MikeW
09-16-2013, 06:27 PM
Ok so this is my first real attempt at a short story. Always enjoyed Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected when I was younger, so I tried a story in that sort of quietly grisly style. Anyway, here goes.
1.
“I’m sick to the back teeth of you doing nothing but lying in bed playing with that bloody x-station,” Ethan’s mother barked. “If I have to fall asleep to the sound of machine guns just one more time, I’m going to develop post traumatic stress disorder.” She paused to let her small piece of wit be appreciated.
Ethan groaned and sunk his head face-down into the pillow. His mother was at the door of his bedroom doing her usual alarm clock routine. She continued, “It’s about time you got off your arse and got a job and don’t lay like that on your bed, it’s bad for your neck.”
Ethan attempted to push his head even further into the pillow but there wasn’t much compression left in the thing.
“Good morning mum,” He intoned through the pillow in the sarcastic manner that teenagers do so well.
“Don’t give me that, it’s your mother you’re talking to, not your school-teacher. Who, by the way, did follow up on that letter you must have ‘forgotten’. We’ll be talking about that later.”
Ethan now lifted the pillow over his head and gave a particularly anguished wail. His mother didn’t let it break her stride.
“You can go and see Doctor Montague at number 17, he has some jobs he wants doing so get your arse in gear,”
With a final scolding glare at the pillow, she slammed the bedroom door and made some suitably dramatic noise as she stomped back down the stairs.
Ethan gave a small nod to rebellion by waiting a good twenty seconds longer before finally emerging to get dressed. He was a thin boy of thirteen. Not entirely witless, but not that inclined towards hard work either. However, he was just beginning to appreciate the virtues of the female form. Although he would never directly admit it, he understood that having a little more than £5 a week pocket money could make some impressions in the right places.
‘Old people are always tight though’, he thought with his usual optimism whilst fumbling for some socks. ‘He’ll probably have me scrubbing his toilet for 50p an hour and still whinge if I miss one tiny skidmark. Bollocks to it, at least if I go and see him it’ll shut the hag up for a day or two’, he reasoned as he pulled on a pair of trainers and went downstairs.
“Don’t wear your shoes indoors,” his mother said without turning from the sink. Ethan gave an expression of exaggerated comic despair. Seemingly sensing this, “I can hear them on the floor you know.”
She continued scrubbing plates whilst talking mainly to herself “Honestly, they all seem to think we were born yesterday.”
Ethan felt this was one maternal discourse he could probably excuse himself from, decided to skip breakfast owing to the inclement social conditions and continued out the door.
2.
He emerged onto the tree lined suburban street, dragging his feet as he sulkily trudged down to the detached Victorian house where Doctor Montague lived. Ethan didn’t know much about him other than that like most old people he generally didn’t look very happy and took a dim view of pretty much everything. Looking up he saw the reasonably pretty girl from number 26 walking towards him, he quickly straightened his slouchy walk. Then, catching himself, tried to slip back into an overly nonchalant walk and hoped she hadn’t noticed.
All but breaking into a whistle, he tried to casually half-meet her eyes as she strolled past. She gave the slightest of smirks, looked down and walked on. ‘At least she didn’t actually laugh’ thought Ethan, ‘next time I’m gonna just say hi and ask her name’ ‘Don’t be an idiot’, his more pessimistic side retorted, ‘she’s two years above you’. Ethan sighed and pushed open the gate to Dr. Montague’s garden.
Ethan decided that the Doctor should definitely get a gardener. Trees blocked the view from the road, but once inside you could see that nothing had been touched for a very long time. Apart from a large and neat square of soil in the furthest corner, it was a mess. He reached the door and pushed the doorbell.
‘Let me guess how long this is gonna take’ he thought, ‘probably gonna take him half an hour just to creak his way out of his piss-stinking favourite chair’. But having barely completed that thought, the door opened.
The Doctor was tall, wearing a spotless, well fitted suit which revealed a fairly athletic shape in spite of his obvious vintage.
“Are you the Richard’s boy?” He inquired in sharp, upper class tones.
“That’s me,” Ethan replied, “My name is Ethan.”
The Doctor’s face wrinkled in distaste.
“Well you can refer to me as Dr Montague, thank you.”
Ethan felt it was best not to respond. Something about the Doctor told him that he wouldn’t tolerate much lip. The Doctor peered up and down Ethan slowly.
“You look reasonably fit,” He concluded, “I hope you’re not an idiot.”
“Who would say yes to that question?” Ethan burst out and then grimaced as he waited for the potential repercussions. But the Doctor’s expression didn’t change as he continued,
“I have duties that require attending to whilst I’m away,”
He turned and motioned for Ethan to come inside. Ethan gingerly stepped forward and was pleasantly surprised not to be greeted by the smell of stale urine, but instead a vaguely antiseptic smell.
The Doctor continued as they walked down the hall.
“I will be visiting an acquaintance in London over the next two weeks and I require you to water the houseplants and dust the sideboards and shelves. No more than half a cup of water a day for each, apart from the pony tail palm which needs half as much.”
