The Fathom Flies Again Read online

  From behind the rapidly departing Fathom, shards of blinding light erupted, tearing the night sky asunder, and buffeting the fleeing ship violently. From where Marty lay, he could see Timbers, braced against the deck rail, and staring in awe at whatever had been birthed into their sweeping wake. Struggling to his feet, he peered over the side, squinting to see what had momentarily turned the night into day. Whatever it was had engulfed the course, the gantry, and the pursuing clowns. It was vast, shimmering and oh so…

  “The shiny!” Whipstaff called out excitedly from somewhere on the quarterdeck. It was, for a moment, an effective description of the oval shaped portal that hung like a tear in the night sky, before something infinitely more animated filled its ragged borders.

  Like a torrent of immeasurable wonder, something magnificent poured forth from the portal’s blinding depths. It sprayed out like a technicolor geyser, sweeping the Fathom up in a wave of reds, yellows, pinks and greens.

  Marty glanced down into this tsunami of awesome that was now bearing the Fathom, faster than Zephyr could carry them, and it gleamed brilliantly back at him in hues more vibrant than any he had seen before. There were more shades in there, purple and orange and blue.

  “It’s a rainbow!” Kate exclaimed delightedly as the torrent continued, flinging the Fathom out of the golf course, and on a crest of glittering color towards the town. Peering nervously over the side, Benji strobed in a seizure inducing echo of the teeming, multi-hued vortex beneath them.

  “Dammit, it is a rainbow,” Whipstaff echoed, although markedly less enthusiastically than Kate had pointed out.

  “What’s the matter?” Kate asked, steadying herself against the rigging as she stretched to get a better view over the side. “It’s gorgeous!”

  Timbers scuttled down from the quarterdeck, his face more solemn than a toy pirate’s had any business being. “You know what’s at the end of the rainbow, don’t you?” he groaned, cursing under his breath as he joined the others.

  “A pot of gold?” Marty offered. Oaf had been untangling his feet from a pile of stray ropes, and brightened at the very mention of every pirate’s favorite thing.

  Timbers shook his head, waving a cautionary finger, and gripped the railing tighter as the roaring rainbow pulled the boat in a tight, looping arc over the town. “Yeah, and the damned green monster guarding it.”

  Marty chuckled, half from the implication, and half from the hope that Timbers was telling the truth. “I think we can handle a tiny little leprechaun. We’ve dealt with worse,” he smirked, motioning back at the presumably vanquished clowns behind them, drowned in a myriad of exultant color.

  As if to quell what would have been a fairly reasonable boast, a booming voice thunder clapped across the sky, the herald of an equally foreboding shadow which fell like a shroud across the deck of the Fathom. All eyes looked up as the bearer of the apocalyptic question, and the all-encompassing shadow spoke again.

  “WHO’S AFTER ME GOLD?!”

  Chapter Eleven

  The three police department cells were gray, sparse, and about the size of your average shoe box. Since the usual criminal mastermind was brought in for disturbing the peace or creatively located public urination, the town had foregone the full maximum security package, and opted for the standard single bunk, single bucket accommodation for its evildoers.

  O’Riley shuffled uncomfortably in the narrow corridor spanning the cellblock. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was staring at, as the ghoulish occupants of cells one, two and three peered unblinkingly out of the darkness at a spot several thousand yards behind him. At least they had come willingly, if not altogether quietly. His patrol car had been a veritable hell’s funhouse of guttural chuckling and clownish shenanigans, as they had made the short journey back to the station. It was like having a car full of drunk, possessed baboons in tow, and it unsettled the bejesus out of him. It had done as they had giggled their way out of the car, and it had done as they had cackled their way into the cells, but now their silence bothered him more. Each gaunt, red nosed face, with its ragged scar mouth and darting eyes, sat deadly silent and watchful as O’Riley paced back and forth, wondering what the hell to do with them. Should he question them? Staring at those eyes, he got the impression that whatever he asked these mystery mannequins, he didn’t want to know the answer anyway.

