Monsters of Elsewhere

By Matthew Waldram

There is a land – let's call it Elsewhere – that is in no small amount of trouble. Giant wolves are tearing villages apart, a monster king is bringing his army across the sea to capture the legendary Hall of Glass, and the High Lord has completely disappeared.

Henry Whistler was eight when he got lost at a bus station in Hounslow. There his adventure began. For that was when he met the exiled invisible man, the monster swordsman, and the girl with the bright red hair.

Now a grown-up, Henry's childhood adventure is a faded memory... until his fiancée vanishes. Until he is drawn into another world. Until he is pursued by a blind assassin – with only a monster and a dead man for company - across a land that is in no small amount of trouble.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Waldram
• Release date: Dec 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781507038956

Matthew Waldram

Matthew Waldram is a large flightless human. Originally from Derby – where we call a cob a cob, duck – he now lives in Leigh-on-Sea and staunchly refuses to drop his accent, no matter how many people tell him he speaks like his mouth is filled with marbles. He believes in monsters, carbs, and scrumping.

Book preview

PART ONE

THE BOY AND THE MONSTERS

featuring:

a murder – a monster – a stranger

– a lighthouse – a monster – a murder

Chapter One

‘How many times must I kill you?’

In those last moments before his murder, Stephen Whistler was happy. It was a pleasant and quiet September evening, neither too hot nor too cold, and he was taking a stroll with his infant son, Henry. Stephen liked to walk; it gave him the time he needed to think, and right now he was thinking about the driving test he was scheduled to take the following day. 

1986 was a year of big changes in Stephen’s life. For a start, it was the year Henry was born. As soon as he had found out Helen was pregnant, he had started taking driving lessons, and now that Henry was here, he intended to pass his test and purchase a family car. Nothing too fancy, just something to get them from A to B on those occasions when public transport wouldn’t cut it. One of Stephen’s colleagues was selling his Ford Sierra ‘to a good home’ and Stephen had arranged to be just the chap to provide it.

He had never needed to drive before and had been happy to rely on public transport. He was the only person he knew who enjoyed bus travel. Sure it wasn’t ideal, but he liked to meet people and he always told his wife that you never knew whom you might meet on a bus. Why, maybe you could meet someone who would change your life forever.

He walked down into the old town and along the riverside path, taking in the chiaroscuro of the cobbled walkway and the sounds of the swollen Thames as it rose and dipped gracefully beside him. There was another sound; a set of footsteps other than his own, and whomever they belonged to was moving with some urgency.

Stephen rounded a bend and headed towards the alleyway that always served as his shortcut. He found himself face to face with a peculiar-looking man. If pushed, Stephen would have put him somewhere in his late fifties, his grey-black hair long and unkempt, his face covered in a thick, but not long, beard. His clothes were worn and ragged and not at all like the current British fashion. He looked like a man who did not quite belong, and when he spoke, his words tumbling out in a language that sounded like a rockfall, he sounded it too.

‘I – I’m really sorry,’ Stephen said, ‘but I can’t understand you. Do you speak English?’

The stranger stood in silence for what felt like a long time and Stephen started to think about the best way to put some distance between himself and the older man. He was about to walk on when he noticed what looked like old blood stains on the man’s clothes. As he looked more closely, Stephen saw that the man’s face was bruised.

‘Look, are you okay?’ Stephen said. ‘Is there something I can do to help?’

He instinctively began to rock the pram slowly back and forth, more to calm himself than to soothe the baby who, of course, was sound asleep. The stranger seemed to notice the pram for the first time.

‘His name is Henry,’ Stephen said, reflexively.

‘Henry.’ The stranger rolled the word around in his mouth and smiled as though it left a pleasant taste. ‘Your name is Stephen? Stephen Whistler? Father to Henry?’

‘How do you know that?’

The stranger waved the question away. ‘We must run,’ he said.

‘We? Listen, I think–’

‘We must run. Some people are coming who wish to harm you. And Henry, too. There will be too many of them; we cannot survive this here.’

‘Too many of who?’ Stephen said. ‘God, start talking sense.’

There was no time to answer; strange shadows were forming on a nearby wall like an ominous skiagram under the harsh artificial brightness of the street lamps. Struck by an unpleasant mix of dread and nausea, Stephen watched transfixed as the shadows quickened and slid away from the wall, his feet filling with lead and his mouth widening into a comical O.

The stranger grabbed Stephen’s shoulder. ‘Assassins,’ he said. ‘They want to kill us.’

‘Why would assassins–?’

‘Run, or your son will die. RUN.’

With that, the stranger turned and headed back the way he had come, towards the darkened alleyway. He looked over his shoulder and noted that Stephen was following as quickly as one could expect of a man pushing a pram containing a sleeping baby. Stephen followed the stranger through the alleyway and across a narrow cobbled road. As they ran, Stephen noticed the old man’s hands move down beneath his shirt to reveal a knife belt slung around his waist. He unclipped two blades that hung on it and neatly palmed them as he ran. They rounded a bend and came to a halt by a small bridge over the narrow stream which flowed into the Thames.

