Random Story 3

Every day was a slow day in Little Boghampton.

It felt slower because the day was made of a series of regular occurences which you spent most of the day waiting for.

Behind the front desk of the village constabulary, one of the last of its kind, PC James anticipated the next part of the schedule.

He wasn't far off retirement and he only got to visit Little Boghampton once a week as part of his community visits, but he had been stationed here for a long time previously and so he knew the place like the back of his hand. Fortunately he never wore gloves.

Ah! There she was. He glanced out of the window. Miss Cooper rode past on her bicycle. They had a history which he wished wasn't now in the past, but he felt a duty not to put pressure on her now that her husband had recently died. He would wait until she was ready. He prided himself on his self-control.

Lost, as he was, in his memories he was brought back with a rather loud bang as the door to his now cramped office slammed shut. The rest of the constabulary had been converted into a 3-bed house which had been sold for enough money to have funded a full-time police officer in this village for the next 150 years!

His visitor was another of the every day happenings that were difficult to avoid. It was Barry Stott. To say he was the local drunk was to say it all really. He braced himself as he wondered what story Barry would regale him with today. The amount of times the PC had picked up Barry for being 'Drunk and Disorderly' over the years had somehow given the old sot the impression that they were now good friends.

"PC! How are you doing today!" The alcohol fumes wafted across the small room.

The constable shuffled a few papers.

"I'm fine Barry. Do you have police business today?"

"Now as it happens I do."

Stott missed the raised eyebrow in response to his statement as he was too busy trying to focus on the spider playing a trombone under the ledge of the front desk.

"And what is the nature of your business?" Experience came into play here. The less interest he showed in the story the shorter the tale usually became. Shorter being a relative measurement.

"Well I was out by old Miss Cooper's place earlier..."

This got a rise out of the constable he was always very protective of Miss Cooper, especially now that she was a widow.

"Less of the 'old' please. Show some respect. Why were you out there? You know she's at the library in Much Boghampton in the mornings!"

"Well if you want me to start at the beginning, I will."

Rats! He'd fallen for the bait. This slow day was about to get slower.

"It all began last night!

As I was escorted in a gentlemanly fashion from the local establishment I decided to fall over so that I could appreciate the stars in the sky.

Even though I hit my head I was clear-headed enough to notice a few of the stars seemed to be closer that they ought to be. And moving.

I was about to get up and make my way home and put myself off to bed. I got as far as sitting up, whereupon one of the stars shot past me through the village.

Now, knowing that in your enforced absence I'm the closest thing to an officer of the constabulary in these parts, I put off my plans for a peaceful nights sleep and followed the bright light in the direction it had gone. I didn't have to go far as I saw that the star had landed in one of the bedrooms in the vicarage. I knew this because I was talking with the father over a pint earlier in the evening and he had been bemoaning that his lightbulb had fizzed out the previous night and hadn't been able to replace it. So there was no other explanation for the glow emanating from his top floor.

I sat outside to see what would happen next as I heard a number of strange noises coming from the open window, whereupon the star left the house. The noises stopped at that moment so I felt it was okay to go after the star. You see, I've picked up a few tips from you on how to do this investigation thing."

"Is that it?" He knew it was a pointless question but he tried just on the off-chance.

"Well, you'd think it would be wouldn't you. It's not often that a star just falls out of the sky is it? But I know how these types work and I could tell that the star was acting suspiciously."

"A suspicious looking star. In the vicarage bedroom?"

"That's not the end of it."

What a shame, the PC thought.

"I followed it again. As everyone else was tucked up in bed it was easy to tell where it had gone...Miss Coopers place."

"Are you dragging her into this now?" The constable felt his blood begin to boil.

"Just the facts my dear friend. By the way can you make out the tune that spider is playing?"

"Get on with it or get out!"

"PC. You need to calm down I'm getting to it. I just need to explain..."

The look he recieved prompted him to carry on.

"So there I was in front of Miss Coopers house with the same strange happenings occurring. I found that the longer I stared at the light I could make out shapes moving around. After a while I think the light hypnotised me because all of a sudden dawn was breaking and I realised that it must have found me and knocked me out without realising it."

