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?