Just Mo (Part One)

Chapter 1

Panting hard, rounding the corner Mo thought he’d lost them. Grimswalde’s gang had been chasing him for over two hours. He meandered to a stop and collapsed into a breathless heap. Angry at himself for getting involved with them, he had pushed himself hard. The streets had flown by and he now stood out of town, standing in front of the derelict old school. Matron would be angry with him. Mo looked over his shoulder and distantly saw various items thrown into the air behind him. Probably Grimswalde having a fit at losing Mo. Distant shouts confirmed his verdict that the gang was far away. Mo redirected his attention to the school. There was no way he could get back to Livermoore before Nightfall came out. Especially with Grimswalde waiting for him. Nightfall. Mo shivered. No-one had ever survived outside when Nightfall was out. He swore. There were no other buildings around. He’d have to camp out in the school.

Keeping close to the middle of neglected road (in case of any unseen fears in the shadows) Mo set off towards the school. It was an impressive structure with huge arching assemblies, which could be seen through the large hole in the main hall’s wall. Vast windows bowed to the roof and lonesome statues stood protruding out on either side. The menacing gates rose with a recalcitrant glare while small animal skeletons lay strewn about the ground. Mo was unsettled by it all. He gingerly pushed open the gates and peered into the main hall. Seeing nothing of interest, he walked towards the many hallways leading to other parts of the school. He checked each corridor for promise, coughing at the dust that he had aroused, but not a single ray of light shined down any of them.

A shout reminded him that Grimswalde was still on his tail so he hurriedly picked a corridor at random and set off at a brisk pace down it.

“ERIFUHERFOIEURFHIERUFHUIOERUFHIERUFHEIRHFIEURHFIEURHFIEHR” Was the sound that penetrated Mo’s hearing as he hid in the dilapidated old classroom. This was bad. Grimswalde must have let out his massive pet dog, Snooty. There was no one in the whole of Livermoore who hadn’t heard of Snooty (or should it be said, heard him). His bark could be heard for miles and his breath could, if you stood close enough, make a young man vomit. But, quite frankly, Mo wasn’t scared of any of this. What he was scared of was the fact that Snooty was always covered in cotton (Mo’s phobia). No one knew why Snooty was covered in cotton except Grimswalde, and no one dared to risk asking him about it either.

Mo was absolutely terrified. Recently he had been having nightmares about Snooty chasing him in the dark and now it was coming to life. Starting to feel a panic attack coming on, Mo got up and began pacing around the classroom. If he had a panic attack now he wouldn’t be able to run from Grimswalde.

Mo froze. He’d heard a sound. It was probably nothing, he was being paranoid. But, he heard it again. Faint panting quickly getting louder. He definitely wasn’t being paranoid. Moving slowly for cover Mo went over all the possible ways he could make it out alive. It wasn’t looking good. A loud noise caused him to whip his head round just in time to see Snooty’s face grinning at him as his humongous body crashed into the end of the hallway. In a flash Mo dived for cover, but his foot snagged on an old chair. He was instead sent hurtling towards a dusty, timeworn old whiteboard.

In an instant everything went into slow-motion. He could see Snooty lunging at him with his jaws wide open, gaping at him like a basking shark. He could see the ancient, rickety chair spinning though the air at a snail’s pace, leaving a trail of dust spiralling in complex patterns. Even the rest of his body was moving in slow-motion. It seemed that only his head was moving at normal speed. Then Mo had a few thoughts. No. 1 was that for some reason he wasn’t finding this the slightest bit unnatural, No. 2

was that his head must be looking like an animation gone wrong and No. 3 was that he was feeling abnormally happy.

Well, this is the end. At least I lived a good life.

Then, normal speed returned and Mo slammed into the whiteboard.

Blankness…

Chapter 2

The first thing Mo noticed when he woke up was that he hadn’t been torn to pieces by Snooty. The second was that he was tied to a totem-pole with strange creatures dancing around him.

