A Captain Scarlet story for Halloween

By Marion Woods.

 

 

Halloween had always been the worst time of year for Paul Metcalfe – at least, it had ever since that fateful day in 2068, when the Mysterons had murdered him and retrometabolised him as their slave.  

Through a combination of events and – he had concluded over the years – sheer good fortune, he had broken free of their control and had subsequently devoted his new life to defeating them.   Fighting side-by-side with his fellow Spectrum officers, he had used the Mysterons’ cursed gift of retrometabolism to risk his life time and again, as much in an effort to shield his companions as to defend his world from the aliens’ malevolence.  He had not always been able to save them – many brave men and women had been lost – and the passing years found him feeling more and more isolated from his colleagues in Spectrum. 

In addition to this, it seemed he had become a magnet for whatever supernatural forces did exist, and on Halloween they seemed to target him.  The last couple of years had been fairly quiet; nothing too outrageous had happened, but some sixth sense was warning him that this year he might be in for a blinder, so he put in his usual request for leave over Halloween, determined that whatever the supernatural had to throw at him, he’d tackle it beyond the confines of Cloudbase, and attempt to ensure no one but himself was put in any danger. 

General Smalt granted his request with a sympathetic smile.  She’d been in Spectrum long enough to have absorbed the ‘mythology’ that had grown up around the Indestructible Captain Scarlet, and she respected his infrequent demands for leave.   Scarlet had been a little disconcerted when a woman had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, but he had to admit she was making a good job of it, and things had been less ‘uncertain’ around the place for some time now.  Of course, after the cataclysmic events that had resulted in the death of World President Boukari, ten years ago, the political pendulum had swung back in their favour again, and no–one was threatening to cut Spectrum down to size… which helped.

 

So, on the morning of October 31^st, Colonel Scarlet threw a few things into his battered holdall and glanced around his quarters.  On one wall there was a veritable gallery of photographs going back over the seventy-odd years of his life.  Photographs of the people he loved: his wife, his parents, his kids, his best friend, and the Spectrum officers who had played such a significant part in his life: his first commander, the formidable Colonel White, the long-dead Captain Magenta, the irrepressibly roguish Captain Ochre, and his good friend Seymour Griffiths, the previous Commander-in-Chief, who was now retired and living in the Caribbean with his second wife, the genial Audrey Geffen – formerly Captain Flaxen. 

Scarlet smiled ruefully.  He’d probably been the last to know that Captain Flaxen and General Green had been having ‘a thing’ for years, and it had come as a shock when Seymour had asked him to be the best man at their wedding.  It had been a great day – joyous and happy – although it had turned out to be  the last outing for his venerable tuxedo as well; there had just been no way to get that barbecue sauce stain out of the jacket .  He’d turned down the Griffiths’s offer to pay for a new one; you could hardly ask the bride to pay for damages caused by you tripping over the oversized train of her wedding dress onto a table of food, after all.

He smiled ‘farewell’ to the familiar faces, and wandered down to the hangar deck, where the daily shuttles were getting ready to leave.

 

The second embodiment of the codename ‘Captain Magenta’ waved a salute as he saw Colonel Scarlet approaching and loped over to meet him, with a broad smile on his face.  Richard Fraser Topping was the image of his father, even to the extent of carrying his advancing years with the same ease.  He had the same chestnut-coloured hair and bright brown eyes as the former Captain Ochre - hair that was generally down to his collar and which flopped roguishly across his brow.  General Smalt wasn’t as insistent on regulation haircuts as previous commanders had been, and besides, Scarlet knew she had a soft spot for this engaging American, whom she’d first met as a teenager, when he’d accidentally become involved in a Spectrum mission in his home town of Chicago.  But she wasn’t the only one who’d watched his progress through Spectrum’s recruitment and training programme with interest; Scarlet smiled reflectively as he watched Magenta approach: there was definitely something about these Fraser men that elicited affectionate tolerance from the women they encountered, and invariably charmed.   

Still, on the whole, Scarlet was glad they’d assigned Ricky Topping the codename ‘Magenta’ when he’d been promoted from the terrestrial base of Spectrum: Toronto, rather than his father’s old codename of Ochre – that would have been far too close to déjà vu for comfort.

“Let me take that for you, Colonel,” Magenta said, reaching for the holdall.

“I’m perfectly capable of carrying it myself, Ricky,” Scarlet replied, but he relinquished the bag anyway.  As time went on the youngsters, as he thought of them, tended to accept him for the age he appeared to be – and he was, physically, a younger man than his companion – yet it was an almost instinctive reaction on his part, to reject what appeared to be reverence for his actual age.  So much so, that he sometimes had to remind himself much of their deference was due to his rank, and nothing more.

“How’s the family?” he asked.  Magenta had just returned from a week’s leave, taking his wife and kids to Disneyland. 

“Fine, thanks.  My Dad sends his… well, he would have sent his love, but that’s not quite his style, I guess.”  He grinned.  “So, he sent his ‘hello’ instead.”

Scarlet gave a chuckle.  “How is the old reprobate?”

“Still going strong.  Mind you, Mary-Sue keeps him under control now.”

“I’m glad to hear it.  Rick will do himself a mischief one of these days, if he doesn’t slow down.  Are those two ever going to get married, do you think?”

Magenta shook his head.  “Dad says he never wanted to get married, so he’s not going to do it now, when he’s in his dotage.  He says, this way Mary-Sue can leave whenever she wants to, and it won’t cost him a dime.  He claims to have a theory that she’s waiting for him to marry her, just so she can leave and take half his money….”

