Danny Yates Must Die
Stephen Walker

Copyright

Voyager An Imprint of HarperColllinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.voyager-books.com

A Paperback Original 1999

Copyright © Stephen Walker, 1999

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

Source ISBN: 9780006483809

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007400874

Version: 2015-12-14

For nice people everywhere

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

eight

nine

ten

eleven

twelve

thirteen

fourteen

fifteen

sixteen

seventeen

eighteen

nineteen

twenty

twenty-one

twenty-two

twenty-three

twenty-four

twenty-five

twenty-six

twenty-seven

twenty-eight

twenty-nine

thirty

thirty-one

thirty-two

thirty-three

thirty-four

thirty-five

thirty-six

thirty-seven

thirty-eight

thirty-nine

forty

forty-one

forty-two

forty-three

forty-four

forty-five

forty-six

forty-seven

forty-eight

forty-nine

fifty

fifty-one

fifty-two

fifty-three

fifty-four

fifty-five

fifty-six

fifty-seven

fifty-eight

fifty-nine

sixty

sixty-one

sixty-two

sixty-three

sixty-four

sixty-five

sixty-six

sixty-seven

sixty-eight

sixty-nine

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By Stephen Walker

About the Publisher

one

‘Just look at that; Superman’s breaking twenty-eight laws of physics. And it’s not even noon yet.’

‘Doesn’t bother me. I’ll be dead within fifteen minutes.’

Teena Rama raised a Dan Dare eyebrow. She stood in a doorway, looking across a tiny shop at a boy up a ladder. His back to her, T-shirt half hanging out, he stapled comic books to a wall, finding an assassinal rhythm any supervillain would envy.

Kerchung. There went Superman.

Kerchung. There went Spiderman.

Kerchung. There went Batman.

A Doc Marten back-heeling the door shut, she clomped down three wooden steps then browsed among tight aisles of comics, model kits and ‘cult collectables’. ‘So,’ she asked, ‘how do you reckon you’ll be dead within fifteen minutes?’

Kerchung. ‘This is an industrial stapler,’ he said, ‘used for fastening tank parts together. It’s unbelievably dangerous in the wrong hands.’

‘And are yours the wrong hands?”

‘Completely. By the time I’ve finished stapling the most expensive stock to the walls, there’ll be so many holes around the entire place’ll collapse.’

‘So hadn’t you better stop?’

‘I don’t want to. That’s what three years working here does to a man.’

‘It doesn’t seem that bad,’ she said.

‘Do you have nightmares?’ he said.

‘Never.’ She took a battered paperback from a rack by the window: Herbolt Myson, Victorian Sleuth. While speed reading it, she told the boy, ‘I have a recurring dream about an angel dispensing knowledge to the peoples of the world, who are all like children not understanding the simplest of concepts. I try to see her face, knowing she must be the most beautiful thing in Creation, but can’t get her to look at me. Then, just as I’m waking, she turns my way.’

‘And?’

‘And she’s me.’ She returned Herbolt Myson to his rack, after three chapters, deducing the Pennine Hell Hound to be Sir Charnwick Hoyle in a five-shilling dogsuit bought from Mlle Beauvoir’s theatrical costumiers. When she abandoned the tale, Myson was still pondering the odd nature of the hound’s woofing; quite unlike any Hell Hound he’d ever encountered.

She glanced across at the boy. He still had his back to her. She said, ‘You do know you’re allowed to look at me?’

‘I won’t be looking at you at any point in this conversation.’

‘Because?’

‘No offence, but you’re bound to be gruesome.’

She inspected one of her dreadlocks. It needed re-dyeing. ‘I suppose I could have made more effort with my appearance today.’ Then she flicked it aside. ‘But it never occurred to me that any man I’d meet in a comic shop could afford to be choosy.’

‘I have a nightmare,’ said the boy. ‘It’s about shelves. I’m here, stock taking, and the racks come to life – oh quietly at first, so I don’t notice. And as I work, they creep up on me, nudging each other with wooden elbows, sniggering stupidly among themselves. Then one taps me on the shoulder. I turn. And they’re encircling me, like Pink Elephants on Parade. They close in on me, crushing me, smothering me, falling on me, killing me. And I wake, screaming, to discover I was awake all along. Well; today I’m killing that dream.’

