Servants Are So Hard to Come By Nowdays.

I will let blood with an unending flow

Purify the lands and soak the sands

Of places we need never go

We will always be here and falling

Bidden by your calling

Drink with us when thirsty

For each of you will fall like snow.

Joseph Arthur ‘All The Old Heroes’

Servants Are So Hard To Come By Nowdays.

It was 8:30 in the morning at the BT depot in Barnsley. Kev and Sid had a mug of tea and then gathered their tools together and headed for the job distribution board in the main foyer of the depot.

Sid took the job sheet down that was under their day schedule and looked at it.

“Looks like a couple of jobs today. Mind you I have something else here….” Sid paused and looked at Kev who remained expressionless and just nodded.

“We’ve got a foreigner, if you’re interested. In Gawber Road, Kev. Picked it last night on my email. It’s probably some old dear, a switch off and switch it on job and fifty quid the richer. Just a thought, that sounds like the address that Don attended. No one has seen him since. Spooky eh?” he said with a laugh and then added,

“Whooooah. He probably went off and started out on his own, he was always picking up foreigners, the old jobs off the book.” He winked at Kev..

“I bet he didn’t fix the bloody problem either.” Kev said as they made their way to Sid’s van. Sid had brought his van to work because of doing the job on the side, that way no one could ‘phone BT and complain if it went wrong.

“Couldn’t have done, you know how sloppy he was. Not too bright either.” Sid replied as he slumped into the seat of the van. Kev slumped into his seat.

“Let’s be careful out there.” Sid said mischievously as he started the ignition to to the van.

The rain had just begun as they got into the van. It had been forecast, but not as heavy as it was.

Sid and Kev drove a way out of Barnsley and found Gawber Road.

The gates on the house were locked closed with a padlock. Sid ‘phoned the number given by the client and told them that they were waiting outside. The gates slowly swung open and the two men drove up the winding drive towards a huge turreted house. Parts of the house were obviously in decline as there were boarded up windows and ivy clinging to the rotting masonry.

“Bloody hell….” Kev stopped mid-sentence and surveyed the house. An enormous flash of lightning suddenly struck the van and the roof of the house at the same time.

The van stalled and all the warning lights flashed up and then it stopped dead. Sid turned the key in the ignition. It wouldn’t start. He turned the key to OFF and waited for a minute before trying again. The ignition didn’t respond.

Sid made the “Wooooahh” noise again. “It’ll be the electric storm that’s thrown the ignition chip out of kilter. It should have settled when we get out.” Sid was trying to rationalise the sudden

death of the van, not only to himself but to Kev.

They both got out of the van and walked towards the house. They were trying to hurry as the rain was getting heavier and heavier with each step they took. The path seemed to get longer with every footstep. The house seemed to get more and more distant with every second.

“Christ.” Kev exclaimed. “Christ, it only seemed a few yards away when we parked up.”

They were both now soaked through and shivering.

Sid tugged on the doorbell chain and waited.

Then a grinding, crunching noise coming from inside the door as bolt after bolt after bolt slid back on the locked door, then a clunk as a key turned in the huge iron lock. The door swung open with a dreadful groaning noise. Just inside the door was a tiny old lady, about four feet six tall dressed in a cocktail dress.

“Do come in gentlemen.” she said graciously, she sounded educated and very posh to the two men.

Kev and Sid walked into the house and looked around the hallway. Cobwebs hung from every place that they could possibly hang from, the pictures, the ceilings, the door knobs, in fact everywhere.

“Hello love, we had a call to say your broadband had gone down.” Sid tried to look at the lady as he said it but was distracted by the sheer gloom that they had walked into.

“Eh?” the lady shouted back.

“Broadband gone down!” Sid repeated slowly in a louder voice.

“What devices do you have connected?” Kev interjected. He wanted to get on with the job and get out of this spooky place.

“Well….” the lady hesitated as she gathered her thoughts, “we have lap computers, a regenerator, the two trap doors and the front gates all are controlled by the new radio wireless device, I believe. There may be more devices that my young son uses.”

“The front gates opened when we came in.” Kev said overlooking the extensive listing.

“Oh, did they?” the lady replied, “Then that would’ve been Gordon opening them.”

“There was no one there.” Sid said, and he looked at Kev and winked.

“No one sees Gordon.” the lady replied, “Very discrete. A darling of a servant.”