  “Well, so much for small talk,” O’Riley mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact. He reached the end of the cellblock, surveying the office in its cloak of semi-darkness. If he had known that he would be playing babysitter to a troupe of monstrous mimes, he would not have volunteered for the graveyard shift alone. Suddenly the gun on his belt felt little more effective than a water pistol, and he wondered what kind of mythical weapon would put him at ease in the face of such big top blasphemy. Maybe a huge wooden mallet with a spring-loaded boxing glove. A pie firing rocket launcher. A fearsome cyborg with giant, wobbly, slapping hands.

  O’Riley’s trip into the realms of cartoon ordnance was cut short by a voice behind him. It issued from one of the dark cells like rancid steam hissing from a storm drain.

  “Little pig. Little pig.”

  O’Riley turned, hoping that his imagination had conjured up those words, and wished he had backup coming, in the form of the T-Wobbly-Slap-1000. A pale, grinning face appeared at the barred door of cell number one, and the voice came again.

  “Little pig, let them in.”

  O’Riley took two steps back into the office, drawing his gun, and training it on the dimly lit corridor of the cell block. If any of his fellow officers weren’t face down in their pillows, as beer monkeys hammered pin sharp hangovers into their heads, he would be calling for back up right now. As it was, he settled for inwardly shouting for his mommy, and redundantly shaking his head at the sinister request.

  It was surely impossible for the horrendous inmates to see O’Riley’s weak protests, and yet the voice continued to taunt him.

  “Not by the hair on your chinny chin chin?”

  O’Riley mentally slapped himself in the face. Nursery rhymes weren’t scary. Kid stories weren’t scary. Seven foot tall, bulging-eyed clowns chanting softly in his police cells admittedly were scary, but this was ludicrous. They were messing with him, and it had almost worked. O’Riley allowed himself a half-smile, and took a step towards the cells, as a voice behind him, in the street beyond the locked door of the police station finished the fairy tale monologue.

  “Well I’ll huff.”

  O’Riley flinched, the voice carried the same sinister growl as the one that had taunted him from the cells.

  “And I’ll puff.”

  It crept through the door, saturated with the same barely contained giggle that he had heard from the back of the squad car as he transported his perps back to the cells.

  “And I’ll blow your house in!”

  Perhaps there were more clowns…

  As the door of the police station imploded in a barrage of what could only be described as vanilla cream and pastry mortar fire, a small corner of O’Riley’s mind spoke up. The small corner that is left over in all of us from our childhood, that reminds us to look under our beds, check our closets, and keep a nightlight on when we go to sleep. There are always more clowns it warned, redundantly, as several snarling, giggling shapes darted in through the custard pie spattered door, and scuttled towards the cowering police officer.

  The police issue .45 had felt good on his hip when enlisted in the force. It had been a constant reminder that he was in control, and that any situation could be diffused by a swift draw and point, perhaps with a coolly delivered one-liner, of the sort so ably dished out by steely jawed peacemakers in his beloved cop shows. As O’Riley dove for cover behind the nearest desk, with deliciously baked missiles exploding all around him, it felt more like a lead weight, and he struggled to heave it to bear as the cackling grew louder, and the scampering drew closer. He peered out from behind a stack of unfinished paperwork, not knowing quite what to exp
ect. The station was still dark, although street lights cast an eerie glow through the shattered front doors. Several somethings were in here, no doubt, but he could not see his mystery besiegers, and the room had fallen worryingly silent.

  Even the cell dwellers had ceased their yammering as O’Riley crawled out from behind his desk, shakily training his pistol this way and that, but nothing sprang from the dim twilight to visit chuckly death upon him. He straightened, trying to marshal his thoughts into something resembling an escape route, but curiously, only a recipe for vanilla cream pie played through his mind, and refused to budge. Hardly surprising, since the stuff dripped from every drippable surface, and admittedly, smelled delightful.

  A clattering, shifting sound jerked O’Riley from his culinary daydream. The darkness parted, filled with something altogether less palatable. Snaking out of the gloom, in a way that no face should, yet in a way that only a ghostly white, fiendishly leering face can, one of Satan’s own jesters introduced itself to O’Riley.

