Three Hoodies Save The World 2

Chapter One

‘I’m so gonna kill my brother!’

From anyone else this pronouncement might have been a little startling. However, given that it was only Sad-case neither of his two listeners paid much attention since he was always threatening to slaughter someone. Even his peculiar nickname was an indication of his nature. An utter loathing of his real name and complete refusal to answer to it even from the strictest teachers in school had caused him a lot of grief in the past; all of which he happily ignored. Thus where anyone else might threaten to beat someone up, or have a flaming row, Sad-case would always promise to massacre whoever had irritated him.

Nevertheless the mention of his brother was enough for both of his friends, actually his only friends, to understand both his fury and the threat. His newly blackened eye glared defiantly at them. Just the left one this time, David noted with interest while Derrick looked on with undisguised admiration. Few people on earth were either brave or stupid enough to raise a fist against their large and unnaturally muscled friend. One that was, and had, was his brother. Sad’s previous bruises had almost gone, now just a faint purple glow to remind them of a recent encounter with his mutant sibling, less than affectionately known by them as El Slobbo.

‘It’s not even this what bugs me so much.’ He growled, thrusting a grimy finger upwards to emphasise the point and almost poking his wounded eyeball out just to finish the job begun by his brother.

‘The ratbag tore my hoodie. Look!’ He gazed sorrowfully down to the scene of said heinous crime. Neither David nor Derrick could see what he was talking about. His hoodie was made of Yak skin or something equally exotic and looked, as usual, as if it had been dipped into a bucket of sick. Whilst coating the front, several unidentifiable stains had coalesced into one great puky blob that looked distinctly toxic. While all agreeing that there could be no more suitable a recipient for gratuitous pain and injury there was also an appreciable element of danger in the concept. And probably quite a lot of trouble from the police if he pulled it off. His mum and dad might not be overly impressed either.

‘He’ll kill you first.’ Derrick said patiently, carefully smoothing his own ketchup-stained hoodie in a gesture of solidarity. Sad-case was a real pillock at times. But a big pillock and he’d learned the hard way that it was always wise to voice his opinions in a suitably humble manner.

‘I don’t care.’ Sad-case snorted, at the same time interrupting Derrick’s mental observations of his friend’s destruction. ‘If he kills me then I’ll really get him back the, the...’ Having already used up his quite impressive stock of swear words on the subject of his brother, he was being forced to invent a few more.

David attempted to sway him from certain annihilation while carefully admiring the new Top-Gun badge he’d sown onto his own hoodie the night before. That made about twenty now and had to be a world record. Nonetheless there were more important things to consider. Sad-case’s brother was a towering monster who, in reality, might not even be human at all and they were in a good position to judge. But their united experience of his skill and passion for dealing pain was an indelible memory.

‘Don’t you think that actually killing him’s a bit drastic? Couldn’t you just kick him in the nerds?’

‘Snot-brain.’ Sad-case smiled triumphantly, dredging up a previously unused term of endearment for his brother. ‘I mean, I’m not actually going to kill him. Although I bet I’d get a medal. No, I’m just going to scare the slime-gob to death.’ He leaned against the clammy side of the old water pipe which had become their new headquarters in the disused scrap yard. The thought of getting one over on El Slobbo was something to savour.

‘It’ll end in tears.’ Derrick promised, carefully eyeing his own hoodie and its attendant stains that often made it difficult to remember what colour it had once been.

‘Yeah, his.’

David went back to his magazine, squinting under the meagre glow from the lantern Sad-case had borrowed from the Boy Scout hut at the school. The photo seemed impossible even for a modern weapon. They must have done something to it with a computer. He turned it upside down to see if a change of perspective would make the picture seem more likely. He’d only had it a couple of days but on hearing of its existence half the sixth formers had already offered to tear out his lungs if he didn’t hand it over to them; just as they had most of its predecessors.

‘I mean, how does one jet blow up a bridge, an underground air raid bunker, an ammo dump and half a dozen tanks with the same rocket?’ Even for an F22 Raptor, the task seemed a little tricky. "Blood and guts – A man’s life" joined the small pile that had been spared the lust of the older lads. After what they’d seen and done in the last few weeks, nothing matched the awesomeness of the real thing – especially as the real thing had turned out to be a whole lot more scary than a touched up photograph.

