Alec Sillifant

Midsummer Moy-der!

 

Farmer Scrumpy stared across the misty vale to watch the sun rise over the back of his prize sheep, Baa-berella. He never tired of this sight and he inhaled a huge lungful of the cold fresh air into his nostrils noisily. “Look at that moi lovely,” said the farmer, “what more be anyone want from loife?”

‘Well, a bunch of flowers every now and then would be nice,’ mused Baaberella, shivering as she felt the farmer wipe himself clean in the wool on her haunches.

“Heaven itself can’t be this bootiful,” said Scrumpy, slipping his manhood safely behind patched corduroy once more.

A deep throbbing could be heard in the chill morn, (apart from the one in the farmer’s pants) a rhythmic throaty noise that had Mr Scrumpy scanning the hedgerows for its source. He knew it was an engine but it was not one familiar to his ears. “Who do you think that be, Baaberella? Too early for the village folk to be up and about, it must be an outzider. What be they doing I wonder?”

‘What are they doing, you inbred hick,’ sneered Baaberella.

“It be getting closer,” said Scrumpy, walking towards the gate at the edge of the field a look of concern on his face. “Don’t want anymore of them there Yuppies moving in from the 1980s asking us to make moi cows smell less like shit and more like the leather in their BMWs.” He reached the gate and, placing his folded arms on top of the gate and one wellied foot on the bottom bar of the gate, prepared his best ‘We don’t like strangers round ‘ere, my lover,’ expression.

Scrumpy looked up the road as the motorcycle swept out of the corner approaching his place of prepared disapproval. “He be shifting,” said Scrumpy to Baaberella who had walked over with the curious farmer. “Hope he slows down afore he be at the village pond, we got some new ducklings that hatched last Wednes-”

Scrumpy’s rambling was cut short as his forehead was pierced by a chromed fork leg with such force that it stuck ten inches out of the back of his skull. He was dead before his tweed covered back squelched into the mud with a squelch. The motorcycle continued its journey without a hiccup in its engine note.

Baaberella looked at the fallen farmer for a second and then checking the coast was clear thought, ‘You’ve got a pretty mouth.’

 

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Mrs Pauline Isabelle Selena Flaps - who never signed her name with all three initials - was baking with gusto in her cottage kitchen. There was a big day ahead and she was on a mission to win back her ‘Best Cupcakes’ trophy at the village fate. She was determined not to be denied victory again. The Kipling bitch had been lucky last year and Pauline suspected Kipling’s husband had helped her, probably exceedingly, but it was hard to prove especially since he could keep his head when all around him were losing theirs.

She blew at her fringe which was flopping into her eyes as she frantically whisked at her cake mix. No electric wizardy-pokery for Mrs Flaps, it was always a hand job for Pauline and why not, her husband had never complained…except after that holiday they took in Thailand when he got ideas above his station. However, it turned out she was allergic to ping-pong balls, so that was the end of that little experiment.

Above the sound of beating, Pauline noticed there was a hiss of static breaking into ‘Woman’s Hour’ that cut Jenny Murray off mid nad-chewing. ‘Strange,’ thought Pauline, ‘Radio 4 reception is usually so good round here. Oh my word, property values will plummet!’

The static got worse and worse and was then replaced by the roar of an engine that was obviously being given the beans. “What on earth is going on?” said Pauline out loud, slamming her mixing bowl onto her 16th century, solid oak kitchen table. “I bet it’s one of those minorities that the Daily Mail told me about, coming over here, flying in on their drones to live in the tree at the end of my garden most assuredly defecating foreign plagues onto innocent rabbits from the branches and then invading my home to nail the soiled, diseased, furry carcasses to my fridge door. Yes, that is not an unreasonable conclusion to reach at all.”

The sound got louder and louder until it rattled the very foundations of the rose covered cottage. Pauline threw her kitchen window open and thrust her head out. “Listen you illegal aliens, get the hell off my lawn before I call the pol-”

A noise like a whip crack sounded four times in rapid succession. Mrs Flaps staggered back from the window and across her kitchen, moon-walking like a pro, with four NGK spark plugs buried in her chest. Each plug had its own gushing fountain of blood spraying the kitchen walls crimson, totally clashing with the ‘Magenta Dawn’ and ‘Jasper Dew’ colour scheme of the cabinets. Pauline reached out for support from her mixing bowl but was dead before her grasping fingers dragged it clattering to the floor.

