Categories > TV > Buffy the Vampire Slayer > Hanging the Monkey
3.
Hartlepool.
“Look!” Xander brought the Land Rover to a sudden halt outside of a solid looking, Victorian public building.
“What? Where?” Faith turned her head left and right trying to work out what had got Xander so excited, “Did you see it?”
They’d been driving around Hartlepool for half an hour and so far there had been no sign of any murderous monkeys, in or out of uniform.
“No, but look,” Xander indicated the grey forbidding stone building.
“Yeah? What about it?” Faith craned her neck to see around Xander.
“Public Library, Faith,” Xander explained stating the obvious.
“So,” Faith shrugged her shoulders, “you think this French monkey guy will stop off for a book or something?”
“No,” Xander shook his head tiredly, “at least I don’t think so…I don’t suppose he reads English.” Xander thought about this for a second before adding, “Look, there’s probably records in there, old newspapers that sorta stuff.”
“You think it might come and read the old newspapers?” frowned Faith.
“NO!” Xander replied an exasperated edge to his voice.
Laughing, Faith rested her hand on Xander’s shoulder.
“Hey,” she grinned, “I’m only teasing,” she went on more seriously. “Y’think we could maybe find out who monkey-guy might be after?”
“Yeah,” Xander nodded his head.
“Only one problem with that,” Faith pointed at the building, “it’s closed.”
“Thought of that,” Xander turned in his seat and searched about in the cargo area for just a moment; seconds later he held up a tool bag triumphantly and smiled, “Breaking and entering tools!”
“Jeez,” sighed Faith as she shook her head in despair, somehow she just knew this wasn’t going to end well
0=0=0=0
Taking his Whippet, Martha for a late night walk, Fred Grimsdyke walked briskly along Mahatma Gandhi Drive before turning into Karl Marx Street. He tutted as he walked by the street sign; ever since the Socialists had got control of the local council they’d been changing all the street names. Stopping to light a cigarette, Fred turned his head to look back the way he’d come. He was almost sure he’d seen something behind him.
“Bloody kids,” he muttered staring into the night; “should be at ‘ome in bed be’now.”
Turning to continue his walk he suddenly found himself confronted by a large ape dressed in a nineteenth century French naval uniform clutching a bunch of bananas.
“Oh bloody ‘ell!” gasped Fred as he started to back away from the apparition.
“OOOK!” said the monkey as it advanced on Fred; it lifted a banana in its hand as if it was going to stab him.
With remarkable presence of mind (most people would have just stood there, frozen with fear) Fred turned and ran. He let go of Martha’s lead and the dog shot off at high speed, braking wildly as it disappeared into Joseph Stalin Avenue. Running as hard as he could, Fred pounded along the pavement until he saw a telephone box on the corner of the street.
Crossing the street with the banana wielding monkey in hot pursuit, he threw himself at the telephone box, Fred dragged open the door and collapsed inside. The monkey came to a halt outside the box seemingly confused by not being able to get at its quarry. It pounded on the small glass panes with its fists. When that didn’t gain it access it grabbed hold of the box and started to try and rip it out of the ground. Inside the box, Fred grasped for the receiver. With trembling hands he lifted the phone to his ear and dialled nine-nine-nine. The operator answered almost immediately and asked which service he required.
“There’s a giant French sailor monkey trying to kill me!” gasped Fred to the bewildered operator.
“Do you want the RSPCA?” replied the perplexed operator thinking this might be a prank call.
“NO! NO!” screamed Fred as the monkey heaved the box from side to side, “SEND THE POL…!”
The operator heard glass breaking then the most awful screams that would haunt her dreams for months to come. After a moment or two the screams stopped and she heard the sound of crunching footsteps on broken glass.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!” the sound was like a cry of triumph which froze the blood in the operator’s vanes.
0=0=0=0
Hartlepool Public Library.
“Here, let me,” Faith, fed up with watching Xander trying to jemmy open the back door to the library, snatched the crowbar out of his hands.
