For Those Who Dream Monsters (4 page)

Have you ever come face to face with a frightened scorpion fish? Harry
Tomlinson has. A row of venomous barbs and a pair of startled fishy eyes only
centimetres from his own, and coming closer. A flurry of bubbles as Harry’s
breath escaped him, then he was hurtling backwards and upwards as his head was
yanked out of the tank once more.

“Where
is it?” shouted the brick shithouse of a man who had Harry by the hair, and
whose name seemed to be Tiny. Harry choked for breath, coughing up fish-tank
water and miniature pebbles. Tiny held Harry, while his buddy – a man whose
name Harry had ascertained to be Frank – punched the retching postman in the
stomach.

“I
don’t know what you’re talking about,” gasped Harry. “I told you, you’ve got
the wrong man.” Frank signalled to Tiny to carry on. “No!” protested Harry,
fear for his beloved prickly pet stronger than fear for his own life. He
struggled violently, but a punch to the right kidney weakened his resolve and
then his face was in the fish-tank again. Harry pushed upwards against Tiny’s
beefy hand as hard as he could, then shut his eyes as his prize fish’s barbs
pierced his skin.

This
time, as Tiny heaved Harry up, the scorpion fish came out with the postman, its
spines embedded in Harry’s cheek. Harry spluttered, gurgled, then screamed in
agony as the poison pumped from the fish’s spines into his face. Tiny let go in
surprise, and Harry slumped to the floor, clawing at his face, then screaming
some more, as he succeeded merely in pricking his fingers and pushing the fish
and its barbs deeper into his flesh. The toxin coursed through Harry’s
bloodstream and started to send his muscles into paralysis. Harry’s screams
turned to wheezing as he fought to get oxygen into his seizing lungs.

“What’s
up with him?” Tiny turned to Frank, a quizzical expression on his bull-like
face. Just then, Frank’s mobile phone rang.

“It’s
the boss,” Frank said, then pressed the accept button. Tiny gave a decent
impression of watching a Wimbledon Centre Court tennis match as his eyes
flicked between the writhing postman and Frank, who was starting to look
distinctly crestfallen.

“What
is it?” Tiny asked finally, as Frank apologised to their boss for the tenth
time before hanging up.

“We
got the wrong house.”

“What?”

“We
got the wrong house,” Frank hissed loudly, annoyed at having to repeat himself
– an action that just seemed to emphasise the stupidity of his mistake.

“What?”

“Elgin
Avenue!” yelled Frank. “66 Elgin
Avenue
;
not
Elgin
Road
…
Okay? … Now let’s get rid of him and get out of here!”

Harry didn’t appear to be listening. His eyes were bulging out of his head; his
injured hand felt like it was on fire, and he could no longer feel his face.
His entire world had shrunk to the overwhelming task of forcing his lungs to
expand and contract, one breath at a time.

“What
about
that
?” asked Tiny, pointing to the scorpion fish jutting from
Harry’s face. The fish’s gills were opening and closing rapidly, its eyes were
bulging much in the same way as those of its owner, and it too was slowly
losing its battle for life.

“Don’t
touch it,” warned Frank, looking down in disgust at the spiny monstrosity
protruding from the impossibly puffed up, bleeding face of the man at his feet.
“I think it might be poisonous.”

A
few minutes later, Frank and Tiny were dragging the prostrate Harry out through
the back door. Darkness had fallen fully during their erroneous house visit,
and they took advantage of it, and the evident lack of potential witnesses, to
dump Harry in the canal that ran along the bottom of the hapless postman’s
garden.

By
the time Harry hit the water, his laboured breathing had stopped. The impact
with the canal dislodged the scorpion fish, and its dead body drifted down into
the murky depths.

Harry’s
body sank slowly, the weight of his clothes pulling him down. Greyness and calm
descended on the postman, but his release was not to last long.

Suddenly
Harry felt a searing pain all over his body as he jolted back to life. The
gaping wounds in his face, where the fish’s barbs had penetrated, were
pulsating with a strange life of their own, transforming and turning into flaps
of skin that rose and fell. Water entered Harry through the gashes in his
cheek, but, rather than drowning, Harry’s body extracted oxygen from the
liquid. Harry Tomlinson had grown gills – gills that were now opening and
closing, oxygenating his blood and keeping him alive. Over the next half-hour,
he would grow another set.

The sick-looking young man was looking even sicker as Tiny pushed his face down
towards the gas-ring.

“Where
is it?” demanded Frank, as he gestured to Tiny to let the youth up. “Tell me
where it is, or we light the gas.”

“I
don’t know!” Frank produced a Zippo lighter from his pocket and proceeded to
light the gas, as the youth squirmed in Tiny’s grasp. Once Frank had adjusted
the flame to his satisfaction, Tiny forced the youth’s head down again. A
strand of his hair caught fire and he screamed loudly, tearing himself out of
Tiny’s clutches and running headlong through the kitchen.

“For
God’s sake, shut him up!” snarled Frank. “The neighbours will hear him.” Tiny
strode over to the youth – who had reached the sink and was trying to stick his
head under the tap – and punched his lights out.

“Great,”
complained Frank. “Now we have to sit here and wait till he comes back round.”
Tiny looked nonplussed for a while, but soon perked up.

“I
got an idea,” he beamed with pride.