He stopped and pointed smartly to a tropical looking plant on the sideboard and brought the finger back round to Ethan.
“It is very important that you do not over-water the plants or you will damage them,”
Ethan nodded mutely and followed him into the living room.
“You will find dusting cloths under the sink in the kitchen and a tin of Brasso with which you are to polish the brass by the hearth. I want it gleaming you understand?”
Again, Ethan nodded with the best look of serious understanding he could muster. If he could, he would probably have burst out laughing at the sheer level of seriousness this old git seemed to associate with over-watering houseplants and polishing poker handles. But, he wanted the cash and had enough tact to know when to control himself. There was probably not much chance of a biscuit and a can of coke, but money is money.
“Have you forgotten the power of speech boy?” The Doctor snapped.
“Oh no Doctor, sorry, I understand perfectly, yes, don’t over-water.” Ethan spluttered.
The Doctor coldly regarded him.
“The hourly rate will be £12.50, payable upon completion of the work.”
Ethan’s eyes widened a little as he considered this princely sum. Some of his friends had jobs and he knew that was well over twice what they earned per hour. His mind considering the possibilities that such lucrative earnings could bring him with friends (and more importantly girlfriends), he perked up and decided that he could definitely be a bit friendlier.
“Thank you Mr, Sorry I mean Doctor Montague, that’s very kind of you.” Ethan beamed, and turned in order to politely feign interest in some of the Doctors books and ornaments.
Ethan began to struggle when he realised that he didn’t recognise any of the books on the shelves. All very boring looking medical text-books or dusty leather bound volumes with strange titles.
“It’s a very cosy house you have here, Doctor Montague… Err… I bet some of these books are antiques aren’t they?”
“They are.” He replied, un-fooled.
Ethan wandered over to a glass display cabinet and peered inside.
Inside the cabinet were a set of figurine heads mounted on deeply polished, and ornately carved brown wood. No more than 4 or 5 inches high, they were uncannily realistic and seemed to have a varnished gleam to the skin, which was the colour of old leather. They had very convincing hair but the eyes were shut like those of a statue.
“Wow, Doctor Montague these are amazing, so lifelike.” Ethan gushed.
Ethan thought he saw the briefest of smiles flash across the Doctors face as he replied.
“Thank you, they are tribal…” He paused, “…carvings I purchased from an antiques dealer in Crouch End,”
Ethan nodded slowly in what was now only half-faked fascination.
“Carvings? Really, they looked more like dolls to me, I mean with the hair and all…”
The Doctor interrupted “Yes, the hands that made them were very skilled.”
He checked his wrist and began ushering Ethan towards the door, “Well, time is getting on, I have appointments to keep. You can return on Wednesday and every two or three days thereafter for watering. Make a note of the hours you keep and I will pay you for them when I return.”
“Thanks Dr Montague, See’ya,” said Ethan as he stepped outside and strode down the path with a bit more of a spring in his step than when coming the other way.
3.
Ethan returned home almost looking forward to the certain nagging from his mother.
“Well then? Did he give you some jobs? If he didn’t then I want you to ask at…”
Ethan cut her off, “Relax mum its fine, he gave me some work and he’s paying me pretty well for it too.”
“Oh really,” His mother said in sarcastic admiration,
“Yeah, £12.50 an hour,” Ethan responded smugly.
“Bloody Hell,” her voice rose several pitches, “That’s more than I make an hour, what the hell are you doing for him?” She stopped, her tone shifted “Ethan, you will tell me if he… does… anything to you, won’t you?”
“Oh don’t be ridiculous mum, I’m not gonna let some nonce touch me up. Besides, I don’t think he’s into anything like sex at all. He probably hasn’t had a boner in twenty years.”
“ETHAN,” she cried “Don’t be filthy, have some respect for your elders.”
“Me! You were the one accusing him of being a paedo.”
“That’s completely different,” She replied, “You might think you’re a big man but plenty of kids your age go missing every year and they don’t all turn up again.”
‘Here we go’, thought Ethan.
“I’m just saying be careful, you knew the Menfrew girl.” Her voice dropped as she continued, “Such a sweet little girl.”
Ethan did know the Menfrew girl, of course at the time it happened no-one told him much. He was only six or seven but old enough to remember. A beautiful red-haired girl in his class had seemed to simply stop coming to school. Ethan remembered the adults being generally uncomfortable around this time, but it wasn’t until several years later, whilst hanging around in the school playground, that one of the bigger boys had filled him in.
“Parents decided she could go down the shop by herself for once. It’s only two hundred metres and you don’t even need to cross the road,” he had said before turning and throwing his empty coke can at a passing girl. Turning back to Ethan with a grin, he continued, “No one saw anything, but she never got to the shop, and that’s about it. Mysterious **** eh?”
Ethan’s mind returned to the kitchen where his mother had paused to let this sink in before resuming her usual tones, “So forgive me if I seem a little paranoid, but some of us have seen a little bit more of the world.”