Ramming the end between the door and the doorframe, she heaved. There was the sound of splintering wood and a moment later the door swung open.
“Yeah, well,” Xander announced defensively, “I was going to try that approach next.”
“Whatever,” Faith sighed and walked into the pitch dark library, “where are all the books?”
Pulling a flashlight from his bag, Xander switched it on and followed Faith into the darkened room.
“It’s an office, Faith,” he pointed out, “the books must be through there,” he shone the flashlight towards another door, “anyway, we’re looking for the archives.”
“Hey! Put that flashlight out!” snapped Faith sounding a little like an Air Raid Warden.
“Torch,” corrected Xander, “anyway we’re alright here, no one can see us from the road.”
A few minutes searching found a door marked ‘Archives’, it was locked.
“Faith?” Xander pointed at the door, “It’s locked.”
Walking over to Xander, Faith gave him a hard look.
“I’m more than just a breaking down doors machine, ya know?” she told him sulkily.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll make it up to you later,” Xander stood to one side to let Faith get at the door.
“Ya will?” Faith contrived to look like a naughty schoolgirl, “What will ya get me?”
“I’ll buy you some candy, or something,” Xander shrugged, “now just open the door.”
“Gee,” Faith raised a foot and kicked, the door burst open, “thanks!”
“No problemo!” Xander waltzed passed Faith and disappeared into the darkness of the archives.
0=0=0=0
The corner of ‘Joseph Stalin Avenue’, Hartlepool.
“Another one,” announced Detective Constable Head as Detective Inspector Higgins came over to look at the crime scene.
“And ‘good evening’ to you too, lad,” Higgins, a middle aged man with more than twenty years on the force, squatted down next to the body. “Anyone see anything?”
“No, Boss,” Head consulted his note book, “everyone was in bed. Some people in the houses close by heard some stuff but just thought it was kids mucking about.”
“No one phoned anything in?” Higgins stood up with a slight groan.
“No sir,” Head sounded embarrassed.
“Not your fault, lad,” replied Higgins; he knew exactly why people didn’t phone in minor stuff like vandalism..
After the tenth time of being told that, ‘there were no resources to investigate your complaint’; people just stopped bothering phoning the police. Shaking his head sadly Higgins walked around the body and this is what you get. When a serious crime happened no one called it in and no one sees anything.
“What do we know?” Higgins asked tiredly.
“Call to the emergency operator came through just after one, boss.” Head read from his notes, “Area car got here within five minutes and cordoned off the area.”
Looking at his watch Higgins saw it was now one-thirty, just under an hour between murders. This probably meant that they had about thirty minutes to wait before they found out if they had a serial killer on their hands. Shaking his head, Higgins looked over at the remains of the telephone box. It had been ripped from the pavement and smashed to pieces. It must have taken something incredibly strong to do something like that.
His heart started to sink and the acid in his stomach started to churn; nothing human could have done that. He already knew that he’d not solve this case, after more than twenty years in the Cleveland Constabulary he knew this was going to be another of those weird cases that got swept under the carpet and forgotten about. After all who else but demons and monsters would use deep frozen bananas as murder weapons?
0=0=0=0
Hartlepool Public Library.
“Here we are!” Xander looked intently at the screen of the micro-film reader as a page of the Hartlepool Herald swam into focus.
“Thank fuck for that!” Faith had become bored after about five minutes of research; there were no vampires to dust and no monsters to kill. Looking through endless roles of micro film just hurt her eyes.
“Here, 1803, lets see now,” Xander’s eye scanned across the page, he made the occasional note while Faith hovered impatiently by his shoulder.
“Come on, Harris,” pleaded Faith, “I could be partying now instead of sitting in this dump.”
“Okay, okay,” Xander straightened up and turned to face Faith, “Look, there were five fishermen involved in hanging the monkey. I’ve got their names now and…”
“All you have to do is find out where there modern relatives live,” Faith had unwittingly seen the flaw in Harris’ plan.