“But….there was no one there.” Sid blurted out.

Sid mouthed to Kev,

“There was no one there, was there?”

Kev shook his head in affirmation of the question.

“Anywaaay…..” Sid said trying to get on with the job and get out of the house.

Kev however was becoming more anxious when he heard what was controlled by the wireless signal.

“You said trapdoors.” he gasped out.

“Oh yes, you’re standing on one.”

Kev looked down and jumped aside. He couldn’t see the trapdoor at all.

“Our trapdoors are very discrete. Very discrete indeed.” the lady said, and she looked down to where Kev had been standing.

“You could be on one now.” she turned to Sid as she said that, Sid stepped aside as Kev had.

Both men looked at each other and mouthed ‘SHIT’

“Oh Christ.” Kev said out loud in a moment of terror.

“He won’t help you in here.” the lady said and turned towards the stairs and looked up.

A shadow moved fleetingly along the hallway on the landing.

“Where’s your hub please?” Sid asked again. However, the lady had disappeared.

The two men were left in the hallway alone.

“Hello!” Kev called out, his voice had a tremble in it.

“Hello!” Sid called out too.

A huge double door opened in front of them and a tall man walked into the hall. He was dressed entirely in black. He had a blood red cravat tied around his neck. He smiled and looked at Sid and Kev,

“May I help you?” he asked urbanely.

“Erm, yeah. The lady we just saw was going to take us to see the internet hub. We’re telecom engineers.” Sid quickly replied, he knew Kev wouldn’t answer.

“Lady?” the man looked at Sid and Kev quizzically.

“An elderly lady opened the door...” Sid tried to answer the conundrum set before them.

“Hmmm.” the man replied. Then he shouted up the stairs,

“Mother! Have you been opening the front door again?”

“Oh Christ!” Kev and Sid said in unison.

“He won’t help you in here.” the man said menacingly and went on,

“If you saw mother, she would’ve told you that too.”

He cackled a laugh out loud and looked threateningly at the two men. The man kept disappearing and reappearing as he walked towards the two men.

“Oh fuck.” they both said in unison, just as the bolts on the door rapidly slid across. Sid turned to look at the locked door and rattled the handle. He turned back to face the man, he was shaking in terror.

Kev grabbed at his tool bag and pulled out the largest screwdriver he had, he pointed the screwdriver at the man.

The man looked scornfully down at the screwdriver and then looked Kev fully in the eyes.

“What a silly boy. What do you hope to do with that?” Kev thrust the screwdriver towards the man. He mesmerisingly held Kev’s gaze as he walked forward and impaled himself on the screwdriver. Then he clicked his fingers and Kev was paralysed.

Sid stepped forward to help Kev disable him. The man turned and looked disdainfully at Sid and then snapped his fingers again. A trap door fell wide open beneath Sid. He was consumed by the chasm and was instantly impaled on a line of razor sharp sabres. He gurgled as the blades sliced and chopped unyieldingly into his flesh and slashed his liver and lungs to ribbons. A guillotine blade then quickly flashed across the trapdoor and back again and Sid’s head was severed. The blood spurted from his jugular vein onto the carpeting of the hallway. Then his head rolled away from the trapdoor and landed at the man’s feet. He scornfully pushed it away with his foot.

“Oh dear. We have some spillage.” the man said sarcastically as he looked at Kev full in the face.

“What a mess your friend has made.”

The sound of maniacal laughter filled the hallway and echoed around the house.

“Oh dear, what a mess. Now then, what are we to do with you, dear boy? Mother, you’ve had your fun. We need this one for another purpose. Mother! Do come downstairs, I have refreshments for you!”

Kev’s face contorted in total fear as a patch of urine formed at the front of his overalls and then slowly trickled down his legs and on to the carpet.

“Mother! You have some refreshment in the cellar now. Don’t let it congeal like last time. Do get Gordon to bring you up some.”

“Gordon! Gordon!” the man’s mother cried from the landing and then she started down the stairs.

“Oliver! We really must get more servants!” she added loudly as she gingerly took each step.

“I am working on it dear Mother, I am working on it! Have I ever let you down in over ten thousand years?” the man replied with more than a hint of irritation in his voice. He turned to look at Kev again.

