Firy of the Christmas Trees (part 3)

The only problem with a miraculous, brilliantly designed super weapon is that if someone- certainly not Steve, because he can't put a foot wrong- forgets to plug it in every week, it takes a good two hours before we can rush into action and save the world. So, what do a group of twenty year olds, waiting for a super weapon, do in their spare time?
"Christmas Tree 101." Professor Wendall J Orchard, the Pine Resistance's chief scientific advisor and purportedly responsible adult, announced. "Tree's take between 6 to 10 years to grow to the 4 or 5 foot height we've come to expect."
"Yeah," I said, "but there were some as tall as me, and they take 15 years to grow."
"They can't have been growing undetected." Steve pointed out.
He was right. I and Suzy had printed off fake council identification and then driven to every single Christmas Tree Farm in the entirety of the North. We had then had the great fun of pulling a section of needles from each tree on every farm and putting them in separate plastic bags, matching numbers on tags hanging to the trees to the numbers written on the bags. Then Orchard had carried a collection of tests that I had pretended to be interested in and, receiving the results, I, Suzy, David and a large chainsaw returned to the Christmas Tree Farms, all 39 farms, and David used the chainsaw to deal with any trees that had came up as positive for possessed genes. Unlucky Steve and Elise, however. They had to do the same with all Tree Farms shipping out to places in the north. Although, I imagine they probably enjoyed the trip abroad. Most students spend their summers drinking, partying and whatever it is cool people do. The Gang and I spend our summers cataloguing Christmas Trees. Still, we did find some very nice motorway cafes.
"What do you think then?" Suzy asked. "Some sort of miraculous new tree species?"
"Or illegal growers." David suggested.
We all looked at him.
"Illegal growers?" I frowned.
"Illegal growers?" Suzy exclaimed in distaste.
"Illegal growers?" Steve demanded.
"Producteur illégales?" Elise cried.
"Illegal growers." David attempted to justify himself.
"Illegal growers!" Professor Orchard cried, grinning. "Illegal Christmas Tree Growers! Imagine, drug dealers set up in a house to grow heroin or whatever your stereotypical drug of choice is."
"Calpol." I interjected to a range of quizzical looks.
"Now, let's say last year, when those big drug raids were going on, the dealers think: 'Ah! What do we do if they raid us?' so they go off to B&Q/Homebase/your generic Christmas Tree shop and buy a shedload. Because shops start selling them so early, they're on sale in October, and because it was before we began investigating trees, they get their hands on a couple of the habentes amients. Growing the trees, the entire stock becomes possessed and then, for some reason, they attack now."
"We're fighting Paranormal Christmas Trees that are high on drugs?" I asked.
"Grass, weed, why not Christmas Tree?" He grinned.
Once that was cleared up, we ended up sat around a table playing cards, because I always carry a pack with me. It's so I can make the joke, "I'm decked out with cool stuff!"

Eventually the charging was done. The led on the plug had flickered off and the many extension cords were to be rid of. David grabbed the long chain hanging from the ceiling and gave it a tug. The corrugated door rolled open and revealed the large canal path outside. "Let's do this." I cried.
Steve, the leader, pressed down on the acceleration and the ultimate weapon rolled forwards, out onto the river bank. We turned and drove up the large slope onto the road, turning. We had considered a tank, but our budget didn't stretch very far. Instead, we ended up with a pale blue Volvo 240 Estate. Salvaged from an actual tank, a 120mm M256 Smooth Bore Cannon was strapped to the roof, connected to a complicated firing system which had taken David many an hour to build. Sticking out of either sides were sawn off barrel toting rifles, loaded with 50 calibre bullets. A couple of guns had been connected to the bonnet, activated by pulling a rope looped around the triggers, and in the centre was a flame thrower. When we built a weapon, we built a weapon. (Which in hindsight is a stupid phrase, because if we hadn't built a weapon, we wouldn't have built the weapon to suggest we had in the first place. The English Language. I really don't know how I cope!)
We drove up the ramp and onto the road, the makeshift tank accelerating fast. Steve grabbed the radio transceiver and shouted, his voice amplified through the speakers on the roof, "Ready or not, trees! Here we come!"

