HosstoryHosstory
Filey Roads
Chapter 1
The conditions of the roads in Filey is getting worse. Holes here, and cracks there, you swerve left to right to avoid them and get pulled up by the police for driving erratically or with ‘undue care are and attention’ which costs you another fortune in fines that once paid, also disappear. You drive down West Ave or up West Road, the place is returning to rubble. Where the hell does the increase on the road tax and the petrol go?
Well, us now being the 51 st State of the good old USA says it all. The yanks get 13 per cent of all taxes taken in Britain, something to do with the amount they paid out during the last two world wars and any other war they could manage to get themselves into since. Personally I think they added a bit on for that war of independence back in 1700 and odd, but that’s just my personal view and should not be taken too seriously.
The yanks and their ‘American way’ are infiltrating wherever it’s possible into British culture, hell, they’ve even got their traffic ‘STOP’ sine on our roads; the octagonal thing with the word STOP on it. Why’s it that shape? The book says it’s that shape so that you know what it is and what it means, even when it’s covered in snow or ice and you can’t see the word. If there’s that much ice and snow around, even if you do know what the thing means and what you must do, you hell as sure wont be able to!
Anyway, there’s another thing the yanks have imposed on our streets and at great expense to our tax paying public too. It was discussed several months ago on this site and there are several to hundreds around the streets of Filey. They’re not bothered by the hols in the road, nor are their owners bothered about paying road tax or for petrol; nor in fact do they bother about anything else either; in front, behind, or anywhere around them. No. These things have been placed here as a cast off curse because the yanks realised what they were capable of and what they could do to a perfectly functioning social society; and the yanks don’t want them.
These objects of pure annoyance of which I speak are not the sinister CSY’s, the weapon of mass destruction left over from the cold war. These things are much more abundant and lethal than those mere toys. The things I speak of are the hideous and gruesome OAP Transport Buggies. Yes. Those vehicles that allow their apathetic driver to barge effortlessly through a pathway full of innocent pedestrians, and with total and impartial cruelty and malice, swipe out with unequalled accuracy with their walking-stick and cut down as a scythe through corn any who remain defiant in their path. This. The pensioner’s total weapon of terror and undiluted fear is without remorse used to the fullest of its owners spite and evilness at will against anyone and anything that comes within their reach. They can even be used to take their owner for a day out journey, holding up mile upon mile of traffic to a snails pace on busy roads or carriageways.
Some of these evil devices of transport have also been customised to suit their owner’s personal requirements. I know this as a fact as recently I was nearly hit by one while casually walking along West Avenue early in the morning. On turning round, I don’t know why, I found myself in the path of one of these oncoming things. Just in time, and in an instant I recognised what it was, and as quickly I managed to pull my camera and photograph the thing before it was upon me. To save my life, as I knew that it would not stop, I jumped aside out of the drivers reach as I knew that he would, and did, swiped his stick out in my direction to hit me.
Tumbling and rolling towards and onto the road, I found myself dazed and in front of an approaching Dixons van. It was white. It was bright. And it was very very visible from where I was viewing it from, and I knew that where I was viewing it from at present was not the place that I should be. What I knew and what indeed happened had no significance as there I froze, and time itself seemed to slow as each and every second, the events that it marked, was stretched out around me. I watched the vehicle approaching. Larger and lager it became and nearing me its wheels suddenly locking in a smoking and uncontrollable skid. Expecting it to hit me I closed my eyes and cried out loud in what might be my last call. The call ended and immediately I took another gulp of air and screamed again.
There I sat for what seemed like ages, gulping and expelling air in louder and louder screams. Every one of my body’s muscles tensed, and I expected sudden pain to befall me, a sudden pain that within an instant might bring the end to my life on earth.
None came. Not even a twitch. Nothing at all seemed to happen. There was not even a sound from anything close by. There I sat probing each part of my body within my mind for any hint of something that might be hurting. As I slowly opened each of my eyes I looked around me. There at my side I saw that now the van was silent and still, its front bumper but an inch from my body, and looking up I saw that it was empty. I quickly turned towards Dixons shop only to see the back of Colin Smiths blue lab coat disappearing through the shops open front door.
He’d not seen me. The pillock had not even known that I was there. At least he could have had the courtesy to hit me and make things look more rational than they must have seemed. Inwardly I cursed. There I had been. Crouched in the gutter screaming at the top of my voice in front of an empty van with god knows who looking and laughing at me.
Quickly I looked around to see who might be watching. There seemed to be no one, and with swiftness but still trembling from what had just taken place, I jumped from the gutter and hastily headed to the café across the street where what I needed now was something to calm me down, or brighten me up, or make me right again. Something to remove the high levels of adrenalin in my body that had built up so quickly and for nothing. What I needed now was a large cup of coffee.