“Ah, my apologies. I have been remiss. Please let me introduce myself, as Mr Jagger had it in the song about one of me, I am variously known as Vlad The Impaler, Attila The Hun, or any other figures you care to think of that cause terror and mayhem. I am there when there is slaughter and terror to spread, I am a perpetrator, a participant and an advisor to those outrages. Today I am Mr Oliver Asmodeus.” Mr Asmodeus gave a short bow.

“Gordon, take Mr….” Mr Asmodeus paused in thought for a moment.

“Take Mr Laird down to the cellar. Don’t shiver dear boy, to kill you would be like swallowing a butterfly whole wouldn’t it?”

Gordon threw Mr Asmodeus a quick look.

“Gordon, this Gordon that….” Gordon muttered quietly and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Gordon was a shrivelled man, his body was hunched, twisted and misproportioned, his arms were long, but muscular, his head was small and turned to one side. He was powerfully built but diminutive. He shuffled over to Kev’s body and ran his hands over Kev as if assessing his body weight like a hangman does. He suddenly pushed forward into Kev, and Kev’s stiff, corpse like body was over his shoulder and he was being carried towards the cellar door.

“Be careful Gordon. And we need to dispose of their horseless carriage.”

“We?” Gordon muttered sarcastically and gave Mr Asmodeus a sideways look as he opened the cellar door and started down the steps in front of him.

Gordon laid Kev on a surgical table and stripped him of all his clothes and threw them on the floor.

Kev was laid on his back and could only look up at the ceiling. He could feel himself shaking, his brain was racing. He could just about move his eyes. He tried to turn his head to one side, but it wouldn’t move. As his eyes moved he saw a huge glass container with what looked like a body in it. He couldn’t make it out properly in the dim light. He stared at it hoping to make sense of what he was looking at. As he stared a neon light flashed on and the whole container lit up. Inside the container was the naked torso of a man. He had no arms and legs, there were sutured stumps where those limbs had been. The man had an oxygen mask on and his chest was slowly rising and falling. Beside the glass container there was a panoply of equipment, a heart monitor a blood pressure monitor. In another liquid filled container next to the torso, there were amputated arms and legs hanging from electrical wires in the same clear liquid.

Kev shivered and tried to struggle himself off the table. Whatever he tried to do his limbs would not respond. The little movement he had in his eyes allowed him to take in some of the other things in the room. As he looked around he saw sets of overalls hanging on pegs on the wall, every one of them was blood stained.

Kev started to sob in fear.

“God help me.”

If he didn’t utter those words out loud then he certainly heard those words in his head.

A disembodied female voice solemnly intoned,

“I’ve told you before, he won’t help you now. As if he ever could.” Then came that maniacal laugh that Kev had heard when Sid was beheaded.

Kev lay in sheer terror for what seemed hours in his head, long lonely hours.

The light on the ceiling dimmed as the neons in the body jar lit up and the surrounding instruments came to life and did their work of keeping the body alive.

Kev was looking around the room in total horror, awaiting what might be exacted on him. He could feel sweat trickling down his body. He hoped he would wake up soon.

As he managed to roll his eyes again, to the left of him he made out a group of figures all dressed in white surgical coats, they all silently moved forward as one and surrounded the table. They silently communicated with each other as if the other knew exactly what the other were thinking. Then two of the group began to slowly draw black lines onto his skin with markers. They stepped back, looked at their work and nodded.

Standing just inside a shadow in his line of sight Kev made out a man and woman. They both stood looking at him and whispering to each other. These were the two people were going to operate on him.

“Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen. You are dismissed.” Oliver said a he stepped out from the shadow.

“I will call on your expertise in the future. Mr Gallen please do stay I will need you to assist in this operation. Did your double limb transplant go well?”

Mr Gallen nodded, his mouth moved in speech but nothing could be heard.

“I see” said Oliver nodding his head, “Did you do as I told you and move up a centimetre from the brachial artery and make a lateral incision, avoiding the subcalavian arteries?”

Mr Gallen moved his mouth again as if in speech but Kev heard nothing.

Mr Asmodeus put his hand up to the ceiling and pulled down a screen. The image of a man lying in a hospital bed appeared on the screen; Mr Asmodeus touched the screen and it became a body scan of the man.

“You have done a superb job Mr Gallen.”

Mr Gallen nodded and gave a weak sickly smile.