‘Even if it means killing yourself?’

Kerchung.

‘Have you considered a holiday?’ she asked.

‘They come along with me.’

‘Who do?’

‘Shelves – on holiday.’

‘But not really?’

‘Yes, really. I sit on the coach, looking forward to a good time, then I look around. And they’re filling all the other seats, reading newspapers, smoking pipes, one leg flung over the other. Little baby shelves kick the back of the seats in front and get told off by their mother shelves.’

‘I see.’ Choosing to lighten the subject matter, she pulled a comic from a low rack. ‘How much is this Fish Man. He Swims?’

‘One pound seventy-five.’

‘And this Hormonal Fifty?’

‘One pound seventy-five.’

‘And The Human Leech?’

‘One seventy-five.’

She placed them back on the rack, none containing the information she needed. On tiptoes she scanned the rack’s upper reaches. ‘None of your stock seems to have a price tag.’

‘Osmo’s orders. He says, “Daniel, my dear boy, we are tigers in the jungles of commerce. Customers are our prey. Keep them confused, disorientated. Show a dapple of movement through the trees here, a dapple there. Keep them guessing. When they are suitably frightened, pounce.” ’

‘Osmo?’

‘The Great Osmosis, my boss and landlord. He models himself on El Dritch, Menacing Master of Mirage from Man Fish. He Breathes.’

‘Don’t you mean Fish Man. He Swims?’ She referred to the comic she’d just studied, being a stranger to such things.

‘No; Man Fish. He Breathes. Fish Man was half man, half fish. Man Fish is half fish, half man. You can’t confuse the two, it’s in the swim bladders. Osmo won’t stock Man Fish because Man Fish always beats El Dritch.’

‘Sounds a well-balanced individual,’ she said.

‘Osmo wears a bucket over his head, with smoke pouring from the eye holes. He appears from nowhere, checks for dust, delivers lofty, muffled orders then disappears in a cloud of smog. God knows why he takes so much interest in a dump like this when he has his fingers in every pie in town.’

‘I believe I’ve had dealings with him.’

‘Then you know what a pillock he is.’

Now she was by his step ladder. Knuckles on hips, lower lip jutted, she gazed up at him.

Kerchung.

How old was he? Nineteen? No age at all to die, but still a year older than her, and she’d packed a lifetime into her eighteen years. ‘He seemed a little smarmy,’ she said of the Great Osmosis, ‘but otherwise okay.’

‘That’s because you’ve never had to endure a lunch hour with him.’

A comic fell from the ladder, hitting the floor. She scooped it up.

Strolling through the aisles, she flicked through pages that looked as though someone had wiped his trainers on them. Like extinguishing birthday cake candles, she blew dusty marks from paper. ‘How much is this one?’

‘What is it?’

‘Mr Meekly.’

‘Never heard of it,’ he said.

She read out the front page blurb. It informed them that Mr Meekly, 45, a man in a brown suit, was responsible for handing out tax refunds. Alone among his colleagues, he delighted in redistributing money to the populace. And he was famous for it. Upon spotting his approach, women would lean out through their bedroom windows, asking, ‘Why, Mr Meekly, are you coming to my house?’

And he’d say, ‘Yes, Madam, I am,’ even if he wasn’t, because the more money he handed out, the better he felt. And, excited, they’d rush to the door, still in their night wear, inviting him in for a cup of tea. And, though tea was all he ever received, he was content with that.

One day, a call arrived.

He was sent to Future City’s new Atomic Underground.

The underground was vital for the city to compete with Tomorrowville’s nuclear taxis, it was claimed. Some saw a more sinister purpose. They said there was no such thing as a nuclear taxi, although they could never prove it in televised debate.

The underground was still under construction when Meekly arrived. At the entrance, the foreman warned him it might be unsafe to enter the building site.

‘Nonsense,’ said the taxman. ‘A man in there deserves his money, and his money he shall get.’

So the foreman handed him a yellow helmet, two sizes too large, patted it on ‘tight’ and sent him through a gauntlet of environmental protesters. Thrown house bricks bounced off that helmet. It was a good helmet, a life saver.