“Yeah, yeah mum, you’ve made your point.” Ethan returned. He shook it out of his head and changed the subject.
“So, what’s for lunch?” He cheerily inquired.
“A clip round the ear.”
“Sounds good, I’m going to my room for some play-box or whatever you old people think it’s called.”
“And it’ll be a smack on the arse for dessert,” She retorted, “you’re still not too big for that you know.”
But he was already halfway up the stairs.
4.
Two days later, Ethan was stood in the rain outside Dr Montague’s house fumbling with the key. Finally it slid home and he stepped inside. The house was quiet
He removed his coat, and stepped forward down the hall. ‘Christ, I’ll be surprised if I see a single smear of dust worth dusting’ He thought whilst looking at the pristine ornaments and shelves. It occurred to him that the old man hadn’t really given much of a tour of the place, and that it would only be acquainting himself with the building before commencement of duties, would it not, to just go and have a little nose around in some other rooms?
The kitchen was unremarkable, surgically clean and tidy, as was the dining room. Ethan doubted that more than one person had sat at the table for a long time. The Doctor clearly liked antique furnishings. Ethan paused to inspect a sideboard and didn’t fail to notice that it was inscribed with similar ornate carvings to the dolls mounts.
He crept slowly up the stairs, the house was beginning to make him feel very uncomfortable, and he was almost worried that he wasn’t alone. But he shrugged off the feeling as best he could. He tried one of the doors at the top of the stairs, just a cupboard, full of perfectly folded linen. The next door proved to be slightly more interesting. A large four poster bed dominated the room. Across from the bed was a dresser with several medals and photographs mounted above it.
Ethan crossed the room to inspect them and saw several much younger versions of the Doctor in military uniform, mostly somewhere in a jungle. One photograph caught his eye, an emaciated, half naked man was being supported by two other men as they walked out of a hole in a crude bamboo fence. Ethan wasn’t completely sure but the half-dead person in the middle of the photo looked quite a lot like the Doctor. But he found it difficult to believe that anyone could still be alive and close to normal after getting that close to death.
Ethan turned his attention to the medals mounted in framed velvet. ‘Malaya’, ‘Borneo’, ‘10 years service’. Ethan felt he understood the Doctors manner and demeanour a little more now. ‘Didn’t realise he was ex-military’, he thought, and tittered as he thought of the old man pulling on a white glove and running a finger across his own shelves to inspect them. ‘****, what if he does do that?’ gulped Ethan.
He stepped back into the hallway. There was one more door, but it was locked. He began looking for a key but then realised that locking a door and leaving the key right next to it would be pretty pointless. Giving up, he plodded back downstairs to get the dusters.
When he had finished polishing the brass in the living room, he went to leave but paused by the cabinet. Yes, these were eerily good. Now that he was alone he could inspect them a little more carefully. He tried opening the cabinet, but it was locked. He peered through the glass at the six little heads, and they stared back through their closed eyes. ‘Where had he seen something like this before?’ he asked himself, and again thought that the slightly smaller one at the end did look familiar. But he shook the thoughts from his head, watered the plants and left for home.
Lying in bed that night, his mind drifted back to the Doctor’s figurines. The more he thought about it, the more he realised just how downright weird those heads were. Most people that age have commemorative plates or Toby jugs in their display cabinet. This guy chooses something that wouldn’t look out of place in a witch-doctors hut. He tossed and turned but eventually fell asleep.
Returning to the house, Ethan was not quite so chipper as before. He watered the plants as quickly as he could and decided that as he still had over a week before the Doctor came back to see it, the dust could stay where it was for now. ‘I know why he pays so much now’, Ethan thought, ‘I bet every other loser he’s got to do it decided to work somewhere much less creepy’.
He was about to leave the house, but nagging curiosity eventually won over the more cautious part of his mind. He decided that he was going to have a more careful inspection of the house. He had no idea what he was looking for, but he felt he would know when he found it.
His search did not progress well. He tried opening drawers, but they were all locked. There was nothing behind the curtains (like there really would be). In what he thought was a brilliant flash of inspiration, he tried looking behind the few picture frames. Again, nothing.
Feeling quite disappointed with his investigative skills, Ethan slumped into one of the chairs facing the fireplace and exhaled loudly. ‘What am I really expecting’ he thought, ‘bodies in the bathtub, secret passageways to a torture dungeon, crystal meth lab?’
‘**** it, I’m just being as paranoid as my mum’ he decided. He lifted himself out of the chair and left the house, this time not pausing by the figurines.
5.
Three days before the Doctor was due to return, Ethan dressed slowly and left the house for Dr Montague’s, without stopping to talk with his mother. He did his usual dance with the key and stepped inside. ‘Right’, he told himself, ‘I’m just going to do the work and get out, not too slow and not too fast. I am getting paid by the hour I suppose’.
