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superheroauthor · 6 months ago

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I’m Alive! Sparky The Superhero’s Story

Chapter One – The Train Journey Home

The Spark that lit my life lit the world

Historical, Great Earth

Some people call me Sparky, for that is my name. I don’t use that name often but that is my name – in this life anyway.

I used to be called Parker Maitland. Before I died, that is.

I have the names of all the people who died to make me. I sometimes use one of those.

Today I was calling myself Chunky, as that is what I am not.

Six foot tall and skinny is what I am. My head is a mass of wild black hair, spiking out in some places and flat in others, and at the back in a long ponytail past my shoulders and down my back.

A leather trench coat I wear, hobnailed boots. I look normal, but I am not.

I was on a steam train returning from a hunt. I had been killing werewolves in the surrounds of the city of Hex. That’s in the West Country. Now I am returning to the city of The Smoke – the main capital of the city lands, that is.

As I looked up at the clockwork magic glow-bulbs, floating on the train’s ceiling, I was thinking about my life. This one, my latest one.

You have to understand, ten years ago I died. I was an engineer, one of those persons who could make anything from anything. To fix things was easy, complicated things took longer and the impossible, well, that did take a very long time but I could do it.

With those skills I became an inventor in this clockwork world. That was what worked here: clockwork, a little magic and of course steam.

This was not Old Earth or even Old, Old Earth. This was NEBULON 6, now called Clock. It was different from the other worlds. Very different from Old Earth where we had come from in The Ark. Different even from Great Earth where my ancestors were supposed to have lived.

Here, the highest intelligence was the Punks, the punkawathas, but they have vanished now. No-one knows where they have gone. They are like a myth. They’ve been gone centuries. Next in the levels of genius were the Gods, or that is what they called themselves.

Actually, they were Creators. Men and women who messed around making new things. Not inventing like I can do, instead they created new creatures. The werewolves that I had been hunting were one of the breeds of those creatures.

They were geniuses one and all, the Creators. After all they had made me. This me.

The best of the creators was Doctor Gory. She was a female doctor of incredible beauty who was totally nuts and liked inventing the weirdest things ever to be been even imagined. Zombies, vampires, dragons, werewolves, hellhounds, killer robots, mummies, gargoyles.

Yes, she could make them all.

She dug up corpses and would have turned them into demons and devils but she could not perfect the reanimation process. That process was taking a dead body and turning it into a living creature.

Not one of the Creators had managed this. It was said to be against the will of the higher beings of this world. However, as far as we knew, here on Clock there were no higher beings. That thing about the higher beings was an old saying, a hangover from Old Earth. Here the people did not really believe in Gods and the like. The closest things to them were the Creators and they could not give life to a dead person.

This was considered on Clock to be the difference between Gods and Mortals, the essence of life. As no-one here could demonstrate that elusive power, no gods were worshipped.

We had no Gods but we did have a few cults. The Cult of the Old Ones, the punkawathas. Also, the Cult of the Green Earth who were into growing things. They thought all things living were beautiful and all connected to one another in some mystical way.

No Gods though. Not on the planet of Clock.

Now though there was a Creator who could give life. Doctor Gory. I knew this for a fact. After all, she had given me life. Made me from many corpses, adding and subtracting bits until one day I arose. Alive.

A glow bulb above me blew and I reached up and took it in my hands. I twisted it and it split into two pieces, each piece a mass of clockwork. I span the flywheel and it glowed for a second and then died. The magic in it was weakening.

I turned my back to the other passengers and touched that tiny little wheel and sparks came from my finger. The wheel span again. The sparks from my finger had powered up the small amount of magic again.

I twisted it back together again and it glowed with a pearl-like light. I let it go and it floated upward to the ceiling of the compartment.

Everyone clapped.

I saw the conductor coming and, after a quick bow, walked to the little compartment between the carriages.

You see, I could not afford a ticket. You don’t get paid for killing werewolves, you know.

The price of train tickets these days is extortionate, hideously expensive. Fifteen shillings and thruppence when you could buy a loaf for a halfpenny. That was the price for a trip from one city to another. In my youth, near on eighty years ago, the price was one shilling for a ride from one city to another. Travel two cities along and it was two shillings. The price of a loaf then . . . a ha’penny.

There was only one thing to do.

“Tickets, please!” came the cry as the conductor opened the door to this compartment and faced me, shutting the door behind him.

I nodded at him and he came close. I held a coin and put it in his hand and then I used my power. Sparks flew and he got a jolt of my power, pure ‘tricity and he flew back and hit the compartment wall. I coshed him and rifled the fares pouch, big leather folding thing it was, to hold tickets and the money. It was a lot of money but I rifled his pockets just the same.

A screwdriver, that would come in handy. Obviously, he did odd jobs on the steam train as many others did. Screws, nuts and washers in a little pouch. Excellent. Some small change, he wouldn’t need that. Handkerchief, no. Kerchief around his neck, no. Keys, excellent. I could use those. Mints, they would help pass the journey.

Now it was time he left. So out of the door and onto the tracks he went. It was alright. The train was picking up speed. One hundred and ten miles per hour. He would be dead as he hit the ground. All right and dandy. No witnesses at all.

I could not afford the fare and I would need to eat tonight and maybe get new lodgings, so my need was greater than his. It seemed simple to me.

Who hunted the beasts to keep the city folks safe? Me? It was only right he pay me back.

As I passed into the next carriage, there was a food seller. There would be at least a couple on every train. This one was selling meat pies. He didn’t state what the meat was and I did not enquire. On some matters, it is best to be in the dark.

Oh? I am an animated corpse, do I need to eat? The truth is, not really. It’s more of a habit from previous lives. Not my previous lives, all our previous lives.

If I eat, I need to eliminate. Urinate the liquids and defecate the solids. It’s a messy business so sometimes I go weeks without eating. Nonetheless I like to eat and drink.