Meekly climbed the barriers then descended into the bowels of the Earth. Briefcase in hand, he made his way down dusty tunnels, giving the occasional polite cough.

Emerging onto the dimly lit platform, he spotted the man he wanted. Mike Mionman, 26, knelt – his back turned to Meekly – riveting square things to a wall.

Meekly stood still. He removed his shoes, one at a time, placing them neatly to one side, then tiptoed up behind the man, smiling, anticipating the look Mionman’s face would adopt upon seeing the cash laden case.

But then …

… Disaster.

A child was loose on the platform.

Panicking, oversized helmet falling over his eyes, Meekly staggered around, arms outstretched before him, and toppled onto the track, as the Atom Bomb powered train approached on its final test run.

He took the full force.

Against all odds, Mr Meekly survived the collision; Future City did not.

And the radiation did things to his blood.

‘Now,’ read Teena, ‘when exposed to travel delays, rude staff or ill-considered town planning, Mr Meekly becomes the Human Tube Line, powerful as an Atom Bomb, obdurate as a ticket collector, stupid as the fascist government’s love of private roads when we should be travelling by bicycles or Out Of Body Experience as taught us by the Inuit.’ She closed the comic, pulling a face she felt to be appropriate.

‘Eco crap,’ said the boy. ‘In the early ‘90s, someone decided ecology’d be the next big thing in comics – that and talking turtles. Now do you see why I hate working here? All eco titles are a hundred and thirty-five pounds, sixty-eight pence.’

It stopped her in her tracks. ‘A hundred and thirty-five …?’

‘Osmo’s orders; “Daniel, the only people who care about the environment are those who can afford to avoid it. Charge them extra. If they don’t complain, add VAT.”

‘I see,’ she said, not seeing. ‘Well, I’ll take it anyway. In fact, I’d like to order every back-issue of Mr Meekly, and any other comic in which he’s ever appeared.’

‘You do know that might be hundreds of issues, each at a hundred and thirty-five pounds?’

‘Believe me they’ll be more than worth it. Can you have them delivered?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ll be dead. Osmo could deliver them. Just write your details in the counter’s order book. I’m sure he’ll find it in the rubble. It’ll be the first thing he looks for.’

The implication of that comment was not lost on her. Rolling the comic up, she strode across the shop, and stopped at the foot of his ladder. Fists on hips, she looked up. And she said strongly, ‘Excuse me.’

Kerchung.

‘I said excuse me.’ And she gave a forceful tug at one leg of his tatty jeans.

Danny Yates broke off from stapling, sighing loudly, eyes cast heavenward. Without turning to face this interloper, he knew what to expert.

They’d enter the shop, drab little things in black, usually dragged along, passive as wet rags, by equally dull boyfriends. But girls who came alone were the worst, unable to see the horror of the shelves. ‘Gosh. How lucky you must feel,’ they’d say, ‘to be surrounded by this escapism all day long.’ And they’d leave without knowing the scars that one sentence had left on him.

Again the girl tugged as though trying to pull his jeans off.

So Danny Yates looked down from his ladder …

… and almost fell off with shock.

‘Hello.’ She sparkled. ‘My name’s Teena; Teena Rama.’ Cleopatra-painted eyes lowered to his lower portions, drilled into them with medical efficiency then returned to his eyes. A perfectly proportioned hand extended for him to shake, the girl saying, ‘And judging by the rapidly swelling lump in your trousers, you’ve just found a reason to live.’

two

Then the building collapsed.

three

Lucy said hi.

Danny woke, to find his flatmate sat doing piranha impressions by his bedside. The twenty-one-year-old wore a second-hand Bay City Rollers T-shirt. Beneath each Roller’s nose she’d marker penned a Hitler moustache. Fresh Faced Roller had two. Bad Hair Day Roller had three; one for his nose, one in place of each eyebrow. Roller Who’s Name No one Remembers had no moustache; Lucy’s pen had run out by then.

Explaining to Danny who the Rollers were, she’d once named them as, Uncle Bulgaria, Orinoco, ‘A couple of others,’ and Madam Choulet. They wandered around Wimbledon Fortnight tidying things up when no one had asked them to, and were therefore like your mother. Danny’d always felt she’d got it wrong somewhere.