Scarlet laughed and shook his head.  “Your father always was incorrigible. Why she puts up with him, I can’t imagine – she always struck me as such a sensible woman.”

Magenta laughed.  “I’m just glad she does.  It was getting embarrassing when my father was dating women younger than me.”

Scarlet glanced at Ricky Topping, and saw the tell-tale gleam of amusement in his eyes. 

Just like his father, he thought again, and aloud he retorted, “I’d say that was pure jealousy on your part, Ricky, nothing more.”

Magenta laughed. “You are so right, Colonel.”

“How’s Alicia?”

“Splendid, thanks.  I suppose you know she’s been offered a terrestrial post in Ottawa, so we might be moving.”

Alicia Lyle had spent a few years on Cloudbase as an Angel pilot, before she’d been sent on a mission to Toronto and met the Captain in charge of the base.  Captain Topping’s promotion to Colour Captain had led to some clandestine romancing aboard Cloudbase, and then the couple had married, Alicia only resigning her Cloudbase posting when she became pregnant with their first child. 

Scarlet couldn’t remember how many kids they had now… he tried not to dwell on the passing generations too much.

 

 

 

The shuttle landed at London on time, for once, and he collected his luggage, before hiring himself a car from an airport desk. 

Scarlet reckoned that the traffic had got better over the years, some roads now seemed empty most of the time.  He picked up the M4 and headed for the M3.  He’d done the drive to his Winchester home innumerable times, and even though after his wife died, he’d gifted the property to his son, he loved the place and every mile that drew him back to it.  When he finally turned into the drive and saw the ancient house, with its familiar outline and warm-coloured stones, he felt his spirits lift. 

If I have any home at all in this world, it is here, he thought with a rush of affection for what he’d always called ‘the old heap of stones’.

Dianne had loved the place too, preferring it to either of the houses her family owned, and their children had grown up with Longwood Abbey as their home.  Now Susannah was living in the Simms’s London house with her financier husband, Alistair, and baby daughter, Scarlett, whilst Adam and Freya were in Boston, with their children.  

He smiled at the thought of his ‘American’ grandchildren.   Once Freya Saville Svenson had agreed to marry Adam Metcalfe, they’d decided to set up home in Boston, where Adam was happily, and very successfully, working in the SvenCorp finance company, which belonged to Freya’s father’s family – and, indeed, it had been Adam Svenson who’d got his British godson a job there in the first place. 

Just before the wedding, Freya had resigned her commission in Spectrum and, with her usual determination, set about becoming a ‘wife and mother’.  Two sets of twins later, Scarlet rather hoped she’d give it a rest, although Adam was forever teasing her about breeding their own football team.

Adam junior and Paul, the seven-year-old identical twins, had recently started at the boarding school their Svenson grandfather had attended, and were, apparently, showing great promise, while Robert and Dianne were four-year-old tearaways, destined, if their affectionate father was to be believed, to end up in gaol. 

Scarlet adored all of his grandchildren and they adored him.  Both of his children were adamant that they wanted him to be as much a part of their children’s lives as he chose to be, but they all knew that the on-going problem of accounting for Paul Metcalfe’s perennial youthfulness remained a stumbling block to a normal family life. Over the past twelve months or so, Scarlet had increasingly sensed that the time was fast approaching when he would either have to explain to the children what had happened to him - his perceptive and inquisitive grandsons were already beginning to question why he was not like other grandfathers - or cut himself out of their lives completely. 

Susannah had always treated the problem as she did everything she didn’t like – by refusing to accept that it existed.  The trauma of losing her mother and, at the same time, being confronted with the reality of her father’s retrometabolism, had caused her considerable psychological anguish.  It had been several years before she’d felt comfortable in his presence again, and she’d only managed that by suppressing the truth from herself.  Consequently, Scarlet saw far less of his daughter than he’d have liked and when he did, he made a conscious effort to age his appearance and play down his vigour.  Her husband was unaware of the ‘Metcalfe Secret’ and although breaking contact with Susannah would be hard, in a way he’d already started distancing himself from her family.  He knew in his heart of hearts that his dearly beloved daughter would probably register his departure with unalloyed relief.

It was different with his son’s family.  

Adam Simms Metcalfe was now thirty-four, older than his father had been at the time of his Mysteronisation.  Even-tempered and pragmatic, he had long since come to terms with the fact that his father would out-live him; far more successfully than his father had come to terms with the prospect of outliving his children, in fact.  In this he was helped by the fact that his wife knew all there was to know about what had happened to Paul Metcalfe, almost a decade before either of them were born, because Freya Saville Svenson was the daughter of Scarlet’s closest friend and Spectrum Field Partner – the late Adam Svenson, codenamed Captain Blue – and had herself served on Cloudbase for several years, as Lieutenant Teal.

 Father and son had always had a good relationship, even if Scarlet occasionally wondered just how he – the scion of a long-established, successful military family - had managed to father an accountant; but Ace, as he was known by the family, had never wavered in his determination not to be in the Forces, and his father had respected that decision, however much it had disappointed him.

On the other hand, Freya had demonstrated herself to be her father’s daughter in a variety of ways:  her experiences as a Spectrum Agent had left her resilient and strong, she was intelligent and perceptive and, above all, she provided an endless supply of emotional stability and support for her extended family.

Right now, Scarlet thought, I could do with some of that.

As he garaged the car and walked towards the dark house, he wished fervently that the kids were at home.