Firy of the Christmas Trees (part 2)

"Steve! Get out quickly!" I cried, leaping back into the crash car as the Tree's roared towards me.
He groaned slightly, stretching in his confinement. "Can't I have another five minutes, Duncan?"
"No." I said. "We're about to be ripped apart by overly evil Christmas Trees, this isn't exactly the time for lying in. You too Elise. Quickly!"
We climbed out of the other side of the car as the Tree's came back for another turn, shredding the section of the car in which I and Steve had been slumped merely seconds earlier. We ran across the road towards the curb, leaping into the bushes and running until we came to a fence. My head, far above most others, stuck out of the bushes so I could see the Paranormal Christmas Tree's milling about, very pleased by the destruction they'd caused the car. As was the scene in most apocalypses, there was already a car on fire, sat just beyond our's. Screams played on the wind and wide spread disaster was beginning to set in. I think I could see a couple of smashed windows in the distance.
I turned back to Steve and Elise. "Right, somehow the Tree's have managed to amass their troops in such haste we haven't noticed. We need to get to the lockup so we can get the ultimate weapons and stop them before it's too late."
Steve looked at me. "I'm sorry, who died and put you in charge?"
This would be the point in the bestselling Scandinavian book series where I pulled a gun, shot him and then said, "You did!" But this is a poorly written exploit in a genre I don't think actually exists so I actually replied, "Sorry, Steve. What's the plan?"
"Right, here's the plan: we can't face this lot unless we have the ultimate weapons, so we need to get to the lockup to retrieve them and save the world."
"Not so much the world," Elise pointed out, "As the entirety of Accrington."
"It means the world to me, goddammit!" Steve cried.
"You need to get your priorities straight." I said.
"To the lockup!" Cried Steve, and we thundered through the overgrowth towards the lockup.

About halfway there, my phone began to ring. We hid in a bus shelter, not an easy thing to do when you reflect the Christmas Tree's were marching up and down the road and the Bus Shelters were all transparent, and I answered. "Hello, Duncan of the Paranormal Christmas Tree Agency speaking."
"Duncan, it's Suzy."
"Who is it?" Demanded Steve.
"Suzy." I told him.
"Why's she calling you?" He demanded back.
"Why are you calling me?" I relayed to her.
"Because I thought you may want to know we're heading to the lockup?"
"They're going to the lockup." I told Steve, holding my hand over the microphone at the bottom.
"No, I mean why isn't she calling me?" He demanded.
"He want's to know why you didn't call him." I told Suzy.
"Tell him that he left his phone at home."
"Look, I'm just going to put it on Speaker Phone." I said.
"NO!" They both screamed. I looked at Steve for explanation.
"The Christmas Tree's may be listening to our plans."
"And I'm sure if they are," I said, "They'll be more than distracted by the way we look like an odd version of the Apprentice to be eavesdropping."
"No means no, Duncan." Steve protested.
"Fair enough." I replied. "But I'm just saying, I doubt Wild Christmas Tree's have ears."
"We do actually." Cried the Christmas Tree's who'd sneaked up on us.
"Leg it!" I cried.
"I'm sorry," Steve asked, "Who's in charge here?"
"Priorities, Steve,  priorities."
We legged it out of the bus shelter and ran down the street towards the Aqueduct. Passing under it, we ran further and further until the glorious sight of Oswald and Twistle Mills crept over the horizon and we knew we'd made it. The Hoard's of Tree's were far behind us by the time we rushed into the Lockup on the bank. Suzy, David and the Professor were already inside as we barged through the doors and we all gave each other high fives, celebrating the fact we had survived so far. But the hardest was to come.
Next, we were to take on the Firy of the Christmas Trees!
(See what I did there?)

Firy of the Christmas Trees

"Where's the Professor?" Cried Suzy, running into the front room with her collected coursework gripped tightly in one hand.
"Nutjob's Anonymous." I replied, staring intently at the game of Operation that I and Steve had been playing for the last twenty minutes.
"Not again!" Suzy cried. "People are going to start believing he's one of the Nutjob's, when he actually runs it!"
"Suzy, he may run it, but he almost certainly is one of the Nutjob's." I said. "Why do you want to know anyway?"
"He said he would have a look at my coursework before I handed it in."
"And you're wondering why he's suddenly spending so much time at his Youth Clubs for Lunatics? Reading your work would be worse than being locked in an asylum!" Steve cried.
"Rude." She said and slumped down to the sofa.
"Unfortunately, that's life." He grinned, as I reminded him for the twentieth time that it was now his go.
"Alright, alright." He chimed, impatiently. He reached for the Butterflies in the Stomach but Suzy jumped forwards and grasped his shoulders with her hands, causing the red nose to flare into life.
"Suzy!" He cried, turning to her irritated. "I was almost going to win!" He turned to me. "It doesn't count, because it's unfair."
Suzy grasped his shoulders again. "Unfortunately, that's life."