It makes me feel human.

Can I die? Fucked if I know!

My heart beats, my brain works but can I die? I do not know.

All I know is ‘tricity flows through my body at all times.

Do I weaken if my blood flows away? Again, I have no idea whatsoever.

I still have blood, my heart still beats, my brain still works. That is enough.

I am good at surviving. I have to be, to stay one step ahead of the Creators.

The first true animated human. They all want me, the Creators that is. To know how I work.

Maybe they will cut me up into little bits to find out. That is why I stay one step ahead of them.

I know them all. From a research point of view anyway. I know where they live, what they like to create and what they want to make in the future.

The fog was getting thicker. We would get to the city soon. Getting off would be no problem. I had my ticket. In fact, I had a whole load of tickets.

Everything had been tucked away in my long trench coat. A big black leather one it was, that went down to my knees. There were so many pockets in it, I couldn’t count them up. Normal pockets, hidden pockets, clockwork-magic pockets. Even one that needed steam to open it.

On top of that, my backpack. That too had lots of pockets though it was not large. Just a little pack like walkers use.

It was dark outside but then it always was from the train. City magic and the rest of the country did not mix. They couldn’t see the cities and the trains, those from the country.

I saw someone with a music box. Just a little one, smaller than the palm of my hand, churning out a horrible tinny little tune that sounded discordant and annoying.

Fog was seeping into the carriages now. The floor was like a carpet of gloom. Good, that meant the station was very close. A whistle echoed down the train and the lady put her music box in her long pouch.

I did not grab it or hurt her. That would be rude. She had done me no harm. She had not overcharged me.

As we embarked from the train, we queued to return our tickets to the guard and leave the station. As the lady got her ticket punched, I cut the cords to her pouch with a tiny razor blade. The music box dropped into my hand and was in one of my pockets in a flash.

I was then impatiently waving my ticket about and the guard took it and I passed through. I went in the opposite direction as the lady. I was going towards the Murky Café.

All was gloomy on this street. The fog made my vision ahead into a haze so I could barely see ten feet. Steam powered trams were rocketing past on the roads making them difficult to cross. The lights were from gas lamps, the poor man’s choice but used by the city to light the area at night.

Wealthy people, even middle-class people, lit their houses with clockwork magic. A few used this new-fangled ‘tricity that had been invented some years back. Invented but not quite trusted by most. Clockwork magic could light and heat your home at the flick of a switch so why use this untested ‘tricity? It was mostly the flashy new rich that did it. The more steady rich stuck to the old ways.

The poor, all they could afford was gas and then only for lighting. Heating their little hovels would have just cost too much.

I went into the café and ordered a Roo pie and a cup of java. The Roo pie dutifully jumped around on the plate until I speared it with a fork. It wasn’t alive, just a magical effect to make the food more interesting. As I ate, I took apart the music box.

I did not nick it out of spite or even because of the horrible noise it made. It had components I needed. I took it all apart until it was just cogs and gears and bits of metal on the table. The flywheel was rising and dropping just slightly on the table, thus showing it still had magic in it.

I took out my jeweller’s screwdrivers and a magic battery from one of my pockets. I rearranged the music box and its components around the battery and fitted it to the end of my cosh. The cosh had lines of sparks running up and down it now. There was only a little metal box left of the music box. I screwed this onto the base of the cosh and the sparks stopped. Tapping that box would make the sparks flow through the cosh or stop them if it was on.

The café was quite large but also dingy. Grease slid down the once painted brown walls, fog carpeted the floor. The wood of the chairs and tables was cheap, indeed the legs of some of the chairs were quite spindly. They would not survive another year.

There were no table cloths here, just the tops of the tables, discoloured by many years of use.

I drank some java out of the ceramic pint mug. Suddenly my pie was snatched away and a goon was leering at me and laughing. He crammed the whole pie into his mouth, crumbs and bits of food spreading across his face or dropping on the floor.

This café was for solitary folk, but sometimes the clients were not the best brought up.

“Give me money for java, runt!”

I was no runt at six foot tall but he was no runt either. He had a couple of inches on me and was built like a brick train station.

I stood up. He just laughed, spitting what remained of my pie on the floor. There was no doubt of it, he was a big man. Dirty, heavy overcoat, big black hobnail boots that might have been from a Crusher. Leather knee britches with patchwork cloth gaiters to cover up his wool knee-length socks. A cap that looked like it had been dipped in oil.

This man was a roadman. The sort that slept outside under the train arches, who stole for a living and moved from area to area in the city to avoid the Crushers catching up with them. Hard as nails and twice as thick.

I think this one has been on the guano juice. The guano was a fruit that only insects ate because its smell was disgusting. Its taste was supposed to be worse. If you had the stomach to drink its juice though, it had a psychotropic effect, as well as getting you pissed in one second flat.

“I need money for java, runt, and so you got to pay.”

You never showed your purse to a roadman. He would steal it the second you went to give him a coin. He would then punch you in the mouth to say thank you.

“He won’t leave!” complained old Tucus, the owner. “He leaves and you eat for free for the night. He never comes back and you always eat for free.”

I understood what he meant, though the roadman probably had not.

Get him out and eat my fill, kill him and I would always be fed here.

Old Tucus was the owner of the Murky Café. He was in his fifties, old for this part of the city. He was as fat as a porcine, a good thing for a cook. I never thrusted thin cooks. He was always sweating but then it was hot back there in the kitchen.

He was a good man Tucus, a man you could trust. A man who had fed me for nothing on more than one occasion

I pushed my head backwards and it tapped my neck support. Though it was not really a neck support. I pulled the piece of metal at the back of my neck and as it slid upwards and out, sections of metal dropped down to form a crossbar. As it slid totally out more sections dropped into place and there was a sword. A good sword. One of my own design.