This wasn’t a film were the information you needed to crack the case was available at the touch of a button. This was a public library where they’d not bothered putting the oldest records on computer. Xander had no idea were to start, this was a different country to the one he grew up in; they called things by different names here. They had different sets of information, it was all too much for him.
“Damn-it!” he hit the desk with his fist, “if Willow was here she could…”
Doubt entered Xander’s mind, even Willow had admitted to finding it difficult to access information. She was having to use magic more often than not just so she could find out even simple things. The British mania for secrecy didn’t help either.
“So what do we do?” asked Faith, she’d realised the problem before Xander had. “Like how many…” she looked at the screen, “Grimsdyke’s are there in town? Do we rip out the page of the telephone directory and go through them all like the Terminator did?”
“Crap, crap and more crap!” Xander pushed back his chair angrily and stood up. “Whatever happened to just hitting the books for ten minutes and finding the answers?”
“Come on,” Faith shrugged and headed for the steps out of the basement, “we might as well drive around some more, maybe we’ll get lucky.” Faith smiled at Xander in the dark, “Hey, Harris it’s not your fault, be cool okay?”
Leaving the library, Xander pulled the broken door closed as best he could, he turned to find a bright light being shone into his eye.
“Hello, hello, hello,” said an official sounding voice, “what’s all this then?”
0=0=0=0
Fossgate Road, Hartlepool.
Tires squealing, siren blaring and blue lights flashing, the police car almost went up on two wheels as it sped into Fossgate Road. There, halfway down the row of red brick council houses, Higgins could see the pieces of door and window being thrown into the neat little street.
The car screeched to a halt and the two constables in the front opened their doors and leaped from the vehicle. Higgins and Head followed at a more sedate pace more fitting for members of the Cleveland CID. As the two young uniformed coppers skidded into the garden of number twenty-seven Fossgate Road; whatever had been trying to demolish the house stopped and vanished into the night.
Walking into the house’s little front garden, Higgins noted the torn up flower beds and smashed up garden gnomes. The front windows had been smashed in and the front door was half off its hinges.
“What are you waiting for?” called Higgins to the two uniformed officers, “Get in there and find out if anyone’s been hurt.
Drawing their side handled batons and tear gas sprays the two uniforms bundled through the ruined front door. Glancing around Higgins noticed the neighbours starting to crowd around the garden gate as they tried to see what was going on. Just then a Transit van full of uniformed constables arrived with a squeal of brakes.
“Head, lad,” Higgins called to his assistant, “have the uniforms keep those people back, then you start taking names and addresses, we’ll want statements off everyone.”
“Right boss!” Head moved towards the crowd and started to direct the uniforms as they moved people back and started to cordon off the area.
Walking towards the house, Higgins came face to face with the two uniforms as they helped a middle aged couple towards the door.
“Mr and Mrs Hart, sir,” announced the older looking constable, “they were in bed when something attacked the house.”
The officer looked around uneasily as if expecting whatever it was to reappear.
“When did this start?” demanded Higgins.
“About five or ten minutes ago, sir,” replied the officer.
“Alright,” Higgins rubbed his chin in thought, “better get Mr and Mrs Hart down to A&E, then get them to the station.”
“Right you are, sir,” the two uniforms started to usher the frightened couple towards the waiting police vehicles.
Tagging along behind them, Higgins soon found himself out in the front garden again. Head had had the crowd pushed back to the other side of the road where he and a couple of uniforms were noting down witness statements. The other officers had set up a taped perimeter and seemed to have everything under control.
As he crossed the road to talk to Head, Higgins was stopped in his tracks by a woman’s scream. Cries of alarm came from the crowd while some pointed and others ran for their lives. Turning, Higgins looked up at number twenty-seven; there on the roof stood a giant monkey dressed in a French Napoleonic sailor’s uniform. It waved a bunch of bananas over its head as it stood on the roof of the house.