The Pine Resistance- aka the Paranormal Christmas Tree Agency to anybody with taste- was a year old that month. It was also a year since a possessed branch had jumped out of the undergrowth and attempted to strangle me to death. My neck had almost fully healed, but I still had to go to the hospital occasionally. We'd discovered a lot about the Christmas Tree's in the year and had managed to devise the perfect weapons against them. Sadly, because of the law- that pesky thing! It always get's in the way- we weren't allowed to keep these weapons in the house, rather in a dull storage facility about half a mile away, which wouldn't be too useful in the event of a widespread apocalypse.
Although I imagine that in the case of a widespread apocalypse, we may be slightly more concerned about the widespread apocalypse rather than the bus journey to the weapon storage.

As I said, I still had to go to the hospital occasionally, and the day after the Event of the Operation Sabotage was one of those days I had to visit. Steve, the only one of us who owned a car, offered me a trip and I accepted, but then began to wish I hadn't when I discovered his girlfriend, Elise O'Hallain, was tagging along with us. I had nothing against Elise, she was a suitably pleasant human being, but the way in which she and Steve flirted in varying languages was simply quite irritating. It was like having a vacuum cleaner's nozzle forced up one of your nostrils then turned on and off repetitively whilst some terrible music- such as Black Lace's Agadoo- played forever as a hideous remix from every single corner of a room painted a sickening shade of orange. Actually, looking back at that comparison, I can tell why my parent's volunteered me for counselling when I was six. The car came to a stop in the hospital car park and Steve almost had a heart attack at the price of the parking tickets. I told him that a hospital would be the perfect place to have one. He looked at me with all the amazement of a sedated goat. The three of us hopped up the curving stairs and passed the barrage of ambulances to get to the big entrance. I waved at the receptionist who knew me quite well by now and she told me that Doctor Rasheed was ready for me. I went through and met him, sitting down on the uncomfortable chair to the side of his desk. He had a nearly bold head and a flower of grey hair expelling from the corners of his head. He asked me some questions and then began to squeeze my neck. "Has it been hurting?" He asked.
"Yes." I replied.
"What does it feel like?"
"Someone taking his fingers and squeezing my neck twice a month."
"You are a very sarcastic man."
"Thank you." I smiled.
"It wasn't a compliment."

Once he'd finished causing me pain and asking me if I had experienced any, I was released with some painkillers and told that I shouldn't return. I asked what I should do if my foot fell off. Rasheed told me it was unlikely and left me at that. I found Elise and Steve in the waiting room, flirting and so I held my hands over my ears as I told them we were ready to go. We climbed into the blue Citroen Saxo, perching on the particularly comfortable covered seating and once more I couldn't help but wonder what the point of having seat covers was. Out of annoyance, I finally asked.
Steve, looking at me through the mirror with the pity in his eyes, replied, "To stop the seats from getting dirty."
I looked at him scrupulously. "But what's the point, because you're never going to see the seats if they're always covered."
He was just about to give me a reply when the car rolled and the roof and windows crushed slightly. There was a pattering blinded to me slightly by the throbbing in my mind and ears but it slowly got louder. I swung myself around and used both legs to kick out one of the windows, three, four, five times. The window smashed and I crawled out and then instantly felt myself with fear. For storming over the car, as furious as the agents of the Devil they were, were a hoard of Paranormal Christmas Trees. And they all turned to face me.