She flicked a peanut in the air, mouth catching it, head stationary, her tongue clicking on contact. Cold, forward gazing eyes – and lower jaw jutting to catch each nut – gave the killer fish effect. But it was how he’d always seen her.

‘Fancy a peanut?’ she asked, not tipping her giant-size bag his way.

‘I’m allergic to peanuts,’ he said, still weak.

‘Oh, yeah.’ She chewed. ‘So you are. You’d’ve thought I’d have considered that before buying them you.’ She sounded as though she had.

‘Where am I?’ he asked.

‘Looks like a chip shop to me.’ Flick. Click.

Groggy, he looked around at jade coloured walls, at doctors, nurses, trolleys, opened screens, closed screens and beds. A machine by his side blipped. A clear plastic tube fed purple liquid into his arm. This isn’t the hospital they usually take me to.’

‘Nah,’ she said. ‘This was your first calamity in the north west of town, so they brought you here. Congratulations, you’ve now had life or death surgery in each of Wheatley’s four big hospitals. How does it feel?’

‘Wheatley General?’ Again he looked around, this time seeing danger everywhere; behind those screens, in those beds, in that adjacent corridor which had no door to separate it from this recklessly open ward.

‘Yup.’ Lucy confirmed the location.

‘But this is Boggy Bill territory.’

‘Yeah,’ she snorted, the ring through her pointy nose glinting. ‘The laughs I’ve had over that video on those Sad but True shows.’

‘But what if he knows I’m here?’ Heart thumping, he sat up, throwing back the sheets. He looked at the floor for his shoes. His clothes, where had they put his clothes? ‘I’ve got to get out of here before …’

‘Lie down.’ She pushed him back down onto the bed then held him there, ‘You’re going nowhere till the doctor’s seen you.’

‘But …’ Again he tried to rise.

And again she stopped him, either not understanding or not caring about the situation’s urgency. Hard grey eyes stared into his. She gave her, ‘Don’t argue with me, Daniel,’ look.

He stopped resisting, and she reclaimed her seat, pulling it closer to his bed. It scraped over tiles, making a noise like a braking lorry. The ward’s other occupants looked at her then returned to their own concerns. She ignored them, retrieving the peanut bag from the floor, where she’d dropped it. And she asked, ‘Why would he come for you? I’m sorry to break the news to you but I’m sure there’s better people in this place to bump off.’

‘Like who?’

‘Like the Financial Director. If I was Boggy Bill, he’d be the first to go. Jesus, I’m not even Boggy Bill and I want to punch that bloke’s lights out. And is the Financial Director dead? No. He’s in the car park, walking his Dougal dog.’

‘But you’d like to punch everyone,’ said Danny. ‘Boggy Bill picks his targets with surgical precision, planning for months ahead, biding his time, awaiting the right moment to burst from the trees and grab you.’

She frowned. ‘Boggy Bill does?’

‘All the time.’

‘The Wheatley Bigfoot?’

‘The Wheatley Bigfoot.’

‘A creature with only one word in its vocabulary?’

‘Yes,’ he tried to make dwindling conviction sound like growing conviction.

‘And that word is …?’

‘We don’t need to go into that.’

‘Yes we do, Daniel.’

He shuffled slightly in his bed, turning red, finally saying the words, ‘Tamba-lulu.’

‘Tamba-lulu. And what does that mean, Daniel?’

‘No one knows.’

‘Do you think Boggy Bill knows?’ she asked cynically.

‘No one knows.’

‘And that’s a cunning planner of revenges, is it?’

‘Don’t mistake a lack of formal education for stupidity.’

‘Are we talking him or you?’ Shaking the bag, she emptied a handful of nuts into her palm then swallowed them. ‘Do you reckon Boggy Bill’s cross-eyed? He sounds the type of monster who would be.’

‘He’s no laughing matter for some of us, Lucy.’

‘So why would he choose you as his prime target?’

‘Because of my brother.’

‘And how would he know who your brother is?’