Stephen looked around him and all he saw were empty cobbled streets, silent houses in darkness, the glare of the street lamps, and a tired old man. Nothing and nobody else.

‘This is where I arrived,’ the stranger said.

‘Why did I need to follow you?’ Stephen said. ‘What was that back there?’

‘It is as I told you, they are assassins. And if you hadn’t followed me, you and your son would both be dead.’

‘You’re crazy. You’re actually crazy. They weren’t assassins. They were just shadows and they certainly weren’t looking to harm me or my son.’ He added, to himself, ‘Maybe I’m crazy for following you.’

Stephen shook his head and began pushing the pram away from the older man, walking quickly. He looked at his baby son, amazed that the little chap was still sleeping so soundly after the high-speed pram ride across the cobbles.

‘You’re going to die, Stephen,’ the stranger said.

Stephen stopped in his tracks. He didn’t turn back to face this man who had brought nothing but confusion and panic, but his shoulders slumped a little as he called back, ‘Why are you saying this?’

‘I’m telling you what I know, which is not much. It will be hard to believe and harder to hear, but it is true. If you run from here, they will find you. Those… people always find who they’re looking for, in the end. If you run, I won’t be there to help you. But if you stay here with me now, I can protect the child.’

Up ahead, Stephen noticed four dark figures sliding into view. They moved slowly, towards where he stood. As they neared, Stephen could hear them talking to one another in the same low, guttural language the older man had spoken earlier. Stephen stared as the four creatures approached, hypnotised by the sharp curved blades they carried. The stranger saw Stephen’s shoulders tense and his legs straighten.

‘Maybe you run, maybe you manage not to get caught, but it won’t be forever. When they catch you, they will kill you. But before they kill you, they will kill Henry.’

Stephen turned to face the stranger, and for the first time he saw that the older man was not trying to torture him, was not trying to cause him unnecessary panic or pain. There was a sadness to him and when he spoke there was tenderness in his voice.

‘I know how this ends. I won’t lie to you, Stephen, if you stand here with me you will die tonight. But Henry will live.’

Stephen looked once more at his sleeping son, then back to the stranger.

‘Can I at least have one of those knives?’

‘Gladly.’

The old man smiled and handed him one of his knives. Stephen took it tentatively, and not a moment too soon. The assassins had increased their pace and were now within touching distance. One lunged for the pram and the sleeping baby – shoving Stephen aside with one hand, his curved blade raised high in the other. Stephen was transfixed by the moon reflected in the blade as the assassin swept his knife down. The stroke was cut short by one of the stranger’s huge fists crashing against the would-be-killer’s face. He barely had a moment to register the pain in his newly-broken jaw as the old man leapt towards him, grabbing his arm and turning his own knife against him.

As the first attacker dropped to the ground, bleeding to death from a terrible wound to the belly, the older man was already lunging for the second. Stephen was so concerned with the first dead body that he didn’t even register the stranger’s move which created another. The skirmish had lasted only a matter of seconds and already two men lay dead. Stephen stood motionless as the stranger turned to face the remaining assassins, his knife blade blazing a glorious red in the moonlight.

Everything slowed down, nobody wishing to make the first move. All it took was for the stranger to shift his body slightly towards the assassin standing to his left and the standoff was broken. The other assassin’s arm snapped back and whipped forwards in the blink of an eye – there was a thunk, and the hilt of a knife jutted out of the stranger’s shoulder. His shirt flowered crimson beneath the hilt and he staggered back with a grunt. He turned to Stephen.

‘Now you can run,’ he said.

He looked bone weary; like a man who had never, ever stopped. As the assassins stepped forward to finish the old man off, he never took his eyes from Stephen.

‘Run!’

The spell of leaden-feet that seemed to have been cast over Stephen broke and he turned and fled, pushing Henry in the pram as fast as he was able. The stranger turned his attention back to his attackers just in time to block a blow aimed for his head. He grabbed the wielder’s arm and twisted it round to a near-impossible angle. He stamped out at the side of the assassin’s knee, causing it to buckle, sending the assassin sprawling to the floor. He followed it up with a fierce kick to the head and his opponent stopped moving.

The stranger pulled the blade from his shoulder, swore, and spun to face the last assassin. But he was alone.

That was when he heard the scream.

It only took a few moments for the old man to arrive at the scene, but it was already over. Stephen was slumped on the floor against a wall with a terminal cut across his stomach. Before him lay the final assassin, Stephen’s borrowed knife protruding from the still body. At first, all the old man could hear was the oceanic sound of his own blood rushing, but as it subsided, he heard something else. The baby was wailing.

The stranger staggered to where Stephen lay and was amazed to find he was still alive. The stranger plucked Henry out of the pram, wrapped him tightly in his blanket against the breeze, and handed him to Stephen. Henry stopped crying almost immediately.