Mothballs: Iron Path to the Black Forest (part 4)

It seemed as if every carriage on the train had been occupied by White Hoods, armed with thin hammers. With almighty swings, the White Hoods smashed the windows and picked up large pieces of machinery. Spinning barrels firing storms of projectiles sat on tripods, resting on the jagged frame that looked out at the darkness engulfing the forest. When the first Hood pulled their trigger, it was nothing but the ricker rack of gunfire for the rest of the night.
The Laurisden's were falling through the air, the Obscured Man's carriage far out of sight by the time they tumbled into the icy slush of the sloped sides. They rolled through the sludge, falling into a wiry net of brambles. They crushed a bushel of blackberries, spilling the inky juice through the snow. From a far, it may have appeared they'd been shot and killed, but they were very much alive. The three of them rolled to a stop and began to sink slowly into the new patch of snow they'd landed on, their bodies numbing in the cold. Bullets flew above them, pulling chips from the trees, but Aksel- who had studied the route the train took quite intently- knew any second the train would dip, allowing for more accurate fire. "We've got move into the forest. It's safer."
Septimus pulled himself up, Verity too, and they began to trek inside the forest, ducking beneath the spray of lead projectiles. The ground was tricky beneath their feet, at first crackly as broken leaves were finished off but then softer as their feet broke through the snow and the ice into the slippery mud  that lay beneath. The trees grew taller above them as they ran, their empty branches still blocking the last dregs of sunlight from the nights sky. The Laurisden's ran quickly through the dying light, kicking up globules of snow and leaf, scratching themselves as they raced through a bare bush, luckily not finding any bears inside it. It seemed to stretch on forever, the bush that is, until it spat them out. In front of a new pieces of railway.
The train raced in front of them, whipping up leaves and plastering the trees and bush behind them with bullet holes. The Laurisden's had dropped to the floor to escape the wrath, but they could feel it's rumbling penetrating the ground below them. The train seemed to go on forever until it disappeared beyond the trees, and the Laursiden's continued across the ever quivering lines and into the forest beyond. They delved further into the Black Forest, searching for separation from the loud clacking of the train, but it always seemed to catch up with them on tracks that Aksel didn't know existed. They'd passed endless tracks and dropped to the snow laid floor so many times that they were dripping wet and freezing, every inch of their dirtied skin prickled with the customary goose bumps that seem to travel with the cold like pilot fish with sharks. They collapsed and felt the snow beneath them soak in their clothes, freezing their skin. The three of them sunk down as the snow melted beneath their non existent body heat. A sharp feeling etched into Verity's shoulder, causing her to give a sudden scream.  Aksel and Septimus hurried over as she moved out of the way. There was nothing, no- what was that? It looked like a thin plate made of snow. And then it began to quiver and rumble, as vibrations raced through it. Little sheets of snow fell off and suddenly the train was in sight. The Laurisden's leap over the line and ran into the open beyond, their tired bodies struggling to carry on. The explosions of firing bullets remained present in their ears at all times and then suddenly Aksel screamed, falling to the floor. Liquid gushed from his right shoulder as he squirmed in pain. The snow was red, and it was't with squashed blackberry.

The Laurisden's will return

Mothballs: Iron Path to the Black Forest (part 3)

"Carriage 15!" Cried Septimus. He straightened his useless goggles and jumped down, Aksel ready to follow behind him. They landed with a thump and Septimus instantly drew his spanner and began to work on the door. He levered it around and around and then the handle fell out as the door clicked open. He pushed it open and stepped in. Aksel, wishing the freezing cold good riddance, walked in and then saw why his brother had frozen before him. A hoard of White Hooded Men, the carriers of the dead from Madame Bazarian's Freak Show, held guns, two facing towards the brothers and the third placed directly against Verity's head. "You let her go!" Aksel screamed, but was silenced immediately by the unwavering pose of the gun.
"Or what, young Mr Laurisden?" Asked a voice from the back of the room. He shivered. It was that of the Obscured Man, the voice of the devil incarnate to the Laurisdens. Aksel searched the room for the source of the voice and saw it was emerging from behind a straw veil facade in the far corner. Flickering bulbs in white lamps hung from the ceiling, illuminating mock bookcases on the walls. Oak desks were positioned all around the room, holding leather rectangles and open books, ink fountain pens positioned randomly. In one corner there was a piano with a seat in front of it, next to a oak stove. First class was considerably nicer than the coal carriage they'd been staying in.
Aksel didn't have a reply, but the Obscured Man seemed to. "Exactly as I expected. You are simply disappointing."
"Tell me, what was your plan when you finally got here?" The Obscured Man demanded.
"To make you give us Sebastian." Septimus said.
"Why do you care about the cow so much?"
"Why do you?" Aksel instantly retorted.
"Clever answer. Mine is equally clever. You, Aksel Laurisden. You are a genius. How in the name of sanity did you manage to create a device that could make a cow talk?"
Aksel didn't answer. To answer would be what the Obscured Man wanted.
"It really is quite clever. And think of all your potential! All of this, it's a trap for you."
The old mission statement. Let them two get away, protect them. Three, two, one. He charged forwards, knocking the barrels of the guns to one side, grabbing Verity and throwing her out of the shot of the gun. It exploded a loud shot, tearing chunks out of the wall. All three White Hoods fell to the floor quickly and Septimus barged into the straw veil. He knocked it over hoping to catch the Obscured Man, but instead revealed a gramophone. "He was never in the room." He cried. "He'd already written the script." He turned to Aksel. "Much like you."
"Great minds think alike."
"Don't compliment the villain." Verity said.
The carriage shuddered. "What was that?" Aksel demanded. It shuddered again and the windows to the left smashed and more White Hoods jumped in. Verity, Aksel and Septimus jumped out of the right into the Black Forest to the sound of the gunfire.