 

 

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The Reverend Green was with Miss Scarlet in the study with the candlestick, which is a really weird pet name to give to a penis but each to their own.

“I’m not sure if this ice cube thing is for me,” said the reverend.

“Mmmm nnnn mmm,” replied Miss Scarlet.

“Yes, I know you saw it on a DVD but it’s so cold…it reminds me too much of the late Mrs Green.”

“MMMMM NNNN MMM!” said Miss Scarlet angrily.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Reverend Green, “you’re right this is not the best time to mention her.” He paused as he closed his eyes and tried to get into the situation but continued to struggle to get jiggy wit it. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cushion for your knees; there’s loads of them in the chapel?”

“Mmmm nnn mmm.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a go,” said the reverend. He coughed to clear his throat like he always did before delivering a sermon to the villagers. “Ooooh baby suck it hard….suck it like you’ve never sucked before…suck it like…like…a Dyson? Amen.”

“MMMM NNN MMM!”

“I’m sorry,” said Green, running his hands through his thinning hair, “I’m not very good at talking dirty. It’s not something we covered at vicar school…much…and never with the lights on. But keep going, I am enjoying it and pretty soon I’m sure I’ll feel something like the coming of the lord.”

“Mmmm nnn mmm.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right, that was a little bit dirty.” The Reverend Green closed his eyes and smiled, but only for a second or two. “Can you hear that?”

“Mmmm nnn mmm?”

“I can hear a bike.” The vicar strained his ears. “It’s a Bonnie, if I’m not mistaken. And by the sound of it it’s going a fair lick up the vicarage path. Do you know how long I spent raking the gravel into place last weekend? Some people have no respect for the careful placement of pulverised rocks.”

“Mmmm nn-.” Miss Scarlet’s obvious annoyance was interrupted by the smashing of stained glass as a whirling 42 toothed rear sprocket crashed through the study window and cut a swathe across the room akin to an oily shuriken. The spinning cog ripped its way through Miss Scarlet’s neck before burying itself deep in the vicar’s groin, severing his femoral artery.

The Reverend Green looked at the sprocket protruding from his body and garnishing Miss Scarlet’s severed neck, giving her the look of a Tudor English rose wearing an iron neck ruff that dripped with blood. “Yes, that’s definitely a Bonnie’s.” He toppled like a Giant Redwood, as if filmed in slo-mo by a lumberjack with feck all better to do, to land across the headless, crumpled body of Miss Scarlet. The slightly uptight vicar spent the last two minutes of his life unconscious, as his heart systematically pumped the eight pints of O+ in his body onto the study’s expensive Wilton carpet. The late Mrs Green would not have be pleased at all.

 

 

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The village cemetery was bathed in silver moonlight and a mist curled around the stone markers of the dead, it was a pretty cool scene worthy of any horror of a hammer persuasion. Whether the four figures gathered in the cemetery realised, or even cared, how damn cool it all looked, considering their predicament, was up for debate.

“…straight through moi fuckin’ ‘ead.”

“Mr Scrumpy, there is no need for that language,” said Pauline Flaps. “We’re dead, not city-centre savages.”

“But look at it,” said the farmer touching both ends of the fork leg that pierced his skull, “I looks like a fuckin’ corkscrew! And for some reason all I can taste be kebab.”

“I think Mrs Flaps is right,” said Reverend Green, looking very pale indeed, “we should moderate our language.”

“Mmmm nnn mmm,” said Miss Scarlet whose head was still ‘attached’ to the vicar. Her body, which sat on a gravestone two plots over, crossed her arms and legs in disgust.

“And name calling isn’t helpful either, Miss Scarlet,” said the vicar. “I’m sure Mrs Flaps has had her moments of passion…in the past…I would imagine.”

