THE DREADFUL INDOORS

The old man, wearing his hat as he always did, keeping his face in
shadow, looked out of his window onto grey fields of shadow, under a
sky of grit. He turned to his table on which was the bomb left over
from the great war. Forty years he had been back, arriving long after
the world conflict of 2004 had begun and finished. A dark, sinister
smile creased the old man's stubbled cheeks as he proceeded to wrap the
bomb up in pretty wrapping paper, and he thought of what he was going
to write on the note he would attach to this gift to his old
friends.

On went the ship of a million bits of train, crashing through the
waters of a thousand pieces of carriage, brushing aside thick waves of
dead bodies. In the hospital department of the ship, Barry and Sylvia
awoke to another weird morning on the alien world, where they had
almost recovered, after being plucked from the ocean of glue, on the
verge of death from dehydration and starvation. Two things occupied
Barry's mind; the strong love he felt for Sylvia, and getting back home
to Earth.
The ship had been sailing for thirty years round and round the small
globe of nothing but lake. It was run by a crew of old train drivers,
all of whom had vanished in the mysterious train vanishing times of the
1970's, where train after train would speed into wormhole after
wormhole (not tunnel after tunnel). It had been convenient that the
government had kept this little episode a secret. The train drivers
were now old men, and over the past thirty years they had built up the
ship from all the scraps of train wreckage that lay strewn in the
waters where alien sea life thrived. This was the only means of food
for the crew and live-in passengers. Many train passengers had vanished
along with the trains in the 1970's. The thousand or so left, including
offspring, all now lived on the ship.
The captain and main doctor in the hospital (ex train driver), Arthur,
filled Barry in on all the history. Arthur was a nice chap; train
driver, surgeon, vicar, advice bureau officer, historian, and grenade
manufacturer. He had tons of grenades stashed away in his officer.
Barry had asked Arthur some weeks ago, when they had been rescued, if
there was any way of getting back to Earth. Indeed there was a way, and
any day now, The Sort Of Galactic AA, were due to come and pick them
all up. Barry had been so excited when Arthur told him about this. He
and Sylvia could actually go home.
'What a service the sort of galactic AA is,' Arthur had said. 'Twenty
year we've waited, they've built the reverse wormhole, it's nearly
ready.' He told Barry that in order for him to go back, he would need
to sign up for a membership card. So he gave Barry The Sort Of Galactic
AA members application forms, for him and his lover, and they had
submitted them.
Barry had made friends with another patient in his ward; Bob, who lay
opposite him, was really just a hypochondriac who was convinced that
his head was going to explode. Bob's wife always came at visiting
times, just to take the piss usually. Barry had to laugh. Bob's wife
would keep telling Bob that his head would not explode, but Bob
wouldn't listen, he was so sure that it would.
The inside of the ship was a massive sound cabin, it was only outside
on the decks, in the open air, where there were no sound waves; dead
silent. Mute.
Barry and Sylvia talked a lot about Earth and mad Mr Shaw, and how they
were glad he was no more. Barry realised that he loved Sylvia enough to
marry her, so he would ask her, when the time was right. How nice it
would be to return to Earth and get wed, he thought.
That afternoon, Sylvia went out for a walk, out onto the silent deck.
The weather was changeable; upside down blustery showers were followed
by upside down sunny intervals, and an upside down moderate breeze
blew. After her quiet fresh air, she went back indoors. As she walked
along the hospital corridors, she happened to peer into one of the
isolation rooms, and to her horror, she saw Shaw, lying there snoozing,
his neck wrapped up in bandages from where she had stuck the knife. She
went running back to the wards screaming. 'He's alive. Shaw's still
alive.'
Arthur told them that Shaw was one of his patients. He had been pulled
from the sea, the knife had been removed from his torn throat, and he
was on the brink of death. He had been on life support when first
admitted, but now he was on the mend. Barry told Arthur all about Shaw;
the campsite, the murders, and all those corpses out there riding the
ocean waves, it was all down to Shaw.
Arthur agreed, reluctantly, to get rid. A grenade in his soup at dinner
time would do the trick. But Shaw might see it. Oh well, so what? All
they had to do was pull the pin and serve him grenade soup with
croutons. So that was plan, and at dinner time, Arthur dropped a
grenade into a bowl of soup, with the intention that it would go to
Shaw's room, but there was a mix up, and the nurse took the soup to
Bob. Bob peered into the bowl. 'Hang on,' he said. 'There's something
in me soup.' He looked closer, put his finger in and picked out a
microscopic dust particle no bigger than an atom, that someone with
microscopes for eyes wouldn't have seen. In fact, someone with
microscopes for eyes walked past and examined Bob's soup, but didn't
see a thing.
'That's disgusting. I don't want bits of dust in me soup.'
All of a sudden, BANG!!!
At visiting time, Bob's wife arrived. Bob had no head. 'Bloody 'el, the
bugger was right,' she remarked.
Meanwhile, Shaw had gone walkabout, and then panic set in. Barry,
Sylvia and Arthur went to hunt him down.
Shaw got into Arthur's office and took a sack of grenades from the