 

 

The house was cold, but that didn’t bother Scarlet, he was, by and large, impervious to ambient temperatures.  He unpacked the groceries he’d bought at the out-of-town supermarket, and wandered through the great hall, from the kitchen to the living room.  While the family was abroad the place was looked after by a small, dedicated staff from the village, who came in once or twice a month to ensure everything was okay.

 In the living room there were dust sheets over the furniture and the coal bucket by the fireplace was empty.  He threw a couple of sheets off and rolled them up into a heap.  Then he set about fetching firewood and coal from the well-stocked outhouses by the garages, and set a fire in the large, open grate.

The years rolled back in his memory as he encouraged the feeble, blue flame to catch on the kindling, and fed it with twigs and branches, until it flared orange and red and hungrily caught at the sturdier branches and coal nuggets he placed with exaggerated care on the hearth.  He remembered his father teaching him how to lay a fire, and winter evenings when his mother relented enough to let them toast bread, or crumpets, at the grate, on the long, twisted-brass toasting forks she kept in the kitchen pantry.

There’s nothing to beat the taste of hot toast, or crumpets, dripping with butter and eaten beside a roaring fire.   Maybe I’ll get some tomorrow as a treat… this could well be the last chance I have to indulge myself.

Satisfied that he’d got the fire going, he ambled back to the kitchen to shove a couple of pork chops into the oven, and got the microwave ready for the cook-chill rice he selected from the supermarket.  Over the years he had become adept at providing himself with edible, hot food when he felt he needed it, but he would never be ‘a cook’ – so it was just as well he didn’t need to eat that often.  The only time he was ravenous was immediately after his retrometabolism had kicked in to cure any injuries, or bring him back from the dead.  Then he’d eat anything he could get his hands on – even Cloudbase canteen food, which had definitely got worse over the decades.

Then, unable to settle to anything, he roamed through the house, revisiting familiar rooms and the memories they held; of his caring, supportive parents, his happy, conventional childhood, and largely untroubled adolescence.  There were long-forgotten nooks and crannies where he’d curled up with a favourite book on stormy winter days.  He studied the well-remembered views from the upper windows, out over the old stable-block and outhouses and over the somnolent rose garden, where only one rose tree still bloomed in defiance of the approaching winter. 

That triggered poignant memories of last summer, when Freya had brought the kids over for a few weeks and he’d spent time with the boys, proudly showing them his home – their home now– and getting to know and love the precocious pair, with their boyish enthusiasms, boundless energy and vivid imaginations.  There had been bitter-sweet shock when the sudden turn of their heads brought to mind their Svenson ancestry, or their impish smiles resurrected fleeting visions of their late grandmother.  For two glorious weeks he had thrown aside the burden of being Colonel Scarlet, and indulged his inner child with adventures around the house and gardens, picnics by the old mill race and long walks across the valley, while his grandsons hung on to every word of his tales of their Metcalfe forebears.

By the end of the holiday, Freya was accusing him of being as much a ringleader in the mischief, as the boys themselves.   He cherished their rapport all the more because when his own children had been growing up, he’d been a rare visitor to the family home, worried that his presence might put the family at risk, and in so doing he’d missed out on a great deal of their formative years.

Beyond the garden, he could see towards the small village that nestled in the bowl of the gently-sloped valley: it was there that he’d played village cricket on balmy summer days, or run his heart out in local football derbies against the neighbouring villages. 

Then there were the ill-lit, dusty attics, with their narrow windows affording views across Longwood’s sweeping roofscape and elaborate chimneys. There was the attic room where the extensive model railway was laid out, and where generations of young Metcalfes had played; he with his father and then with his son, and, most recently, with his son’s sons.  

He walked through each room, touching the walls, breathing in the familiar smells of polish and faint camphor, before leaving each one with a quiet ‘farewell’.

He’d automatically taken his meagre luggage to the single bedroom he’d used as a child, rather than the master bedroom he’d shared with Dianne, but now he went in there and sat for some time, recalling the nights of passion they’d shared, the tender nights of companionship, the nights of sadness and the terrible nights of loneliness after she’d gone.  Even though the room had been used by generations of his family, and was now the preserve of his son and daughter-in-law, for Scarlet the overpowering personality in the room remained Dianne Simms – his beloved Rhapsody Angel, his lover, his wife - his soul’s mate. 

With a deepening sense of sadness he touched the solid oak posters that supported the canopy over the bed, and swallowed the misery that welled up into his throat, even as he blinked away the tears and turned from that room too, with a mental valediction.

Back in his childhood room, he removed some of the twins’ forgotten teddy bears from the bed, made it up with clean sheets from the cupboard and unpacked his personal belongings.  He was used to travelling light and living simply, so there wasn’t much he needed.

From the distance he heard the beeping of the kitchen timer and wandered back to shove the rice in the microwave and rescue his pork chops from the oven. The meal was basic, but warm and filling, especially after he’d chosen a decent bottle from the ill-lit and dusty family wine cellar and consumed most of it.

Once he’d eaten, he went back to sit by the fire and called Susannah on the video-phone.  She was happy to speak to him, although their long chat consisted largely of him listening to her excited stories of just what baby Scarlett had been up to lately. 

Then, as the hours stole past, he called Boston.

“Hello?” Freya’s beautiful face filled the video screen. “Oh, Paul!  How nice to hear from you!” she exclaimed before he could speak.

“Hello, Flicka.” Without thinking, he used the old nickname her father had given her.  “How’s everyone?”

“We’re all fine.  Ace is due back from the office at any minute – he got delayed by some meeting or other.”  She gave a poignant smile and lowered her voice slightly, “I was thinking about you, Paul; are you okay?  I know how you hate Halloween.  I was going to call Cloudbase once I’d packed the demon twins off to bed.”