I shook it to make sure it was rigid and all the bits were in place. The handle was long so I could use with a one hand grip or two. By the looks of the roadman I would need two.

Now he was looking at me with apprehension. Roadmen are bullies, plain and simple. They get out of their heads on guano juice and bully all around them to get their food and drink. The only ones they didn’t bully were café owners. They needed places for shelter in the day, hot food and drinks so café owners were safe. Hurt one and the cafés all across the city could ban them.

Worse, the café owners could get Crushers to guard them.

I swished the sword through the air. It cut through the air with a satisfying breeze.

The roadman was no fool. He slipped on a metal gauze glove and pulled a knife. The glove was to grab bladed weapons, the knife to cut me and make his point.

“Leave naked or don’t leave,” I told him to wind him up some more. His whole life would be in his pockets. He was a roadman.

I stood there, breathing easily but doing nothing else. Tucus was hardly breathing at all I saw.

A flash of movement and the huge man was charging me, one hand out to grab the sword, the other hand held back in readiness to thrust deep when my move was exposed. I did not move and, hardly believing his luck, he grabbed the blade . . . and I let the sparks flow through me into that sword and from the sword into that metal gauze gauntlet.

Cooked flesh, smelling like porcine, wafted its odour through the room as the man screamed and snatched his hand back. The blade swept through its arc and the roadman’s head came off clean. Blood spurted like water from the neck in a fountain. One second, two, three, four and the body fell, spraying blood onto the tile floor.

“Sparky, you excel yourself!” Tucus seemed exuberant, maybe too happy to just have rid himself of a roadman. Maybe he actually cared whether I lived or died. “You come back later and your old mate Tucus will lay on a feast for you. Porcine with ogre-berries, you like that. Your favourite, yes?”

“If the Crushers come in, it was Chunky here tonight, not Sparky.” I gave him the stare to show how serious I was.

He looked a little lost for a moment and then caught on.

“Chunky, the fat boy, yes. He carries an axe. That one?”

I grinned and left the café.

I was wary of Crushers.

What’s a Crusher?

Like a policeman. I think that’s what your word is. Securiza they were on Old Earth and on the Old, Old Earth world, I am sure it was police. Or was it polite?

Our Crushers are nothing like polite. They are seven foot tall with huge feet in hob-nailed boots. The Magistrate is in charge of them but they follow no rules.

It is their job to stop trouble. If they see a theft, they catch the wrongdoer and give them a beating that puts the culprit in the wellbeing clinic. If they see a criminal beating on someone bad or killing them, the Crusher will kill the culprit, just like that.

I once heard of a word called Law – there are no laws here. You live with each other peacefully or a Crusher beats your brains in.

I left the café and hit the fog. Night-time fog was the worst. Soot covered buildings reared out of that mist, trams flashed by on the roads, hardly to be seen. Paths always full, people busy from dawn to midnight. Everyone being careful not to be pushed into the road. The trams would not stop. They were going too fast. Fall into the road and you were probably dead. The tram would ride right over you.

I hit the shadows for two backstreets and then saw my room from the rear. No light. The curtains looked to be open but in the dense fog it was hard to tell. The streetlamps were not bright and could not cut through the fog, they made patches of light and gloom with the odd patch of good vision up to ten feet away.

I shinned up the drainpipe. Nothing. I hung over and peeked in. Nothing. I slid from the drainpipe onto the window ledge and carefully eased up the window. I heard a pin drop, which was good. No-one had entered this way.

I flicked a spark from my finger to the globe above my bed and it lit up my room. Empty. In I went and rushed to the door. I checked it. Yes, there was the wedge in the bottom, there was the wedge in the door-crack, there was the pin at the top. No-one had been in here.

Every month I put money in the landlady’s safe. I opened it without a key and locked it after. The coins were always in a blue cloth pouch so she knew it was I paying. Just to be sure.

For that, she rented the room and did not pry. Which was good. Anyone opening that door would get a crossbow bolt into their body, aimed for the trunk, not the head. I never used the door, only the window.

I stared at the glow bulb and drifted off into my thoughts.

First was The Ark. Praise be its name. Don’t know what that means. They taught to me in school in my real life, over sixty years ago.

Here’s what I do know. A planet called NEBULON 6 (now called Clock) was to be colonised. Great Earth was overpopulated and had problems with something called solar radiation.

The Ark came here many years ago: some say an age, some say two or even more. Hundreds and hundreds of years, maybe thousands, no-one really knows.

The Jezel Ark had been carrying the ten thousand new inhabitants. Instead of the smooth landing it had been supposed to fulfil, it crash-landed. All of the scientific equipment was damaged. It was in the rear of the ship and that part blew up.

After that, life was basic. There were two factions. The modernists who thought they could somehow bring all the technology of Great Earth to this world by building it. Opposing them were the veterans, the armed forces that was supposed to protect the others in case of hostile beasts. The veterans wanted a basic existence, hunting and fishing. Farming for all who would not hunt.

The veterans won. They had the weapons and the skills to use them. They went out of their way to kill all scientists and modernists so there could never be an advanced society.

The air was breathable, there were beasts to hunt for food, fruit on trees and the grain was plentiful. The planet had been selected as it was a veritable Eden.

Unfortunately, within a hundred years, the thing called science was near enough forgotten, it had become myth.

Life was very primitive . . . until the punkawathas came forth. The punkawathas were the true inhabitants of the planet. Something that did not appear on the checks before colonising this planet. They had their own city. One that was shielded from scans or even Neo-Earthling eyesight. Unless it was shown to you, then you could not always see it.

It was a city of clockwork and magic and steam.

The punkawathas showed this city to some of the brightest men they found. A thousand men and a thousand women were selected.

I can only tell you what the punkawathas looked like from the myths that have come down from generation after generation. They were twenty foot tall and looked a little like baobab trees. A dull purple flesh with green rush like hair. The masses of green hair surrounded the purple body so it could hardly be seen. Seven arms projected from under that green hair. Each of these arms had hands that seemed to have a dozen fingers. Long delicate fingers with many different joints in them.