He got the dusters as usual and began to work his way around the house. He was dusting in the living-room when he decided to have ‘just a really quick look’ at some of the leather-bound volumes lining the wall. He glanced nervously around before approaching the bookshelf. His eye skipped over several titles. Seeing as he didn’t know what any of them meant, he plucked one at random from the shelf. He was not entirely surprised to find it was written in a language that he didn’t understand a single word of. He replaced it on the shelf and drew another from the next shelf up. Three or four other books came tumbling down with it.
He swore loudly, and bent down to pick them up, desperately trying to remember what order they were in. He stopped as he noticed that one of the books lying open on the floor, had a hole cut into its pages. A small key lay next to it. It didn’t take long for him to realise what the key was for.
After hurriedly replacing the books, he went upstairs to the room with the locked door. He approached it slowly and cautiously. Terrified at what he might find, he had to mentally push himself towards the door and put the key in the lock. He took a deep breath and checked over his shoulder again, turned the key and slowly swung the door open.
If anything, Ethan was quite disappointed. No swinging bodies in plastic bags. No blood spattered torture tables with buzz-saws down the middle. Just a clean tiled room, with a stainless steel workbench along one side and a set of cupboards along the other. Ethan ventured a little inside. On a shelf above the bench sat a series of progressively smaller mannequin heads. He picked one up, turned it over in his hands inspecting it and then replaced it on the shelf. At the end of the workbench was a small gas burner with a large stainless steel saucepan, empty, very clean.
‘Ok, so what’s the big deal Doctor’, he thought, ‘why keep the key to this room hidden away like James Bonds Johnnies?’ He went to the cupboards and cautiously opened them, fully expecting a skeleton to fall out. But there was nothing inside except for brown bottles of liquid. He turned back to the bench and noticed there was a small fridge underneath it. Feeling sure that this was the jackpot, he opened the door to nothing but disappointment again. Swearing viciously, he scanned the room wondering what the hell was going on here, this was definitely not normal.
Over the course of that day, his mood steadily blackened as a gnawing sense of unease and worry crept into his mind. That night he pushed his dinner listlessly around the plate, his mother asked what was wrong and he didn’t answer. She wasn’t amused. He stormed upstairs and sulked in his room, eventually falling asleep. Dreaming of tiny heads, slowly shuffling round and round on their little wooden mounts, laughing at him.
6.
Three days later with rain drumming incessantly against the window, Ethan stood in the living room in front of Dr Montague, next to those damn figurines. Ethan was trying to figure out the best way to go about the tricky business of actually asking him for the money. He was still uneasy about Dr Montague’s mysterious hobby, and was trying to get things done politely but quickly.
“I hope you had a nice time in London, Doctor.” Ethan tentatively offered.
“It was fine, thank you,” Responded the Doctor with even more ice-laden tones than normal. “I trust the work wasn’t too difficult for you.” He paused, “You seem to have become familiar with the house.”
Ethan’s eyes widened slightly and his pulse quickened. ‘He can’t know about me going in his stupid room can he? How could he?’
“Yes, Doctor Montague,” Sounding as innocent as he could, “I did get to know it whilst I was here… cleaning the shelves,”
“After all that hard work, it would only be right for me to offer you a cup of tea wouldn’t it, do you take sugar?”
Ethan was slightly stunned but graciously accepted the offer, not wanting to sour the situation before physically receiving the cash.
“Please, take a seat.” The Doctor implored as he left to fetch the tea.
Ethan sat in the chair where he could see the display cabinet with the figurines, and tried staring one of them down.
He jumped slightly when the Doctor returned with his tea. “You seem to admire my figurines very much,” said the Doctor as he handed Ethan the cup.
Admiration was by now a very long way down the list of feelings Ethan had towards those things, but he smoothly lied.
“Yes, I really admire the craftsmanship that went into them,” and took a sip of his tea. “Lovely tea, thank you. Doctor, could we talk about…”
But the Doctor cut him off, “Yes, they really are a passion of mine…”
Ethan dumbly nodded to show he understood and took another, larger sip of his tea. The quicker he downed this, the quicker he could get out of here. As he lowered the cup, it seemed to grow a lot heavier in his hand. His eye wandered back to the figurine, the small figurine, with the red hair.
The Doctor droned on and looked into space whilst Ethan gazed, stupefied, at the cabinet.
“…However, some of my interests might shock people…”
Ethan wasn’t really listening now, he was starting to feel dizzy and his vision had begun to blur, but somehow at that moment it all became crystal clear. Just where he had seen that particular type of little head before, and why the little red-haired figurine on the end was so familiar.
“…much experimentation and invention to really perfect the techniques, but I persisted…”
If Ethan had been physically capable, he would have screamed. But what came out was barely a gurgle and he slumped forward, unconscious.
7.
Some weeks later, Doctor Montague slipped into his dressing gown and selected a volume from the bookshelf. He poured a glass of vintage port from a crystal decanter and eased himself gently into his favourite chair in front of the fireplace. He felt very satisfied today as he finally had a new item for his collection. He felt slightly pained by the fact that the odd number did ruin the symmetry, but that would be corrected in time. For there was now a seventh figurine in the display cabinet, and if Ethan Richards could have opened his eyes again, it would have looked very familiar to him indeed.