“That’s nice of you, Flicka, but I’m not there; I came to Winchester.  I didn’t think you’d mind me using the house.”

“Of course we don’t!  It’s as much your home as ours – you know that, Paul.  Actually, I said to Ace yesterday, we ought to spend Christmas there this year – before the boys forget they are Englishmen… well, three-quarters Englishmen.”  She laughed.

“How’re they liking their new school?”

“They hate it. Little Paul says they’re making him do ‘boring stuff’ he’s done at home ‘years’ ago – and my, how that boy does exaggerate! - oh, and of course, nobody spells anything properly either.”  She chuckled. “He’s so like my father sometimes, it’s uncanny.   AJ, on the other hand, complains that no one plays proper football, much less  cricket;  and he’s in trouble for saying that American Football is for ‘nancy-boys’, because the players are all  kitted out like samurai before they even touch a ball.”  She looked at her father-in-law with a suspicious raised eye-brow.  “I can’t imagine who he got those particular phrases and opinions from, can you?”

Scarlet laughed.  “I should remember pitchers have ears, and mind what I say when the boys are about, but all I can do now is offer my apologies, Freya!”

She smiled, and her resemblance to her late father caught at Scarlet’s heart. 

“Hmm.   Anyway, they’re plotting to abscond before the next summer term begins, and hope to be accepted as political refugees by Linbury Court.  You’ve told them so much about your old Prep School, they’ve decided they want to go there and nowhere else.”

Scarlet chuckled.  “Well, they’re nothing if not ambitious. I don’t think I’d got as far as planning to run away across the Atlantic by the time I was seven; although I do remember declaring U.D.I. for the stable-block, one summer when I was supposed to be going to stay with my maiden aunts for a week.  I think I held out for several hours before hunger drove me in for tea.”

Freya was laughing and shaking her fair head at him.  He smiled, pleased to see her so happy.

When she stopped he asked her, “Have you seriously considered letting them be educated over here?”

She nodded, a little warily. “I’d like it.  To be honest, Paul, now they’re that much older, I have a hankering to come home.  Oh, Boston is a fine place to live, and I can understand why my father loved it so, but… well, I’m more than a little homesick.  Still, it’ll depend on whether Ace can get transferred to the London office, but I don’t suppose Uncle David will stand in his way.  However, it might put Alistair’s nose out of joint – or if not his, then Susannah’s. I wouldn’t want Ace and his sister to be at daggers drawn over the fact that he outranks her husband in the company.”  

“Don’t let that worry you, Flicka.  Suzie’ll complain whatever you do.”

There was a piercing yowl of anger and a despairing sob.  Freya darted away and returned to the screen with her daughter in her arms.  Dianne was sporting a witch’s hat and green face paint.  She grinned cheerfully at the screen and blew ‘Gran’pa’ a kiss. 

Scarlet returned the salute with a smile.

“They went ‘trick or treating’ with the local playgroup earlier;  I’m expecting a night of tummy aches and over-tiredness,” his daughter-in-law explained, as she put the squirming child down and then quickly disappeared again, this time to stop a fight between the toddlers.

 She had barely returned to the screen when she heard a noise and announced joyfully: “Ace is home!”

After some minutes’ delay, during which time young Robert clambered onto a stool and greeted his grandfather with a shy, mischievous smile, Scarlet saw his son approaching.  He swept the youngster away and sat down at the screen, a beaming smile on his face.

“Hi, Dad!  I’m sure glad I caught you!”  

As usual Scarlet was amused by the amalgam of aristocratic English and Boston Brahmin-speak that coloured his son’s accent.

“Hello, son; I’m glad to see you too.  Flicka told me you were working late, so I thought I’d miss you.”  He lowered his voice and said conspiratorially, “I hope you’re not letting the Svensons work you too hard?  The whole family are natural-born slave-drivers, you know.” 

He smiled at Ace’s burst of laughter. 

However tenuous his son’s relationship by marriage to the Svenson family was, they’d been good to him over the years, and he genuinely liked them – even the grumpy Peter Svenson, who, until he had handed over to his younger brother, had been the Chairman of the company. 

Scarlet was sure the fact that Ace had inherited an aristocratic title from his maternal grandfather, impressed his employers much more than it would have done even in an English-run company, but if he hadn’t been up the job, he didn’t doubt the hard-headed Svensons would have eased him out of the firm. 

The last time he’d had his annual interview with David Svenson to review the deployment of his personal funds - with the hope of keeping himself financially independent over what might be a long lifetime, whilst doing what he could to provide a secure financial base for his family - he’d asked him about his son.  

The American had said that he felt Ace could very well end up as Chief Executive of SvenCorp, if he wanted the job.  None of Peter’s four daughters showed any aptitude for the work, and Katherine Svenson’s son – Marcus Griffiths - was currently pursuing a fairly successful career as a musician; Scarlet had heard his latest world-wide hit on the radio, several times, on the drive down to Winchester.  David Svenson had no children, and although he was certainly not totally averse to women, he had chosen to live his life with his boyfriend, entering into a civil partnership with him after his parents died.  So, there was no one in the next generation of the immediate Svenson family – except for the husband of the eldest brother’s illegitimate daughter – to take up the reins. 

Scarlet had been pleased at the prospect, which would certainly guarantee his son and his grandchildren a financially secure future.   At one point the Svensons had been rather less than welcoming towards Freya, but he felt sure her late father would have welcomed this turn of events.