This is just the myth, of course. They could look like regular human beings for all I know.

The punks, as they were called, taught the chosen people, men and women alike. They showed them how to use these things of the city, how to make them. How clockwork magic was better than any technology or science. They taught these select people how to live in the luxury of the punkawatha way. The humans mastered these skills with the teaching of the punks. It did not happen overnight. It took over a hundred years and the human numbers increased fourfold.

By then other cities had been built and connected up with the steam railways. The punkawathas smiled on their efforts and then just vanished. Maybe to another city like the first one or maybe to another sort of civilisation altogether.

The human numbers grew. They stayed in their cities that the Veterans could not see. They made another city and another, linking them up by steam railways that had clockwork magic to make the trains invisible to the outsiders.

Years passed and now there are now thirteen cities. Each about a hundred miles apart.

I awoke. I must have dozed off. I had arrived in the city on the train in the evening. It was now night. About three at night on the ten-hour clock.

Our clocks are ten hours in the day, from dawn until dusk. Ten at hours at night when the third moon joins the other two. When the first moon goes down, that signals daybreak. It is odd to some but anyone hunting werewolves was cool with it.

Three moons, two suns and glorious weather, only raining at the weekends to help the crops grow.

Out of my window I went and onto the ledge. I felt out to the light globe and the spark returned to me and the light went out of the room. I was then closing the window and sliding in a pin.

Down the drainpipe and sliding through the backstreets quick as a warehouse rat.

The one constant on all inhabited planets in the Universe – rats. All planets seem to have them. Ours were grey furred and about eight inches long, another eight for the tail. Those were city rats. The ones outside the cities came in all shapes and sizes.

Like crocogators, they are supposed to be on all the planets too. I had never seen one but they were supposed to be on Clock.

I did not enter the Murky Café immediately when I got there. First, I stared through the window. No Crushers. I opened that door a bit and slid through without the door even hitting the bell at the top.

Tucus was cooking and had his back to me so I sat down, quiet as a sewer rat. When he looked around, he near enough jumped out of his skin.

“I bribed the Crusher,” he informed me. He was grinning. He had good cause. No café owner wants a roadman setting up residence there.

Crushers making up their own rules cause people to be nervous of them. People will always report a robbery to them or suchlike but never want to socialise with them. The Crushers get fed at the cafés. They sleep at the boarding houses. They get booze at the public houses.

And they never pay a ha’penny.

If a Crusher eats in your café, he will guard your café, he will hunt anyone who makes mischief in your café. Same for the pubs where they have their own private little room.

Crushers, though, are always open to a bribe.

They are huge men with massive strength but is said when they retire, they shrink down to normal size and then have all their wealth to keep them going in their old age.

They retire at forty. It is a risky life being a Crusher. Most do not make it to thirty.

“How much?” I asked, meaning how big the bribe had been.

“Ten shillings.”

I offered it and he nodded.

I took four half crowns from the purse in my secret pocket and went to his counter and offered them to him.

Ten shillings was a lot of money when a loaf was a ha’penny. I paid two shillings a week for my room and though not large it was a tidy room with no leaks or damp patches.

“No, you don’t pay me, Sparky. I feed you. That was Tucus’ promise, remember? Crusher Bill took the bribe and the body with him. We both knew the roadman, Crusher Bill and me. He has been causing quite a problem down here in Whitechapter. Best him dead. Tucus will gain more customers now without that ‘un hanging around scaring them.”

He pulled a plate out of his magical oven. The food would be hot, the plate cool. On that plate was a mountain of porcine meat and ogre-berries.

“You eat here now, heya? Nowhere else. And you eat free. When you here, you guard old Tucus. When you are not, no matter.”

Tucus was no young one. He was getting on in years. He was a tubby man, portly, with a sweaty face that no-one could call beautiful. On the other hand, deep down, he was beautiful.

It was said after work he took food down to the ‘street rats’. They are the homeless kids that survive by thieving. Most nights they were hungry, maybe ravenous if they had not got a mark in a day or two. They were all around the city. Tucus had food for any who were at Grim’s warehouse, a decrepit old place that had shut down years ago.

He never had to worry about being mugged on the way home. Crusher Bill escorted him to the warehouse and home. Tucus made him his favourite meals as an exchange. Whatever was on the menu. If Crusher Bill decided he wanted frog burgers then that is was he got. Or flayed porcine stew.

(The porcine was flayed just before it went into the pot, not while it was still alive.)

I tucked into the food, a mug of steaming hot java was handed to me to help wash it down. Tucus was busy making sandwiches. He then popped them into poly bags. Each time the poly bag sealed itself to keep the food fresh.

Poly bags are made of a thin, blue, almost transparent material. Sometimes they’re big and used as shopping bags: they don’t seal but are very strong and will never break, not even if you put broken glass into them. The smaller bags sealed themselves when tapped and are for preserving food. Years could go by and the food would still be fresh.

“Onyx eggs and pepper sandwiches.” Tucus wiped trickles of sweat from his brow. “For when you go adventuring again.”

He looked at me and I knew what he was after. Souvenirs. I sold them sometimes or used them to make things with.

I patted my pockets until I found something. It was not big. I pulled it out.

“This is a werewolf’s tooth,” I explained to Tucus. “You can only get them while fighting the werewolf while it is its wolf form. A few days a month and they have to be alive when you take the tooth. After they die, they revert to the human the Creator made them from. This was from a werewolf who was humanlike. He was as tall as me. Saberfang, he was called.”

The tooth was three inches long and an inch wide. There was a strange blood red patterning in this fang. The crimson marking running through it made it almost look alive.