The effort of trying to forget their recent encounter with the unknown had proven nigh impossible for the three since it consisted of first being abducted to an alien planet. This alone was a wonder of the first magnitude. And that was before they’d been chased by and bombarded with mutated lizoids. Then after miraculously escaping that place, only to land on an even more revolting planet, full of yet more ghastly creatures whose sole purpose for living seemed to be their deaths and the invasion of Earth. That they’d actually managed to break out of that hell had been the second miracle. Only to be confronted with the inevitable conclusion of their previous actions. And this had been the worst: a final, terrifying encounter within the pyrotechnic horror of a space wormhole. The nightmares would last a lifetime.

It wasn’t even as if they could actually tell anyone of what they’d seen and done and bask in hero-dom for a few years. Going on talk shows and getting medals from the president of every country in the world; being fawned on by adoring females till they were sick of it. They had discussed, and just as quickly realised that they could tell no one about what had happened. It wasn’t as if they could just turn up at school and say: Hey, guess what we just did all last week? And by the way, we also came back the actual night before we left.

Regaling all and sundry with the juicy details about saving two worlds from destruction probably wouldn’t garner the respect it really deserved amid all the scornful laughter, even if one of those worlds just happened to be the Earth. And informing old Droopy-face Smith, their science teacher, that a previously undiscovered planetary system lay within their own would probably earn them all a decade’s detention for sheer gobbiness. If not a visit from the men with the straight jackets and padded accommodation.

So they had decided with great reluctance to keep it all to themselves, relishing the memory and being just that bit smug. Even Derrick’s anonymous email to a web chat room promoting all kinds of weird conspiracies had met with universal hysterical laughter – albeit of the electronic kind. And a dead leg from Sad-case since they’d already agreed to keep their collective yap shut.

Yet even fighting alien hoards across an entire solar system and somehow surviving, was little in comparison to Sad’s imminent demise. Where his brother was concerned, extreme care was an absolute priority. He could teach any alien army a thing or two about destruction.

‘So what are you going to do, then?’ Derrick frowned while rubbing a wet patch on his bum. This pipe was narrow and uncomfortable. It was hardly tall enough to stand up in and smelled of cat pee. Its one plus point, it being impossible to see from the outside seemed hardly worth the bother of being wet and cramped when they might just as easily be sitting in Sad’s garage where nobody ever went, anyway.

Sad-case grinned. It was his best evil gleam of pure nastiness. It had an I’ve-got-it-all-planned gleam. He shuffled about more for a few annoying seconds to push home the malignant point. In fact he continued to wallow in self-satisfied smugness until David bounced an empty cola can off his head.

‘Tell us.’ He commanded as the remains of the mouldy liquid trickled satisfyingly down that smirking face.

Sad-case wiped away the sticky and slightly mouldy fluid and frowned in the near darkness. Ever since David had begun Kung Fu lessons over and above the myriad dirty tricks his now, dead father had taught him, the only one he could slap around was Derrick. But since he’d been so good at navigating them through the wormhole and effectively saving their lives and that of the entire planet, it wouldn’t be right somehow. So now he was being forced to forage for his victims elsewhere.

It wasn’t even the same with the other kids at school. In fact, Sad-case knew deep down (not that he was going to let on) that his heart really wasn’t into being a full time tormenter of the weak. The fact that they didn’t have any ray guns like their most recent enemies just made the whole thing a bit boring.

‘Ratbag.’ He wiped his sticky hands on his jeans, reluctantly erasing the glittering memory of how it used to be. ‘When my dad finally turned his brain on,’ he grinned at the memory, ‘and finally left last week, I found something in the garage. He’d already nicked most of the stuff that was any good.’ His smile took on a malicious edge. ‘But he forgot a box in the corner under the old carpet, and it’s really cool. It’s got all this stuff what belonged to his dad, and his. And somewhere in there, ‘cos I saw it for a second before El Slobbo came in and whacked me, is a gun.’

‘The Luger?’ Derrick scowled, referring to the ancient pistol Sad-case had found a few weeks before which belonged to his brother, who’d reminded him with the two black eyes that had only just faded.

A gun? Of all the things none of them wanted to see again, a gun was probably top of the list. All except for Sad-case it seemed. David swallowed quickly, remembering what his mad friend had done with the laser pistol, and how he’d nearly trashed a spaceship. And how Derrick had almost electrocuted them by firing at those electricity pylons. While Sad had nearly been flattened after killing that prehistoric monster the size of the Eiffel Tower. And that was while the plonker had actually been standing directly beneath it on that planet none of them ever wanted to think about again.

‘Another gun? Are you a nutter?’ Derrick thrust away the nightmarish visions which matched David’s with uncanny similarity. Alright, he still felt pretty good about the way he’d sent those other ships crashing off into space, and in the process actually saved everyone’s lives. But as the others had said he couldn’t talk about it to anyone else, and as they knew all about it anyway, the novelty had worn a bit thin.