“Oh! Bloody hell!” gasped Higgins.
He recognised the monkey as being one of those cute little creatures that were usually employed by organ-grinders in days of old. The only problem was this one was about a hundred times bigger than it should be; it had to be a good eight or nine feet tall! It jumped down into the garden where it stood for a moment looking around, seeing what it was looking for it started to move towards the police car that Higgins had arrived in.
“OOOOK!” it roared as it jumped onto the car almost crushing the roof, it started to tear at the car trying to get at the terrified Harts’ who’d been put in the car prior to transfer to A&E.
“QUICK!” Higgins, drew his telescopic baton from under his raincoat and ran towards the car; he could hear the sound of policemen’s boots on the road as they joined the inspector in trying to apprehend the monkey.
The monkey swept away any opposition with contemptuous ease; Higgins found himself thrown through a garden hedge. He came to rest against the wall of a house only missing being impaled on a gnome’s fishing rod by mere inches. Standing up unsteadily, he looked around. There was no sign of the monster monkey, however, lying amongst the litter of semi conscious police officers was Mr Hart, pinned to the road with a banana through his heart.
“Shit, crap and corruption,” swore Higgins as he staggered to his feet; he saw a uniformed sergeant who had just arrived in a patrol car. “Sergeant,” he called the man over, “Get on your radio, I want armed response teams and every copper that can walk out on the streets. I want Hartlepool sealed off, wake up the Chief Constable if you have to but I’m going to catch this bastard!”
0=0=0=0
Standing over the sleeping forms of the two constables, Faith grinned impishly at Xander.
“You know, assaulting a police officer is a serious crime?” Xander informed her.
“Whatever,” replied Faith lightly, she bent and took something from the nearest policeman’s uniform.
“What’s that?” Xander squinted in the darkness.
“Police radio,” Faith informed him, “now we can hear what the police are saying…maybe we can stop this thing before it kills again!”
0=0=0=0
Hartlepool.
“Look!” Xander brought the Land Rover to a sudden halt outside of a solid looking, Victorian public building.
“What? Where?” Faith turned her head left and right trying to work out what had got Xander so excited, “Did you see it?”
They’d been driving around Hartlepool for half an hour and so far there had been no sign of any murderous monkeys, in or out of uniform.
“No, but look,” Xander indicated the grey forbidding stone building.
“Yeah? What about it?” Faith craned her neck to see around Xander.
“Public Library, Faith,” Xander explained stating the obvious.
“So,” Faith shrugged her shoulders, “you think this French monkey guy will stop off for a book or something?”
“No,” Xander shook his head tiredly, “at least I don’t think so…I don’t suppose he reads English.” Xander thought about this for a second before adding, “Look, there’s probably records in there, old newspapers that sorta stuff.”
“You think it might come and read the old newspapers?” frowned Faith.
“NO!” Xander replied an exasperated edge to his voice.
Laughing, Faith rested her hand on Xander’s shoulder.
“Hey,” she grinned, “I’m only teasing,” she went on more seriously. “Y’think we could maybe find out who monkey-guy might be after?”
“Yeah,” Xander nodded his head.
“Only one problem with that,” Faith pointed at the building, “it’s closed.”
“Thought of that,” Xander turned in his seat and searched about in the cargo area for just a moment; seconds later he held up a tool bag triumphantly and smiled, “Breaking and entering tools!”
“Jeez,” sighed Faith as she shook her head in despair, somehow she just knew this wasn’t going to end well
0=0=0=0
Taking his Whippet, Martha for a late night walk, Fred Grimsdyke walked briskly along Mahatma Gandhi Drive before turning into Karl Marx Street. He tutted as he walked by the street sign; ever since the Socialists had got control of the local council they’d been changing all the street names. Stopping to light a cigarette, Fred turned his head to look back the way he’d come. He was almost sure he’d seen something behind him.