“I think this werewolf was made by Lady Molly, her who lives up in Castle. I could be wrong. There was a whole pack of them both in and out of the city. How she got them all from Castle way up north down to Hex in the west I do not know.”

“In cages?” he asked, loving the stories as much as the curios. “Or maybe she used one to bite humans and turn them?”

“Werewolves cannot make other werewolves by scratching or biting,” I told him. “That is a myth. When they die, they turn into the corpse of the human that were used to make them. It depends on what Creator made them and how. They can turn into the corpse of a wolf. This will be much smaller than the werewolf who is a huge thing, ten foot long and massive in bulk. Mine was smaller than that. A different type from the norm.”

I then added more explanation. All of this he would relate to his customers when he showed them the tooth: “The moon is actually full only for a brief time, seconds or minutes. It appears to human sight though to be three days. That is how long it is for the werewolf who turns when seeing it. They do not turn back until the full moon is totally gone three days later. Sometimes the moon is still visible in the day. The moon does not go away; merely our perception of it in daylight is affected. It is always visible to werewolves. They change at night, have a day and a night and then another day and a night and change back at dawn. They are then completely normal for the month. There is no way of telling them from normal humans in the month. They always know what they are, after their first change.”

“You know so much.”

I was grateful for his praise. Hunting werewolves was a thankless task.

“I have to, to hunt the beasts. It is said there are werewolves on all the planets. Can you believe some planets have only one moon?” I shook my head. It was hard to believe. “The werewolves around here are triggered by the rising of the green moon, Leaf. When that is full, they cannot help themselves. They have to turn. They have no control of it.”

He tried to give me a sovereign for the tooth, a gold sovereign that was worth one whole pound, twenty shillings, no less. That was ten weeks rent for my room.

True, werewolf’s teeth were rare and this one was a beautiful one at that. No use trying to take them after the creature had died. By then they had gone back to the original human they had been made from by a Creator.

“Trade you.” I ignored the money and continued on with my story: “This one was different from usual. Normally they move around as a wolf, sometimes they fight that way too. They can assume man shape, a bipedal shape, which is only natural as they are men or women for every night of the month bar three. This one was pretending to be human in the city. Big heavy overcoat, muffled across the face, top hat and in the foggy lamplight he could pass. He was moving towards a music hall and there were too many people in there so I had to fight him, right then and there. He did not become the beast at all, just fought in his human form, his face a mass of fur and teeth with two long fangs sticking out of its mouth. One of those two was knocked loose by the butt of my sword before I beheaded it.

“I think it was the leader of the pack. More than that, he was trying to achieve something. Not just tracking a victim but up to something. Maybe for his Creator, maybe for himself, when he was human. The rest of the pack were outside of the city. When they feel the moon start to rise, they rush out of the city. They want to be in the wilderness when they go wolf. They love to run as wolves, hunt as wolves, be part of the pack.”

Tucus was hanging on my every word, rapt, drinking in all the information he could get. So he could gossip about it and appear knowledgeable to his other customers. I knew this.

Why not? He was always good to me!

He bought a little globe lamp from under his counter. This one did not glow a pearly white or even a true white. This one glowed an eerie green. Its glow seeped out to encompass the room until I swear you could see bushes moving on the walls.

“This is a momo globe!” he told me and I just stared at it. I would give all my stolen earnings for that thing. They were very rare. I had never seen one before. I would love to take it apart and see how it worked. It was rumoured that there was no clockwork or even steam in them, just a different sort of magic.

On this planet there was only clockwork magic, that sometimes was linked up to steam.

“The person who came in with it called it a Terra Orb, but that’s just a fancy name for it. I knew it was a momo globe.”

Most Terra Orbs did use unusual magic but at their heart was always a flywheel. Momo globes did not have them. No clockwork at all, no metal at all.

“Who were they, the person who bought this in?”

“One of those Cult of the Green Earth freaks. You know the type. They say everything is connected, all throughout the whole of the planet, the universe even. They like to grow their own food and everything is wonderful.”

“So, they grow their own food, do they come in for java?”

“It was a little missy. One about your age, early twenties. Her hair all braided up with multicoloured ribbons. She was as pale as a ghost. Looked like one of those zombies you told me about. Turns out their harvest failed and the whole group of them down at Sewerditch was starving. This was their prized possession. They knew I had a hunter who came in.” He nodded at me and smirked. “One who changed things from this to that. A tinkerer, she called it. She offered to trade it for food or money.”

“How much did you give them?”

“Two sacks of rice, one small sack of salt, three of flour. They don’t eat meat, see. Meat is murder to them, everything being connected. A sack of tung beans and a sack of cobza corn. It seems a lot but all those things I buy wholesale by the cartload. She seemed very happy with the deal and got her hairy friends to take them away. I did warn her my hunter would not be pleased if this was clockwork magic. He would stalk them all. She just giggled.”

“Giggled, you say?”

So, either it was false and she did not live with the other Cult members of the Green Earth down Sewerditch, or it was true but there was something else going on.

He had paid a lot for it, whichever way you looked it at it. Sacks of food. He just laughed and said the golden sovereign he had offered me for the werewolf tooth was more.

We haggled. Him starting out at one werewolf tooth for the momo globe. We finished up him getting the tooth and five bob in two half crown coins. I had haggled him up not down. He could have sold that globe for a bag of sovereigns to any one of the Creators or even one of the mystics down at Bankside.

Bankside was where the rich lived. The mystics down there were the top of their trade. They had made their money and went to live with idle rich. After that they tended to research magics, especially any magic that worked without clockwork parts.

I was getting tired, my eyelids felt droopy.

Hey! I did not get tired. I did sleep but only to let my brain process all that had gone on. Not because I needed recovery time.

I put a shilling on the counter and took down a glow globe from the ceiling. I twisted it open and the glow stopped. I put a finger to its flywheel. A spark seemed to naturally flick across to the flywheel. It span faster.

I was not tired.