  “Olly Olly Oxen Free!,” the face gibbered, apparently delighted that it had found the cowering police officer, and squealed with completely unconcealed glee. O’Riley yelped, falling backwards into the water cooler which had unbelievably remained untouched throughout the siege. Water and terrified constable slewed across the floor, as the devilish harlequin raised to its full height and crowed manically at the sight of freshly hewn carnage.

  Now was a time for action, O’Riley thought, pushing aside the lingering desire for pastry based treats. Now was not the time for loitering in a pool of what was hopefully just cooler water soaking through his trousers. O’Riley levelled his gun at the advancing jester, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

  Having never actually shot at anything, apart from the helpless hanging targets on the police firing range, O’Riley was unsure how to proceed having sent a bullet racing towards its grease-painted terminus. His experience with the unseatbelted fiend in his car should have given him a clue, however, as brightly colored confetti plumed from where his hideous attacker had been standing. Blinking, O’Riley struggled to his feet as the fronds of cheerful clown-stuff cascaded onto the slick, sodden floor. He almost laughed, nervously at first, and then at the sheer lunacy of the situation. Scratch one killer clown, let’s celebrate with a ticker tape parade!

  That would, of course, have been a lot funnier, had a single thought not tapped O’Riley on his shoulder, and quietly explained to him that there were probably more denizens of the big top from Hades lurking out there in the darkness. The thought travelled down his arm, into his hand, and yanked at his trigger finger, ploughing several more shots out into the darkness. This was kind of fun, he thought, as the bullets momentarily lit up the station. If any of them hit, it wouldn’t be so much Ooh, that’s gotta hurt! Let’s have a party! as more confetti shot up out of the dim twilight of the room.

  Breathing heavily, O’Riley sank back against the wreckage of the fallen cooler. He had counted a further three confetti geysers, which was surely a good thing, and the office was now reassuringly bereft of hellish giggling.

  Still, he wished he felt more like a prime time, cop show badass, and less like a child shooting corks at a fairground attraction, as he rounded the desk, and checked for signs of circus shenanigans. The silence was deafening, and even the chucklers in the cells behind him had fallen in line, possibly to avoid becoming the next party decoration. Moving through the pie blasted office, O’Riley realized his gun hand was no longer shaking. Maybe this was what it felt like to be enforcing the law, to be laying a smack down on the bad guys. It felt like armor, and he straightened to fit properly into it. He had cleared the decks, repelled the boarders, held the fort, and it felt righteous. He scanned the office as bits of glittery paper still wafted hither and thither. There would be no clown invasion tonight. “Not on my watch,” he breathed, simultaneously relieved and empowered at having the opportunity to utter the immortal line.

  It was perhaps a little rude, then, that a shiny red ball should come bouncing through the front doors and shatter his cop hero scenario. It boinged harmlessly to rest at his feet, bringing his internal platitudes screeching to a logic confounding halt. A scrap of paper stuck to its side fluttered in the night air that was now intruding unfettered into the office. O’Riley stooped and plucked it from the ball, craning into the shards of moonlight to read what was written upon it.

  There was no need to, as the line of silhouettes suddenly flanking the shrouded windows told O’Riley all he needed to know. There were several figures outside, spanning the length of the far reaching station windows, standing motionless and silent, and far more in number than the remaining bullets in his gun.

  O’Riley looked down at the note, as the giggling in the cells behind him returned, and the cartwheeling in his stomach staged an almighty encore. The four words glared back at him, with almost as much malice as the exploding clown had wrought before his impressive exit.

  ‘Give us Mr. Peepers.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Every child has had the same, awe filled thought process whilst looking up into that magical arcing spectrum in the sky. Whatever they dreamed might be somewhere over the rainbow; candy canes, rivers of chocolate, a town full of singing midgets, every wonder struck kid has stared up into a storm cleansed air as color raked the heavens and instantly recalled the old tales of myth and legend.