“Bloody kids,” he muttered staring into the night; “should be at ‘ome in bed be’now.”
Turning to continue his walk he suddenly found himself confronted by a large ape dressed in a nineteenth century French naval uniform clutching a bunch of bananas.
“Oh bloody ‘ell!” gasped Fred as he started to back away from the apparition.
“OOOK!” said the monkey as it advanced on Fred; it lifted a banana in its hand as if it was going to stab him.
With remarkable presence of mind (most people would have just stood there, frozen with fear) Fred turned and ran. He let go of Martha’s lead and the dog shot off at high speed, braking wildly as it disappeared into Joseph Stalin Avenue. Running as hard as he could, Fred pounded along the pavement until he saw a telephone box on the corner of the street.
Crossing the street with the banana wielding monkey in hot pursuit, he threw himself at the telephone box, Fred dragged open the door and collapsed inside. The monkey came to a halt outside the box seemingly confused by not being able to get at its quarry. It pounded on the small glass panes with its fists. When that didn’t gain it access it grabbed hold of the box and started to try and rip it out of the ground. Inside the box, Fred grasped for the receiver. With trembling hands he lifted the phone to his ear and dialled nine-nine-nine. The operator answered almost immediately and asked which service he required.
“There’s a giant French sailor monkey trying to kill me!” gasped Fred to the bewildered operator.
“Do you want the RSPCA?” replied the perplexed operator thinking this might be a prank call.
“NO! NO!” screamed Fred as the monkey heaved the box from side to side, “SEND THE POL…!”
The operator heard glass breaking then the most awful screams that would haunt her dreams for months to come. After a moment or two the screams stopped and she heard the sound of crunching footsteps on broken glass.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!” the sound was like a cry of triumph which froze the blood in the operator’s vanes.
0=0=0=0
Hartlepool Public Library.
“Here, let me,” Faith, fed up with watching Xander trying to jemmy open the back door to the library, snatched the crowbar out of his hands.
Ramming the end between the door and the doorframe, she heaved. There was the sound of splintering wood and a moment later the door swung open.
“Yeah, well,” Xander announced defensively, “I was going to try that approach next.”
“Whatever,” Faith sighed and walked into the pitch dark library, “where are all the books?”
Pulling a flashlight from his bag, Xander switched it on and followed Faith into the darkened room.
“It’s an office, Faith,” he pointed out, “the books must be through there,” he shone the flashlight towards another door, “anyway, we’re looking for the archives.”
“Hey! Put that flashlight out!” snapped Faith sounding a little like an Air Raid Warden.
“Torch,” corrected Xander, “anyway we’re alright here, no one can see us from the road.”
A few minutes searching found a door marked ‘Archives’, it was locked.
“Faith?” Xander pointed at the door, “It’s locked.”
Walking over to Xander, Faith gave him a hard look.
“I’m more than just a breaking down doors machine, ya know?” she told him sulkily.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll make it up to you later,” Xander stood to one side to let Faith get at the door.
“Ya will?” Faith contrived to look like a naughty schoolgirl, “What will ya get me?”
“I’ll buy you some candy, or something,” Xander shrugged, “now just open the door.”
“Gee,” Faith raised a foot and kicked, the door burst open, “thanks!”
“No problemo!” Xander waltzed passed Faith and disappeared into the darkness of the archives.
0=0=0=0
The corner of ‘Joseph Stalin Avenue’, Hartlepool.
“Another one,” announced Detective Constable Head as Detective Inspector Higgins came over to look at the crime scene.
“And ‘good evening’ to you too, lad,” Higgins, a middle aged man with more than twenty years on the force, squatted down next to the body. “Anyone see anything?”
“No, Boss,” Head consulted his note book, “everyone was in bed. Some people in the houses close by heard some stuff but just thought it was kids mucking about.”
“No one phoned anything in?” Higgins stood up with a slight groan.