“Okay, vicar,” said Scrumpy, turning to face Reverend Green and knocking an owl out of a tree with his cranial jewellery, “you be the one with the hotline to the other side, what the hell be going on?”

“Well, the only thing we all have in common is hearing the sound of an approaching engine just before we died. More than likely a classic British motorcycle, from what I understand.”

“Mmmm nnn mmm,” said Miss Scarlet from the vicar’s crotch.

“What? Oh yes,” agreed the vicar, “it did sound like the one that’s approaching now…oh dear Lord, whatever next?”

“Probably get our fuckin’ legs cut orf by a brake cable or summit,” mumbled Scrumpy.

Out of the mist, its movement swirling the damp air into diving eddies, adding a deeper freeze to the already cool of the scene, emerged a motorcycle; astride its saddle a rider clad in black leather head to foot because it’s a legal requirement for stories of a spooky nature such as this.

“I knew it,” smiled the vicar, “it’s a Bonneville. A 1969 T120R, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Who cares,” said Pauline Flaps. “You need to have a stern word with the murderous hooligan about civic duty and responsibilities. And the country code, littering the place with scrap motorcycle parts is not on.”

The rider stopped the bike, killed the engine, dismounted and from behind a blacked out visor said, “I know you know why you are all here tonight and yet I cannot smell the perfume of remorse on the air.” His voice was deep with gravitas and tweaked with a slight echo, perfect for reverbing off gravestones.

“I knows why we be here,” said Scrumpy, “because some prick has using motorcycle parts as murderous ordnance around the village with no thought to the safety of others.”

“Listen, Wurzel Bumridge,” said the biker, secretly a little pleased with his clever cultural quip, “you’d best show me some respect or there will be Hell to pay…literary. Shit, I mean literally. There will be hell to pay, literally. Goddammit.”

“Ooooo, like what?” said Scrumpy with mock fear. “You going to shove another hard shaft into my face and get it lodged there?”

“Mmmm nnn mmm,” said Miss Scarlet.

“Yes, I know you know how that feels,” replied the vicar, “but getting upset isn’t going to help the situation and this predicament isn’t all my fault.”

 “Actually it is,” said the biker, “it’s all your faults. You!” The biker pointed to Scrumpy. “You ran your combine harvester over a biker couple when they camped in a gateway to your land one night to get shelter from a storm.”

“What?!” said Scrumpy. “Be you fuckin’ mental? I knows who you be now, you be the Dim Reaper.”

“I’m warning you,” said the mysterious biker, a slight crack of stress in his tone, “one more word from you and I’ll-.”

“I hold one of the biggest bike rallies in the county on my land every year,” interrupted Scrumpy. “You may have heard of it, the ‘Woolly Clam Rally’? Why the hell would I run bikers over in a combine? Especially considering all moi land be turned over to livestock and I don’t own a combine harvester?”

The faceless biker held his accusing finger up for a few seconds searching for a come back to Scrumpy’s argument but he failed. Instead he swung his still accusatory digit across to stab at Pauline Flaps. “What about you then! I dare you to deny you fed a biker a poisoned cream tea when he stopped in your café not one year from this day because you thought his presence would ruin the chances of ‘Village of the Year’ being awarded to this...would you call it a village or a hamlet, I’m never sure when the scales tip over.”

“Don’t talk rot,” said Mrs Flaps, “I’ve been catering the rally on Mr Scrumpy’s farm for years and I’ve never had one complaint from the lovely bikers. And if you suggest anything otherwise about my cooking I’ll take these spark plugs and shove them up your…well, you know where I mean.”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” said the helmeted chap and sighed deeply before moving on with his incriminating indicator. “You then, sky-pilot,” he said with a sneer as best he could, though it obviously lacked the confidence with which he’d first started the round of accusations, “You-.”

“Can I stop you there,” said Reverend Green, “would it surprise you to learn that I am the Chairman of the Triumph Owner’s Club for Wanking-on-the-Marsh?”

The biker dropped his finger. “I’m sorry, Chairman for the what, where now?”

“Triumph’s Owners Club, Wanking-on-the-Marsh.”