The stranger lowered himself to a seating position next to Stephen, exhaling sharply as his arthritic joints creaked and squelched. 

‘You killed an assassin,’ he said.

‘Was… trying to kill my son.’ 

Stephen closed his eyes and for a moment the stranger was sure he had died, but then he opened his eyes once more. ‘Thank you. For saving him.’

‘You saved him,’ the stranger said.

‘What is your name?’

The stranger told him.

‘Thank you, Eamonn,’ Stephen said. ‘Why… why were they trying to kill him?’

Eamonn explained everything and at some point during the explanation, Stephen slipped away. Eamonn tenderly picked up the baby and returned him to the pram. He didn’t know what was supposed to happen next. He was underprepared and underequipped in a strange place, his only friend a baby.

A movement caught Eamonn’s attention and he looked up to see the assassin whose arm he had assaulted earlier. The assassin’s hood had fallen away to reveal its face.

‘How many times must I kill you?’ Eamonn said, in his own language.

He stepped forward to meet the assassin.

Chapter Two

‘…how is it that you can see me?’

Every child believes, at some stage in their life, that a monster lives beneath their bed. Or at least they believe some variation of this. Some children, for example, think their particular monster actually lives in their wardrobe. This is less likely to be the case as wardrobes make wholly unsuitable hiding places for monsters, who generally don’t like to stand still for prolonged periods.

And although many children believe in the monster under their bed, it is true in very few cases and has been proven in fewer still. Most children realise quite early on that what they had thought was a monster was really just a family cat, or a pile of dirty clothes, or an older brother playing a practical joke.

Like many children, Henry had believed – for as long as he had been capable of believing in anything – there was a monster under his bed. What’s more, he had no cat, no brother – no sister for that matter – and whilst he did have many piles of clothes strewn about his bedroom, he still knew that the presence he felt beneath his bed was absolutely, categorically, no-room-for-doubt a monster.

And he was correct.

The fact that Henry had not yet seen the monster was immaterial; it was there and he knew it. It was merely a matter of time before he found the elusive creature and was able to get some sort of evidence. He was quite sure that when the day came that he was able to capture the creature, or at least prove its existence, he would become quite famous, at least for a while. He looked forward to the visits from the newspaper journalists with their flashing cameras and the man from his mum’s TV shows who wore the brightly coloured ties.

He no longer spoke about the monster to most of the adults in his life because, being adults and therefore blind to the fantastic, they dismissed it. His mother had gone so far as to deny the existence of monsters full-stop, let alone this specific monster which had, out of every bed in the entire world (of which Henry believed there to be thousands, maybe more), chosen his – Henry Whistler’s – bed to be the bed beneath which to set up his permanent base in the world.

There was no denying the improbability of the matter, so Henry had taken the problem to the one adult in his life with an open mind: his uncle Eamonn (in truth a family friend, but he liked it when Henry called him ‘uncle’). Eamonn was unlike most of the other adults in Henry’s life. For one thing, he wasn’t British. Henry wasn’t completely sure where Eamonn was from and the old man was remarkably difficult to tie down on the subject, but he was definitely from somewhere other than here. Eamonn and Henry shared a private joke where the old man would claim that he was from an entirely different world, but that his world had no name that could be pronounced in Henry’s language. Henry had taken to calling Eamonn’s home ‘Elsewhere’.

Eamonn had taught him many of the strange cultures and traditions of Elsewhere, and to Henry’s delight he would often embellish his tales with wild flights of fancy about strange mythical creatures who roamed those lands, and of ancient heroes embarking on incredible quests. Henry knew these fantastical tales were designed purely for his entertainment, and he absorbed every single one of them.

Eamonn had always been a big part of Henry’s life, helping out where he could to enable Henry’s mother to stay in work and keep them in food and shelter.

More importantly to Henry, though, Eamonn never scoffed at his theories, always talking him through them and exploring every possibility, allowing the youngster to form his own thoughts and make his own judgements. This particular trait of Eamonn’s, however, did rankle Henry’s mother. She had always been close to Eamonn, seeing him as something of a grandfather figure (he definitely preferred ‘uncle’) to Henry in the absence of any biological grandparents, and of course she was indebted to the old man for saving Henry’s life from the group of muggers that September night eight years ago, even if he was unable to save Stephen. She frequently scolded Eamonn for encouraging Henry’s wild imagination, but Eamonn would wave away her protests with a flick of his hand.

‘Come now, Helen,’ he would say. ‘Henry is a young boy with an active imagination. I will not stifle that. Not so early.’

Some evenings, when Henry’s mother had to work a late shift, Henry would go straight from school to Eamonn’s house for dinner. Eamonn would then walk him to the bus stop and make sure he got the correct bus; Henry was considered by many as being old-for-eight but he was, nonetheless, still just eight. It was well into autumn and the dark nights had closed in.