‘He’d know.’ He glanced round meaningfully, as though the thing was about to leap out from behind a closed screen or appear in the doorway, cunningly disguised as a nurse come to administer his bed bath. His blood froze solid at the realization that he’d been lying there for God knew how long, and at any time. Bill could have walked right in and torn his head off, giving its blood curdling cry of, ‘Tamba-lulu?’ which could be frightening, if uttered while your head was being bashed against a wall.

‘Danny, you’ve been here all this time. If he was coming for you, he’d have done it by now. I refuse to believe he’s blessed with patience, even if he did exist, which he doesn’t.’

‘He exists alright. Brian assured me.’

‘And if your brother said the world was hollow and inhabited by a secret sect of Aztec rabbits?’

‘He did.’

‘He did?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When?’

‘In a letter yester … I mean the day before my “accident”. He felt someone should know the truth, in case the rabbits came for him with their obsidian blades.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘Not necessarily,’ he conceded grudgingly. ‘Brian may have a tendency to fantasize. But I like to keep an open mind. And let’s face it, if anyone’d know the world was hollow, he would. Brian’s been everywhere.’

‘Everywhere except the planet Earth.’ Flick. Click.

Danny scanned the walls for a calendar. There wasn’t one. A clock on the far wall told him it was 2:30 in the afternoon but not which afternoon. ‘How long have I been here? I was in the–’

‘Six months.’ She consumed half the peanuts in one go.

‘Six months?’ he said in disbelief.

‘Pretty cool, huh?’ Munch munch munch. ‘I never knew anyone who’d been in a coma before – least, not for six months.’ Swallow. ‘Course, my flatmate before you – Keith – he was dead. But who could tell? But you, Danny, you’ve gone for it big time. Me, I’m proud of you. I may not look it but I am.’

‘Six months?’

‘Everyone at Poly wants to meet you, especially Annette Helstrang from Occult Pathology. She wants to dissect you; after you die, of course. Remember Annette Helstrang?’

He didn’t; and didn’t want to.

‘You met her once. She frightened you. She dissected Keith, put him in this hu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u--u-uge pickling jar.’ Lucy did a full stretch One That Got Away gesture. ‘Then she put him on display in her living room. She did a great job. You should see him, Dan. He never looked better.’

‘And for six months you’ve sat here, waiting for me to recover? Lucy, I don’t know what to say.’ Visions of Blackfriars Bob frisked, waggy tailed, in his head. And it had taken something like this for Lucy’s true feelings to show through? Her lies and insults, the practical jokes that only she found funny, her over pushiness, her casual fraud and theft, they didn’t mean a thing, not really, not when it mattered. And maybe the two of them could have a future as flatmates, one that didn’t involve her always trying to trample all over him whenever she was in a bad mood.

He took her non-peanut-flicking hand, squeezing it tight. ‘Thanks, Luce. I won’t forget this.’

She snatched her hand away. ‘Yeah; like I’ve nothing better to do than sit around waiting for you. I told you when you first moved in with me; don’t expect me to run round after you just coz I’m a woman; no washing for you, no ironing, no cooking. Coma watching was out too. Don’t believe me? Check the contract.’

‘But, then …?’

‘I only just found out you were missing. The hospital got in touch. You’d been plain “Anonymous” till two hours ago. I suppose that’s nothing new for you. You started muttering my name and address. They figured you probably weren’t, “That cow Lucy Smith,” so they called me. Anyhow, I thought I’d better come round and see you.’ She flicked another nut.

He frowned at her. ‘You didn’t notice I was missing for six months?’

She shrugged. ‘Osmo said something about it a few times but, I dunno, I suppose I wasn’t listening. Maybe there was something more interesting on TV; Home and Away or something.’

Danny was beginning to recall something. ‘There was a girl at the shop …’

‘With spotty hair?’

‘Tangerine,’ he corrected.

‘Huh?’

‘Tangerine; tangerine dreadlocks, big thick ones with lemon polka dots.’

‘Whatever.’ Flick. Click. ‘She’s dead.’

‘What!?!’

‘You killed her, Danny. The building fell right on her, squashed her like a polka dot lemon. It was only coz she’d thrown herself over you that you survived.’