Now he quizzed his son, “Freya tells me you’re thinking of coming back here for Christmas?  Would you have room for one old man at your dinner table?”  He had decided to allow himself one last Christmas with the people he loved – surely there couldn’t be any harm in doing that? - just a few more days with the youngsters, and one last chance to recharge his batteries basking in the affection of Adam and Freya.

“If you’re planning to spend Christmas in Winchester, Dad – we’ll definitely be there!” Ace vowed.  “I’m thinking of bringing the family back home anyway, and the boys want to change schools-”

“So I understand.   I never thought you’d get AJ to forgo his football and cricket, you know.  I can still remember when we took him to the baseball game at Fenway Park, and he announced that it was silly watching grown-ups playing rounders.  I thought we were going to get lynched.”

“Yeah, he has all of your tact and diplomacy skills, Dad.  Luckily, he also has his mother’s charm…”

Scarlet grinned.  “So, will you try to get them into Linbury?   You never liked it much there, did you?”

“It wasn’t so bad… I just had a lot to live up to.  Every speech day it was pointed out to me that ‘Metcalfe, Paul Charles’, was on every sporting roll of honour board, and all I ever won was the Mathematics Award.”

“You were born an accountant,” his father teased.

“I’m a financier, Dad!   It says so on my passport.”

Scarlet chuckled. “Sure it does – and you’re a damn good one too.”  He paused and added, “You know I never interfere, Adam-”

“Uh-huh,” his son responded in a way that quite manifestly meant he doubted that statement profoundly.

Scarlet ignored him.  “I just want to say that you need to give moving back here serious thought.  You don’t want to blight your chances in SvenCorp by leaving the centre of operations.”

To his father’s surprise, Adam Metcalfe showed no surprise – or perplexity – at the underlying hint in this piece of advice.   “Dad, David Svenson wants me to take over after him; he’s told me so himself.  If we want SvenCorp to continue to expand –and the family are united in that, whatever else they choose to bicker about -  it needs to conquer new overseas markets, and the London office is the ideal launch pad for that… besides, I need more international experience before I take over...”

“Ah, now I see what you’re doing.  You’re getting devious, Ace.  Good for you, it’s been a long time coming!”

The young man laughed.  “Hey – I’m Paul Metcalfe’s son – there ain’t nothing I can’t do - just like my old dad!”

“Flatterer.  But, I’m pleased to see that you’ve carved yourself a good career in SvenCorp – and by your own hard work too.”

“Well, being Adam Svenson’s godson did me no harm, but I know they value me for what I can do and who I am, and not just because nepotism says they should promote me.”

Scarlet bridled at the suggestion his son’s achievements were anything less than well-deserved.  “Listen: don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re not the best at what you do.  SvenCorp’s no charity and the Svensons are not philanthropists – well, not in that way.  You’re a damned good man, Ace, and what you’ve got, you’ve earned.” 

“Sure, Dad.”  Adam gave him a concerned glance.  “Is there something wrong?  Something you’re not telling me?”

“Don’t be silly, Adam.  What could possibly be wrong?”  Scarlet cursed his son’s insight; he’d inherited his mother’s perspicacity along with her even temper. “Listen, I can hear Freya setting the table.  I’ll let you go and get something to eat.  I’ll give you a call tomorrow, if you’re going to be around?”

“Please do – but, if not tomorrow, make it soon, Dad – and … well, I wish we were there right now.  Be careful tonight, won’t you?”

 

 

Scarlet had intended to be in bed well before midnight, but after his telephone conversations he finished his tour of the house, under the guise of checking everything was battened down for the night.  Outside he could hear gusting wind and driving rain.   When he finally banked up the fire for the night and went upstairs, it was later than he’d wanted.  

He used the bathroom, brushed his teeth and changed into his pyjamas, snuggling into the familiar bed with a sigh.  He’d chosen a book at random from the library, but on discovering he’d picked up a history of steam trains in Hampshire, he wasn’t inclined to read it; instead he stared up at the ceiling and drank in the comforting ambience of his old home. 

Whatever ghosts lurked in the confines of Longwood, they were Metcalfe ghosts – and somehow that made them less un-nerving.

The bedroom was chilly - he’d not bothered to turn on the central heating - and outside the wind was now blowing a gale, rain splattering fitfully against the window. 

Fast asleep in bed is the very best place to be tonight, he thought. 

He yawned. 

With Doctor Fawn’s help, he’d taught himself how to fall asleep at will over the decades since his retrometabolism had robbed him of the need to sleep, and now he closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, feeling his mind slipping into the blissful release of slumber.

 

Craaaaack!

 

Scarlet sprang up in bed, wide-awake. 

Slightly disorientated, he glanced at the clock on the bedside table.  It was midnight.  Hardly any time since he’d dozed off, although he felt as if he’d slept for hours.

He got out of bed and drew the curtain back to peer outside. There were no street lights in this part of the valley, and the ambient glow of distant Winchester was missing from the horizon – so he guessed there was a power cut. 

Maybe the storm has brought the lines down? 

He couldn’t see anything wrong, so he threw open the window and perilously leaned out into the rain.  Then, as a vivid flash of lightning scarred the night sky, he saw, at the far end of the garden, that an old apple tree had been split in two.   Across the valley, lightning jagged across the sky and the low rumble of thunder grew to a deafening crescendo.

He sighed.  Wonderful.  It’ll take me ages to get back to sleep now.

He tried to turn on the bedside light, but there was no response.

Power cut.

He fished an emergency torch out of the top drawer of the dresser – where one had been kept since time immemorial – and got back into bed.  Picking up the book, he slithered down the bed again, and balanced the torch on his chest to try to read.