‘He’ll...’ The thoughts of what Sad-case’s brother would do to him were just too horrible for Derrick to imagine. After all, even if Sad did shoot him it would only annoy him. It wouldn’t actually do him any harm or anything. The slob was as big as a bulldozer; a bulldozer who drank about twenty five pints of Guinness every night, and someone whom even the local police treated with extreme caution.

‘It’s not a real gun.’ Sad-case finally relented, seeing the horror in their faces, and understanding, if only silently. In truth he was still suffering luridly vivid nightmares about their too-recent adventure on… but he didn’t want to think about it. It bothered him almost every night so there was no way he was going to waste daylight dwelling on it.

‘It’s a kind of starting pistol or something. You know when him and his mates go into that old concrete shelter by the football ground for a bit of lip-locking with those girls? Where even if you cough in your rompers it echoes for days?’ The others nodded, knowing the place well and wishing they had some of the aforementioned girls to do the same thing with. ‘Well I’m gonna wait until they’re really into it then I’m going to shoot it in the air and frighten them to death. And...and,’ he struggled to overcome hysterical laughter, ‘he’llprobably cack himself and his friends will see it and know just what a wimpoid he really is. And the best part is he’ll never even know it’s us.’

‘What’s this, us?’ Derrick rammed his finger up in a gesture that would definitely not have impressed his mum. But despite the potentially catastrophic consequences of his plan, the others could see the elegance, or if not the elegance, then just the pure nastiness of it.

Lost for words, they let it all sink in. Admittedly, seeing, or just knowing that his brother would be made to look like a complete nancy in front of his friends would go a long way to alleviating the utter loathing they felt for him. It was just that, David told himself, if he ever found out who did it, he’d put Sad’s delicate bits in a vice. Him and every friend he’d ever had.

Even so, it might just be worth it.

‘When are you going to do it?’ David hated himself for asking. He didn’t want anything to do with this, but knew that he would, regardless.

‘We get a half-day tomorrow, right? The teachers are having a meeting about how to make our lessons even more boring than usual. Come home with me then. My mum’ll be at that soft college class she’s doing for growing carpets or knitting her own asparagus or something. We’ll go into the garage then and have a look for it. The gun.’ he reminded them.

Derrick peered through the gloom at David for confirmation. His nod was enough. After all, they’d fought alien lizoids on another planet; coming back the day before they’d left, then hiding to prevent an anti-matter explosion which might have trashed the entire universe. So what could be easier than scaring El Slobbo to death?

Chapter Two

The dust in the garage must have been sifting down for years. Every surface seemed to be covered by nearly an inch of thick, cloying grime which now eagerly swirled up their noses. Even the beam from Sad-case’s flashlight barely penetrated the miniature storm they’d stirred up with their clumsy feet.

From school it had taken fifteen minutes to reach Sad-case’s house. Now well into the spirit of this new adventure, they had crept tactically, hugging the privets even though most of the other kids probably thought they were mad since nobody was following them. Only to find themselves here, sneezing explosively into their sleeves every couple of seconds in the rancid air. David frowned at Derrick, squinting in the dim, filthy light. Both wore identical expressions on their now grimy faces: what were they doing here?

‘Shhh.’ Sad-case warned them from somewhere in the darkness. Not that they were making any real noise despite there being nobody in the house or likely to be for hours yet. That was unless El Slobbo got fired from his dustbin round job and decided to come home that very moment. Yet even this vaguest of eventualities was enough to make them tread softly.

‘There it is.’ He gestured towards a large cardboard box in the corner. This murky place had been used mainly as a store room as there had never had a car; mainly because his dad couldn’t drive and would never have been able to buy one, since his sole occupation seemed to be practicing for the Olympic beer drinking event, at which he would have excelled. And any car large enough for Sad’s massive brother to have squeezed into wouldn’t have fitted the confines of the garage anyway. ‘Why’s it on its side? I didn’t do it’

Derrick’s eyes darted frantically towards the door, immediately afraid. Just because Sad-case’s brother wasn’t meant to be home didn’t mean that he wouldn’t.

‘Shouldn’t we just take it to my house?’ David whispered, again unnecessarily. It would be better that way. At least then they wouldn’t have to creep round. His mum didn’t really care what he got up to in his room, mainly because she knew he’d never consider actually doing anything wrong.

‘No, he’d know. I really wanna get him this time.’ He flicked on the overhead light after making sure there was no way it could escape, which wasn’t a problem really as all the windows had been boarded up with about an inch of plywood, and anyway it was daytime. ‘The dog must have been in here and done that because when I saw it last it was all taped up.’

