I’m here. For all he knows I vanished into thin air and that was that. I’ve no idea how he actually sent me here.”

“Well, you’re out of luck with me, human. All I remember is closing my eyes and then opening them.”

Richard looked out of the window again. Another thought flew past and he stood. The manic smile dropped.
 

“You’re lying,” he said, with a chuckle. “You know exactly how you got here, and you’re going to help me leave, good sir. You’re going to tell me how you did it, or I’m going to have to hurt you.”

Moomamu’s hands took the fighting configuration again, but before he could even think about how to use them he heard a thud, followed by an onslaught of pain to his head. It took him a second to realise that Richard had struck him with the wooden stick and was about to do it again.

Hannah Birkin

The Family House was said to have been built in the early sixteen hundreds, but it was more likely that whatever was there at that time was destroyed later that century and a newer building erected from the foundations of the original. The house was a thin sliver of a building, but surprisingly long. From the front door to back, the walk could feel like forever. It was marked by three long dark windows, and the red wooden front door that looked so old an autumn breeze might bust it open, splintering on the sides, exposing the secrets within. But that wasn’t true. The door was strong. It had been through a lot worse.

Hannah Birkin would’ve gotten a sense of this if she’d been fully conscious and not bagged up in anti-inflammable fabrics. She was wheeled past the old stone stairway leading up the four storeys of the house. All covered up, she wouldn’t have seen the various portraits of past Family members lining the hallway walls — each framed in elegant hand-carved wood. For example, the painting of the first Family members — a splinter group of Scotland Yard’s first detectives who’d found more in the world to catch than serial killers. She would’ve seen the cabinet of urns, filled with the ashes of fallen members who’d died on a case. She would’ve seen the Grand Entry Room, a place where the Family members had access to the only three computers in the entire house. It was also the only room where you could get a decent Wi-Fi signal.

If Hannah Birkin had been paying attention she would’ve marvelled as the deeper into the house you went, the further back in time you seemed to travel. The decor grew older, some parts untouched from the time they were first put there. She would’ve seen the library, full of leather-bound books, Winchester chairs, and thick with pipe smoke from the older Family members, puffing away and discussing the glory days — back when ghosts were ghosts and demons were demons. She might’ve seen Donald Fox-Walker III in his flat cap, his walking stick and with his Second World War memorabilia. She might’ve even heard him tell one of his classic war stories that he used to tell Rosie and Bexley when they were kids: stories of trenches, rations and ownerless limbs flying through the air.

As they went deeper into the house, Hannah might just have seen their Aunt Audrey in the tea room. She might’ve smelled the Earl Grey and spotted the thousands of unused silver spoons. She might’ve even been offered a homemade cheese and onion pasty.

If she’d been awake she might’ve seen the gun room, full of hunting rifles, shotguns, some clay pigeons and a grenade.

And she may just’ve noticed the many chandeliers overhead as they passed … some gilded, some plain old iron, some wooden, and all of them loaded with burning candles, lighting the hallway as best they could, the wax dripping down the sides.

She would’ve seen the cabinet room, full of curiosities such as the original noose used to hang Franz Muller in 1864. She might’ve had the opportunity to see the supposedly haunted doll with the face of the baby girl which was actually an Atlantean artefact.
 

She might’ve caught a glimpse of the handiwork of Nephew Junty — his jars of foetuses trapped in time with formaldehyde and alcohol. Fifty or more years’ worth of experiments in the name of science, though more likely in the interest of Junty’s morbid curiosities.
 

She maybe would’ve seen the place where Bexley and Rosie Darlington-Whit, brother and sister, grew up. The place where they’d spent many hours with the older Family members.
 

Even though she didn’t get to see any of that, she was still going to meet Grant Darlington-Whit — the Family Head — their father. After all, there was no escaping that.

***

Hannah opened her eyes. Apart from a few lit candles on the floor she couldn’t see anything. Her skin felt hot and itchy and painful, and every breath was forced and stung her burnt lungs. She was on a chair of some sort. Her hands and her legs were strapped in and her sore, bare skin was like fire against the straps. Her feet were submerged in cold water and she could hear them splash as she tried to move.

“Hello,” she tried to say but the word came out so weak she couldn’t even hear it herself.
 

She coughed and closed her eyes as tightly as she could. She remembered her dad’s advice: when it’s too dark to see you should close your eyes as tightly as you can and then re-open them. It resets the pupils. You’d be surprised at how much better you can see. She opened her eyes but could still see nothing other than the candles.