It's in the Trees, It's Coming

We had sheltered in a little copse of trees to get out of the stinging rain and ceaseless wind and we hoped that it would spare us some protection from the nameless thing that had stalked us across the moors for hours which was ironic considering we were there in the first place hunting the Roadkill Beast. We were lying side by side: me, Donald Findlay and Tom Devine, flat on our bellies behind a small stone dyke on the edge of the woods, peering through the darkness trying to make out any movement. We’d been aware of it following us for a while from the snuffling and grunting noises but although sometimes it sounded like it was right on top of us, we never saw a thing so decided to hide up in the copse and take stock. Findlay shivered to my right, his service revolver tight in his hands and Devine lay cursing to my left as he realised his hip flask was empty which was damned odd considering the thing is the size of a barrel. I was struggling to get a signal on my phone and was waving it in the air until Findlay grabbed me by the seat of my trousers and hauled me down, hissing ‘You bloody idiot, you’re lighting up the woods – do you really want to give our position away and bring that thing down on top of us?’

‘But Donald,’ I stuttered. ‘Tom English is up there in a hot air balloon and can help us out of this, if only I can get him on the phone’ and at that my phone vibrated. It was Tom.
‘I’m right above you my dear’ he said and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say that. ‘But how many of you are down there? I thought it was only you, Findlay and Devine?’
‘It is,’ I said, the hairs rising on the back of my neck.
‘You’re lying side by side about three trees into the wood?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that’s us.’
‘Then my thermal imaging shows four of you.’

I was up and haring across the field before my companions had a chance to ask me why I’d squealed and vaulted the wall and as I tripped and stumbled downhill towards a reservoir, I heard a gunshot and then the bellowing of my friends as they sprinted after me. And to think, all this could have been avoided if only I’d kept my thoughts to myself about the Celtic fans’ behaviour at the Glasgow Cup Final on Monday night.

I’d been on Twitter you see, trying my darnedest to stick to the three line whip coming out of Parkhead that the crowd trouble was an ‘old firm problem’ and not exclusive to the Celtic support, the Green Brigade in particular since the under-17s on the park were roughly the same age as most of ‘em. The thing is, about a three line whip from Celtic park, it’s slightly different from a parliamentary whip in that Lawwell gathers us up in three lines and then slices us to ribbons until he gets what he wants. This week it was me and a few other journalists and remarkably, Vincent Lunny whose arse took the brunt of Lawwell’s pounding with his horse whip until he agreed to go after Kenny Shiels. Then Tom English and I were given our instructions before limping to Ashton Lane to catch up with the Pacific Quay CSC in the Chip to discuss some document those scallywags had just had leaked from Ibrox or forged themselves, whatever it was they were saying at the time – I can’t remember too much about it as Tom got me frightfully drunk on Furstenberg and I vomited on my shoes before being carried home.

A few days later I was falling down a hill in the middle of the night, chased by some unseen horror and wondering why I always follow Lawwell’s instructions as all they do is get me into trouble and reduce my already fading reputation as a journalist to tatters. Then I fell into the reservoir and was splashing around in blind panic until I was fished out by Devine and pulled up onto a boat, an old rowing boat and in it we sat: me, Tom Devine and Findlay – three men in a boat. I was about to make a joke about Montmorency the dog but decided against it after seeing the anger on Findlay’s face.
‘We’re safe here,’ he growled. ‘It can’t come into the water. If I know my beasts’ and he shot a look at Devine who blushed. ‘And I think I do, then they can’t swim. We hold out here until dawn.’ And we did.

Morning came and there was no sight of the monster that had chased us onto our boat but there was certainly sight of Tom English’s hot air balloon, bobbling around above us, shining in the haze of the sunrise. I’d dropped my phone in last night’s panic and so was just about to start waving at Tom to come down and pick us up when Devine cried out, ‘By jove, would you look at that!’ It was an airship and it was heading straight for Tom. Long and silver it moved fast and was coming our way, pausing briefly to get out of the way of a plane approaching Glasgow Airport which missed it by only a few hundred feet.
‘I’ll say this about the boy Lawwell,’ said Devine, looking proud. ‘He’s not afraid of danger, not afraid to take chances.’
‘What do you mean Lawwell?’ demanded Findlay looking shaken.
‘Well who the hell else do you think it is?’ snapped Devine.
‘Graeme Souness?’ I ventured.
‘That’s not Souness,’ puffed Findlay. ‘That’s Souness!’ and he pointed behind me and there was an autogyro buzzing straight for Lawwell’s zeppelin. I pulled out my binoculars and just had time to notice the irony of the name of Lawwell’s airship, the Reconstruction before Souness let off a missile which struck the silver bullet and it erupted into a ball of fire.
‘Oh the humanity!’ cried Devine as Lawwell’s Reconstruction crashed and burned.

Later as we sat in the Swan drinking whisky to warm us I sat on my own by the fire, ignoring Devine and Findlay who seemed to be getting on well in spite of their obvious differences and since both of them seemed so happy I decided not to tell them that as we climbed out of our rowing boat I had noticed an escape pod flying out of the flames of the falling airship. Reconstruction had failed in its mission that night, whatever that mission was but Lawwell’s not defeated so easily, he’d escaped and taken with him no doubt, plans for another day.