Mothballs: Iron Path to the Black Forest (part 2)

Septimus swung the makeshift hook and straightened the rope, grinning. He stretched out his foot and kicked the window open, tossing the hook out and swinging it. The first swing, it failed. He swung again and failed to catch it. He tossed it up and heard the piece of metal from the spade clank onto the roof. He pulled the rope till it was fully stretched and then edged his way out of the tiny window. He thanked God for his makeshift goggles as they prevented a large pebble from piercing his eyes.
With all the skill and grace of a paralysed barnacle, he clambered onto the roof and dug his fingers into the roof. Verity came next, almost falling from the window, but one of Septimus' long, muscular arms grabbed her and heaved her up. She struggled on and glared at him, as Aksel wormed himself up as well. The wind pulled at their clothes, ripping at their hair and spattering against their goggles. Septum struggled to clamber to his feet, but as he moved, a gust of wind nearly made him fall back down. With his long fingers, he began to pull himself forwards and then climbed up, staggering through the darkness. He could hear Aksel and Verity's footsteps being pulled away by the wind.
They ran quickly but suddenly the train turned in a strange direction, sending them tumbling. Aksel flew off the side of the train but threw the hook quickly, tugging into the train and smashing into the side. As the passengers in the side of the carriage turned to look, they saw two pairs of legs scrambling up onto the roof. His body ached as he climbed up and he imagined that without Verity's childish lack of strength, he wouldn't have been able to get back up again. They continued down the train until it suddenly jolted onto the bridge and they all fell forwards. Verity stumbled down a gap between two carriages and merely her screams of terror, apprehension at being lost forever from her brothers, warned them that she'd fallen.
"Where is she?" Septimus cried, the howling winds ripping at his voice.
"I think she fell." Aksel replied, water beginning to dampen the interior of his goggles. "We need to go back for her."
Another twist in the bridge sent them both tumbling, cracking one of Septimus' lenses. "We can barely make the way ourselves." He thought a second. "Verity can you hear me?"
A muted shout replied, "Yes, I'm down here!"
Septimus cupped his hands around his mouth. "You need to make your way through the carriages. Your rucksack should have some tools in it. Use them how I showed you."
"Where should I go?"
Septimus had noticed when they first boarded that the number of each carriage was in the back right corner of the carriage painted in white numbering in the middle of a crimson square. He quickly checked it, carriage 24, and he shouted, "Carriage 15. That's the beginning of First Class, so that's where we'll meet you. Good luck."
"Thanks!" She shouted and was gone. Septimus and Aksel clambered up, the wind stinging at their now exposed eyes, and blistering their faces with salt. They began to run but found their selves weighed down by the wind and the cold. Aksel overtook Septimus and felt the tip of his toes pointing over the end of a carriage. Septimus ran into him and cried in shock as Aksel flailed his hands in a mad attempt to balance. Septimus put his hands on Aksel's shoulders and steadied him, and Aksel felt a tear trickle from his eye. His father had done that once, before it had all got too much. Septimus was similar in so many ways, the jutting chin, insatiable curiosity and tinkering. Too similar.
Steadied but not as aware as they'd want to be, the two Laurisden's continued across the train in the darkness, the shadow of the Black Forest far in front.