“Sleep, there is much to do tonight,” I heard and I looked around café. Nobody but me and Tucus. He was using a poly bag. He folded it just right and then put the werewolf’s tooth in it. As it sealed itself shut, it looked like a small display case.

Who was the one speaking then?

“You know who it is! You sleep, I will work.”

I had only been Alive for about one year and bits of that were still new to me. This magical body for a start. I was learning things about it all the time.

Was that a Creator speaking to me through the ether? I hated Creators. They all had to die. If they did not, they would hunt me down. I was the first being with artificial life. The first monster, if you will.

Many things can be done to living subjects but none can be done to the dead.

Dead is dead, that is the rule. Until Doctor Gory raised me.

Every Creator wanted to know her secret but she would not tell. Creators did not mix. They were secretive, dangerous people. Geniuses that were more than a little insane.

I did not look like a monster. Apparently, I had been hideous before I came to life. Lots of bits of bodies all stitched together. The second I came to life though, I looked like any other human. No scars, no stitch marks, no blemishes, just a couple of blood marks from when a vampire tried to bite me and got herself electrocuted.

“Sleep, peaceful sleep, no nightmares, no ill omens, just peaceful sleep.”

You did not get peaceful sleep much when you were on the run from the Creators. When you hunted beasts and dark creatures of all kinds.

It sounded so promising. Even a normal dream about my last life would be good.

“I promissssssssssseeeeee,” I heard, though there was nobody to say the words but Tucus and now I could hear this was a woman’s voice. I could not recognise it but it was a woman’s voice.

I nodded. I took the sandwiches from Tucus, telling him tomorrow I would be going out for adventure. I doffed my cap at him and left.

I entered my room the same way as before, not trusting the place until the pin dropped and I had gone through the room and checked the door.

Without lighting the globe, I stripped and got under the moth-eaten bedclothes and went to sleep.

reblog for next chapter

#fiction #sparky

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daydreaming-jessi · 2 months ago

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I have returned for but a moment. Now back to the mist I go.

“Be-ej!”

Beetlejuice felt over a hundred pounds hop onto his back, causing his spine to make a disgusting pop, fully disrupting his pretend nap (Though it was really just an excuse to be splayed fully out in the hallway and be in the way of any attempted passerby.) He balefully cracked his eyes open and rolled them through his eye sockets until they peeked out through the back of his head to glare at Lydia, who was currently standing on him. For some reason she was holding a broomstick in hand.

“Whaddya want, pipsqueak?” He asked, blinking away the hair jabbing at his unprotected eyeballs.

“It’s Halloween.” Lydia looked down at him with her typical cat-that-got-the-canary look she got whenever she came up with a particularly devious scheme.

“Yes? I am aware of the passage of time thanks to you breathers’ weird attachment to clocks.” He gestured to the tacky Art Deco clock hung up on the wall ticking away endlessly next to them. Delia had bought it, thanks to his goading, at an art expos she dragged him to as some sort of bonding experience. To his delight, the Maitlands did their damndest to politely pretend they didn’t detest it every time they walked by it.

Lydia continued on pointedly, regaining his attention. “Since it’s Halloween, that means it’s time to put on our costumes. That includes you!”

Beetlejuice sat up, finally making her hop off. He raised an eyebrow at her general vicinity while his eyes popped back into place, his vision taking a moment to reorient itself. “I thought all holidays were overblown scams by puritan capitalist overlords that only you ennui maddened teenagers saw through, and thus refused to participate in on principle.”

“Well yeah, most of them, and Halloween doesn’t exactly escape the exploits of the vultures that make up the one percent, but how often do we get to appreciate Halloween on the hunter’s moon? Capitalistic doctrine can rip this day from my cold, dead, heretic hands, I’m allowed to have fun for one night.” This seemed to be one of those sticking points Lydia would follow through on, so Beetlejuice let it go.

“Fair enough, but I gotta point out that you’re not exactly gonna stand out at any college witch coven party.” He flicked one of her sleeves pointedly. She wore a simple, dark navy dress, nothing special about it. Truly the only new addition was the red bow tying back her raven black hair from her face and the simple, dull pink flats instead of her heavy, buckle laden, face stomping boots.

Lydia pulled the skirt of her dress up and shook it emphatically, scowling. “Come on, Beej, I’m Kiki! From that movie I showed you yesterday, genius.”

“Looks the same as every other outfit you wear.” He yawned. His glee continued to grow as Lydia’s glare deepened. It was always fun when he managed to rile her up a bit for once.

“Since when do I wear giant red bows in my hair and carry around pink bags?” She tugged on said bow while holding out the strap of said bag. Before he could come up with some elaborate lie, she shook her head with an annoyed click of her tongue. “Never mind, that’s not the point. What this whole thing was leading up to was that I wanna know if you wanna help me complete my costume, making your own in the process.”

“Your vagueness is starting to make me suspicious. What are you suggesting, Scarecrow?” Beetlejuice asked, his eyes narrowing warily.

She gestured sweetly with her broom. “I’m suggesting you play the part of my faithful witch companion, Jiji.”

Beetlejuice’s eyes widened, and he grinned. “Aw hell yeah! I’ll finally get to be what I eat!”

“If you keep talking, I will stab you again.”

“Pus-“

“Don’t.”

Beetlejuice‘s grin turned serious as he pointed at Lydia emphatically. “What’s in it for me though? This seems to be unfairly in your favor.”

She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Seriously? Is the idea of hanging out all night in graveyards, scaring the shit out of drunk party goers and trick-or-treaters, being ‘bfffffffs’ really not good enough for you?” She put on a weak grin that pretty quickly dropped at Beetlejuice’s unimpressed stare.

But then he clapped his hands and did a fist pump. “Aw yeah!! The bio exorcist besties are gonna paint the town red tonight!”

Huh, guess she wouldn’t have to dip into her stash of embarrassing bribery photos tonight.

