The Restorationists

Hi guys,

This is an older piece that I’ve tried to tidy up a bit, but I’ve got to say, I enjoyed writing this one a lot. It’s loosely based on a board game called, “A Study in Emerald”, a cthulu inspired story. I’d urge to to stay with it until the action scene, which I found to be one of my favourite scenes I’ve written.

As always, I appreciate any thoughts or feedback you might have on the piece, please let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Jevan Thompson

 

 

Timmons set down his cup on the wooden table with a dull, hollow thud.

“Are you out of your mind? You are seriously considering this?” Arthur asked, blatant disbelief obvious in his raised tones. His voice was like a piece of music, each word a note in a perfectly annunciated melody.

“I’m with Arty. Timmons, you can’t be serious…” Eleanor agreed.

Timmons looked around at the three people at the table slowly, making sure he met all of their eyes. He broke his gaze, taking his smoking pipe and matchbox from his leather waistcoat pocket. The pipe was a small simple thing, no ornate etchings, no metals or inlays, just plain, ordinary wood.

He slowly brought the pipe deliberately to his mouth, and lit a match, carefully cradling it in his hands whilst he ignited the tobacco. After a few moments, he waved the flickering flame out. Smoke twisted gently into the air, lingering in the small basement room like a fog.

A few more moments of silence passed, until Arthur spoke again.

“My god… You’re actually considering this aren’t you? You want to try and kill it? The All Feeling Beast?”

Timmons puffed a few times on his pipe. “No, we’re not going to try. We’re going to do it. We’re going to kill the Ancient One of London.”

“Ha! You’re deadly serious aren’t you! You’re quite mad I’m afraid!” Arthur laughed with a small deliberate shake of his head.

“It can’t be done Timmons. It simply can’t be done.” Eleanor agreed.

Smoke curled from the pipe, swirling upwards through the air as if trying to escape the small basement. “They say it can’t be done. They say they are immortal, destined to rule. You know who says that?”

He paused for effect.

“The Loyalists. They control the propaganda. They control who says what. Of course they’re going to say that!”

“Gunna be ‘ard” Slate said quietly.

“Bloody hell Slate! First word you’ve said all night and you’re accepting it’s possible? I can’t decide if it’s both of you who’s mad or if it’s me and Eleanor!” Arthur scoffed.

Slate was a working man, through and through. He wore machinists clothes, grimy black trousers held up with suspenders. A grey shirt covered in stains stretched against his muscular frame. He had a strong build, his body wasn’t made for looks or for personal vanity, it was the frame of a man who had worked, long and hard all of his life.

“I’ve been through the plan enough times. It can be done. It just needs people to do it.” Timmons said.

It seemed like an eternity before any of them spoke again, before any voices pierced the cold silence that had settled in the quiet confines of the basement.

“I’m in.” Slate said.

“How?! How can you be so sure? So committed to this? What are you two thinking?!” Arthur exclaimed.

Slate took a drink from his cup. “Has to end some time.”

“What?”

“Everything ends. I’m gunna end. You’re gunna end. Engine parts break. Wood rots. Bricks crumble. Everything ends. May as well see if we can speed up thiers.”

“This is it. This is our moment, with the celebrations looming we might not get another chance.” Timmons paused and took another puff on his pipe, before setting it down pointedly.

“It’s now, or never.” Timmons said firmly.

Silence reigned supreme again. A serious silence full of contemplation and thought.

“Well. When you put it like that, I’m in as well old boy.” Arthur said, taking a drink from his cup.

“What?! Now something’s definitely not right! You were just against it a moment ago!” Eleanor shouted, raising her hands in disbelief.

“I know my dear, but our dear friend Slate worded it so seductively. Or maybe I’m just bored, or suicidal, or reckless, or-”

“You know we can do it Eleanor. We’ve got our bomb maker, our ambassador, our muscle and our plan. We can do this.” Timmons interrupted, steel in his eyes.

Everyone looked at Eleanor. Eleanor looked at the table. A million thoughts flying through her head.

“I’m sorry I can’t-”

A distant banging sounded, interrupting everything else.

Everyone looked to the entrance to the basement. Timmons pushed his chair back and drew out a pistol, he checked the cylinders of the revolver as he spoke.

“Everyone get out. Go through the tunnels, take the drawings.”

“It might be a mistake, maybe it’s-” Arthur reasoned.