  You didn’t even have to live in Ireland to have heard of that most impish of gold hoarders, the eye glinting cheekiest of all fairie folk, the cute little leprechaun. Modern day children might even be forgiven for believing that these diminutive green sprites cared only for the sweet crunch of breakfast cereal, and yet as every good rainbow chaser knows, it is the amassment of cold hard cash that drives these jigging pranksters.

  As the Fathom soared, hanging ten on the most gnarly of otherworldly technicolor waves, Marty gazed up, blinking in disbelief at the behemoth before them, and couldn’t help but wonder how the dreamscape could get something as basic as scale so disastrously wrong.

  At his side, Timbers’ good eye widened at the sight of the colossal rainbow dweller, taking a step back and making a half motion for his cutlass, as if a toothpick would do any good at all against a thirty story brick wall.

  Standing astride the vaulting rainbow, stood a green jacketed skyscraper in a dandy, gold buckled hat. Great tufts of red hair sprouted from beneath the brim, and two angrily glinting eyes regarded what must have seemed like a toy sailboat as the Fathom approached. From deep within its thick red beard, the voice spoke again, sending deep but lilting Irish thunder through the rigging of the surfing galleon.

  “Keep yer thieving mitts off me gold!” the Gaelic tornado commanded. “And get off me rainbow, you’re getting it all dirty!”

  A huge, asteroid sized fist swept down on the Fathom in an ominous swatting motion. Zephyr, clearly acting more out of self-preservation than Bob-relayed orders, twisted sharply to starboard, flinging the crew of the Fathom into varying states of disarray. Still in the lurid grip of the gushing color stream, the ship jack-knifed, pitching wildly to one side as the plunging fist swept past. Marty clung desperately to the deck railing as the world and its contents whistled past him. Behind him, Kate had one arm wrapped around the central mast, and clutched a handful of Benji in the other, the little Koala zipping wildly between shades of yellow and blue.

  Marty scanned the deck for the rest of the crew, as another bellowing rebuke blasted through the ether.

  “Take your clockwork pigeon, and bugger off!”

  Timbers appeared at Marty’s side, set defiantly on the deck as though glued to it. Marty had seen the look in his one good eye before. A tiny toy pirate would let a lot of things slide, but nobody, nobody mocked his ride. Moments into subconsciously congratulation himself at his unintentional poetry, Marty was snapped back into the here and now by his captain’s retort.

  “Clear off, you annoying wee giant. We’re not after your booty. And the big
metal lad up there is no pigeon!”

  Whipstaff was similarly adhered to the deck beside him, but evidently had other ideas. “Captain, he’s got gold.” The first mate cast a glance at the raging monster in their way. “Probably very large gold, or at least a lot of it.”

  Oaf, who seemingly wasn’t wearing his sticky boots today tumbled past, steadying himself against a nearby barrel. Nodding in agreement, he stared imploringly at his captain. It was hard to dissuade a pirate from the pursuit of gold, a task akin to depriving a deep sea diver of oxygen, or taking a cheeseburger away from a starving man.

  Timbers, however, was made of sterner stuff. It was probably what had elevated him to the role of captain, that or the fact that he looked the most piratey.

  “Lads, you’ve got enough gold,” he offered, diplomatically. “And we’ve got enough trouble with the clowns. One life threatening situation at a time, eh?”

  Lepzilla was loping towards them now, still straddling the rainbow, and close enough to rain down lucky destruction upon them.

  “Saints alive, this boy’s huge,” Timbers remarked, eyeing their lumbering assailant. “Where do you even get that much green felt?”

  His words, and everything else audible, were lost as Zephyr pitched again, arrowing the Fathom into a nose dive which sent Kate and Benji cartwheeling towards the edge of the deck. Catching his breath, and a pawful of railing, Benji gaped blinkingly at the bedlam surrounding him. “The large gentleman seems quite upset. Should we pull over, or land or something?”

  Marty was similarly awe struck, feet now mercifully fixed in place, he gawped up at the massive impish shape which blotted out the moon’s dim radiance. “That’s the biggest leprechaun I’ve ever seen,” he murmured at nobody in particular.