 “Boy, can I pick ‘em,” he complained to himself, as he made slow progress through the pages of black and white pictures of train engines from the heyday of steam travel.    “This should be guaranteed to cure insomnia…I hope.”

As the torch rolled from his chest again and he made a grab for it, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and glanced across the room to the armchair by the window.  As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he could just make out the outline of a figure.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked the apparition sitting watching him.

“I have been sent to make you a once in a lifetime offer, Paul Metcalfe.”

Scarlet sighed.  Is nowhere sacred from being pestered by spooks on Halloween?  “How did you get in here?”

“You let me in.”

“And did you split the tree too, just so I’d open the window?”

“No; that was merely fortuitous.  If you had not opened the window, I would not have been able to speak to you. The time was when we could move anywhere we wished, now we may only go where Humans are open to our presence.  There are so many closed hearts and minds amongst your kind these days, Paul Metcalfe; it is a pleasure to meet a receptive individual, like you.”

Scarlet gave a resigned sigh. “Yeah, I’m so broad-minded I can’t get my head through doorways any more.” 

The apparition gave no reaction.

He’d experienced so many paranormal events that this one was not unduly alarming – yet.  He sat upright and said, “Okay, I’ll play along.  What ‘offer of a lifetime’ are you here to offer?”

“We have watched you for decades, seen your struggle with your immortality. The time was when immortality was seen as the gift of the Gods, not the curse, but times change – as we, of all kinds, know only too well.  In your terms, it is many years since you lost both your wife and your closest friend, and, we believe that your heart has not really been in continuing living since then, has it?”

“If you’ve watched me, you’ve seen that I’ve done my duty and I will continue to do so.”

The apparition didn’t seem impressed by this response.  “We see the shadow that lies across your heart, Paul Metcalfe; we know how much you fear what you must do: leave your children and their children, before they become enmeshed in your predicament.  We have great pity for you; for you alone of the men alive today, carry the burden of longevity.”

“Thanks very much.  I’m sure I appreciate your concern.”

The apparition ignored his facetious response. “We have a mission for you.   If you are brave enough to undertake it, your reward will last your life long.”

“I don’t understand.”

The figure rose, and Scarlet could tell by his graceful carriage that it was a young man.  He was wrapped in an ankle-length dark robe and a helmet of some kind, over long, wavy hair.

“Come with me.”

He didn’t know why he obeyed, except that there was an unmistakable tone of command in the apparition’s voice, so he climbed from the bed and took the outstretched hand.

For one agonising heart’s beat Scarlet struggled for breath, his chest felt as if it were being crushed by an enormous weight.  Sweat broke out on his brow and he felt himself start to black-out.  Then as he finally managed to draw in a lungful of air, there was a sudden swirl of wind, warm and sweet-smelling.   It swirled around his legs, and spiralled up his body, like a small tornado.  Scarlet glanced at the window and realised it was fastened shut, and as he did so, the wind increased in strength, until it was an over-powering gust.  It lifted him from the floor, spinning both of them round towards the ceiling.  He raised a hand to protect his head, but felt himself glide through the solid structures with as little resistance as if they were mirages.

  He looked down and saw that his body had fallen back across the bed, his lips parted and his blue eyes staring in wide-eyed astonishment.   The room was untouched by the force of the gale.

“Am I dead?” he asked his companion.

“No more than usual; I have merely stopped your heart. But you have made this journey many times since the Mysterons recreated you; it is simply that this time you are aware of what’s happening.”

They rose through the attics and roof of the house, high, high into the dark storm-tossed clouds and, with a speed that compared with the fastest plane he’d ever flown, they moved out across the dark landscape, borne along on the maelstrom that surrounded them.  Fields, towns, cliffs and ocean sped past in an ever-increasing whirl.  Scarlet knew they were moving south, but he couldn’t be more precise than that.  He concentrated on keeping hold of the apparition’s hand as they started to descend. 

 

 

Breathless and bewildered, Scarlet found himself standing at the mouth of a huge, dark cavern. The sky above him was still dark with clouds, their outlines faintly defined by the meagre glimmer of moonlight shining above them. The wind had dropped.

He surveyed his surroundings, which resembled nowhere on earth he had ever been.  The few trees that dotted the strange wilderness appeared to be dead, their gnarled and distorted branches covered in dry scabs of sulphurous-yellow lichen.  Heavy carpets of dark mosses covered the sparse topsoil between the scattered boulders and muddy pools.

Away in the distance he saw the pale moonlight dancing on the rills of a trickling stream, from which rose a curtain of steam.  He became aware that the ground beneath his feet was hot and one sniff confirmed the faintly malodorous stench of sulphur in the air.

He looked at his guide.  “Where is this place?”

“Avernos.”

Scarlet frowned in concentration as the germ of a memory stirred.  He remembered a lazy summer day at Linbury Court with the Classics Master trying to drum information into unwilling pre-pubescent minds.  He’d have been pleased to know that some of it had stuck.

Scarlet looked with horror at the apparition, unwilling to accept what he’d heard. “The entrance to Hades.”

His guide nodded.  “I cannot go with you beyond here, Paul Metcalfe, you must make this journey alone, but if you chose to go forward, you will journey many miles until you eventually reach the Fields of Asphodel.  It is there that all souls await the judgement that will free them to journey to the Elysian Fields – or condemn them to Tartarus, if their souls are judged unworthy.”

  “You haven’t told me why I’m here,” Scarlet complained.  “And I certainly don’t fancy going in there without a good reason.  I’m indestructible, not insane.”

