Xenomorphosis Part Five

Souness’s van lay on its side, smoke belching from the engine, one useless wheel still spinning. Lawwell’s men had removed Joan McAlpine from the rear and bundled her into their Range Rover along with the bound and hooded bodies of Colin West and Robert Fleck. Souness was nowhere to be seen and Donald Findlay was picking himself up in the middle of the expressway where he’d been tossed when the van crashed; he looked dazed but quickly composed himself as the Celtic goon approached him with the hood and wrist-ties.
‘Come on auld yin, don’t make this worse for yourself,’ said Lawwell’s man.
‘By jove,’ muttered Findlay, steadying himself on his cane before raising it and pointing it at his would be assailant who laughed at the sight of an old man brandishing a walking stick.
‘Judging from your amusement, you’ve never heard of a Von Herder cane?’ smiled Findlay. ‘Well bully for you,’ and there was a spark from the end of the cane and a small cracking sound as the goon’s knees buckled and he collapsed. I was sitting in my idling Mini wondering what to do and had turned to see what Lawwell’s reaction would be to Findlay shooting his man with a cane and when I turned back towards Findlay, he was gone. Lawwell ignored this development, content to have Joan McAlpine back and, his car loaded now, he drove off and as he did I noticed the dark figure of Graeme Souness clinging to the roof, knife between his teeth, moustache blowing in the wind.

I briefly considered following them but decided against it, choosing instead to drive straight to my flat off Byres Road and type up an exclusive story of how Donald Findlay viciously assaulted a helpless Celtic fan and try to punt it to one of the papers. When I got back to the flat though I found it had been broken into and that Alex Mosson had nicked my laptop. There was nothing for it then but to toodle over to Parkhead and see what Lawwell was going to do with Joan McAlpine. If I’d known then the danger I’d be getting myself into then I’d have just bought a new laptop and left well alone but how was I to know what fresh madness Lawwell had in mind for me?

Xenomorphosis Part Four

Souness and Donald Findlay were already tearing down the road in their vans by the time Lawwell’s men had realised the tyres of their Ranger Rovers had been shot out. I was just glad I was watching from a safe distance as Lawwell took out his anger on one of his own men, lashing into him with his horsewhip while the others worked quickly to change the tyres. This gave me time to hop into my Mini and drive off in pursuit of Souness as there was a story in all of this, I just knew it and who knows, maybe I’d find a particular angle pleasing to some Scottish editor of a newspaper, an anti-Rangers angle say – that always keeps editors happy since the Great Celtic Minded Gramscian Plan came to fruition a number of years ago, and pleased with my attack on Rangers then perhaps that editor would offer me a job? You never know and that’s why I made the mistake of chasing after Souness and Findlay as they carted off Joan McAlpine in the back of one of their vans.

It took a while before Lawwell caught up with us and we were practically back in Glasgow by the time the first Range Rover started trying to edge the nearest van off the road. We were haring down the M77 at Newton Mearns and they were ignoring me at first but then one of the goons noticed it was me driving and suddenly I also became a target – six black Range Rovers nudging and barging us, someone was going to get hurt I was just thinking when I saw a black figure crouched on the bridge just ahead of us. As I passed under the bridge I heard the crump of something landing on my roof and then the dark figure had kicked out my passenger seat window and was sitting beside me, smiling. It was Catriona Shearer. ‘Watch this,’ she said and leaned out the window. Suddenly there was a blinding light as Shearer shot one of the Lawwell cars off the road with a strobe gun.
‘Woo hoo! Did you see that Spiers? Right into the bushes! Bwa ha ha ha ha, oh dear, this is the life – much more exciting that reading the news, eh?’

Another Rangers maniac, I thought but how on earth did she get a job at Pacific Quay? I was contemplating this and trying to steer the car as another Ranger Rover bumped me from behind when Shearer caught my eye and laughed, ‘I know what you’re thinking and I’ll tell you as soon as we’ve taken care of these guys. Now, what should I use this time, I have so many toys in my purse I just don’t know where to continue,’ and she pulled a spear gun out from the satchel she'd stuck in the back of my car.