Oliver looked at the other surgeons and calmly intoned,

“Now go back to your world and practice the skills I have given you. Oh, and do please make sure that you accomplish a few mistakes that cause pain and suffering as we agreed in our contract. Go!”

With that dismissal the whole group disappeared.

The woman then approached the table, she looked to be the same age as Mr Asmodeus. This was his mother, the woman who had greeted the pair at the door. Sid’s blood had been consumed.

“My mother and I and Mr Gallen, are going to make a few adjustments to your body. But first we need to move you to the operating room.”

“Gordon, we need to move the specimen.” Gordon shuffled into sight and wheeled the whole table into another room in the cellar. This room was well lit and had a full operating table in the middle of the room.

“Mother do try your best this time.”

Mrs Asmodeus shrugged and said,

“I am 12498 years old Oliver. A vague tremor is to be expected.”

Kev rolled his eyes towards the trio who were now standing by the operating table.

“Now then Mr Laird, we will be amputating both your arms and your legs, we shall of course leave your head alone, we need your brain to function you see. Also, your genitals will not be touched. We need them for the future. I want this one to be perfection. Oh, Mr Laird, in case you wondered why we will amputate your limbs to sew on another; he is brain dead, so we can make him do what we want. Mother needs a batman urgently. Don’t cry dear boy, it won’t hurt. Yet.”

“Gordon can you clear the artefacts that the specimens have had removed?”

Gordon went next door and began picking up the overalls and stuffed them into an incinerator.

Kev passed out after the exchange and the anaesthetic was administered.

When he woke from the operation he was in the same type of tank that he had seen the body floating in earlier. He had an oxygen mask on and various tubes and cables linked him to the outside world. It felt odd as he couldn’t feel his arms or his legs.

He looked at the operating table he had been on and there was a man, he was naked. The wounds around his arms and legs had been skilfully dressed. He had been castrated. He had various tubes and monitors whirring away and clicking in and out. His chest was rising and falling without an oxygen mask.

Mr Asmodeus stood in front of the suspension tank and smiled at Kev,

“It went well Mr Laird. Mr Don Conteh is recovering and should be in service soon. I’ll bid you good night and don’t panic Kevin, all will be well for you too. I can assure you this situation is not a nightmare Mr Laird, this is reality.”

With that Mr Asmodeus tapped triumphantly three times on the glass, smiled, walked away two steps and then disappeared.

Mr Asmodeus reappeared in the lounge where Mrs Asmodeus was sat sipping on a glass of blood in front a blazing fire of human bones and body fat. Gordon was standing next to the tall double doors in a kilt and turban holding a silver salver.

Oliver sat down opposite his mother in his armchair.

“Now then Mother we need a host or hosts for Mr Laird’s sperm. You can’t be too sure who will be fertile with all the pollution we have spread across the globe.”

“We? Oliver. You, my love, you. I had no knowledge of your plans when you invented the atomic bomb, pesticides, carcinogens and the like. None. You were a complete runaway with all that invention. I saw to it that savage, bloody wars took place, you….well….you….are science, science, science…...” Mrs Asmodeus trailed off in her reply.

“I helped you out with the Vietnam War dear Mother with swathes of evil weaponry. Science Mother, science. My science will triumph for the ill of mankind.” there was a pomposity in his tone.

“I will grant you that victory Oliver. I was getting old back then, not enough fresh blood to fill my veins. Oh, and your Father has been communicating with me again.” she hesitated and said,

“Do you know, Oliver, when the really intelligent life forms on this planet, the Cetacea, took to the oceans your Father made them breed out their arms and legs. A brilliant move on his part. A stroke of pure genius. Now the most intelligent specimens are hunted by the most stupid. Now he knew how to spread misery.”

Mrs Asmodeus sighed and sipped on her blood, thinking. Then she started again,

“Nowdays he is all mud slides, famine, burst dams and earthquakes, so so dreadfully lazy. Don’t you think?” she paused and looked at Oliver.

“Why did my Father contact you after all these centuries Mother?” Oliver tapped his fingers impatiently on the arm of his chair.

“He asked if you could you pop down south and construct some servants for him. He acknowledges your mastery.”

Mrs Asmodeus looked down into her half empty glass of blood.

Gordon stepped forward and topped the glass up.

“Of course I will help out the old cove. I have some affection for him and his lasting history of misery.” Oliver replied.