This time there was a hint of a smile on the apparition’s  strong-featured face, which Scarlet could see far more clearly in this ethereal twilight than he had back in Winchester. 

“Over the millennia, humans have come to this place when their allotted span is completed.  They have given it many names; but I chose to call it by these.”

Scarlet nodded.  “Very well, you can call it what you like; but I still don’t see why I should go in there.”

“Many of your friends have gone within, and in the fullness of time, all of them will.  Every one of them spends the time of mourning in the Fields of Asphodel, and then moves on to their rewards or punishments.  This has happened for all time and will happen for all time.  The length of that mourning will vary – the more greatly loved the individual, the longer they are mourned and their shade must wait until released to find their eternal rest.”

“Sounds a bit harsh, but I guess it’s been tried and tested for long enough, so it must work.”

The apparition inclined his head and continued, “Two are fated to remain in Asphodel – perhaps for all eternity – unless you help them.”

“Me? How can I help anyone, in there?”  Scarlet gestured towards the yawning mouth of the cave.

“Their loved one will not let them find rest.  They are held back by prolonged mourning, their memories kept alive and their spirits washed with continual outpourings of grief and regret.   The dead cannot move on until the mourning ceases, for they are tied to the living by their tears.”

“What’s it to do with me?” Scarlet asked.  Despair flickered in his heart as he recalled the numerous friends he had lost to the Mysterons, or merely to the advancing years.  He shivered, despite the clammy heat of Avernos, at the thought of a journey amongst the dead, anguish and pity equally mixed in his mind.

“If you travel to them, and willingly make a libation of your own blood, they will be freed from an eternity of endless nothingness, to move to their rewards in the Elysian Fields.”

“Who are these friends?”

“You need to ask me that?” the apparition replied, shaking his head. 

“Okay – you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to; but tell me this - as much as I hate to appear mercenary – what’s in it for me? You said my reward would last my life long.”

“Indeed, I did, and I did not lie, Paul Metcalfe.  If you choose it to be so, we offer you this reward, in mitigation of your sorrow: on this one night, one of them can come back with you – to spend your lifetime as your companion. They will not age; they will not die, until you do.”

“What? You mean another Mysteronised person?”

“No; we cannot recreate what used to exist.  The chosen one would be an extension of yourself, existing on the abundant life-force that flows from you.  As real as yourself – save only unknown by any except yourself.”

“Some kind of – ghost?” Scarlet hazarded.

The apparition shook his head. “As real as any human, save that they will have no identity beyond that you endow them with.  No one shall know them as their former self, save you.  We cannot recreate that which was, merely extend that which is.”

Scarlet frowned.  Years ago, when Captain Blue had been cloned, there had been some sort of symbiotic relationship between the clones.  That, he believed, had been due to the power of the Mysterons. He looked directly at his guide and asked:

“Who are the ‘we’ you keep talking about?  I don’t know you – or what you represent.”

“For aeons we have watched this planet, and for many millennia mankind worshipped us.  They grew away from us, but the belief they had sustains us still, although we are less powerful than we used to be.  If it helps, Paul Metcalfe, you may call me by one of the names they gave me: Hermes.”

With a dramatic flourish, he threw off the dark robe and revealed himself as a beautiful young man, dressed in a tunic and winged sandals.  A brilliant white light radiated from his body.

Scarlet shielded his eyes.  “Okay, I believe you.  Turn your charisma down a notch or two, would you?”

Hermes gestured with his hand and the radiance faded, although there remained a shimmering light around him.  “You are a brave man, Paul Metcalfe.  I believe you will make the journey and free the spirits of your friends.”

Scarlet sighed; his innate sense of duty and service was making it hard for him to continue with his decision to refuse.  “How do I get home when this is finished?” he asked in resignation.

“Return here to Avernos, and I will come for you – and your chosen companion.  But remember the fate of Orpheus, Paul Metcalfe; do not look back once you have taken the first step towards the light.”  Hermes held out his hand and dropped something into Paul’s outstretched palm.  “You will need these for the journey.”

Scarlet glanced down at his hand, and saw three small coins lying there.  When he looked up, Hermes was gone.

He dropped the coins into his pyjama jacket pocket and sighed.

“Why does this sort of thing always happen to me on Halloween?” he asked rhetorically.  The idea of himself as some sort of hero, venturing into an underworld in his Marks and Spencer’s pyjamas, was enough to make a cat laugh. 

However, Hermes had vanished, and he had no way of getting home.  He could sit here until dawn, and just go home, assuming Hermes returned for him, of course; or he could go into the cavern and see what was in there.  He was sceptical that it really was the gate to Hades, but his innate curiosity wouldn’t let him pass up the opportunity to investigate.

“I shall probably just get covered in bat shit,” he remarked to the empty silence.

Sighing, he scouted around and finally found himself a hefty branch, which was sound enough to make a decent club and bracing himself, he stepped into the cave mouth.

An intense shock jolted him and the muscles in his hand went into spasm, causing him to drop the branch.  He bent to pick it up but his hand wouldn’t close on the wood.  Finally, he stood up and remarked into the darkness: “’You can’t take nothing with you but your soul’, as the song says, right? And the pennies for the ferryman, of course,” he added, patting the pocket where the three coins lay.  

He stepped forwards gingerly and encountered no further resistance. 

The cave went straight on for some way and only then began to slope downwards.  Scarlet walked on until the entrance was a mere pinprick of light in the distance and the air had grown as cold as the grave. 