Mo smiled. It was slightly comical the way that they looked like chanting sacks o' flour with arms and legs. His smile disappeared as he realised the chanting was a lot more hostile than comical. It sounded if they were singing some kind of torture song.

Double time mistake machine,

Scream until your lips are clean,

Inside your mind we'll find the key,

Open up and we shall see,

It hurts until we stop,

You'll keep on bleeding till it clots,

In time, in time we'll deck your soul,

Your memories shall make us whole.

Sounding like shrill cats, the creatures screamed this demented hymn over and over again making Mo’s vision blurry. Suddenly, his senses went on alert and all blurriness faded. The totem-pole had started moving and let out a groan. In seconds the chanting fell silent. He felt the bark rolling like muscles on a body-builder’s back, he heard the creaking and scraping of the totem-pole moving itself, he smelt the dry, dead wood quickly become green and alive again, but he couldn’t see anything about the totem-pole. Blind terror started clouding his mind as he began writhing and twisting to get out of his bindings. What would in the world would happen to him if...? If… If whatever might happen to him happened to him.

Then, he got a flash of insight. His Bowie knife! He could cut himself free. Shifting to get his knife out Mo could just about make out wooden limbs stretching out from the body of the totem-pole. This made him panic and that panic strangely gave him motivation. In one smooth movement Mo brought out his knife and cut the bindings. As soon as he touched the ground the sacks o' flour blinked and then in what seemed to be some mutual, telepathic agreement, called ‘bundle’ and jumped on him. However, they only weighed about a kilo or so, so he could throw them away easily. After chucking them all off Mo started to sprint. So terrified was he of the totem-pole-thing, he sprinted like he’d never sprinted before. He ran so far the dense shrubbery changed to towering pine trees and he soon found himself in a small clearing that was sheltered from the wind. Deciding to rest here Mo settled down panting against a tree. It was only then that he realised that one of the sacks o’ flower was sitting on his head. Mo stood up in a flash, anger bubbling up as he remembered the terror that the sacks o’ flower put him through. Mo picked up the sack o’ flower and prepared to throw it in the bushes. Then he froze. He’d heard a voice.

“I wouldn’t be doing that if I were you”, it had been a long time since Mo had heard a voice.

“Who is it?” Mo replied, voice hoarse, Bowie knife drawn.

“You don’t be wanting to throw that away,” the voice said ignoring the question. “That be a Geriatric Catermauler offering. If you be throwing that away the Catermaulers will be seeing that as a disrespect to the Geriatric Catermaulers and will be hunting you down until you’re dead. I be talking Non-Geriatric Catermaulers. You don’t want to be messing with them.”

“What on Earth are you talking about?” That was when he saw the face grinning at him through the pine needles.

“Ah, Matey. This ain’t being no Earth-place… This be the Badlands.”

Chapter 3

“So you’re telling me, the reason I came here, was because this mighty dragon has been terrorising the lands for thousands of years, it had finally started dying but then it laid an egg which typically was indestructible. So then your people sent a magical warrior out to get rid of this egg. He succeeded in getting it and then banished to the area between galaxies by using his magic powers. The dragon, which was outraged at having its baby taken from it decided to start randomly opening portals in the hope that the egg might float back in; and that I came here was about a one in 432 trillion chance”. Mo and Sonny had sat down on a log together and started talking to each other with Ruben (named this as he dark curly hair which reminded Mo of a friend back home), the Geriatric Catermauler trophy sitting on Mo’s head.

“Yup.” Replied Sonny (Mo’s new acquaintance) “Bit of a mouthful, ain’t it.”

“Yeah.” Mo mumbled distantly. “But, wait. How did you get me to trust you like that? You’re a complete stranger to me.” He said suddenly on high alert.

“Ah, laddy. That be for me to know and you to be finding out. Don’t worry, I won’t be telling that Grimswalde friend of yours that you’re here, even though there be quite a high bounty on your head.”

At this Mo stood, mouth agape.

“How in this weird world did you know that? What are you?” Sonny smiled, noting the fact that Mo had reverted from using ‘Earth’ to ‘this weird world’.

