On the Subject of Pie - Episode 6
Created | Updated Nov 30, 2006
Primary Phase - Episode Six
John was feeling a bit better than usual. He was now no longer soaking wet and had had a nice cup of tea and some biscuits, something which always cheered him up. Emily had listened to his whole bizarre tale about swans, rooms covered entirely in green and putrid blokes buying jelly babies and then she'd gone on her way, leaving him with her number in case he needed to contact her for any reason. The swan seemed to have gone off to bother someone else and John had settled down for a quiet evening watching a movie. However, something strange had started to catch the corner of his eye — something that wasn't meant to be there. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the terror that Kurt Russell was dealing with while trying to evade The Thing, his attention was continually being drawn towards the brown package that he had left unopened on the kitchen table. He wondered whether he should open it and eventually brought himself to pause the film and get up. However, at this point he realised he needed the loo, and after a quick visit to the lavatory he decided to microwave a small bag of toffee-flavoured popcorn and then sit and eat it while watching the film. After all, he was quite interested in finding out who the monster had taken over, so he sat and waited patiently to see how the whole thing would pan out, conveniently forgetting the important parcel altogether.
Emily was also watching TV at that moment, although of course she had deemed The Thing just a little too weird and had decided to watch Pride and Prejudice instead. She started to wonder whether the new version was as good as the BBC version, but she wasn't really sure. Life should be more interesting, she thought, and she started wondering what she could do to help life get its act together. She wondered what had been in that package that John had collected from the place on Basildon Road and this gave her an idea. She would take a day or two off work and stalk him — he was supposed to be the private investigator, but Emily reckoned she could do a better job of staying incognito than he could. After all, he'd probably get himself into some ridiculous mess and need helping out sooner or later.
'Hey! Pyro! Look what I've got!'
Pyrodæmon turned to see that Lluchmoor had returned from his outing to goodness-knows-where and that he was carrying a small paper bag and skipping along in a rather un-demonic fashion. Pyrodæmon groaned and enquired as to what on earth Lluchmoor was carrying.
'They're called jelly babies! There's even one that looks a bit like you — all green, fat and shrivelled...'
For a moment Pyrodæmon seriously considered incinerating the small paper bag, but then considered the trouble it would cause if he upset Lluchmoor right in the middle of Mrs Bewidigeldi's garden. Lluchmoor offered him one of the strange miniature children and Pyro decided to bite the head off it. It wasn't all that bad, although it was quite sickly sweet and a bit got stuck in his teeth — not that he ever brushed them. He decided to make a deal — Lluchmoor could have a place to sit in the front of the tow truck if he'd give Pyro some more jelly babies. It seemed fair enough, though Lluchmoor had the cheek to give Pyro all the yellow ones. He didn't have time to complain — he needed to sleep now.
The following morning, John woke up in his own bed with a nice view of his own ceiling. Things were back to normal again and he could happily traipse through to the kitchen for a nice bowl of cornflakes and a hot cup of tea without a single worry. Or at least that's what he thought. The brown package was still sitting on the kitchen table and despite attempts to ignore it, John just couldn't help but feel as if he had some sort of responsibility to open it. He started thinking about opening it, but then considered the possibility of it self-destructing rather messily five seconds after delivering its message and decided not to fiddle with it just yet.
Emily was ready. She'd had breakfast and pulled on some rather dull clothes which would make her particularly inconspicuous and was on the way over to John's house. She felt slightly nervous about the whole thing, but at least it was a proper departure from the dullness of everyday life. Emily noticed that she wasn't looking where she was driving and so she began to concentrate again, lest she took a chunk out of another innocent cyclist.
Though John had reasoned to himself that the whole idea had simply grown as a new branch of his ever-present paranoia, he decided that the possibility of there being something nasty inside the package was real enough, considering the circumstances under which he had acquired it. He made a point of dressing properly and locking both doors, and then headed off to Finsbury Park with the parcel in tow.
Emily saw John walking to the end of Travers Road just as she pulled past and so she decided to park the car a little further away. She nearly lost track of him while trying to find a space where the car would be relatively safe from parking tickets, but once she got out of the car she noticed a man walking towards Seven Sisters Road wearing his t-shirt back to front. Either John was making a fashion statement or he simply hadn't taken it off yet, but either way Emily could clearly see the small cartoon alien on his back, which she began to follow, keeping a discreet distance.
The sun was shining through the clouds, making it such a nice day that John decided he'd walk for a while before opening the brown package. He began to walk through Finsbury Park towards the old Parkland Walk towards Highgate and was just thinking about which bench he'd sit on to open the package when his paranoia struck again. What if someone was following him? He began to look shiftily over his shoulder, but then realised how stupid he looked doing such a thing and increased his pace instead.
Emily noticed that John was looking over his shoulder and dropped back a little bit until she could convince herself that he hadn't seen her. This was turning out to be a little trickier than she expected, and she wondered whether she should have bought a book about it before actually trying to stalk someone. Fortunately, John now had his head down and was walking a bit faster and Emily could get a lot closer. She started to think to herself that she was doing pretty well and started to daydream, leading her to walk right past John, who had sat down and was beginning to open his parcel. Emily walked closer and leaned over to say hello and ask if he'd found anything interesting, but at that point they were both enveloped by a blinding flash of light and disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving nothing but a small patch of charred ground next to the bench. The owl, which had up until that point been quite happily experimenting with some odd things known as commuting and daytime hunting, was blinded by the flash and fell right out of a nearby tree and into a rather smelly pile of moss. As soon as it came to, it decided that it could cope much better with the countryside, even if it did have to put up with weekly displays of pyromania. Meanwhile, a disgruntled quack indicated that a nearby swan was becoming equally fed up with its current circumstances.