Despite the darkness, he found that he could still see well enough to follow the well-trodden path.  Occasionally he shivered, as an icy-cold draught passed him, and on the edge of his hearing he caught the despairing sighs of many voices.  He refused to give in to the imaginative speculations as to just what these were,  yet the idea that they were ‘souls’ took hold of his mind, and before long he had convinced himself that it was so.

“If I do this every time I die, it’s no wonder I come back feeling cold and hungry,” he reflected aloud, hearing his voice echoing around him:

Hungry…. hungry….

hungry…

 

 

Suddenly the slope increased until it was almost a vertical incline and away in the impenetrable darkness Scarlet could see a dull glimmer, meandering across the distant floor of the cave.    As he slithered downwards, he could see it was a slow-moving river; it looked immeasurably wide and fathomlessly deep.   On this side of the bank, a metal gong hung from the thick branch of a dead tree.  He rapped it with his knuckles, rather than touch the desiccated bone that hung from the gong by what looked like sinew, to act as a hammer.

He felt the vibrations rather than heard the ultra-low note that sounded.  He waited for what seemed an eternity, and then saw a shallow-drafted boat being punted across the river by a tall, spare man, in a shapeless, black cape that covered him from head to toe.

As the boat reached his shore, Scarlet stepped forward and the man extended a near-skeletal hand.  Scarlet was ready to drop a coin into it.  The hand beckoned him aboard and without a word, Chiron, the ferryman of the dead, poled his way back across the lethargically flowing water. 

“Thank you very much,” Scarlet said, as he disembarked.  “I don’t suppose it is worth asking you the way?”

Chiron pointed a long, bony finger westwards.

“Might have guessed really,” Scarlet responded, and strode along the cinder path that led in that direction.

The place was lit by a fiery glow from what appeared to be a distant volcano, that gave rise to a smoky sort of twilight, yet he found he could see well enough to avoid the various indistinct shapes of boulders and shingle banks that loomed out of the gloom as he walked along the winding path.

The air seemed to grow denser as he walked, and a strange mist blanketed the ground, like the fog that lay in the hollows around his home on autumn mornings.   He found he was having to exert himself to move through the grey mist, which curled around him, making him cough and clear his throat.

He grew tired, and had to stop periodically to rest and brush the small chips of cinder from between his toes.  It was on one of these pauses that his acutely sensitive hearing caught a low growl, and he sniffed, recognising a decidedly doggy odour. 

“Oh, please - you have to be joking,” he muttered, pushing through the heavy air that now formed an invisible barrier, rather as he would have walked against a stiff wind. 

Miraculously, as he began to climb a gentle incline, the resistant mist parted, as if it was deliberately moving out of his way. 

Spooky… he thought, trying to lift his spirits. 

He stopped again and took what bearings he could in the largely featureless landscape.  He rather wished the barrier would prove insurmountable, for in the distance, at the top of the slope, he could now see the unmistakable shape of the giant three-headed guard dog of the underworld: Cerberus.  The dog was as big as any mastiff Scarlet had ever seen, and its fearsomeness was compounded by the fact that the three heads were all snarling and slavering at the hovering mist, which seemed to advance, only to retreat as Cerberus snarled at it,  rather like waves on a beach.  Sometimes a fortunate eddy of the mist swirled past and over the ridge – although it was hard to say if the dog allowed it past, or was merely wrong-footed.   

“I should have brought a dog biscuit,” Scarlet muttered, and then added, “Well, three dog biscuits, to be fair.”

He advanced and looked at the animal, which had focused all six beady eyes on him and was sniffing, its slavering chops curling in a menacing threat.  He remembered what Hermes had said: You have done this many times since the Mysterons recreated you – if that was true, then somehow he’d got past Cerberus before.   He edged forwards.

“Hello, you mangy mutt,” he said as if he’d been talking to the family pets back in his youth in Winchester.  “It’s only me – you might say I’m a season ticket holder.  You’re not going to create a fuss now, are you?  You know I’m forever popping in and out of here… I hope.”

One head snarled.

Scarlet remembered his father’s instructions about training dogs, and said authoritatively, “Bad dog!  Naughty dog! Sit!”

Rather to his surprise, Cerberus did sit, and his enormous tail beat a thumping welcome on the cinder path.  Scarlet advanced and patted the closest head as he walked past.

“Good dog! Good boy!”  he said, and walked on with as much speed as he could without losing his nonchalance.  

Safe beyond Cerberus’s reach, he exhaled a huge breath and wiped his sweating brow.  I’m glad I don’t usually remember any of this, he thought.

The path wound on across a landscape which had changed to vast pits of molten lava, pumice stones and cinders and, as he walked along, the soles of his bare feet blistered from the scorching heat.  I generally die with my boots on, he thought, wistfully recalling the insulated soles of his uniform boots.  He crossed two more rivers, no less formidable than the one Chiron had ferried him over.  One raced down the side of a dark mountain, steam and spray crashing from it as it tumbled into the plain; it barely had time to lose any momentum before it roared into a dark and immeasurable chasm.  It was crossed by a series of ancient and worn boulders, pitted with erosion and the passage of time, and it took courage and strength to negotiate their slippery surfaces.  The second river was sluggish in comparison, and spanned by a wooden bridge, constructed from enormous, decaying tree trunks.  Despite the pain in his bleeding, scorched and aching feet, Scarlet was not tempted to stop by either bank, in fact, the second river had sulphurous steam rising from it, as it slithered over the barren landscape.

 From the centre of the wooden bridge, where he stopped to take his bearings once more, Scarlet saw a distant patch of light, or what passed for light in this world of unending gloom and darkness.  He hastened on towards it, anxious to do what he needed to and get out again into the fresh air of the clear night skies.