“Not, Wanking-in-the-Moss?”

“No,” spat Scrumpy, “that pit of biker hating scum be the next village over.”

“And they can’t bake for toffee either…or bake decent toffee in fact,” added Pauline.

“Mmmm nnn mmm,” confirmed Miss Scarlet.

The biker slapped both hands onto his helmet. “Bloody stupid Sat(an)-Nav, I think they spent more time and money on the stupid pun than the tech inside it. And it only works if you see it written down as the ‘(an)’ is silent. I am so sorry,” he said, with an embarrassed chuckle. “It’s obvious that I’ve made a terrible mistake. Next village over you say? What a nob. I’ll never live this down at the next Avenging Angels do.”

“I suppose these things happen,” said Reverend Green, trying his best to stay Christian and suppress the desire to rib this demonic dickhead limb from limb...or tentacle from tentacle, for all he knew.

“So be what happens to be us now be?” said Farmer Scrumpy, totally losing his grasp of rural vernacular.

“Well, and you’ll laugh at this, you all stay here cursed for the next one hundred years living as the undead, trapped within the walls of this cemetery until you learn your lesson...not that you have a lesson to learn it seems,” explained the Avenging Angel. “I must admit I feel a bit bad about this. Now that I’ve met you, you all seem really nice people.”

“A hundred fuckin’ years,” shouted Scrumpy, “I’m going to rip your fuckin’ ‘ead off!”

The Avenging Angel raised his hands. “Whoa, I wouldn’t do that big guy, attacking an Avenging Angel adds another hundred to the stir. Sorry.”

Farmer Scrumpy muttered something and kicked his ecotoplasmic wellie through a gravestone.

“Anyway,” said the biker, “must dash, seems I’ve got a bit of a clean-up job to do before I can knock off tonight.” He threw his leg over his bike and fired up the engine. “Boy, am I glad this visor is one-way, I am so embarrassed about this. I tell ya, my skull is crimson right now.” With a twist of the throttle he was once again lost to the mist.

“Anyone got any ideas on how we should pass the time?” said the Reverend Green, eventually breaking the silence. “Does anyone have a copy of Travel Scrabble on them?”

“Mmm nn mmm nnn?!” insisted Miss Scarlet.

“Oh, of course,” said the vicar, gently removing the woman’s head from his…person.

“About bloody time,” said Miss Scarlet, rolling her jaw around to relieve the cramp. “Would you mind?” she added, directing her eyes toward the rest of her body.

Reverend Green carefully walked the head to its seated body and rested it on the raw, jagged neck of the blonde. “Better?”

“Much,” said Miss Scarlet, after deciding an affirmative nod would probably not be wise.

“I never thought I’d say this,” said Mrs Flaps, “but I feel a bit sorry for you, Miss Scarlet. Although we’re all here due to a gross geographical error of an utter half-wit supernatural being, you also appear to be innocent collateral damage in this sorry tale.”

Miss Scarlet smiled briefly. “Well, I did once kidnap, kill and render down a couple of fishtail-wearing scooter boys into succulent joints before holding a ‘vegan’ barbecue for that hippy retreat on High Meadow.”

“Mods?” said the vicar.

Miss Scarlett didn’t nod.

“I’m sure God will find it in his heart to forgive you.”

Mrs Flaps and Farmer Scrumpy mumbled their agreement with the reverend’s theological theory.

“Right, who’s for I-Spy?” said the vicar cheerily.

“I’ll start,” said Scrumpy. “I-Spy with moi little eye something beginning with…the vicar be a prick.”

And so another rural day had passed and the sun readied itself to sneak up on the folk in the country to catch them at whatever it is they do to each other in those mysterious fields dotted with giant men of wicker and eleven fingered banjo players…as in banjo players with eleven fingers, not eleven banjo players that have been fingered…then again, you never know, this be the countryside, my lover.

Dum de dum de dum de dum, dum de dum de dum dum. Dum dee-diddly, dum dee-diddly, dum dee-diddly dum. Dum de dum de dum de dum, dum dee-diddly dum.