On one particular evening, as Henry and Eamonn walked the route from Eamonn’s small home to the bus stop, Henry raised the topic of the monster under his bed. Eamonn asked him a string of questions: what did the monster look like? How often did he show himself? Did he speak? If so, could Henry understand him? Henry could not answer any of the questions as he had never even seen the monster, but he was pleased to note that at no stage did Eamonn deny the creature’s existence. Henry told Eamonn his plans to snag some evidence, and the old man provided him with some tips on how he might catch the rogue.

Henry was just about to tell Eamonn all about the journalists and the man with the brightly-coloured ties, when the bus arrived. It would have to wait until the monster was caught.

As he sat on the bus, Henry resolved to keep an extra-vigilant watch that night for the monster so that he would be able to go back to Eamonn with some answers. He pictured himself curled up under the duvet pretending to be asleep, but with one eye open just a peek so the monster would emerge. Monsters weren’t supposed to be seen by humans, but he imagined they could be quite easily fooled, so just a few minutes of eyes-closed and some fake snoring should be enough to draw out the creature. When it did come out, Henry would leap from under the covers and, with a swoosh of the butterfly net Eamonn had bought him the previous spring, he would scoop the monster up.

The man in the brightly-coloured ties would be suitably impressed to hear about–

‘Where’s your mum?’ said a voice to his right.

Henry turned to see a girl staring at him with wide eyes. Her hair was as orange as one of the Irn Bru bars Henry devoured with the sort of regularity that would make a dentist weep, and she wore it tied up in a ponytail. She wore a grey skirt and a blue jumper – the uniform of one of the local schools, though Henry wasn’t sure which. The way she chewed her bottom lip made Henry think she seemed worried.

‘She’s working late tonight. So I had dinner with a friend,’ Henry said.

‘Oh. But where’s your dad?’ she said.

‘He died when I was a baby.’

‘Oh,’ the girl paused for a moment. ‘It must be terribly lonely with your mum working and your dad being dead.’

‘It’s okay. I have my friend, he watches out for me.’

The girl nodded to herself and turned her head to face the front of the bus. Henry turned to look out of the window and intended to get right back to thinking about his interview with the man in the bright–

‘Are you allowed to ride the bus alone?’ the girl said.

‘I don’t do it very often,’ Henry said. ‘Just when I have to go to my friend’s for dinner. I’m a young man now, and they say I’m old enough to take the bus alone.’

‘Oh, that’s good. I ride the bus with my mum,’ the girl said.

It was only as she mentioned her mother that Henry actually noticed her presence; she had the same red hair as her daughter.

‘My name’s Sammi,’ the girl said. ‘With an i. This is my mum.’

Sammi indicated the woman sitting next to her who now waved at Henry. Having been raised by a woman who believed in manners and politeness above all else, Henry waved back and offered the expected how’d you do.

‘My name’s Henry,’ he said.

‘With an i?’ Sammi said.

‘With a y.’

‘Oh,’ Sammi said. ‘I think you’re very brave, Henry.’

Henry didn’t feel especially brave, but then maybe Sammi-with-an-i knew something he didn’t. She was, after all, a girl, and in Henry’s experience girls were often pretty smart.

‘Why?’

‘Riding the bus all alone,’ Sammi said. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

‘I’m sure you could,’ Henry said.

‘I’m sure she could not,’ Sammi’s mother said. ‘Not just yet anyway. Maybe in a year. Or two.’

‘Where do you live, Henry?’ Sammi said.

Henry thought hard about this for a moment. His mother had always been very clear about giving details such as his name and address to strangers. He had already given up his name far too easily and wasn’t sure if he should hand out his address willy-nilly as well. He decided that, whilst Sammi-with-an-i and her mother were undoubtedly strangers, they were probably good ones.

‘St. John’s Road. The top end.’

Sammi nodded sagely. ‘That’s not too far away,’ she said. ‘You should be getting off soon.’

Henry already knew that, of course, but he nodded his thanks anyway. Sammi’s mum began gathering her bags together.

‘It was very nice meeting you, Henry,’ Sammi’s mum said. ‘Time to go, Sammi.’

Sammi also got to her feet. ‘Goodbye, Henry. I hope you aren’t too lonely,’ she said.

‘Thanks. I’m fine.’

He watched as Sammi and her mother made their way down the bus. As it stopped and the doors opened, they stepped out into the cool November air. Henry tried to make a note of the road they were on and the house they walked towards, but it was already far too dark for him to see. It was a shame. He had liked Sammi but he didn’t think he would see her again.

As the bus pulled away, Henry returned to thinking about that troublesome monster under his bed and how he would be able to get a good look at it. He was convinced that feigning sleep was the best way to go.

Sometimes when Henry was really excited he became a little absent-minded, and the prospect of seeing – maybe even catching – a monster was very exciting indeed. He would probably have to borrow his mum’s camera. It was a Konica Kanpai; she’d won it in a competition in the TV Times and didn’t really get a lot of use out of it. She didn’t have time for photography, but Henry had had a lot of fun with it. It sat on a small tripod and responded to sound so that when it heard a commotion it would simply swivel on the tripod and capture the moment automatically. Henry could already see the images it would capture of him leaping triumphantly on top of the monster as it crept out from under his bed.