David began to get a bad feeling. Dogs didn’t lift up carpets and throw them ten feet; dogs didn’t tear off masking tape; and dogs didn’t smoke a couple of cigarettes while they were doing it. If Sad-case hadn’t turned the box over then that only left one person. In the thin light from the cheap orange light bulb he could see that the insides of the box were scattered all over the floor.

‘So where’s the gun?’ Derrick demanded, tossing aside lumpy things covered in newspaper which stank of cat wee and made suspiciously squelchy thuds as they hit the floor. They all seemed to be ornaments and stuff like all the things his mum kept in the house forever, instead of throwing away. Like old plaster cats that were rubbish and unidentifiable bric-brackery that must have been in fashion about fifteen BC.

‘Down the bottom.’ Sad-case delved deeply, swallowing the sneeze that threatened to burst his face; a face that was slowly changing as he realised the awful truth. He didn’t want to believe it but just for good measure threw everything else on the floor to prove it. ‘It’s gone. He’s taken it.’

The walls seemed to close in on them. In an instant the three felt naked. If Sad’s brother had found it, there was no way they were going to scare him, and in fact it seemed that El Slobbo had his own designs for the gun.

‘Let’s get out of here.’ Derrick could instantly think of a few million places he’d rather be at that moment. Like in the Headmasters office getting a billion lines for knocking his pencil off the desk at the exact instant the art teacher walked past in that really short skirt. Or being run down by a train or something equally as painful but infinitely preferable to what...

Whether it was Derrick’s panic-stricken face, or the low but definitely audible clunk from upstairs, nobody knew or cared. A second later they were out of the garage, out of the house and sprinting down the road at a speed not even the previously mentioned aliens could have matched.

‘See you later.’ Sad-case shouted over his shoulder; running for his life towards the only safety he could think of. A place El Slobbo would never enter; and he neither in normal circumstances. The library would be safe because the only book his monster brother knew well was the one the magistrate threw at him every time he got in trouble with the law. Derrick headed for home, sprinting a lot faster now, David noticed in a moment of distraction. He really was losing weight. They’d have to find another nickname for him soon, because Lardbucket didn’t really fit anymore. He was safe, anyway, because his mum had the biggest carving knife in the world and even El Slobbo wouldn’t mess with her.

David flew down the road, great loping steps that ate up the ground. After risking a quick glance over his shoulder lest he get run down he miraculously avoided caving his skull in as he avoided a lamppost by a hair’s breadth. Everything was fine, he told himself; the monster hadn’t seen him. In fact it had probably been a rat, but then who knew what lurked in Sad’s house?

But everything wasn’t fine, was it? He’d been meaning to tell the others about what he’d discovered but the mention of El Slobbo had completely put it out of his mind. He’d been playing about on the Net last night. After an hour or so of idle browsing, he’d seen something. Even now he didn’t really want to believe it, so now he just had to see it again – just to make sure. Because if he’d really seen what he had, then it was more frightening, if that were even possible, than Sad-case’s big brother.

Chapter Three

‘Deja vu.’

The trip to Sad-case’s house reminded David of a similar one made not so long ago; it hardly seemed just three weeks. Then, Sad’s mum had a phone, but now with his family’s greatly reduced income, it has gone the same place as his dad so David had been forced to walk over. Luckily it was still quite cold so the pervs hadn’t come out yet.

Sad-case’s face reflected the ghostly gleam of the crooked lamppost outside his house. His eyes stared a little wildly, partly from the fear which had not altogether evaporated even though his mutant brother had still not made an appearance. This was little improved by the fact that they were in full view if he were to come back from the pub right now spoiling for a fight. And all of this because David had woke him by hammering on the window of a completely silent house; unnecessarily as it happened, seeing as how his mum had yet to come home from her panel-beating class.

‘We’ve got to talk. I mean it.’ David could see the terror on his friend’s face, even after he’d smiled heroically to show how unafraid he was.

‘Haven’t we done this before?’ Sad-case wasn’t in the mood for more ninja stuff. The last time had been different; he hadn’t known what he was getting himself into.

‘You’ve got to come!’ David felt a scream rising up his throat as his hands trembled. It was true, the last time they hadn’t known what they were doing, zooming off in the middle of the night to another planet with aliens disguised as management consultants. But this time it was worse. David could hardly believe that he was even thinking like this. He’d grown up a lot during their last little escapade, and although he’d almost succeeded in forgetting it for a couple of hours at a time and reverting to childhood, the memories were imprinted in his soul.