1.
“I’m sick to the back teeth of you doing nothing but lying in bed playing with that bloody x-station,” Ethan’s mother barked. “If I have to fall asleep to the sound of machine guns just one more time, I’m going to develop post traumatic stress disorder.” She paused to let her small piece of wit be appreciated.
Ethan groaned and sunk his head face-down into the pillow. His mother was at the door of his bedroom doing her usual alarm clock routine. She continued, “It’s about time you got off your arse and got a job and don’t lay like that on your bed, it’s bad for your neck.”
Ethan attempted to push his head even further into the pillow but there wasn’t much compression left in the thing.
“Good morning mum,” He intoned through the pillow in the sarcastic manner that teenagers do so well.
“Don’t give me that, it’s your mother you’re talking to, not your school-teacher. Who, by the way, did follow up on that letter you must have ‘forgotten’. We’ll be talking about that later.”
Ethan now lifted the pillow over his head and gave a particularly anguished wail. His mother didn’t let it break her stride.
“You can go and see Doctor Montague at number 17, he has some jobs he wants doing so get your arse in gear,”
With a final scolding glare at the pillow, she slammed the bedroom door and made some suitably dramatic noise as she stomped back down the stairs.
Ethan gave a small nod to rebellion by waiting a good twenty seconds longer before finally emerging to get dressed. He was a thin boy of thirteen. Not entirely witless, but not that inclined towards hard work either. However, he was just beginning to appreciate the virtues of the female form. Although he would never directly admit it, he understood that having a little more than £5 a week pocket money could make some impressions in the right places.
‘Old people are always tight though’, he thought with his usual optimism whilst fumbling for some socks. ‘He’ll probably have me scrubbing his toilet for 50p an hour and still whinge if I miss one tiny skidmark. Bollocks to it, at least if I go and see him it’ll shut the hag up for a day or two’, he reasoned as he pulled on a pair of trainers and went downstairs.
“Don’t wear your shoes indoors,” his mother said without turning from the sink. Ethan gave an expression of exaggerated comic despair. Seemingly sensing this, “I can hear them on the floor you know.”
She continued scrubbing plates whilst talking mainly to herself “Honestly, they all seem to think we were born yesterday.”
Ethan felt this was one maternal discourse he could probably excuse himself from, decided to skip breakfast owing to the inclement social conditions and continued out the door.
2.
He emerged onto the tree lined suburban street, dragging his feet as he sulkily trudged down to the detached Victorian house where Doctor Montague lived. Ethan didn’t know much about him other than that like most old people he generally didn’t look very happy and took a dim view of pretty much everything. Looking up he saw the reasonably pretty girl from number 26 walking towards him, he quickly straightened his slouchy walk. Then, catching himself, tried to slip back into an overly nonchalant walk and hoped she hadn’t noticed.
All but breaking into a whistle, he tried to casually half-meet her eyes as she strolled past. She gave the slightest of smirks, looked down and walked on. ‘At least she didn’t actually laugh’ thought Ethan, ‘next time I’m gonna just say hi and ask her name’ ‘Don’t be an idiot’, his more pessimistic side retorted, ‘she’s two years above you’. Ethan sighed and pushed open the gate to Dr. Montague’s garden.
Ethan decided that the Doctor should definitely get a gardener. Trees blocked the view from the road, but once inside you could see that nothing had been touched for a very long time. Apart from a large and neat square of soil in the furthest corner, it was a mess. He reached the door and pushed the doorbell.
‘Let me guess how long this is gonna take’ he thought, ‘probably gonna take him half an hour just to creak his way out of his piss-stinking favourite chair’. But having barely completed that thought, the door opened.
The Doctor was tall, wearing a spotless, well fitted suit which revealed a fairly athletic shape in spite of his obvious vintage.
“Are you the Richard’s boy?” He inquired in sharp, upper class tones.
“That’s me,” Ethan replied, “My name is Ethan.”
The Doctor’s face wrinkled in distaste.
“Well you can refer to me as Dr Montague, thank you.”
Ethan felt it was best not to respond. Something about the Doctor told him that he wouldn’t tolerate much lip. The Doctor peered up and down Ethan slowly.
“You look reasonably fit,” He concluded, “I hope you’re not an idiot.”
“Who would say yes to that question?” Ethan burst out and then grimaced as he waited for the potential repercussions. But the Doctor’s expression didn’t change as he continued,
“I have duties that require attending to whilst I’m away,”
He turned and motioned for Ethan to come inside. Ethan gingerly stepped forward and was pleasantly surprised not to be greeted by the smell of stale urine, but instead a vaguely antiseptic smell.
The Doctor continued as they walked down the hall.
“I will be visiting an acquaintance in London over the next two weeks and I require you to water the houseplants and dust the sideboards and shelves. No more than half a cup of water a day for each, apart from the pony tail palm which needs half as much.”