A photo would go a long way to convincing his mum that this whole thing hadn’t simply been a trick of his imagination.

‘Everybody off, please,’ the bus driver said.

Henry sat bolt upright and peered around him, all wide-eyed and twitchy like a meerkat. It very quickly became clear that Henry had not only completely missed his stop but had ridden the bus all the way to the terminus.

The driver gestured for everyone to leave the bus. Henry was about to approach him and explain what had happened. He hoped that the bus driver would be a nice sort who would sit him down and tell him that these things happen and it’s cold outside, so why not stay on the bus for ten minutes until the bus heads back the way it came. ‘I’ll let you know when it’s your stop. I won’t let you miss it again,’ Henry imagined the bus driver would say.

As he got closer to the front of the bus, though, he noticed the sweat stains around the armpits of the driver’s off-white shirt. He noticed the half-week’s worth of stubble, the rings under his eyes and the impatient shuffle of the driver’s feet.

He walked straight past the driver and off the bus without saying a word.

Outside, the air was cold and Henry’s breath puffed out in front of him. He imagined he was one of Reverend W.V. Awdry’s troublesome engines (judging by the effect the cold was already having on Henry’s hands, he would soon be Edward the Blue Engine). Henry smiled. Getting caught up in silly daydreams and suddenly finding himself lost at some strange destination was exactly the sort of thing that happened to Awdry’s engines.

The bus station was an ominous-looking place, all brown bricks and low-lighting. The total absence of dustbins meant that people merely tossed their rubbish onto the floor, and the wind swirled one particular pile of litter around into a miniature hurricane a few metres from where Henry stood. The bus station seemed big to Henry. Half of the bays had buses parked in them, and people were milling about trying to find the correct bay for their destination. 

A nearby busker played an acoustic guitar. His playing was mediocre and either the song was particularly old or the singing was particularly poor, because Henry didn’t recognise it. Judging by the tiny collection of coins in the busker’s open guitar case, poor singing was the most likely cause.

Henry was never one to stand still for long, especially on a cold evening, and he thought that there must be a ticket office or an information centre somewhere around here. There usually was at these sorts of places, and he was sure he just needed to do a quick lap before he found it.

It actually only took him half a lap. Just ahead of him was the information centre. The door was wide open and the yellow light reflected out off the yellow walls. He headed towards the open door and peered inside to where two men were talking.

One sat behind a large desk, his hands behind his head and his feet up on the wooden surface in front of him, which already bowed beneath the weight of the enormous stacks of maps, timetables, and visitors’ guide books to which it was home. Henry was about to speak up, but he saw that the other man – the one speaking to the chap with his feet on the desk – was the driver of the bus that Henry had just left. 

Fear gripped Henry. To go in now and explain what had happened would be an admission that he had ridden the bus for longer than he was supposed to. He would have to show his ticket, and when he did, the driver would demand that he paid the extra fare. Then, on top of that, he would still need to get home. Henry turned out his pockets. Empty. 

He turned away from the information centre and gaped around him with his eyes wide and his bottom lip trembling.

‘Poor child,’ a man’s voice said. ‘Looks as though he’s going to cry.’

Henry turned in the direction of the voice and saw a peculiar man sitting hunched on a bench. The top of his head was bald, but the hair around the back and sides grew down to just above his shoulders and was cut to an uneven length throughout. He was beetle-browed with a drooping moustache hanging below a hawk nose. His clothes were filthy and worn, but then so was the man himself. He looked at Henry with sympathy or amusement.

‘I am not,’ Henry said.

The man’s bushy eyebrows nearly leapt from his head and his mouth hung agape, giving his head an extra couple of inches in length.

‘You are not what?’ the man said.

‘Going to cry,’ Henry said.

The man clapped his hands together and laughed. Then he surged to his feet and strode towards Henry. He was tall, around six and a half feet, and impossibly slim. As his long legs carried him from the bench to stand in front of Henry, the young boy saw something hanging from the man’s waist. It looked like a sword.

Before Henry could turn and cry out, the man was before him. He dropped down onto one knee so that he was at eye level with Henry, and he placed one hand on the boy’s shoulder. 

‘Now,’ the man said, ‘how is it that you can see me?’

‘Pardon?’ Henry said.

The man had a muddled accent, the kind that when people hear it, they just can’t place – the kind that simply gets categorised as Miscellaneous Foreign and which makes people smile in such a way that is only half patronising. The kind that Henry’s uncle Eamonn had.

‘It’s a straightforward question,’ the man said. ‘You can clearly see me, as you’re talking to me. I want to know how.’

‘Well, you’re right there,’ Henry said.

‘So I am.’

The man stood up once more and arched his back, stretched his arms up to the sky and shouted, ‘Here I am! I am Barin Devilliers and I am right here!’