‘We’ve got to get Derrick, and meet at the Pipe. Sad, please.’ Sad-case’s immediate impulse to tell him to bog off was checked by the realisation that never, ever before had David said please.

‘Alright, half an hour.’ He risked a quick glimpse over the mangled fence to see if someone with two heads or something equally as hideous was waiting for him to make a move. This was a potentially dangerous move because at Sad’s house the fence comprised old kitchen appliances and a mouldy sofa which teetered noisily at the slightest breeze. And if that tottering fridge actually hit someone, their days would be over. ‘Are you really serious?’ he demanded in a hoarse whisper, to himself, as it happened because David, convinced of his friend’s agreement, had already fled. Part two of his plan depended on Derrick coming too. It would take all three of them just to decide if he really had gone off his trolley. And he, for one, would be quite happy if that were really the case.

‘Derrick?’

Getting over to Derrick house had been uneventful except for the enormous dog over which David had stumbled just as it was cocking its leg up a lamppost. One glimpse at those enormous fangs had lent his legs an agility he hadn’t known he’d possessed as he quickly dodged it. Luckily the hound had a more pressing need and contented itself with a growl. Now safely there he paused for breath as he waited for his heartbeat to slow below a hundred and fifty or so. Previous experience had taught him which was Derrick’s window, and just how little noise it would require to bring out the huge carving knife attached to his permanently vexed mum thence to be inserted into his spleen. He supposed that was what happened when dads went whoosh. Or was it perhaps because of the knife that she and Derrick lived on their own? He shoved the thought aside. Here and now was definitely not the time, nor the place.

‘Oh, God, not again.’ Derrick appeared on the second knock, a knock, to be honest, almost as soft as that of the midges, now landing on his face in a blood sucking frenzy. ‘Is this a dream?’ he pleaded hopefully from the small crack of the open window. David wished that it was but shook his head to prove the opposite.

‘You’ve got to come to the pipe.’

Derrick swallowed the lump that was his heart. This was all too familiar and he didn’t want to go through it again. There had been a brief moment when he’d actually begun to miss the glory of the last time. But now, in the middle of the night, yet again, that glory seemed a lot less glorious.

‘No, no, and no. Absolutely negative chance!’ The window slammed shut with enough noise to wake his mum, and probably the rest of the street, if it hadn’t only been seven thirty in the evening.

David slowly stood up after wisely checking for anything strange lurking about. It had to be, he supposed. He didn’t want to think the things that he was thinking. He wanted to be in front of the telly, watching stuff that he could forget about a second after his mum had turned over for one the soaps. But there was Sad-case to think of and the connection which he hadn’t even been able to work out yet, with what he’d discovered. He decided to go for a walk; to think about what he was going to tell Sad-case. It wouldn’t be the same without Derrick, and as gobby as Sad-case was, David wasn’t at all sure that he’d be able to deal with it without their podgy but admittedly intelligent friend.

Twenty minutes later he crawled into the pipe. It was dark and he could hear nothing save the mournful dripping of rancid water through the hole that Sad had enlarged with a pick-axe on the day they’d discovered their new den simply by tripping over it. He was almost relieved. Sad-case hadn’t come so he could go home and forget about the whole thing.

Who was he kidding? However obliquely, he’d been a part of everything that had brought all this about. He began to sidle backwards. He was going home to think about what he had to do. Even if that just meant running away from home for the rest of his life. But then he couldn’t go backwards any more, mainly because of three things. The first was the scrape of a match, instantly filling his nose in the close confines of the pipe with that cloying sulphurous smell; which immediately led to a candle being lit, and the third thing, a head butting him straight up the bum.

‘This better be worth it.’

David almost retched in relief. Sad-case really had come.

‘Get y’rarse outta me face!’

Derrick!

For a moment the joy that his friends were here almost blotted out the fact that they were probably going to die. Really dead time and not just the nasty torment they’d planned for El Slobbo.

‘S’matter? This better be good or I’ll rip your head off and spit down your neck.’ Sad’s voice in the darkness was hoarse. His fear was evident over his usual brashness.

‘Yeah, what?’

Derrick and Sad-case sat before him, their faces yellow and flickery in the dim lamp struggling to stay alight in the thin, stale air. Both were understandably curious and a little frightened. They knew that if it had been anything normal he’d have told them at school the next morning. Their faces peered at him. He could see the confusion in their expressions. If it hadn’t been for the last time, this would be fun. David took a deep breath. The truth, a hard thing for a young teenager to come to terms with, seemed the only way. David took a deep, shaky breath.

‘I can’t be long. My mum’s going to be back in an