We were passing Silverburn when the spear gun took care of another Lawwell car and Shearer was enjoying herself.
‘We’ll be passing the BBC shortly, think we should give them a wave?’ she giggled as Souness swerved in front of us, taking a battering in his van from the bigger and more robust Range Rover and that’s when Shearer brought out the grenade launcher, knocked the soft roof off my Mini and took her top off. Once she’d blown the three Celtic vehicles from the road she sat back down, poonts straining inside a black bra which looked suspiciously as if it contained hidden weapons.
‘Take a good look, Spiers. These babies will be back, now just slow down a little here and I’ll be off – I have a news bulletin to read in fifteen minutes,’ so I slowed down as we passed Govan and she fired her grappling hook around the top of a motorway lamp post and was lifted up and out of the car, swinging off road and disappearing into the darkness.

As the last Ranger Rover approached, Lawwell sitting by the open window, a bazooka resting in his arms I thought about what had just happened with Catriona Shearer appearing dressed in black pvc and body armour and armed to the teeth as Graham Souness and Donald Findlay escaped into Glasgow with Joan McAlpine, an alien creature wrapped around her face and I thought: it's true, it’s never dull in the world of Scottish football.

Xenomorphosis Part Three

I brought up the rear as we crawled through rancid water, filthy and stinking; it reminded me of my days as a sports journalist especially when I had to sit through Peter Lawwell’s press briefings. We soon exited the culvert and crept around the field, hidden from Lawwell and his goons by the hedgerows until we reached the road and sprinted towards my house where we could hide up, suggested Findlay, until Lawwell realised what he was looking for wasn’t there and left.
‘But what about your cars? He’ll know you’re here, he’s not a fool you know,’ I bleated as I showed them in. The house was in darkness but we moved around by the light from the fire where McAlpine’s house  used to be which was fairly blazing by now.
‘Yes, I’ve thought about that,’ said Findlay, searching his coat pockets for his pipe and tobacco. ‘And we’ll just have to risk that they don’t look for us here, we’ve no option – it was either hide out here, yomp across the hills or take them on in a fight with inferior fire power and numbers. Do Celtic know you have a home here?’
‘I don’t think so. I mean, my windows remained unmolested the one time I dared write something negative about them.’
‘Really?’ harrumphed Findlay. ‘You really believe you’ve written something against Celtic that would merit an attack by the Young Bhoys of the BBC? Ha! You’re more delusional than we thought.’
I was about to argue in my defence but we were interrupted by a knock at the door.
‘Lawwell!’ I exclaimed.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lawwell doesn’t knock doors, he knocks down doors,’ hissed Findlay, motioning for everyone to take cover.
‘In the attic, it’s along the hall and the ladders are still down,’ I whispered. ‘And if you see a scrapbook and some soiled hankies up there, they’re not mine.’

I waited until I heard the ladder go up behind them and then walked towards the door and was just reaching for the lock when there was a crash as Lawwell’s goons forced it open and on top of me. I was lying there, under the door, my nose pressed against the peep hole when a pair of well polished jackboots soiled from walking through fields walked in and stopped at the top of the door by my head.
‘Hmmmmmm…’ I heard someone pondering then one foot disappeared from my view and it must have stood on top of the door because it became heavier and began to crush my head and chest which was some feat considering the size of the balloons I now had down there after my sex change.
‘Is that you Spiers?’ I heard Lawwell ask.
‘Mmmmph,’ I replied, the door pressing down hard on my face now.
‘Why are you sitting in the dark on your own, hmm?’
‘Mmmph mmmmm…’ I attempted to answer until he lifted his foot and the door was lifted off of me by his men and I was pulled to my feet, nose squint and tits hurting like hell.
‘Listen Lawwell,’ I squeaked. ‘You can't bully me now, I am an irrelevance to Scottish football; I have nothing you could possibly need – no power, no influence, no job, what could I have that you might find helpful?’
He looked at me from under those baleful half closed lids and said, ‘Donald Findlay and Souness hiding Joan McAlpine in your attic, that’s what you have that I might find helpful, you fucking pipsqueak,’ and he slapped me across the face with the back of his hand. I went down sobbing, ‘You hit a woman!’ I cried but he was already signalling for his men to pull down the ladders.