 Not one person acknowledged him. Not so much as a single glance was cast in his direction. He waved his arms frantically in front of a short woman who proceeded to walk past him. He turned and knocked a man’s briefcase out of his hand, causing the man to sigh, shake his head, and pick it right back up again, never so much as looking at the culprit.

Finally, the strange man stalked over to where the busker was brutally assaulting a song that Henry did recognise as his mum had been singing it throughout the previous summer; the busker claimed that he couldn’t help falling in love (with you). As he yorped to anyone who would listen (and there were precious few of them) that they could take his hand and take his whole life too, the strange man went one better. He took the busker’s guitar.

The busker blinked and then watched in horror as his guitar was launched right into the path of an approaching bus. Several crunches later, it was nothing more than kindling.

‘Ah, much better,’ the strange man said, as he returned to Henry.

Behind him, the busker asked passers-by if they had seen what had happened. Those that acknowledged him all answered the same: he had tossed his own guitar into the road, and jolly good job, too.

‘They can’t see you,’ Henry said.

‘Correct.’

The strange man slowly dropped down onto one knee again, folding his arms and resting them on his leg.

‘So, I must ask you once again,’ the man said, ‘how is it that you can see me?’

‘I don’t know,’ Henry said.

This whole thing was simply too wonderful – an invisible man that only Henry could see and hear; it was the stuff of dreams. His mind raced with the possibilities available to a boy who was friends with an invisible man. For a start, he would never need to pay for sweets at the school shop again and oh, the pranks he would play! He decided that the very next time he was in maths class and Mrs Patrick brought him to stand up by the chalkboard and demonstrate long division, he would fold his arms across his chest and refuse. Then, just as his teacher berated him for his disobedience, he would merely ‘float’ up in the air and out of the classroom through an open window.

It was all just too good.

‘My name’s Henry,’ he said, enthusiastically.

‘Barin Devilliers,’ the man said again.

Henry extended his hand towards Barin in the way that he had been taught by his mother (manners, manners, manners) and Barin looked at it for a moment before he smiled and took it in his own. Henry shook Barin’s hand excitedly.

‘Nice to meet you, sir,’ Henry said.

‘Believe me, it is far nicer to meet you. You’re the first person that has spoken to me since I arrived here.’

‘At the bus station?’

‘Is that what this is?’ Barin said. He looked around the depressing brick structure with distaste. ‘No not the bus station. Your…world.’

‘I’m sorry that nobody has spoken to you before,’ Henry said. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘Hard to say,’ Barin said. ‘My hair was short and my moustache was neat. There was…’ he paused for a moment, trying to find the right word. ‘Snow.’ 

The last time there had been snow was just after Christmas; and that was nearly a year ago.

‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’ Henry said. ‘I can try and get someone who will talk to you. I bet the police would help.’

‘You really want to help me, Henry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then come with me.’

‘Oh. I can’t do that, I have to be getting home to my mum. I shouldn’t be here. I stayed on the bus too long, you see. I think I might be in trouble.’

Henry looked over his shoulder towards the yellow room where he had seen the bus driver, and was horrified to see the driver look directly at him. He said something to the man behind the desk – though Henry couldn’t hear what that something was – that prompted the man to peer out through the little window in Henry’s direction.

‘You have nothing to fear from those two,’ Barin said. His hand moved to rest on the hilt of the sword belted at his waist.

‘No!’ Henry said. ‘You can’t go around hitting people with swords.’

‘Well, if you don’t want to talk to those men, come with me.’

‘Where?’

‘Not too far. We can walk.’

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m not supposed to even talk to strangers, so I guess I’m not supposed to go off with them either. I’m already in enough trouble tonight.’

‘Listen to me,’ Barin said. ‘Do you think it is a coincidence that you ended up here tonight? You who are the only person in this world who can see and hear me? I’m stuck here, and I don’t know how to get back to my home. So far, you’re my only hope.’

‘But I’m eight.’

‘Yes, it really is most dissatisfactory,’ Barin said.

Henry didn’t exactly understand what was going on, but the man seemed desperate, and it was clear that Henry was the only person who could help him. Even so, if he was to walk off with a stranger his mum would go spare. He didn’t even want to think about what Eamonn would say.

He looked back over towards the bus driver, who stared back at him for a minute and then started walking towards him.

‘Hey, kid,’ he said. ‘What you doin’ here?’

Something in Henry screamed in panic, and he turned back to face Barin. 

‘Will you help me?’ Barin said.

Chapter Three

How to Catch a Monster by Henry Whistler

For sergeant Trick Hammond, there was a sense of déjà vu about this whole thing. Chief Inspector Simpson had placed the file on his desk that morning, and Hammond had idly thumbed at it whilst he knocked back his morning coffee (black, one sugar) and ate his standard two hot buttered crumpets.

‘Thought this one might interest you, Patrick,’ Simpson said. ‘When you’ve finished stuffing your face, of course.’