“No sir,” Head sounded embarrassed.
“Not your fault, lad,” replied Higgins; he knew exactly why people didn’t phone in minor stuff like vandalism..
After the tenth time of being told that, ‘there were no resources to investigate your complaint’; people just stopped bothering phoning the police. Shaking his head sadly Higgins walked around the body and this is what you get. When a serious crime happened no one called it in and no one sees anything.
“What do we know?” Higgins asked tiredly.
“Call to the emergency operator came through just after one, boss.” Head read from his notes, “Area car got here within five minutes and cordoned off the area.”
Looking at his watch Higgins saw it was now one-thirty, just under an hour between murders. This probably meant that they had about thirty minutes to wait before they found out if they had a serial killer on their hands. Shaking his head, Higgins looked over at the remains of the telephone box. It had been ripped from the pavement and smashed to pieces. It must have taken something incredibly strong to do something like that.
His heart started to sink and the acid in his stomach started to churn; nothing human could have done that. He already knew that he’d not solve this case, after more than twenty years in the Cleveland Constabulary he knew this was going to be another of those weird cases that got swept under the carpet and forgotten about. After all who else but demons and monsters would use deep frozen bananas as murder weapons?
0=0=0=0
Hartlepool Public Library.
“Here we are!” Xander looked intently at the screen of the micro-film reader as a page of the Hartlepool Herald swam into focus.
“Thank fuck for that!” Faith had become bored after about five minutes of research; there were no vampires to dust and no monsters to kill. Looking through endless roles of micro film just hurt her eyes.
“Here, 1803, lets see now,” Xander’s eye scanned across the page, he made the occasional note while Faith hovered impatiently by his shoulder.
“Come on, Harris,” pleaded Faith, “I could be partying now instead of sitting in this dump.”
“Okay, okay,” Xander straightened up and turned to face Faith, “Look, there were five fishermen involved in hanging the monkey. I’ve got their names now and…”
“All you have to do is find out where there modern relatives live,” Faith had unwittingly seen the flaw in Harris’ plan.
This wasn’t a film were the information you needed to crack the case was available at the touch of a button. This was a public library where they’d not bothered putting the oldest records on computer. Xander had no idea were to start, this was a different country to the one he grew up in; they called things by different names here. They had different sets of information, it was all too much for him.
“Damn-it!” he hit the desk with his fist, “if Willow was here she could…”
Doubt entered Xander’s mind, even Willow had admitted to finding it difficult to access information. She was having to use magic more often than not just so she could find out even simple things. The British mania for secrecy didn’t help either.
“So what do we do?” asked Faith, she’d realised the problem before Xander had. “Like how many…” she looked at the screen, “Grimsdyke’s are there in town? Do we rip out the page of the telephone directory and go through them all like the Terminator did?”
“Crap, crap and more crap!” Xander pushed back his chair angrily and stood up. “Whatever happened to just hitting the books for ten minutes and finding the answers?”
“Come on,” Faith shrugged and headed for the steps out of the basement, “we might as well drive around some more, maybe we’ll get lucky.” Faith smiled at Xander in the dark, “Hey, Harris it’s not your fault, be cool okay?”
Leaving the library, Xander pulled the broken door closed as best he could, he turned to find a bright light being shone into his eye.
“Hello, hello, hello,” said an official sounding voice, “what’s all this then?”
0=0=0=0
Fossgate Road, Hartlepool.
Tires squealing, siren blaring and blue lights flashing, the police car almost went up on two wheels as it sped into Fossgate Road. There, halfway down the row of red brick council houses, Higgins could see the pieces of door and window being thrown into the neat little street.
The car screeched to a halt and the two constables in the front opened their doors and leaped from the vehicle. Higgins and Head followed at a more sedate pace more fitting for members of the Cleveland CID. As the two young uniformed coppers skidded into the garden of number twenty-seven Fossgate Road; whatever had been trying to demolish the house stopped and vanished into the night.