Below them, Verity stumbled through the carriages, avoiding the curious glare of the seated passengers. Every time she opened the door at the end and stepped into the next, she looked up into the dark chill and wondered whether Aksel and Septimus were jumping over head, progressing through the dark. She opened a door and stumbled into the next carriage, the lull returning and light burning her eyes. When the fizzles of light broke away, her sockets opened wider and wider. There in front was Sebastian. That was the good news which made her smile. Immediately her grin died as she saw the bad news. The White Hooded Men who guarded him.

Mothballs: Iron Path to the Black Forest

Aksel Laurisden had heard many tales about exotic travellers in faraway lands and, despite being reasonably clever, he'd always believed they could be true. Since they'd sold their every belonging to fund their pursuit of the Obscured Man, he'd discovered the ugly truth. They weren't.

Verity, his little sister, had been struggling to sleep. As Septimus, his older brother, had reminded him during those rare seconds of rest bite whilst Verity found the path to dreamland, she had always been closest to Sebastian, their pet cow.
The bouncing of the carriage on the rails of pure iron had managed to lull Verity asleep, and she lay under a rough blanket on the cold metal floor, her chest rising and falling with dainty movements. Aksel and Septimus had taken blocks of coal from the mound in the corner of the carriage they were stowed away in and used them to sketch images, from the hastily packed blue prints that Septimus had stuffed his bag with, onto the white panelled walls of the carriage. "Are you sure you heard nothing?" Aksel said.
"I'm sure. Why they're so interested in the speech collar I've no idea." Septimus replied. He smiled at the brilliantly redrawn blueprint, before turning his attention to a selection of maps he'd pinned to the floor. "According to our research, the Obscured Man took a hidden route to Germany, intending to board the train on the other side of the Canal d'Alsace. Our train stops just before the bridge in about an hour and by midnight we'll be over the bridge and pulling to a halt outside the train station. The train then stops and doesn't start till midday. Furthermore, the Obscured Man is expected to get off at the station after. The distance between is a days travel meaning we have a day to track him down and make him tell us where Sebastian is."
There was a scream behind them and they spun to see Verity waking up. Aksel rushed over and knelt down. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, I've just had that nightmare again." She wiped a veil of sweat from her forehead and climbed up. "What's the plan then?"
Septimus repeated what he'd just said and then explained the plan itself. "When we stop just before the bridge, we jump off the train, leg it up the side and climb aboard at the back of first class. The Obscured Man is meant to be quite wealthy, so that's where will find him."
"What if the train sets off without us?" Asked Verity.
"I doubt it, and I'm sure we could find someway to get back on." Septimus replied, but he was as early as confident as he sounded.

An hour passed but there was no sign of slowing down. Septimus flipped open his fathers pocket watch to reassure himself. There was a skeleton key tightened to the chain, a faithful reminder that Time is the Key, and his finger graced against it as he moved up to straighten his hat. There was a box leading from one corner of the room to the other along the joust. Inside were several taunt wires. The taunt wires vibrated with messages, resent at checkpoints dotted along every three carriages. Septimus had spent the first two days they'd been on the train designing and building a device to read the wires and he applied it to them as a new message rattled through. "They're not stopping."
"What!" Aksel cried. "Why?"
Septimus retuned his gadget. "An anonymous passenger requested for them to hurry to the bridge."
"The Obscured Man." Aksel realised.
"But we won't be able to get to the front unless we do it now." Verity said.
Septimus estimated the odds in his head. "Aksel, did you bring the goggles?"
"Yes, why?" Aksel replied.
"We're going to need something to keep the smoke from our eyes."
"Why?" Demanded Verity. "Why would there be smoke in our eyes?"
"Because we're going over the top. We need to run across the top of the train."

Fandoms against cyberbullying

IT homework! It's probably the best of all homework, or so I think. It gives you a chance to use your imagination and express yourself, something that other subjects seem to want to prevent you from doing. My IT homework for this holiday was to make an advertisement about Cyberbullying. Which is why I created Fandoms Against Cyberbullying! Beneath you can find the kind of posters I made and feel free to share them with #FandomsVCyberbullying or share your own and include the hashtag. We need to get this trending, because Cyberbullying is wrong, and it's about time that Fandoms stood up to them!