He stopped and pointed smartly to a tropical looking plant on the sideboard and brought the finger back round to Ethan.
“It is very important that you do not over-water the plants or you will damage them,”
Ethan nodded mutely and followed him into the living room.
“You will find dusting cloths under the sink in the kitchen and a tin of Brasso with which you are to polish the brass by the hearth. I want it gleaming you understand?”
Again, Ethan nodded with the best look of serious understanding he could muster. If he could, he would probably have burst out laughing at the sheer level of seriousness this old git seemed to associate with over-watering houseplants and polishing poker handles. But, he wanted the cash and had enough tact to know when to control himself. There was probably not much chance of a biscuit and a can of coke, but money is money.
“Have you forgotten the power of speech boy?” The Doctor snapped.
“Oh no Doctor, sorry, I understand perfectly, yes, don’t over-water.” Ethan spluttered.
The Doctor coldly regarded him.
“The hourly rate will be £12.50, payable upon completion of the work.”
Ethan’s eyes widened a little as he considered this princely sum. Some of his friends had jobs and he knew that was well over twice what they earned per hour. His mind considering the possibilities that such lucrative earnings could bring him with friends (and more importantly girlfriends), he perked up and decided that he could definitely be a bit friendlier.
“Thank you Mr, Sorry I mean Doctor Montague, that’s very kind of you.” Ethan beamed, and turned in order to politely feign interest in some of the Doctors books and ornaments.
Ethan began to struggle when he realised that he didn’t recognise any of the books on the shelves. All very boring looking medical text-books or dusty leather bound volumes with strange titles.
“It’s a very cosy house you have here, Doctor Montague… Err… I bet some of these books are antiques aren’t they?”
“They are.” He replied, un-fooled.
Ethan wandered over to a glass display cabinet and peered inside.
Inside the cabinet were a set of figurine heads mounted on deeply polished, and ornately carved brown wood. No more than 4 or 5 inches high, they were uncannily realistic and seemed to have a varnished gleam to the skin, which was the colour of old leather. They had very convincing hair but the eyes were shut like those of a statue.
“Wow, Doctor Montague these are amazing, so lifelike.” Ethan gushed.
Ethan thought he saw the briefest of smiles flash across the Doctors face as he replied.
“Thank you, they are tribal…” He paused, “…carvings I purchased from an antiques dealer in Crouch End,”
Ethan nodded slowly in what was now only half-faked fascination.
“Carvings? Really, they looked more like dolls to me, I mean with the hair and all…”
The Doctor interrupted “Yes, the hands that made them were very skilled.”
He checked his wrist and began ushering Ethan towards the door, “Well, time is getting on, I have appointments to keep. You can return on Wednesday and every two or three days thereafter for watering. Make a note of the hours you keep and I will pay you for them when I return.”
“Thanks Dr Montague, See’ya,” said Ethan as he stepped outside and strode down the path with a bit more of a spring in his step than when coming the other way.
3.
Ethan returned home almost looking forward to the certain nagging from his mother.
“Well then? Did he give you some jobs? If he didn’t then I want you to ask at…”
Ethan cut her off, “Relax mum its fine, he gave me some work and he’s paying me pretty well for it too.”
“Oh really,” His mother said in sarcastic admiration,
“Yeah, £12.50 an hour,” Ethan responded smugly.
“Bloody Hell,” her voice rose several pitches, “That’s more than I make an hour, what the hell are you doing for him?” She stopped, her tone shifted “Ethan, you will tell me if he… does… anything to you, won’t you?”
“Oh don’t be ridiculous mum, I’m not gonna let some nonce touch me up. Besides, I don’t think he’s into anything like sex at all. He probably hasn’t had a boner in twenty years.”
“ETHAN,” she cried “Don’t be filthy, have some respect for your elders.”
“Me! You were the one accusing him of being a paedo.”
“That’s completely different,” She replied, “You might think you’re a big man but plenty of kids your age go missing every year and they don’t all turn up again.”
‘Here we go’, thought Ethan.
“I’m just saying be careful, you knew the Menfrew girl.” Her voice dropped as she continued, “Such a sweet little girl.”
Ethan did know the Menfrew girl, of course at the time it happened no-one told him much. He was only six or seven but old enough to remember. A beautiful red-haired girl in his class had seemed to simply stop coming to school. Ethan remembered the adults being generally uncomfortable around this time, but it wasn’t until several years later, whilst hanging around in the school playground, that one of the bigger boys had filled him in.
“Parents decided she could go down the shop by herself for once. It’s only two hundred metres and you don’t even need to cross the road,” he had said before turning and throwing his empty coke can at a passing girl. Turning back to Ethan with a grin, he continued, “No one saw anything, but she never got to the shop, and that’s about it. Mysterious **** eh?”
Ethan’s mind returned to the kitchen where his mother had paused to let this sink in before resuming her usual tones, “So forgive me if I seem a little paranoid, but some of us have seen a little bit more of the world.”
“Yeah, yeah mum, you’ve made your point.” Ethan returned. He shook it out of his head and changed the subject.