“Well, I be, among other things, what you would be calling a savant. There be nothing that I don’t be knowing. For instance, on your planet there be a woman called Celia who be about to be giving birth to a child, who she wants to be going on to call Johnny.” Mo carried on gaping at him. At this Sonny sighed and said, “Yeah, I be knowing it’s weird. My family kicked me out of my home because they were being scared of me.” Hearing this, Mo softened. He could relate to this.

“And exactly how long ago did your family kick you out?”

“About a week ago.” As he heard this Mo remembered how lonely he had been in those first few months.

“My parents also kicked me out. But it wasn’t because I was a savant or I was powerful. It was because…”

Before Mo could finish his sentence he was cut off by Ruben, who was screeching, pulling Mo’s hair and pointing towards the trees. Sonny’s eyes widened.

“Mo, we have to be running now. A Rendann be after us. They be responsible for monitoring whatever be coming through the portals.”

Mo’s answer to this was a distressed “Whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt!!!!”

“Shut up. Now do as I be saying. Throw Ruben up into the air and shout ‘Miresa Ruben’. I can’t be doing this, as he be your trophy.”

Again, “Whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttt!!!!”

“Just be doing it!”

Then Mo remembered that he didn’t want to die and if he wanted any chance of not dying then he would have to do what Sonny said. He quickly did as asked and to his amazement Ruben transformed into something he had only heard of in legends. It was an Ethosien. No longer was Ruben a Geriatric Catermauler Trophy the size of Mo’s hand. He was now at least four times the size of an elephant, as well as having thick hairy arms that reached down to the ground. His giant maw was filled with sharp tusks the same size as Mo’s torso and his arms and feet were both tipped with ferocious claws. But the oddest part of this new side of Ruben was the fact that his muscled body was covered in glowing engravings. They shone like his beating heart was the radiant sun itself. Ruben then let out a piercing shriek and charged off in the direction in which he had first pointed.

Mo turned to Sonny with a look of wonder on his face. “If we make it out alive, you have to tell me about this whole Catermauler business. All these surprises are doing my head in.” Sonny grinned and started to run with Mo in hot pursuit. But, there was really no need as at that moment Ruben came back into the clearing with a giant rat in his mouth.

“Wow”, said Sonny,” I been knowing they were ugly, black blood, scaly tails, clawed noses and whatnot, but… Eeeurgh”

Mo looked at him quizzically, “I thought you knew everything”

“I only be knowing what happens, where and when, I ain’t got the mind to see what things look like.”

“Then you should have known that the giant rat thing with multiple tails and noses was coming”, Mo was genuinely confused now.

“No, Dummy. I can’t be seeing into the future. Tis virtually impossible. My brain would have to be the size of an Atlanticore for that.”

“What’s an Atlanticore?”

“Tis a giant blue scorpion that floats.” Sonny sighed, “You really ain’t knowing to do nothin aren't you?”

“No, not really…” Then Mo frowned, “Wait, why did you stick with me. You could have died, but you still stayed.”

“Ah, well…The truth is. I been really, really, really lonely.”

With a sad smile Mo replied, “I know how it feels. To be alone. Nothing can compare with it. When you know no one is on your side, it properly hurts.”

Sonny sighed and no one said anything for a few moments. 

Quickly, to break the silence Mo said, "So, tell me all about this Geriatric Catermauler stuff."

Sonny smiled and licked his lips, "Well... Basically the Geriatric Catermaulers are being exiles from their clan because they ain't young and strong anymore. They then are being sent out to camps where the try to be proving themselves to be getting back in. They do this by the rituals and spells of Catermaulers and whatnot."

"Ahh, that still doesn't make any sense."

Sonny chuckled and said, "Har har, very funny. Anyway I best be getting miself some kip. We got a big day of walking to be having ourselves done tomorrow."

"M'kay", Mo mumbled, already sleepy."G'Night"

"Night"

                                                       End Of Part One :)