grenade cabinet, then he ran out onto the deck. He couldn't believe the
complete silence, it was bliss to his ear-holes. But he was extremely
angry that he was stuck in that place. He headed towards the fishing
department a quarter of a mile up the ship.
Barry, Sylvia and Arthur went into the office and Arthur was concerned
to see that a sack of grenades had gone missing.
The fishing department was where people worked, fishing for the ship's
food. Jack was a young lad who had started work earlier that week. He
had not caught a thing as of yet. He wore spectacles like magnifying
glasses, and his piss taking work colleagues imagined he was as blind
as a bat. Shaw crept down onto a lower deck and lobbed a grenade into
the water. It got hooked on the end of Jack's line. Excitedly, he
yanked the line out of the water. 'I've got one,' he signalled.
'At-last I've caught one.' He pulled the grenade off the hook and held
it millimetres away from his magnifying glass encased eyes. Strange
fish, he thought. He turned and wondered why his fellow fishing
colleagues were sprinting away up the deck. SILENT BANG!!!
Shaw went back indoors, and put on ear muffs.
Barry, Sylvia and Arthur searched all over for Shaw. News was spreading
fast that there was a psychopath on the loose. Barry checked the
library and collected he and Sylvia's the Sort Of Galactic AA
membership cards from a kiosk outside. Sylvia checked the theatre and
Arthur checked the bars.
Shaw's next target was the ship's bomb diffusing squad department. The
staff there had not diffused a bomb in thirty years. There had been no
bombs reported anywhere on the ship in all the years. They sat around
smoking and drinking tea all day, raking in the money. Shaw burst in
with his ear muffs and grenades and gave the lazy bastards something to
diffuse. They had never seen grenades before, they just thought they
were types of alarm clocks, and thanked the funny man for the presents.
Shaw had already scampered as the squad were figuring out how to set
the time on their new alarm clocks, and where was the time display
anyway? Shaw, running, heard the BDS office blow up.
From the sky with two suns came the Sort Of Galactic AA rocket. It
descended slowly and touched down on the ship's rocket port. After
thirty year's wait, at-last they were here, and people went running out
onto the decks surrounding the port. Barry, Sylvia and Arthur met up
and ran with all the others to the rocket. Before clambering on board,
Barry decided it was the right time to propose to Sylvia. He popped the
question and she said, 'Absolutely no chance.' But then she changed her
mind and said, 'Yes.'
The population of the entire ship emptied onto the giant rocket. All,
except for one man, made it on board. Shaw, who had run out of grenades
by now, was not allowed to board the rocket for two reasons; A. He
didn't have a membership card. B. He was a fucking maniac. So he was
left there. Arthur wound down a window and lobbed a load of grenades
onto the decks as the rocket launched. Shaw ran, grenades exploding all
around him. 'I'll get you for this!' he yelled, to no avail. 'You wait
and see!' He jumped. And then, the ship's gas department blew up. The
explosion took out the one side of the ship. As Shaw went flying
through the air, still wearing those ear muffs, shrapnel cutting his
back, and fire blasting out in all directions, one thought crossed his
mind. The thought was; All I ever wanted was my own little campsite,
and some piece and quiet, and this is what I get.
The rocket, and its one thousand passengers, shot across the sky, and
into the Sort Of Galactic AA's manufactured wormhole.
They arrived back on Earth safe and sound, safe and sound in a
different time. Something had happened; the skies were permanently
black, the ground was grey and the air was thick with smog. The
population of the UK had been seriously depleted. Small groups of ill
looking people lived in tiny villages mostly made up of tents. They
talked mainly of the great war of 2004.
The wormhole had brought Barry and Sylvia back to the year 2066, but,
nevertheless, the wedding was still on, and all the old train drivers,
and all the people from the ship were invited. Most people didn't go
and killed themselves instead. Arthur agreed to marry them, and the
service took place on a Monday, in July, 2066, in a suitable
church.
A young boy was on a bicycle, pulling wheelies outside the church, when
he was approached by an old man wearing a hat, who had emerged from the
shadows of the nearby graveyard. The man was carrying a wedding present
for Barry and Sylvia. He asked the boy to go into the church and give
the young couple the gift, and he agreed. The kid handed it to Barry as
he slid the ring onto his wife's finger. The boy left, and cycled off.
Barry read the note. "To my old friends. I came back through another
wormhole - got in touch with the sort of galactic AA. My membership
card is attached to the back of this note. I arrived home in another
time as well, bit of a bugger that isn't it? I've been on this nice
quiet planet for the past forty years. Have a great day".
Barry flipped the note over to look at the back. The membership card
was stuck to the back, and Shaw's name was printed on it. All the old
train drivers in the pews heard the gift ticking. Why couldn't they?
And then, BANG! NOISY BANG!!!
The church windows blew out and the roof vaporised in a cloud of smoke.
Old man Mr Shaw rolled around in the graveyard, his sides were
splitting, his eyes were watering, and his throat hurt. He wished he
could get his hands on some strepsils.

THE END