“So, what’s for lunch?” He cheerily inquired.
“A clip round the ear.”
“Sounds good, I’m going to my room for some play-box or whatever you old people think it’s called.”
“And it’ll be a smack on the arse for dessert,” She retorted, “you’re still not too big for that you know.”
But he was already halfway up the stairs.
4.
Two days later, Ethan was stood in the rain outside Dr Montague’s house fumbling with the key. Finally it slid home and he stepped inside. The house was quiet
He removed his coat, and stepped forward down the hall. ‘Christ, I’ll be surprised if I see a single smear of dust worth dusting’ He thought whilst looking at the pristine ornaments and shelves. It occurred to him that the old man hadn’t really given much of a tour of the place, and that it would only be acquainting himself with the building before commencement of duties, would it not, to just go and have a little nose around in some other rooms?
The kitchen was unremarkable, surgically clean and tidy, as was the dining room. Ethan doubted that more than one person had sat at the table for a long time. The Doctor clearly liked antique furnishings. Ethan paused to inspect a sideboard and didn’t fail to notice that it was inscribed with similar ornate carvings to the dolls mounts.
He crept slowly up the stairs, the house was beginning to make him feel very uncomfortable, and he was almost worried that he wasn’t alone. But he shrugged off the feeling as best he could. He tried one of the doors at the top of the stairs, just a cupboard, full of perfectly folded linen. The next door proved to be slightly more interesting. A large four poster bed dominated the room. Across from the bed was a dresser with several medals and photographs mounted above it.
Ethan crossed the room to inspect them and saw several much younger versions of the Doctor in military uniform, mostly somewhere in a jungle. One photograph caught his eye, an emaciated, half naked man was being supported by two other men as they walked out of a hole in a crude bamboo fence. Ethan wasn’t completely sure but the half-dead person in the middle of the photo looked quite a lot like the Doctor. But he found it difficult to believe that anyone could still be alive and close to normal after getting that close to death.
Ethan turned his attention to the medals mounted in framed velvet. ‘Malaya’, ‘Borneo’, ‘10 years service’. Ethan felt he understood the Doctors manner and demeanour a little more now. ‘Didn’t realise he was ex-military’, he thought, and tittered as he thought of the old man pulling on a white glove and running a finger across his own shelves to inspect them. ‘****, what if he does do that?’ gulped Ethan.
He stepped back into the hallway. There was one more door, but it was locked. He began looking for a key but then realised that locking a door and leaving the key right next to it would be pretty pointless. Giving up, he plodded back downstairs to get the dusters.
When he had finished polishing the brass in the living room, he went to leave but paused by the cabinet. Yes, these were eerily good. Now that he was alone he could inspect them a little more carefully. He tried opening the cabinet, but it was locked. He peered through the glass at the six little heads, and they stared back through their closed eyes. ‘Where had he seen something like this before?’ he asked himself, and again thought that the slightly smaller one at the end did look familiar. But he shook the thoughts from his head, watered the plants and left for home.
Lying in bed that night, his mind drifted back to the Doctor’s figurines. The more he thought about it, the more he realised just how downright weird those heads were. Most people that age have commemorative plates or Toby jugs in their display cabinet. This guy chooses something that wouldn’t look out of place in a witch-doctors hut. He tossed and turned but eventually fell asleep.
Returning to the house, Ethan was not quite so chipper as before. He watered the plants as quickly as he could and decided that as he still had over a week before the Doctor came back to see it, the dust could stay where it was for now. ‘I know why he pays so much now’, Ethan thought, ‘I bet every other loser he’s got to do it decided to work somewhere much less creepy’.
He was about to leave the house, but nagging curiosity eventually won over the more cautious part of his mind. He decided that he was going to have a more careful inspection of the house. He had no idea what he was looking for, but he felt he would know when he found it.
His search did not progress well. He tried opening drawers, but they were all locked. There was nothing behind the curtains (like there really would be). In what he thought was a brilliant flash of inspiration, he tried looking behind the few picture frames. Again, nothing.
Feeling quite disappointed with his investigative skills, Ethan slumped into one of the chairs facing the fireplace and exhaled loudly. ‘What am I really expecting’ he thought, ‘bodies in the bathtub, secret passageways to a torture dungeon, crystal meth lab?’
‘**** it, I’m just being as paranoid as my mum’ he decided. He lifted himself out of the chair and left the house, this time not pausing by the figurines.
5.
Three days before the Doctor was due to return, Ethan dressed slowly and left the house for Dr Montague’s, without stopping to talk with his mother. He did his usual dance with the key and stepped inside. ‘Right’, he told himself, ‘I’m just going to do the work and get out, not too slow and not too fast. I am getting paid by the hour I suppose’.
He got the dusters as usual and began to work his way around the house. He was dusting in the living-room when he decided to have ‘just a really quick look’ at some of the leather-bound volumes lining the wall. He glanced nervously around before approaching the bookshelf. His eye skipped over several titles. Seeing as he didn’t know what any of them meant, he plucked one at random from the shelf. He was not entirely surprised to find it was written in a language that he didn’t understand a single word of. He replaced it on the shelf and drew another from the next shelf up. Three or four other books came tumbling down with it.