He snapped up to his feet, twisting his spine into shape with another loud crunch. At this rate, one would expect to see his head start glowing. “Alright, so I’ll do it, ‘cause it does sound like an interesting way to fuck around with people, but I’m gonna put my own spin on this. No whining about screen inaccuracies.”

She rolled her eyes, hiding a smile. “I’ll have an actual talking cat, I think I’ll have most people beat on accuracy.”

He grinned before poofing into a cloud of glittery stage smoke, leaving a healthy helping behind in the carpet. When the cloud dissipated, it revealed a black and white striped cat with a messy, barely groomed tail.

Lydia could hardly believe her eyes. “Oh my god, you're actually a cat!”

Beetlejuice inspected his form, making sure there weren’t any stray eyeballs or extra organs lurking in his fur coat. It’d been a while since he’d gone for something this mundane.

“Huh, not bad! Even I impress myself sometimes. Now then, I think it’s time we enjoy this Hallow’s Eve to the fullest. How ‘bout you, Scarecrow?” He asked, hopping onto Lydia’s shoulders. She tried not to cringe at the acrid stench of smoke that still clung to his fur.

“Oh yeah, definitely wanna get out of here before Dad tries to take a billion pictures,” she agreed before starting for the staircase.

However, Beetlejuice hopped onto the banister to stop her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you think you’re doing walking on your feet?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “Do I actually have to answer that?”

“You’ve got a broom, girl! Use it!” He jabbed a paw in its direction.

“...Beej do I need to remind you how brooms work in the real world?”

“I’m aware of gravity. But I’m also aware that gravity for the paranormal is more… optional than it is for breathers.”

Despite herself, Lydia was curious of what he could be suggesting. “If this is some kind of prank, I will endlessly torment you anytime you try and nap again,” she said warningly.

“Yeah, yeah, get on the broom now!”

Lydia eyed him, before turning and wisely opening the window next to them, and safely popping the screen out and setting it to the side.

“You break one window one time, and suddenly no one trusts you ever,” Beetlejuice muttered as he hopped onto the broom with Lydia.

It jolted under her hands, sending a strange tingle up her fingers, and suddenly Lydia felt a strange sensation, and realized it was the feeling of her feet, her entire body in fact, leaving the ground. “Oh my god?”

Beetlejuice shot her a wide grin the Cheshire Cat would be proud of. “Alright, kid, enough gawking. Take it away!”

Lydia grinned as she tightened her grip on the broomstick, and urged it forward.

In a flash, they zipped out the window unscathed into the night sky. The cold air whistled around them, whipping Lydia’s hair around in a frenzy and numbing her fingers and nose. But none of that could wipe away her beaming grin, nothing could dampen the exhilarating sense of giddy bubbling up through her chest.

She whooped as they zipped through the air, Beetlejuice joining in with his own yeehaw as he dug his claws into her bag. Man, that Jiji guy made it seem a lot easier in the movie…

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #lydia deetz #lawrence beetlejuice shoggoth #fanfic #fanfiction

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c0zmo-writes · 11 days ago

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Notes for chapter 3 of Flock Together.

Warning!! There are several descriptions of injuries in this chapter!!

Chapter 3- And brother for a moment there / the world came back to life

@possum-quesadilla @crawlingcarcass @raineisinkless @katslitterbox

Chapter title is from “Livin’ it Up on Top” from Hadestown.

“I’m obsessed with this camera because was the last birthday gift Dead Mom ever gave me,” Lydia said.”

Emily is also the one who got Lydia into photography! She has a lot of attachment to that camera.

“She shivered and hugged her red and black spider web poncho close to her body.”

A reference to what she wears in the cartoon.

“At one point, she found the skeleton of a squirrel lying on a rock, which she took a selfie with.”

Perhaps this will come up again…

“It was a line of mushrooms, all black with bright blue spots, like an inverted fly agaric.”

Fly agarics are those mushrooms with red caps and white spots. Probably what you imagine when you think of a mushroom. They are also poisonous! They’re called fly agarics because they have ibotenic acid, which draws in and kills flies. Perhaps this is foreshadowing!

“A woman appeared in her view. She had split dyed black and green hair. She wore a light pink tshirt with a white long sleeve top underneath. She wore jeans and black combat boots. She was talking to someone Lydia couldn’t quite see.”

Shilo!!

“Nah, that fucker’s still lurkin’. I can smell its fear.”

Beetlejuice can, in fact, smell the fear on the squirrel.

“It was covered in pink feathers that trailed down its arms, legs, and chest. Like a flamingo.”

Little reference to chapter 14 of Birds of a Feather. He still does not enjoy being called a flamingo.

“She hoped that whatever it was wouldn’t hear the camera. A click. A turn of its head. Its inhuman eyes staring into hers through the tree branches.”

He heard the sound especially well due to his sensitive hearing.

“What tea is that?”

He was drinking green tea if anyone was curious.

“Lydia did notice Delia eyeing her scrapes and bandaged wounds. Lydia also caught Delia cleaning her blood-stained poncho that she left in the laundry room.”

Delia is worried about her. Even though they’re at each other’s throats all the time, Delia does still care about Lydia.

“When she came around to the staircase, she pushed her arms against the walls and swung her legs up.”

I tried so hard to find an image to describe this but I couldn’t. I’ll draw it eventually. I don’t even know how to properly describe it. I don’t know if the way she did it is possible. But I’ve got a vision.

“She would never get out. She was stuck like this, stuck in this basement until the end of time.”

Maybe a bit dramatic, but she’s a terrified kid. She’s probably not going to be thinking rationally.

“Come on, Adam. Let’s give her some space, she looks like she’s seen a ghost.”