“Only four people knew of this meeting. They’re all here. We’ve never once been disturbed after hours here. Go now.”

“But Timmons-” Eleanor tried to speak.

“Go.” Timmons said in a harsh growl. His eyes had hardened. They were so sharp, it looked like they could cut glass.

It was the face of a man who knew his bell had tolled.

“Ee’s right. Let’s go.” Slate stood up and started to move everyone to the tunnels. He gave Timmons a nod. “We’ll do it Tim.”

Timmons returned the nod and started up the basement stairs.

********************************

 

Timmons put his right arm behind his back, concealing the pistol in his hand. He looked towards the front door of the pub, the tables and chairs surrounded in darkness. All the lanterns had been put out, the candles all unlit.

The door banged again.

Timmons took a deep breath in and walked towards the door. The banging continued all the way. The door creaked open.

It was a young woman with a ripped green dress, her beautiful pale face ruined by the tears running down from her eyes. She looked up to him, desperation in her eyes.

“Please sir, I need help.” She said through choked sobs.

Timmons was frozen gazing at her for a moment, seeing a beautiful woman in distress where he was expecting loyalist agents had thrown him completely off guard. He looked past her into the quiet evening street, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

His mind raced with a hundred thoughts, a hundred different responses that he could give. But before his lips could form any words, she sobbed again. Just the sight of it nearly broke his heart, to see such a delicate thing so distraught.

“My dear, come inside and-” He started.

Several things all happened in very quick succession.

He was broken off mid sentence as the sobbing girl lunged at him, suddenly not sobbing any more. She had a blade in her hand, which Timmons had only just managed to stop as it plunged towards his neck. He grabbed her hand holding the knife, not able to fully stop the momentum, earning a long deep gash on the side of his face. At the same time, he raised his other hand up, still holding the revolver. All out of instinct, out of an innate scrap of self preservation.

All the while this was happening, the front door to the pub slammed closed, the strong coiled springs forcing the heavy door shut. The banging then resumed a fraction of a second later as the two armed men outside tried to get in.

The woman, teeth now bared in anger had stopped Timmons with his revolver, they were now stood as close as lovers in a strange dance on the pub floor. Timmons’ free hand was stopping the knife. The woman’s free hand was stopping his pistol.

They stood, swaying to and fro for a few moments, wrestling over the weapons. Timmon’s revolver slowly started to point at the woman. Painstakingly slowly, inch by inch, the barrel drifted towards her chest. The woman growled and dived forwards, biting Timmon’s ear. She twisted and yanked it in her teeth, making Timmon’s roar in agony. He writhed and bellowed again, throwing the woman off him with an almighty push, sending her toppling over tables and chairs, a piece of his ear still in her mouth. She rolled over and tried to get to her feet, but Timmons was faster.

The gunshot was deafeningly loud in the quiet confines of the pub, making his ears whine in complaint. The woman breathed out raggedly and groaned, looking down at her chest in disbelief. A small patch of red began to spread out from her breast.

She gave another ragged breath and looked up at Timmons.

Timmons looked down at her.

His finger depressed the trigger on the revolver again. There was another devastating blast from the gun, sending another bullet into her chest. A thin line of blood fell onto the nearby furniture. She looked down again, in a state of complete shock, before her eyes rolled back and she collapsed to the floor unmoving.

Timmons stared at the body for a few seconds, truly believing that it might get up again at any moment. That was the first person that Timmons had ever shot. He’d been in plenty of fights growing up, seen people stabbed, but that was the first person he’d ever killed. As he stared at the woman, his mind raced with questions.

Who was she?

Did she deserve to die?

Was I in the right?

What would my mother say to me now?

Did she just move again?

That was somebody’s child.

He was ripped from his dreaming state by another loud roar of a pistol. Wooden chips from the door exploded outwards as a bullet flew through the timber, smashing through one of the windows on the other side of the room. Timmons flinched and fired back, two unaimed shots at the door as he ran across the room, diving behind the bar counter.

The banging on the door had stopped now. There was only silence in the pub. Timmons was lying down on the tiled floor behind the counter, fumbling in his pocket for cartridges for his revolver. He opened the chamber on the pistol, sending the spent casings tinkling to the ground. Another loud bang sounded from outside, sending more shards of wood bursting from the walls. Two more followed straight afterwards, thudding into the ceiling beams and into the door again, this time, near the lock.