He swore loudly, and bent down to pick them up, desperately trying to remember what order they were in. He stopped as he noticed that one of the books lying open on the floor, had a hole cut into its pages. A small key lay next to it. It didn’t take long for him to realise what the key was for.
After hurriedly replacing the books, he went upstairs to the room with the locked door. He approached it slowly and cautiously. Terrified at what he might find, he had to mentally push himself towards the door and put the key in the lock. He took a deep breath and checked over his shoulder again, turned the key and slowly swung the door open.
If anything, Ethan was quite disappointed. No swinging bodies in plastic bags. No blood spattered torture tables with buzz-saws down the middle. Just a clean tiled room, with a stainless steel workbench along one side and a set of cupboards along the other. Ethan ventured a little inside. On a shelf above the bench sat a series of progressively smaller mannequin heads. He picked one up, turned it over in his hands inspecting it and then replaced it on the shelf. At the end of the workbench was a small gas burner with a large stainless steel saucepan, empty, very clean.
‘Ok, so what’s the big deal Doctor’, he thought, ‘why keep the key to this room hidden away like James Bonds Johnnies?’ He went to the cupboards and cautiously opened them, fully expecting a skeleton to fall out. But there was nothing inside except for brown bottles of liquid. He turned back to the bench and noticed there was a small fridge underneath it. Feeling sure that this was the jackpot, he opened the door to nothing but disappointment again. Swearing viciously, he scanned the room wondering what the hell was going on here, this was definitely not normal.
Over the course of that day, his mood steadily blackened as a gnawing sense of unease and worry crept into his mind. That night he pushed his dinner listlessly around the plate, his mother asked what was wrong and he didn’t answer. She wasn’t amused. He stormed upstairs and sulked in his room, eventually falling asleep. Dreaming of tiny heads, slowly shuffling round and round on their little wooden mounts, laughing at him.
6.
Three days later with rain drumming incessantly against the window, Ethan stood in the living room in front of Dr Montague, next to those damn figurines. Ethan was trying to figure out the best way to go about the tricky business of actually asking him for the money. He was still uneasy about Dr Montague’s mysterious hobby, and was trying to get things done politely but quickly.
“I hope you had a nice time in London, Doctor.” Ethan tentatively offered.
“It was fine, thank you,” Responded the Doctor with even more ice-laden tones than normal. “I trust the work wasn’t too difficult for you.” He paused, “You seem to have become familiar with the house.”
Ethan’s eyes widened slightly and his pulse quickened. ‘He can’t know about me going in his stupid room can he? How could he?’
“Yes, Doctor Montague,” Sounding as innocent as he could, “I did get to know it whilst I was here… cleaning the shelves,”
“After all that hard work, it would only be right for me to offer you a cup of tea wouldn’t it, do you take sugar?”
Ethan was slightly stunned but graciously accepted the offer, not wanting to sour the situation before physically receiving the cash.
“Please, take a seat.” The Doctor implored as he left to fetch the tea.
Ethan sat in the chair where he could see the display cabinet with the figurines, and tried staring one of them down.
He jumped slightly when the Doctor returned with his tea. “You seem to admire my figurines very much,” said the Doctor as he handed Ethan the cup.
Admiration was by now a very long way down the list of feelings Ethan had towards those things, but he smoothly lied.
“Yes, I really admire the craftsmanship that went into them,” and took a sip of his tea. “Lovely tea, thank you. Doctor, could we talk about…”
But the Doctor cut him off, “Yes, they really are a passion of mine…”
Ethan dumbly nodded to show he understood and took another, larger sip of his tea. The quicker he downed this, the quicker he could get out of here. As he lowered the cup, it seemed to grow a lot heavier in his hand. His eye wandered back to the figurine, the small figurine, with the red hair.
The Doctor droned on and looked into space whilst Ethan gazed, stupefied, at the cabinet.
“…However, some of my interests might shock people…”
Ethan wasn’t really listening now, he was starting to feel dizzy and his vision had begun to blur, but somehow at that moment it all became crystal clear. Just where he had seen that particular type of little head before, and why the little red-haired figurine on the end was so familiar.
“…much experimentation and invention to really perfect the techniques, but I persisted…”
If Ethan had been physically capable, he would have screamed. But what came out was barely a gurgle and he slumped forward, unconscious.
7.
Some weeks later, Doctor Montague slipped into his dressing gown and selected a volume from the bookshelf. He poured a glass of vintage port from a crystal decanter and eased himself gently into his favourite chair in front of the fireplace. He felt very satisfied today as he finally had a new item for his collection. He felt slightly pained by the fact that the odd number did ruin the symmetry, but that would be corrected in time. For there was now a seventh figurine in the display cabinet, and if Ethan Richards could have opened his eyes again, it would have looked very familiar to him indeed.