Hammond sucked butter from his thumb and forefinger before opening the file. It was a missing persons report: young boy, had been missing since the night before last. Hammond wasn’t sure why the Chief thought it would be of any special interest to him. Then he saw the name of the missing boy.

Eight years ago, Hammond had been a fresh-faced police constable working the beat with one of his new colleagues, PC Buckle. The two PCs had been near the end of their shift and Buckle was already winding down. He had sat on a short wall and lit a cigarette, and that was when Hammond had heard the scream.

He had raced off towards the sound whilst Buckle sucked down another couple of drags on his cigarette before crushing it underfoot and rising to his feet with a frustrated sigh.

The scene Hammond had arrived at was one he would never forget. Four men lay dead. Three of them had been wearing dark hooded robes and the fourth had been a smartly-dressed man in his mid-twenties. There had been a great deal of blood; the smartly-dressed man had practically been disembowelled.

If that scene had been one of the most grisly that Hammond had witnessed in his entire time on the force, then the next thing he noticed would be the strangest, given the context. An oddly-dressed older man sat and cradled a baby. He had a foreign accent and struggled at first to make himself understood.

From him they were eventually able to ascertain the name of one of the deceased – Stephen Whistler – and that the baby was Whistler’s infant son, Henry. The man, whom they soon learned was called Eamonn, told a story of how the robed men had attacked Whistler and Eamonn had arrived on the scene in time to save the baby but not the man.

PC Buckle was instantly suspicious of Eamonn. He had even gone so far as to write up in his official report that he was convinced Eamonn had murdered all four of the dead men. Hammond was less sure.

Eamonn had, indeed, been treated as a suspect for some time, though neither PC was privy to any of the interviews or much more of the case work than was necessary. In the end, Eamonn had been found innocent of any wrongdoing, and the case was closed as a terribly unfortunate instance of mugging gone badly awry.

As Hammond sat at his desk looking at a recent photo of Henry Whistler and read the familiar names of Helen Whistler and Eamonn Michelsson, he wondered at the cruelness of the world in inflicting more pain on that family.

Hammond picked up the file and chased down Chief Inspector Simpson.

‘Chief,’ he said.

Simpson looked at his watch. ‘That was even quicker than I was expecting. What can I do for you, Sergeant?’

‘You want me to run with this?’

‘I’d say you’re the best man for the job. God knows that family could use a friendly face right now.’

‘Chief,’ Hammond said. ‘Have they had a visit yet?’

‘PC Norriss took the call. He’s done the initial questions and called in to talk her through procedure yesterday evening. No contact today though, which is why you should be on your way over there now instead of prattling on to me.’

‘Understood.’

‘Good,’ Simpson said. ‘Take a PC with you to write up the report; someone who won’t object to just keeping their mouth shut and doing the grunt work.’

Hammond nodded, turned on his heel and strode out of the office.

***

‘Can I get you a cup of tea, Sergeant Hammond, Officer…?’ Helen said.

 ‘PC Buckle,’ Hammond corrected her. ‘We’re fine for tea at the moment, ta. And, please, call me Trick. Everyone else does.’

Buckle, who had visibly brightened at the mention of a cup of tea, slumped his shoulders and scowled like a stroppy teenager.

‘Of course. Trick,’ she said. ‘I remember you. You were the constable who found Stephen. And Eamonn of course.’

The older man was standing behind Helen’s chair, he placed one hand tenderly on her shoulder. Hammond thought Eamonn looked a damned sight better now than the last time they had met. His hair was no longer wild and unkempt, spilling down to his shoulders, and his beard was no longer the thick mess it had been. Now his hair was cropped short and his beard was neat and tidy. He wore ‘normal’ clothes rather than the strange battered garb he’d been wearing previously.

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Hammond said. ‘We spoke that first night at the station.’

‘Yes,’ Helen said. ‘You fetched me a coffee and you calmed Henry. You were very kind.’

Hammond dismissed the compliment with a flick of his hand that said it was nothing ma’am, just doing the job they pay me for and it was my pleasure to do it.

He looked down at the notes he’d been given, skimming through the pages. He’d already read them of course (twice, as it goes) but he found it helped him to focus in these situations if he had a prop to play with. It sometimes reassured those being interviewed as well; showed that the police had already started doing some work and were well on top of things.

‘So,’ Hammond said. ‘I see that Officer Norriss has already gone through some initial questions with you,’ he continued to flick through his notes. ‘Are there any recent photos of Henry we can have?’

Helen went to rise from her seat, but Eamonn stopped her. ‘I’ll take care of that, Helen. You sit and talk to Sergeant Hammond,’ he said. ‘How many pictures do you need, Sergeant?’

‘Well, the more photos we have, the better, really. Four or five should be fine for now. Also – this might sound strange – the cuter the better. If we need to put pictures out for publicity later down the line, well, sometimes the public respond better to a cute photograph.’

Eamonn nodded and left the lounge. Helen just nodded to nobody in particular.