Do you get it. Do you get the joke. Because they’re ghosts. It’s a ghost joke. Do you get it. Do you get the ghost jo

“really the only off putting thing about her appearance was the giant gash in her right arm that went from shoulder to wrist. It was deep, going all the way down to bone. There was another deep wound that circled around her other wrist.”

Barbara’s death wounds.

“Yes! We’re scaAaAry ghoOosts!” Adam waved his arms around, oohing and ahhing.”

Dorky Adam Maitland my beloved.

“We tried to scare away people with possession and simple tricks, but when that didn’t work, we had to up our game.”

Unlike the other iterations of the Maitlands, these guys actually became scary.

“so she decided to rent it to others at a very low price.”

It’s like $50 a night to stay there.

“Would you and your family mind leaving and never coming back?” Adam said.”

Musical reference.

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice au #boaf extras #birds of a feather au #beetlejuice fanfic #harpy au #ao3 #fanfiction

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rainskyes10 · 11 months ago

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Elevate Workplace Safety with Hi-Vis Workwear

In the bustling city of Maitland, nestled within the industrious Hunter Region, the local workforce faces diverse challenges across various professions. The significance of appropriate work boots cannot be overstated, as they are crucial not only for safety but also for ensuring comfort and durability on the job. In this article, we will explore the rich tapestry of footwear options available in Maitland, catering to the unique needs of its workforce.

#hi-vis workwear #hi-vis gears #hi-vis clothings #reflective shirts #hi-vis australia

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kateally · 1 year ago

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How Maitland Work Boots Adapt to Diverse Work Environments

#work boots from Maitland #work boots #footwear #Maitland work boots #Footwear brands located in Maitland #Gumboots #Zip-Sided boots #Lace-up boots #runners #corporate or leather boots #elastic sided boots #slip-on boots #footwear accessories #footwear socks

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georginasmith0011 · 2 months ago

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In the painting industry, safety gear is essential. For painters, work boots are vital to staying safe on the job. In this guide, we will look at the best types of work boots for painters, the key features to consider, and where to find the best work boots in Maitland. By understanding the importance of good work boots, painters can stay safe and improve their performance on the job.

#work boots Maitland #safety boots maitland #safety boots store #work boots belmont #lace up work boots

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outer-andromeda · 3 years ago

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Whats beejs favorite food to eat after he becomes human and does he have to get a job? Does he learn to do all these human things that includes shopping sometimes accompanied by his kids for stuff they need? can he drive a car? Does he like to collect stuff like he probably did when he was bored before the whole maitland thing? theres a lot of questions to be asked sorry about that but i forgot the other ones. maybe one was about him liking clothes he can hide in or if he misses making clones?

Alright alright- before we dive into all of these I should warn you- the way I see that version of Beej is very much due to how my partner writes him! She's the one behind most of his character in this AU (and others) so perhaps he might be a bit different than what you could be expecting. Hope you understand!

Now, to les questions !!

1. What's Beej's favorite food to eat after he turns human? Does he have to get a job?

Gosh where to start. That man loves everything food-related now that he can ACTUALLY taste stuff. So he pretty much loves everything. I do think my partner and I agreed his favorite foods would involve meat and sometimes spices.

As for a job, yes, and not just one! Being human meant that him and the girls needed money to sustain their needs. Which... They had not at first. For the first few months after they turned alive they had to live in a tent and then move into a shelter center for a while.

Then they met a young theater group from downtown who found Beej's voice absolutely fantastic. Which got all three of them in. And from then on they did many fan productions of musicals. Pfff.

That went on for a few years. Then some technical members of the group left and the rest of them formed a music group. Focusing on Beej and the girls ghost personas. They were known as the Spirits!

Beej would also do voice work on stuff. Like cartoons and animated movies. Mostly for money though. Then... Years later again (but that would be out of the AU timeline), he became a kindergarten caretaker.

Yeah. You read it right.

(My partner thinks this idea is cracked. Meanwhile I absolutely love it. I mean COME ON- He's like a freaking chaotic uncle to all of these kids and he loves it.)

2. Does he learn to do all these human things that include shopping sometimes accompanied by his kids for stuff they need?

Yup! He has to. The girls kind of make him go grocery shopping alone sometimes when they're not able to due to school or other activities they do. Zeda is usually the one in charge for that kind of stuff (as in she's the only braincell in this family).

3. Can he drive a car?

He cannoT. Not in the AU timeline atleast.

Maybe after. Who knows.

4. Does he like to collect stuff like he probably did when he was bored before the whole Maitlands thing?

Well... When push comes to shove and it's necessary, I'd call what he does more like stealing than collecting.

And if he still does collect stuff, it's mostly strange junk they find in antique shops. In that case I guess he does! That and the stuff the girls give him obviously.

5. I'm not sure what you meant by clothes he can hide in but uh- we gave that man a clothing style!

That's an old art example, but pretty much that. Funky shirts, rings, tattoos, and usually black pants and shoes. Shoes vary between sorta combat boots or pointy costume shoes. He funky.

Either that or he settles on simple tees. Or hoodies and sweatpants.

6. Does he miss his clones?

I'd guess, yeah. I do believe he misses his powers in general too.

Something else he gotta get used to.

#ask #doodle #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice #au #human beetlejuice #Lawrence AU

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glindyupland · 5 years ago

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#sometimes i worry about Kerry Butler because Barbara originally wore heeled boots #but when i saw the show in november she had on flats that gave off similar energy but Sava (I think its Sava?) still wore heels as Barbara?#and in the snap/ insta story of the Maitland gingerbread house shes wearing the flats too #i just worry about my hard working mom thats all #Beetlejuice the Musical #Glindy’s Posts #update: just checked insta and found out shes not doing the show tonight either #*karen smith voice* its like i have a fifth sense #okay yeah this post was about chronic injuries but oOOOOHHH SPOOOOOKKKKYYYYY

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superheroauthor · 6 months ago

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I’m Alive!

Sparky The Superhero’s Story