“Great,”
Frank did little to disguise his sarcasm, but was pleasantly surprised when
Tiny filled a saucepan with water and threw it in the youth’s gaunt face. The
young man came to, then screamed. Tiny went to hit him again, then stopped
short as he realised that the youth was staring at something behind him. The
thug turned around slowly and screamed too.

The excruciating pain had receded and Harry found himself floating effortlessly
in the inky canal water. Despite the murk, he could see clearly all around him:
mud-coloured plants, their sparse leaves swaying in the sluggish current; small
fish darting this way and that, in search of food; a drowned rusty bicycle;
some animal bones; a shoe; the skeletal remains of an umbrella. And beyond all
those, the battered corpse of Harry’s beloved scorpion fish, tangled up in a
white plastic bag.

Sadness
and anger overcame Harry, replacing his confusion and fear. He made a move in
the direction of his dead pet, and found that he could glide easily through the
water. He looked down in surprise and found that a translucent pinkish membrane
had grown between his fingers. He glanced behind him, and saw that his feet
were also webbed. Just then, a strong spasm shook Harry’s body. He could tell
that something wasn’t right with his back, and then a sharp, but brief, pain
shot through his spinal column as a row of long, shiny, rainbow-coloured barbs
erupted through Harry’s mutating skin.

With
a single deft movement of his flexible spine, Harry glided through the dank
water, disentangled the scorpion fish’s body from the plastic, and lifted it
carefully. This time its barbs didn’t pierce Harry’s hard new scale-covered
skin. Harry gazed at the little corpse for a while, then opened his unfamiliar
hand, and let the body of his pet float gently off into the dark. His anger
turned to rage and … hunger. He realised that he hadn’t eaten anything for
hours and, to his surprise, he knew exactly what it was that he hungered for.

66
Elgin Avenue; not Elgin Road… Okay?

The
words had somehow insinuated their way into Harry’s subconscious and now
surfaced, reverberating in his head as he navigated his way along the canals.
In his eight years as postman, he’d learned all the streets in the local area
and knew them – and the canals that crossed them – like the back of his hand …
better than the back of his hand, as his hand was now a thing of wonder: new
and strange.

Harry
reached the canal that flowed parallel to Elgin Avenue and crawled out of the
water. He felt a little unsteady, and it was a couple of minutes before
breathing through his mouth came naturally once more. He looked around to make
sure there was no one about, and headed for Number 66; anger and hunger
hastening his steps.

It
was late by now, and cold, and the streets were deserted, bar a black cat that
hissed at Harry from a garden fence before fleeing into the shadows. Harry
reached his destination and, finding the door unlocked, let himself in
silently. The two pet-murderers were already there: Tiny torturing some junkie
by the stove, and Frank looking on, his back to the new arrival and blissfully
ignorant of what lay in store.

The
scaly, spiny thing that was once the local postman crept up soundlessly behind
Frank and with one deft movement ripped off his head. Blood spurted as high as
the ceiling and the creature fell upon the headless corpse, sucking and
tearing; its fine new set of razor-sharp teeth the perfect tool to facilitate
satiation of its voracious appetite.

Tiny
was too preoccupied with filling the saucepan with water and tipping it over
the youth to notice anything untoward. But as soon as the young man regained
consciousness, his eyes alighted on the bizarre scene that was enfolding behind
the thug who’d just drenched him. As his brain worked out what his eyes were
looking at, the youth started to scream. Tiny eventually followed his gaze and
dropped the saucepan in horror. The sharp sound of the pan hitting the floor
distracted Harry temporarily from his feeding frenzy. He saw Tiny beginning to
back away, and felt himself bristle as the barbs that grew out of his back and
limbs stood upright, venom pumping into them all the way to their tips.

Tiny
raced for the back door, but found it locked, with no key in sight. He whipped
round, saw a space between the creature and the front door, and went for it.
The thing was faster; it intercepted Tiny and flung out its arm, spines first.
Tiny winced as a giant barb pierced his shoulder. The creature held the thug at
arm’s length, watching him flap his arms around like an impaled insect. After a
while Tiny started to wheeze as his throat began to constrict in reaction to
the venom. As Harry delayed the coming gastronomic pleasure and watched his
prey squirming before him, the junkie took the opportunity to slip past the
blood-curdling scene and out through the front door. Harry let him go. Then,
hungry once more, he hurled his second course off his barb and resumed his feast.

Harry
found, much to his interest, that if he took his time, he was able to eat
almost twice his own body weight. At about the time he was done, and all that
was left of Frank and Tiny was a pile of bloody clothes, a couple of skeletons,
a gun, a switchblade and two mobile phones – and about the time that the local
junkie was being locked up in a holding cell after bursting into the police
station, ranting about man-eating fish-monsters – Frank’s mobile rang. Harry
picked it up carefully and inspected the flashing display. ‘Boss’ it said.
Harry accepted the call.

“You
done yet?” asked the surprisingly squeaky voice at the other end. Harry grunted
something akin to an affirmation. “You got the stuff?” Harry grunted again.
“Well why the fuck didn’t you call me?” the squeaky voice at the other end rose
a tone or two in apparent annoyance. Harry risked a third grunt. “Look, just
get your asses down to the parking lot behind Sainsbury’s. And I mean
now
!”

Harry
grinned to himself and headed back to the canal. If he swam, he’d make it to
Sainsbury’s in five minutes. Maybe later he’d take the canals to the river,
then head downriver for a mile or so. There was a prison for violent offenders
downriver. Harry hated murderers and rapists. Besides, he figured he might be
hungry again before daybreak.