Hammond went over the basics with Helen, confirming that she had been at work and Henry had spent the evening at Eamonn’s house, that Eamonn had taken him as far as the bus (and by the way he’ll have to confirm all of this with Eamonn too, later. Just procedure), and that was the last time they had seen or heard from him. That had been at around seven thirty p.m., meaning that Henry had now been missing for – Hammond looked at his watch – just shy of forty hours.

‘Well, the good news,’ Hammond said, ‘is that we know the route and time the bus was running to. I’ve sent some of my officers to track down the driver and I’m putting out a call to the public for information from anyone who was on that bus. Someone must have noticed a young boy travelling on his own.’

With any missing persons case, the first few hours after the report were crucial, and the first forty eight critical. The police have much to think about in this time, quickly eliminating the possibility that the person has simply run away. The current edict from above was a statement which said simply: If in doubt, think murder.

Eamonn returned with half a dozen recent photos of Henry. Sergeant Hammond quickly flicked through them and pronounced them to be perfect. He then explained that he needed to ask Eamonn the same questions he had just asked Helen. Behind him, PC Buckle groaned audibly and stepped outside for a cigarette. Hammond shook his head as the PC closed the front door behind him.

‘You know,’ Hammond said. ‘I think I could go for that cup of tea now.’

‘Leave it to me,’ Eamonn said, mostly to Helen, before asking Hammond, ‘PC Buckle too?’

‘No, he’ll be fine.’

***

After all of the questions had been asked, Trick shook hands with Helen and Eamonn and made to leave. ‘I’m going to make my report back to my superiors this afternoon,’ he said, ‘and I’m going to push strongly for a public statement. I really think that someone on that bus will be able to help us, but unless we get the message out, they won’t know to come forward.’

Helen nodded. She had been understandably subdued throughout this whole thing – Hammond thought she was trying damned hard to hold herself together but it would just take one gust of wind to blow her apart. He knew to tread carefully. It was a difficult balance to get right; too gentle an approach can mean that vital information is missed, but push too hard and Helen could break, along with the relationship between her and Hammond. Eamonn was vital; he would have to be the person to get Helen thinking straight.

‘I’m going to need your permission to make this public,’ Hammond said. He was talking to Helen, but he looked at Eamonn.

‘I’m sure that’s fine,’ Eamonn said. ‘Helen?’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course. That’s right. You do whatever you have to do to find my boy, Sergeant Hammond.’

‘Trick, please.’ Hammond picked up his folder of notes, slid the photos of Henry inside, and moved to the door. ‘And you’re sure you’re happy for my officers to search your home?’

‘Of course, that’s fine. Anything we can do to help,’ Helen said.

With that, Trick Hammond and PC Buckle left Eamonn and Helen to do whatever it was that parents and guardians did in these terrible situations. In this particular instance, Helen merely sobbed into Eamonn’s chest from the moment Hammond and Buckle left until the moment the officers arrived to search through her house. At which point she wiped away the tears, straightened her dress, and popped the kettle on for tea.

Manners, manners, manners.

***

The next morning, Sergeant Hammond prepared Helen and Eamonn for the news conference. Several of the regional press were gathered, and three of the nationals had picked up on the story as well. Hammond used to date a senior journalist at the Daily Telegraph and they had remained good friends so, with permission from Helen, he had put in a call to give her the basics on the case and see if she could arrange for some coverage in the paper. She had been happy to help.

Hammond talked Helen and Eamonn through which papers were here and what he expected them to ask. He explained that Chief Inspector Simpson would make a brief announcement explaining why the press had been gathered, he would give some details of what they currently knew, he would urge any witnesses to come forward with information, and he would introduce Helen to the press. Helen would then read the statement that Hammond and Eamonn had helped her to prepare.

After Helen read her statement, Chief Inspector Simpson would open up for the press to ask questions. Hammond did his best to allay any fears that Helen and Eamonn might have had regarding the treatment the press would give them – the reporters had all been vetted.

Hammond saw the familiar face of Jessica Mylotte towards the back of the room. She had long blonde hair, a smile sometimes misread as a smirk, a grey power suit

Reviews for Monsters of Elsewhere

[4everfanatical · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love me a good fantasy and this debut novel did not disappoint.

It follows the story of Henry at various points in his life and his adventures with monsters in another world, Elsewhere. I found the book chock full of some brilliant dry humour, and a lot of hilarious comments about facets of everyday British life. Humour aside, there was also serious bits too, some gory bits and absolutely loads of fantastical adventure. I really enjoyed reading this book.

There are loads of characters that the reader is introduced to and I loved the way in which all their individual stories converged into one for a load of interesting twists and turns in the story.

If you want a fairly fun, lighthearted read with a load of British dry humour (with the occasional serious and gory bit) and an epic fantasy tale, then give this book a try; I did and wasn't disappointed.




****Disclaimer*** I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads - all the opinions and views stated in my review are entirely my own.