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.