There I sat staring out through the curtained window to the buggy across the street. There I sat watching it and waited for its driver to emerge. I didn’t quite know what I was going to do to the madman and his machine of death that had only minuets before nearly caused my demise, but now at least I did feel much safer. Distance and a large glass window were between me and it.
I sat and tried to compose myself thinking over what had just taken place and also thinking how lucky I had been. I knew that there must be others out there who’d not been so lucky. Others filling both casualty wards and mortuaries, their bodies covered heavily in walking stick bruises and tyre track marks; but I for some reason had but shallow grazes and my life for one had been spared.
I’d always thought in the past that these buggies of death were brought here and driven by retiring West Riding croakers who had a total indifference to those on the coast where they had come to spend their final days; but I was sure that in the brief second that I’d taken the first of the photo’s I’d recognised the driver of the machine.
Moments later my thoughts were cut short by the emergence of the buggies owner from his place of endless nectar. From where I sat and through the log draped curtain I could not make out his identity, but there I saw him mount the seat, and within seconds he was on his way, swinging his stick from side to side and shouting obscenities at those around him as he went. Those he approached wisely jumped aside to let him past for they did not want to become a customer of doctor Valentine or even worse, of Haxby’s.
The odd thing I noticed of this machine, a thing that I had never noticed in any other, was that this buggy as it travelled swayed slowly from side to side. At first I thought this odd. Maybe the machine had sustained damage in the past? An accident perhaps, colliding with something harder than it or an exceptionally large and stubborn pedestrian? From where I sat, and at this distance I could not tell the features of the drivers face, but the wheels I could see were definitely an oval shape. I also didn’t have long to watch or ponder on this as within seconds the thing had crossed the street and was gone, swaying its way down Mitford Street and leaving a trail of complaining, swearing, and destruction behind it.
Chapter 2
I looked at my now empty cup. Calmly placed it upon the table before me. And left.
Chapter 3
Back at home in front of my PC, I loaded the picture from my camera. There its icon was and quickly I clicked it, hoping I had at least caught something that would give me answers. Slowly the image appeared and showed that I had indeed actually caught one of these things close up. It and indeed its driver about their business of reeking havoc on the streets of Filey.
In it I saw also what I had suspected seeing as I had taken it so quickly. The face in detail of the driver of this device and thing of malevolence. There he was, bold as brass, and to my total surprise and horror I knew the driver of this terror weapon to be a lifelong resident of Filey. There he was sat on the seat of his vehicle, looking cheerful in my defeat, and looking defiantly straight back at me, there knowing that he was going where he wanted to go, and no one, especially me, was going to stop him.
There I sat, and for some time looked disbelievingly at the picture on the screen before me. I could not at first grasp that someone of Filey had turned to using something as hideous and destructive as the thing he rode, but then, still unable to perceive what I saw, my hand grasped the mouse and pointed it to enlarge the image.
The image grew before me showing the machine with its grinning driver staring smugly back. From what I remember and from what I saw showed that its controls were simple. A single control column as on a scooter used both to steer and manage its speed. There were no apparent singes of external weaponry on or attached to its frame but I remember there being eggs and fruit in the basket on its front.
Immediately my eyes were drawn to its wheels. There was something odd about the wheels of this particular one I remembered, but as hard as I looked, I could not make out there shape from the photos angle. They were not round as all others I had seen, but slightly oval in shape. I thought back to my first theory of damage for this. Damage? This did not ring true as the picture, even with video enhancement, showed no evidence of damage that might have caused the deforming of their shape. There again. Why would the driver want to be shaken? Surly he would want a steady and comfortable ride about his business at his age? There I sat for an hour or more flicking between the multitude of video resolutions that my program had to offer. Trying to make some sense of what they might mean or show.
Suddenly the penny dropped. The reasoning flashed to me as the shattering of glass at the instant a yobs brick smashes the window of a bus-stop shelter. The owner. The swaying. The wheels were that shape to induce the swaying. It was built into the mechanical working of the thing. It was designed and built to give the motion of a rocking boat at sea. The thing had been customised specifically for him. Customised and built to remind him of his younger days and give him comfort in his final years of havoc.
I now still do not know a way of stopping these buggies of terror, maybe if I could capture one along with its driver I could dismantle both and find out how they worked, and from that, their weakness.
Until then I can only warn the pedestrians of Filey, and elsewhere, to always look behind them, and if the streets are clear, and the sound of swishing is heard. Be warned, as this foretells the fate that could and surly will become you if you quickly do not get out of the way.
If you doubt any of what you have just read. And think that you should take what I have said lightly. See the photo. There it is ultimate proof that these things do in fact exist and now are on the streets in ever increasing numbers, waiting and wandering. Ready to over-run the town like rats and feed off the remains of the decent walking citizens of Filey.