Complete silence fell on the room as the pair sat and watched the body fat melt and then ignite making the bones crackle, burst and drizzle their marrow into the hearth.

Oliver sat contemplating something in his mind. He turned to Gordon and clicked his fingers, Gordon poured Oliver a glass of blood and took it to him. Oliver gently sipped his blood, and then licked his lips. He was thinking. Then he said,

“I do sometimes muse on the idea that Miss Shelley thought that it was a dream, I expect she also mistook that the staining on her dress hems was mud. It does so amuse one that those authors that disseminated our horror and terror thought that it came from their imaginations.” Oliver looked at the ceiling and smiled.

His Mother looked at him nodded and smiled, she half remembered Miss Shelley, there had been so many of them over the years they had helped. They had all become a muddle in her head.

Then Oliver added,

“I helped Mr Faraday with his cage, the building blocks of Frankenstein’s experiments, crude but effective. Dear dear Victor, I miss those early experiments with him.” he smiled again and looked at the ceiling and then down to Mrs Asmodeus.

“Oliver, your name dropping is sometimes quite tiresome.” Mrs Asmodeus said curtly.

“I do apologise, it’s just I have had an influence on history and I sometimes forget my power. Dear Mother, we do now need to find hosts for Mr Laird’s sperm. That will address our shortage of servants.”

“Shall we put an advert in The Times for a companion? Isn’t that the newspaper you helped Mr Murdoch acquire?” Mrs Asmodeus asked.

“It is, the very one. His entire global empire is entirely of my doing.” he smiled at the thought. Then added,

“A companion Mother? Do step into the 21^st century. It will be a home carer. A home carer for an elderly lady. It is now the internet one uses. The internet, another of my inventions. Then I moved on to the world wide web to spread hate, terror, trouble and pandemonium. The specimens clutched it to their breasts like a new born child.” Oliver smiled and looked down at his outstretched fingernails.

Mrs Asmodeus looked at Oliver and shook her head.

“You really are so clever my boy. But do I really have to step into the 21^st century Oliver? It is such a bleak scientific age, not enough blood letting war and gore for my liking. Oliver dear, you know the modern terms. I will let you write the advert.”

“Thank you Mother. We only need their wombs and breasts on and in the torso I suppose, for if we leave the heads on they may try to speak.” Oliver looked at his Mother intently.

“I do hope you have perfected the growth accelerator after the debacle with dear Gordon, he has been left stupefied and brainless and is quite an idiot.” Mrs Asmodeus asked Oliver.

Gordon grunted, shuffled his feet and let out an enormous fart.

Mrs Asmodeus threw Gordon a devastating look and added,

“You’ll need to sort out some basic manners in the next specimens too.” she continued.

“Yes Mother, it was one of the defects I came up against, the digestive tract.” Oliver replied. “However, the accelerator is now perfected. I have successfully tried it on larger mammals. Rest assured, you will have a handmaid, or companion as you term it, by Easter.”

Oliver sat and thought for a moment.

“We know Mr Laird is fertile as his concubine is with child now. I will be planting my seed in some of the specimens as we need to assume this dreadful form to be able to passport this planet. I will have to advertise for a more intelligent specimen to join us; a university lecturer or a doctor or some such as a receptacle for my sperm. We can breed as many as we wish from all of them.”

He looked at his Mother as he finished his summing up.

“Good, I am tired of walking up and down the stairs at my age.” Mrs Asmodeus slurred in reply,

“I need some female company too; a thousand years alone soon dreadfully tires one.” Then she started to doze off in her armchair clutching her drained glass.

Gordon stepped forward and gently took the glass from her hand and placed it on his salver.

Oliver got up from his armchair and sat down at his desk. He opened his laptop and began to draft the advert for his female specimens.

‘Urgently wanted: Long term live in carers and companions for an elderly lady. Your duties will vary day to day, year to year. We guarantee a long term employment package. The generous remuneration of £55k (negotiable) per carer/companion will outweigh any inconvenience. Extensive travel will be involved. All living expenses and luxury accommodation will be found. Our chauffeur will collect you from any part of the UK or beyond.

Please apply to PO Box 13, S70 1LL’

He finished composing the advert and tapped the SEND/POST tab and sat back and chuckled. It was done, the wheels of their combined evil were put into motion.