‘So Spiers,’ said Lawwell, regarding my front loaders. ‘How does it feel?’
‘Oh you know, they take a bit of getting used to but they do make for handy buoyancy aids when I’m swimming.
‘Not the breasts you dolt, being out of work.’
‘Oh that, well I still have Twitter to keep me in the loop and there’s always Radio Clyde.’
‘Yes, there’s always Radio Clyde,’ he smirked as his men came running back from the attic.
‘There’s no one up there,’ said one of them. ‘There is though, the most disgusting photo-shopped scrapbook of Martin O’Neil though, covered in gunk and surrounded by tissues.’
No one there, I thought and looked out the window and in the distance, running across the fields having escaped out of the dormer windows were Findlay and his men carrying Joan McAlpine and they were heading for their vehicles. Lawwell followed my gaze and pointed, prompting his men to sprint outside and make chase. Lawwell looked me up and down, smiled and said, ‘I’ll be seeing you, Spiers. Sooner than you think,’ and he strode out the gap in my house where the front door used to be.

Xenomorphosis Part Two

A huge crater filled with fire was all that remained of Joan McAlpine’s holiday home after it had been hit by whatever fell from the sky that night. The heat was intense but I forged on, wondering what angle I would take when submitting this story as a freelancer to some newspaper where I hadn’t already burnt my bridges. I wasn’t the first on the scene though, alarmingly there were already figures walking around the crater and they were scouring the ground with powerful torches. I paused, some sixth sense warning me of danger, and decided to hide behind a hedge and observe before I went blundering into the scene but then I noticed one of the men light up a pipe. He was unmistakeable in his deerstalker hat and now that my eyes had become used to the glare and heat, I could make out the figures to be Donald Findlay, Souness and assorted others, presumably the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos.

I pulled myself up and walked over to them, asking if I could help.
‘By the gods,’ exclaimed Findlay. ‘I keep forgetting you’re a damned woman these days, Spiers. How the hell are you and what brings you here?’
‘I live just over the field behind the hill, what’s going on Donald?’ I asked, blushing having forgotten in all the excitement that I wasn’t wearing a bra – it had been ripped off at Radio Clyde as we struggled to tie Jim Delahunt into his chair after we were surprised by a full moon. At least I only lost my bra, Keevins had lost a finger.

‘This is none of your bisnay old girl, you’d best be out of here before your friend Lawwell comes sniffing around. This is his doing, we believe,’ said Findlay.
‘Well what is it you’re looking for,’ I pressed. ‘Perhaps I could help? I’m not just a pretty face you know,’ and as I said it I realised I had turned into a big girl in more ways than one.
‘Oh well, since you’re here, you always were a useful idiot to have around in a crisis,’ conceded Findlay. ‘We’re looking for Joan McAlpine, she’s been holed up here since she put her foot in it at Holyrood, accusing anyone not voting SNP of being anti-Scottish – well, makes a change from accusing the whole of Scotland of being anti-Catholic. At first she was just hiding from the press but then she got word that Salmond had sent a hit squad looking for her so she’s not left the place in days. Luckily Tom Devine has loose lips when he’s drunk, which is always, and we have listening devices in his home in Dowanhill so we were able to find her. Too late now though by the look of things,’ and he said this we were interrupted by Colin West who’d found something in the next field and was calling out.

We ran over to where West was waving his torch and below him, down an embankment, sitting upside down in a stream was a car. ‘Blown there by the blast?’ asked West.
‘Or driven by a woman,’ muttered Souness as he climbed down to have a look.
‘She’s not in here but she has been, her handbag’s there, emptied. Here’s her purse, a dildo, another dildo, her phone, I don’t know what that is but it could be another...’
‘Oh my God,’ groaned Robert Fleck further up the hill. ‘She’s here, but what’s that on her face? Oh Christ, it’s disgusting, it’s horrible…’
‘It’s her normal face,’ said Findlay, looking over Fleck’s shoulder. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. Oh, hold on, you’re right Fleck, what is that?’ and he prodded her face with his cane and as he did, something that had attached itself to her face tightened its grip, a tail of some kind wrapped around her neck squeezed and she lay on the grass in the dark, still breathing but assaulted by some creature I certainly hadn’t seen before.

‘This is one for the lab,’ said Findlay and motioned for Fleck and West to carry her down the hill towards their vehicles but as they were picking her up, Souness made a sign with his fist and everyone hit the ground and lay stock still, everyone but me.
‘Get down you fucking moron,’ hissed Souness and grabbed the back of my trousers pulling me into the grass. Below us, coming up the drive of McAlpine’s old house was a fleet of black Range Rovers, windows blacked out, headlights off.
‘It’s Lawwell,’ whispered Findlay. ‘We’ve got to get out of here without them seeing us, he can’t get a hold of McAlpine in this condition, not at this stage,’ and as we crept down the embankment, West and Fleck dragging poor old Joan, and into a culvert which took us under the drive and past Lawwell and his goons, I wondered from what Findlay had said: did he know more about this thing on Joan McAlpine’s face than he was letting on to me?