He flinched again at the gunshots, dropping some of his cartridges. He scrambled to load the rest into the chambers and even with the wood splintering around him, he managed to place the final round into the gun. He jammed the pistol in his trousers and twisted around, so he was facing the counter. As well as the glasses, the mugs, the bowls and various scraps of paper that sat on the shelves under the counter, there was a more unusual sight indeed.

A double barreled shotgun hung from long wire hooks.

He grabbed it and broke it in half, checking the barrels, even though he knew he would find two shells in there. He snapped the shotgun together again and aimed it towards the door, still staying behind the safety of the counter. One more gunshot sounded and the latch burst from the door in a shower of sparks. There was a few moments of silence.

He heard the door crash open, then close. After a few more seconds, the door was flung open again, but this time, Timmons heard footsteps enter the room. There was a few more thuds, then quiet.

“Do ya fink we got ‘im?” One voice said. There was a pause.

“Yes, we must have…One of them must have caught him- wait, is that Esha?” Another pause. Then the footsteps banged over to Esha’s corpse. Timmons grasped the shotgun in his hands firmly and took a few breaths.

“Wait! Did you hear that?” The voice said.

Timmons stood up from behind the counter, his shotgun raised and poised. Two men were stood over Esha’s body, dressed in long black overcoats with pistols in their hands.

Both had slicked back hair, one was tall and thin with glassed nestled carefully on the end of his nose, the other was tall and broad, a thick beard streching across his grizzled face. The two of them seemed oddly at ease, guns not raised, eyes foccused clearly on the girl.

Big Mistake.

If Timmons thought the revolver was loud in the closeness of the building, the shotgun was like an artillery piece firing. The blast from the shotgun was ear-splitting, instantly causing his ears to ring again with a piercing shirek. One of the men was sent flying into the wall in an explosion of gore and blood, the other screamed as his arm was peppered with pellets. The man involuntarily dropped his pistol as he clutched his arm, the impact sending him spiraling into a table near the front door.

Timmons blinked a few times and pulled the trigger again.

Instead of another piercing gunshot, there was a disappointing empty click. Timmons had a brief moment of panic. Both barrels! I fired both!

The man with the injured arm was hissing through gritted teeth, he looked over at his pistol on the ground and began to run over to it. Timmons dropped the shotgun and reached for his own holstered pistol. Time seemed to slow as he reached into the back of his trousers, looking for the grip to his gun. He could see the injured man bending down, his fingers inches from the handle.

Timmons was bringing his pistol up, but so was the injured man. Inch by inch, they both came one step closer to bringing their guns to bear.

Timmons was just that little bit faster.

He fired a few split-seconds before the other man could, hitting him twice in the chest. Blood spattered onto the floor, and the man slumped against the wall, falling clumsily into a mess. Timmons stood alone in his pub, amidst the dead and dying people with the smoke writhing from the barrel of his pistol angrily. He looked around at the broken furniture, the broken wood and the holes in the walls and sighed heavily.

His face was beginning to ache and his left ear felt as if it was on fire, but he gritted his teeth and jammed his revolver into his trousers again. Not bothering to reload the weapon this time. He ignored his heart, which hammered hard against his chest and he took several deep breaths, trying to calm his rapid breathing.

Without a moment’s more hesitation, he walked over to the bar and began grabbing spirits by the handful, letting them clink together in his rushed efforts. Once he had the bar’s entire supply of bottled alcohol on the counter he reached out and picked up a bottle of dark liquid.

Huh, Livingstone Whiskey. A damn shame. He thought to himself. Then he shook his head in disbelief. Of all of the things he could think about right now, the exact bottle of whiskey he was holding should have been the last thing on his chaotic mind.

The bottle smashed into a thousand pieces as it crashed into the wall of the pub, showering the corpses with liquor and broken glass. He repeated the process with all of the bottles, until the floor of the pub was covered in shattered fragments and a thin layer of strong smelling liquid.

A few minutes later, Timmons stood at the entrance to the basement with a sack slung over one of his shoulders and the shotgun over the other. Putting them down for a moment, he reached into the bloodstained pocket of his waistcoat and drew out his matchbox. With a strangely calm demeanor, for a man who had just killed three people, he withdrew a match and struck it against the abrasive paper of the box. He then used his lit match to ignite the rest of the box, watching catch fire and burn.

Then, without so much of a backwards glance, he threw the matchbox over his shoulder, picked up his belongings and descended into the basement with a purposeful stride.