Danny stared, numb, at the ceiling. In his mind’s eye it gave way; just a crack at first, a tiny thing spreading, like black lightning, from one wall to the other. Then it was a torrent of falling masonry, chunk by heartless chunk beating the life from the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen – as though hurled by a mad god lacking the sense to know who should live and who should die.

This couldn’t be right. He thought she’d have time to get out before the building collapsed, leaving him to face the fate he now knew he deserved. Deserved because she was lovely and brave and witty and clever – and innumerable other things he’d never know about her – while he was nothing.

What was he supposed to do now, with a life that had been spared for no reason? He didn’t know. He just knew he felt empty and stupid and useless. Most of all he felt nothing because he didn’t know what to feel. And that was what he hated himself for most.

Croaky voiced he asked, ‘How did she …? ’

‘How did she get home? She walked.’

‘What?’

‘She walked. You know, used her legs. Maybe she got the bus later. I dunno.’

‘How could she walk if she was dead?’ he asked, completely lost.

‘She’s not dead.’

‘You just said she was.’

‘I lied.’

‘Why?’

‘Teach you a lesson.’

‘What lesson?’

‘Not to go demolishing buildings on young ladies. In case your mother never told you, it’s bad manners.’

@!%%$*@@&$*!!! ‘So, what the hell happened to her?’

‘According to the emergency services, when they reached the scene, she was with you. She’d dragged you from the rubble, given you mouth to mouth, performed emergency surgery with her credit card and boot laces, then kept you going with heart massage till they arrived. Seems she’s some sort of hotshot doctor.’

Lucy retrieved a Gladstone bag from by her feet, placing it on her lap. Click, she opened it, pulling out a sheet of paper. ‘On my way in I grilled the ambulance crew in question. They had a little trouble – her having been fully clothed when they met her – but, using hypno-regression, I got ‘em to construct this photofit of her chest. It’s a bit vague but I think it captures the essence.’

She studied it further. They’re pretty good, though way too small for my purposes.’

And she held the picture for him to see. Indistinct, it reminded him of the flying saucer photos which sometimes appeared in The Wheatley Advertiser, only the exhibitor seeing in them what they purported to depict.

Lucy pointed out assumed areas of interest. ‘As you can see, they’re equally perky, which is unusual. Normally one’s perkier than the other. Why do you reckon that is?’

He shrugged blankly.

‘Of course no photofit’s entirely reliable. I’ll need to get some proper pictures.’ She made a note, paper on lap. Lank, green hair hanging over one eye, she murmured along as her biro wrote; ‘One … must be … as perky as … the other.’ The pen stabbed a full stop. She slotted the photofit back into the Gladstone, clicking it shut, placing it by her feet.

Danny contemplated the girl’s use of mouth to mouth resuscitation. ‘She kissed me?’

Lucy stuck the pen behind her left ear. ‘Only coz she had to. I’m sure she must’ve pulled a face while doing it. Anyway, how are you? You okay?’

‘I think so.’ He mentally checked; toes, feet, legs, fingers, arms, neck, head. There was no discomfort nor disconcerting numbnesses. The small of his back itched. He scratched it. It wouldn’t go away but that was all right, itching rarely happened to dead people. ‘I feel a bit weak,’ he said, finally finding something to complain about.

The tube in his arm slurped. He looked at it, concerned. ‘Lucy?’

‘Yup?’

‘What’s that liquid?’

She pointed at it. ‘This?’

‘Yeah.’

Leaning forward she scrutinized the tube. She unhooked it from his arm, stuck one end in her mouth and took a long hard suck on it that gurgled like a straw drawing on the bottom of a near empty glass. She reaffixed it to the tap on his arm.

He stared at the tap. He stared at his flatmate, horrified by what she’d just done.

‘Ribena,’ she shrugged and, bag in hand, left – swiping someone’s grapes on her way.

Danny frowned at the tube.

Ribena?

Boggy Bill had been replacing his blood with Ribena?

four

The Great Osmosis appeared from thin air, late afternoon, accompanied by billowing smoke and the opening chord of the Beatles’ Her Majesty. His stage magician’s cape swirled melodramatically. Thunderous black fumes belched from his bucket’s eye slits.

When Danny stopped coughing, following the smoke’s dispersal to all quarters of the hospital, the esoteric entrepreneur slammed a grocery box down onto the boy’s chest and boomed, ‘Oh, perfidious betrayal!’