"What found you?" An incredulous police officer inquired.

"The star of course. Oh look there's an ant playing bongo's now."

"Finish the story, so that I can arrest you, and go home!" Some of his famed self-control was slipping.

"Okay. Okay. Well obviously the star was no longer there. I wondered what might have happened as I know you care very much for her welfare. I wandered over all steathily so as not to arouse suspicions. I climbed through the gap in the bush just behind the tree on the left corner, you know the one."

"I certainly do not!"

"Oh, must have been someone else that night. Well, I tread very carefully through the garden so as not to disturb the careful tendering that Miss Cooper puts into that verdant paradise. I moved around her house checking for signs of entry. Did you know her gutterings coming away over the kitchen window?

I walked up to the back door and noticed the window was broken. I knew it would be a few hours until you would arrive in the village and for the sake of such a short time anything could have happened in that house, so I took it upon myself to open the door, whereupon I was greeted with the most horrifying sight."

"What was it! I demand to know?" The constable was totally caught up in the tale now.

Barry sat back enjoying the enraptured audience.

"You know as well as anyone that I'm a man with a hardy constitution but nothing could have prepared me for the sight that I beheld. The place was overrun with bugs!"

"Bugs?!" Spluttered the PC.

"Bugs, yes. Every imaginable kind. Worms, spiders, beetles, caterpillars, flies and more. All of them swarming around the kitchen. But that's nothing as to what happened next. As I opened the door a bit further it creaked, whereupon all of the insects moved as one and converged together.

"Together?"

"Together. As one, I say. They all swarmed upon each other and a form began to take shape. As each insect buzzed, crawled and wriggled its way across the kitchen it became something else. Someone else."

"Who?"

"Do you have some flyspray, constable?" Barry said.

"Who was it?" His demands were growing more strangled as he struggled for control.

"Here, I picked up a few, have one, you'll need it. That spider over there looks armed." He put a can of spray on the counter.

"Tell me...!"

"Have you not worked it out yet? It was Miss Cooper."

The constable had had enough. "That's it. You're nicked!"

He stormed around the front desk and manhandled Stott into the token excuse for a cell at the back of the room.

"What are you doing? Constable?"

"I'm doing the town a favour and keeping you out of trouble and then I'm going to see Miss Cooper to see what mischief you've done."

"But what are you going to do? Take the flyspray, at least."

PC James finally lost his highly regarded self-control in a moment he would later regret and threw the spray at the incarcerated, inebriated fool who had just wasted his time for the last occasion.

He had sufficiently calmed down by the time he reached Miss Cooper's house and took a moment to adjust his uniform. To satisfy his police instincts he had tried to substantiate the story of the old sot now in the cell.

Father Bownes had seemed fine and attributed his night time light show to the fact that he had moved his table lamp upstairs and forgotten to turn it off before falling asleep during his bedtime prayer routine, thus giving him nightmares for a time until he woke up and turned it off.

Now the constable had an opportunity to call upon Miss Cooper. Any interaction with her was a welcome distraction and he walked up to the front door. As he made his way through the gate he glanced across to the left-hand corner of the garden and saw the unmistakable path Barry had trampled. He sighed and tutted to himself as he approached the front door.

He didn't have to wait too long after knocking as Miss Cooper opened the door with a smile. With a nod of her head she beckoned him in, closing the door quietly after him.

When Barry was found a few months later, still in the cell, he was near to death, a number of tins of empty insect spray littered around him. They almost didn't find him, but his weak cries for help were heard through the flames as they burned the mountain of dead insect carcasses that surrounded the cell.

The country had survived the onslaught but suffered heavy casualties. Towns the length and breadth of the UK were purged of the insect infestations. The only way you could tell a real human was by the intense scarring left by the extra strength bugspray that was used to defend against the manifestations of the insect invader. Or by using an ultraviolet 'zapstick', a portable version of those found in the local chippie.

Only through one man's warning can we fend of future attacks.

"Never trust an insect that can play musical instruments."





















Character: Whereupon Plot: Demands Resolution: Bugs