Reader’s Choice selection from DMC’s flash fiction group, Friday Frights.
by K.L. Coones:
He peered through his dark glasses at what was left of the small sign for the Lion’s Head Inn outside. Beyond it, where once was a small village of two or three cobble stoned roads in the grip of a wintry landscape, there was now nothing. Emptiness.
“Curse that sergeant-major,” he mumbled through the thick bandages that wrapped around his entire head. “I only wished to be left alone!” He turned his dark gaze from the window to the small table. Upon it small bottles fizzled and popped with unknown liquid substances. There was also something else, something that was out of place in the middle of a chemist’s laboratory. A small, mummified, monkey’s paw.
“Curse him!” the man shouted, grabbing one of the many heavy leather notebooks scattered about the room and flinging it at the table. The heavy book smashed into the fragile bottles and scaffolding that held them, sending shards of glass and noxious liquids flying about the room.
Peter glanced quickly around him.
“What strange manner of place is this? It looks a little bit like the inside of Hook’s ship.”
“It’s called a tavern you silly boy.” Peter whirled on the sneering voice to see a cloaked man limping toward him. “Where did you come from?”
“I jumped into a hole, now I am here.”
“Did you now?” The cloaked man croaked. The man’s gnarled fingers buried themselves in Peter’s shirt and twisted. Peter tried to pry the man’s decrepit hand away, but he was surprisingly strong.
“Let go!” shouted Peter.
“Yes, let the boy go.” Peter and the cloaked man both turned to regard the new arrival. Though his voice was rough, there was a remnant of refinement in his speech. His appearance was equally puzzling, with half of his face appearing handsome and intelligent, but offset with a scowling dishevelment on the other.
“Leave me alone you blasted knit wit, I don’t have six o’clock!” a shout erupted from the top of the stairs behind the bar. “Get away from that I say!” There was a crash and the shatter of glass.
“I suggest we take a look upstairs gentlemen,” stated the man with the twisted face. The cloaked man released Peter’s shirt and lead the way to the top of the stairs. Behind the first door two voices could be heard arguing.
“The Queen will have all our heads if you don’t give it back! We must have tea, but for tea it must be six o’clock. Look at me watch!” cried one voice. The cloaked man grabbed hold of the door knob with his arthritic fingers and pushed the portal open.
“The rag man,” he breathed in astonishment. “You did this to me, to us!”
“Confound it, what are you all gobbling about!” shouted the bandaged man.
“You caused the holes we came through, that’s what,” huffed Peter. “There is one just outside my tree and now I can’t find Tink!” Joined by a short pudgy little man with wild hair sticking out from under a crumpled top hat, they all four advanced on the bandaged man.
“Stop! It wasn’t my fault, it was the paw I say, the paw!” He jabbed a gloved hand at a small mummified paw of a monkey laying on a nearby work table. “I only wished to be alone.”
“And in doing so you have destroyed us all fool!” shouted the cloaked figure.
“Everyone, calm down. This bickering and finger pointing won’t solve anything,” admonished the man with the twisted face.
“Let’s start by getting on a named basis with everyone, then we can figure out what to do. I am Dr. Jekyll, or what remains of him that is.”
“My name is Peter!” said the boy.
“I’m the hatter, and has anyone seen six o’clock? It should be tea time but six…”
“I am Dorian Grey,” interrupted the cloaked man. “Tell us your name, and what you have done!”
“My name is Griffin, I’m a chemist. I’ve been hold up here in this room for weeks trying to reverse this horrible accident,” he pulled off one of his gloves to show no hand beneath. “I couldn’t get any work done you see, people interrupting me all the time wanting this and that! It was driving me mad I tell you! I over heard this sergeant major one night talking about his monkey’s paw, and how it granted wishes. I was desperate for some privacy, so I killed him and stole it! All I wished for was to be alone!”
“It seems your wish is coming true, everyone else is being erased,” observed Jekyll as he thumbed through a book. “This book seems to be about me, but many of the pages are blank.” He held up a little brown tome with the title, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, scripted along the spine.
“Set this right Griffin or it will be the last thing you do!” threatened Doran.
“Hold on just a second, I want me six o’clock back first, then you can kill him!” interjected the Hatter.
“Give me Tink back!,” demanded Peter.
“Don’t try to come near me!” warned Griffin. “I’ll take off these clothes, then there will be nothing to stop me from throttling you all!
“Everyone just calm down,” growled Jekyll, his face starting to twist more and more. “Griffin if you let this go on, no one will be left but you. No one in the whole world!”
“You mean, Flora will be gone too?”
“Look out your window you daft fool!” snarled Dorian, swishing back the curtain to reveal a landscape of nothingness. “You have already wished her into oblivion!”
“Maybe you can wish her back,” suggested Peter examining the monkey’s paw at arms length. “Go on Griffin, wish everything back the way it was.” Peter held the paw out to Griffin and it suddenly dropped to the floor. Peter staggered backward in horror, his hand and part of his forearm had vanished!
“Hurry Griffin, we are running out of time!” cried Dorian. He staggered sideways, catching himself on the table causing his hood to fallback to reveal his horrific features. Griffin stared at the paw on the ground.
“No,” said Griffin at last. “Leave me alone, all of you! I just want to be left alone.”
THE END
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