Another cloud swallowed the man. And, with a final flourish, he was gone.

Coughing one last cough, Danny tipped the box toward him for a better look. Its contents rattled.

This was trouble.

Big trouble.

The Dr Doom Detection Pen was a cheap, see-through biro available at any stationer’s. It didn’t even write properly, failing on every other word. And the snot-green mug with the not-quite-on-right handle and full length crack? In what way could it ever be connected with the Green Hornet? The Deluxe Spiderman Webbing (snare any villain in seconds) was sellotape. But not good sellotape.

Danny dropped the biro back into the grocery box, with the rest of the junk. It was his property – Osmosis had always insisted – freebies from a sales rep who’d arrive once a month, dispense rubbish then depart without selling a single comic.

And there were the rats, two. He’d rescued them from the broom of the girl who ran the takeaway next door. She’d screamed hysterically when told he’d be keeping them because he’d felt all shops should have a pet. Each rat had had a five-pound note in its mouth, as though they’d entered the takeaway planning to buy a meal.

Osmosis had pooh-poohed the idea. ‘Daniel, my boy, rats rarely appreciate the value of money.’

Regardless, Danny had put the notes in a piggy bank on the counter, doing it in front of them so they’d know where it was should they need it.

Now he checked the grocery box. Inevitably Osmosis hadn’t returned the money with the rats. In the box, their noses twitched up at him. And he knew they deserved better than being squashed by broom heads, or having their money stolen by over-theatrical shop owners, or being unacceptable in hospitals when cuter animals would be welcomed as therapeutic.

Right!

That was it.

He looked around. No one was watching.

Sitting up, he placed the rats on his lap. Tearing four thin strips from the box, he bit required lengths from the ‘Spiderman Webbing’, and taped cardboard to rodent ears. He pressed their new, longer ears on securely, to resist high winds.

There.

That was better.

Now they were rabbits.

Blam! Danny jumped.

Blam! Danny jumped.

Blam! Danny jumped.

Blam! Someone was firing a shotgun in the nearby woods. Another fired, then another, and another, till it became a chorus of hastily discharged pellets, each blast nearer than the one before.

And Danny knew all too well what it meant.

No time to waste, he placed his rattits back in their box, giving them one final stroke. Then he looked around to see if anyone official looking was watching. They weren’t.

Since he’d awoken, not one member of staff had paid the slightest attention to him. Initially they’d all been gathered around the bed by the door, watching its occupant perform his card tricks. Their presence had deterred Danny from trying to leave.

But, fifteen minutes after the card trick man’s death, they’d finally realized there’d be no more tricks from him and all the prodding in the world wasn’t going to change that. So, bored, they’d gravitated to the bed furthest from the door.

That was his chance.

Now the man in the bed furthest from the door was showing them his magic tricks. Constantly smiling he produced doves from nowhere and threw them into the air. In mid flutter they transformed into much needed medical supplies which clattered to the floor around him, whereupon he donated them to the hospital.

The act elicited gasps and applause from the entranced nurses, doctors, surgeons and accountants. The man didn’t even have the decency to look as unhealthy as Danny looked when healthy. But Danny’d figured it out; in this hospital, attention given related directly to entertainment value. Good; because Danny Yates had no entertainment value.

He leaned to one side and placed the rattits’ box on the floor. Now the man produced bunches of flowers from behind a doctor’s ear, handing them out to delighted nurses who sniffed at them and blushed coyly – even the male nurses. Now he handed flowers to the surgeons. And they blushed more than anyone.

Danny turned off the tap attached to his arm. He unplugged it then carefully slid it free of his vein, relieved to see the limb didn’t become an opened sluice discharging liquid by the gallon. He licked the one drop of purple liquid that formed on his arm where the tube had been. It was Ribena.

Throwing back the sheets, he climbed from the bed as more applause erupted behind him.

A small cabinet stood by his bed head. Inside, he found his clothes folded into a neat pile, trainers on top.

Casting furtive glances over his shoulder, grocery box and clothing in his arms, the unnoticeable Danny Yates made his escape, as the world’s most entertaining patient sawed himself in half.

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