Xenomorphosis

It all began one night when I was standing on my own in my garden over the festive holidays contemplating unemployment, my new vagina and the stars. I spend a lot of time gazing at the stars, I also spend a lot of time gazing at my new fanny but that doesn’t lead to quite as much contemplation. I have very little else to do these days having been binned by Magnus Linklater who not only sacked me but also had me shot although to be fair, I was pointing a gun of my own at him at the time. So there I was, loafing around outside my Ayrshire barn with no light pollution and a wonderful view of the night sky, wishing I were still in residence in my west end flat and writing for a newspaper so I could lay into Rangers and have plaudits heaped on me by deranged Celtic fans who have voted me Most Useful Idiot four years in a row. I was just considering how sane my life had become since I’d extricated myself from Peter Lawwell and his sinister machinations when I noticed something strange in the sky – my favourite winter constellation, Orion had an extra star in its belt; just between Alnitak and Alnilam something else was twinkling.

This was a very curious state of affairs so I called the Times news desk to ask if they knew anything about it but I got short shrift with the girl on the other end saying, ‘Fuck off Stinkerbell, you don’t work here anymore, we don’t have to pretend to be nice to you now,’ and then she hung up on me. I checked the internet, pausing only to update my Twitter page with some nonsense, but there was nothing there either so I went back outside and by golly, the fourth star was bigger now.

I put it to the back of my mind and set off for Radio Clyde where I still earn a few shillings for pandering to their audience with Celtic Minded platitudes and spent the evening with Hugh Keevins cutting off any Rangers fans who sneaked through the public callers vetting process, allowing the usual Celtic supporters’ flights of fancy to get full airing and worrying about Jim Delahunt as it was almost a full moon outside and he was beginning to look a little seedy with hair sprouting from his knuckles and ears.

It was while contemplating this full moon on the drive back to the wilds of Ayrshire that I remembered the star in Orion’s belt and trying to crane my neck out of the window to see, I nearly crashed the new soft top Mini I’d bought with my severance pay, a severance pay I’d greatly exaggerated on Twitter to salve some of my embarrassment at being bumped from my job by a cretin like Linklater. I’m glad I did look for the star at this point because it was much bigger by now and it definitely wasn’t a star because whatever it was, it was in our atmosphere, burning up and heading straight for us. All sorts of thoughts went through my mind as I raced to get home so that if it was a meteor come to kill us all, I might die in the warm embrace of my Martin O’Neil scrapbook.

The stones in the driveway scattered as I skidded up to my barn and I ran from the Mini, fumbling for my house keys, dropping them in my haste and just as I bent down I heard a noise so awful it sounded like the sky was cracking open. This is it, I thought and the night lit up and the sky turned blue in the glare of something falling to earth. It shot overhead and in the time it took me to think of a prayer, it landed with a crash into the holiday home of Joan McAlpine which was just a few fields over from me. The explosion sent a hot wave of air rushing over me and then the debris started falling all around and I breathed a sigh of relief that I was still alive and that whatever hit us hadn’t been as big since it had only obliterated Joan’s house. Joan, I wondered, was she home? I set off through the fields to find out, not through any concern for McAlpine of course but with the journalistic juices once again coursing through my body because who knows, maybe I could blame this on Rangers?

Xenomorphosis: Prologue

The creature locked in the back of his armoured truck, Souness blazed a trail ahead of us, cutting corners so fine that he seemed like he’d go up on two wheels and roll over. I was driving the Mini Cooper soft top, trying desperately not to lose sight of Souness while avoiding Lawwell’s goons as they attempted to ram me off the road in their Range Rovers. It all seemed hopeless until my passenger reached into the back of the Mini, grabbed a grenade launcher and used the butt to knock the soft roof off the top of our car; then she ripped off her blouse and stood up in her bra and in the moments it took for the Celtic thugs to ogle her bouncers, she blew the wheels off the front of the first car, knocked the engine out the second and completely obliterated the last with the best shot of the lot before sitting back down in the passenger seat, laughing and shouting at me, ‘How about that then, eh Spiers? It’s great to be a woman!’

Well I wasn’t enjoying it as much as Catriona Shearer seemed to be but I’m getting ahead of myself.