Walking into the house’s little front garden, Higgins noted the torn up flower beds and smashed up garden gnomes. The front windows had been smashed in and the front door was half off its hinges.
“What are you waiting for?” called Higgins to the two uniformed officers, “Get in there and find out if anyone’s been hurt.
Drawing their side handled batons and tear gas sprays the two uniforms bundled through the ruined front door. Glancing around Higgins noticed the neighbours starting to crowd around the garden gate as they tried to see what was going on. Just then a Transit van full of uniformed constables arrived with a squeal of brakes.
“Head, lad,” Higgins called to his assistant, “have the uniforms keep those people back, then you start taking names and addresses, we’ll want statements off everyone.”
“Right boss!” Head moved towards the crowd and started to direct the uniforms as they moved people back and started to cordon off the area.
Walking towards the house, Higgins came face to face with the two uniforms as they helped a middle aged couple towards the door.
“Mr and Mrs Hart, sir,” announced the older looking constable, “they were in bed when something attacked the house.”
The officer looked around uneasily as if expecting whatever it was to reappear.
“When did this start?” demanded Higgins.
“About five or ten minutes ago, sir,” replied the officer.
“Alright,” Higgins rubbed his chin in thought, “better get Mr and Mrs Hart down to A&E, then get them to the station.”
“Right you are, sir,” the two uniforms started to usher the frightened couple towards the waiting police vehicles.
Tagging along behind them, Higgins soon found himself out in the front garden again. Head had had the crowd pushed back to the other side of the road where he and a couple of uniforms were noting down witness statements. The other officers had set up a taped perimeter and seemed to have everything under control.
As he crossed the road to talk to Head, Higgins was stopped in his tracks by a woman’s scream. Cries of alarm came from the crowd while some pointed and others ran for their lives. Turning, Higgins looked up at number twenty-seven; there on the roof stood a giant monkey dressed in a French Napoleonic sailor’s uniform. It waved a bunch of bananas over its head as it stood on the roof of the house.
“Oh! Bloody hell!” gasped Higgins.
He recognised the monkey as being one of those cute little creatures that were usually employed by organ-grinders in days of old. The only problem was this one was about a hundred times bigger than it should be; it had to be a good eight or nine feet tall! It jumped down into the garden where it stood for a moment looking around, seeing what it was looking for it started to move towards the police car that Higgins had arrived in.
“OOOOK!” it roared as it jumped onto the car almost crushing the roof, it started to tear at the car trying to get at the terrified Harts’ who’d been put in the car prior to transfer to A&E.
“QUICK!” Higgins, drew his telescopic baton from under his raincoat and ran towards the car; he could hear the sound of policemen’s boots on the road as they joined the inspector in trying to apprehend the monkey.
The monkey swept away any opposition with contemptuous ease; Higgins found himself thrown through a garden hedge. He came to rest against the wall of a house only missing being impaled on a gnome’s fishing rod by mere inches. Standing up unsteadily, he looked around. There was no sign of the monster monkey, however, lying amongst the litter of semi conscious police officers was Mr Hart, pinned to the road with a banana through his heart.
“Shit, crap and corruption,” swore Higgins as he staggered to his feet; he saw a uniformed sergeant who had just arrived in a patrol car. “Sergeant,” he called the man over, “Get on your radio, I want armed response teams and every copper that can walk out on the streets. I want Hartlepool sealed off, wake up the Chief Constable if you have to but I’m going to catch this bastard!”
0=0=0=0
Standing over the sleeping forms of the two constables, Faith grinned impishly at Xander.
“You know, assaulting a police officer is a serious crime?” Xander informed her.
“Whatever,” replied Faith lightly, she bent and took something from the nearest policeman’s uniform.
“What’s that?” Xander squinted in the darkness.
“Police radio,” Faith informed him, “now we can hear what the police are saying…maybe we can stop this thing before it kills again!”
0=0=0=0
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